For those who don't know, Amy and I moved to Michigan. I'm teaching economics at the University of Michigan Dearborn campus. Jon and Katie live a few hours away and we got together a while ago for dinner, salsa and trivial pursuit.
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Salsa Night in Michigan
Friday, October 14, 2011
Best Abstract
From the paper "Can apparent superluminal neutrino speeds be explained as a quantum weak measurement?"
Abstract
Probably not.
Friday, April 01, 2011
Journalism Excellence? No.
I regularly think up topics or come across news articles I decide I should address or respond to on this blog, but I obviously rarely get around to it. But today I just had to show you this article from Wednesday’s USA Today. Some of the relevant text is pasted below in case the link goes bad some day. See if you can see the fallacy. I will explain below the jump.
“[A] USA TODAY analysis has determined that a typical player for a program receives at least $120,000 annually in goods, services and future earnings for his athletic work.”
“But more than scholarships, players receive benefits including: elite coaching; academic counseling; strength and conditioning consulting; media relations assistance; medical insurance and treatment; free game tickets; and future earnings power that comes with some college education.” (Weiner & Berkowitz, USA Today, 3/30/2011)
The article was pretty interesting, but I am pretty disappointed in the “USA TODAY analysis” as well as the authors of the article. The problem is that by counting scholarships for tuition and future earnings power separately they are double counting. It is a pretty glaring error in logic. The value of the latter is the biggest reason for the value of the former. The analogy would be if I give you an apple that would have cost 50 cents. Then I tell you that what I gave you was worth $1.00: 50 cents for the apple, and 50 cents of your own money that you don’t have to pay to get the apple. It doesn't work.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Actual Information about Social Security
Social Security is in the news again. Let's face it: most people don't really know very much about how it works. They know they have to pay taxes for it, and that they will theoretically get benefits. But that's about it.
Unfortunately, many who don't really understand the other parts (e.g. how benefits are calculated or what the Social Security Administration does with the surplus money that they don't immediately need) seem to have strong opinions about it anyway.
Below is a link to a paper by the American Academy of Actuaries which gives some background on Social Security, details why it is projected to run short on money, and assesses the merit of several ideas that have been proposed to fix it. I ran across the paper earlier this year because it was one of the papers I was tested from on the actuarial exam I took in May. The paper is now almost 4 years old, but I think it should be required reading for anyone who wants to participate in a discussion about what to do about Social Security.
http://www.actuary.org/pdf/socialsecurity/reform_07.pdf
One highlight:
The surplus revenues from previous years has been "invested" in special issue government bonds. As those funds are needed the federal government will have to pay the money back with interest. This fact gives rise to the argument that "Social Security would be fine if the government hadn't already spent the surplus."
This is, of course, a stupid argument. First of all, the federal government will have to pay it back, so the money isn't gone. Secondly, the alternatives to investing the surplus in government bonds are investing in corporate bonds/preferred or common stocks (too risky), or stuffing it in a really big mattress (obviously stupid). You can't exactly do an efficient laddered CD scheme with two trillion dollars.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Married
On May 22, Amy and I were married.
Here's Amy's sister's post and our photographer's with more pictures.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
PSA
Fred Morrison, the inventor of our beloved Frisbee, passed away on February 9th. His NY Times obituary is available here.
Thank you, Mr. Morrison, for many hours of ultimate, frisbee golf, and general park happiness.
Thank you, Mr. Morrison, for many hours of ultimate, frisbee golf, and general park happiness.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Irony, oh irony, how I love thee, irony
Friends of Irony: a site dedicated to pictures that are ... wait for it ... funny because they're ironic.
I liked these too:
You're welcome.
Friday, January 08, 2010
Ummm ...
Has anyone else heard about this?
Apparently an LDS gubernatorial candidate in Idaho is holding a meeting in a few weeks. Ok. But the meeting is for active Elders only, and the purpose is to discuss the "White Horse Prophecy."
I don't know about you, but this seems wrong to me on several levels.
1. An LDS candidate using his membership and perceived authority via secular position in order to gain political capital among other members of the church. Isn't the Book of Mormon pretty clear that priestcraft (using religion for one's personal gain) is a not a good idea?
2. Religion aside, what kind of person running for public office in the United States arranges a meeting and then explicitly states they're not inviting one gender? The article quotes Rammell as saying that "he hopes that the men will take the message home to their wives." Nice. Last time I checked, women in Idaho could vote. I hope they're taking notice of Rammell's perception
3. I perceive the topic—the "White Horse Prophecy"—to be problematic for several reasons. To begin, it's not scripture, it's not canonized, it's not officially taught, etc. It's compositional history (recorded 10 years after the death of Joseph by two men who relied on their memories) is open to criticism and leaves us with a text that cannot be defended doctrinally. (Note: I have nothing against the men and their integrity, but the history of the prophecy does not support a defensible text. FAIR has a decent article on this here.)
If you're going to have a political meeting for members of a specific religion, it's probably best to discuss something doctrinal / canonical rather than engage in speculation regarding a problematic text. Especially one that has been appropriated at times to justify the idea that Mormons need to take over the US government and ultimately institute a world government.
I paid attention to the story because, initially, the whole thing just got my feminine hackles up. I expect it to raise all of your feminine hackles as well. And your church vs. state ones. And your "what the hell?!" ones.
Seriously, am I missing something here? Am I the only one to see this not only as ridiculous, but dangerous? Next time I need evidence of the latent sexism in Mormon culture (not the church, but the cultural mores that has developed in the western "Mormon belt" in the US [Utah, Idaho, Arizona, etc.]), and specifically Mormons of a certain age (because honestly, I don't see this attitude as much in Mormons in their 20s and 30s) this story will come to mind.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Hobofest
In 1900 three guys decided that Britt, Iowa wasn't getting enough love. They wanted to "do something different to show the world that Britt was a lively little town capable of doing anything that larger cities could do." The natural remedy: Hobofest, as in a festival to honor hobos complete with a king and queen hobo coronation.
The festival still continues today. Amy finished her work in DC on Friday and needed to go back to Iowa for school. Hobofest was on that Saturday so after she finished we took off and drove through the night to roll into Britt in time for the Hoboparade. It was mostly old cars, but there was an actual float of Hobos.
There is a hobomuseum in town
Visiting the museum I learned the following: Hobos travel and work, tramps travel but don’t work and bums neither travel nor work. During the Civil War and then to the Great Depression people would hop on trains and travel to where there is work. They have their own lingo; including catching the westbound for death; and signs they would leave for future hobos.
The town makes up Mulligan stew for everyone who comes, and they don’t mess around.
Each of the bins was full.
People in line all had bowls, pans and Tupperware for the soup and so we thought we had to supply our own container. The only thing Amy had in her car was her wok. So the lone Asian in the possibly all of northern Iowa had to walk around carrying her wok. 
The recipe is a bit larger than anything I've cooked,450 lbs. beef
900 lbs. potatoes
250 lbs. carrots
35 lbs. green-red peppers
300 lbs. cabbage
100 lbs. turnips
10 lbs. parsnips
150 lbs. tomatoes
20 lbs. chili pepper
25 lbs. rice
60 lbs. celery
1 lb. bay leaves
24 gal. mixed vegetables
10 lb. kitchen bouquet flavoring
About 400 loaves of bread are served. The finished stew fills about 5,000 8-oz cups.
but ours didn't seem to have rice or meat. I suppose not even hobos are immune from the recession. The stew was the lead up to possibly the best part: the coronation of the King and Queen hobo (here are the past winners). Before the festivities a hobo got up to sing the National Anthem, but sung the forgotten fourth verse. I wasn't so sure about this even existing, but wikipedia says it's true.
The pageant works by having the contestants get up to give a short speech (some were about 30 seconds) as to why they should be crowned. At the end people would clap for who they thought should win and the judges would determine who got the most claps. The first contestant for the Queen was “Dirty Feet” who looked to be about seven years old. Her platform was to bring the hobolove to the youngsters. Another contestant said she was a hobo at heart but road around in an RV and not on trains. This elicited boos from the crowd. There was a push to give the crown to train riders. There was a young (late 20s or so) punkish group who wanted to give the crown to the tramps, apparently not aware that it’s called Hobofest, not Trampfest. 
But the tramp Stray Cat won for queen 
and an old school hobo Ink Blot became King. 
Afterwards they were in high demand, but I snuck behind for a picture with them as they were talking to other people. 
And yes; their headgear was a big Folgers’ can of coffee cut in the shape of a crown. There’s a hobo art gallery that has pictures of all the past Kings and Queens. 
There is a hobocemetery as well. Amy and I didn’t go but our friend Kendra did (who supplied many of these pictures). Some die young,
some die old,
and some had dogs.
Along the main street there was a flea market, petting zoo and food for sale, including “Walking Taco’s” and “Loose Beef Burger’s.”
All in all Hobofest was great fun and well worth the trip if you happen to be in the area.
My 1/3 life crisis
I'm way too young for a midlife crisis, plus I've been planning on buying a motorcycle since I was 25 or so.
It may look fast, but its only a 250 cc engine, so its one of the slowest, gutless bikes on the road. I figure since my work is 14 miles away on a very sparsely traveled highway, it makes sense to get 60 mpg on this as opposed to whatever I get in the honda civic. Yes, gas mileage- that is the only reason I bought it. I just don't think I considered how much fun I would have on it- seriously, I've never enjoyed driving a motor vehicle until now. Maybe its the nerdy physicist in me, but I just can't get enough of the centripetal acceleration as I go around a curve, leaning a gravity defying 45 degrees to the road.
I just can't wait to make a trip to Seattle on this thing.
ps. Don't worry, I'm not stupid, I'm wearing full protective gear- I invested in a fully armored leather racing suit that the professional people race in. When they crash at 150+ mph, they walk away in these things. I rarely top 70.
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
Wild, Wonderful, Weird, West Virginia
Amy and I went to West Virginia for a little sight seeing. We stopped first at a place called Colossi. A family decided to collect giant fiberglass figures and show them in their yard. We went there, pulled in the driveway, and made ourselves at home and walked around their yard. Pulling in we are greeted by these four folks:
and you park next to this guy laying on the ground. 
They have a mini-rollercoaster with the Simpsons
and a Santa Claus. 
I’m not sure what this guy is doing, but here’s a lumberjack
There are various other treasures lying around as well. And to top it off, to the side there were some llamas.
We next went to a tiny house. I’m not sure what it’s for, but it was fully furnished inside, although we couldn’t go in.
We then went to Harper’s Ferry, a more traditional tourist locale and saw the spot where Thomas Jefferson said it would be worth the trip across the Atlantic to see. I don’t think it was that good, but it is still a nice place to visit.
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