[The public-school monopoly] is yet another scam that inflicts disproportionately great damage on people who are the poorest and least advantaged. How could it not? Those who run K-12 government schools aren’t paid by customers who voluntarily send their children to those schools and who could easily choose to send their children elsewhere. Instead, these teachers and officials are paid by governments that tax citizens regardless of how many children those citizens have in schools and regardless of how well the schools perform. Therefore, with funding that is independent of customer choice — and with each child assigned to a particular public school — public-school officials have little incentive to supply good education. — Donald Boudreaux Read more →
December 2014
2014: The Year in Books
These are the books I read in 2014, roughly in the order listed. The ratings are mine. They don’t represent a consensus of opinion. Books of the Year: My Antonia by Willa Cather (fiction) and Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman (non-fiction). Honorable Mention: Flaubert’s Parrot, The Fountain Overflows, Nausea, Pastoralia, Revolutionary Road. My Library at LibraryThing Read more →
Ovid Had Some Off Days
Ovid had some off days: "There is more refreshment and stimulation in a nap, even of the briefest, than in all the alcohol ever distilled." — Broethius (@Broethius) December 30, 2014 Read more →
Mo’ne Davis: Female Athlete of the Year?
Little League World Series star Mo’ne Davis made a big impression on the sports landscape in 2014—enough to garner Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year honors. — Mo’ne Davis Named 2014 Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year | Bleacher Report I can’t decide if this is demeaning only to female athletes or to women in general. Reality check: Mo’ne Davis pitched two games for the Pennsylvania team in the 2014 Little League World Series — a 4-0 win and an 8-1 loss. Her team was knocked out in a semifinal game by the Nevada team, which went on to lose the final game to Illinois. Would the AP ever select a little league baseball player (or other 13-year-old boy) as Male Athlete of the Year? Would the AP ever select a Male Athlete of the Year who has not distinguished himself among his peers and has zero notable… Read more →
R.I.P. America
Secondary Lobster
I’m thinking about getting into the secondary lobster market. Everyone’s so focused on main lobster, I’m thinking that secondary lobster may be an overlooked opportunity . . . Read more →
60 Million Students
#HourOfCode had an incredible first year. Thank you to all who helped propel this movement. http://t.co/bHAAWMYJiG. pic.twitter.com/IS1nU89XRe — Code.org (@codeorg) December 29, 2014 Read more →
Within the Circuit of this Plodding Life
Within the circuit of this plodding life, There enter moments of an azure hue, Untarnished fair as is the violet Or anemone, when the spring strews them By some meandering rivulet, which make The best philosophy untrue that aims But to console man for his grievances. I have remembered when the winter came, High in my chamber in the frosty nights, When in the still light of the cheerful moon, On every twig and rail and jutting spout, The icy spears were adding to their length Against the arrows of the coming sun, How in the shimmering noon of summer past Some unrecorded beam slanted across The upland pastures where the Johnswort grew; Or heard, amid the verdure of my mind, The bee’s long smothered hum, on the blue flag Loitering amidst the mead; or busy rill, Which now through all its course stands still and dumb Its own memorial,—purling… Read more →
Merry Christmas
From Downtown Disney: Read more →
Testing a White Privilege Theory
According to an article titled “The Thing About White Privilege,” “job applicants with white sounding names are 50% more likely to receive a callback for a job interview than applicants with black-sounding names, even when all job-related qualifications and credentials are the same.” What happens when someone with an Asian-sounding name applies for a job? Serious question. Does the answer support a white privilege theory? What about someone with an Indian-sounding name? A Middle Eastern-sounding name? A Jewish-sounding name? An actual African-sounding name? Test your theories against reality rather than just slinging bullshit and ignoring information that inconveniences you. I followed the link above and learned that “applicants with white names needed to send about 10 resumes to get one callback; those with African-American names needed to send around 15 resumes to get one callback.” That’s 10 percent vs. about 7 percent. Anyone who thinks “50% more likely” is the… Read more →
I would rather die having spoken after my manner, than speak in your manner and live. — Socrates
Most of Economics
Most of economics can be summarized in four words: “People respond to incentives.” The rest is commentary. — Steven Landsburg, The Armchair Economist Read more →
My Glasses Just Fell Apart for the Fourth Time
This little screw has just fallen out of my glasses for the fourth time since I got them, which causes the earpiece to fall off. When I buy cheap-ass reading glasses from, say, Target, they never fall apart. Only when I pay hundreds of dollars for the “real” frames do the screws fall out and the earpieces drop off . . . Read more →
Teaching Computer Science: Those Who Don’t Like to Read
I recommended a couple of books that I’ve read recently and liked — Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand and Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman — to the class in case anyone was looking for a book to read over winter break or maybe as a holiday gift. “What if you don’t like to read?” someone asked. “Well, in that case you can spend your entire life inside your own head and never know or care what life looks like to other people.” In hindsight, it occurred to me that I could have suggested audio books for people who don’t like to read, but . . . woulda coulda shoulda, you know what I’m saying? Read more →
Many Have Long Known …
Many in academia have long known about how the practice of student evaluations of professors is inherently biased against female professors. . . . — Amanda Marcotte, “Best Way for Professors to Get Good Student Evaluations? Be Male.” Group A getting better evaluations than Group B is not evidence of bias. Asserting that something is true doesn’t mean it’s true. Asserting that many people know something to be true doesn’t mean it’s true. Most college students (i.e., the people evaluating professors) are female. What, if anything, does this fact suggest? Read more →
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
The notion that we have limited access to the workings of our minds is difficult to accept because, naturally, it is alien to our experience but it is true: You know far less about yourself than you feel you do. A reliable way to make people believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition, because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth. It is the consistency of information that matters for a good story, not its completeness. Indeed, you will often find that knowing little makes it easier to fit everything you know into a coherent pattern. The exaggerated faith in small samples is only one example of a more general illusion — we pay more attention to the content of messages than to information about their reliability, and as a result end up with a view of the world around us that is simpler and more coherent than… Read more →
Sugar Substitutes
I’m trying to find some sugar for my coffee in the break room . . . I see three kinds of sugar substitute — the pink kind, the yellow kind and the blue kind — but no actual sugar. The number of sugar substitutes concerns me. Why are there three different kinds? It’s like they’re not only substitutes for sugar, they’re substitutes for the other sugar substitutes. Sugar is a natural substance that grows from the earth. I don’t know what any of this other shit is and therefore I’m not putting it in my coffee . . . Read more →
Merry Christmas from Irvine
Old Wine
If I could lift My heart but high enough My heart could fill with love: But ah, my heart Too still and heavy stays Too brimming with old days. — Margaret Widdemer, “Old Wine” Read more →
Why “We” Believed Jackie’s Rape Story
Embed from Getty Images That’s the title (minus the quotation marks) of an article on politico.com regarding Rolling Stone‘s retraction of a story about a gang rape at the University of Virginia. The article is written by a female student at that university. “We” believed the story for the same reason Rolling Stone didn’t fact check it: because when you know very little, it’s easier to fit everything you do know into a simple story about the world, e.g., “white men are rapists.” Also because people can maintain an unshakable faith in any proposition when they’re sustained by a community of like-minded believers. On the flip side, a different group of people can now use the incident to confirm their simple story about the world, e.g., “women are liars.” Read more →