calling bullshit - bergstrom & west (2020)

delightfully informative. i come away with a newly upgraded BS-meter. here are some useful nuggets:

• much of our communication is self-regarding, even when it is ostensibly other-regarding. how intuitively true, and so much for appearing self-deprecating!
• clickbait is real and thriving. i am not misguided in my sense of betrayal by the lists of 10 best places to eat at 20 best new cafes and 25 surefire ways to lustrous hair
• observation selection effect explains why we may be misguided in surveying learners about their learning, yes?
• bar charts tell stories about magnitude and should start at zero and line graphs tell stories about changes and need not. thirty years in a profession and i finally learn this.

in addition i learn about reverse image search and i get to read the dead salmon paper*.

*https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Neural-correlates-of-interspecies-perspective-in-an-Bennett-Miller/9b0305530d5b1d85c210f518615480ecf6e4ab19

sunday grievance

people who lead in the congregational prayer should be made to write down their prayers beforehand. just so as to avoid inelegant unedifying and unfocused rambling. 

it amazes me that we tolerate bombast and inaccuracy in church that we never would in a secular context.

no thanks!

some are art installations some are misguided attempts. is all i'm sayin'.

thanks!

nice chalk art on the back lane today.

we ought to do this more often. random bits of exuberances prettying up the neighborhood.

li'l plebe

have your bouquet and your oaken notes and your complexity and just gimme a nice arty label.

noise pollution

today's sermon delivery is predicated on two assumptions: 

• the congregation is hard of hearing
• the congregation is sleepy and tired

the second assumption is reasonable and perhaps justifies the preacher's rhythmic bouncing on the pulpit. but really, i tell HOM, there ought to be a decibel beyond which the public address system will not go. the sound detracts from the message, which is actually pretty good.

wham bang (gulp)

and before you know it half the year's gone and it's practically time to count down to christmas.

how many children do you have? someone asks me. two, i reply, and i've just married the second one off. wow, she says. because she is looking forward to meeting her first in november, much like i did thirty-odd years ago.

the days are long but the years are short. the months get shorter too. but glad i am to have them.