2011 – Page 34 – William M. Briggs

Hats Are Back! Staring At Women’s Breasts Lowers Math Scores!

Fedoras For Fellas While watching an exquisite interpretation of the classic hose-in-the-face by one Curley "Babe" Howard on television, I inadvertently saw a commercial for the movie The Adjustment Bureau…

Culture

CliffsNotes for CliffsNotes: Now With Even Less Reading!

If there's one thing that's wrong with this country, it's that our poor, overworked, not-nearly-pampered enough children have too much reading to do. Why, there's Twitter ("#lindsaylohan Hate when i…

Culture Philosophy

Citizen Zings Deepak Chopra With Bolt Of Logic

From regular reader Bruce Foutch comes this video of a citizen asking "quantum healing" guru Deepak Chopra and some "Bishop" a simple question. The transcript reads: Emcee: I want to…

Statistics

Two Open Letters To Congress On Climate Change, And A New Third

There are two open letters shot off to Congress these last days, one from "alarmist" scientists and the other from "denialist" scientists1. Those pejoratives were not picked by me, but…

Statistics

In Their Own Words: Obama On Health, Holder On Race

Pay for your own damn health care In an interview with Bill O'Reilly, President O'bama said What I hear you saying is that the notion that us saying to people…

Culture

Music Not So Super At Super Bowl: Faked Cheering?

Oh, say, can you see, by the field's klieg lights, what so proudly we hailed? And proudly hailed to the world over in full Dolby surround-sound HD. What an embarrassment!…

Statistics

A Correction: I’ve Been Misquoted

On Thursday, 3 February of this year I was called by Saginaw News reporter Deborah Brown, who asked me, among other things, about claims made by folks like Al Gore…

Fun Statistics

Super Bowl Indicator Busted: A Sports/Markets Indicator for the Next Century—Guest Post by Doug Magowan

Doug Magowan spends his days poring over financial numbers. Today he offers us, tongue firmly in cheek, a new way to get rich quick. All you have to do is…

Briggs on Sports Betting Is An Excellent Way To Lose MoneyJanuary 13, 2026
Anon. I believe you'll find they are the same. I did a little shorthand by first taking the absolute value…
Anonymous on Sports Betting Is An Excellent Way To Lose MoneyJanuary 13, 2026
Errata: your moneyline formula should have (x - 100) in the denominator for -x.
Dana on Sports Betting Is An Excellent Way To Lose MoneyJanuary 12, 2026
I was cured of buying lotto tickets about 40 years ago when a Brisbane newspaper published an article about gambling,…
John M on Register Your Predictions For 2026!January 12, 2026
1. Substack stops copying social media on their homepage and when they realize Substack is for people who want to…
Brian (bulaoren) on Sports Betting Is An Excellent Way To Lose MoneyJanuary 12, 2026
It's even worse; "Handicap" is now a forbidden term.