What’s New at WMBriggs.com

Guest posts

There are a couple of guest posts in the queue, and more would be welcome. Since our readership is, by definition, highly intelligent, perceptive, and learned anything they write will be read with great interest by a grateful audience. Previous guest posts we have had prove this.

So send in suggestions (matt@wmbriggs.com), or send in your own. Anonymity, if desired, is fine. You can use your screen name or any other nom de plume.

Articles should be in the 750- to 800-word range and HTML encoded if you can, though text is fine. Your rate of pay for these submissions will exactly equal my per-article reward.

Readership currently is about 11,000 per week, which is the length of time an article stays on the front page. After that, it disappears and is forgotten utterly: which is why we are forced to write so many articles on the same subject so frequently.

Pass it on

This is the week to send a link of this website to at least two friends whose lives have been lacking that certain something. They will thank you for it.

Data sources

About once or twice a week I receive emails requesting I analyze this or that subject. I try to do these if possible, but I don’t always have the time. The largest sink is the effort it takes to find and compile data in a usable form, which we can roughly define as spreadsheet ready.

So if you want data analyzed—for fun—you can help by locating the relevant data and sticking it into a spreadsheet. The general rule is one column for each variable, one row for each observation.

Commentary

Many emails arrive asking me to comment on a post that has appeared elsewhere. Please, keep sending these in. I usually only have time to respond to one out of every six of these, though.

Believe it or not, I do not read many other blogs, so I miss a lot. I especially do not read blogs on climatology, since my patience has limits. The only webpage I am certain to check regularly is Arts & Letters Daily. Most of my reading is still confined to print.

Thus, you are not being intrusive when you point out interesting pieces elsewhere. As is often requested, anonymity about who suggested a link or article is perfectly fine.

Data analysis

Several readers have been absolute sweethearts and have sent me work or recommended me to others. I am profoundly grateful for this because, of course, this is how I make my living.

Because I am scrupulously fair, I want to give everybody the chance to provide me remunerative employment. This is your opportunity to experience what heretofore only a small, privileged minority have known.

You’ll especially want to talk to me if you are rich and always have felt that you deserved to be a patron of true science and philosophy.

R Lectures

More are coming, they really are. The stars will soon reattain the alignment necessary for my dulcet voice to function properly.

Readership

I have received several emails from non-male readers who say they would love to comment but they don’t want to interrupt the boy talk. This is fine, but I note that you could always enter any masculine-sounding screen name you want and say anything you like.

You’ll have seen that many comments begin with some version of “Briggs, you fool”, or the equivalent from one commenter to another. Understand that men view certain forms of insults as terms of endearment and that we enjoy sparring. The often combative nature of comments does not mean we are enemies, and usually means the opposite.