Physicists are more playful and less hidebound creatures than, say, biologists—partly, no doubt, because they rarely have to contend with religious fundamentalists challenging the laws of physics. They are the poets of the scientific world.

Evolutionary psychologists claim they can explain—as the title of one recent book has it—“why sex is fun.” What they can’t explain is why fun is fun. This could.

Does the value recovered outweigh the cost of investigating these cases? From a simple dollar-for-dollar amount, certainly not. However, the existence of a rigorous investigations team helps deter staff and partner fraud.

I wasn't affected by the somewhat scuzzy email sent out by chumps at Princeton to "research" internet privacy regulations, but I was prompted by Ton's investigation to take a look at Tranco. And blow me if I'm not also in there. One of the compensations of being an old blogger.

Among the many fascinating charts that 538 selected from this year, this is the one I found most informative.

This morning, I had occasion to revisit this post from 2005. Never mind about Google Base, I'm still tickled by Paul Ford's account of his encounter with Business 2.0. Never mind about Business 2.0 too.

I'm still, at heart, both a coward and a pessimist.

Making tentative steps towards implementing an IndieWeb social reader and so reading up what other people have done and how they are using these ideas.