Monthly Archives: May 2012

Wednesday Nerd Fun: The Setup

Posted on May 30, 2012 by

The Setup is a cool new site with interviews from all kinds of nerd heroes: designers, photographers, engineers, programmers, and so on. The interviews are all structured basically the same. First, the interviewee is asked about what they do, and … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Why Are Hot Dogs So Inexpensive?

Posted on May 28, 2012 by

Memorial Day is the unofficial start of grilling season. According to the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council (yes, it exists), Americans will consume about 7 billion hot dogs between now and Labor Day–that’s about 818 per second! The estimated … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Henry Farrell on Internet Politics

Posted on May 25, 2012 by

The paper is mentioned over at the Monkey Cage, and available here. I present it without comment, other than to express agreement with the main points. From the introduction: How should political scientists study the Internet’s influence on politics? Political … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Wednesday Nerd Fun: 200 Years of Campaign Posters

Posted on May 23, 2012 by

The book is Presidential Campaign Posters: Two Hundred Years of Election Art by W. Ralph Eubanks, publishing director at the Library of Congress. You can hear an interview with Eubanks below, and browse through some of the posters here and … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Brookings: Hybrid University Classes as Good as Traditional Format

Posted on May 23, 2012 by

We randomly assigned students in seven introductory statistics courses on six public university campuses to take the course in a hybrid format (with machine-guided instruction accompanied by one hour of face-to-face instruction each week) or a traditional format (as it … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A Return to Apprenticeship

Posted on May 21, 2012 by

In his book The Success of Open Source, Steven Weber mentions how companies can integrate open source development into their workflow.* One reason for doing this is the competitive advantage that comes from a widespread, thorough understanding of the code. … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Stadiums, Bazaars, and Signalling

Posted on May 17, 2012 by

“Imagine going to a stadium to see a soccer game,” says Ozevin. “Would you enjoy the game without shouting? Bazaars are just like stadiums, if you can’t shout there is no joy.” There’s also very little information, or (in the … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Wednesday Nerd Fun: Anything Becomes a Touchpad

Posted on May 16, 2012 by

Tired of your boring old touchpad? Why not use Play-Doh instead? Or bananas? That’s what MaKey Makey allows you to do, and Gizmodo describes it thusly: With their Makey Makey open source hardware project, Jay Silver and Eric Rosenbaum have … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Schelling’s Model of Segregation (Python)

Posted on May 14, 2012 by

Over the weekend I implemented a version of the agent-based model from Thomas Schelling’s 1971 paper in Python. Schelling’s story about segregation is simple: there are two colors of agents, happiness is based on whether two or more of your … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Wednesday Nerd Fun: Folding Air

Posted on May 9, 2012 by

A few years ago, on a Christmas break, I decided to learn how to create balloon animals. It made me some money during undergrad, in addition to being a fairly random party trick. My skills are a bit rusty, but … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment