Josh Witten

Linkonomicon VII

Leave a note

I would like to receive a note like this. Obviously not this one, but something like it, based on entropy and poultry, would be nice:

hi! i hope you are having a great day. here is a drawing of a chicken. she is having a great day, because 8 words ago she didn’t exist (now 14 words). But now she does. So, things seem to be getting better for her. and, if you think about it, somewhere in the universe had to get a little more chaotic to allow enough order to be imposed on the ink to draw that chicken. the whole universe came together to make that chicken drawing. wow! that’s teamwork. considering the effort we all just went to in order to draw you a chicken, I hope you like it. i mean really like it.

hope you have an even better day than this chicken.

PS – her name is Madame Poulle d’Artangin, but she likes to be called Betty.

Disproving adaptionist assumptions

Intense predation as a significant selective pressure in our evolutionary lineage is inconsistent with the existence of snoring and toddler tantrums.

Those poor bastards

Here are my thoughts on the Seahawks-Packers Hail Mary refereeing controversy (as if you really cared):

Live & at full speed, my first thought was “simultaneous possession”.
Former NFL cornerback Eric Davis makes a solid argument for “simultaneous possession” even after slow motion replay. The vagaries of “control” versus “catch” seem key here.
Has anyone in NFL history ever called offensive pass interference on a Hail Mary?
Home field advantage is mostly due to unconscious bias on part of referees responding to the angry mob screaming at them (ie, the crowd). No way that call was getting overturned in Seattle.
Referees are people, error prone humans, trying very hard to a very, very hard job well. The replacements are trying to do this with everyone hating them and expecting them to fail.
Replacement referees aren’t incompetent. They are inexperienced at this level of play.
That inexperience could have important implications for player safety.
Replacements struggle to manage games because players/coaches don’t respect them, know them, or believe there are long-term consequences to their relationships.
The replacement referees aren’t responsible for the situation. The NFL and the regular referees are, but mostly the NFL.
It’s just football, folks.