mathbabe

I wanted to share with you guys a few things I’ve been interested in this weekend.

First, this TED talk which for whatever reason never made it onto the TED main website. It’s by Nick Hanauer, and in it he dispels some common economic myths, much like Chapter 7 of Occupy Finance. A juicy quote: “So when businesspeople take credit for creating jobs, it’s a little like squirrels taking credit for creating evolution. In fact, it’s the other way around.”

Next, it turns out women are way better than men at orgasms, at least those where you do it all in your head – a “think off”. A full 2% of women can fantasize their way to climax (compared to, I guess, way fewer men) and there’s even training for this skill. Two questions from the mathbabe. First, do wet dreams count? Because if they do I think we’ll have to recount. Second, say I invest my time in this, and get really good at it, since it’s all hands-free and such and will make my life that much more efficient. Is this something that takes a lot of time? Can I do it whilst carrying groceries home, or whilst cooking dinner? On the subway? Between stops? Details please.

Next, here’s an important discussion of why junior people get criminally prosecuted – in this case, for the debacle that was the JP Morgan London Whale case – while the big bosses just get vaguely complained about in a civil case, and the shareholders end up paying huge fines for their misbehavior. Last two lines: “Yet it remains disquieting when the same actions result in criminal charges for some but only a civil case for others, and no individuals are held responsible for misconduct at a company. In the end, we are left to trust that prosecutors have made good decisions.” There’s no recourse for bad prosecuting either. How do we even protest bad prosecuting?

Next, I’ve been listening to some seriously catchy and funny tunes my boys turned me on to. What makes me old is how long it takes me to catch on to stuff, since I heard this one years ago, but it seems that everything that these guys touch is hilarious. Especially this one (also see “I Just Had Sex” and “Jack Sparrow“):

Finally, I’m really into knitting recently, and I recently figured out how to knit this pattern even though you’d have to pay big bucks to get the official pattern. Email me if you’re interested in the bootleg version.

Not mine – I stole this picture. I am still working on mine.