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 →
Author Archive: Paul Epps
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 →
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 →
The Hedgehog and the Fox
Hedgehogs “know one big thing” and have a theory about the world: they account for particular events within a coherent framework, bristle with impatience toward those who don’t see things their way, and are confident in their forecasts. They are also especially reluctant to admit error. For hedgehogs, a failed prediction is almost always “off only on timing” or “very nearly right.” They are opinionated and clear, which is exactly what television producers love to see on programs. Two hedgehogs on different sides of an issue, each attacking the idiotic ideas of the adversary, make for a good show. Foxes, by contrast, are complex thinkers. They don’t believe that one big thing drives the march of history . . . Instead the foxes recognize that reality emerges from the interactions of many different agents and forces, including blind luck, often producing large and unpredictable outcomes. . . . They are… Read more →
Good News for the Second Fattest Person Alive
A British man whom media had identified as the fattest person alive has died of pneumonia after a devastating battle with an eating disorder that brought him to 980 pounds. — msn.com Who was the second fattest person alive? Nobody cares, right? The good news is that whoever that person is is now the fattest person alive, with all of the attendant attention and notoriety. There’s a positive angle to every story if you make the effort to find it . . . Read more →
We Save Things Around Here
What do I mean by “save things”? My wife was tidying up the garage and found this checkbook. The date (Dec. 19, 1991, the month after we got married) and the check number (101) tells me that it’s the first check we ever wrote on the first joint checking account we ever had. Read more →
The One Thing I Can’t Tolerate is Intolerance
It’s a funny thing but the most intolerant people that I personally know are the people who see themselves as champions of tolerance and inclusiveness. They’re the most determined that everyone be labelled and judged based on genetic characteristics. Once you’ve been assigned your label, you can be treated — well or poorly — as being exactly the same as everyone else with the same label. Why is that? Read more →