This article by Fareed Zakaria has a nice mathematical fallacy that falls into the "not understanding the power of compounding" category. From the article:
For the past two decades, for example, China has grown at approximately 9 percent a year and the United States at 3 percent. For the next few years, American growth will likely be 1 percent and ( Read more... )

Here.

I didn't bring my camera with me everywhere, but there are more photos to be obtained from Jacob.

The lines from chapter 31 of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows that work "best"1 out of context:

( spoilers )

The recent imbroglio about NBA referee Tim Donaghy led to me reading another classic example of a frustrating yet common tendency of journalists (and others): using literary phrases to mean exactly the opposite of what they mean in the original. Here we have from J.A. Adande:

If any fan base is predisposed to believing games could be fixed, that ( Read more... )

Beat that stupid 50 million HP boss in FFXII.  Nearly completed the game now.

Really just wanted to show off this picture that I cropped from a CPU cooler box image on the Internet.

( Read more... )

DONE

My defense is done. No changes to my dissertation needed. I've copied it to the special paper and gotten everything signed. All that's left is to submit it to Cornell tomorrow morning.

It's so nice to be done. Gone from cold Ithaca forever.

Not Tinkers to Evers to Chance, but from this Nicholas Kristof article:
"If we had the chance to go back to white rule, we'd do it," said Solomon Dube, a peasant whose child was crying with hunger when I arrived in his village. "Life was easier then, and at least you could get food and a job ( Read more... )

Going to go off to LA early tomorrow morning for a wedding. (Mark Neidengard and Sionna Klassen) I'm planning to get to see Mamie, which should be fun.

Got more wacky Japanese spam again today:

初めまして。黒崎響子といいます ( Read more... )

I'm also amused by the image of these Marmite ads terrifying children.