Urban Flight

It's amazing to me when people blessed with ability and the drive to become great are able to have enough perspective to leave on their terms. In sports, the endgame is something many of our heroes have not been able to win. So many of the superstars that we've come to love have the need to hang around a little too long, sometimes damaging their legacy. Sometimes, players underestimate the impact of injuries that accumulate over time. We saw Larry Bird try to hang on with a bad back, but he was never able to get himself healthy enough to really challenge the Pistons' or Bulls' emergence. And sometimes, it's not a specific injury, but simply it's the ravages of time that slow our stars down. This coupled with the competitiveness that makes these people great makes for some uncomfortable, sometimes dangerous situations. We watched with sad feeling as a slower, heavier, less awe-inspiring Michael Jordan tried to come back with the Wiz. And even worse, we watched uncomfortably as an overmatched Muhammad Ali tried to turn back the clock against Larry Holmes, only to take a brutal beating while being too proud to quit.

Hanging on too long may be hazardous to your health.

Pop culture has create a bit of a cottage industry selling expensive throwback jerseys of iconic players with strange team colors and logos. This is always fascinating to see people wearing these jerseys, and you have to think for a second about what it is that you're actually looking at.

Evidently, Broadway is in Los Angeles (or perhaps it's moved to St. Louis).

Say Hey - one of the game's Giants... sort of.

On the flip side, a small handful of stars are able to either leave on top or step aside gracefully. We have the image of John Elway riding off into the sunset as a back-to-back Super Bowl champ after the 1998 season. Perhaps we think about Jim Brown running and receiving for 21 TD, 1872 yards, and winning his 5th MVP in 1965 at the age of 29. Or more recently, Barry Sanders stepping aside at the age of 30, after his 10th Pro Bowl season (out of 10 years played).

Leaving on top. Beats leaving in a heap.

Even among coaching icons, we see examples of coaches who hung on a little too long. Chuck Noll, the 4-time Super Bowl winning coach for the Steelers went 44-51 (.463) over his last 6 seasons, after going 149-97 (.606) in the years before that. Bobby Bowden is one current example, going 37-27 (.578) over last 5 seasons (pending this year's bowl game), after going 278-70 (.799) in the years before that. And this year, he was finally forced to resign by the powers that be at Florida St., in a somewhat sad situation.

Dadgum. Winning is harder when we have to play good teams.

In hoops, we see Gene Keady going 63-79 (.444) in his last 5 seasons at Purdue, after going 449-191 (.702) in the years before that. Even our own Lou Henson went 86-64 (.573) in his last 5 seasons at Illinois, after going 376-160 (.701) in his time before that (note, Lou also bailed out his alma mater, New Mexico St. after he retired from Illinois, and coached another 8 seasons at a .611 clip). But not everyone leaves on a down note. THE icon in coaching is John Wooden, who coached his last game in 1975, after winning his 10th national championship (which was the 8th out of the previous 9, and 10th in previous 12 years).

Now, Urban Meyer, one of college football's class acts, steps aside at the age of 45, with potentially another 10 years at the top of the game, making $4+ million per year. He finishes going to his 4th BCS Bowl, having won 2 of the last 4 national championships (and also went undefeated in 2004 at Utah), and leaves behind the nation's top incoming recruiting class. He gets to be one of the few who leave the game while their skills are still in tact, with his health and family still in tact, as well. That's the sort of move that the Board Room salutes.

Update: 12/27/09 - It appears that Meyer has been talked into taking a leave of absence, rather than simply resigning. So, this appears to be more akin to Coach K (no chance that I could spell his name w/out looking it up) taking a leave of absence back in the 90's. I think that this is the more practical option, though I do sort of like the idea of just saying, "screw it, I've been to the mountain top, and now I'm going to just hang out and be awesome."

-Chairman

Project Self: The Decade in Review

For most people, as they look back on a decade, it's a mix of wonderment, awe, joy, and sadness. They can think about the highs and lows, the memorable events, and the things they wish they could forget. As I think about the 20-aught's, I realize that I'm sort of boring.

Even in the 1990's, I had many interesting happenings in my life. We opened up the decade with the '90 Reds bringing in the decade by going wire-to-wire and sweeping the Bash ('Roid) Brothers, and winning a World Series. I had cruised through junior high, was getting great grades, was playing a lot of tennis, and actually was on the varsity chess team during my freshman year of high school. Then in 1993, we moved from Cincy out to Rotterdam, NY, where high school was a reasonably interesting time. In my junior year, I had my lifetime athletic highlight, I served an ace on match point to win my match deep in the 3rd set, which also won the last team match of the season, and locked up a division title in the process. I continued to get great grades, had the option to leave after my junior year to enroll at USC. Apparently, warm weather and hot SoCal chicks wasn't as appealing as shoveling snow and cruising through senior year. I ended up coming back for my senior year, hoping to repeat a championship run, way before people like Tim Tebow or Sam Bradford made it cool to do so. Much like those two, I also failed, as our team was mediocre, though I had a pretty good season. And my senior year was phenomenal. I got to use the car on a daily basis because I ended up taking a couple classes at the local community college during the day. Let's just say that I wasn't all that impressed at my first foray into higher education (well, sort of higher ed). But I had a 4 hour gap in my school day gave me time after my college classes, before I had to get back to school, which I took advantage of by going to the mall or going out to lunch. All in all, it was pretty sweet.

Interestingly, this also marked the first time that I had decided to hang around, rather than look for the next place to go (more on this later). In 1996, I left NY for the cornfields of Champaign-Urbana, IL, which was an even more interesting time. First, my grades became more adequate than good. Let's just say that I wasn't big on achievement once I hit college. In 1998, I spent 8 months in Louisville, KY working as a co-op for General Electric, and went on a number of adventures with a lot of cool people. I had some cool adventures with my roommates, and all in all really like my time in Illinois. All throughout this time, it was interesting how my New Year's Eve celebrations had evolved. In 1996 and 1997, I was still going home to NY for winter break, so we had some low-key nights with friends, playing cards, a lot like what we did in high school. I ended 1998 in Times Square, NY, staying with random people that my buddy had met online, and we had brought along this gigantic 6'4" blonde chick from Albany. And as I recall, we closed out 1999 in Illinois by throwing a big party that had like 60 people in there, having a great time.

Three locations, lots of life changes, as I went from being a kid to being... well, an older kid. Along the way, I got to wander to a lot of places, met a lot of great folks, all of which helped form the person that I'm going to eventually become. I was rolling out to West Virginia to go kayaking. Up to Cedar Pointe to ride ridiculously large roller coasters. Rocking it out in NYC for new year's. Playing wingman for my buddy while he dove into moving cars full of cheerleaders.

Then the new millennium rolled in. I was still in Champaign-Urbana, rocking it out. First, wrapping up my undergrad degree, and then starting my grad program in engineering. I got to spend a summer in Estes Park, CO (a great summer). Then I started an MBA program. Then I spent a summer in San Antonio, TX (another great summer). After that, I muddled my way through two more semester of mindless MBA classes, in the process started doing some research in consumer behavior in the spring of 2003, as I was wrapping up the engineering classes for my grad program. I kept doing the research, and then got into a PhD program in the fall of 2004. And I was still in Illinois. And that was how it was going to be in 2005. And 2006. And 2007. And 2008. And even the first half of 2009.

My New Year's traditions had gone from being in a different place every year to being in the same bar in Champaign every year. The start of the decade was a lot like the end of the 90's. The end of 2000 was another big party, only I was an attendee, and not the host. We spent the end of 2001 in the French Quarter in New Orleans getting terrible service at Pere Antoine's. Then we opened up 2002 watching our Illini get stomped by LSU in the Sugar Bowl on New Year's Day. And then starting in 2003, it was New Year's: Champaign, except for one year when we ventured out to Indy to rock it out. One of the recurring themes was that we always Dino in tow, for most of the Champaign and the Indy adventure. But then in 2007, he told me that he wasn't coming up for New Year's, and that's when I figured that he'd be getting married soon (and I was right... sucker :-).

In the 1990's, I moved location 3 times, got into new adventures. By 2003, I was sort of this equilibrium state. I just sort of did my own thing. I replaced the friends who actually decided to grow up and enter adulthood, with more like-minded folks who loved the extended adolescence that college afforded. But each iteration lost a little in the translation, particularly at the periphery. I was able to replace the handful of lasting friendships that I had, but the next tier of friends sort of faded away, numerically, and for those who were there, the signal quality was slightly degraded. And my New Year's adventures became less interesting, to the point where I was just going out just because that was what people were supposed to do (and I didn't have to wait in line at my bar).

I think that the end of this decade is a good thing for me. First of all, I've finally moved on from Illinois. The last 4 1/2 months of the decade have been spent in New Orleans. I'm no longer amongst those with "hidden unemployment," and have vaulted into a 95th percentile salary. It's not like I've grown up, but now I'm an older kid, with some grown up toys, like power drills, jigsaws, and firearms. Okay, not firearms. Yet (maybe when I'm 35 I'll be responsible enough to own a gun - probably not). I still need to figure out how I want to use all of this new found wealth (other than buying guns - and ammo). And I need to figure out how I want to relate to the people around me. One thing that I haven't really done, yet, is to reload those lasting friendships down in NOLA. And I suppose that we'll see if the 13 years spent on a college campus as a student has stunted my development as a person or irreparably damaged my view of people (which actually is sort of cool, if you think about it). Of course, this may not matter, since I'm still on a college campus, only now on the other side of the table. But what's great is that I've got a new decade to figure this stuff out... once I figure out what I'm going to do for New Year's Eve in a few days.

-Chairman

Figures Lie, and Liars will Figure (v. 2.0)

Last summer, when my guy Mahmoud was having his latest electoral triumph, there were some folks who were convinced that there was some fraud going on. Now, I was one of the folks who was pretty sure. But I certainly couldn't prove it. And it wasn't just in Iran where you'd see rigged elections, which are often in plain sight. And in fact, I was sort of hoping that the election was rigged, as rigged elections are a lot of fun in my book. Especially when you look at the aftermath of these things. But what I thought was interesting was how the statistics used in the Washington Post article were interpreted to "prove" that the fraud took place. Essentially, the odds of any one even happening, given the almost limitless possible permutations, is astronomical. So arguments that build up an argument parallel to that idea are on shaky ground to begin with.

But the use of data and statistics is something that we're becoming more and more comfortable with. In sports, folks in basketball are looking for more useful statistics (disclaimer - I have nothing to do with this statistic, and actually think that it looks hokey, but I love the name) to analyze player performance. Sometimes, the results are somewhat comical, and entirely counterintuitive to our everyday observations, as Bill Simmons points out (about 1/3 of the way down) when commenting on stats-guru Wayne Winston's take on Tim Thomas. And in baseball, we saw voters overlook traditional counting numbers (wins, losses, HR, RBI), and focus more on efficiency numbers (ERA, WHIP, OBP, SLG), when selecting Greinke, Lincecum, and Mauer as the best pitchers and hitters (Pujols was a lock no matter what criteria you use).

Of course, as more and more people employ the use of statistics, you have more and more people misusing statistics, whether by intent, or by ignorance. One of my pet peeves is the use of macro level data to evaluate singular events, under the assumption that the data is perfect.

Recently, there was a situation in the NFL, that has led to a lot of commentary and angst. Basically, the Patriots are winning by 6, have the ball on their own 29 yard line, and it's 4th and 2. And coach Bill Belichick decides to go for it. Only, they don't have their personnel correct, so they have to burn their last time out. Then, they come back out of the timeout, and line up on offense again, in a 5WR, empty backfield. I'll be honest - as I was watching the game, I figured that they'd try to draw them offsides, or maybe put in a QB keeper to get the 2 yards.

I was legitimately shocked when they actually snapped the ball and threw. And immediately, I knew that there'd be a maelstrom of dissenting opinion on this one. And the argument would basically fall along two lines. The first group would be the supporters, and the support would be statistically based, likely building off of the argument that the average offensive play gains 5 yards, etc. The second group would be the dissenters, who would argue for conservatism, talk about how that's not how you play the game, you that's disrespectful to your defense, etc. Normally, I am all for statistical evidence. But one of the biggest things that the stat folks forget is that just because you have a stat, it doesn't mean that it's appropriate to use in a situation.

There's a basic assumption that is being made here that (in my opinion) isn't perfectly clear. You are assuming that the use of macro level probabilities is appropriate for making micro level decisions, regardless of context. I'd argue that the context matters, an that the probabilities for winning should be considered with the actual players.

If you're a poker player, then you will often see people playing in tournaments make decisions exclusively based on pot odds. Basically, if you are a 2-to-1 underdog, but you're getting the appropriate incentive to take the risk (for example a reward of a 3-to-1 situation), you should take on the risk because price is correct. However, there's something implied that is often not considered: essentially what you are saying is that any 1 chip is worth the same, regardless of the situation, regardless of who owns that chip. Now, if you had a computer simulator and could re-run that scenario an infinite number of times, the stat-based decision will be the optimal method. But life is a one-shot deal, and the outcomes at a micro level need to be examined in terms of the macro level.

In that same situation, wouldn't you love to have statistics that could tell you things like a) expected tournament winnings, b) tournament win probability, c) the probability of finishing out of the money, d) the probability that this decision changes how other players play against me (and how it does so), etc. All of these things are just as useful as knowing the odds of winning that one hand, and unless it's an all-in, much more useful information. However, these stats aren't readily available statistics. The odds of winning the hand is much easier to attain, so that's the information that people will often use. And there are a lot of folks who are more than happy to use that information because that's the best they got. Evidently this is the new math.

To paraphrase Phil Hellmuth, I'm not sure if I buy into the new math. Essentially this methodology implies that the user is of (at best) equal skill to every other player in the tournament, and that the size of any player's chip count is irrelevant. No poker player would ever admit to the first part (in that sense, the new math does prevent hubris, which I suppose is good), and the 2nd part is clearly wrong, both statistically and psychologically. And I would venture to guess that none of the good poker players really use pot odds exclusively when they're making their calculations. They're always adding on things like implied odds, the odds that an opponent is bluffing, the odds based on what they believe an opponent has, how well they know an opponent, how well the opponent knows them. Now all of these things are "soft" data - no hard evidence. But this is the majority of the decision making process.

This isn't a 1-to-1 correlation, but in my opinion, the Belichick story and the poker example are in the same realm. The use of historical-level data, which accumulates basic information on individual plays, does not (at least the data that I've come across hasn't) sort out things like a) at what point in the game a given play was run, b) the game situation, c) the formations that were used, d) the caliber of the teams that were involved, e) playoff implications of the teams involved, etc. For the folks who are defended the Belichick move solely based on these historical stats, I'd argue that the defense is questionable. I don't disagree with the outcome, but how you defend the outcome is. Basically, I'd be much happier with an argument of, "Listen, Peyton Manning's there on the sidelines, and he's wanting the punt, and just about craps his pants when he see's that the Patriots are going for it. That makes it the right call."

That said, I was pretty shocked when the Patriots actually went for it, and didn't just try to draw them offsides. I'm pretty neutral about the effectiveness of the Belichick decision, but I loved it. I think that the probability of the outcome is close enough to defend either position, and I generally love counterintuitive thinking done by confident people. That said, I absolutely hated the fact that the Patriots screwed up 3rd down and burned their last timeout (which kept them from challenging the spot on the last play).

Now this past week, we had another interesting situation with Mike Tomlin of the Steelers deciding to kick an onside kick, right after his team had taken a 2 point lead, with 4 minutes left to go in the game. Basically, Tomlin's argument is that he's going 2-for-1, like they do in basketball all the time. You see arena football teams onside kick as the clock winds down so that they get the "extra" possession. Here, Tomlin's saying that the best-case scenario is that you win the game outright if you get the ball back. And with the worst-case scenario, his guy (who had already thrown for 400+ yards) will get the ball back with about 1:30 left and 75 yards to go needing a TD for the win. Interestingly, Tomlin was perfectly fine with the worst-case scenario, which was a lot like the punt scenario. So, here you see both aspects of the Belichick decision. Of course, the counterintuitive thinking leading to the gutsy call is evident. But the worst-case scenario that Tomlin accepted was very similar to what Peyton would have been working with after the punt that never happened. And we got to see how both things played out. Tomlin's initial counterintuitive though backfired, and the Packers got the ball at the Steelers' 39. But Big Ben got his hands on the ball with 2:06 left and used every second to march 86 yards and get the W.

I suppose if you were to take Tomlin's outcomes and map it back to Belichick, our hero Genius was left with a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. Which is what the pundits love, since everyone gets to pile on, regardless of how well-informed they are.

-Chairman

Tragic Heroes

I believe that if I had to make a list of the things that define American culture (I know that our haughty Euro friends may claim that as an oxymoron), high on my list would be the idea that people are worthy of 2nd, 3rd, and 4th chances. We love the idea of Greek tragedy, characterized by the idea that flawed people can rise to greatness, and then be overwhelmed by the situation and fall. Think about how we embrace our heroes who have fallen from grace. I don't think that this forgiveness extends to institutions or organizations, but people? We are overwhelmingly forgiving to people.

I think that Americans love the idea that Willie Loman can actually turn things around and be somebody again. This is the country that is willing to pay millions of dollars to convicted criminals so that we can hear their story, and see how they are going to come back. Where else in the world can you see the mayor of the nation's capital be convicted for possession of crack cocaine, not pay his taxes, and win election after election in landslides? At times, our society can be vulturous. There are few things that we like more than tearing down successful people. Think about how quickly we were to label Tom Cruise a nutjob, and our obsession with TMZ.com and the other tabloids that capitalize on our need to tear others down.

I think that this is particularly the case in sports. We simultaneously put Michael Jordan on a pedestal for his achievements on the hardwood, and loved hearing about Michael Jordan's failings as a person. I'd go as far as to say that one of the few things that Americans love more than a story about a hero is a story about how a hero falls. Don't get me wrong. We love our heroes. We loved McGwire and Sosa back when they were chasing Ruth and Maris, and defended them (and more importantly, "our" moment), even though we had some idea that they were probably dirty. We kept Lance Armstrong's name sacrosanct, even as he decided to leave his wife and kids for a pop musician.

But, boy do we love it when stars fall. We latched on to Kobe's he-said-she-said drama in Colorado a few years ago. We've made Pac-Man Jones a common name amongst sports fans and "making it rain" a common phrase in wanna-be thugs. We're immersed in Tiger Woods' current fidelity issues. We love it when we see that our idols are human. We forget that the people are often savants - functionally marginal people if it weren't for their athletic talent. We forget that these people don't have to learn the social niceties that the rest of us are required to engage in (full disclosure - the author has been talented enough to have never actually perform these social niceties and is speaking purely hypothetically).

Another aspect of Greek tragedy is that the hero is able to see their mistakes, and may be able to right them. If there's one thing that we like more than our idols falling, it's the idea that these people can again rise, with the benefit of, theoretically at least, learning from their mistakes.

A few years ago, Converse had a Dwayne Wade promotional campaign that I really liked.

Fall 7 Times. Stand Up 8.

We love it when people keep getting knocked down, and keep standing up. Professional wrestling always knew this. Think about our childhood heroes like Hulk Hogan (or Ric Flair if you were a WCW guy). Think about how the bad guy would beat on them, knock them down, bloody them, and put them in a sleeper hold. The ref would come by to see if the champ had been put to sleep. They would lift their arm once, only to have it limply fall to the side. And it would happen a second time. And the inevitable third time would result in a loss for the champ. As the ref lifted the arm, and let it go, it would fall limp, but just as it was about to fall into the nadir, there would be redemption. The fall would stop. A fist would be made, and the arm would slowly reach to the sky. An elbow to the side. Another elbow. Perhaps the bad guy would try to punch the hero, only it would be blocked and returned with a punch from the champ. And another one. There would be some running into the ropes, followed by a clothesline. Then a body slam. And then the finishing move from the champ, who would ultimately snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. That's what we love.

Perhaps proponents of the postmodern era would say that many of these archetypes don't work as effectively. We've gone from the pure hero, to embracing the sort-of bad guy. Think about how much more popular guys like Stone Cold Steve Austin or The Rock were in the WWE when they became "bad guys." Things were no longer black and white, good versus evil. We think that the White Knight is a little too good to be true, and we decide that the Man in Black could just as easily be fighting for a worthy cause. We tolerate flaws in our good guys much more readily, and we look for redemption in out bad guys. I don't know if I would call it postmodernism. After all, these are the echoes of the stores that have come with civilization. Even as Saul chased David throughout the Old Testament, we see this pattern of evil followed by repenting, and we see the anguish in David over Saul's demise. We see the flaws of Hamlet and MacBeth, even as they seek to right the wrongs committed against them and their families.

What we often forget is that in Greek tragedy, the protagonist's ultimate fate is death. We see the rise to glory. We see the fall from grace. We see the change in their ways, and perhaps the righting of wrongs. But ultimately the price that is paid is the demise of the protagonist. Perhaps modern interpretations had become too happy, with audiences demanding the happy ending. And perhaps postmodern is really code for classical. But the protagonist's fate remains. Which is why the story is a tragedy.

RIP Chris Henry, who I hope has died a tragic hero, and not simply without cause.

-Chairman

Non-Workers of the World Unite

Our grad student friends at Illinois are on strike. Some interesting takes on it are here (particularly the comments), and here (also the comments), and here. Now ordinarily, I'd be all for something that would give me more money, in return for less work (or, I guess, the same work). So, you'd figure that I'd be totally pro Union. The problem is that the concept of the union protects individuals who are less skilled, have less sought-after skills, or are otherwise lazy. On the other hand, I'm highly skilled, possess sought-after skills, and am very lazy. But the system rewards me, because I'm talented enough in areas that are deemed to be important enough such that my laziness is overlooked. So, that's great for me, and leaves me very much anti-union, particularly when that union prevents me from getting the money that I would otherwise be getting (not that I deserve, because let's face it - I don't deserve squat). So let's look at this from the ground up.

Okay. Let's say for a moment that you're 21 years old, and you're graduating from college. You made a bad life decision, and you're getting a humanities degree. You realize that you're not good enough to write for a living, and that English degree that you got isn't going to get you a whole lot, other than a job at TGIFriday's. So what do you do? Grad school. Now, you're going to grad school, and you realize that you're only making about $14,000 per year. And you realize that your cohort from college, those who made better life decisions, are now making $50, $60, $70 thousand per year. In fact, you're often labeled as "hidden unemployment" because you sort of have a job, but you're not really contributing to the GDP. And you're indignant about it. You need to make more money. You need people to subsidize your life.

Great idea: We'll make a union so that we can bargain with the Man. In fact, we somehow get a vote on board to unionize. Instead of setting it up so that it takes a majority of the grad population, it only takes a majority of the voting grad students to create a union shop. Because, let's face it, we're going to play on the apathy of voters, particularly grad student voters. So, with an overwhelming majority of votes (which represent a tiny fraction of the overall population), we have a union. Welcome, GEO.

Now, the GEO gets to negotiate with the university over contracts. And more importantly, the GEO now gets to collect dues from ALL grad students. Basically, even though the vast of majority of grad students didn't vote for the GEO, they are now empowered to take money out of our paycheck (2%, actually). As far as I can tell, the GEO was able to negotiate an extra concession from the University of $100 per semester on health insurance, and maybe slightly higher minimum stipends. The question is, am I better off with the GEO, or not?

Now, if I'm a humanities major, I'm probably much better off. I benefit from the extra $200 per year saved on health insurance, and I've gotten a higher stipend, probably by about 5% (worth about $600 per year). Each year, the GEO only takes about $300 from me, so life is great. The union has made me a few hundred bucks a year. I'm a union man.

On the other hand, if you haven't made bad life decisions and ended up as a humanities major, it's a different story. Folks in business, math, and engineering know that the market value for these individuals is higher. So, these folks get about $2000 a month, or about $18,000 per year, and likely more if they're really smart (get fellowships or grants). And as far as I know, these stipends are not negotiated by the GEO, which negotiates the minimum stipends. These departments know they have to pay more in order to get talent. So folks in these departments get about $360 skimmed off of their paychecks, and really only get the benefit of the $200 bucks per year saved on health insurance.

Now my story. I was making about $2500 per month because I was awesome. Plus, my summer pay was still about $1500 per month for my time as a doctoral student. Basically, I was making about $26,000 per year, and loving life. What I didn't love was the $520 that the GEO stole from me. The only tangible benefit that I got from the GEO was the $200 savings on health insurance. Don't get me wrong. It's not like I was doing anything particularly useful. But I embraced being a part of the hidden unemployed. I still do :-) But basically, the GEO robbed me of $320 every year so they could distribute the wealth to humanities majors. Add on the fact that humanities grad students drive me nuts, and you see my basic position on the GEO. It's that I generally dislike these people that makes them much less sympathetic. Basically, they're pretentious idiots that blame the system for things that are more easily attributed to the sins of the individual. If these were folks that I liked, I'd probably be more sympathetic to their cause, but really, just look at those photos. You want me to give more money to these people?

Now, they're striking because 92% of the votes were pro-strike. How, how many actual votes was that? 92% of 777 (see comment #1). Out of how many grad students? Over 10,000. Same idea as when the union was first created. A small, vocal majority won out over the indifference of many. Here's the question. Of those that don't vote, how many of them will care enough to actually picket? Not a lot, I'd venture to guess. And what's fascinating is that some professors are coming out in support of the GEO. Care to guess which professors? Certainly not the ones who need to get research done. It's the ones in the humanities who know that these people have made bad life decisions. The ones who don't have the funding to pay their students better because they can't bring in grant money.

In fact, I'm sort of sad that I'm not there to cross the picket line. It's not that I want to do more work. I'd actually cross the picket line just so I could hang out and read in the office. My goal would be to basically to mock the picketers who claim that they're representing grad students as a whole. The alternative would be to hang out and start my own chants like, "More pay. Less work!" or "Hell no, I don't work!" And when the folks in engineering, business, and anyone who's got a legit funding crosses the picket line, the university will see what the story it.

Sadly, there weren't any picket lines in any buildings other than in humanities buildings. A couple quotes from the Daily Illini coverage:

"Picket lines encircled Gregory Hall, the Foreign Language Building and the English Building around 8:30 this morning. However, there were no signs of picketers on the Engineering Quad."

"Personally I didn't see any picket lines on the ACES quad either....Pretty sure it's the LAS and Humanities with all the problem. Maybe these GEO students should take a look at the bigger picture and the students they are actually affecting."

Oh well. At least now I don't have to worry about humanities grad students coming by to bother me to sign up for their union. Plus, I'm vastly overpaid... more empirical evidence that having desirable skills results in better pay, whereas having unnecessary skills results in unions and strikes.

-Chairman

Those Wacky Germans

I'm not going to lie - I've have many unhealthy fascinations. Many of the things that I find amusing are probably not good for my development as a human being. But they're pretty funny, though. One of these unhealthy fascinations is with how people deal with power, and the Germans have always fascinated me. I've let you guys into some of this with previous posts, such as this one. Okay. So it's clear that my growth as a person has been stunted. But let's focus.

Current item of interest. German Perceptions of History for $600, Alex. Germans want to forget actions of the past, and want to remove names and actions from the historical record? What is, "yes." Check out this story, picked up over at the NYT. Don't get me wrong. I like the idea of quelling free speech. But to edit history? That's a lot of work. Just ask the Japanese. Or my guy Mahmoud over in Iran. I'm all about clean and easy solutions.

In any case, it seems that those zany Krauts are up to their old antics again. Makes you wonder when Colonel Klink and Sergeant Schultz are going to come walking in the courtroom.

-Chairman

Right Justified

Every once in a while... okay, more like once every few posts... well, maybe every other post, I make some sort of inflammatory statement. Back in March, I was commenting on how much I liked the Hyundai commercial that featured Japanese and German people screaming loudly, sort of like how I would imagine WWII propaganda. I also noted that our Korean friends were notoriously xenophobic. What's cool is that I've been vindicated by a 3rd party source, namely the New York Times, one of the Board Room's regular sources of news.

Potential keeper quote: "...following last year’s financial downturn, 'incidents of xenophobia are on the rise.'”

Translation: Poor people need something to cling to.

In Korea, it seems to be being "pure bred." Obama suggested that it was guns, anti-immigrant sentiment, and religion. Our friends over at IJAB may suggest that in Chicago, it may be gangs and violence.

Now conceptually, this is very much linked to my last post regarding the potential inefficiencies of using a morality-based mode of thinking. When we start thinking about issues in terms of morality, we get emotionally charged, and reinforce our world-view. And if death enters our thoughts, we become even more entrenched in those views. This makes for an awesome combination: not only do we start to think less effectively, we're more convinced that we're correct, and are more willing to lash out at others based on those beliefs. How cool is that?

I've never been one to need a reason to commit evil. However, I am of the belief that if you're going say that you have a reason for committing evil acts, that the reason should at least be based in sound logic and theory.

-Chairman

Provoking Thought: Moral Judgments in Objective Situations

I saw a preview for an upcoming movie on TV the other day. The movie was The Box, which is the upcoming Cameron Diaz movie, that's based on an old Twilight Zone episode, "Button, Button." Basically, the premise is this. Some stranger comes by, and has a little box, with a red button inside. Sort of like what you'd imagine a missile launch button in the Oval Office would look like.

See? That was easy. Now give me my million bucks. Or launch the nuke. Either way.

Now, the trick is, if you hit the button, you magically get a million bucks. The apparent drawback is that someone will die as a result. My first (and current) instinct is to start mashing buttons, like I was playing Nintendo. Think the old Track and Field game, where the faster you push the buttons, the faster your guy runs. In the old Twilight Zone episode, the button killed someone you didn't know. And after they push the button, the mysterious stranger informs the newly rich, button-pushing murders that he was going to give the button to "someone they didn't know." And that's supposed to horrify the button-pusher and the audience. Given my reaction, maybe it's not quite the moral dilemma that the writers of The Twilight Zone would have us believe it is. At least, it isn't for someone with my shaky track record on human rights. My working plan is to basically shoot the guy who came by the house with the button, keep the button, pretend the button is a bongo drum, and start printing the cash.

But what's interesting is how this device is supposed to capture our imaginations. In this country, we seem to be wired such that we demand not only justice in outcome (distributive justice), but also outcome in process (procedural justice). Now, the case of The Box, we're supposed to be somewhat offended at both the process (too whimsical, trading wealth for life), but also the outcome (one's gain at the expense at a presumably innocent party). Now what intrigues me is the idea that how we think about this problem quickly moves from a mindset of problem solving into a mindset of evaluating morality.

I've mentioned some research on intuition before in the Board Room done by one of my friends. One of his latest works is a book chapter on intuition, where he discusses the difference between intuition in problem solving and intuition in morality. Essentially, the differences boil down to two dimensions. The first is the level of affect at play (affect is basically equal to we describe emotion in common language). When we use intuition in problem solving, we generally have a low level of emotion involved. However, when we use intuition as, "an input in making moral decisions," it tends to be an emotionally charged process. The other interesting thing is in the evaluation process itself. When we are in a problem solving mode, our intuition is based on "very specific, domain-based knowledge." Essentially, we base our evaluations on our knowledge about the situation at hand. On the other hand, when we are making moral evaluations, our intuition is based on "moral prototypes," essentially examples that morality.

Now what's interesting is that when we try to evaluate the morality of a situation, we use information that is inferior for making objective decisions. Basically, the presence of affect is generally to be distracting toward problem optimization. And the use of a prototype (which is culturally negotiated and rather dynamic) can easily lead to faulty conclusions. Basically, we are much worse at using moral intuition than we are at using our problem solving intuition. And perhaps more interestingly, despite the use of this inferior information, we are actually more entrenched with our moral evaluations than we are with our more analytical ones.

It breaks down something like this. When we see someone commit a dishonest act, regardless of the number of honest acts this person has done, we use this prominent example, and make a moral judgment about him. And future honest acts have relatively less weight in changing our opinion. Now, compare this to an evaluation of someone's intelligent. When someone does something dumb, we generally don't label them as a dumb person, if we have seen other evidence that suggests that they are intelligent. And after a dumb action, relatively fewer intelligent acts would cause us to change our evaluation of this person. To compound things further, when we have a negative perception of a moral situation (i.e., I think this person is dishonest), it influences our objective evaluations (i.e., since I think this person is dishonest, I believe that he is less likely to be intelligent).

So why does this matter? A number of reasons. Certainly, we see the presence of suboptimal judgments when we attempt to apply morality in situations that call for brute analysis. Additionally, people may confuse the need for a problem solving with the desire for a moral judgment. And just as scary, we may not know when someone is acting based on a moral judgment or on an analytical one, so our understanding of human behavior could be off. Think about many of the hot-button topics that are in play right now. Things like gay marriage, abortion, environmentalism, educational policy, human rights, etc. And think about how people evaluate those situations. Often you see a fall back to the morality of the issue, and rather than the discussion of objective facts, the discussion hinges on exemplars or the prototypical images that pop into our heads.

Over at IJAB there are a couple posts that are touching on potentially controversial issues, including vaccination, drugs and gang violence, etc. One particular comment on the topic of vaccination comes from Robby (our very libertarian friend from previous discussion, such as this one), who notes that, "...the most vocal people against the vaccine are distinctly anti-science. They repeatedly ignore any and all legitimate research focusing mostly on some single event that happened to them personally." Robby's observation of everyday behavior is precisely what is predicted when people try to apply a moral judgment. People use inferior information, often with an exemplar/prototype, and have an emotionally-charged thought process. You could follow up his statement by then describing how people will use that exemplar as a start point, and then try to build an argument on that basic foundation.

Now what's interesting is that immediately, you see the Anonymous poster take offense at Robby's description by 1) claiming that they are a scientist, 2) claiming that there is evidence to prove a point, and 3) taking an emotionally-charged stance. Again, the suspicion is that Anonymous is trying to mask their moral judgment by claiming that it was an analytical one.

As you read through the commentary, you can probably guess where I stand. Again, given my shaky track record on human rights, it's not surprise that I agree with the Anonymous poster that we should stop giving out the vaccine, though I suspect that we agree on the course of action for very different reasons. Sadly, not enough people respond to my comments. My friend JK noted, "I start to get this nice discussion on my blog, until you post, and amazingly, the conversation stops."

I'll take that as a compliment.

-Chairman

I Believe I Can Fly

... I believe I can touch the sky. No, this isn't a posting about R Kelly's legal issues from a while back. But it's still awesome.

This is amazing. The folks over at the NYT have picked up a story out of Colorado. Basically, an attention-seeking family of questionable intelligence owns an experimental balloon that can go up to 10,000 feet. Apparently, said balloon has a plywood box attached to it, and their youngest son (named Falcon - not making this up), climbs in, and takes off. Awesome line:

...the older boy saw the younger one go into a compartment at the bottom of the balloon and fly away.

I love the discussion of how they may have to use small-arms fire to take the balloon down. And even more awesome is the idea of taking a helicopter, and flying it above the balloon to force the balloon down.

In any case, the balloon lands, and there's no box or boy to be found. Could this be a hoax? A misunderstanding? Or did the balloon ditch the kid from 10,000 feet into the Colorado wilderness?

Regardless, it seems that, for the moment, the Freakonomics folks have already pondered whether or not Falcon was pre-destined to fly.

It's a wonder how our species manages to survive. I suppose that it's more to do with quantity, than quality.

Update: Turns out that the kid's alive. Apparently, there was some collusion with the kids. I hope they fine the parents, and beat the kids. Or maybe actually send them up in the balloon.

-Chairman

And Then the Rains Came

Quick update. It's currently 6:55. And it's now raining. Really hard. I start cleaning up the apartment, and was done vacuuming at 6:30, and was about to get changed for the pep rally. And then the rain started. And now it's raining harder. It's like a higher power wants me to hang out and watch baseball and play Madden, rather than join in school spirit. I think that as a compromise, I'm going to get changed, and do a drive-by to see if it's a rain-or-shine pep rally, and then play it by ear.

-Chairman

New Traditions

I have to confess. I wasn't a big rah-rah sort of guy back at the U. Never bothered going to a homecoming parade. Never went to the homecoming dance (although in fairness, the homecoming dance was put on by the black student union, which seemed sort of strange when I was a freshman, and was something that I never questioned in my years in Champaign). Didn't do the pep rally thing. I supported my team by getting tickets, and yelling at the game. Some of the time, I was yelling at our guys, and some of the time I was yelling at the refs, and some of the time I was yelling at the other team. I did a lot of yelling.

So, I've been going to the volleyball matches here in NOLA. And they do a really cool promo during the "halftime" between the 2nd and 3rd sets. They lay out a bunch of t-shirts on one side of the court, and then they have people from the stands come down, and hit serves at the shirts. Hit a shirt, and you win a shirt. Everyone participates. And if you miss, you can get back in line, if there's enough time.

I was a volleyball player back in the day. A pretty good one, relative to normal humans. I never had a great attacking serve, but I was always pretty accurate. I was able to steal a couple points here and there by hitting the back corner with a high ball that looks like it's going out. I could probably hit a 3' x 3' square in the back corner of the court once every three times, and could definitely land it within a 10'x10' most of the time. So, if you lay out a bunch of shirts across the net from me, I figure that for a given shirt, I'm about 1 in 4 to hit it. And if there are like 3 shirts within a 10' x 10' box, I'm probably slightly better than even money to hit a shirt.

I've been to three matches. I didn't bother going up to get a t-shirt at the first match, but I realized that I needed some Green Wave gear at some point. And free is always better than purchased. So, next game, I head up there. My first attempt misses by a couple feet. Not a great effort. But I go back in line, and get a 2nd shot. There was a cluster of 5 t-shirts. I aimed for the middle, and actually hit the middle shirt. Free shirt. Next match, I go back up, and see another nice cluster to aim at. And get another shirt. Two times on the court. 3 serves. 2 shirts. Pretty good hit ratio. This may replace laundry as a clothing option.

After the 2nd match I was at, I ran into one of my students, who happened to be a president of the student boosters club. He was on his way out to set up for a pep rally after the match, and told me that if I swung by, he'd get me a t-shirt. So, I figured that it would be good to get another t-shirt, as well as some free food, so I headed over to the pep rally after the volleyball match ended.

Unfortunately, it wasn't much of a pep rally. Not many students showed up. Aside from the club members, there were maybe 50 people there, mainly looking for free burgers. The band didn't make it. No coaches showed up. No players showed up. The cheerleaders were there... but let's face it... Matt Doherty's comments about the Duke cheerleaders back in the day are generally apt for our Green Wave squad. The cheerleaders saw the story, get everyone together for one cheer, and got the hell out of there. Generally speaking, it was a bad turnout. So the school spirit is still a work in progress. But, I got a burger and hot dog out of it, and a free t-shirt. All told, I'd call it a wash for myself.

Tonight is homecoming, and there's another pep rally scheduled for 7pm, along with some music afterward. I think that I'm going to show up and check things out. This is going to be a new tradition for me, I think. I have to convince myself that I now bleed Green and Blue (the modern colors) or Olive and Blue (the original colors, and the ones referred to in our fight song). I may have to actually go out there to see this up close for myself. And at the very least, there's a concert planned for after the pep rally...

-Chairman

Misadventures in the Air (Sort Of)

Long time devotees of my ramblings (dating back to the Illini Update, which was sent out to folks back in NY when I was an undergrad), will know that I am not a fan of flying. Basically, I hate being in confined spaces with the general populace. I hate the shoddy customer service staffed by aspiring GED candidates. I hate the overpriced food. And most of all, I think that I hate the lack of control that I have over the situation.

So today, I'm headed out to Albany to see old friends. And I'm flying from NOLA out to the ATL, before heading up to Albany. Weather is beautiful out in NOLA. Upper 80's and sunny. Feels like summer. And the weather's beautiful out in Albany. Mid 60's and sunny. Great fall day. My game plan is to get lunch in Atlanta as Pascal's, a great soul food chain, and then hit the ground in Albany around 5:30 to rock it out w/ OD.

Unfortunately, the weather in Atlanta sucked. So, as a result, once we pull out of the gate in NOLA, they decide that we're going to be grounded for an hour. I'm supposed to hit the ground at 1:30pm, for my 3:03 pm connection. Losing an hour is definitely pushing it. Leave more than an hour late, and I get off the plane at 2:47. Now, last night I had checked my departure gate, and saw that it was in the same terminal as my arrival. I walk off the plane and look up to make sure that this was still the case. Obviously, not. Had to go over one terminal. Bastards.

I almost set land-speed records (at least close to a personal best, anyway), and make it down the terminal, down to the train, over to my terminal, and all the way down to my gate at 2:55. Only, I find out that they had just closed the doors. The damned plane was still there. I'd give even money that I could have still boarded, but they gave away my seat. I wasn't happy. I'm directed over to the "help" area for when they screw up. Probably not a good sign that they have so many issues that they have to have these dedicated areas...

So, I get over there, and the computer hadn't automatically rescheduled me. Which meant that that I had to go talk to some idiot on the phone. This is what I hated about the Detroit airport back in the day, before they got their act cleaned up - talking to the idiots. And this was a flashback. I get put on a standby flight that leaves at 8:30 tonight, as well as a confirmation for a 9:30am flight tomorrow. Those were the only options, so I had to accept that.

So, I figure that it's time to get reimbursed for some costs. First, when I booked the flight, I was right on the cusp of the 21-day cut-off point for having to pay an additional penalty for using my airline miles. I figured that the extra $75 was worth it to get an extra night in Albany, so I went with the Thursday flight, rather than the Friday flight. Of course, not I'm getting into Albany at 11pm, so that sort of kills things. So the first thing that I ask for is a refund of the $75. The other thing was a meal voucher. I was supposed to be on the ground by 5:30pm, in plenty of time for dinner. Now, I'm not leaving until 8:30pm. Figure that getting a meal comped should be an issue.

This is when things go downhill. The idiot on the phone tells me that I have to contact Delta.com for the refund of the $75. Okay. Fair enough. Then, I ask about the meal voucher. The idiot's response was probably true, but not helpful and didn't explain anything. The response:

"We can't give you a meal voucher because your delay was due to the weather."

Huh? What does the weather have to do with whether or not you can give a meal voucher? I remind the idiot that they've added 5 hours to my travels, including keeping us in a plane on the ground in NOLA for over an hour, plus did not offer drinks and snacks on the flight over. At this point, I was civil, and hadn't raised my voice. Instead, our customer service idiot took the proactive route, and started to yell at me:

"The plane was delayed because of the weather. How is any of that Delta's fault? Because the delay was caused by the weather, we can't give you a meal voucher."

At this point, I'm having images of Schultzie in Pere' Antoine's back at the Sugar Bowl. I keep it together, and realize that I'm not winning with her, so I just leave with something like this:

"Your explanation is nonsense. The weather and your ability to give a meal voucher are entirely tangential. I'm commenting on the outcome, not how we got there."

And with that, the conversation ended.

So, I'm steaming. I get my new boarding pass printed out, and head off to Pascal's to get my lunch, anyway. As I'm sitting there, I realized that I should have asked for something else. A day pass to the first-class lounge. That would actually make me relatively happy - free booze and cookies, internet access. Let's face it. I'm pretty simple. So, I wander off to the terminal where my new flight is (incidentally, this was the original terminal I had arrived at back at 2:45). I head over to the help desk, and ask if they can comp me a day pass. The guy at the counter was actually really nice, but couldn't give me the day pass. However he gave me a meal voucher. Damn. After I had already popped for lunch. Oh well. At least I can still get dinner before I fly out.

Undaunted, I decide that I was going to head over the lounge to see if I could talk my way in. I liked my chances since, I had gone from getting nothing but pissed off with the first conversation, a meal voucher out of the 2nd conversation... I thought that the 3rd time would be the charm. So, I walk into the doors, and take the elevator up. And I see that the desk is swamped. I take a quick look around. Bathrooms over to the left. I've got a gameplan.

Rather than talk, I decide that asking for forgiveness is better than asking for permission. I figure that if I go use the bathroom, then when I walk out, they'll assume that I've already checked in. Bingo. Two minutes later, I'm posting to the Board Room with cookies and a beer in front of me. At least something's working out well...

Now to see if I'm getting on this standby flight... And if not, I'll at least have dinner paid for, and be pretty buzzed from all the free booze in the lounge. Though, I may have to try to talk my way into a hotel voucher at that point... Maybe that'll be the charmed 3rd time...

-Chairman

Louisiana Purchase and Expedition

I'm not quite getting the deal that Thomas Jefferson got back in the day (something like $20 per square mile, though that's more like $300 per square mile, still a great deal). But, I bought my little bit of homestead here in New Orleans. So, I'm a landowner. And I've made multiple trips to Lowe's and Wal-Mart to buy things like storage racks and towel rings. In the next few days, I'm going to build some shelving above my washer and dryer. I've been installing ceiling fans, range hoods, and the like. I just hired a pest control service. I'm currently looking around for some folks to come out to do the lawn, and maybe a cleaning service.

So basically, I now suck. But there's redemption to be had, I think. There is still time for me to be awesome. In fact last night, I had one of those "dare to be great" moments.

One of my buddies down here is The Irishman. Let's just say that the stereotypes of drunken, semi-to-fully belligerent Irishmen are in no way overcome by my friend. And through The Irishman, I've met a handful of guys, most of whom are petroleum engineers down here.

Last night, the plan was to go hang out at one of the uptown bars for a couple beers, and then calling it a night. Great plan. Get a couple local brews, hanging out, and meet the natives. I get out to the bar, and only one of the guys is there. The Irishman and the rest of the crew are off getting a late dinner. No worries. A while later, the rest of the posse shows up, and of course, we promptly decide to go to a downtown bar. Fair enough. I don't mind driving, since I'm not really going to drink much the rest of the night, plus, I like the idea of getting to know the city better. So we end up at more of a night club sort of place. Of course, all of the employees remember The Irishman from the previous weekend, when he rolled up with his convertible BMW M3, and at one point was jumping up and down, prior to getting accidentally pepper sprayed. So we were in line for an awesome night. We hang out for a bit, when one of the managers came by started talking to The Irishman, and a few minutes later, we're sitting at one of those roped-off, reserved tables with a bottle of Grey Goose. We hang out for a while longer, and we finally go next door for some pizza, and apparently more shots. I'm driving, so I get to keep my judgment. The other guys? Not so much.

There's a lesson to be learned here, folks. If you're going to drink heavily, you should turn off your cell phone. Particularly if you have internet access. We're all in the middle of some random conversation. Then The Irishman has a great idea. He announces:

"We're going to New York."

Wow. Apparently, he gets Expedia on his phone, and flights to NY were only $250. At this point, it's about 5 in the morning, and the flight left at 7:30. We take a little while to get everyone organized, and sure enough, we're on the way to the airport. No stops home to get clothes, coffee, or to tell loved ones goodbye. Straight from the bar to the airport. I actually contemplate just parking the car and jumping on the plane. Sadly, I failed my "dare to be great" moment. But what's promising is that there seem to be more potential moments to be had. And more importantly, my life is more than weekend trips to Lowe's. I mean, not this weekend. But maybe next weekend.

-Chairman

Not So Smart

*sigh*

Of course, after that last post, I should qualify things. I was building that case that people, as a whole, have roughly the same cognitive ability. However, the level of cognitive ability that I give average people credit for is rather low.

I'm more and more convinced that freedom and democracy are just bad ideas when people are morons.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I must go watch TMZ.

-Chairman

Get Smart

A while ago, I read this Nicholas Kristof column regarding the intersection of poverty and intelligence in the NYT. I thought that it was interesting, but a little off, and didn't think more about it. So, Westy forwards me the link, probably based on some of our previous discussions on the nature of expertise, and the impact of race/poverty on higher education. I started to write an e-mail, that I realized was running long, so I decided to post some thoughts here.

A Broader Thought
A reasonable explanation for intelligence is the interaction of natural ability (genetics) and one’s environment. Generally, that’s a reasonable explanation for just about everything. Think Elijah Dukes, a volatile baseball player who we've been talking about over in the UPL - lots of ability (power, speed), probably some negatives with genetics (dad was a murderer), and likely a lousy environment (dad was a murder). I haven’t read the Nisbett book (though I’m familiar with his research), but the Kristof piece paints too rosy a picture. There’s a limit to potential growth (i.e., environmental benefits to IQ), and when you sell the idea that there isn’t, you create all sorts of issues, particularly over-inflating self-esteem to the point of entitlement. Interestingly (and probably tangentially) I suspect that there’s a bias toward socialist solutions, rather than solutions that push individuals to do more. His writing:

“Good schooling correlates particularly closely to higher I.Q.’s. One indication of the importance of school is that children’s I.Q.’s drop or stagnate over the summer months when they are on vacation (particularly for kids whose parents don’t inflict books or summer programs on them).”

His statements suggest that no matter how good the schooling is that there’s fadeout (the IQ drop). It’s parenting (pushing individuals to do more) that keeps IQ up (there was a Freakonomics posting on this, at some point, right?). But the next thought pushes these intensive schools (changing the system). I think that’s a bad leap of logic. My interpretation of that fact is that we need to educate the parents. And if I were writing an article on the issue, my next sentence would be about how there should be more of an emphasis on the interaction of parenting and education, not the need for more intensive schools. But I suppose that's a matter of philosophy. If you believe that the system needs to be changed at a more macro level, then you change schools. If you believe that individuals need to be pushed in their micro environments, then you push interventions that breed parental involvement.

More Specific Thoughts
One inherent issue is what IQ actually measures. Generally, IQ measures intelligence, which is the way that Kristof has written up the article. However, I think that most folks who study intelligence break intelligence down into at least 2 dimensions (the dichotomy that I have described in the past is this fluid vs. crystallized intelligence). I think that it’s more accurate to say that genetics correspond to fluid intelligence, whereas the environment heavily drives crystallized intelligence. So there's one major issue there. But where are the changes in IQ coming from? Again, I’d like to see the data on that.

Moreover, the use of statement's like, “Another indication of malleability is that I.Q. has risen sharply over time. Indeed, the average I.Q. of a person in 1917 would amount to only 73 on today’s I.Q. test. Half the population of 1917 would be considered mentally retarded by today’s measurements,” drive me nuts. It's, at best, naïve, and at worst, disingenuous. I.Q. is a measurement of a construct that's based on intelligence/ability. I.Q. is defined such that average I.Q. is 100, and the standard deviation is 15. So, if you were to take the entire population in 1917, and have them take any I.Q., test, the average would be 100, and the standard deviation would be 15. I.Q. must stay the same, by definition. Now, I think that the intended idea is that the average amount of knowledge and analytical capability has increased since 1917.

Does this make sense? If half the people in 1917 were retards, then probably another half, or about 3/4 of the population, 90 years before that (in 1827) were also retards. And about 7/8 of the people in 1737 were retards. And about 15/16 of the people were retards in 1647, etc... how in the world did we ever evolve? We should be sitting around a pile of unlit wood, dragging square boxes along the ground, and trying to club elephants for food. How do you explain the wisdom of classic literature and religious texts?

I'd quibble a little about the amount of knowledge that differs. The amount of knowledge that people have today should be more than what people had 90 years ago. There has been a great advancement in the amount of knowledge that is known by man. So, it follows that this should trickle down to what each individual knows. However, I'd argue that how much an individual actually knows doesn't really change a whole lot. The human brain can do only so much. Things like short-term and long-term memory are generally similar, across individuals (at least in the same order of magnitude). I'd say that what is important to know has changed quite a bit. If you put that corresponding expectation of knowledge on a test, then of course, people of different eras will do poorly. But that can generally be learned pretty quickly.

And more problematic is the raw cognitive ability that people possess. Things like literacy and numeracy were not as prevalent 90 years ago. But does that account for raw cognitive ability? Or are IQ tests a function of the ability to navigate the written world? And do we really think that is the only form of intelligence? I don't know, but when I look at this sort of article, I just roll my eyes. How do you measure the intelligence required to domesticate animals or to develop agriculture? We don't do that particularly well.

Personally, when I read about intelligence and human ability, I prefer things like this classic article on intelligence.

-Chairman

Rounding Third...

I have to say that it's been quite a run for me out here in the cornfields. College has been 13 of the best years of my life. Happily, my 14th year in college will be highly paid and in warm weather. Sadly, I'll be expected to do a little work. Not much, mind you. But still.

I stopped by the Graduate College earlier today, and got some good news: only two minor edits for my dissertation, and both were on the table of contents. So, really, all I need to do is to make the edits, print up another version (plus a corrected TOC for my 1st copy), print up a few extra title pages, and fill out a little paperwork, and then I can deposit. The only bad news? We're still waiting on one signature from a committee member who's out in Asia right now. So, unfortunately, it looks like I'll need someone to drop off the materials for me whenever that piece of paper comes in. But it's not a huge deal.

And I suppose that I really should get things organized so that when the folks come to pack up my apartment on Friday, I'll be ready. Of course, I'm also planning on hitting the links on Thursday... and probably Friday, if you had to know it. Because you know that I'm good like that. In any case, the movers come by on Saturday to load up the place... and I'll probably go shoot another round after they get done. I'm not much into that Nostradamus stuff, but I will go out on a limb and predict a lot of golf in the near future. I'll hang on to a light car load of essentials that I'll keep with me for my week on the road (going to visit the parents in SC), but it'll be strange w/out a TV for the weekend. But the interesting question is what it says about me if I need to hang on to two laptops and a wireless router?

What's going to be a pain in the ass is getting all of my junk organized. I really should go through and take one more load of crap to Goodwill/the dumpster. I may do that tonight real quick. I have all sorts of clothes and a whole bunch of stuff that should be donated and/or burned. But I should have time to take care of that on Thursday night, when I'm unplugging all of my devices so that things can be packed up quickly. Tonight's excitement is to go into the office, clean out a bunch of crap, trash the rest, and print out the rest of stuff I need for the dissertation. Fun times.

But you know what? All of this stuff will get done. And I'll get a lot of golf in before I'm headed for my new home.

-Chairman

Foodgeek Blog Has Moved...

Just a heads up to anyone who happens to also check in with my food blog. In honor of the upcoming to New Orleans, we've moved location on the internet to:

http://NOLAfoodgeek.blogspot.com

Hopefully http://hurricane_aftermath.blogspot.com won't be following me :-)

-Chairman

Weekend at Bernie's (not Madhoff, amazingly)

I've got a new hero, and I really need to start following F1 racing more. When NASCAR has a controversy, it's about teams cheating, or maybe with the Mayfield stuff, it's about drug use. When F1 has a controversy, Nazis are prominently involved. First, it was Board Room favorite Max Mosley. And now it's the new F1 boss, Bernie Eccleston's comments regarding the nature of the nuanced balance between individuality and governance. Perhaps my favorite sports owner of all time, Marge Schott (God bless her soul) has already chimed in with a few sentiments that may or may not have influenced Bernie:

"Hitler was good in the beginning, but he went too far."
"Everything you read, when he came in he was good. They built tremendous highways and got all the factories going. He went nuts, he went berserk. I think his own generals tried to kill him, didn't they?"

Now, whether you think that Bernie took his stance on Hiter from Auntie Marge, or that people of an older generation thought differently about the world, or if these two are just independently brilliant, I know one thing. All I know is that this Bernie dude is awesome. There are a number of money quotes from the AP report that ESPN picked up.

"...but apart from the fact that Hitler got taken away and persuaded to do things that I have no idea whether he wanted to do or not, he was in the way that he could command a lot of people, able to get things done. In the end he got lost, so he wasn't a very good dictator."

But this guy doesn't stop with comments on Hitler and dictatorship, he takes a swipe at democracy, as well. For my regular readers (or reader, I suppose), you'll note that my take on democracy is a little non-conventional, as well.

"[Democracy] hasn't done a lot of good for many countries -- including this one."

In fact, I have an unfinished blog post that opens up with this gem of a thought:

"I'm more and more convinced that freedom and democracy are just bad ideas when people are morons."

But in the end, it appears that me and Bernie aren't cut from the same cloth. It turns out that he's a horrible misogynist:

"Women should dress in white like all other domestic appliances."
"I would love to have a good lady race driver and preferably black and Jewish, too, but they might take maternity leave."

I mean, I take women's rights very seriously. But aside from that, me and my man Bernie have amazingly similar takes on democracy and governance. I mean, I haven't had a chance to write up any thoughts on Hitler, yet, though he probably is a first ballot hall of famer in my Dictator Hall of Fame. I mean, it's hard to compare dictators from different eras (different technologies, expansion diluting the talent pool, etc.), so it's hard to compare current faves like Mugabe, Jong-Il, Ahmadinejead, or Chavez to old school dictators like Hitler, Ghengis, Alexander. But you have to believe that the new guys are just learning, in comparison to the all-time greats. In any case, I hope to hear more from my buddy Bernie soon!

-Chairman

Figures Lie, and Liars will Figure

This was originally a comment in reply to C-Lauff's comment on my commentary on the Iran elections. However, the response ran really long, and is now a post. He added a link to an article that suggests that the vote totals looked fishy. However, if you click on the comments, you'll see a number of comments that indicate that the analysis itself is fishy. I'm going to give my take on it in the reply to C-Lauff, below:


Yeah, I saw that article. The method seems OK. I'm about 99% sure that they used binomial distributions for this. However, I'm not sure about their interpretation. If you go to http://stattrek.com/Tables/Binomial.aspx you can fill in numbers yourself.

I'll walk through the calculations. Essentially, what they're saying is, "OK. We've got a list of 116 numbers. Each number (0-9) should show up roughly 11.6 times, or 10% of the time." And, deviations from this 10% should be relatively random (which becomes normally distributed).

The proof offered in the editorial (haven't looked at the raw analysis), suggests that having one digit show up 20 times is unlikely, and having a 2nd digit show up only 5 times is unlikely, and having both occur is akin to fraud.

We can separate this into 2 calculations. The first is the odds that with 116 trials, at a probability of 10%, how likely is it that we get a single digit 20 or more times. For one particular digit, the odds are against you - only 1.105%. However, for all 10 digits, the equation is a little different. The odds for having no digits show up 10 or more times is: (1-.01105)^10. Run the numbers, and you get the probability that at least one digit shows up 20 or more times as 10.52%.

Now, of the remaining 96 trials, how likely is it that you get a single digit 5 or fewer times? For a specific digit, the answer is 3.734%. However, for all of the 9 remaining digits, the calculation is (1-.03734)^9 = 1-p. The odds of this happening is about 29%.

Now, you multiply the results together to see how often both happen, and you get roughly 3.05% of the time, which is what they say (the less than 4 out of 100 times they say in the article).

They go on to say some stuff about sequential digits, and run the same calculation (the odds of 72 or fewer successes out of 116, given a 70% success rate), and get another value of 4.12% (the less than 4.2% they say in the article)

Now, what they're saying is that the odds of both the first condition (the 3.05%) and the 2nd condition (the 4.12%) occurring is slim (I get roughly 0.13%), a little lower than the 0.5% they say in the article. However, that doesn't really indicate fraud, in my opinion. Think about all the possibilities in life. Any single one happening is ultra-rare, right? We're biased to pull out things that support our assertions.

Look at our UPL fantasy baseball stats. Look at single-digits column of the total runs scored. As of today (6/26), we have 4 teams with 3, 2 teams each with 9,7,and 2 runs, and only 1 team with 1 and 8. No teams have 4, 5, or 6 runs.

What are the odds of having 4 or more teams with the same number of runs? The numbers suggest 22.87% of the time that will happen. Easy enough. Now, if I wanted to fish something out of thin air, and build a statistical argument around it, I can easily do it.

Look at the number of times that you get the same number in the tens and ones column... you see 09, 17, and 53 twice. What are the odds of seeing the exact same set of 2-digit numbers? 1 in 100. What are the odds of seeing it 3 or more times out of 12? 5 times out of a million. What are the odds that the sequence of numbers that we currently have in the UPL show up (given those two conditions)? About 1 in a million. Clearly there is fraud going on. And I'm certain that this is the case because I'm not in first place (which has happened 5 out of 8 seasons).

So, aside from reminding everyone how unlikely it is that I won't come back to win the baseball league, I'm sort of pointing out how in any data set, you can pretty much fish out whatever you want, if you keep looking hard enough. And once you fish out the conclusion you want, you can come up with stats to back it up, particularly if you just random numbers as your basis. However (and this is the key), smart people will look at the theoretical explanation for why the stats someone poses really matter.

Overall, I suppose my question is, do you still think that the article gives a strong case for fraud, or a weak case for fraud? In the original article, I'm just not seeing it.

-Chairman

Hail to the Chief

And I don't mean Illiniwek. I'm talking about my new favorite president. Ladies and Gentlemen... Tricky... Dick... Nixon!!!

We knew that this guy opened up China to the west...

Nixon (right) shakes hands with the "other" Chairman (left).

...and that he wasn't afraid to break a few rules...

Mark Felt is... Deep Throat: The Man that Brought Down Dick. This guys looks like a "Deep Throat."

But did we know that Nixon was awesome? Check out the quotes on this little piece.

Nixon on abortion: "It breaks the family... (however) There are times when an abortion is necessary... When you have a black and a white... or a rape."

Nixon on Jews: "It may be that they have a death wish. You know, that's been the problem with our Jewish friends for centuries."

At this point, I could just end the post, but I figure that a little digging would be cool...

According to Wikipedia, Tricky Dick grew up in a poor, Quaker family, got into Harvard and Yale, but couldn't afford either. He did end up at Duke, where he became the president of the Duke Bar Association. Interestingly, I'm the president of the TFS Bar Association, but I'm guessing that these two groups have different missions. In any case, he volunteered for military service when WWII rolled around, and made enough playing poker during the war, that he was able to finance a campaign to become a Congressman. How cool is that?

Apparently, Nixon was a pretty reasonable fellow, from a political standpoint. Believed in looking internationally, supported civil rights, and was actually enough of a patriot to stand aside in the 1960 election, when there were allegations of voter fraud in Illinois (which, given the state of Illinois politics, was probably a given - JFK won by 450,000 votes in Cook County, but won the state by less than 9,000 votes) and Texas (LBJ's home state, where some counties had more votes than voters, just like in Iran, 2009). JFK beat him by a mere 0.2% in the popular vote, and Illinois/Texas would have swung the election. Instead, Nixon loses the election, loses in the 1962 run for California governor, and then retires from politics.

And in 1968, he made a comeback that would make MJ envious, and became an almost-2-term president.

Nixon made great strides internationally by pushing detente w/ the Russians, and opening up a relationship with China. And he did a lot to push advances in civil rights here at home. I suppose that the question is do we judge people by their sound bites, or do we judge them by their actions? When it comes down to it, are we going to remember a quip about interracial abortions? Or the desegregation of schools? And of course, you have the whole Watergate thing, which may have been blown out of proportion, in terms of how if affected the election (though not in terms of character).

As I read through the history on Tricky Dick, I think that I like him, in terms of someone who gets things done. I don't think that I agree with all of his international moves, but that's done in hindsight (like strengthening the position of the countries in the Middle East, so as to reduce Russian influence). And you have to wonder if he wouldn't have been better served during Watergate, just by coming clean early on, and saying, "Hey, sorry. I screwed up, but this didn't really affect the landslide election. Can we all be friends again?" But I suppose that folks who are that smart and confident in their abilities tend toward pride and winning the debate, rather than humility and reconciliation.

In any case, it seems that Nixon is forgotten by us - we're generally OK with history, but not so great with semi-recent history. But, I have a suspicion that he'd be a great case study of both things to do, and things to not do as a leader. And you have to put some common threads with someone like Barack Obama. Neither of them grew up privileged, and both of them made their way through by being smart and skilled. Both of them are pragmatic. And both seem to show a bit of an arrogant streak at times. Of course, they're both wildly different in their political (particularly economic) views. Some folks have already pointed out some similarities between the two. We'll see how things play out.

-Chairman

Twittering Idiots

There's been a lot made of Twitter, particularly the role that it's played in this whole Iran scenario. Originally, my thought was that Twitter made us all dumber. And, I think that I still hold to that thought. Especially in the case of the Iran thing. We have no clue what's reliable and what isn't reliable. It's this information overload, where you're not sure if you're getting breaking news, or if you're getting a con job. And this is the sort of thing where you have no idea how useful all of this is. Quick aside - I'm guessing that the election in Iran was rigged and that Twitter has played a minor to moderate role in increasing global awareness, however, I'm fearful that the opposite scenario could be true: What if the elections in Iran were legit, the losers are using technology to get Western support for mob rule and an attempted revolution? From what I've seen, it could go either way, but we don't have much evidence, either way.

Note added 6/22 @ 1:35pm - It appears that the government in Iran has acknowledged that there were issues with the vote. Not exactly clear if the vote was rigged (more votes than voters in 50 cities), and the natural question is whether the outcome was changed. I will say this, in my Dictatorship 101 seminar, we were taught that when in doubt, deny everything and crush dissidents mercilessly. Of course, we were also taught to never hold elections for any sort of office, beyond, maybe, student council elections.

But one thing that I do sort of like is the ability to share your own inane thoughts to the world in 140-character sound bites. For someone who's as wordy as I am, this sort of forces you to get to the point. From time to time, I'm going to post some of my more interesting tweets (twits? twats? wait... probably not the last one). It's hard to get much out of any one tweet. But, over the long run, you see some trends. Cynicism, crude humor, and me reveling in my awesome lifestyle.

-Chairman


Basketball related tweets:

Hand down. Man down! I think that I'm liking that phrase more than I should. God bless Mark Jackson.9:15 PM Jun 14th from txt

Kobe gets #4. More importantly Adam Morrison got a ring. Karl Malone, Patrick Ewing, and Charles Barkley are rolling in their graves.10:11 PM Jun 14th from web

@Westy33 Don't hate, baby. Can't you just admire the greatness? I know that you're a T'Wolves guy, so the concept may be foreign...11:17 PM Jun 14th from web in reply to Westy33


Mundane day-to-day things (like buying a house):

Apparently, it'll be like 95 degrees all week in NOLA. Good times, if I don't spontaneously combust.3:12 PM Jun 16th from txt

Dude in 1st class traded seats w/ a WWII Normandy vet who's flying back from France. First class move in appreciation of the Greatest Generation. ...3:34 PM Jun 16th from txt

Just hit the ground. 50 minute delay because they put the fuel in the wrong tanks. I don't know if that's more annoying or scary.5:32 PM Jun 16th from txt

Incredibly beautiful houses and neighborhoods in NOLA. Of course, I'll probably live in an urban war zone.7:59 PM Jun 17th from web

Beers and darts with new friends. And when one's Irish, it quickly becomes too many beers.1:22 AM Jun 19th from txt

Offer+counteroffer+another counteroffer=? Closing in on being a landowner.1:23 PM Jun 20th from txt

Counter-counteroffer accepted! Step one of becoming a slumlord is complete.3:03 PM Jun 20th from txt

Just FYI: 1450 sq ft., 2 bed, 1.5 bath, 2nd floor balcony. Walking distance to drug dealers, pawn shops, liquor stores, and chicken shacks.6:48 PM Jun 20th from txt


Food related tweets:

Okay. Slight detour. I'm not the sort to be awake for the hotel breakfast. A roast beef po boy at Parasol's coming up.11:55 AM Jun 17th from txt

There's a joint called Ninja Sushi out here. We'll see how battling the Ninja works out.9:51 PM Jun 17th from txt

Uggh... I fought the Ninja, and the Ninja won...11:18 PM Jun 17th from web

Overslept the hotel breakfast. Again. And the checkout. Now, off to get some po' boys before the road home.12:05 PM Jun 20th from web