Monthly Archives: April 2012

Thiel and Cutler on Exponential Thinking

Posted on April 28, 2012 by

Despite being rooted in middle school math, exponential thinking is hard. We live in a world where we normally don’t experience anything exponentially. Our general life experience is pretty linear. We vastly underestimate exponential things. –Thiel By the time that … Continue reading →

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Wednesday Nerd Fun: Useful Approximations for Large Numbers (and Some Small Ones)

Posted on April 25, 2012 by

From xkcd via John D. Cook: Blogging will be light for the next week or two, as I am finishing up the school year and traveling.

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Faculty Salaries at American Universities

Posted on April 23, 2012 by

From the Chronicle of Higher Education. Here is the first paragraph from their “About the Data” section: Salary data are collected annually by the American Association of University Professors. The most recent data are for the 2011-12 academic year. Salaries … Continue reading →

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A Model of Conflict: Iwo Jima

Posted on April 20, 2012 by

This blog has discussed conflict statistics before, as well as some of the widely acknowledged problems with adapting “physics models” to the social sciences. To provide some context to that debate, I thought I would share an example that I … Continue reading →

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Wednesday Nerd Fun: How Real is Your Field of Study?

Posted on April 18, 2012 by

Nothing gets a good nerdfight going like whose academic discipline is more real. Since the Gawker published this list earlier this month, the heat has hopefully died down enough for people to enjoy the rivalry. My own field comes in … Continue reading →

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My Ten Favorite Posts from the Past Year

Posted on April 17, 2012 by

As promised yesterday, here are my top ten favorite posts from the first year of YSPR. They are arranged chronologically. Addiction in The English Opium Eater Thoughts on Public Enemies Iraq Casualties and Public Opinion, 2003 Lessons from Moneyball Casinos … Continue reading →

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Blogging, One Year On

Posted on April 16, 2012 by

It has been exactly one year since the initial post on YSPR. In that year, the two biggest changes for the blog have probably been that the main author started graduate school and the move to a new domain name. … Continue reading →

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Ten Facts About Turkey

Posted on April 13, 2012 by

Turkey is nearly as urban as France. Turkish political life is secular, but religion still has a role. It’s the economy, stupid — in Turkey, too. Atatürk liberated Turkish women (but forgot to tell the men). Turkey has the biodiversity … Continue reading →

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Wednesday Nerd Fun: Build Your Own Turing Machine

Posted on April 11, 2012 by

I sent this around to a few folks last week, but thought I would share it here as well. If you are not quite nerdy enough to know what a Turing Machine is (hint–you have already used one), check out … Continue reading →

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Micro-Institutions Everywhere: Top Forty Radio

Posted on April 9, 2012 by

Top Forty radio was invented by Todd Storz and Bill Stewart, the operator and program director, respectively, of KOWH, an AM station in Omaha, Nebraska, in the early fifties. Like most music programmers of the day, Storz and Stewart provided … Continue reading →

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