Most of economics can be summarized in four words: “People respond to incentives.” The rest is commentary. — Steven Landsburg, The Armchair Economist Read more →
Author Archive: Paul Epps
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 →
Attention Deficit
Focus for us was a thing hard to come by. We would have to make due with whatever we had: these were pills and a pencil, blue earplugs to block out the voices inside of our heads, which would tell us time passed and these thoughts that would shine like soft lights on our brains would one day fade into invisible relief. We would write in our binders, pass classes, allow for a moment of grief. We were deeply aware we would have to make up for lost time, but when we took our pills, the world would seem fine, seem as if it had always been fine. Once we had adequate supplies we’d sell, but until then we decid- ed to re- fill. We had determined that we would not brood. Instead we charted out our moods and light- ened up our loads. Before the rest of time unfolds,… Read more →
A Short One-Act Play About Time
MY KID HOME FROM COLLEGE: That clock says 8:42, that clock says 8:45, your phone says 8:47 and my phone says 8:48. So what time is it? ME (singing): Does anybody really know what time it is? Can anybody really care? (About time) If so I can’t imagine why (Oh no-oo) We’ve all got time enough to cry Did that answer your question? KID: Not really. Read more →
Closed
The crimson dawn breaks through the clouded east, And waking breezes round the casement pipe; They blow the globes of dew from opening buds, And steal the odors of the sleeping flowers. The swallow calls its young ones from the eaves, To dart above their shadows on the lake, Till its long rollers redden in the sun, And bend the lances of the mirrored pines. Who knows the miracle that brings the morn? Still in my house I linger, though the night— The night that hides me from myself is gone. Light robes the world, but strips me bare again. I will not follow on the paths of day. I know the dregs within its crystal hours; The bearers of my cups have served me well; I drained them, and the bearers come no more. Rise, morning, rise, for those believing souls Who seek completion in day’s garish light. My… Read more →
All the Talk About Tolerance
All the talk about tolerance, in anything or anywhere, is plainly a gentle lie. It does not exist. It is in no man’s heart; but it unconsciously, and by moss-grown inherited habit, drivels and slobbers from all men’s lips. — Mark Twain’s Autobiography Read more →
Thanksgiving Day
Thanksgiving Day, a function which originated in New England two or three centuries ago when those people recognized that they really had something to be thankful for — annually, not oftener — if they had succeeded in exterminating their neighbors, the Indians, during the previous twelve months instead of getting exterminated by their neighbors, the Indians. Thanksgiving Day became a habit, for the reason that in the course of time, as the years drifted on, it was perceived that the exterminating had ceased to be mutual and was all on the white man’s side, consequently on the Lord’s side; hence it was proper to thank the Lord for it and extend the usual annual compliments. — Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 1 Read more →
Teaching Computer Science: No School Before Thanksgiving
There was no school today because a lot of kids don’t like to show up the day before Thanksgiving, so the district decided not to have classes on the day before Thanksgiving. Once they get used to having Wednesday off, they won’t show up on Tuesday and we’ll have to give them Tuesday off. Then of course there’s no sense in having a one-day school week so we’ll give them the whole week off. And since they’re already off on Veterans Day and the day after Halloween, let’s just give them the whole month of November off. I’m concerned that American education is getting worse faster than we can lower our standards. Read more →
Halle Slams Gabriel!
Halle Berry is at least 50 percent white, the girl’s father is white . . . do the math on how white the girl is supposed to look. Read more →