Small Sample-Size Theater

Matthew Yglesias. The estate planning details were new to me — the class B shares with magnified voting rights lose their mojo if sold to anyone else, with an exception for a designated transfer in the event of Mark Zuckerberg’s death.

I recently stumbled upon an example of secular intransigence that may give readers a sense of how religious people feel when their beliefs are criticized. It’s not a perfect analogy, as you will see, but the rigorous research I’ve conducted at dinner parties suggests that it is worth thinking about. We can call the phenomenon “the fireplace delusion.”

Via Steven Moffat, via Julian Simpson

On Dec. 16, more than a year after the initial decision, the appeals court reversed course. The new ruling was opaque and grudging, but Mr. Clemon said he welcomed it, particularly since it is very unusual for a federal appeals court panel simply to change its mind. “I don’t recall it ever happening,” said Mr. Clemon, who graduated from law school in 1968.

Katha Politt talks to God.

I’ve had this browser window open for weeks, trying to figure out what I wanted to say about it. It connects the difficulty of eradicating spam (where falsely labeling something as spam is much worse than accidentally letting one through) to the challenge of screening for very rare things in general, whether you’re screening for diseases or trying to identify terrorists.

I went to college with Kellan. I have a clear recollection from ~1995 of walking into a computer lab and gently making fun of him for learning Perl out of a big book. Turned out, he was about eight months ahead of me, and over the years that gap has somewhat widened.

Marvelous essay, filling in some psychological gaps in my understanding of the Stanford Prison Experiment. I’m going to have to buy that book.

Via @rands

Kee Nethery stacks up straw men, and burn them down.

Herein find, from before Portal 2 came out, an art-historical analysis of GlaDOS’ motivations and emotional state. It opens up into a spectacular rabbit hole. Via @lostinfont.

Linda Greenhouse, the world’s best Supreme Court reporter, on the worst Supreme Court decision in years.

Great use of a Flash interface, depicting the before and after restoration of a Velazquez portrait of Philip IV.

The Seahawks are not any garden-variety 7-9 team: they are an incredibly bad 7-9 team.