Tag Archives: fun

JavaScript Politics

In a recent conversation on Twitter, Christopher Zorn said that Stata is fascism, R is anarchism, and SAS is masochism. While only one of these is plausibly a programming language, it’s an interesting political analogy. We’ve discussed the politics of … Continue reading

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More on Food Truck Regulation

More on the plight of food truck operators in NYC, from the Times: There are numerous (and sometimes conflicting) regulations required by the departments of Health, Sanitation, Transportation and Consumer Affairs. These rules are enforced, with varying consistency, by the New … Continue reading

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Great Gatsby, Copyright, and the Public Domain

Is the Great Gatsby in the public domain? The book was written in 1925 and Fitzgerald passed away in 1940. Copyright generally expires 70 years after the author’s death, so you could be forgiven for thinking the answer is “yes.” If … Continue reading

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Micro-Institutions Everywhere: 8-Hour Sleep

For much of European history it was common to sleep in two chunks of about four hours each, separated by a one- to two-hour period of waking activity: [Historian Roger] Ekirch found that references to the first and second sleep … Continue reading

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The Aesthetic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy

On episode 18 of the Loopcast, Sina and his guest discuss fashion and national security. Around 23:00 comes the money quote: “There’s a lot of black hair dye involved being a dictator.” Here’s the logic: [I]n a democracy, your hair … Continue reading

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The Political Economy of *Killing Them Softly*

Over the weekend I rented Killing them Softly expecting a relatively mindless movie featuring Brad Pitt as a hitman. I was only half right. During several key scenes George W. Bush and his administration officials can be heard giving statements to … Continue reading

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Blogging, Two Years On

Tuesday marked the second anniversary of YSPR. I wrote the first post while at a political science conference, so it seems fitting that I spent the last couple of weeks travelling to ISA and MPSA. From those two conferences it … Continue reading

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Five Lessons on Strategic Thinking from Jane Austen

On Monday I mentioned Michael Suk-Young Chwe‘s new book, Jane Austen, Game Theorist. In this post we take a deeper look at Chwe’s argument: that Jane Austen was teaching lessons about strategic thinking through her novels in what he calls “folk … Continue reading

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What Can Novels Teach Us?

Is it worthwhile for a social scientist to read fiction? What can novels teach us about human behavior? This post summarizes the work of several authors who would answer the first question with a resounding “yes,” and describes their arguments … Continue reading

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Just Don’t Call It Moneyball

Situated in the tech startup capital of the world, it should come as no surprise that the San Francisco Giants are leveraging data analysis to give the team a competitive edge: Within the organization, there are three programmers who maintain … Continue reading

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