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Monthly Archives: February 2013
More Baby Name Regulation
We just talked about this less than two weeks ago: countries that have lists of banned baby names, or lists of permissible names. Azerbaijan will soon join the second category, with one important difference. The Azeri government’s justification for the … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged behavior, culture, education, foreign policy, international relations, micro-institutions, Middle East, politics, war
1 Comment
Accidents, Worker Safety, and Coming Due
Over the holidays my dad posed a two-part question after dinner: If a vehicle goes 200,000 miles without a mechanical failure does that mean that it is more likely to have a failure soon? And does the same hold true … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged cars, data, education, nerd, statistical thinking, statistics, technology, transportation, workplace safety
2 Comments
The Britiſh are Leaving: Law and Legislation for the English “S”
On Wednesday we looked at a few extinct English letters. During that discussion you may have thought about the long s, resembling an “f” without the crossbar, frequently used in 18th century texts. You have probably noticed that ſ is used … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged behavior, culture, education, fun, history, humor, micro-institutions, micro-institutions everywhere, nerd, political science, politics, public opinion
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Micro-Institutions Everywhere: The English Alphabet
We take our ABC’s for granted, learning 26 letters in a precise order from our youngest days. When introduced to a second or third language later in life we may realize that even similar tongues to English contain slightly different … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged behavior, culture, education, history, language, micro-institutions, micro-institutions everywhere, Old English, politics, Rome, war
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Converting and Standardizing Country Names/Codes in R
We have run into this issue before: you have datasets with different coding schemes for the cross-sectional unit. You need to get them all standardized so you can merge the data and increase the measurement error control for a reviewer’s favorite … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged data, economics, education, humor, international relations, political science, politics, programming, R, statistics, technology, war
1 Comment
Regulating Baby Names
In America we have a tradition of ridiculous baby names dating back to our Puritan founders. Without regulation, we end up with names like Noun, Comma, and even Semicolon. There’s even a whole book of Bad Baby Names. Citizens of … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged behavior, culture, fun, history, humor, micro-institutions, micro-institutions everywhere, politics, statistics
6 Comments
Interviews with Over 50 IR Scholars
Readers of this blog may enjoy Theory Talks, which I recently discovered thanks to a link on Twitter that I cannot remember now. Here’s how the site describes itself: Theory Talks is an interactive forum for discussion of debates in International Relations with an … Continue reading
Micro-Institutions Everywhere: Around Your Waist
Men have always worn belts with their trousers, right? Wrong. Until the First World War, belts served one of two purposes. They could be a way for a ruler to accessorize, or an easy way for soldiers to carry around … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged behavior, culture, economics, education, emergent behavior, fashion, fun, history, micro-institutions, micro-institutions everywhere, norms, politics, technology, war
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The New Netflix Strategy: Gambling on House of Cards
One week ago Netflix introduced its first original series, House of Cards. The series details the life and crimes of (fictional) US Congressman Francis Underwood and his wife Claire who runs a nonprofit. What is unique about the series is that … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged American politics, culture, elections, entertainment, fun, online politics, politics, technology, television
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The Roman Internet
Terence Eden asks why the Romans didn’t invent the internet: What I find interesting is that there was nothing fundamentally to stop the Romans – or any other ancient civilization – from creating such a network. The Greeks experimented with … Continue reading
