Statistics – Page 33 – William M. Briggs

France Strikes Over Increasing Retirement Age: The Meta-Economics of Success

France is into its third or fourth day of striking over President Nicolas Sarkozy's bold plan to increase the retirement age from 60 to a whopping 62. Of course, striking…

Culture Philosophy Statistics

Decadence And The Failure Of The State: A Checklist

Decadence: a falling away; a decay; a deterioration; a failing of heart; a focus of self, on the here and now; the emergence of "What's in it for me?" as…

Culture Statistics

Director Explodes Children In Name of Environment; College Degrees Don’t Always Pay

The delta-V at which I am approaching death has increased because I was crammed into an aluminum tube with two hundred sneezing strangers who unburdened their diseases upon me, and…

Culture Fun Statistics

Lottery Simulator; Science Reporting; More

Bit busy today, folks. Here's some interesting links. Typo warning level 5. Incredibly Depressing Mega Millions Lottery Simulator! That's the creator's name for it: I find it exhilarating and nicely…

Culture Statistics

How To Guarantee Enthusiastic College Students

I Didn't Do My Homework Apathy is contagious. I discovered this after only two of the forty-five students registered for the statistics class I teach bothered to do their homework…

Book review Culture Statistics

Reading Lyrics by Robert Gottlieb and Robert Kimball

First, thanks, Google. Aren't you all sweethearts. 10100 != F1 + F4 + F6 + F9. Reading Lyrics: More than a thousand of the finest lyrics from 1900 to 1975.…

Culture Statistics

Too Many Kids Go To College: A Second Conversation With Myself

Read the first conversation here. William How goes the teaching? Matt Do you really want to know? You might not like the answer. William You're going to start this conversation…

Culture Fun Statistics

Lying For A Living: Tiny Airline Seats

Cowboys on airplanes No doubt channeling Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood, the Italian design firm Aviointeriors Group has created a new airline seat dubbed the "saddle." Ride them skies! What…

dadgervais on Richard Dawkins, The Big Muscles Fallacy & AI PachinkoMay 8, 2026
As I (computer engineer, retired) have always maintained: people who believe in mechanical inteligence suffer from "Clever Hans Syndrome". A…
NLR on Richard Dawkins, The Big Muscles Fallacy & AI PachinkoMay 7, 2026
It appears that Dawkins does not have a well thought out philosophy of consciousness and so he has psyched himself…
jgh on The Red-Blue Button Dilemma & Its Surprising AnswerMay 7, 2026
There's an episode of Golden Balls where one contentant understood how The Prisoners' Dilemma worked and succcessfully tricked his opponent…
Johnno on How Experts Use “Calamities” to Find Official Victims & Gain PowerMay 6, 2026
Hence we descriptively say in plural... a "calamity of victims." Or a "catastrophe of Expurts." Or an "academy of failures."…
Brian (bulaoren) on How Experts Use “Calamities” to Find Official Victims & Gain PowerMay 6, 2026
So, three circumlocutors walk into a bar...