Links for 2012-02-01

They don't warn you about the bewildering, befuddling vertigo that comes with having done everything they say to do, all to no avail, and having no idea what to do next. There you are, willing and eager to wear away whatever leather there still is on your shoes, but you have no idea what direction to walk. There sits the phone, but you have no one left to call. And you've refined your online job-searching skills to the point where it takes you only a fraction of the time to confirm that there's nothing out there. Now what? What happens when something must be done, but there is nothing left to do about having nothing to do? Such repetitive futility is sometimes described as "Sisyphean," but you come to envy Sisyphus. He never doubts his next step. He has a task at hand and knows what is required and expected of him. The boulder must be rolled up the hill again, and though his back is breaking and his muscles shudder from exhaustion, he will roll it.

Benford's law states that real-world numbers start more often with a 1 than a 2, more often with 2 than 3 and so on. If your dataset does not follow this distribution, it might hint at human interference.

In handing down its ruling, the N.C.A.A. issued a press release so malicious in its intent that I could not let it pass. Longtime watchers of the N.C.A.A. tell me that they have never seen an athlete and his mother thrown under the bus the way Ryan and Tanesha Boatright were on Saturday. One rarely gets so clear a glimpse of moral bankruptcy.