Here is literally the only reality TV show element that the GOP forgot to include in its debates

Humor, Politics, , , , , , , ,

Having a former Playboy model bring out an urn with the candidates’ names in it. Best quote:

Interviewed by the Cadena Tres TV network, Orayen said the production team gave her instructions to wear a long, white dress, but she picked it up from her own closet.

“It was my only choice for a long dress. I didn’t think it would reveal as much or cause this much scandal,” she said. “I learned I like myself better when I’m covered up.”

She has a point. My only dress clothes are a jockstrap and a tie. I hate that I always forget how distracting that can be at board meetings.

Rumor mill’s going crazy

Media, Politics, , , , ,
[tweet https://twitter.com/#!/WestWingReport/status/200255518864969729] [tweet https://twitter.com/#!/marcambinder/status/200255049904033792] [tweet https://twitter.com/#!/marcambinder/status/200237187621588992] [tweet https://twitter.com/#!/samsteinhp/status/200251461798608896]

Ha:

[tweet https://twitter.com/#!/TimesPublicEdit/status/200249258782367745]

The social contract at coffee shops

Miscellaneous, , ,

Coffee cupA friend and I were just taking a coffee break from working at the Sciences Po library, and we started discussing a question that has bugged me in some form for awhile now but which I’d never taken the time to really think through. Here’s the scenario: you’re sitting at a coffee shop or library or a comparable public place to do work on your laptop. You need to use the bathroom or take a 10-minute smoking break outside. Is it safer to just leave your stuff and hope no one takes it, or is it instead a better idea to ask someone specifically to watch your things while you’re away?

Most people will choose the second option. But I’m not convinced this makes sense. The way I see it, this is a mathematical problem with two potential variables: aggregate probability of any random person in the vicinity (either inside the coffee shop/library or nearby) stealing your laptop, and probability of the person you specifically told to watch your stuff stealing your laptop. So in the first scenario, if you don’t tell anyone you’re leaving, a good portion of the people in the shop may not even know for sure where you went, how long you’ll be gone, if you came in with the person who happens to be sitting next to you, etc. Thus, the probability of something being stolen is pretty low by default.

On the other hand, telling someone to watch your stuff should (theoretically) reduce the probability of anyone else stealing your things to almost zero. However, that person now knows for sure that you have gone somewhere and plan to be away for at least several minutes, so the probability that (s)he will take your things seems — to me, at least — to be decently higher (relatively speaking, of course; obviously, the average person you ask to watch your stuff is not going to steal it).

Granted, there are a ton of variables that I haven’t brought up. First of all, where are you: an on-campus library at a well-guarded university with high tuition fees, or a Starbucks in Detroit? Secondly, are you asking whoever randomly happens to be nearby to watch your stuff, or are you choosing a person based on some characteristics (s)he seems to display? It’s possible that, in the latter case, selection bias could play a large role because (as my friend pointed out to me) most people are likely to choose an innocent, nice-looking person to ask. However, this very person is considerably less likely to actually be willing or able to stop someone from simply grabbing your stuff and walking out. On the other hand, if you ask someone who looks gruffer or more fierce, you have perhaps chosen someone with at least a slightly higher probability of committing theft him/herself. (This is a particularly flimsy assumption, but it’s a possibility worth considering, I think.) There are many more questions too, including whether the very act of asking someone to watch your stuff opens some kind of implicit social contract, but I am very doubtful that this works with someone who was already thinking of stealing your things to begin with.

I always used to think asking someone other than an employee of the coffee shop or library to watch your things was counterproductive, but I’ve seen so many people do it that now I’ve adopted the habit myself. I’d be curious to see some kind of study on this. In the meantime, I found someone who asked the same question and got a bunch of responses.

Related articles

One-word book titles…

Books, Film/TV, , ,

…or “Why I Love TheMillions.com:”

Ever since I fell in love with Jernigan I’ve been drawn to books with one-word titles – partly because Sonny Mehta loves one-word titles, but mainly because they can be so enviably concise and memorable, so perfect. At their best, one-word titles distill content to its purest essence, which is what all titles strive to do, and then they stick in the mind. Sometimes, of course, they fall flat, and much of the time they’re just lukewarm and vague or, worse, falsely grand.

Weirdly, I’ve always thought long names for movies (and perhaps books as well) were positively correlated with the indie-ness of the film. Thoughts?

Related articles

A short blast through today’s Internetz

Miscellaneous, Politics, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

There are way too many funny and crazy things to see on the Internet today, so I suppose I’ll just have to link to them all. Here goes.

First off, Rush Limbaugh is launching a “Rush Babes” campaign to counterattack the National Organization for Women’s attempts to get advertisers to boycott his program:

Rush Limbaugh is fighting back against the National Organization for Women, the progressive women’s group that has been targeting local advertisers and affiliates in an effort to get the conservative talk show host off the air.

On his program today, Limbaugh announced a new National Organizaion for Rush Babes”dedicated to the millions of conservative women who know what they believe in: family, American Values, and not being told by Faux Feminist Groups how to think.”

Beyond the immediate laughter such a mental image provokes — what is a Rush babe, after all? an overweight, pale, white Midwesterner who hates Mexicans and loves Cheetos and Jim Carrey? — the comments section below the article is absolutely hilarious. See how quickly it devolves into complete insanity from its original starting point of…well, it was basically already insane when it started. I love Internet commenters.

Then, it turns out that, as soon as Michele Bachmann was out of the political limelight, she took stock of “birtherism” and decided, hell, being something other than American isn’t so bad after all. Therefore, she is now Swiss. I smell a double standard here:

Rep. Michele Bachmann is now officially a Swiss miss.

Bachmann (R-Minn.) recently became a citizen of Switzerland, making her eligible to run for office in the tiny European nation, according to a Swiss TV report Tuesday.

Best part is when they asked her if she’d consider running for Swiss public office: “Bachmann joked that the competition ‘would be very stiff because they are very good.'” And by that she means that they make more sense in English than she does.

A lot happened yesterday at the voting booth. Republican senator Dick Lugar of Indiana lost to Tea Party favorite Richard Mourdock in the Republican primaries, signaling the further polarization of the Senate. (Of course, there is really only one “pole” here, and it is the fanatical right wing, but I digress.) Meanwhile, Wisconsin Democrats chose their candidate, Tom Barrett, to challenge Republican governor Scott Walker in the special recall election next month. But in the biggest piece of news, North Carolinians chose bigotry and homophobia over normality: yes, Amendment One passed overwhelmingly, which inscribes a prohibition of gay marriage and even civil unions into the state constitution.

Meanwhile, Democrats are worried about campaign dollars and where they’ll be going. The New York Times has more interesting backstory to the Chen Guangcheng saga. And the Underwear Bomber 2.0? Turns out he was a double agent working for the CIA. Nice work, but also a good reminder that the next terrorist attack is undoubtedly a matter of when, not if.

And lastly, because this is just too weird, I was looking through the Atlantic‘s stellar collection of Hindenburg photographs (it crashed 75 years ago last Sunday) and was actually viscerally shocked to see so much Nazi imagery in connection with the United States. It’s easy to forget that the Nazi Party existed before World War II began, and that they were fully recognized and welcomed abroad in many places, including in the United States. Anyway, worth checking out.