Quote of the Day

From Paul Collier:

Americans are in for an analogous shock as other economies become dominant, and as other societies offer higher living standards: if you want to see the future visit Singapore, not New York.

I'm scared. They work almost twice as many hours a day, struggle to innovate, have a king and weak civil liberties, their arts are stagnate (ever hear about Singaporean books, movies, or music?), and, worst of all, they never get laid. Basically, they aren't happy.

Quote of the Day

Candidates who can commit to summer 2012 are strongly preferred.

I read that and thought "I can't risk being out of the country--I need to see Batman 3 opening night."

Then I pitied myself.

Quote of the Day: Stallone Edition

Stallone has three daughters, ages 14, 12, and 8, and two sons, both in their 30s. He recently spoke with the media about childrearing:

"You worry. You know, . . . I won't let 'em [his daughters] date till they're 45. I adore them. . . Girls are very different.

Quote of the Day

In only two years . . .  more than 122,000 Floridians have saved $5 million dollars in prescription drug costs.

That is Charlie Crist's webpage on his big achievement in health care: the Florida Discount Drug Card. Many seniors are using the $20.49 a year savings to fulfill lifelong ambitions like visiting Vatican City or attending a game at every MLB park.

Lying with Numbers AND Quote of the Day

First, the quote of the day, from this article on a program for humanities students to go into medicine:

I didn’t want to waste a class on physics, or waste a class on orgo. The social determinants of health are so much more pervasive than the immediate biology of it.

Why didn't she just say important? Did she think pervasive would sound more intelligent. And why is she going into medicine if she wants to deal with things like sanitation, employment, and clean water in Africa?


At the beginning of the article the author mentions a study that showed the academic performance of the humanities students matched that of the traditional students. Presumably the implication is that you don't really need to "waste a class on physics" because it won't matter.

But that's not what the study showed at all because of selection bias.


Consider this example. I ask some biology majors at MIT and some physics majors at UF to take a test on E&M (Physics II or 8.02 at MIT). They end up scoring the same (no significant difference). Majoring in physics doesn't help you do well on physics, right?

No. MIT admits students largely on their ability to do well on test, esp. in the sciences. Since MIT students are smarter you'd hope they do better than public school students, perhaps even though they are being compared with a select group of them.

In the article the humanities students are probably smarter on average. Their average GPA is 3.74 and SAT is 1447. They'd probably mostly be competitive applicants at some of the top medical schools in the country. You'd hope they could hold their own, all else equal, with people admitted to a less competitive programs.

Quote of the Day: Facebook Edition

I did my nightly Facebook log-in and this was the second thing in the news feed:

A: You play ultimate? That's awesome. I gotta hook up with the ultimate team some time . . .

B: Nice man, you should come out and play with us. . . . chances are I know your hookup.

This is only funny is that is a misunderstanding about the word "hookup."

Quote of the Day: Chinese Edition

I read this in a novel, it's attributed to Confucious:

An educated woman is a useless woman.

I  searched for that quote on the Internet and couldn't find it. I did find a treasure trove of misogynistic Neo-confucian quotes here.

Of course, no one believes that stuff anymore, do they?

Maybe. Ray Fisman's research, summarized in Blink and here:

Fisman's study shows that men do like smart, ambitious women as long as they are not smarter and more ambitious than they are. . . . What about other women? How do they feel about extremely intelligent women? For the most part, unless they are also very intelligent, they tend to either be jealous or feel inferior and not want to associate with them.

Quote of the Day

Schuster opens the door.

Schuster: Oh, it's you. . . . I'm waiting for a package.

Steve: I got your package right here.

Fill in the stage directions.

Quote of the Day

Christopher Nolan’s persistent thematic idea [is] 'What we see is not true, it's just a facade.' You see this in all his movies. But he never says ["why"] . . . in any depth . . ." Basically, there's nothing to 'get' in the first place.

This is not completely true. The Batman films serve steak, not tripe. But it's worth repeating over and over: If you didn't understand something it's usually because the author/director/painter/composer isn't clear or because there is nothing to "get."