Archive for June, 2009
So asks Robin Hanson at Overcoming Bias, a blog I like reading because it presents a smart, well-thought-out, likeable account of a style of thinking and valuation so utterly alien to my own that I can hardly believe human beings manage it. Hanson objects to the speaker at his son’s graduation saying things like “Never [...]
Filed under: economics, ethics, language, philosophy | 7 Comments
Tags: aliens, commencement, gricean dystopia, lies, overcoming bias, puzzled economists, robin hanson, truth
Just got in the mail a coffee-table book from PUP, which will appeal to you if you like looking at big photographic portraits of mathematicians while you drink your coffee. I do! The pictures, by Mariana Cook, are agreeable, but what really sells the book for me are the short essays that accompany the photos. [...]
Filed under: books, math | 1 Comment
Tags: deligne, nelson, okikiolu, photography
Michael Joyce, the subject of the greatest sports essay ever written, remembers his three weeks with David Foster Wallace in Tennis Week.
Filed under: books, magazines, writing | 1 Comment
Tags: david foster wallace, dfw, michael joyce, tennis, wallace
More Iranian election statistics
It’s looking more and more as if the official Iranian election returns were at least partially fictional. I wrote last week about one unconvincing statistical argument for fraud; now a short paper by Bernd Beber and Alexandra Scacco offers more numbers and makes a stronger case. Keeping in mind that I like their paper a [...]
Filed under: math, news, psychology | 6 Comments
Tags: beber, elections, fraud, iran, iran election, randomness, scacco, statistics
I’m talking about Nolan Reimold, currently slugging .546 and leading all major-league rookies in OPS; and Brad Bergesen, who’s been the Orioles’ best starter this year at 23. Higher-profile pitching prospects Rick Porcello and David Price have ERAs a little lower, but Bergesen looks better on home runs, walks, and strikeouts. He is, as they [...]
Filed under: baseball, orioles | Leave a Comment
Tags: brad bergesen, nolan reimold, unjustifiable optimism
The Z-list
Did you know that Harvard sets aside about 20 places a year for students it wants to admit (i.e. students with whose parents or high school Harvard wants to maintain good relations) but who don’t quite make the academic cut? These students — the so-called “Z-list” — are asked to take an extra year to [...]
Filed under: baseball, ethics, harvard | 3 Comments
Tags: college admissions, dan rosenheck, legacies, rosenheck, z-list
Most of the way through this fine Peter Carey novel; about the book in general I don’t have much to say but that it superbly realizes the traditional novelistic virtues. I wanted to highlight this passage, though, a bit of thought from a provincial bishop: Dancer could not, of course he could not, have clergy [...]
Filed under: books, language, writing | 5 Comments
Tags: novels, oscar and lucinda, paragraph, peter carey, sentence
In today’s Slate I write about the claim that the official Iranian election returns are too linear to be true. The graph (via Tehran Bureau) looks pretty amaing; but in fact, as I explain, it’s pretty much what you’d expect real election data to look like. One point there wasn’t room for in the piece; [...]
Filed under: bad statistics, math, news, politics, slate | 5 Comments
Tags: election, iran, linear regression, y-interecept
Speaking of Emmanuel Kowalski
How can I have forgotten to put his blog on my blogroll? Well, it’s up there now — a great place for thoughtful posts on number theory both contemporary and historical, not to mention engaging diversions on mysterious symbols on slide rules and the important question of whether Grothendieck appears in the movie of Zazie [...]
Filed under: Blogroll, friends, math | 2 Comments
Tags: Bilu, bilu-parent, emmanuel kowalski, kowalski, Parent
If you’re in New York City and like math, consider stopping by the Math Midway, an interactive math exhibit running 10-6 this Sunday, June 14 as part of this year’s World Science Festival Street Fair. (The World Science Festival, despite its name, seems always to take place in New York. Reminds me of a book [...]
Filed under: food, math, travel | 6 Comments
Tags: coraline, greenwich village, magnetic fields, museum, new york, risotto, stephin merritt, the legitimate theater
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