Category / Math

by Erin O'Brien

Bedaffled

I was schlepping around Wikipedia one day and ran across the “Female Ejaculation” article. I found it silly and poorly written/researched and thought it was a perfect example of why Wiki gets sticky. So I recorded myself reading an excerpt of it, which I posted on my blog for fodder. I didn’t think much else about it. That was June of last year. Here is the link.

That ridiculous video has been viewed more than 225,000 times.

Take a few minutes to peruse the comments. I’ve been called everything in the book. I leave them up. They say more about the people who make them than me. Then one gentleman sent me a video on the subject to review. So I did. I have lost count on how many hits that page has garnered. All of this because I read a few hundred words out loud.

Then there was the nest of snakes a reading from one of Kevin Trudeau’s books got me into. Look through those comments. Look at how infuriated some people have become just because I read out loud.

These episodes have mystified and stunned and disgusted me. They have also given me a greater appreciation for the power of words.

by Antoine Wilson

The Big Idea

For the past ten years I have been looking for a forum in which to express my one big idea.

I believe I have finally found that forum.

Here is the idea:

In the television show Land of the Lost, the character of Chaka (pictured above) functions as a physical manifestation of the incest taboo.

For Marshall, Will, and Holly, the choice is simple. Either continue searching for a way home, or give up and, er, found a new civilization. Chaka’s presence keeps them searching.

[what, ed, no “incest” tag?]

by DrMabuse

Anne Tyler: Unwavering Instigator of Irritation

Michiko on Joe Ezterhas: “As for the rest of this ridiculously padded, absurdly self-indulgent book, the reader can only cry: T.M.I.! Too Much Information! And: Get an editor A.S.A.P.!” What the F.U.C.K. is up with the A.C.R.O.N.Y.M.S.?

A new book will explain the seven most important unsolved math problems. One of them involves working out the probability ratio for the Democrats in November.

How the hell did the Washington Times snag a review copy of the $3,000 Ali book? Did the reviewer have to fill out a loan application and submit a credit report?

The new issue of the resurrected Argosy is out. It’s the first issue since 1943, with work by Jeffrey Ford, Michael Moorcock, Ann Cummins and Benjamin Rosenbaum. Each issue will be packaged in two volumes: one the main magazine, the other a novella. The magazine is printed bimonthly and has an affordable subsciption rate. The Moorcock story is the return of metatemporal detective Sir Seaton Begg.

The Age weighs in on the legacy of long novels, but cites Tolkien and Patrick O’Brian instead of David Foster Wallace and Rising Up and Rising Down.

Bookslut has posted the standard response the Times is issuing.

Christopher Paolini: the next J.W. Rowling?

A.S. Byatt weighs in on the Grossman translation.

The Globe and Mail reports that Tyler “hasn’t a boring or irritating word in her vocabulary.” Of course. You can find the boredom and the irritation in the Caucasian malaise and the treacle.

And Radosh and Slate are looking into the reliability of that Times sex slave story.