So so-called Freudian slips are one of the most generalized ways of referring to him and his studies, but the way they're typically treated masks what is actually a subtle, significant, and often overlooked contribution to semantics. Slips as Freud seems them aren't these sexual secretes, but are discussed in much the…

Well, if absurdity was a necessary condition of math, we'd be stuck back in Greece. An "actual" infinity does not imply a physically manifested infinity. And the hotel paradox constitutes a very useful 'absurdity' (read paradox) to understand how cardinality is to be interpreted in infinite sets. I.e., the paradox…

But only, perhaps, if you aren't into the whole "brevity" thing.

You think that looks bad, you should see her "Regime" version. Hello CougarBoobJob Wonder Woman!

Not sure if it has been mentioned, but PhD length is correlated with academic success. Negatively.

Pacific Rim opened over the weekend and it did not disappoint

Niiiiiiice try, Miss Newman. Or should i say, Special Agent Newman!

The problem with the 'if you don't like it don't click it' comment is that it belies the fact that a lot of readers on i09 want to be able to trust a particular writer. Implicit in that trust is the expectation of carefully thought-out pieces on interesting topics. Those expectations can be plastic and shift according…

I thoroughly enjoy this kind of response, to an obviously unpopular sentiment, because you respected Scrape and the rest of us enough to provide a reasonable argument for what—i agree—is a minor non-snafu in the movie's general logic.

Tailz on the ground = sooo pre-1960s paleontology.

This feels like restating common knowledge, but I found it mind-numbingly boring continuing on in the Hyperion series beyond Book 2.

This is getting to be a rather tired template on io9, n'est ce pas? maybe a short moratorium on the movie listicles?

will this come to the iOS version?

Awwww.

$15 million well-spent dollars

Its ridiculous to eliminate Mary Jane from the scene, because Gwen's death is a formative event for both her and her relationship with Peter. Does this mean that in any Amazing Spiderman 3 film, Mary Jane will act completely oblivious to Gwen's existence? I always felt like the situations in which Peter is forced to…

Scientists publish papers because its their job to report their findings.

You bring up an issue about statistical inference, which is basically the differences between fixed- an random effects designs. In the former you change one thing and monitor the effects of that change over many many trials; in statspeak, your distribution is the trials (i.e., number of times the monkey pushes a…

This point is buried in many of the comments below, but its useful to be explicit that there are some behaviors that are sensitive to cultural differences, and some that aren't. Culturally-influenced effects in social psychology experiments like the ultimatum game are unsurprising, but the bulk of attention, motor,…

"In other words, they had to develop the capacity for complex language."