Lol?
Monthly Archives: January 2015
Writing tip for Bayesians: Don’t write “maximum likelihood estimate” or “mode of the distribution” where you could equivalently write “best guess”.
How to deal with sticky wages, and other nominal rigidities attributable to the psychology of fairness
Apparently it also works with small children.
Courtesy of 9gag, Land of Lols.
Toward market clearing, dating edition
Go on more dates by simply placing a bid. Now you can date anyone, anywhere, anytime for the right price.
I understand the site allows only for men to bid money on dates with women and never vice versa.
Yo, is this uncharitable?
The quotes seem cherry picked, but I wouldn't be so uncharitable as to accuse the maker of the video of deceitful editing.
Or, slightly more seriously:
- The video is awesome IMO, in that the editing works impressively well and makes for a genuinely good and funny song.
- Perhaps one can appreciate the video as criticism of David Cameron and supporters, though as such I think the criticism is qualitatively weak. On the other hand, it seems like a good caricature of his less sophisticated critics, in that it showcases the sorts of positions that they might genuinely attribute to their tribal opponent.
Car engine sounds: The cake is a lie
The engine growl in some of America's best-selling cars and trucks is actually a finely tuned bit of lip-syncing, boosted through special pipes or digitally faked altogether.
Mathematical ability tests biased in favour of/against women
Robin Hanson, back in 2008 [emphasis his]:
Discussion of the Science article on gender differences in math test variance got me thinking. Since a test score is a noisy measure of some underlying ability, an unusually high score can come either from an unusual high ability, or from an unusually positive measurement error (or both). If higher male score variance is due more to a higher male ability variance than to a higher male measurement error variance, then a high female score is more likely to be due to measurement error than is the same high male score. If so, treating the same score value as the same ability, independent of gender, as is common in school admissions, creates a bias (vs. men) in favor of high scoring, and against low scoring, women.
The ideal age to have children
15, sez Louie Helm.
In terms of health outcomes for mother and child, that is.
I don't know how large these effects are. They don't seem huge. Other prudential arguments for later pregnancy may be stronger.
But this further reinforces my view that teenage pregnancy is not as bad as it's usually seen as. It's got a lot going for it, even.
Although it's completely outside the societal norm these days, having a child at 15 leaves a woman free to immediately start her career after finishing college because her child will be entering school right as she leaves it. Assuming the mother enrolls in an elite online high school program, she could take one summer off to deliver and never miss a beat in her academic (and real) career.
Is that last sentence naive? Of course, how much help she has has got to be a big factor.
Anna Salamon and Steve Rayhawk: “Share likelihood ratios, not posterior beliefs”
This old(ish) Overcoming Bias post by Anna Salamon and Steve Rayhawk is one of the best things I've recently read.
Though perhaps I was oblivious of something that should have been clear to me. Please let me know how obvious the post's argument was to you.
HT Julian.
One unsolicited criticism: I think the post is too long, and that you can stop reading just before the paragraph that begins with "(2)".
Huemer Lol
John T. Kennedy sez of this:
So philosopher Mike Huemer writes a brilliant book demonstrating that state authority cannot be morally justified, and then when you turn your back for a few minutes you suddenly find him pulling Excalibur from the stone with a crazed look, and claiming the British throne.... Am I the only one who sees a wee bit of hypocrisy in this??