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- ADAPTING GATSBY. (1)
- Mary Jane Schaefer: I think these are crucial, important decisions, what to leave out of any literary work, maybe any...
- DAMIEN HIRST—AN ART MARKET BUBBLE?. (1)
- Kate Bush: I hope you enjoy my visit to the Damien Hirst show as much as I did The Technical Impossibility of...
- THE MOST IMPORTANT EPISODE OF THE SIMPSONS ? (COMMENT). (1)
- Nick: Homer does has success as the team’s best hitter until Mr. Burns places a bet with a rival factory owner...
- THE “RIGHT TO EDIT”. (1)
- Lee: A relevant Simpsons clip.
- ULYSSES—VIRGINIA WOOLF LIKED THE BOOK, DESPISED THE AUTHOR. (3)
- A DEFENSE OF INVASIVE SPECIES. (3)
- Dick Weisfelder: Today’s Toledo Blade has an article on the importation of live Asian carp to Canada to serve...
- Lee: The downside is that red squirrels are way cuter than their gray cousins. Hitchens on the subject.
- THE OLDEST FANTASY BASEBALL LEAGUE STARTS ITS 32ND SEASON. (COMMENT). (5)
- frank martin: Have been in a an Al only Roto league since 91… started at Ohio University were we all went to...
- DEATH OF A BUMBLEBEE. (1)
- Nick: By contrast, I remember witnessing the entire thing. I was surprised by Annalisa’s reaction and...
- ANOTHER VOTE ON UMBRIDGE. (1)
- Dick Weisfelder: When I look back at one of the Potter books, it’s usually this one. There are just a lot of...
- THE SCARIEST VILLAIN IN HARRY POTTER? (1)
- Dick Weisfelder: Didn’t we all meet her somewhere in grade or high school?
- ADAPTING GATSBY. (1)
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Monthly Archives: February 2007
LEFT HANDED CATCHERS?
LEFT HANDED CATCHERS? Sharon Begley, who consistently has very interesting and understandable articles on science in the Wall Street Journal, has an article today (February 16) on multiple regression research on baseball by J.C. Bradbury. He confirms, as others have … Continue reading
SIGNS OF SPRING.
SIGNS OF SPRING. Pitchers and catchers report today.
Posted in Baseball, Sports
2 Comments
THE OPTIMAL RATE OF DEFAULT.
THE OPTIMAL RATE OF DEFAULT. Years ago, a friend and I used to joke about what would be the optimum period of years between defaults for a sovereign nation. That is, we assumed that a country would adopt a policy … Continue reading
Posted in Economics
2 Comments
VALENTINE POEM.
VALENTINE POEM. A poem for Valentine’s Day: “Wedding-Wind.” By Philip Larkin, an unhappy man and lifelong bachelor. Wedding Wind Philip Larkin The wind blew all my wedding-day, And my wedding-night was the night of the high wind; And a stable … Continue reading
Posted in Literature, Uncategorized
1 Comment
A NOTE ON EARMARKS.
A NOTE ON EARMARKS. I got a chance to ask a friend who’s a career federal civil servant about earmarks. He told me that earmarks are frequently obscure even for the agency spending the money. The earmarks arrive in a … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
1 Comment
BETTER TO INHERIT THAN TO EARN?
BETTER TO INHERIT THAN TO EARN? Edmund Phelps, winner of Nobel Prize in economics, has an article in today’s Wall St. Journal arguing that European economies lag the American economy because of a lack of “dynamism—loosely, the rate of commercially … Continue reading
Posted in Economics, Literature
2 Comments
A BIG STEP FORWARD IN USING THE WISDOM OF CROWDS.
A BIG STEP FORWARD IN USING THE WISDOM OF CROWDS. This article by Daniel Engber describes how probabilities are being used to convey information in a new report on an important policy issue. A previous report had used words such … Continue reading
PEOPLE ARE ALREADY USED TO PROBABILITIES.
PEOPLE ARE ALREADY USED TO PROBABILITIES. I once had the good fortune to hear James Surowiecki speak about his book, THE WISDOM OF CROWDS. I asked him whether he thought it was possible that probabilistic statements could be used in … Continue reading
Posted in Economics, Politics, Science
5 Comments
AN OVERLY OPTIMISTIC BUSINESS PLAN.
AN OVERLY OPTIMISTIC BUSINESS PLAN. Jackie Wullschlager, the writer on art who may be the best thing about the Financial Times, points out today that the father of the eighteenth century artist William Hogarth ended in a debtor’s prison when … Continue reading
USING THE WISDOM OF CROWDS.
USING THE WISDOM OF CROWDS. I am a big fan of James Surowiecki’s book, THE WISDOM OF CROWDS. This is the book that used the examples of estimating the weight of a watermelon at a county fair or guessing the … Continue reading
Posted in Economics, Politics, Science
6 Comments