Law, economics, and politics § Unqualified Offerings "This is a musing on large bureaucratic organizations. I have noticed that some people get frustrated because they do not understand that law, economics, and politics are distinct things and they are not equally persuasive as arguments."
Month: August 2011
Dan Wells, John Cleaver Series [Library of Babel]
I’ve heard a bunch of good things about Dan Wells’s John Cleaver series (a trilogy at the moment, consisting of I Am Not a Serial Killer, Mr. Monster, and I Don’t Want to Kill You, but the ending of the last leaves an opening for more, should he want to write more), but I somehow […]
Links for 2011-08-20
Things I can only teach you in research § Unqualified Offerings "When I’m teaching a regular class, I know the answer. Or I don’t know the answer, but I think I do. Or I know I don’t know the answer for sure, but I’m “pretty sure” what the answer is and I’m winging it because […]
Social Media Are Not Evenly Distributed
Back in June, when I was headed to DAMOP, I got email telling me that they had an official Android app. I installed it, and in with the meeting program and maps and things was a “Social Media” section, that included an official hashtag: #apsdamop. I posted a few things using it, but it rapidly […]
Sad Balloon Physics II: How Long Will a Balloon Last?
As a follow up to Wednesday’s sad balloon post, the repair that lofted it back to the ceiling was a temporary reprieve, unsurprisingly. After 24 hours, more or less, it had sunk back down to the point where the ribbon was just barely touching the floor. On the one hand, it looks kind of pathetic […]
Links for 2011-08-19
Jason Gay: Recreational Sports: It’s Not Mortal Combat – WSJ.com "Everybody who plays a sport for fun has encountered a Serious Guy (or a Serious Girl). A Serious Guy turns 3-on-3 into a curse-filled nightmare. A Serious Guy makes backyard badminton feel like tax preparation, and elevates meaningless Wiffle ball into Game 7. A Serious […]
Thursday Balance Blogging
For this week’s Toddler Blogging, here’s a dad’s eye view of one of today’s playground activities: walking the 4×4 border on the sand playground as if it was a balance beam. She doesn’t actually need to hold my hand to walk this, but it makes her happier. I snapped that with my phone, expecting her […]
Academic Poll: Pronoun Trouble
I’ve moved on to the second of three academic writing projects I wanted to work on this summer (yes, I know I’m rapidly running out of summer…), which is a sort of review article on which I will be the only author. This creates an awkward situation in the introductory material, because it just feels […]
Fermi Baseball: How Many Hitters Have There Ever Been?
I’m not much of a baseball fan, but we’re edging our way toward football season, so I flipped to ESPN radio a couple of days ago, in time to hear Mike and Mike discussing Jim Thome’s 600th home run. They were questioning how much meaning we should attach to home run records any more, given […]
Links for 2011-07-18
What is journalism worth? "What is journalism worth? That’s the question journalism managers and entrepreneurs have been trying to figure out ever since it became clear, years ago, that the Internet was disrupting local publishing monopolies. And so we’ve endured years of conference panels, email exchanges, and blog posts about paywalls and paid content strategies, […]