Yikes. These data jerked me right back to the first lab of my genetics course, where we learn basic principles of probability with exercises in coin flipping and dice rolling.

I never even thought to ask them if they had a different, incorrect assumption about probability, we just did ‘experiments’ to see what the results were (and also learned some simple statistics and calculations). I am confident that if my students were asked this question they’d say 25% with no hesitation…although they might also go on a bit about chance variation and bell curve distributions.

Although the ignorance on display in that chart might explain a different phenomenon: US gambling addiction is ‘out of control’ as betting markets boom, policy expert warns. Yeah. I swear that almost half the ads I see online are about betting.

Prediction market platforms – where users can bet on everything fromaward winners and war developments, to what someone might wear, or what an artist will sing on stage – have meanwhile surged in popularity in the last few years, with more than $1bn traded on Kalshi during Super Bowl Sunday alone.

Prediction market platforms contend that they are not gambling platforms, but rather financial trading platforms. Critics argue they are gambling under another name.

It’s gambling.

It’s preying on stupid people. That chart says that that’s about 48% of the US adult population, so I can see how it’s lucrative.

---

Wait. I just noticed the footnote on the chart: “Responses of ‘0%’, ‘75%’, ‘100%’, and ‘something else’ are not shown”. I assume that’s the difference between the frequency of responses shown and 100%, but I want to know how deep the ignorance runs.

I’ve received some spam email promoting an essay. I know I’m being their puppet by mentioning it here, but my god, this thing was stupid and annoying and feeds into stereotypes about my generation, so I’m going to link to it anyway. It’s an article titled I’m 70 and I recently realized my children love me but have no use for me — they don’t want my recipes, my stories, my experience, or my perspective on the life they’re building, and the hardest thing I’ve ever had to accept is that the person who taught them to walk doesn’t get consulted on where they’re going. Yeah, that’s the title, and it gives the entire essay away. I’m already annoyed.

The body of the essay goes on and on in the same vein. Paragraph after paragraph with the same structure as the title, my kids may love me, but they aren’t fawning appreciatively over my old scraps of paper with recipes scrawled on them. I’m pretty sure the author, Marlene Martin, doesn’t actually exist, but is a particularly dull AI that is churning out repetitive garbage that simultaneously feeds the entitled self-righteousness of a class of boomers, and outrage all the non-boomers who see confirmation of their low opinion of old people. Click click click. Just like I did.

The purported author claims to be 70 years old. I have to reassure everyone that I am a youthful 69.

I’m up early, I look out the window, and what do I see? Snow.

It has been warm and pleasant, except for the last few days, which have been chilly and windy. I was starting to see spiders around the yard again, but now — they’re probably huddled deep in crevices and whatever shelter they can find, waiting out this doggedly persistent winter.

They won’t have long to wait. The forecast is for 31°C on Wednesday.

I needed a morning shot of cynicism, so naturally I turned to stderr, where I learned all about bunkers.

As a former security guy, it’s hard to imagine an end-user who’s worse than the current dumbass-in-chief. He’s the kind of idiot who would post photos including the GPS co-ordinates. Not because he’s a 5G warfare expert, but because he’s 6G stupid. The 5G AIs are still cycling in tight loops printing “brain hurts brain hurts brain hurts brain …” over and over.

So, it looks like Turnip has completely blown the cover of an extremely expensive op that was going to be concealed as a ballroom with cost and labor overruns, while building a new continuity of government/nuclear bunker AKA “bolthole for the idiots who started a nuclear war.” This all started to go into overdrive during the Eisenhower administration. That was when Camp David was turned into a nuclear bunker (or, more precisely, the golf course covers a nuclear bunker). You can learn a lot more about this in the book [wc] Raven Rock, which does not talk much about Raven Rock, but talks a lot about Mt Weather, and Camp David and The Greenbrier. The Greenbrier, now, is mostly declassified and you can even visit it. It’s on my list of things to do, someday, but I am trying to find suitable company – you can’t go to that kind of place alone, you need someone with you who can look at the hinges you are pointing to and nod and whisper, “overpressure relief.”

I can appreciate that. I’d want Marcus Ranum as my tour guide at any government facility. Go read the rest to learn more about these depressing monuments to smug futility.

I needed more — it’s warm, the sun is shining, but my knees are aching and I need the grimness so I don’t try to dance — so I read about the wedding industry on TikTok. If you really want to harsh your mellow, it’s a tossup whether nuclear war bunkers or wedding influencers are worse.

There are a few industries that prey on emotion particularly brazenly. The funeral industry is one. The wedding industry is another. I knew this going in. I thought I could defeat hundreds of years of socially ingrained pressure backed by a multi-billion dollar consumer machine. No problem.

That got me thinking…if I really want regular reminders that the world sucks, I just need to tickle the algorithm just right. There’s no way I could convince TikTok or Instagram that I’m a blushing bride, but hey, I could easily induce funeral TikTok to lavish some attention on me.

If you suddenly see my instagram feed filling with posts about death and funeral planning, don’t worry — I’m feeling fine. I’ll be teasing the ghouls, nothing more.

If you have suggestions for better topics to fuel a morbid streak, do let me know. Not politics — I already know what a graveyard of hope that is right now.

I just submitted the official university paperwork resigning from my appointment as of April 2027. One more year, and then I’m outta here.

Don’t ask me how I feel about it yet. Ask me a year from today, when it gets real.

Right now I’m mainly stressed about the fact that Boeing sent me a letter saying they overpaid on my mother’s death benefits, and they want $5000 back right now. On the one hand, that’s peanuts for Boeing, they can go overcharge the government for a bolt to get that money back; on the other hand, do I really want to get in a fight with Boeing?

OK, gang, help me out here. I’m swamped today — my morning is destroyed because I have to go in to the clinic for my annual thorough extensive physical check-up, and I get out just in time for my afternoon class, and then I’m free, sort of. Except that I have to compose a 10 question online quiz on chromosome variations.

So give me some good questions on deletions, duplications, inversions, and translocations. Preferably questions that can be easily machine-scored, but I do throw in an essay question or two.

Get to work. I’ll expect them in the comments section here when I get back at 1:30.

Don’t disappoint me.

“Nac Mac Feegle! The Wee Free Men! Nae king! Nae quin! Nae laird! Nae master! We willna’ be fooled again!”

Wee Free Men

It’s almost spring-like outside — the skies are clear, we’ve got cool breezes on a comfortable day, the plants are coming back… I know it can’t last but I’ll make the most of it. I’ve opened windows to let birdsong in and to drive the cat crazy.

Let the pleasant conversations flow!

Previous Thread

Ed Brayton and I set up freethoughtblogs as a cooperative venture. Although we did try running ads to bring in some revenue, ads proved to be intrusive and obnoxious — blog ads tend to play all kinds of stupid games to get your attention — so we gave up on that. So right now the site runs in the red, just a little bit, and that’s OK. My Patreon account covers the server cost just fine, and I’m not interested in profit.

By comparison, take a look at the financials for Truth Social.

Trump Media & Technology Group burned through a staggering $712 million last year while bringing in a mere $3.7 million in revenue, a ratio as upside-down as Trump has turned the country.

There’s no actual business here, just a megaphone for a doddering old man.

To be fair, you could also call Pharyngula “a megaphone for a doddering old man,” but at least I’m not blowing $700 million to keep it running. I suspect there’s an interesting leak in the money pipeline that is diverting donations from billionaires to inflate that budget, and that leak is spilling money into Trump’s pocket, so it’s not a real loss to him.

I’m going to have to get a few more patreon followers if it costs hundreds of millions to run a website.