Oh Noes! Seawater to Volcanoes! and…

…newpaper reporters who can’t divide or have any sense of proportion:

While also factoring in temperatures and pressures down below, the researchers concluded that 3 billion teragrams — or a billion kilograms — are being pulled down every million years.

Lemme see here: 3 billion (3×10⁹) kilograms every million (10⁶) years, works out to an astounding 3 thousand (3×10³) kilograms per year.  Why, why, why, that’s enough water to fill up my swimming pool almost TWO times.  Every year.  PANIC! CRISIS! RUN AWAY!

Tip from Sarah Hoyt at the Instapundit, who does make even the most boring stuff sound interesting.

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There’s STILL a sucker born every minute.

I’m a real Goop Boy now.

If a pricey shot of B vitamins gives you the same thrill as taking a dump, why not save time and money, and go take a dump?

OK, so I’m just a little “fabulous.”

“Plus sized” is out, “fabulously sized” is in.  This is the latest spin from K-Mart:

Now, in a push to move beyond labels, Kmart is calling their line of plus-size fashions “Fabulously Sized.” This comes at a time when body-positivity and inclusivity is on the rise with fashion shows adding curvier models and celebs fighting back against body shaming.

Curvier models?  Curvier?  Only if they’re trying to hook up with one of these guys:

 

 

 

Tip from the ever-skeptical Sarah Hoyt at the Instapundit.

“I can’t pick out a nail polish now without a pendulum!”

Call me old-fashioned, but I think I can skip a $1500 shamanic closet cleanse.  I’ll stick with the milk crate I toss my gently-(ab)used and out-of-date clothes into.  I’m so square.

Tip from Ed Driscoll, trying to make sense in a world gone mad, at the Instapundit.

Reports of its death are greatly exaggerated

The ability of statistics to accurately represent the world is declining. In its wake, a new age of big data controlled by private companies is taking over – and putting democracy in peril.

begins William Davies tale of woe in the Guardian.  Unfortunately, he confuses credible statistics with modern state-istics*; and seems impervious to the idea that Joe Sixpack has wised up to the fact that there are “lies, damned lies, and statistics,” and that most of these are peddled by the Leviathan State and its corporate cronies.  Usually to Joe’s detriment.

Statistics in industry and scientific research is doing quite well, thank you.  The Big Data movement is still immature and riddled with snake-oil salesmen; it will eventually spot them, possibly by applying its methodologies reflexively.

Tip from that same O’Reilly Newsletter.  Finally, I got on a sucker list that’s interesting!

*Where did you think the word came from?

Update:  Briggsy holds much the same opinion as I do, but expresses it more eloquently.

I Call Bullshit!

I want this course in the catalog at my university.  Way better than “critical thinking” or “research methods.”

Tip from Open Culture.

The Fate of the “Fountain”

Richard Bledsoe isn’t impressed with Conceptual Art

A certain segment of the glitterati like to flaunt their ability to see shit as sophisticated art as a badge of honor, for some reason.

and tells a delightful story about its early critics (“It broke!”).

I have to agree, and now I’m off to learn more about William Glackens, The Eight, and the Ashcan School.