May 17, 2017
“In a barn, 100 chicks sit peacefully in a circle. Suddenly, each chick randomly pecks the chick immediately to its left or right. What is the expected number of unpecked chicks?” A 13-year-old from Texas answered that probability question correctly in less than a minute at the 2017 Raytheon National MathCounts competition to win a $20,000 college scholarship. Answer: 25. / Mind Your Decisions
When Trump screws up, GOP senators typically say they’re “troubled”—always appropriate, ultimately meaningless. / Washington Post
A. Richard Allen’s “Trump Wave,” from the Sunday Telegraph, leads the 2017 V&A Illustration Awards’ winners. / The V&A
We’re late to this one, but hey: Reince Priebus’s nickname in the White House is “Rancid.” / New York Magazine
Korean companies make workers use English names (“Unique!”) to circumvent hierarchies of traditional honorifics. / Washington Post
A photographer shot the hometowns of his heroes in their respective styles. Above: “Ed Ruscha, Oklahoma City, Okla.” / Booooooom
NYTimes columnist David Brooks starts more sentences with “the” than any other word. Paul Krugman? “But.” / Marginal Revolution
The Washington Post’s scoop about Trump leaking intel broke a web record for most readers per second. / Glenn Kessler
“John Ray in his 1670 proverb collection gives four examples of false comparisons: apples and oysters (which Shakespeare also uses in ‘The Taming of the Shrew’), four-pence and a groat, nine-pence and nothing, chalk and cheese (the last of which still is occasionally heard).” A bunch of things you can’t compare. “An 1864 text says you can’t compare apples and herrings; in 1901 engineers were saying you couldn’t compare apples and potatoes; a 1908 text denies you can compare apples with eggs.” / Siris
Not that any Republicans will care, but only 9% of Americans lacked health coverage in 2016, a historic low. / Moneybox
An entertaining summary of pretty much everything you need to know about the field of owl studies. / The New York Review of Books
“It’s pretty unusual for a president, even a popular one, to so openly criticize the Revolutionary Guard, which engages in politics but does so from the shadows. Mr. Rouhani, by pulling it into the campaign, is also pulling it into the realm of open electoral politics.” Things to watch in Iran’s big election on Friday: Do Iranians see it as free and fair? Does the supreme leader throw support to Ebrahim Raisi? / The Interpreter / The New York Times
Netflix can’t show its movies at Cannes because it refuses to play by French distribution rules. / New York Times
“The group is regularly condemned—and lionized—for going too far, and in the past has published incorrect information and misleading photos in its campaigns.” Why a Canadian logging group is trying to sue Greenpeace to death. / Outside Magazine