Only 10 posts since this morning? Slow day. Had a very nice day with Juliana, JZ, Deb, Betsy, and -t. Lots of shopping was done (I spent all my jury duty money on kick ass Fluevogs), and soon we are going to Monkey Noodle and then there may be some drinking or something.

I just watched the Shield finale, and HOLY FUCKING SHIT. Shane, you dipshit moron. You can't get away with this, you just can't.

I can't believe this show's not coming back until January.

"Snakes on a Plane" model on eBay: [link]

This is a high quality 3D model replica of the actual plane used in the feature film "Snakes On A Plane". This model is constructed/forged out of genuine American Play-Doh®, which contains wheat (a warning for those of us who experience allergic reactions when exposed to wheat, I wore gloves when playing with this doh). This model is vibrant, and full of life, but does not fly. It's amazing the resemblance to the real thing.... snakes being on a plane and all. Bonus features: Used 10 oz. bottle of Pink Play-Doh®. Sure to increase in value over time.

On Mar-21-06 at 12:24:06 PST, seller added the following information:

Correction!!!! The Play-Doh® is not Genuine American made. It's Made in China, but I assure you that it is the finest the Chinese can provide.

Unskilled and unaware of it

The tendency of the average person to believe he or she is better-than-average is known as the "above-average effect," and it flies in the face of logic… by definition, it is impossible for a majority of people to be above average. Clearly a large number of the self-described "above average" individuals are actually below average.

...

The British philosopher Bertrand Russell once wrote that "the trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt." This is true whether one interprets "stupid" as foolish (short on smarts) or as ignorant (short on information). Deliberately or otherwise, his sentiment echoes that of Charles Darwin, who over one hundred years ago pointed out that "ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge."

Hi, Buffistas! I am back from Mexico City, and plan to catch up on the zillions of posts I just skipped tomorrow, when I'm supposed to be working on my thesis. My immediate plan is to catch up on the 10 or 12 hours of sleep I missed out on over the week. How are y'all??

NYT article on the zombie renaissance: [link]

Perhaps the biggest debate in the zombie world is whether zombies have to move slowly, as they do in the Romero movies, or whether they may run. Some of the first sprinting zombies appeared in the 2002 film "28 Days Later." In "The Rising," Mr. Keene's zombies can sprint and even drive vehicles, qualities some zombie purists object to.

Huh. I guess I'm pretty firmly in the zombie purists group (although 28 Days Later was fun).

braaaaaiiiiiiinnnsss....

Hi Jesse! Things have been kinda' slow here....

Welcome back, Jesse!

Now sleeeeeeeeeep.

by definition, it is impossible for a majority of people to be above average.

Nit picker here. You have three people a 10, another 10, and a 1. The average is 7. Two thirds, a large majority are above average.

Yeah, but with a large number of people and a normal distribution, it's true (if by majority you mean something more than 50.1%).

I suppose we could get into a discussion on what types of distributions there might be besides normal... but I think when you're talking about human ability, the distribution would be something close to normal.

eta: Also, it depends on whether you're talking mean average or not.... the median and mode of your example are both 10.

eta²: In the article, they're ranking people into quartiles, which means they're talking about the median average.