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"Cheaper electronic toys are worth a great deal to the rich."
On a related note, Felix Salmon, Rajiv Sethi and I had a heated debate over proposals to sell off a part of the spectrum used primarily by below-the-median customers (over-the-air television) in order to reduce costs for consumers primarily above the median (unlimited data plans for smart phones).
http://andrewgelman.com/2013/05/07/is-felix-salmon-wrong-on-free-tv/
Afternoon Must-Read: Derek Thompson: "Two Nations... ignorant of Each Other's Habits, Thoughts, and Feelings..."
No. That is not what Derek writes. But it is what he should write: **Derek Thompson:** How the Rich and Poor Spend Money Today—and 30 Years Ago: "The biggest difference between the lowest- and highest-earning Americans... >...is what they spend on housing. Less than 40 percent of the bottom quin...
Jim Manzi may not be representative of the National Review, but it is worth noting that when the two discussed education reform, Manzi took the moderate position while Chait staked out the extreme anti-labor position:
"In the center, the National Review. On the right, the New Republic"
http://observationalepidemiology.blogspot.com/2011/02/in-center-national-review-on-right-new.html
This is not an isolated incident
http://observationalepidemiology.blogspot.com/2010/09/strange-bedfellows.html
http://observationalepidemiology.blogspot.com/2011/02/experiment-in-blogging-conclusion.html
and from Andrew Gelman
http://themonkeycage.org/2011/08/07/even-the-liberal-new-republic/
Over at Equitable Growth: #FF America's Best, Most Substantive, and Most Accurate Center-Left Polemicist Is... Jonathan Chait: Monday Focus for September 1, 2014
[**Over at Equitable Growth**](http://equitablegrowth.ms.techprogress.org/?p=6231) A Baker's Dozen of recent keepers: 1. Keystone Fight a Huge Environmentalist Mistake 2. Why I’m So Mean 3. Wasting Away in Hooverville 4. Greg Mankiw Loves One Percent, Doesn’t Know Why 5. Fear of a Female Fed Chi...
In their memoirs, Richard Levinson and William Link made it clear that the class conflict was an integral part of the formula. The killers would have all the advantages of wealth, class and power. It's no coincidence that the first and (along with the equally arrogant Robert Culp) favorite villain of the series run was Jack Cassidy.
Mallory Ortberg: The Case For Columbo: Tuesday Entertainment: March 25, 2014
**Mallory Ortberg:** The Case For Making Columbo America’s Doctor Who: "'I worry. I mean, little things bother me. I’m a worrier. I mean, little insignificant details — I lose my appetite. I can’t eat. My wife, she says to me, “You know, you can really be a pain.”' - Lt. Columbo, Ransom For A Dea...
Conditions for employees generally worsen during recessions and fewer are asked to do the work of more. Could than be a driver?
Why Do Disability Filings Rise in Bad Times?
Jesse Rothstein finds that the rise in disability filings in recessions is not due to people "exaggerating real disabilities or through outright fraud": Are Long-Term Unemployed Taking Refuge in Disability?, by Ben Casselman, WSJ: The sharp rise in federal disability rolls in recent years ......
Remember Matt Yglesias is also the last known American liberal still fooled by Michelle Rhee.
http://observationalepidemiology.blogspot.com/2013/01/matt-yglesias-defending-indefensible.html
http://themonkeycage.org/2013/05/20/the-end-of-michelle-rhee/
Noted for June 7, 2013
**Jim MacDonald:** The Farce of Ávila | **Tim Duy:** Falling Inflation Expectations | **Peter Oppenheimer:** Record equities highs are far from crazy | **Ryan Grim:** Grand Bargain Loses Center For American Progress Support In Major Blow To Austerity | **Benjamin Wittes:** What Conceivable Statem...
As long as you didn't have to run a laser gauntlet to get to work I think you were still coming out ahead.
Sayer's Wimsey was a Tory who often mocked the radicals of the age.
The Passing Tramp has a nice take down (http://thepassingtramp.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-artistic-superstructure-of-epoch-of.html)
Ludwig von Mises Thought That Detective Stories Were Communist by Nature?!
Twitter / emmetmatheson: >@HeerJeet Ludwig von Mises called detective fiction part of "the artistic superstructure of the epoch of labor unionism and socialization"
While I agree with most of this, I object to this usage of "data mining." Mining techniques such as Chaid trees and neural nets are designed to factor in issues like multiple comparison problems.
I believe you're talking about what I'd call hypothesis shopping -- poking around big data sets until one find something significant at five percent that sounds publishable and/or supports your beliefs. Hypothesis shopping is a huge problem, but it's not what they teach you in a stat or comp sci class on mining.
Big Data?
Paul Krugman: Data, Stimulus, and Human Nature, by Paul Krugman: David Brooks writes about the limitations of Big Data, and makes some good points. But he goes astray, I think, when he touches on a subject near and dear to my own data-driven heart: For example, we’ve had huge debates over t...
For an economics blog, I would have thought you would have gone with Murder Must Advertise. (One of the smartest novels you'll find about advertising, which isn't that surprising coming from a former copy writer)
It was part of the deal cats made when they ruled the world (or, I guess, worlds). Faulkner spelled out the details in the Reivers.
Great post. As I've mentioned before at OE, Canada would be my first choice if we had to choose an international model but these examples are still highly instructive.
Is the U.S. Doing Teacher Reform All Wrong? Lessons from Finland and Shanghai
cross-posted at the Washington Post There is good reason for education reform efforts to focus on teaching. We know that although about two-thirds of the achievement gap can be explained by family poverty, teachers are among the most important in-school factors that affect student learning, with...
I also came into teaching under an accelerated program that didn't include practice teaching. The first time I lectured a class was as a full time teacher. That first year wasn't a complete disaster but there's no doubt in my mind that I would have been a better teacher and my students would have learned more that year had I been given a chance to practice and been mentored first.
Fact-Checking Joel Klein: Is it True Most Teachers Think Credentialing is Useless?
At the NewSchools Venture Fund Summit this morning, News Corp. executive and former NYC schools chancellor Joel Klein claimed that "most" teachers believe the traditional teacher credentialing process--coursework and student teaching followed by a state certification exam--is useless. "Most of...
Tim,
I don't know what your reception is like but I get over 100 channels with the ten dollar rabbit ears on top of my TV. Between the networks and the local independents, at least seven or eight of those channels carry some professional and college sports.
Digital broadcasting is one of the most under-reported media stories, largely because of the demographics of the audience and the relative lack of interested parties pushing the story.
http://observationalepidemiology.blogspot.com/2010/10/nobody-loves-orphan-technology.html
http://observationalepidemiology.blogspot.com/2010/12/someone-finally-notices-orphan.html
Time To Cut The Cord
I see that Comcast just raised cable prices. I find it remarkable that cable companies apparently can not see the train wreck ahead. I figure that I can drop the cable and the phone (who uses a landline anymore?), ugrade to a faster internet connection and still come out ahead nearly $100 a mo...
I know I've been beating this drum quite a bit, but this is not just a case of rolling out out some data then jumping into a narrative; this is a case of rolling out a simplistic account of highly confounded data then jumping into a narrative.
How confounded?
"A study designed to test this question used VAM methods to assign effects to teachers after controlling for other factors, but applied the model backwards to see if credible results were obtained. Surprisingly, it found that students’ fifth grade teachers were good predictors of their fourth grade test scores. Inasmuch as a student’s later fifth grade teacher cannot possibly have influenced that student’s fourth grade performance, this curious result can only mean that VAM results are based on factors other than teachers’ actual effectiveness."
(from EPI)
Joseph and I have more on this at Observational Epidemiology but be warned, it's not pretty.
Story time, says these education journalists
No sooner had I written about "story time" than the LA Times journalists on the education beat announced "Story time!" An article published recently on using test scores to rate individual teachers has stirred the education community. It attracted Andrew Gelman's attention and there is a lively ...
Dana,
I would have added:
"Recent findings by Rand, EPI and other researchers have cast doubt on many of the fundamental assumptions of the reform movement. How is the DoE adapting to this new research?"
Thanks for the link,
Mark
My Education Questions for President Obama
In half an hour, the "Today" show's Matt Lauer will be interviewing President Obama about education policy. The broadcast is part of NBC's "Education Nation" blitz, a week of programming accompanied by a conference here in New York. I'll be watching, tweeting, and blogging about the interview, b...
Oops, should have said:
I was shocked (SHOCKED, I tell you) to hear that "the math [used by scientists is] rooted in the same principles that guarantee profits for Las Vegas casinos."
It's wrong is wrong
One of the most impressive courses I took was the Investment Management class taught by Andre Perold at Harvard. For each session, we had to evaluate some fancy-schmancy, attractively-named, financially-engineered investment product (hint: most of them you don't want to touch). And again and aga...
I was shocked (SHOCKED, I tell you) to hear that "the math rooted in the same principles that guarantee profits for Las Vegas casinos."
It's wrong is wrong
One of the most impressive courses I took was the Investment Management class taught by Andre Perold at Harvard. For each session, we had to evaluate some fancy-schmancy, attractively-named, financially-engineered investment product (hint: most of them you don't want to touch). And again and aga...
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