Rotundus.com

How DNA evidence creates victims of chance

Crazy! - "The DNA analyst who testified in Smith's trial said the chances of the DNA coming from someone other than Jackson were 1 in 95,000. But both the prosecution and the analyst's supervisor said the odds were more like 1 in 47. A later review of the evidence suggested that the chances of the second person's DNA coming from someone other than Jackson were closer to 1 in 13, while a different statistical method said the chance of seeing this evidence if the DNA came from Jackson is only twice that of the chance of seeing it if it came from someone else."

Video quality less important when you’re enjoying what you’re watching

Hint to the movie industry: there's more to making a good movie than special effects.

We're happier when busy but our instinct is for idleness

"[S]ome airports hav[e] deliberately increased the walk to the luggage carousel so as to reduce the time passengers spend waiting idly for luggage to arrive."

Mulling the impact of population decline

"Enrollment projections suggest that the rate of increase in overall post-secondary enrollments in Canada is either headed for a serious leveling off or on a path of precipitous decline."

Perhaps the best description of this comes from someone else: "I don't have a clue what this is, but I love it"

The life of every Christian is filled with enough inconsistencies to disprove the Christian faith every day if it were based on our changed lives. The history of the church is littered not only with heresies and schisms but with crusades, inquisitions, and the justification of atrocities in the name of Christ. Yet in all of this we can point away from ourselves, individually and collectively, to "the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29). In fact, it is only by repenting of our spiritual pride and casting ourselves ever anew on God's mercy in his Son that we can become servants rather than masters of our neighbors. ... We are not the Good News, but its recipients and heralds; not the newsmakers, just the reporters.

- Michael Horton, The Gospel-Driven Life: Being Good News People in a Bad News World, p. 127

On the Virtue of Wasting Time

"drinking beer with friends is perhaps the most underestimated of all Reformation insights and essential to ongoing reform"

Nini and the European Dream: In Spain, almost everyone is ‘not in education or employment.’ It’s the end of the job for life

"... NINI is the Spanish government acronym for “Not in education or employment” – that is, lost to the economy. But it’s not really a joke, because now almost everyone is NINI. The under-30 unemployment rate in Spain has just hit 44 per cent, twice the adult rate. Italy also has passed the 40 per cent mark, and Greece has gone even further. If you count all the people who’ve given up looking, it means the number of people between 20 and 30 who have any form of employment in these countries is something like one in five."

When Congress Is Away, the Market Will Play

Some researchers found that "'about 90% of the capital gains over the life of the Dow Jones Industrial Average have come on days when Congress is out of session.' The finding could of course be a fluke but Ferguson and Witte found the relationship to be particularly strong when Congress’s approval ratings are lower."

The Politically Incorrect Guide to Ending Poverty

The byline: "In the 1990s, Paul Romer revolutionized economics. In the aughts, he became rich as a software entrepreneur. Now he’s trying to help the poorest countries grow rich—by convincing them to establish foreign-run “charter cities” within their borders. Romer’s idea is unconventional, even neo-colonial—the best analogy is Britain’s historic lease of Hong Kong. And against all odds, he just might make it happen."