February 9, 2010

"How Your Pet’s Diet Threatens Your Marriage, and Why It’s Bush’s Fault."

That seems to be the new "Lincoln's Doctor's Dog."

25 comments:

rhhardin said...

Alien pet diets has long been the staple of weekly tabloids.

rhhardin said...

The researchers also used computer algorithms to track the ratio of emotional words in an article and to assess the relative positivity or negativity.

Tierny doesn't know what an algorithm is.

The giveaway is the tone of awe.

A computer algorithm is what lists funeral homes under Frozen Meat in the Yellow Pages.

robinintn said...

Problems:

1. The only source of data was from people who read the New York Times.

2. Only the fogiest types use "email this article". Normal people link or copy/paste.

Ann Althouse said...

"Only the fogiest types.."

Yeah, exactly. Pets rule, accordingly.

Sarah said...

And here I was all excited to email the article on "How Your Pet's Diet Threatens Your Marriage, and Why It's Bush's Fault" to everyone I know with a snarky remark about this being yet another benefit to single life.

Lem Vibe Bandit said...

People preferred e-mailing articles with positive rather than negative themes, and they liked to send long articles on intellectually challenging topics.

Tiernie is surprised that long articles get read.

Way to encourage readers NYT.

Fred4Pres said...

Following the links I did find this free range chicken story in NYC, which is kind of cool.

Chickens are filthy. Trust me. There is a reason foul has two meanings. Domestic turkeys are just bigger obsese chickens who leave bigger turds.

But they are cool. They are hardy, have personalities, and are mostly survivors. They don't do snow well, but can take cold and rain and can mostly get by without much help.

Looks like the chickens are white egg laying white leghorns and brown laying sex links (probably Rhode Island Red and Plymoth Rock hybrids). They are called sex links because you can sex the chicks at birth by their color. Eggers, probably on molt, which is why they are dumped. They probably have years of egg production left. They just need a month or so to grow new feathers.

chuck said...

And it works! Tierney scores again.

Big Mike said...

The reason why they can't use Schrödinger’s full equation is because they majored in physics, instead of math.

Might as well have studied basket weaving.

Monkeyboy said...

Big Mike:

obligatory XKCD
http://xkcd.com/435/


(disclosure, I was a History major.)

Big Mike said...

@Monkeyboy, ROTFLMAO

Guillermo said...

And it works! Tierney scores again.
Aquipesca

former law student said...

Tierney put the most important nugget from the research into his sixth paragraph.

Isn't that what journalists call "burying the lede"? Or was he testing the theory that long stories are more often forwarded?

Unknown said...

WC Fields once observed that, "Anybody who hates kids and dogs can't be all bad", on the basis of the Lincoln's dog rule.

Meade said...

...pronounced “Aldy”

Ha ha ha ha ha!

Okay, but it'd be a good name if we were to ever get a dog, don't you think?

KCFleming said...

I get forwarded e-mails full of positive thoughts, heart-tugging anecdotes, life-affirming humor, and doggone-it-people-like-me daily boosterism.

This pisses me off, and leaves me in a funk of existential despair, or gives me a pain in the left side of my head that makes me think I have a brain tumor or that my temporal lobe is coming loose.

A few notes of Brian Eno and Harold Budd's Above Chiangmai and all is well again.

Chip Ahoy said...

@Aquí Pesca

no de los diques más rendidores en el invierno
sigue con la buena pesca en verano también.

One of the docks most rendidores in the winter follows with good fishing in summer also

Strange word there: to surrender, to conquer

rendidores, (persons) who rendir, renderer, to render, yield, produce, render thanks, homage, accounts, to surrender, yield, give up, hand over, to conquer, make surrender, overcome, to exhaust, tire out, wear out.

Hahaha, the accompanying photo is a guy holding up the tiniest fish of all.

Chip Ahoy said...

no s/b uno

Chip Ahoy said...

Speaking of fish, my harlequin rasboras are having sex right in front of me. They're coyly inverting themselves under a broad-leaf plant and enticing members of the opposite sex to join them, there to place eggs.

Joseph said...

I thought you long ago rejected the legitimacy of any analysis based on NYT most emailed list.

ethan said...

Hi Tits!

Tell us what you think of 12-year-old girls.

I mean, what you really think of them.

They don't have daddies like your daddy.

BYE TITS!

Peter V. Bella said...

Hey kids mom and Meade are away. Time to play. Time to have fun.

Methadras said...

BatBoy's diet nearly threatened my marriage. Now, the Angry Baby's diet is raising hackles in my family.

Fred Drinkwater said...

"Schrödinger’s full equation" is important to Tierney because someone once mentioned to him that the version in common use contains "partials". That was enough to set off his highly tuned journalist's paranoia alarms...
Also, rhhardin must be speaking from experience re: algorithms.

d-day said...

Just checked the most-emailed articles out of newly piqued curiosity and found one that ruined my day. . . so thanks for that.