Saturday, December 29, 2007
What I'm Reading
I was reading about Larry Lessig and I learned that he recently represented someone who had been abused by various men in authority from the American Boychoir School back in the 1970s. This is not the case that Lessig is known for. He is the most important legal theorist of our generation in the area of intellectual property and cyber-law. But what is worth knowing here is that Lessig, it was revealed, had himself been sexually abused by the men in charge of the American Boychoir School.
Walk it Out Fosse
This is really an incredble mash. If you listen to the original music to this video, it's very creepy. But with this song, it's brilliant and perfectly appropriate.
Friday, December 28, 2007
Prepaid Gift Cards
My wife said over cards the other night that economists are "not known for their big hearts," which may be in reference to one of her stocking stuffers this Christmas - a prepaid Mastercard. As everyone knows, Christmas has huge deadweight losses, which is why it's better whenever possible to give cash. But, cash is also very lame, and says basically the giver spent zero time thinking of something nice. When giving gifts, part of the value received is knowing the person spent time searching for the "perfect gift." In that sense, wasteful gifts are probably a kind of signalling game played in which the giver shows he is a special loved one because he spent hours thinking and searching for this perfect gift. So, this Christmas, I hedged a little - I searched for a bunch of things, and then came back to the Mastercard since my wife needs clothes, and in that dimension, I think she needs a more efficient gift.
Which brings me back around. Prepaid gift cards backed by national banks are an interesting thing. They are the fastest-growing segment of the gift-card industry, expected to reach nearly $100 billion this year, but they also have many hidden fees, which is kind of aggravating since you're basically left having to rationalize why it's worth more to give them a card than it is to give them the equal amount in cash. Also, I don't really understand why the banks charge fees. Many of these cards never are fully redeemed, or when they are redeemed, they are redeemed slowly over time. So aren't I basically giving the bank an interest-free loan? An interest-free loan of $100 billion even? Sounds like a steal - I should be charging them fees, not vice versa. I suspect the bank gift cards are a little different, though, than say an Apple or Gap gift card. For one, since I can use a mastercard anywhere, maybe I spend it down more quickly than I would a Gap card, wherein I can sit on it for months until I find that perfect sweater. Then there are of course the transaction costs for making this work with every retailer, which banks argue are non-trivial. But to that I keep thinking about how fractional reserve banking would work in this situation. If they could operate like a fractional reserve bank works, then wouldn't their lending out ultimately help cover those costs? But then maybe these Mastercard gift cards become a kind of money, too. The cards say $10, $20, $50, $100 on them - are they money then? If so, is Mastercard and Visa printing money when they issue these cards?
Which brings me back around. Prepaid gift cards backed by national banks are an interesting thing. They are the fastest-growing segment of the gift-card industry, expected to reach nearly $100 billion this year, but they also have many hidden fees, which is kind of aggravating since you're basically left having to rationalize why it's worth more to give them a card than it is to give them the equal amount in cash. Also, I don't really understand why the banks charge fees. Many of these cards never are fully redeemed, or when they are redeemed, they are redeemed slowly over time. So aren't I basically giving the bank an interest-free loan? An interest-free loan of $100 billion even? Sounds like a steal - I should be charging them fees, not vice versa. I suspect the bank gift cards are a little different, though, than say an Apple or Gap gift card. For one, since I can use a mastercard anywhere, maybe I spend it down more quickly than I would a Gap card, wherein I can sit on it for months until I find that perfect sweater. Then there are of course the transaction costs for making this work with every retailer, which banks argue are non-trivial. But to that I keep thinking about how fractional reserve banking would work in this situation. If they could operate like a fractional reserve bank works, then wouldn't their lending out ultimately help cover those costs? But then maybe these Mastercard gift cards become a kind of money, too. The cards say $10, $20, $50, $100 on them - are they money then? If so, is Mastercard and Visa printing money when they issue these cards?
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
No Country For Old Men (?/ 4 stars)
I saw No Country for Old Men the other day, but cannot yet review it. It's the sort of movie I probably need to see twice. For one, I got to the movie a half hour late. Therefore, I really never got into the full swing. Secondly, and more importantly, it's a hard movie to fully grasp. I got the sense the movie was more than just a thriller about halfway through. It's one of the more terrible films I've ever seen - violence, evil and death are really terrible things in this movie. The main killer is a pure psychopath, and one of the scariest scenes I've ever seen was a scene in which he came awfully close to killing an old man at a filling station in Texas. That was a brilliant, tense scene in which the banter nearly made me cry. I think the title, when taken against the backdrop of the story, must mean that the killer has made this world non-inhabitable for old men. Tommy Lee Jones, a sheriff on the killer's trail, seems to be constantly in a state of violation and unrest because of what this killer is capable of doing, and what he has already done, and will most likely do again. The killer, who acts randomly and ruthlessly, is like a new wind blowing across the country. But I need more time to think about it, and despite the protestations of my dearest wife, I will have to find some way to see it again to form a better opinion.
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Poker in the News
The Economist has a good article giving the bird's eye view on the last five years of growth in poker's popularity, driven largely by increased access to poker games online, as well as the innovation of the hole-card camera pioneered by the World Poker Tour, which for the first time allowed spectators to see the private cards of players during real-time play. That made the game a spectator event, and the Internet drew people in.
One thing I learned while reading this article is that Harvard Law Professor, Charles Nesson, has started a university organization entitled Global Poker Strategic Thinking Society (GPSTS), a somewhat awkward sounding acroynym with a heart full of gold. The society has four programmatic goals.
So, of course, I wrote the GPSTS and inquired about starting a chapter at my university. As my university is an evangelical Christian university, with a history of moralistic bans on things like dancing and drinking, it might not actually happen. I've noticed that many people here share that religious tradition's view of games as either a waste of time (morally neutral) or spiritually and intellectually damaging (morally bad). But, it is for that reason that one should try to present the case for the game, because for too long Christians have tended to dismiss activities that they do not understand as immoral. One only need to Robert Johnston's excellent Reel Spirituality: Theology and Film in Dialogue, another poorly titled book in my opinion, which expertly takes the reader through the challenge that film as an artform had for the institutional Christian church, and the different viewpoints that eventually formed as a result of that clash. Perhaps it's time for a Christian, informed, perspective on poker, too.
One thing I learned while reading this article is that Harvard Law Professor, Charles Nesson, has started a university organization entitled Global Poker Strategic Thinking Society (GPSTS), a somewhat awkward sounding acroynym with a heart full of gold. The society has four programmatic goals.
1. To encourag the continuing development of chapters at universities across the world.How awesome. This is much needed, since the recent legislation has done much damage to poker's practicality in the United States. Most people in the US have a low view of games having practical value for people, let alone being actually a net positive experience for most people. The debate over video games, played out by politicians running for President and/or re-election, is an example of how little the median voter thinks of games, in general. But this goes even moreso for games that have probabilitistic outcomes, such as poker. Unlike chess, randomness plays a very significant role in poker, which makes many un-educated people lump it with games of pure chance like roulette or craps, which can be shown to be impossible to beat, even in the longrun, because of the statistical advantage (albeit small) that the casino has over the player. This is the case for poker, too, in a way, but that edge does not come because anyone artificially manipulates the odds in their favor, like a casino. Rather, the edge is attained through experience, skill and education about poker fundamentals, probability theory, game theory and basic psychology. It's for this reason, in fact, that poker players tend to get Zen-like about the game, comparing it to "real life" in the sense that "anything can happen," and so one must choose from a set of strategies a strategy that is optimal given the incomplete information of the game, and the constant updating of information and repricing of risk that must occur in real time as the player receives a constant flow of information based on opponent's actions.
2. To conduct academic seminars, panel discussions and lectures that explore poker as a means to teach strategic thinking and related public policy issues.
3. To sponsor team poker matches between law, business and other professional schools.
4. To hold academic conferences to focus on the educational applications of poker strategic thought and related fields.
So, of course, I wrote the GPSTS and inquired about starting a chapter at my university. As my university is an evangelical Christian university, with a history of moralistic bans on things like dancing and drinking, it might not actually happen. I've noticed that many people here share that religious tradition's view of games as either a waste of time (morally neutral) or spiritually and intellectually damaging (morally bad). But, it is for that reason that one should try to present the case for the game, because for too long Christians have tended to dismiss activities that they do not understand as immoral. One only need to Robert Johnston's excellent Reel Spirituality: Theology and Film in Dialogue, another poorly titled book in my opinion, which expertly takes the reader through the challenge that film as an artform had for the institutional Christian church, and the different viewpoints that eventually formed as a result of that clash. Perhaps it's time for a Christian, informed, perspective on poker, too.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Top 10 of 2007
AFI's top 10 movies of 2007. What a great list. Both Ratatouille and Knocked Up are on the list, as are the obvious ones like Juno, No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood. Also listed is Michael Clayton, which I haven't seen but which I've only heard great things about, and Into the Wild, by Sean Penn. I read the book when it came out, but have not yet seen the film. Actually, of these ten, I've only seen Knocked Up, which was so awesome, Ratatouille, also so awesome. Looking forward to seeing the others soon, though.
Are We in a Recession?
The NYT offers six opinions to this question in today's paper. Two of them caught my eye. One is NBER head, Martin Feldstein, who explains briefly the role of the NBER in dating the start and end of business cycles. He notes we can't say, since the data isn't in, and it takes NBER a few months to analyze it, but at least as far as November is concerned, it does not look like we're in a recession. He ends, though, with the cautionary tone that 2008 is another matter.
The other article that caught my eye was Chauvett and Hassett's "Facts Say No" which is interesting mainly because it discusses James Hamilton's recession probability index (here for some more on it). Hamilton's model uses real-time data to predict whether the economy is currently in a recession. As it is a probability index, it is bounded from 0 to 100 and thus represents an estimated probability, and should be interpreted as such. The writers report that the index currently suggests there is a 16% chance that the economy is in a recession, which is a kind of perverse Goldilocks middle - not too high, but not low enough to be out of the woods.
"My judgment is that when we look back at December with the data released in 2008 we will conclude that the economy is not in recession now.I wonder what fiscal stimulus package could move through Congress? Another tax cut? We're about to cut back on the surge in Iraq, which would be a fiscal reduction, not an increase which may be needed.
There is no doubt, however, that the economy is slowing. There is a substantial risk of a recession in 2008. Whether that occurs will depend on a variety of forces, including monetary policy and a possible fiscal stimulus."
The other article that caught my eye was Chauvett and Hassett's "Facts Say No" which is interesting mainly because it discusses James Hamilton's recession probability index (here for some more on it). Hamilton's model uses real-time data to predict whether the economy is currently in a recession. As it is a probability index, it is bounded from 0 to 100 and thus represents an estimated probability, and should be interpreted as such. The writers report that the index currently suggests there is a 16% chance that the economy is in a recession, which is a kind of perverse Goldilocks middle - not too high, but not low enough to be out of the woods.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Mr. Romantic Probably Doesn't Listen
A man spent 50 years carving by hand 6000 steps into the side of a mountain so that his wife can more easily travel down the mountain. Sounds real sweet, right? But then check this little gem out.
Update: The other possibility is that he is signaling his type to her. Signaling theory can explain investments in seemingly wasteful, expensive, gestures, because the sender has private information about the type of person he is, which if known, would make a relationship with him very valuable for the receiver of the signal. If the costs of the signal are less expensive for "high types" than it is for the low types, then the market can separate the two types of people into high type individuals buying the signal and low types not, and in a Bayseian subgame perfection sense, all high types will be employed and matched with the individuals who value them. This is sometimes used to explain why men buy expensive diamond rings for engagement presents. But, I am skeptical that this man was doing this, at least according to the simpler Spence signaling game, because in the job market problem, the employer cannot discern the types of the workers ex ante but presumably can discern their type ex post. Surely in the 50 years this man spent carving steps in a mountain, we are deep in the ex post. By then, his wife knows exactly what type of man she married, and thus there's nothing to signal.
"He hand carved more than 6,000 steps over the years for my mother’s convenience, although she doesn’t go down the mountain that much."Now I'm not here to judge the man, but that's a damn lot of time he spent making steps for a woman who obviously doesn't need them. So either she valued the gesture of him spending his entire life carving steps in a mountain, or he was in reality probably not very good at discerning what her real needs were. I know that if in my house I spent all my time creating a gift for my wife that she didn't really want, she'd be pretty upset. This is why we economists prefer cash transfers to gifts. (I'm just playing with ya man! You're the bomb.)
Update: The other possibility is that he is signaling his type to her. Signaling theory can explain investments in seemingly wasteful, expensive, gestures, because the sender has private information about the type of person he is, which if known, would make a relationship with him very valuable for the receiver of the signal. If the costs of the signal are less expensive for "high types" than it is for the low types, then the market can separate the two types of people into high type individuals buying the signal and low types not, and in a Bayseian subgame perfection sense, all high types will be employed and matched with the individuals who value them. This is sometimes used to explain why men buy expensive diamond rings for engagement presents. But, I am skeptical that this man was doing this, at least according to the simpler Spence signaling game, because in the job market problem, the employer cannot discern the types of the workers ex ante but presumably can discern their type ex post. Surely in the 50 years this man spent carving steps in a mountain, we are deep in the ex post. By then, his wife knows exactly what type of man she married, and thus there's nothing to signal.
Hillary Still Ahead
Something is definitely going on with Hillary's campaign. This morning she was getting 61.1, now she's getting 59.9. A small drop, for sure, but she was pulling over 70 only a week ago. Obama, on the other hand, now has odds at 1 in 3, which is about a 20 point increase in his odds of winning from a week ago. What happened this last week to make the winds change so dramatically? I haven't heard anything; it seems like it came out of nowhere. Is this the Opray Winfrey endorsement? I wonder if anyone has done an event study on that, actually.
Juno Stuff (including Ebert's review)
Ebert has a great article that discusses Juno's director, Jason Reitman. But the real gold is here, his review of the movie itself. Of the film he says,
"Jason Reitman's "Juno" is just about the best movie of the year. It is very smart, very funny and very touching; it begins with the pacing of a screwball comedy and ends as a portrait of characters we have come to love. Strange, how during Juno's hip dialogue and cocky bravado, we begin to understand the young woman inside, and we want to hug her."So Juno is great - we all knew he'd say that. But what about Ellen Page, the young new star of the film?
"Has there been a better performance this year than Ellen Page's creation of Juno? I don't think so. If most actors agree that comedy is harder than drama, then harder still is comedy depending on a quick mind, utter self-confidence, and an ability to stop just short of going too far. Page's presence and timing are extraordinary. I have seen her in only two films, she is only 20, and I think she will be one of the great actors of her time."
Friday, December 14, 2007
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Lost in Translation Whisper Revealed
Someone has digitally processed Bill Murray's whisper in the last scene of Lost in Translation and posted it on youtube. See below. A bit anticlimactic.
Health in the News
1. Male circumcision is debated. The public health justification for it is clear - it's a low cost method of STD prevention, relative to many alternatives. Circumcision apparently reduces HIV transmission by as much as 50%. The total costs of the procedure, even including the presently discounted value of lost sexual pleasure (if such costs even exist, as it is only speculated at this point as far as I can tell), is far below the benefits. This should be encouraged particularly in developing parts of Africa and Asia, as well as parts of Europe, where HIV has hit hard.
2. High dosage chemo does not have benefits, based on a recent study involving over 6200 and 15 trials.
3. A postdoctoral fellow at the University of Chicago returns to Sierra Leone to undergo female circumcision with her ethnic tribe and writes about Westerner's misunderstanding of the practice. She claims they exaggerate the practice's effect on female sexual pleasure. I'd love to learn more about this. My understanding is that the female clitoris is a crucial component in the female orgasm, so I can't imagine how it is not on average reducing female sexual pleasure in the population. Whether it is oppressive, though, is an entirely different matter.
2. High dosage chemo does not have benefits, based on a recent study involving over 6200 and 15 trials.
3. A postdoctoral fellow at the University of Chicago returns to Sierra Leone to undergo female circumcision with her ethnic tribe and writes about Westerner's misunderstanding of the practice. She claims they exaggerate the practice's effect on female sexual pleasure. I'd love to learn more about this. My understanding is that the female clitoris is a crucial component in the female orgasm, so I can't imagine how it is not on average reducing female sexual pleasure in the population. Whether it is oppressive, though, is an entirely different matter.
Lost: MOBISODES
I had heard about the LOST: Mobisodes that ABC was releasing, but until today had not watched any of them. They are developed primarily for mobile phones (hence the name "MOB-isodes"), and are transmitted regularly, after which people have been uploading them to the Internet. You can watch the first five episodes at ABC, but the sixth episode is not yet up. You can watch it, though, at DarkUFO, a Lost fansite. They vary in importance - none of them reveal crucial information, but some are more relevant than others. Particularly, in the sixth, we learn more about Walt and what makes him such a "special child." It involves causing birds to fly into window, which then kills them, apparently.
Another There Will Be Blood Review
The Onion AV gives a sneak peek review of the new PTA film. Of the film, they write:
... I caught an early screening of Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood tonight, and several hours later I’m thinking that not only did I see the best film of the year—in a walk—but maybe one of the best movies I’ve ever seen."
Alan Keyes may be crazy
I'm not one to judge the mental state of a person, but is Alan Keyes crazy? Read this dodging, weird, and entirely non sequitur exchange.
"You have a couple hundred paid staff in Iowa?” a reporter asked.Now don't get me wrong, his points about money and campaigns are always worth a conversation or two in the public square. Besides, this Republican time around, you've got Ron Paul who went from nothing to something without even trying, all because of some obsessive fans of his online who just won't stop fundraising for him. But I didn't even know Alan Keyes was running for President, because well, where the hell has the guy been for the last year? Now he shows up at something and people ask him if even has a staff, or if he's even been campaigning at all, and he's all indignant, like "what a n00b for asking such a stupid question." The guy sounds like a lunatic.
“No, it’s not paid staff,” Keyes said. “Are you listening or not?”
“It’s a question. How many paid staff in Iowa?”
Keyes had had enough of such details. “You are working, I guess, for the elites who want us to believe that campaigns are about money,” he told the reporter.
“Do you not wish to answer the question?”
“No, I want you to understand that you don’t have the right to dictate our political process. It belongs to the people, not to you. And money doesn’t buy votes.”
I jumped in again. “Ambassador, I’m going to ask you one more time. Have you personally been doing campaign events here in Iowa in the last few months?”
“I have had several campaign events here in Iowa, but I will not define those events as you do,” he said.
“In the last few months?”
“I don’t define those events as you do. And I don’t think you have any right whatsoever to establish yourselves as the arbiter of what constitutes an event. I will do that in a way that reflects the best needs and purposes of the people who are working with me. Because as I see it, every time somebody comes forward and takes the pledge, that’s an Iowa event.”
Child Soldiering
Chris Blattman has an old post on 'child soldiering' which is a pervasive problem, particularly in certain war-torn parts of the developing world. One of the problems with this subject is not that it is ignored by the developed world. Quite the opposite - he notes numerous bestsellers, motion pictures, media coverage and political involvement just in 2006-2007 alone. The problem, he says, is how little is devoted to understanding the causes of this problem. What constraints and incentives do governments face to make it optimal for them to recruit child soldiers? Simplistic moralizing will not help us better understanding the problem, let alone the solution. He writes:
"What has been most upsetting to me is the how little actual information and investigation has gone into understanding the causes of child soldiering and what tactics might be effective at tackling this most terrible of issues. Too much of the analysis and policy-making is based on myth, supposition, and outdated information. Too often it seems as though emotion and activism trump careful investigation. Stomping out the recruitment and use of child soldiers, however, will take more than moral revulsion and grand speeches. Rather we must strive to understand the motivations and constraints that drive government armies and rebel groups to recruit and arm children."Chris's own research has found that in Uganda, one of the more notorious countries with pervasive child soldiering, the Lord's Resistance Army was three times more likely to target and recruit a 14-year-old compared to a 9-year-old (though the myth, he says, is that it's the 9-year-olds that have been targeted) or even a 21-year-old. His interpretations of his field research suggests that young adolescents are disproportionately targeted for three reasons:
because they were overrepresented in the population; because they were more effective guerrillas than younger children; and (perhaps most importantly) because they were more easily indoctrinated and disoriented than young adults—the older the recruit, the less likely they were to buy into the fear and propaganda, and the more likely they were to know their location and attempt escape. Youth who were children and orphaned at the time of abduction were also much more likely to stay with the rebel group once abducted, suggesting a fourth determinant of child soldiering: the quality of the life to which one can return.Update: You can find the data Chris uses for his research here. It's entitled The Survey of War Affected Youth (SWAY), and is amazingly a representative panel of youth affected by war in apparently developing countries. Also, here is a slide presentation of the SWAY data.
Economics Blogs
There are two types of economics blogs that I tend to read. There are the Marginal Revolution and Freakonomics types, which tend to be a little on the quirky, playful side of things. "Let's use economics to see the world with new eyes!" kind of stuff. It's been five years, I guess, since Steve Dubner wrote his NYT piece on Steve Levitt, and since then, it seems like everyone is up to their eyeballs with that brand of economics. Superficially, it's just an extension of Becker's own research agenda, which sought to study nonmarket phenomenon (like crime, the family, marriage, education, fertility) with economic theory, which has proven to be a smashing success in terms of new insights and influence. Somewhat deeper, it's an emphasis on the scientific method, rigorous empiricism, and "clean identification" that is the common characteristic of almost all of applied microeconomics of the last fifteen years. Marginal Revolution is mostly Tyler Cowen offering up his own preferences for all of us to share, which is pure consumption for economists who absolutely love what he has to say (Alex Tabarrok less so if the comments are any guide).
The other type of economics blog I read, and more often it is taking a larger share of my time and interests, are the slightly more technical blogs. Or rather, the blogs that are actually about traditional economic problems and policy, that devote all of their time to policy discussion and analysis. And my favorite, of all these, is EconBrowser, the oddly named blog of James Hamilton and his co-blogger Menzie Chinn. They really only write about the state of the economy - economic growth, inflation, employment, business cycles, energy - and so if you don't find that particularly interesting, then you won't find the blog as interesting. But, Hamilton is extraordinarily gifted in terms of his ability to communicate clearly, to provide exceptional analysis, and to be a joy to read. So I highly recommend their blog.
The other type of economics blog I read, and more often it is taking a larger share of my time and interests, are the slightly more technical blogs. Or rather, the blogs that are actually about traditional economic problems and policy, that devote all of their time to policy discussion and analysis. And my favorite, of all these, is EconBrowser, the oddly named blog of James Hamilton and his co-blogger Menzie Chinn. They really only write about the state of the economy - economic growth, inflation, employment, business cycles, energy - and so if you don't find that particularly interesting, then you won't find the blog as interesting. But, Hamilton is extraordinarily gifted in terms of his ability to communicate clearly, to provide exceptional analysis, and to be a joy to read. So I highly recommend their blog.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
New Fed Plan
Just saw a press release from the Fed on a new plan. Lots of flurry online as people discuss it (here, here, and here for starters). I'm printing it out now, and if I can make sense of it, I'll try to put it into terms I can understand and make a post. As an applied micro-economist who teaches principles of macroeconomics, I figure I should be able to understand this, right?
Update: I printed it out, went into the office with the printer, heard the pages printing, and then walked out without them. Score another one for my 2 out of 100 on conscientiousness.
Update: I printed it out, went into the office with the printer, heard the pages printing, and then walked out without them. Score another one for my 2 out of 100 on conscientiousness.
Chris Blattman's blog
This is a great blog on the economics of political change, conflict and economic development in the developing world. Chris is an assistant professor at Yale's department of economics and political science. I just discovered the blog today after spending some time on Dani Rodrick's blog, which I rarely do.
Great Advice for those Considering a PhD
Chris Blattman, Assistant professor of Economics and Political Science at Yale, has a great blog post on how to get a phd and save the world. Anyone who has completed a PhD, and who is passionate about their work, will immediately see the wisdom in this advice.
1. Use graduate school to tech up. You’ll have time to learn how save the world later, when you’re actually in it. Learn all of the theoretical, statistical and other difficult-to-acquire skills you can while in grad school, because you won’t have the time later on. You, your cause, and your job prospects will be well-served by the technical skills you build.
2. Hang in there. In the first year of any grad program you will encounter a lot of required material that will feel too theoretical, too divorced from social change, and (occasionally) like too much nonsense. Much of it is good for you (see point 1), even if it doesn’t feel like it at the time. After a year of metrics and micro theory, I was ready to run to the real world to do what I thought I really wanted to do. The best advice I ever got (from one of my pre-PhD advisers) was, “Shut up and hang in there; by your second to third year you will discover all the people doing interesting applied work soon enough and be free to work on whatever you want by your third year." He was right.
3. Take chances. The second best piece of advice I ever received came from my dissertation chair, shortly after my oral examinations committee told me that my prospectus was poorly thought out, uneconomic, and overly risky. They were 100% right, and I benefitted from hearing it (although at the time I was miserable). Where I think they were wrong is that they told me to abandon my plans for risky and expensive field work. They favored the less risky route that could get me to a completed dissertation faster. My chair's response: “Hey, if you really want to do this, why not? Give it a shot. If it doesn’t pan out after three months, then come back and work on something else. Worst case scenario: you lose a few thousand dollars and a summer, but you have a great experience.” I plan to give the same advice to my students.
4. But minimize your risks by being prepared. Don’t embark on a big project, especially field work, without a solid hypothesis, research design, and plan. Think through the theory beforehand. Write down your assumptions, your logic, and your econometric regressions before you collect data. Especially write out your regressions. I am still guilty of rushing to the field too quickly, and am continually reminded of the costs.
5. Look before you leap. If you’re not sure whether you want to be an academic researcher, use your first two summers to work for outside organizations—whether the World Bank, an investment fund, the Fed, or a think tank. Try each on for size. At the end of your fourth or fifth year of grad school do not make one of the biggest decisions of your life—“what kind of job do I want?”—with oodles of information about one kind (academia) and zero about the alternatives. You don't have to be an economist to know that such decision-making is sub-optimal.
6. Your professors are not your only role models. If you are at a strong research university, remember that what your professors do is not necessarily representative of all your post-grad options. They represent maybe 1% of graduates, and they are self-selected to have a particular set of interests, life goals, and measures of success. These are not necessarily bad measures—I share many of them. But incredibly smart and interesting people graduate from economics and political science PhDs every year and go on to amazing and fulfilling careers. You will inevitably begin to take on the interests and priorities of your professors, even if they are the interests and priorities of a selective 1%. If these values don’t suit you in the end, or make you miserable, that’s okay.
7. Do what you love. You can try to game the system and do something that’s hot, conventional, or orthodox. But if you don’t love your topic and your research, it is probably not going to be interesting to anyone, let alone you. Plus you’ll be miserable. Did you really work this hard and come this far to be mediocre and unhappy?
8. Don’t hang your job market hopes on academic positions outside your core discipline. There aren’t nearly as many of them out there as you might think, and they can be hard to get. There are few policy schools, and they seem to have relatively few junior openings. Public health and other professional schools have limited needs for social scientists, and their job market system is a bit opaque. If these positions suit your interests, shoot for them by all means. But your main market will be your core discipline, so keep this in mind when you write up your dissertation, letters, and applications. For the same reason, you should be cautious about entering interdisciplinary PhD programs.
9. Be wary of big field projects. A number of leading academics (and more than a few grad students) are working on large field projects with governments, international institutions, and NGOs. Be aware that these projects—nationwide surveys, program evaluations, and the like—have limitations: they seldom implement on schedule; the research designs are not always as “clean” as what you drew on paper on Day One; and the implementing organization’s interests and priorities are often different (and probably more important for more people) than your own.
10. Don’t ask, don’t tell? Here I hesitate. If you are undecided about a career in academic research, my gut (unfortunately) tells me that you shouldn’t advertise this fact to your department until you are certain. My main rationale: some (but not all) academics will be quick to write you off as ‘not serious’, and should you change your mind later in your PhD you may find that ‘credibility’ difficult to reclaim. Certainly you should be candid with your committee about any interest in or openness to non-academic careers. They will have much advice and experience to offer. But don’t declare your intent to follow other paths if you are interested in keeping the academic route open.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Promising Reviews
The New Yorker's reviews of Paul Thomas Anderson's new movie, There Will Be Blood and Juno fills me with excitement for the holiday season. The opening lines of the review read
"Early in “There Will Be Blood,” an enthralling and powerfully eccentric American epic (opening on December 26th), Daniel Plainview climbs down a ladder at his small silver mine. A rung breaks, and Daniel (Daniel Day-Lewis) falls to the base of the shaft and smashes his leg. He’s filthy, miserable, gasping for breath and life. The year is 1898. Two and a half hours later (and more than thirty years later in the time span of the film), he’s on the floor again, this time sitting on a polished bowling lane in the basement of an enormous mansion that he has built on the Pacific Coast. Having abandoned silver mining for oil, Daniel has become one of the wealthiest tycoons in Southern California. Yet he’s still filthy, with dirty hands and a face that glistens from too much oil raining down on him—it looks as if oil were seeping from his pores. The experience chronicled between these two moments is as astounding in its emotional force and as haunting and mysterious as anything seen in American movies in recent years. I’m not quite sure how it happened, but after making “Magnolia” (1999) and “Punch-Drunk Love” (2002)—skillful but whimsical movies, with many whims that went nowhere—the young writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson has now done work that bears comparison to the greatest achievements of Griffith and Ford.Have I written yet that Paul Thomas Anderson is my director, period, of anyone, including Wes Anderson, Alfred Hitchcock, Martin Scorsese and whoever your favorite director is? Yes, my absolute favorite. I own three movies in DVD format: Boogie Nights, which I gave my brother for his birthday, but which I stole back from him after I later learned he had never even taken the damn thing out of the plastic wrapping (ed: that is because he is a heathen), Magnolia, which I stole from my brother since he did not deserve it since he only bought it because it has Tom Cruise in it, and Donnie Darko. He's a genius. I cannot wait. I will be seeing There Will Be Blood alone in a dark theater in Memphis, Tennessee on December 26. If you are also there, do not bother me.
Interview with Juno Screenwriter
I had no idea that the screenwriter of Juno was Diablo Cody, an ad agency worker turned stripper turned writer turned screenwriter. This is apparently a well-known interview with her on David Letterman (but new to me). You can tell, from the interview, how quick and witty she is, and how articulate and interesting your way of expressing her is.
Iraqi Bonds Rally for the Surge?
I wonder how Michael Greenstone's model would handle this new data on Iraqi bond prices, which are now rallying. Many people pointed out that his working paper may have bias because of the timing of the credit crunch with the surge itself. He does tries to deal with that by comparing outcomes on other risky securities, to his credit. But this new data suggests some updating downward of expectations about future Iraqi state default, no? Assuming this is causal (which I have no evidence for either way), I do wonder why the effect would be delayed.
Mockbusters
Interesting. The Asylum is a low-budget movie studio that makes cheap ripoffs of Hollywood blockbusters, called jokingly as "mock-busters". These movies take about 3 months to film, and under a million dollars make, and usually arrive in video rental stores a week or two before the blockbuster themselves come out. Such classics as The Da Vinci Treasure and Snakes on a Train are examples. I wonder if this maybe helps, even, the Hollywood films? It's just more exposure for their films, and seriously, who really is going to go see I Am Omega instead of I Am Legend? I bet they're more complements than substitutes. (hat tip to barlow).
40 Acres and a Mule
Saw this on MR this morning. What a great sounding paper this is.
Although over 140 years have passed since slaves were emancipated in the United States, African-Americans continue to lag behind the general population in terms of earnings and wealth. Both Reconstruction era policy makers and modern scholars have argued that racial inequality could have been reduced or eliminated if plans to allocate each freed slave family “forty acres and a mule” had been implemented following the Civil War. In this paper, I develop an empirical strategy that exploits a plausibly exogenous variation in policies of the Cherokee Nation and the southern United States to identify the impact of free land on the economic outcomes of former slaves. The Cherokee Nation, located in what is now the northeastern corner of Oklahoma, permitted the enslavement of people of African descent. After joining the Confederacy in 1861, the Cherokee Nation was forced during post-war negotiations to allow its former slaves to claim and improve any unused land in the Nation’s public domain. To examine this unique population of former slaves, I have digitized the entirety of the 1860 Cherokee Nation Slave Schedules and a 60 percent sample of the 1880 Cherokee Census. I find the racial gap in land ownership, farm size, and investment in long-term capital projects is smaller in the Cherokee Nation than in the southern United States. The advantages Cherokee freedmen experience in these areas translate into smaller racial wealth and income gaps in the Cherokee Nation than in the South. Additionally, the Cherokee freedmen had higher absolute levels of wealth and higher levels of income than southern freedmen. These results together suggest that access to free land had a considerable and positive benefit on former slavesThe author is named Melinda Miller, and she is on the job market this year from the University of Michigan. I'm really disappointed in myself for never thinking very deeply about how valuable the 40 acres and a mule resource transfer would've been for Black Americans post-Civil War, and specifically how important that would've been for longrun prosperity for them. It would seem that it could have had a plausibly large impact on their labor productivity, given the agricultural economy of the time, and therefore increased their relative wages, the quality outcomes of Black children, and probably increased human capital accumulation insofar as educated children are normal goods. All of which could have had big "catch-up effects" on Blacks in the longrun. More evidence that continually makes me cynical because of the systematic obstacles Blacks have faced historically the US.
Monday, December 10, 2007
Superbad (3.75 stars/4 stars)
Update: I've added the two scenes in question.
Ah, Superbad. If one were to review you, where would one start? Inevitably, every thing I could say positive would start with the word "Michael" and end with the word "Cera." He's like some wonderful adolescent male Ellen DeGeneres. The scene of him singing "These Eyes" is great, but one of the absolute best scenes is of him giving advice to Seth trying on too-tight-jeans in the mall. My wife and I rewound that and watched it again, and I was crying through the entire thing. I love Cera's shy, understated, tense delivery of his lines and his characters. That's why he reminds me of Ellen DeGeneres, actually.
It was the most filthy movie I've ever seen, but that's the Judd Apatow/Seth Rogen formula. Tender-hearted, endearing films of pure filth. And they get me every time. Three and three-quarter stars! Yeah baby!
Ah, Superbad. If one were to review you, where would one start? Inevitably, every thing I could say positive would start with the word "Michael" and end with the word "Cera." He's like some wonderful adolescent male Ellen DeGeneres. The scene of him singing "These Eyes" is great, but one of the absolute best scenes is of him giving advice to Seth trying on too-tight-jeans in the mall. My wife and I rewound that and watched it again, and I was crying through the entire thing. I love Cera's shy, understated, tense delivery of his lines and his characters. That's why he reminds me of Ellen DeGeneres, actually.
It was the most filthy movie I've ever seen, but that's the Judd Apatow/Seth Rogen formula. Tender-hearted, endearing films of pure filth. And they get me every time. Three and three-quarter stars! Yeah baby!
Four Color Love Song (Part 2)
Everyday, my son and I listen to the Metasciences' Four Color Love Song. I've got the song stuck in my head - or the lyrics rather - and it's a song that I enjoy discussing with my six-year-old. He's become analytical about music lyrics, so it's a good workhorse song for that, given that he enjoys superheroes, and there's enough cryptic elements to get a good discussion going.
My son asked me today why songs had choruses. "Is it because they can make more money with a chorus," he asked me today? I said no, that's not it exactly. It seems there must be some reason for it, in that people prefer songs that return to a few lines that repeat - and if so, then song writers probably want to make songs with choruses, so they can make more money. But, I didn't say that, I just said that there must something intrinsically satisfying about them that makes singers want to put them in there. I like the chorus in this song, because it is a variation of the lines,
When I think about it, I think this a risky song; how easily it could fall into something campy and stupid, but it manages to be a touching love song. It's not the most profound song in the world, obviously, but neither is superficial. It touches upon many classic elements in song. For instance, take the issues of time which is woven throughout the second half of the song. Tthe singer is conscious of the timelessness of his love, their lives, and comic book universes in general. There's a reason why it feels like 1963, and that they don't look a day over 23. It's because in the superhero universe, no one ages much. But, it's also because of that feature that you run into so many problems with "continuity" wherein historical contradictions inevitably (optimally?) creep in, requiring all kinds of masking tape and jury-rigging (also called "retcon") to fix it.
But, that their love is timeless, too, is in there, and that reminds me of that John Keats poem, "Ode on a Grecian Urn" which basically does something very similar - the two lovers embracing on the urn is frozen forever. In this comic book universe, how could he not love it? She cannot die except at the hands of an enemy. Their love is permanent, because the writers essentially keep the lovers written in a honeymoon-esque phase of their relationship. I wonder if this is partly what he means when he writes that
I'll probably have to have one more post to finish these thoughts. I'm still not done with this song.
My son asked me today why songs had choruses. "Is it because they can make more money with a chorus," he asked me today? I said no, that's not it exactly. It seems there must be some reason for it, in that people prefer songs that return to a few lines that repeat - and if so, then song writers probably want to make songs with choruses, so they can make more money. But, I didn't say that, I just said that there must something intrinsically satisfying about them that makes singers want to put them in there. I like the chorus in this song, because it is a variation of the lines,
"I love my lifeAnd each time, the context and the phrasing is slightly different, giving a slightly different meaning. At the beginning, it's light-hearted and romantic, but towards the end, it's darker, and yet still intensely romantic, as in the end, the hero considers the fact that his enemies might try to kill his lover, causing him to say
I love this universe"
"You are my lifeI like the hook, but I also like that last part (my emphasis in italics). The melody at that point falls a bit, and you sense the seriousness of his love - that he would throw away everything to protect her.
You are my universe
You're everything I need"
When I think about it, I think this a risky song; how easily it could fall into something campy and stupid, but it manages to be a touching love song. It's not the most profound song in the world, obviously, but neither is superficial. It touches upon many classic elements in song. For instance, take the issues of time which is woven throughout the second half of the song. Tthe singer is conscious of the timelessness of his love, their lives, and comic book universes in general. There's a reason why it feels like 1963, and that they don't look a day over 23. It's because in the superhero universe, no one ages much. But, it's also because of that feature that you run into so many problems with "continuity" wherein historical contradictions inevitably (optimally?) creep in, requiring all kinds of masking tape and jury-rigging (also called "retcon") to fix it.
But, that their love is timeless, too, is in there, and that reminds me of that John Keats poem, "Ode on a Grecian Urn" which basically does something very similar - the two lovers embracing on the urn is frozen forever. In this comic book universe, how could he not love it? She cannot die except at the hands of an enemy. Their love is permanent, because the writers essentially keep the lovers written in a honeymoon-esque phase of their relationship. I wonder if this is partly what he means when he writes that
Gwen Stacy isn't dead, she's only sleeping.When is Gwen Stacy sleeping? Of course there is a period where lives, but it's actually a very short period of Peter Parker's past. For most of his comic book life, she's been dead. Likewise, by the time we meet Elektra, she's completely insane, and totally evil. So when in this time he's talking about?
And Elektra isn't evil or insane.
I'll probably have to have one more post to finish these thoughts. I'm still not done with this song.
NPR Interviews "Juno"'s Ellen Page
Interview here. Interesting girl. This was interesting.
"Page believes it was her upbringing in Canada that has set her apart from American actors.
"I wasn't 11 and being forced into tap lessons and singing lessons, and being sent to auditions by my overly tanned mother in California," she says.
Instead, Page attended a Buddhist school in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The lessons she learned about withholding judgment are evident as she considers the scandalous, self-destructive women her age who command so much tabloid attention."
Waitress (3 stars/4 stars)
We saw Waitress last night. I don't have the energy for a full-on review. Maybe later. I liked the movie, and will give it 3 - 3.25 stars, but in all honesty, I think I've seen so many shows and movies lately with this type of eccentric storytelling and characterization that I may have found it more annoying than most people. After all, it scores a 75 at metacritic, which is pretty good. Most people really enjoyed it. And I did enjoy it, but it was also kind of depressing too. Everyone in the film was in a relationship that made them miserable - usually married to someone they hated and who mistreated them. I found it a little shallow and sentimental in some places, because continually the emphasis was on liberation from a miserable marriage through artistic expression and authentic bonds with people (either sexually or with a newborn child). At times, I found it a story with some value, but at other times, I found it painful and sometimes I even disagreed with it. BUt anyway, I figure if I give Holiday a 3-star (readjusted down to 2.5), then I have to give this one more, but I really wasn't crazy about this movie. So, personally, I'm giving it a 3 star.
Hiding in his House
A few weeks ago, I said I hated sensational stories in the news, sometimes, if I thought there was a good chance I'd never find out how they ended - like the one about the policeman who allegedly died in a canoeing accident only to show up five years later. Turns out, he's been living in his own house and faked his death.
Sunday, December 9, 2007
Jonathan Edwards is my Homeboy
So says this nice t-shirt, which I now want and hope my wife will get for me for xmas. Wifey - get me this...
Thin Market Externalities
Illegal gun markets may have them. A forthcoming Economic Journal article by Philip Cook, Jens Ludwig, Sudhir Venkatesh and Anthony Braga finds that illegal drug exchanges happen much less often than you'd think, and it has to do with the nature of the good being trafficked. Apparently, there are few sellers and few buyers, and because illegal drugs are, well, illegal, sellers and buyers have to rely on informal institutions to find one another. But because they're illegal, those informal institutions are not very stable. Interesting hypothesis. Haven't read the paper yet, just the Economist article.
Revolver Review
There are two types of Ebert reviews I love. Okay, that's a lie, I love all of Ebert's review. But I need a rhetorical device to introduce this point, and that is that his 4 star reviews are interesting, as are his 0 star reviews. Revolver fits the latter, even though it's technically a half-star review (man, I'm full of caveats today, aren't I?). He really hated this film.
"Some of the acting is better than the film deserves. Make that all of the acting. Actually, the film stock itself is better than the film deserves. You know when sometimes a film catches fire inside a projector? If it happened with this one, I suspect the audience might cheer."
Community Urinalysis
Today's New York Times Magazine is its 7th annual "Year in Ideas." There's an alphabetized list of interesting scientific and practical contributions made in 2007 in the issue, and one of them caught my eye. Jennifer Field, an environmental chemist at Oregon State University, has developed an ingenious method of analyzing a community's illicit drug usage. She goes to the community's sewage-treatment plant and then tests the sewer water for traces of whatever drugs she's interested in. The graphic displayed beside this post shows an example chart from this "community urinalysis," adjusted for the size of the population. In other words, these are per-person rates for a community, and she said she finds all kinds of interesting patterns. Cocaine, for instance, in affluent communities spikes on the weekends. Methamphetamine is, of course, high as we expect, and varies from city to city. Meth is a rural, poor, white drug, so I suspect its concentration shows up more in the rural areas of the midwest, the pacific northwest, and increasingly in the southeast.
How great would it be if you had this kind of analysis performed daily in every county in the country, and then made it available to, oh I don't know, some assistant professor of economics somewhere. NIH, are you listening?
Saturday, December 8, 2007
Jumper Trailer
Jumper is a new 2008 movie starring Hayden Christiansen and Samuel L. Jackson, directed by Doug Liman, about a man who can teleport. It looks interesting - very much so.
What Kind of Christian Am I?
The Tim Keller kind apparently. At least, I think that's Keller in the picture. Seriously, though, this is actually eerily acccurate. I am from the Deep South, I was once Southern Baptist, and I am a member of the PCA. I like that they're 85% sure I'm a "High Church Nomad," too, which though I've never heard of that term, upon hearing that there exists such a category, I immediately liked it and will now proudly wear it like a badge.
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What Kind of Evangelical Are You created with QuizFarm.com | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| You scored as Evangelical Presbyterian You're an Evangelical Presbyterian, probably a member of a PCA church. Sound theology and reverent worship are important to you, but so are outreach and ministry to the community. You are likely to be from the deep South, and perhaps at one time you were Southern Baptist.
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Friday, December 7, 2007
Line Rider Jedi Master
My six-year-old son will freak when he watches this. The second one is amazing. And I didn't realize you could keep throwing the little guy around even after the sled crashed.
Update: Good grief! I would embed this one, but cannot figure out how. But, this one is like some kind of crazy Zen experience.
Update: Good grief! I would embed this one, but cannot figure out how. But, this one is like some kind of crazy Zen experience.
Ebert on Juno
Ebert sketches his experience watching Juno and opens with this line:
"I don't know when I've heard a standing ovation so long, loud and warm as the one at the Toronto International Film Festival after Jason Reitman's "Juno," which I predict will become quickly beloved when it opens at Christmas time, and wins a best actress nomination for its 20-year-old star, Ellen Page."
How the United States Lost the War on Drugs
Pretty ambitious title. I'm printing it out now.
Update: Well, I wasn't expecting that. That's some of the best journalism on American drug policy I've ever read. It's 20 pages, engrossing but demanding. So I recommend you read it when you have a half hour to kill. It has a very good timeline of how American policy changed over the years, adapting to new problems of drug abuse and drug distribution, and specifically how different ideologies in the office of the drug czar affected America's targeted approaches to (usually) the wrong enemies.
Update 2: Absolutely engrossing, informative, and well-told. I strongly recommend you pick up the latest Rolling Stone and read this article. It'll take you through a timeline linking the Vietnam War to today's methamphetamine epidemic, and introduce you to many failed drug policy experiments along the way. I was somewhat hopeful in the end, because there have been moments along the way where something really almost happened. From the perspective of drug policy, I suspect Hilary Clinton would be far more effective than Giuliani, personally.
Update: Well, I wasn't expecting that. That's some of the best journalism on American drug policy I've ever read. It's 20 pages, engrossing but demanding. So I recommend you read it when you have a half hour to kill. It has a very good timeline of how American policy changed over the years, adapting to new problems of drug abuse and drug distribution, and specifically how different ideologies in the office of the drug czar affected America's targeted approaches to (usually) the wrong enemies.
Update 2: Absolutely engrossing, informative, and well-told. I strongly recommend you pick up the latest Rolling Stone and read this article. It'll take you through a timeline linking the Vietnam War to today's methamphetamine epidemic, and introduce you to many failed drug policy experiments along the way. I was somewhat hopeful in the end, because there have been moments along the way where something really almost happened. From the perspective of drug policy, I suspect Hilary Clinton would be far more effective than Giuliani, personally.
Rising Teen Birth Rates
More on the reported increase in teen birth rates, from the CDC, here.
I probably believe the incarceration story much more than I believe the abortion legalization story, only because I've got one working paper on the abortion legalization story, and I think the evidence is fragile and mostly spurious correlations. At least, it does not explain the decline in gonorrhea rates that occur roughly coincidental to the decline in crime rates, which makes me more skeptical than I used to be towards the theory, in general.
"Between 2005 and 2006, the birth rate for girls 15 to 19 rose 3 percent, from 40.5 births per 1,000 in 2005 to 41.9 births per 1,000 in 2006. This comes after 14 years of declining rates. During that time, teen births dropped 34 percent from a peak of 61.8 births per 1,000 in 1991, according to the report.Interestingly, the fall in teen fertility is a curiousity in and of itself. I've seen several explanations - the rise in male (juvenile) incarceration has been posited by Amee Kamdar at the University of Chicago and Stephane Mechoulan and the University of Toronto in independent papers, with persuasive evidence. But I've also seen some compelling papers by Stephen Levitt, John Donahue and Grogger and Serkan Ozbeklik on the role of 1970s era legalized abortion. Their argument is an extension of the original Donahue-Levitt hypothesis, wherein legalizing abortion removed potential offenders, and in this case, potential teen fathers and mothers, and thus why teen fertility fell.
The biggest increases for 2006 were among black teens, where the rate rose 5 percent, followed by 4 percent for American-Indian teens, 3 percent for white teens and 2 percent for Hispanic teens."
I probably believe the incarceration story much more than I believe the abortion legalization story, only because I've got one working paper on the abortion legalization story, and I think the evidence is fragile and mostly spurious correlations. At least, it does not explain the decline in gonorrhea rates that occur roughly coincidental to the decline in crime rates, which makes me more skeptical than I used to be towards the theory, in general.
Milton Friedman on Self-Interest and Profit
This is a great exchange between Milton Friedman and a young man. Some of the commenters beat up on the young man, so I was expecting him to be a complete buffoon. But, honestly, I thought he was being very respectful and passionate in his questioning, and attempting to be reasonable. He's very rehearsed, and I actually thought he handled himself very well. It's basically a losing battle to try to battle wits with Milton Friedman. In the first part, at around 2:00-2:40, there's a great exchange about whether Friedman supported subsidized flood insurance and subsidized nuclear power insurance, and he says, "Look, don't attribute to me your conventional views of what `conservative' believes because I am not a conservative. I'm a believer in freedom!" Straight out of Braveheart baby. Enough to make me return to my libertarian roots (maybe).
Part One (05:25)
Part Two (06:55)
In this second part, the young man uses the Ford Pinto as a point to illustrate the inherent inhumanity of capitalism, wherein manufacturers use cost-benefit analysis to create products that have risks of death for consumer. These risks, when multiplied over the damages, can lead to a firm to choose not to correct a design flaw, since the cost of dealing with individual lawsuits may in fact be cheaper in the event that such problems occur. Thus, it is alleged (or rather, taken as fact by most) that Ford disregarded the problems of the Pinto, involving the lack of reinforcement on the rear bumper which made the fuel tank vulnerable to a rear-end collision and an explosion possible, and continued to manufacture the car without installing an $11-13 dollar device that would've protected the fuel tank and lowered the probabilities of an explosion significantly. Looking around online, I found an interesting article on wikipedia about the Pinto problems, and upon reading it, it appears a law review article came out in the late 1990s finding that the number of deaths from the Ford Pinto were not statistically different from any other automobile at the time. That it actually had a lower fatality rate for cars of that size. Here's the quote.
Part One (05:25)
Part Two (06:55)
In this second part, the young man uses the Ford Pinto as a point to illustrate the inherent inhumanity of capitalism, wherein manufacturers use cost-benefit analysis to create products that have risks of death for consumer. These risks, when multiplied over the damages, can lead to a firm to choose not to correct a design flaw, since the cost of dealing with individual lawsuits may in fact be cheaper in the event that such problems occur. Thus, it is alleged (or rather, taken as fact by most) that Ford disregarded the problems of the Pinto, involving the lack of reinforcement on the rear bumper which made the fuel tank vulnerable to a rear-end collision and an explosion possible, and continued to manufacture the car without installing an $11-13 dollar device that would've protected the fuel tank and lowered the probabilities of an explosion significantly. Looking around online, I found an interesting article on wikipedia about the Pinto problems, and upon reading it, it appears a law review article came out in the late 1990s finding that the number of deaths from the Ford Pinto were not statistically different from any other automobile at the time. That it actually had a lower fatality rate for cars of that size. Here's the quote.
However, a 1991 law review paper by Gary Schwartz [2], argued that the case against the Pinto was less clear-cut than commonly supposed. Only 27 people ever died in Pinto fires. Given the Pinto's production figures (over 2 million built), this was no worse than typical for the time. Schwartz argued that the car was no more fire-prone than other cars of the time, that its fatality rates were lower than comparably sized imported automobiles, and that the supposed "smoking gun" document that plaintiffs claimed showed Ford's callousness in designing the Pinto was a document based on National Highway Traffic Safety Administration regulations about the value of a human life rather than a document used to design the Pinto.
Tetris on a Building
Okay, this is pretty awesome, I'll give them that. Some Finnish students basically programmed an entire building's dormitory lights to function effectively as a tetris game, which one of the students then begins to play using a cell phone outside the freaking building. Not a joke. I cannot imagine the time it took to do this, but it's the kind of Real Genius stuff I sort of find funny and cool. The one thing that is not clear from the video is whether a row clears when he fills in a complete row. It looks like the bottom three rows, towards the end, are all missing one cell, so the video never apparently shows a case. I can't imagine it wouldn't - what a crappy version of Tetris if you can't actually do the damn thing the game is meant to do!
Reflections on Teaching Graduate Micro for the First Time
The graduate exam is done. It took them 2 hours and 45 minutes to complete it, rather than the 2 hours they are allotted here at my university for final exams. I spent the entire time rewriting the syllabus for this class, and sketching the many lessons I learned about teaching it, the pitfalls, the objectives for me and for my students, and how to improve. This class is going to be one I'm teaching from the perspective of a longrun equilibrium. I definitely will not have it up to snuff next fall, nor the fall after I'm guessing. I can already tell that there's a convergence to the longrun class I'm trying to teach that will take many periods.
For one, this semester went badly in the sense that I spent far too much time on certain subjects and never even got into competitive markets or imperfect competition, let alone partial and general equilibrium. We ended up spending a month and a half just on risk, uncertainty and game theory. Part of what slowed us down was just me now knowing, ex ante, what I should and should not cover, and so I covered everything. And in the end it felt like running waist-deep through snow. Next time, I will know exactly what to leave out. In fact, that knowledge is part of what I'm using to help me differentiate this course, which is a masters level microeconomics class, from a doctoral course. Like a PhD course, I emphasize analytical tools, like optimization, and derive economic theories from various axioms related to consumer preferences, production technologies, and market structure. But, unlike a PhD course, I will not be requiring proofs, nor will I ever much get into the n-good case anymore. For this class, I'm convinced the 2-good case is sufficient, and that can be one way that I save time without loss of generality.
I want them to learn: optimization techniques, duality, envelope theorem results, estimating elasticities and comparative statics, and the properties of various functions. But, that only takes me really through half the class I'm trying to teach. The sections I'm less comfortable with, that I covered this term, are related to information (uncertainty and risk mainly), insurance and game theory. I learned that it's entirely possible to spend 6 weeks on just those three topics. So how do I fix that? For the game theory section, I am going to fix it in simple, time-saving ways that I think will go further. Instead of writing out the definitions of the various nash equilibrium (we go into detail on dominant strategy, best response functions, nash equlibrium in pure and mixed strategies, subgame perfect nash equilibrium, backwards induction, and bayesian subgame perfect nash equilibrium), I'm going to create a single handout with these definitions and make students responsible for knowing this before coming to class. I won't write definitions on the board - or at least, I will do it much less than I did this semester, as that inevitably cost me hours, cumulatively, which itself translates into entire days of lost time. So, wherever I can, I'm going to use the board for working out problems, and handouts for listing definitions, properties of functions, and hints for solving problems.
This takes me to the second point, and that's the techniques. As my exams are mainly analytical, requiring students solve word problems mathematically, I think students need more front-end help to guide them through these kinds of problems. Students would benefit from a simple guide for how to solve a sequential game of incomplete information when trying to find the bayesian nash equilbirium. In my experience, teachers never give their students this, and as a student, it was the one thing I was always searching for. Okay, I know now the definition of Bayesian Nash Equilibrium. But how do I go from this specific game to using that definition to find the answer? Students would benefit from seeing the process in steps, wherein they know to use backwards induction to solve first the last person's best response function, and then inserting that best response function into the first person's best response function, then substituting the first person's solution into the second's to find his, etc. In other words, I'm going to aim to make this theoretical class more practical. These are masters students. They need to see where the theory comes from, become somewhat competent with optimization techniques and all related techniques, and they need to feel like they can use it themselves. So I've been reflecting on the Trivium some, and I think this class needs to incorporate some of the insights from that ancient pedagogy. Specifically, start with simple building blocks, build up to the internal logic within some given area, then extend the logic outside the system to new problems. Thus, classwork and problem sets will mainly be designed to force students to master those first two stages - the "grammar" stage and the "logic" stage if you use the Trivium language - and then tests will mainly be "rhetoric" tests. That is, application. Can they take what they've done and apply it to something unknown? Their grade in the class will depend on the degree of success at doing so.
The challenging part, though, is the development of relevant tests and exams, and then specifically timely grading with informative responses by myself. Having never taught the class, I did not know beforehand what to test them on, and so tended to just work linearly through the textbook, devoting nearly all my time just to lecture preparation, and a minority of my time to developing exams and problem sets. Not surprisingly, students felt the exams were too hard, and problem sets did not lead them to skills that made them successful on those exams. This is a function of the lack of time I poured into developing those materials. It seemed to me that the best use of my time this semester was to spend a majority of my time just re-learning this material, as it had been five years since I'd taken it myself, and I had never been all that good at it when I took it as a first year. But, now I know I have to make changes specifically in the realm of problem set and exam preparation/design, and timely, informative turnaround. The one thing that I think I could do differently is to actually put myself through the gauntlet and start working through problem sets on my own. As I tell my students, learning economics is more like learning to play the guitar than it is like reading a book. Reading a book tends to have a passive quality to it, particularly if you have a good memory and a voracious imagination and appetite for knowledge. Physics, and to a somewhat related degree economics, are unique in that they require practice, memorization, and more practice. The tools are themselves acquired through inputs of time spent (usually in agony) working on practice questions. If you cannot find some, you go to the back of the book and work those end-of-the-book chapters. When you're done with those, you tear up your answers and start over. So one thing I'll be doing differently is working through a large batch of problem sets before hand, to help me get in the right frame of mind for designing my own. This time, I depended largely on old problem sets of my own, and it helped at certain points just fine, but did not when I ended up spending forever and a day on risk and game theory.
I'm going to continue to reflect on these questions, and this semester, and hopefully turn the experience into something I can use to improve the class for the sake of the future students.
For one, this semester went badly in the sense that I spent far too much time on certain subjects and never even got into competitive markets or imperfect competition, let alone partial and general equilibrium. We ended up spending a month and a half just on risk, uncertainty and game theory. Part of what slowed us down was just me now knowing, ex ante, what I should and should not cover, and so I covered everything. And in the end it felt like running waist-deep through snow. Next time, I will know exactly what to leave out. In fact, that knowledge is part of what I'm using to help me differentiate this course, which is a masters level microeconomics class, from a doctoral course. Like a PhD course, I emphasize analytical tools, like optimization, and derive economic theories from various axioms related to consumer preferences, production technologies, and market structure. But, unlike a PhD course, I will not be requiring proofs, nor will I ever much get into the n-good case anymore. For this class, I'm convinced the 2-good case is sufficient, and that can be one way that I save time without loss of generality.
I want them to learn: optimization techniques, duality, envelope theorem results, estimating elasticities and comparative statics, and the properties of various functions. But, that only takes me really through half the class I'm trying to teach. The sections I'm less comfortable with, that I covered this term, are related to information (uncertainty and risk mainly), insurance and game theory. I learned that it's entirely possible to spend 6 weeks on just those three topics. So how do I fix that? For the game theory section, I am going to fix it in simple, time-saving ways that I think will go further. Instead of writing out the definitions of the various nash equilibrium (we go into detail on dominant strategy, best response functions, nash equlibrium in pure and mixed strategies, subgame perfect nash equilibrium, backwards induction, and bayesian subgame perfect nash equilibrium), I'm going to create a single handout with these definitions and make students responsible for knowing this before coming to class. I won't write definitions on the board - or at least, I will do it much less than I did this semester, as that inevitably cost me hours, cumulatively, which itself translates into entire days of lost time. So, wherever I can, I'm going to use the board for working out problems, and handouts for listing definitions, properties of functions, and hints for solving problems.
This takes me to the second point, and that's the techniques. As my exams are mainly analytical, requiring students solve word problems mathematically, I think students need more front-end help to guide them through these kinds of problems. Students would benefit from a simple guide for how to solve a sequential game of incomplete information when trying to find the bayesian nash equilbirium. In my experience, teachers never give their students this, and as a student, it was the one thing I was always searching for. Okay, I know now the definition of Bayesian Nash Equilibrium. But how do I go from this specific game to using that definition to find the answer? Students would benefit from seeing the process in steps, wherein they know to use backwards induction to solve first the last person's best response function, and then inserting that best response function into the first person's best response function, then substituting the first person's solution into the second's to find his, etc. In other words, I'm going to aim to make this theoretical class more practical. These are masters students. They need to see where the theory comes from, become somewhat competent with optimization techniques and all related techniques, and they need to feel like they can use it themselves. So I've been reflecting on the Trivium some, and I think this class needs to incorporate some of the insights from that ancient pedagogy. Specifically, start with simple building blocks, build up to the internal logic within some given area, then extend the logic outside the system to new problems. Thus, classwork and problem sets will mainly be designed to force students to master those first two stages - the "grammar" stage and the "logic" stage if you use the Trivium language - and then tests will mainly be "rhetoric" tests. That is, application. Can they take what they've done and apply it to something unknown? Their grade in the class will depend on the degree of success at doing so.
The challenging part, though, is the development of relevant tests and exams, and then specifically timely grading with informative responses by myself. Having never taught the class, I did not know beforehand what to test them on, and so tended to just work linearly through the textbook, devoting nearly all my time just to lecture preparation, and a minority of my time to developing exams and problem sets. Not surprisingly, students felt the exams were too hard, and problem sets did not lead them to skills that made them successful on those exams. This is a function of the lack of time I poured into developing those materials. It seemed to me that the best use of my time this semester was to spend a majority of my time just re-learning this material, as it had been five years since I'd taken it myself, and I had never been all that good at it when I took it as a first year. But, now I know I have to make changes specifically in the realm of problem set and exam preparation/design, and timely, informative turnaround. The one thing that I think I could do differently is to actually put myself through the gauntlet and start working through problem sets on my own. As I tell my students, learning economics is more like learning to play the guitar than it is like reading a book. Reading a book tends to have a passive quality to it, particularly if you have a good memory and a voracious imagination and appetite for knowledge. Physics, and to a somewhat related degree economics, are unique in that they require practice, memorization, and more practice. The tools are themselves acquired through inputs of time spent (usually in agony) working on practice questions. If you cannot find some, you go to the back of the book and work those end-of-the-book chapters. When you're done with those, you tear up your answers and start over. So one thing I'll be doing differently is working through a large batch of problem sets before hand, to help me get in the right frame of mind for designing my own. This time, I depended largely on old problem sets of my own, and it helped at certain points just fine, but did not when I ended up spending forever and a day on risk and game theory.
I'm going to continue to reflect on these questions, and this semester, and hopefully turn the experience into something I can use to improve the class for the sake of the future students.
Wikipedia Black Helicopters?
In this fascinating article tongue-in-cheek entitled "Wikipedia Black Helicopters Circle Utah's Traverse Mountain, learn about one man who was banned from Wikipedia for editing four articles (just four) related to his employer Overstock.com and one of its executives. It's worth your time, even though it is long.
"Screw Abstinence"
Or so says the t-shirt of the articulate young lady in the picture. The article ends by blaming the rise in STDs on federally-funded abstinence-only education programs, and specifically mentions the rise in syphilis. Seeing as how I'm currently in the middle of a reasonably large syphilis study, trying to explain its rise, I thought I'd just interject that the article leaves out the important detail that the rise in syphilis is only among men. Female syphilis rates haven't risen at all - in fact, they've continued to fall. There's some noise in the series of female syphilis, but it's pretty much flat and downward sloped. I only have data through 2004, so maybe they're referring to something happening 2005-2007. But, I suspect they're talking about the fairly big spike in syphilis that's been happening among men since 1998. Syphilis rates among whites, for instance, had been falling pretty steadily all throughout the 1980s - there's a temporary blip in the late 1980s when it rose, but that was short-lived (for Whites anyway - for Blacks and Hispanics, that blip was a mountain the size of Mt. Everest, but that's another story [read: crack cocaine epidemic was the cause]), and it continued to fall. It hit a valley in 1998: 0.84 cases of syphilis for every 100,000 white men, and 0.86 cases for every 100,000 white women. Then the series diverge. White female cases kept falling, and by 2004 they are sitting at 0.54 (slightly above 0.50 from 2003). White male cases, though, sharply increased. By 2004, they are 5.2 cases per 100,000, representing over a 500% increase in syphilis. When you examine this separately by states, you see astronomical spikes in roughly two dozen states, who are the only states driving this data, as the rest either have no syphilis or very little among White males. California saw its white male syphilis rates rise from 0.88 in 1998 to 16.1 in 2004, representing a 1700% increase in syphilis rates among White men in merely 6 years. So what's going on? The epidemiological and public health literature doesn't believe, as far as I can tell, that this has anything to do with federal funding of sex education abstinence - the increase is only among men, for one, and of all ages, for two, not merely teenagers. It's specifically men who have sex with men (MSM), and not heterosexual men, who are experiencing this increase. And the answer, I believe, is the availability of the highly-active anti-retroviral treatments (HAART) that were developed throughout the 1980 and 1990s, but specifically in 1996, when the protease inhibitor was invented. Protease inhibitors stop the HIV viral from replicating in the host's body, and the consequence of this was a rapid falling of HIV-related mortality. But, the indirect effect was: 1) a sizeable increase in the HIV-positive population due to falling AIDS mortality and (2) a decrease in the risks of unprotected sex and anonymous sex among gay men. Hence we have both an incapacitation and deterrence effect operating on AIDS mortality which is reversed by the discovery of the protease inhibitor.
The story is easy enough to tell, and from what I'm learning, pretty much everyone believes the global increase in syphilis among MSM is caused by protease inhibitors. The difficulty, though, is as always in proving that it is causal and not merely spurious. I'm working on that angle now.
The story is easy enough to tell, and from what I'm learning, pretty much everyone believes the global increase in syphilis among MSM is caused by protease inhibitors. The difficulty, though, is as always in proving that it is causal and not merely spurious. I'm working on that angle now.
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Best Bagels?
Apparently so. Absolute Bagels have the best bagels in New York, therefore by inference, they are probably the best in the country, if not the world. Ed Levine tried them all and Absolute won. He also gives us a handy definition of what the necessary and sufficient conditions are for a bagel.
" A definition of terms, then. A bagel is a round bread made of simple, elegant ingredients: high-gluten flour, salt, water, yeast and malt. Its dough is boiled, then baked, and the result should be a rich caramel color; it should not be pale and blond. A bagel should weigh four ounces or less and should make a slight cracking sound when you bite into it instead of a whoosh. A bagel should be eaten warm and, ideally, should be no more than four or five hours old when consumed.
All else is not a bagel."
Heroes Post
Totally geeking out, rather than working on this exam I just wrote. Ugh. I hate writing exams. Something many students probably don't understand - teachers hate exams more than students. I hate, hate, hate, hate exams - hate writing them, and especially hate grading them, and then I hate the ex post realization that my tests were too easy/hard and that therefore my distribution is skewed badly in need of some kind of correction. Anyway, I just saw this in my inbox. A short snapshot from an interview with Tim Kring, creative force, director and producer of the NBC series Heroes. He gives a little info about volume 3's substance, which will apparently deal primarily with the villains (hence the name of the volume, "Villains"). I suspect that even though Hiro went back and put Adam Monroe in a coffin, where he was buried alive, in fact Sylar will get him out. How in the world are they going to get Sylar to play nice with other bad guys, though? The guy surely won't be persuaded that he actually needs help. He could just cut their brain in half, steal their powers, and do whatever it is they can do. He'll have to be persuaded that he actually needs the physical body, and the experience, strategically. I'm pretty sure Sylar's sights are on Peter Petrelli, the Company, Mohindar, and maybe Molly. And of course we know Maya wants him dead. I also predict she's going to learn how to focus her poison directly at people, rather than simply killing people in her general proximity. Okay, back to game theory.
Adamantiumtastic? Sure!
The article says that this fabric, which somehow disperses the energy from explosions without ripping (I have no idea how, even though the article carefully explains it with diagrams and helpful props), is adamantiumtastic. Of course, we all know he's completely full of it. He meant to say vibraniumastic, since we're talking about freaking energy being absorbed people! Geez. Can't you read? It's called science fiction, not fairy tale crap.
Super Size al Qaeda! (?)
Okay, so there's not really any way to combine the words "Super Size Me," Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda in any fashion that doesn't just sound awkward. Still, people are speculating that Morgan Spurlock, director of the funny documentary Super SIze Me may have found Osama bin Laden. He's being hush hush about it til he sells the documentary. If this guy can find Osama bin Laden, and special ops cannot, then something's terribly wrong.
Real Tennis is Old
Actually, the real tennis isn't even tennis. It's something called Jeu de Paume, of which "lawn tennis" is a simpler descendent. There still exist some Jeu de Paume courts in Europe. As I am not athletic, I got really tired just reading about this old sport, and so am giving it to you because I know you are extremely athletic and will therefore find this absolutely incredible! Then you can tell me the good parts later when I wake up from my nap.
More of the Same
In light of the last post, I encourage you to read the song at this blog, with the accompanying visuals to aid you in crying. You can find the song here. As I just cried. Reading a song about comic book superheros. Seeing Batman kiss Catwoman (the second time I've ever cried to that). I cannot help it. Like Jude Law in The Holiday, it is relatively easy for me to cry. But especially so when you bring comics into it.
Defamiliarizing Music (again? Sheesh)
On my 32nd birthday, I saw American Gangster with an old friend from my childhood. I hadn't seen this man in maybe 15 year or so. When I moved here with my family, we bumped into one another through the most random of events, and have slowly been reconnecting and getting to know one another. It's been a real blessing for my wife and me, because she too is becoming friends with my friend's husband. In economics, we call that the problem of the dual body match. It's not merely enough that I find someone with whom I click, but I must also click with the childhood friend's wife. Furthermore, my wife must click with both my friend and his wife. And, to complicate even more, since this is a twosided matching problem, each of them must like each of us. As you can see, the probabilities of even one match isn't terribly high (or at least, is not high for us, seeing as how we are all four introverts on the spectrum). The probability of all of these, though, is very very low. And that is why it is so precious a thing when two couples become friends. It's statistically rare, and yet such a great thing, because it means we can all fellowship jointly, communally, rather than merely as single nodes.
On that birthday, my friend gave me a mixed CD. And it was perfect. There were oddly enough many songs that were right up my alley - songs I either loved immediately but had never heard, or songs I used to love and had not heard in many years. One song I immediately loved, but had never heard before, was Metasciences' "Four Color Love Song Page" with the subtitle "And Yes I'm Still Bitter Over Sue Dibney. I heard a ton of times before actually paying attention to the lyrics. But yesterday, with my six year old son, I began to notice that this was a song about a superhero who is married to a normal woman, whom he passionately loves. The "four color love song page" is, I'm thinking, a reference to the fact that silver age comics used basically four colors to generate the many colors used on a page. I'm just guessing, though. I know it's at least got something to do with a comic book.
The lyrics can be found here. The first stanza reads
We also learn here that he is a comic book character. Why? Because, insofar as one believes the "continuity," which is an insider buzz word referring to the lengthy publication duration of a single comic book character, spanning multiple decades, wherein the narrative attempts to maintain internal and external consistency within the comic book universe. It has historically been much more difficult for DC to handle its own continuity because many contradictions across titles and characters than Marvel, which is why DC revamps its universe every 20 years or so (just recently, it did it again). But, back to the song. He once saved her from robots and a speeding train. If you watch the old Max Fleischer Superman cartoons (which are classic and awesome, and which you can get for a dollar in the dollar DVD bin at Wal-mart), then this kind of feels like he is referring those types of adventures in that time. He also is conscious of the fact that he is a comic book character, not merely by referencing "continuity," but by his reference to the fact that their first kiss was in a specific issue. She knew, when he saved her and when they had kiss, his secret alias, but she pretended to be ignorant. And he loves her deeply for it - for that, for everything else - and as a result loves his life with her, and loves the entire world. She makes him a hero, in other words - makes him selfless enough to fight for strangers everyday.
It's a beautiful sung song, and the lyrics combined with the tone of the melody defamiliarizes the love song somewhat. It's a parody, I suppose. But, it's still interesting. It's a love song by a superhero for his wife. She is his life, his universe, she inspires him to be a hero, and God help anyone who tries to hurt her.
This is a good example of a song that defamiliarizes the familiar - and why we always need new artforms and new artists. The love song can quickly become tired and routine, mainly because we are accustomed to it. New artforms, new artists, new songs, but specifically new techniques that defamiliarize these familiar objects, reorient our senses, imagination and understand back to the truth about that which the object references. Namely love. Specifically, relational, romantic, erotic love for a woman. A superhero sings this accompanied by a melodic, acoustic sound, and I see love again, which had been hidden.
On that birthday, my friend gave me a mixed CD. And it was perfect. There were oddly enough many songs that were right up my alley - songs I either loved immediately but had never heard, or songs I used to love and had not heard in many years. One song I immediately loved, but had never heard before, was Metasciences' "Four Color Love Song Page" with the subtitle "And Yes I'm Still Bitter Over Sue Dibney. I heard a ton of times before actually paying attention to the lyrics. But yesterday, with my six year old son, I began to notice that this was a song about a superhero who is married to a normal woman, whom he passionately loves. The "four color love song page" is, I'm thinking, a reference to the fact that silver age comics used basically four colors to generate the many colors used on a page. I'm just guessing, though. I know it's at least got something to do with a comic book.
The lyrics can be found here. The first stanza reads
"Another day at work is nearly overSo this is a man who probably is married to this woman. She waits for him on windowsill, suggesting he can fly, and will be flying soon to her through the window. You don't know, from this opening stanza, all of this. You just know he is coming home, that something significant happened in the city which she would know about because of the news, and which he was involved in. Likely, it's a battle with a villain, but we don't know that here. We just know they look young. They are married and their hearts are as "light as the ether" you might say because of their fondness for the other.
You must've seen the whole thing on T.V.
Seventeen more city blocks and I can almost smell you
Waiting at the windowsill for me
It's our 41st anniversary
But we don't look a day over 23
Not in this life
Not in this universe"
"This part is more revealing. It doesn't take much for the reader to learn that he is both a comic book character and a superhero. That is, it's not merely that he is a superhero; he is a comic book superhero. For one, they met in high school and fell in love. This is therefore not Lois Lane and Superman (which we can discern later, as well) as the two of them met in Metropolis. Superman's high school sweetheart was Lana Lang, but he does not go on to marry her, nor become romantically involved with her (beyond some flirtations and short-term things that happen here and there) as an adult. But there's clearly a shadow of Superman in that, since he is unique among comic book superheroes as having a high school experience at all. Of course, they all had one, but few comic book characters actually explored that stage of life (save Peter Parker and a few others, of course).
And we were still in high school when I met you
If you believe the continuity
I rescued you from robots and untied you from the tracks
And you pretended not to know that it was me
We didn't even kiss until issue 26
And this world still feels like 1963
I love this life
I love this universe"
We also learn here that he is a comic book character. Why? Because, insofar as one believes the "continuity," which is an insider buzz word referring to the lengthy publication duration of a single comic book character, spanning multiple decades, wherein the narrative attempts to maintain internal and external consistency within the comic book universe. It has historically been much more difficult for DC to handle its own continuity because many contradictions across titles and characters than Marvel, which is why DC revamps its universe every 20 years or so (just recently, it did it again). But, back to the song. He once saved her from robots and a speeding train. If you watch the old Max Fleischer Superman cartoons (which are classic and awesome, and which you can get for a dollar in the dollar DVD bin at Wal-mart), then this kind of feels like he is referring those types of adventures in that time. He also is conscious of the fact that he is a comic book character, not merely by referencing "continuity," but by his reference to the fact that their first kiss was in a specific issue. She knew, when he saved her and when they had kiss, his secret alias, but she pretended to be ignorant. And he loves her deeply for it - for that, for everything else - and as a result loves his life with her, and loves the entire world. She makes him a hero, in other words - makes him selfless enough to fight for strangers everyday.
And you'll keep my identity a secretSee he isn't Superman, as you can see, because he wears a glove, which Superman does not. And he is aware that they attempted to kill Lois Lane, which she is not. In fact, it's clear that while this is in the comic book universe, it is not in DC nor is it in Marvel. Sue Dibney is Elongated Man's wife (now deceased). Elektra is Daredevil's lover. Gwen Stacey was Peter Parker's love, before (or during) Mary Jane Watson. So this part is somewhat strange. Stacey isn't dead, she's only sleeping? Where is this? When is this? It's timeless, I guess.
And you will know the touch beneath my glove
And I may go out every night and risk my life for strangers
But you're the only girl I'll ever love
And Gwen Stacy isn't dead, she's only sleeping
And Elektra isn't evil or insane
And those bastards in the pentagon can't really kill Sue Dibney
No more than they could kill off Lois Lane
And I swear to god there'll be hell to pay
If anybody tries to take you away
Forget this life
Forget this universe
You're everything I need
You are my life
You are my universe
And they'll have to go through me
It's a beautiful sung song, and the lyrics combined with the tone of the melody defamiliarizes the love song somewhat. It's a parody, I suppose. But, it's still interesting. It's a love song by a superhero for his wife. She is his life, his universe, she inspires him to be a hero, and God help anyone who tries to hurt her.
This is a good example of a song that defamiliarizes the familiar - and why we always need new artforms and new artists. The love song can quickly become tired and routine, mainly because we are accustomed to it. New artforms, new artists, new songs, but specifically new techniques that defamiliarize these familiar objects, reorient our senses, imagination and understand back to the truth about that which the object references. Namely love. Specifically, relational, romantic, erotic love for a woman. A superhero sings this accompanied by a melodic, acoustic sound, and I see love again, which had been hidden.
NPR Award List Out
NPR's annual list of awards for film is out. The Coen Brothers' won the top prize, and surprisingly, Tim Burton won the director award for Sweeney Todd. Though I say "surprisingly" - I have not seen this movie so maybe this is deserved.
Juno Review
A.O. Scott, of the NYT, writes an inspiring review of Juno. We are going to see it this holiday season, and I for one am giddy with anticipation.
Wedding Band Saves Man's Life
A robber shoots a man in the face, but the man moves his hand to block the shot, and the bullet bounces off his wedding band. Luckiest guy in the world. Not as lucky as the sweet little lady he's got at home though, am I right fellas! I'm trying to work in a really funny Wonder Woman jokes, but I'm having trouble getting it off the ground. Wonder Woman deflected bullets with her metal wristbands, this guy with his ring. ... Nope, can't actually make a joke - not even one a nerd like me finds funny.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Crayon Physics on the Freaking iPhone
Great. Just when I finally had mortified the sin in my flesh, also known as coveting thy neighbor's iPhone and iPod Touch, thanks to the discovery of this bad boy (and yes, I am well aware this bad boy cannot actually access the internet nor make phone calls, but that's what we mean by inferior substitutes, right?), I learn that someone has made a hack to get Crayon Physics on the freaking phone. And it's tons cooler than the current 7-level version of Crayon Physics (which I will now go play for the millionth time), although it does not have levels apparently.
I will just have to continue to wait patiently for Crayon Physics Deluxe to arrive, and pacify my newfound love of all things related to computer physics by playing the primitive version ad infinitum as well as LineRider.
Comic Book Links
1. A list of the most valuable comic books, which basically hasn't changed at all since I was a kid. Although, don't quote me on that.
2. Superman is a dick, which this blessed soul has carefully documented for all to see. I love the caption to the above cover. "Damn, that's cold..." But, even as I write that, I'm torn, for who can argue with the logic of the caption for the cover below?
List of more pratical uses Superboy can make of a machine that can see through time:
Letting Bruce Wayne know that his parents are going to be gunned down in front of his very eyes in a filthy alley, you dick!
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