On Jealousy

"What we have here is a failure... to communicate." - Cool Hand Luke

This is going to be a brutally honest post.

I have some friends that do incredible things. My friend Jeremy has been to Isreal twice and is actively involved in starting an organization to stimulate discussion between real people from both countries. My friend Austin has seemingly traveled everywhere in Europe and speaks, at my last count, 5 languages. My friend Ben (I believe) is planning a trip to Japan on a tour for his book, which he published two years ago. The list goes on. If there was a facebook map that aggregated where your friends have been, instead of just showing where you yourself have been, mine would probably cover most of the world. And their achievements would likewise be outstanding.

There's a part of my brain that admires each of my friends for their accomplishments, and wishes them future success. But I have to admit that there's also a part of my brain that is intensely, viscerally jealous of other people's successes and future plans. Some higher, more cognitive part of my brain recognizes that it comes from our human need to compare ourselves to others, but the base feeling remains nonetheless.

Take this real estate venture that three of my best friends from college are about to undertake. They're going to buy a house (that already has tenants), fix it up a little bit through painting and landscaping, and begin renting it out for a profit. Some of the numbers that they're throwing around are pretty high, and what's more is that after a while they'll actually own the property themselves, at which point the returns will be even higher. And (here's one of the brutally honest parts) one of the main reasons that they are able to do it is because one of their financially successful dads is cosigning the lease.

The whole thing has made me rather jealous in a totally irrational way. First of all, I wish I was fucking involved. Of course, since they all live in Maine and the property is also going to be there, this is impossible. Plus, it's not like I have necessarily anything to offer them. Secondly, the fact that his dad is cosigning the lease seems unfair, but really ought to be irrelevant. Stuff like that happens all the time and my proximity to the situation doesn't change anything. I can't blame either of the parties involved; in fact, it seems like a good idea from both perspectives. My friend is using the resources he has available in the best way he can, and his dad is not simply giving him money. Instead, he is giving his son the opportunity to earn it in the open market.

Nevertheless, I AM STILL JEALOUS. There is a part of my brain that refuses to let this jealousy fade away.

But I think the best way to deal with the jealousy is to channel it as inspiration. You're going to do something awesome? I'm going to do something awesome too. That's another reason for me to encourage my friends to have success in whatever they do. That way, maybe it will encourage me to go out and do cool stuff, too. Any thoughts?

Empty Promises and Broken Dreams

I'm getting closer and closer to my goal of watching imdb's top 250. After watching Paths of Glory last night, I have 99 movies left to go. When I reported this happy news to a few friends of mine at breakfast, their response was "what are you going to do when you finish watching them?" They believe that my life will be empty.

You know the saying that it is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all? My response is sort of along those lines. I would argue that their lives are empty now, and they will continue to be empty later. True, my life might lose some sense of purpose once I finish them all. But as for now, it's all glory. And I'd rather get an offensive foul going in strong than pull up for a fade-away any day.

Let other people use your computer!

Some folks I've run across these past few years have been reticent to let other people use their computers. Along with wondering exactly what they are hiding on their desktop, this decision has always dismayed me. If this was the late 60s, there would be a movement towards open-source computer sharing. Bring your laptop to the quad! Free wireless, baby!

But one of the best reasons I've found to let other people use your computers is that they can give you hints on how to best optimize your experience. The other day I let my friend Joey use my computer and he showed me the useful hack about how to best organize my bookmarks on firefox, which has allowed me to waste my time on shelfari and imdb more efficiently. So, let other people use your computer.

I love other people's dogs

Whenever I go over to other people's houses, I am amazed by how much I love their dogs. They're invariably playful, soft, loud, and happy. They want unconditional attention, and they return it with unconditional tail wagging. You don't have to take them for walks, you don't have to feed them or change their water bowl, and you don't have to wipe their hairs off your clothing every morning. Having a dog is a public service, sacrificing your time to deal with the troubles, so that your friends can enjoy themselves by playing with the dog every day. Some people like to get in arguments like, "my dog is better than yours," but I assure everybody that their dog is indeed much better than mine. My dog can be annoying. Other people's dogs are surely much better.

National News

One of the reasons I hate politics and most political discussion is how the pundits hardly ever discuss their actual opinions. They merely discuss how they think the public will react to a given piece of news. This is trumpeted as a more objective manner of doing things, but of course it is just as biased.

What we end up with is a bunch of pundits talking about how Eliot Spitzer's scandal will affect public opinion of the democrats. I think they're missing the point. Luckily, we still have PhilaLawyer to tell it like it is.

More nuggets to come as I struggle through the 1000 plus items in my RSS reader. This is worse than the national subprime crisis. School? What's that.

The end of an era

With our basketball team's loss yesterday, our season is now over. Danny Forcella, a senior captain of the team, has a great comprehensive look at his long career in basketball. He looks at the picture through the lens of the best other players he has played with. The post is here.

I can't think of a more detailed or humble way of looking back at his own career than by highlighting the achievements of other people. And if I were to make a similar list, my choice at#1 would be the same.

Tuesday Statitsticz: Rethinking Multiple Choice

As I was taking my psychology midterm today (it was a doozie), I faced a quandary on a multiple choice test. Through process of elimination, I parsed the possible answers down to two, but I could not choose decide which was the best option between c and d. (Obviously, I chose c).

But I got to thinking about how we could improve this situation. I'm not the kid in the class that always moans about multiple choice, as I'd much rather circle some letters than write an essay, but I do think that multiple choice could be improved. From my perspective, it will be essentially luck as to whether c or d was the right answer, and luck should play as little a role as possible on tests.

My solution is for students to be allowed to assign a numerical probability to each of the possible answers. Then, they would be awarded the total worth of the question divided by the probability that they assigned to that answer. Now, before you say "this isn't fair for the students that actually know the correct answer!", let me tell you that you are wrong. This where statistics enter the picture.

The expected value of each answer will remain exactly the same. For example, if there are four options, and you have no idea what the answer is, you might answer "b" on a whim. Assuming that you receive one point for a correct answer, the expected value of this choice is:

1 point if answer "b" is correct, times a .25% chance it will be correct = .25 points

If you follow my strategy, then you'd receive the same expected value:

.25 points if answer "a" is correct times a .25% chance = .0625 points
.25 points if answer "b" is correct times a .25% chance = .0625 points
.25 points if answer "c" is correct times a .25% chance = .0625 points
.25 points if answer "d" is correct times a .25% chance = .0625 points
Total = .25 points

If this was my math homework, I'd box it and move on the next question. But it's not homework.

Why is this practice not commonplace? It certainly would have been nice today, when I couldn't decide between c and d. I would have assigned a 50 percent probability to both option c and d, and been on with it. I can't see too many cons to this approach, except that it would take a little bit more time to answer questions.

Of course, a real probability theorist might scoff at this post and claim that over time your guesses will eventually equal out to the same probabilities as you'd assign anyway. But tell that to the student that guesses 50/50 on 5 multiple choice questions in a final and gets them all wrong. Or the student who knew the answers, but for whom the curve was lowered because other students blindly guessed and got lucky. On a test to test basis, this strategy would make multiple choice more fair. Isn't that what it's supposed to be all about?

Introspection supported via laboratory results

Fruit bias on p.57 of Tim Harford's The Logic of Life:

"The experiments offered some subjects a snack: fruit or chocolate. Seven out of the ten subjects asked for chocolate. But when the experimenters offered other subjects a different choice, the answer was different too: 'I'll bring you a snack next week. What would you like then, fruit or chocolate?' Three-quarters of the subjects chose fruit."

This doesn't mean that my thoughts are any more likely to be "true" in the future, unfortunately.