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Tag Archives: humor
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
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged culture, democracy, dictatorship, entertainment, fun, history, how-to, humor, international relations, Middle East, politics, rhetoric
1 Comment
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
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged crime, culture, economics, entertainment, fun, humor, nerd, political science, politics, rhetoric, violence
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Micro-Institutions at the Gym
Jason Gay of the Wall Street Journal has 27 rules for the gym, and then 25 more. Below are some interesting examples of norms and insider know-how. There’s coded language: “Great job!” is trainer-speak for “It’s not polite for me … Continue reading
Phony Rules of English Grammar
You have heard the rules before: Don’t end a sentence with a preposition. Don’t split an infinitive. Don’t start with a conjunction. But who makes these rules? How did they become incorporated into English grammar? One culprit is Robert Lowth, … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged behavior, crime, culture, English, grammar, history, humor, language, Latin, micro-institutions, micro-institutions everywhere, nerd, norms, politics, research, rhetoric, rule-making, rules
3 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
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Tagged behavior, culture, education, fun, history, humor, micro-institutions, micro-institutions everywhere, nerd, political science, politics, public opinion
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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
2 Comments
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
Politics of Beards: Post-Mubarak Egypt Edition
In Egypt, Muslim Brotherhood members generally tend to go with the full but well-groomed beard and moustache. However Salafists – the ultraconservative fundamentalist Muslims – like to let their beards grow long and wild, often leaving their upper lip clean-shaven as a nod to how … Continue reading
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Tagged behavior, culture, Egypt, fun, humor, international relations, micro-institutions everywhere, Middle East, politics, Syria
1 Comment
The Political Economy of Scrabble: Currency, Innovation, and Norms
In Scrabble, there is a finite amount of resources (letter tiles) that players use to create value (points) for themselves. Similarly, in the real world matter cannot be created so much of human effort is rearranging the particles that exist into … Continue reading
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Tagged behavior, crime, culture, data, economics, education, entertainment, fun, game theory, games, how-to, humor, micro-institutions, micro-institutions everywhere, political economy, politics, programming, Python, rationality, rent seeking, technology
2 Comments
Middle Schoolers Intuitively Grasp Economics
Planet Money’s Dec. 25 podcast was another episode that was too good not to blog. They perform a classroom experiment related to gift-giving: randomly distributing ten different treats to a classroom of seventh-graders. Each student received one snack, which ranged … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged behavior, data, economics, education, free markets, fun, humor, micro-institutions everywhere, research, technology
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