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.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
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.
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.
Friday, March 28, 2008
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.
Monday, March 24, 2008
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.
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.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
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.
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, March 4, 2008
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?
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?
Sunday, March 2, 2008
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.
"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.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Tuesday Statisticz: Reverse Engineering the Oscars
As you all know by know, No Country for Old Men took home Best Picture at the Oscars on Sunday. Naturally, I was shocked. It's not even the highest rated of the nominees on imdb! That's why I was so sure that There Will Be Blood would win.
So, all of this got me thinking. If it does not vote according to the likes of the general populace, then which demographic does the Academy vote most alike? As you know, if you click on the actual number of votes next to the rating of a movie, it takes you to this page, which breaks down the ratings based on age, gender, and some other categories. I've charted the scores that each Best Picture nominee received according to their demographic. Click on the image to enlarge it.
Note that the rating scale ranges from 0 to 10, but all of these scores fall between 6 and 9.5, so I chose those numbers to make the differences easier to see. "M" refers to males, "F" refers to females, and neither refers to the combination. The IMDb staff refers to people who work at imdb (none of whom bothered to vote on Atonement), and the "top 1000" refers to the people who have voted on the most movies on imdb. The website never lets people know if they are in the top 1000, for all I know I could be, with my measly 250 or so votes.
The most interesting parts of this chart are the places where No Country for Old Men outperformed the field. These are the type of voters that the Oscar voting population acts most alike. As you can see, No Country for Old Men has a large edge (.5) in the Top 1000 voters, a medium-sized edge (.3) in males over 45, and a very small edge (.1) in non-US voters. We can essentially throw out the non-US votes because (at least for No Country for Old Men), they represent over half of the total votes, and because it is such a small edge over There Will Be Blood. One other point of note is that teenage girls do not seem to have much influence, as they loathed the Oscar winner, awarding it a 6.6 average, albeit with a low sample size of 301.
It is hard to say exactly who these top 1000 voters are, but it is a safe bet that if you have seen and voted on more than 750 movies or so, you will have become pretty pretentious about what kind of movies you like. Don't believe me? The top 1000 voters consistently kill frat-boyish comedies, like the 5.9 they gave to Old School, while they love pretentious comedies, like the 8.1 they gave to the (admittedly hilarious) Life of Brian. The rest of the voters gave the two movies comparable scores of 7.9 to 8.2.
So, which demographics vote most similar to the Academy? Old, pretentious men. I guess it's not such a bad country for them after all.
So, all of this got me thinking. If it does not vote according to the likes of the general populace, then which demographic does the Academy vote most alike? As you know, if you click on the actual number of votes next to the rating of a movie, it takes you to this page, which breaks down the ratings based on age, gender, and some other categories. I've charted the scores that each Best Picture nominee received according to their demographic. Click on the image to enlarge it.
Note that the rating scale ranges from 0 to 10, but all of these scores fall between 6 and 9.5, so I chose those numbers to make the differences easier to see. "M" refers to males, "F" refers to females, and neither refers to the combination. The IMDb staff refers to people who work at imdb (none of whom bothered to vote on Atonement), and the "top 1000" refers to the people who have voted on the most movies on imdb. The website never lets people know if they are in the top 1000, for all I know I could be, with my measly 250 or so votes.
The most interesting parts of this chart are the places where No Country for Old Men outperformed the field. These are the type of voters that the Oscar voting population acts most alike. As you can see, No Country for Old Men has a large edge (.5) in the Top 1000 voters, a medium-sized edge (.3) in males over 45, and a very small edge (.1) in non-US voters. We can essentially throw out the non-US votes because (at least for No Country for Old Men), they represent over half of the total votes, and because it is such a small edge over There Will Be Blood. One other point of note is that teenage girls do not seem to have much influence, as they loathed the Oscar winner, awarding it a 6.6 average, albeit with a low sample size of 301.
It is hard to say exactly who these top 1000 voters are, but it is a safe bet that if you have seen and voted on more than 750 movies or so, you will have become pretty pretentious about what kind of movies you like. Don't believe me? The top 1000 voters consistently kill frat-boyish comedies, like the 5.9 they gave to Old School, while they love pretentious comedies, like the 8.1 they gave to the (admittedly hilarious) Life of Brian. The rest of the voters gave the two movies comparable scores of 7.9 to 8.2.
So, which demographics vote most similar to the Academy? Old, pretentious men. I guess it's not such a bad country for them after all.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Qualifications
I've also been sort of annoyed at the whole, "golf is the key to success in the business world" adage. If their skill at swinging a long strip of metal is how you judge potential employees or partners, then maybe I'll take my business elsewhere.
But there is one thing that I will admit might be useful for judging character. I hosted a basketball recruit last night. He was an awesome guy, and by the looks of it a great basketball player too. But the one caveat is that when we were playing Madden 08, he had the ball at fourth-and-two on his own forty yard line, early in the game, and... he punted it.
I mean, I don't care if you haven't mastered precision passing, or if you can't time the hit stick, but you've got to be willing to pull the trigger on fourth and short. You've got to be willing to go for it. And if I'm hiring somebody to be a big mover and shaker, maybe it's worth the time to play a game of Madden to see whether or not they're willing to push that envelope.
But there is one thing that I will admit might be useful for judging character. I hosted a basketball recruit last night. He was an awesome guy, and by the looks of it a great basketball player too. But the one caveat is that when we were playing Madden 08, he had the ball at fourth-and-two on his own forty yard line, early in the game, and... he punted it.
I mean, I don't care if you haven't mastered precision passing, or if you can't time the hit stick, but you've got to be willing to pull the trigger on fourth and short. You've got to be willing to go for it. And if I'm hiring somebody to be a big mover and shaker, maybe it's worth the time to play a game of Madden to see whether or not they're willing to push that envelope.
Quick Links
Malthus was wrong.
How much will the next president matter, anyways?
The top facebook applications. Is anybody else as surprised as me that the stupid "zombie" and "vampire" attack games are valued at 36 million? Now, I'm sure no reasonable company would actually value it that high, but it's still absurd.
Start sprints with your right foot. And gain 104 milliseconds on your competition.
How much will the next president matter, anyways?
The top facebook applications. Is anybody else as surprised as me that the stupid "zombie" and "vampire" attack games are valued at 36 million? Now, I'm sure no reasonable company would actually value it that high, but it's still absurd.
Start sprints with your right foot. And gain 104 milliseconds on your competition.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Tuesday Statisticz
I've always thought that statistics should be spelled with a z, like in the title, to make it appeal to young people more. Sort of like how on the OC the cool teenagers always drink Mountain Dew, because it's the edgiest soft drink.
Anyway, here's my newest section: the Tuesday Statisticz. This is my new weekly segment where I take totally irreverent numbers and try to make sense of them, in order to show that numbers are silly (in a good way). This week I've taken crime data from the FBI's website and contrasted it with the favorite movies of different regions, accessed from the networks page on facebook. The idea was the immortal question of whether a preference for violent movies corresponds with how much violence there is in the real-life city in which that person presides. I tallied up the data for ten cities, and here's what I got:
Each of those data points corresponds to one city in the United States. The x axis refers to the number of violent crimes committed in the city limits, while the y axis refers to the percentage of movies that I considered "violent" of the city's 10 favorite. One of the problems with the data is that there isn't much variation of favorite movies. The percentages range from .2 to .5, with Fight Club and Pulp Fiction (both violent ones) appearing on many top 10s. Speaking of which, here are the movies that I had to deliberate on for a little bit as "violent" or not, with explanations.
Top Gun -- Not violent. The volleyball scene on the beach clearly precludes it.
Lord of the Rings trilogy -- Not violent. Sorry fanboys, but if anything, based on some of the talk between those hobbits, I'd call it an erotic thriller.
Braveheart -- Violent. Torture scenes, sweet battle scenes, and the bare ass Scottish mooning scene all push it over the edge.
Gladiator -- Violent. I hesitated because the story is so central and there's too many icky love scenes, but then I thought of Russell saying "I will have my vengeance" before stabbing Joaquin Pheonix, and I had to give it the nod as violent.
Star Wars -- Not violent. My parents wouldn't be very good if they had let me watch the trilogy 500,000 times when I was 8 if it were violent, would they? Chewbacca is way too cuddly to be a major character in a violent movie.
As you can see, there's very weak correlation (0.044) between violence per capita in a city and a preference for violent movies in the top 10 favorites of people who identify themselves in that city on facebook. The cities I chose were San Francisco and Boston, and then I went down the list alphabetically, so most of the rest of the cities are in Alabama, Alaska, and California.
Aren't you proud of me for getting a non-significant result on the very first edition of Tuesday Statisticz? No data hunting here. Check back next week for another installment.
Anyway, here's my newest section: the Tuesday Statisticz. This is my new weekly segment where I take totally irreverent numbers and try to make sense of them, in order to show that numbers are silly (in a good way). This week I've taken crime data from the FBI's website and contrasted it with the favorite movies of different regions, accessed from the networks page on facebook. The idea was the immortal question of whether a preference for violent movies corresponds with how much violence there is in the real-life city in which that person presides. I tallied up the data for ten cities, and here's what I got:
Each of those data points corresponds to one city in the United States. The x axis refers to the number of violent crimes committed in the city limits, while the y axis refers to the percentage of movies that I considered "violent" of the city's 10 favorite. One of the problems with the data is that there isn't much variation of favorite movies. The percentages range from .2 to .5, with Fight Club and Pulp Fiction (both violent ones) appearing on many top 10s. Speaking of which, here are the movies that I had to deliberate on for a little bit as "violent" or not, with explanations.
Top Gun -- Not violent. The volleyball scene on the beach clearly precludes it.
Lord of the Rings trilogy -- Not violent. Sorry fanboys, but if anything, based on some of the talk between those hobbits, I'd call it an erotic thriller.
Braveheart -- Violent. Torture scenes, sweet battle scenes, and the bare ass Scottish mooning scene all push it over the edge.
Gladiator -- Violent. I hesitated because the story is so central and there's too many icky love scenes, but then I thought of Russell saying "I will have my vengeance" before stabbing Joaquin Pheonix, and I had to give it the nod as violent.
Star Wars -- Not violent. My parents wouldn't be very good if they had let me watch the trilogy 500,000 times when I was 8 if it were violent, would they? Chewbacca is way too cuddly to be a major character in a violent movie.
As you can see, there's very weak correlation (0.044) between violence per capita in a city and a preference for violent movies in the top 10 favorites of people who identify themselves in that city on facebook. The cities I chose were San Francisco and Boston, and then I went down the list alphabetically, so most of the rest of the cities are in Alabama, Alaska, and California.
Aren't you proud of me for getting a non-significant result on the very first edition of Tuesday Statisticz? No data hunting here. Check back next week for another installment.
Happy Birthday, Charles Darwin
Some 48% of Americans polled by Gallup in 2007 do not believe in evolution.
Now, I realize that you did not invent the idea of evolution, but your concept of natural selection gave us a mechanism by which evolution could occur. That's why we're still celebrating your birthday, even though it's getting a tad boring after 199 of them.
I would state where I personally stand on evolution, but I'm channeling my inner Michael Jordan (I wish I could do that more on the basketball court), and I don't want to marginalize any readers. After all, creationists buy shoes too.
Now, I realize that you did not invent the idea of evolution, but your concept of natural selection gave us a mechanism by which evolution could occur. That's why we're still celebrating your birthday, even though it's getting a tad boring after 199 of them.
I would state where I personally stand on evolution, but I'm channeling my inner Michael Jordan (I wish I could do that more on the basketball court), and I don't want to marginalize any readers. After all, creationists buy shoes too.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Am I the only one that has ever read this?
Often times, when I see blatant typos in academic textbooks, I wonder when I am the only person that has ever read it. Seriously people, proofread.
I wonder if there are any studies that measure reading comprehension as a function of how many typos there are in the copy. I expect that it would drop precipitously.
I wonder if there are any studies that measure reading comprehension as a function of how many typos there are in the copy. I expect that it would drop precipitously.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Cranky altruism
Some of the arguments against altruism claim that people only do altruistic acts to curry favor, signal their superiority, or make themselves feel better.
But doesn't the existence of cranky altruists discount these arguments? By cranky altruism, I mean people who do things for other people but clearly are not happy about it, as in, "yeah, I'll fix your computer, but don't be an idiot and mess it up again because I won't be there to save you." Think of Han Solo in Star Wars, or any reluctant hero.
If they were performing the act solely to curry favor, then I would expect that they would be kind about it, not cranky. If you want to be liked, most anybody can tell you that being cranky is not the way to get there.
If the cranky altruist wanted to signal their superiority, then they would probably pretend that the task were easy for them, instead of complaining about the necessity of doing it.
And if they were doing the altruistic deed solely to feel good about themselves, then wouldn't you expect them to be in a good mood while they were completing the task? Otherwise, you have to presuppose that they are being altruistic to fulfill their needs in some odd guilt model, which I question because I'm not sure that humans are able to predict their future emotions very well.
I'll take a cranky altruist over an overly affable one any day; they're much more fun.
But doesn't the existence of cranky altruists discount these arguments? By cranky altruism, I mean people who do things for other people but clearly are not happy about it, as in, "yeah, I'll fix your computer, but don't be an idiot and mess it up again because I won't be there to save you." Think of Han Solo in Star Wars, or any reluctant hero.
If they were performing the act solely to curry favor, then I would expect that they would be kind about it, not cranky. If you want to be liked, most anybody can tell you that being cranky is not the way to get there.
If the cranky altruist wanted to signal their superiority, then they would probably pretend that the task were easy for them, instead of complaining about the necessity of doing it.
And if they were doing the altruistic deed solely to feel good about themselves, then wouldn't you expect them to be in a good mood while they were completing the task? Otherwise, you have to presuppose that they are being altruistic to fulfill their needs in some odd guilt model, which I question because I'm not sure that humans are able to predict their future emotions very well.
I'll take a cranky altruist over an overly affable one any day; they're much more fun.
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