Nerd Fun: Hilariously Reductive Theses

The brilliant blog Lol My Thesis invites nerds to submit humorous summaries of their research projects, theses, and dissertations.  My current top 3 favorites:

3) "Screw you. Love, the Polish language" - linguistics thesis from Cornell

2) "Rats like cocaine" - a psychology thesis from Reed College

And a drum roll for the best of them all ...

1)  "Why is the Security Council dysfunctional? Because the Russians are devious liars" - a political science thesis from the University of Pennsylvania

Great Moments in Research: Thanks, Captain Obvious!

Ahem:

The idea that countries are less likely to engage in war with each other today than in the past has been argued by a number of academics in recent years, including Harvard University psychologist Steven Pinker, author of the 2011 book The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined. 

The new study, presented last week by Ohio State University professor Bear Braumoeller at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, challenges that idea, finding that states are no less violent today than they have been through history.

It depends on the states involved, doesn't it?  I mean, the First World socialist-democratic nation-states of the EU aren't going to start literally massacring each other any time soon, but all bets are off if we're talking about rogue states, intrastate sectarian violence, or, even more messily, non-state (trans-state?) entities run by bloody-minded obsessives.  

Word of the Day: "Kafkatrapping"

Heh.  More here (by the way, I am Model T all the way, babe).  

Boo Freaking Hoo: Terrorist Groups Have HR Problems

Apparently the managers find that their employees are insubordinate, unstable, violent loose cannons who don't respond well to authority. YA THINK?

Then I read a WaPo sob story about how the Muslim Brotherhood is falling apart in Egypt and whining that now everybody hates them.  Awwwww.  Well, I'm finding it exceedingly difficult to feel much sympathy for people who loot museums, burn churches, and so forth.

Nerd News: The Psychology of Murder

Looking into the psychology of murderers can be interesting ... unless it's your psychology professor who's the murderer.  Good grief.  Also distressing: the college is standing by him so he will keep on teaching.  What?  The guy slaughtered his entire family in 1967.  This is not some feel-good comeback story about how he got rehabbed or whatever!  Do you want a murderer teaching your kids?

Liberté, égalité, morosité: Boo hoo

You would have to have a heart of stone not to laugh at this monument to almost self-parodying ennui. Here's a bit of it:

The French are so busy wallowing in their existential estrangement — a state of mind Camus described as “Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?” — that they don’t even have the energy to be rude.  ... It’s not that they’ve lost faith in their own superiority. They’ve lost faith that the rest of the world sees it. The whole country has, as Catherine Deneuve says of her crazy blue moods, une araignée au plafond — a spider on the ceiling.

Poor baby. Watch this:

Great Moments in Research: Yale Investigates Cuteness

I swear I'm not making this up.

Nerd Notes: Naughty and Nice in Academia

My advice: Don't be a jerk, even if other people are.

Oh, Those Stoic Singaporeans

"Polls" like this aren't good for much more than a giggle, but here is this ranking that says Singaporeans are the least emotional folks in the world.  Really?

(Now I can't get the "Clearly you've never been to Singapore" line from Pirates of the Caribbean out of my head.)

Apparently I'm a Cold, Calculating, Unsympathetic ... Guy

This article about "the cold, calculating libertarian mind" made me laugh, especially since it also claims that libertarianism appeals more to guys than girls ... and almost every libertarian I know is a girl, and we're all (if I do say myself) decent warmhearted folks.  Oh, and when Alessandra got wind of this piece, she messaged me with "you cold libertarian biatch!"  LOL!

Anyway, this seems to sum us up pretty well:

These are people who often call themselves economically conservative but socially liberal. They like free societies as well as free markets, and they want the government to get out of the bedroom as well as the boardroom. They don't see why, in order to get a small-government president, they have to vote for somebody who is keen on military spending and religion; or to get a tolerant and compassionate society they have to vote for a large and intrusive state.

I personally don't object to military spending in the way that some others do (I've read too much history - unilaterally disarming is a greeeeeeat way to invite people to assault you), but the rest of that block quote applies.

Bringing Up Bebe

Forget the Tiger Mom! 

Nerd Fun: Pretty Much, Yeah

From SMBC, natch:

Nerd News: Be Your Own Weird Nerdy Self?

So says this little piece in Inside Higher Ed.  That's great and all, but I have to tell you that not all forms of weirdness or idiosyncrasy are equal in nature, acceptability, appropriateness in the workplace/classroom, or whatever.  Use your common sense, mmmmmkay?

Nerd Analysis: A Professor of Psychology and the Moral Foundations of Occupy Wall Street

Interesting.

Performing Public Grief in a Totalitarian State

Some thoughts.

Public Service Announcement: Social Skills

Get some!

Quote of the Day: the Online Echo Chamber and Its Perils

The ultimate "comfort zone"?  Here is something to consider:

The same progressives who bemoan the way Fox News has polarized political discourse in America, masquerading as news while never troubling its followers with anything that would disturb its most cherished and untested convictions, happily turn to the satellite radio station of their preferred genre or subgenre of music or seek out the support group or message board that fits their demographic, the political site that skews their way. Entering the realm of the other seems done solely to express rage.  

The rigorous division of websites into narrow interests, the attempts of Amazon and Netflix to steer your next purchase based on what you’ve already bought, the ability of Web users to never encounter anything outside of their established political or cultural preferences, and the way technology enables advertisers to identify each potential market and direct advertising to it, all represent the triumph of cultural segregation that is the negation of democracy. It’s the reassurance of never having to face anyone different from ourselves.

See too this recent TED talk:

Social-Political Tribalism, Denial, and Supporting the Unworthy

READ THIS.  Blurb:

Nerd News: Huge Social Psych Research Fraud

BUSTED.

TED Talk: Bruce Schneier on Security Issues