Today's Facebook Gift

The "Smiley Balloon" is a limited edition, only "1 of 1,000,000." And that's through tomorrow, so you better hurry up or they're gonna be all out.

Last Problem on my Physics Problem Set

"You're driving down the road on a warm summer's day. What three 'crank it up' songs would you most like to hear on the radio?"

My answer is far from set in stone, but this is the list I'm working with:

1. Blind Guardian, "NIGHTFALL"
2. The Music, "Getaway"
   
3. The Cult, "The Saint"

I avoided the classic names (Zeppelin, AC/DC, etc) in an attempt to be both snobby and edgy, though I hardly need tell you that. I was also thinking of putting the song from Wild At Heart, where they're driving down the dessert and Laura Dern freaks out that she can't find any music on the radio, but then Nicholas Cage finds the song and they rock out epically. But I don't remember what it is and I'm too lazy to find it.

For the first time ever, I'm going to say "Comments are Open" (of course, they always are). I'm curious to know if anyone besides Hongyi, who won't answer this post, reads this...

Airbus Upping Work Week sans Compensation

so Yahoo! reports.

Airbus (EAD.PA) is considering extending its workweek to 40 hours from 35 hours without compensation as part of the European planemaker's restructuring plans, German magazine Focus reported

This seems like the rare example a company changing the amount people work (and changing lowering their nominal hourly wage, essentially) instead of laying people off. Now, to be fair, they're also planning massive layoffs, so they can probably get away with giznanking the non-laid off workers. The article goes on with some delicious Frenchiness:

French business leaders have strongly criticized the country's 35-hour work week, saying it has curbed growth and failed to stimulate employment as its authors had hoped.

Socialist presidential candidate Segolene Royal has promised to review the 35-hour work week with the aim of "reducing negative consequences for workers and employees."

Conservative candidate Nicolas Sarkozy says the 35-hour week should be retained but viewed as a minimum, not a maximum, with people free to work more or longer if they want.

First of all, do "French Business Leaders" still exist in France? I remember reading a Mankiw or MR post that claimed that a millionaire moves out of France every single day. And Aa minimum workweek? Brilliant! Give that man a prize.

NB: I believe (strongly), in the tradition of Robert Frank, Dan Gilbert, et al, that capping the workweek is something that should be taken very seriously. But the French seem to do it for all the wrong reasons...

Open Water...2?

So I'm probably the only person of the people who read this to have seen the movie "Open Water," and I thought it was really amazing. It was gritty, intense, and deeply disturbing. When I left the theater, I actually felt like I knew what it was like to die slowly of cold, fear, and most of all, exhaustion. It was a very serious movie.

It never occurred to me that this would happen: "Open Water 2: Adrift." They've taken a second disturbing, true, death-by-exhaustion-at-sea story...and made another movie. Why did they have to call it that? Do they want to trivialize everything about the new and old movie? Are there people who will like it more because of this title? I mean...come on.

Curse Yahoo!'s Oily Hide

I did a little dance when I saw this. I even planned what I wouldn't have to wear on THU. Then I thought to myself "wait...this is yahoo after all...the geniuses behind the disgusting new sports.yahoo.com/mlb...." Weather.com assured me that, indeed, the day after tomorrow is not THU.

Jonathan And Elisa's Field Trip to Neiman Marcus

One of the predictions my extension of the basic Hall-Li model makes is that the price of semi-conspicuous consumption goods should exceed or at least equal the price of conspicuous goods (in the basic model price is exogenous). I've had the hunch that this is true, because I know that only the relatively cheap Polo stuff has the little horsey guy - the cashmere sweaters are horseless. On my step-mother's suggestion, I decided to make my first foray into empirical research by investigating how applicable the prediction is beyond horsey guys.

Moleskine notebook in hand, we began by perusing the wares of the single-brand stores. I had no idea how fancy the Copley Mall is, but it is. We began by comparing a red leather bag with a vaguely similar one, the red one not covered in "LV"'s, and, disappointingly, the logo'd one was more expensive. But we persevered (when we got better at this, we realized that the first comparison was invalid because the bags really weren't very similar), and the results trickled in.

At the Gucci Store, we found 2 shoes indistinguishable except one's design was made up of Gucci G's, and the other was just a random pattern. They both felt the same (they seemed like leather). Logo was $405, no logo was $740. The discrepancy was so large that I felt compelled to ask the nice lady what was so special about the no logo ones. "They're ostrich."

Also at the Gucci Store, we looked at two medium-size duffel-type bags. One was covered in G's, the other was black. They looked otherwise quite similar (though not exactly the same). The G one was $750. Before telling us the price for the black one, the lady warned us that it was "an entirely different animal," and it was, to the tune of an extra $1000.

Here are two picture testimonials, one Coach, the other Fendi. I can't find the ostrich shoes online yet...

Coach $698/$648
Fendi $1410/$965

ARod on Jeter

Apparently the honeymoon has been called off

"The reality is there's been a change in the relationship over 14 years and, hopefully, we can just put it behind us," Rodriguez said. "You go from sleeping over at somebody's house five days a week, and now you don't sleep over. It's just not that big of a deal."

For Those of You Who Doubted Steve Jobs > Michael Dell

Appleinsider reports on an education reform conference in which Steve Jobs went off on the inability of principals to fire horrible teachers because of the power of the teachers' unions.

Jobs said the problem with U.S. institutions is that they have become unionized to a point where ridding public schools of poor teachers is prohibited. "This unionization and lifetime employment of K-12 teachers is off-the-charts crazy," he said.

Then

Dell, who reportedly sat quietly with his hands folded in his lap during Jobs' tirade, responded by saying that unions were created because employers were treating his employees unfairly.

Thanks Mike. I'm glad to hear your opinions are about as exciting as your company's products.

An Economics Fermi-Style Problem

The guy who invented the remote control has died, leading me to wonder, between 1956 and now, can we roughly estimate the dollar-valued surplus created by that invention? Surely it's unspeakably large. Of course, the articles about are relentlessly if playfully critical:

"People ask me all the time — 'Don't you feel guilty for it?' And I say that's ridiculous," he said. "It seems reasonable and rational to control the TV from where you normally sit and watch television."

Rational indeed. You might even say it's awesome.

The Next Steinbrenner

Apparently he cut off a police officer while going twice the legal speed limit and then refused a breathalyzer...here's a picture of the next face of the yankees:

Refreshing Honesty, Hardaway Style

I heard this first on Sportscenter, and it's reproduced on yahoo:

"You know, I hate gay people, so I let it be known. I don't like gay people and I don't like to be around gay people," Hardaway said while a guest on Sports Talk 790 The Ticket in Miami. "I'm homophobic. I don't like it. It shouldn't be in the world or in the United States."

The host asked Hardaway how he would interact with a gay teammate.

"First of all, I wouldn't want him on my team. And second of all, if he was on my team, I would, you know, really distance myself from him because, uh, I don't think that is right. I don't think he should be in the locker room while we are in the locker room."

I looked up homophobic in the built-in Apple dictionary. It's rather loaded:

an extreme and irrational aversion to homosexuality and homosexual people

I wonder if Tim Hardaway considers himself "extreme and irrational."

If I were a professional athlete, and God willing I will be some day, I'd want my team to be made up entirely of homosexuals so that I could have all the groupies to myself.

MR on Pornography

Tyler Cowen writes "Why is pornography scarce?" Normally, as many of you know, I am a big fan of Marginal revolution, but this may be the most offensively bad post I have ever read. Let's review some direct quotes:

Call me clueless, as I have very little direct knowledge of pornography. But I don't understand[...]

How daring and original for a male in this day and age to claim no knowledge of pornography. I reject the ludicrous notion that Mr. Cowen is clueless in this matter, but if he is, as he claims to be, then why the hell is he asking these questions in the first place? Maybe he should do some, as he would typeset, research, before penning this pathetically self-serving travesty? He continues

Why don't they just buy a single dense disc of images and keep themselves, um...busy...for many years? I believe also that fetishes are fairly stable and predictable. You don't need to see "the new porn" to know what you will want to get off on.

In addition to the mildly offensive "um...busy," as if consuming pornography is to an economist a "lower" form of consumption than any other, Mr. Cowen has stated some non-clueless beliefs here. He may not know porn, but he sure knows "fetishes." And the last sentence is clearly counter-factual. Didn't Gary Becker warn economists not to state their own idiocy as how the world ought to be? It's not that that last sentence is correct and people are behaving improperly, it's simply that the sentence is plain wrong.

Finally, for no discernible reason whatsoever except to distance himself desperately from "they" who use pornography, he throws in

Please "splain" it to me, as they say...

Who says "splain" anyway? Pornography users? I won't even dignify the economic "theory" he appeals to at the beginning and end, but it's there if you're interested. The entire post could be reduced to "I am better than people who use pornography because not only am I innocent of any knowledge about it, but, furthermore, I'm smarter than those people because, based on a number of dubious assumptions, I can derive that they are behaving in a way that I would not if I used pornography. Which I don't."

Today's Conditions

Every path in and around Harvard is covered in 2 inches of perfectly frictionless ice. How appropriate that we are doing Newton's Laws in physics...I had been planning on driving to Trader Joe's, but that's not happening. Another day will pass before I have food.

Why is Valentine's Day Acceptable?

This point may in fact not be entirely original, but it's worth bringing back up: this is a holiday designed to provide the already-fortunate with happiness at the expense of those not so lucky. Why does society stand for this?

There are a couple reasons I guess. One is that Valentine's Day is the solution to some sort of coordination game that couples play - no planning is necessary, it's a holiday, etc.

But frankly, if I were a girl, and my boyfriend only did something special (and "special" in this case is almost ludicrous since everyone else in the world is doing it at the same time) on corporate love day (it hurts me to use "corporate" as a derogatory term, but I have no choice), I'd be pissed off. I'd want that roses->pheasant under duck->souffle->sex to be either a surprise, or on some day that has relationship-specific value. Would I really be so unimportant that only when advertisers bombard him with reminders that every kiss begins with Kay (possibly the best advertising line ever, and one that fills me with rage every time I see it) would he remember to make an attempt to please me?

But my standards are, or would be, high.

Also the whole thing smacks of collusion. By making everyone want dinner reservations on the same (often non-weekend) night, suppliers of romance restrict supply and juice up price like a Jason Giambi bicep. And we, the working stiffs, suffer.

Physics v Economics

So now I'm taking this college-level mechanics and relativity class, Physics 15a, to fulfill a Science core requirement. Most of the analytical techniques that we've touched on so far (eg, taking derivatives and integrals) are familiar to me. But the dang-blasted TRIGONOMETRY is so horrible! I really don't like trying to figure out which vector element gets sin(\theta) and which gets cos...so usually I guess. I've memorized that if you're shooting a projectile, then sin goes up, cos goes sideways. But then they change it up on you with inclined planes.

There are two important comparisons between first-year econ and first-year physics, in my mind. The first is that the Physics department, in its infinite wisdom, actually sees fit to offer a wide array of classes intended for freshmen. You can take a class that doesn't require calculus, and you can take a super-hardcore class that teaches you more math than you've ever learned, even though you need analysis just to take it. Economics? You're either taking Social Analysis 10, or you're a super-genius taking Ed Glaeser's scary class. There should be a math-intensive introduction to economics. Plain and simple.

The second is experiments. The inability to gather most data experimentally is of course one of the things that makes empirical economics so hard. In physics, my lecturer can illustrate every point he makes with a simple and incontrovertible demonstration. Take the following example: the lecturer intended to illustrate the point that, if you aim a cannon at a monkey, and then monkey starts falling the instant you shoot the cannon, then the ball and monkey will collide somewhere along the monkey's downward path.

So what did he do? He attached a stuffed Curious George with a magnet on its head to a rather large crane, raised the crane to about 30 feet off the ground, aimed his cannon at the monkey using a laser-guided sight, informed us that the cannon was designed to release the monkey the instant the ball left the muzzle, and shot the damn thing. There was a serious and legitimate collision between the metal shot and the monkey's bullet-proof vest. Clapping ensued.

Contrast this to economics, where, in Ec 10, the most exciting thing that happened in any given Feldstein lecture (I have not seen Mankiw's lectures) was Marty's writing on his ancient overhead projector slides with a new colour of sharpie. However, to be fair, credit is due to the makers of Ec 10 for not giving up and going Michael Sandel "Justice"-style, encouraging every mindless windbag at Harvard to declare his own personal opinion by microphone for the benefit of the other 999 people in the class.

Happy Truck Day

Itinerary for My Trip to Russia

From July 30 to August 12, I will be in Russia with my grandmother. The guided tour is called "Journey of the Czars." Judging by the form sent to me, the people running the organization think my name is "Johnathan." Does anyone in the world spell it that way? Anyway, the trip is by boat, beginning in Moscow and ending in St. Petersburg (if you had asked me whether or not those two cities were connected relatively directly by water...I'm not sure I would have said yes).

July 31: Arrive Moscow
Aug 1: Kremlin and Armory Tour, and "afternoon at leisure"
Aug 2: Moscow City Tour, Red Square Tour
Aug 3: Tretyakov Gallery Tour, Leave Moscow
Aug 4: Uglich
Aug 5: Yaroslavl
Aug 6: full day of 'cruising'
Aug 7: Kizhi Island
Aug 8: Mandrogi
Aug 9: Arrive St. Petersburg, City Tour, Exclusive Hermitage Ballet performance
Aug 10: Hermitage Museum Tour, Catherin's Palace Tour
Aug 11: Petrodvorets Grand Palace and Park Tour
Aug 12: Leave for home

Creationist Paleontologist on Economics

The NYTimes reports on a guy getting his degree in paleontology even though he's a "New Earth Creationist." How does he justify his situation?

For him, Dr. Ross said, the methods and theories of paleontology are one “paradigm” for studying the past, and Scripture is another. In the paleontological paradigm, he said, the dates in his dissertation are entirely appropriate. The fact that as a young earth creationist he has a different view just means, he said, “that I am separating the different paradigms.”

He likened his situation to that of a socialist studying economics [my emphasis] in a department with a supply-side bent. “People hold all sorts of opinions different from the department in which they graduate,” he said. “What’s that to anybody else?”

My question is, in his analogy, which is more like scripture: socialism, or supply-side economics?

Symphony Coughing

I'm going to the symphony tonight for the first time since I saw Schoenberg. It's a long Berlioz piece (is Berlioz the inspiration for the character Berlioz in Master and Margarita?).

My two favorite moments at the symphony are first, of course, when the oboe tunes the orchestra, but second, it is the chorus of coughing that follows the end of a movement. I know that yawning has been shown to be contagious, but only in very special circumstances does coughing seem to pass from person to person. In the symphony, it's the realization that you need to get all the coughing done before the next movement that sets you off, it's not some deep, underlying subconscious thought process.

On a related note, sometimes when I'm watching baseball games on mlb.tv they won't show commercials, they'll keep a camera on the broadcasters (who do not seem to realize they're being filmed). Throughout the commercial break, many announcers make all sorts of funny noises, including lots of coughing, I guess to keep their voices ready to go. Unfortunately I've never caught them bantering inappropriately.

4 Great Youtube Links

The first two are shamelessly reproduced from Andrew "SuckPwn" Hall's recommendations. They're both homophobic slip-ups by television people:

Football Announcer
News Anchor

Then two classics that everyone should see if they haven't already

George Washington cartoon
Bro Rape

MIT Professor's Hunger Strike

According to the Crimson at least, this nutcase is going through with his plan. Most professors, when denied tenure (at least in economics), either leave academia or take it as a sign that they need to produce more, good research in order to get tenure somewhere else in the near future. But not James Sherley. Mr. Professor Sherley has decided to take that classy step of alleging racism with, as far as I can tell, no evidence. The racism card is boring and predictable, but what's interesting about this is his little hunger strike:

"I will either see the Provost resign and my hard-earned tenure granted at MIT, or I will die defiantly right outside his office,” Sherley wrote in an e-mail to the MIT faculty in December.

I'm beginning to see why this guy didn't get tenure...in a real department. Maybe he'll get a call from Cornel West?

Woot.com

This website, Woot, offers a single product for sale every day, often at a shockingly deep discount. The guy describes the day's product with a witty pitch. Here's an example in which he compares today's "Excalibur" USB memory stick with the original Excalibur:

Storage Space
The Sword Excalibur: None to speak of, although in some tellings of the legend, Morgan le Fay magically adds a slot for SD/MMC cards.
Excalibur 4GB USB 2.0 Portable Drive: 4 GB, duh.
Advantage: Excalibur 4GB USB 2.0 Portable Drive

Magical Powers
The Sword Excalibur: Blinds its enemies when first drawn.
Excalibur 4GB USB 2.0 Portable Drive: Under the right conditions, can allow the bearer to communicate with clams, mussels, and other shellfish. At press time, nobody has ever found those conditions.
Advantage: The Sword Excalibur

Etymology
The Sword Excalibur: Unknown; possibly derived from Old French, Latin, or Welsh.
Excalibur 4GB USB 2.0 Portable Drive: Known; derives from the sword.
Advantage: Excalibur 4GB USB 2.0 Portable Drive

As A Melee Weapon
The Sword Excalibur: A guy with a big enough gun could still kill you.
Excalibur 4GB USB 2.0 Portable Drive: A guy with a big enough gun could still kill you.
Advantage: Draw

I give him credit - it's pretty funny. The Etymology is my favourite one. Not sure I'll buy it though - USB memory sticks are sort of down and out with the prevalence of wireless...

Hoax Email(s)

Last night this was in my inbox, very official looking:

Dear Members of the Harvard Community,

On behalf of Harvard’s governing boards, we write to inform you that a
decision has been reached regarding Harvard’s next president. The search
for Harvard’s next president has been a long and arduous process.
Students, faculty, and alumni alike have dedicated countless hours
throughout these past seven months. Special thanks are in order to the
undergraduate student advisory committee: Whitney S. F. Baxter ’07,
Katherine A. Beck ’08, and Vivek G. Ramaswamy ’07.

We are pleased to announce the reinstatement of Lawrence H. Summers as
Harvard’s once and future president. We understand that the decision may
come as a surprise to those that have been following the selection
process. After reviewing the candidates, however, we have come to the
conclusion that Dr. Summers is best suited to lead Harvard, particularly
in our plans for Allston and beyond.

To address concerns regarding Dr. Summers’ previous tenure, we will be
hosting an open forum discussion with Dr. Summers to be held in Sanders
Theater on February 5, at 5:00 P.M. Three hundred seats will be
available for undergraduate students, to be distributed by an open
lottery. To enter the lottery, please call the Presidential Search
Committee at (617) 576-6565, and leave your name and e-mail address. The
deadline to enter is tonight, February 3, at midnight.

Again, thank you for your patience and support throughout this process.

Sincerely,

The Presidential Search Committee

The next email in my inbox said:

Dear Students,

Please disregard the earlier e-mail labeled “Announcement from the Presidential Search Committee.” The e-mail was a hoax. We are currently looking into the source of this misinformation.

Given the substantial confusion caused by the incident, we feel compelled to make the actual announcement one day early. Former Dean of Harvard Law School, Elena Kagan, has been selected as the 28^th President of Harvard University. An official press release will be issued in the upcoming hours, as well as a more formal introduction.

Superbowl

Bears over Colts 41-7, Grossman throws for 500 yards

Noteable eBay Regularity

I've noticed that a lot of sellers will post an item with both an initial bid price, and a very slightly higher "buy it now" price. For example, you can bid $74.99, or Buy It Now for $79.99. What's up with that?

W.A.S.T.E.

"Science, Gender, and Sexuality"

I got to the room at exactly 1pm, which is 7 minutes early by any and all Harvard College standards (the law school standard is classes start exactly when they say they do). There were only a few seats open and lecture had already begun. The professor was youngish for a professor, with vertically oriented, feminist gray hair. The next person to dare enter came at 1:01pm, and received a remarkably quick "come on time!" from our fearless leader.

Unfortunately for me, the professor seemed pretty open-minded and non-judgmental (I was hoping for a more orthodox introduction to radical feminism). She assured us that she was "not anti-science," which elicited some gasps from the more unusually dressed audience members, but approval from the science-y half of the class. I'll note she did not say she was "pro-science." I'm not sure what it means to be "anti-science," but unfortunately, I may not find out since she isn't it.

As we discussed the main topics of the course, I realized that one of the reasons I appreciate studying economics is that there is a well-thought-out foundation of thought that everyone shares. Economists have gone to great lengths to make it possible for questions in the classroom to be answered "yes," "no," or "I'm not sure, but here's what I'd do to answer that question." In lesser disciplines, questions are almost always ultimately answered with a shrug, another question, or a "that's a great question...we'll answer it later." My Russian Culture prof last semester commented that the ability to answer questions or not was what separated science from humanities...and then she declared that they were both equally relevant for analyzing human behaviour and society.

An example from Gender Studies:

Prof: why is it ok to walk around in Harvard Yard with your knees showing, but not your genitals? There is no 'absolute' that demands this be true. Therefore, it's societal.

Reasonable Student: what exactly do you mean by 'absolute?'

Prof: Excellent question. For example, if you believe in God, then His commandments would be absolute. Or if you believe ethics or morals are absolute, then...so you see, uh, there's really no reason that covering your genitals is absolute, outside of society. Absolute truth is only defined by society. It's imposed by society.

Me: Would you even consider walking upright an 'absolute' for the human body? If so, then it's very possible that covering up our genitals is equally absolute, and otherwise, nothing is absolute. In which case the 'absolute' seems like a trivial concept.

Prof: Excellent question. So you all see that this stuff is really important and complicated, and we'll have to spend all semester untangling it.

Also, there's this obvious problem with dualism they don't seem to have made much progress on. The Professor wanted to talk about whether or not "brains" are different between sexes (obviously they are...if not, I'll eat my hat). So I think she includes the brain as part of the body. But then she asks all of these questions about the introspective "you" living inside your body meshing, or not meshing, with that body's physical sexnicity. The mysterious "you" - the one you know when you see it.