Sunday, November 08, 2009

Trust

As much as I sometimes think that dogs lead great lives of sleeping, eating, and playing almost all the time, I realize that I wouldn't be happy with the amount of trust that you have to put in other people as a dog, or as any type of pet. Dogs rely on people for their food, although they can apparently learn to fend for themselves on the streets (but still, they're probably most eating people-food still), to be let outside (would you willing lock yourself in a building where you were completely unable to open up the doors or windows?), and just in general (how many people do you know who consistently come when called?).

So yeah, I think it would be fun to sleep half the day and go run through the brush after squirrels and rabbits the other half, but I really think I'd have issues with not being able to do anything for myself.

Wednesday, November 04, 2009

Found my thesis

Because I've recently been told that making assumptions is a bad thing (and one of the reasons that economics is inferior to the 'real' sciences) I think I shall do my thesis based on the earning power of people based on the astrological sign. Because we can't assume anything.

From an article I had to read:
"Because an individual's date of birth is probably unrelated to their ability and motivation (ruling out astrological effects), date of birth should provide a valid instrument for earnings."

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Geocities

Dear Geocities,

I'm sad to hear that you're leaving, and you won't be coming back. I remember fondly when we first met. I knew nothing about html, and you were always patient with me as I made mistake after mistake. I remember the first time we made frames, and how excited you were when I finally figured out table syntax.

Unfortunately, there will be no more young website creators who can use your sandbox to discover their inner designer. Perhaps that's a good thing, seeing the horribleness that has been created. But none of that was your fault. After all, abilities and those that teach them aren't inherently evil, only those who use them.

You had a long and eventful life, and fare thee well.

Your friend,
Becca

Sucker

I just can't help myself - I signed up to do Nano this year. Now, because I'm not completely insane, I realize that I probably won't be able to finish 50k words, but I'm going to make an effort at 25k. Of course, this means that Rachel and I have to figure out new categories for our best out of three this year, but that should be doable. I think I'm going to double-y cheat this year by also continuing my novel from last year. I should have at least another 25k words in there. This, however, means that I have to figure out what to do next with my plot. Both 50k words and the end of the month coincided with me hitting wall in my plot, and I was happy to stop there and not need to solve the problem.

But I have a week to figure this all out, right?

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Econ Definitions

Stochasticity - portraying a stochastic tendency. Example: You thoughts display stochasticity that is alarming.

Heteroskedastastic - Amazingly heteroskedastic data. Example: Those results are heteroskedastastic! Opposite: Homoskedastastic - Fantastically homoskedastic data.

(For readers not in the know, homoskedasticity is characterized by regression residuals whose variance does not depend on any exogenous variables. In other words, the conditional variance of the residual given X is constant).

One of these words is made up, but that doesn't make the other one any less fun to use and say.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Math pick-up translations

Pick-up line: You complete me.
Math translation: You span my vector space.

Saturday, October 17, 2009

I need to see this

My Name is Bruce: B Movie Legend Bruce Campbell is mistaken for his character Ash from the Evil Dead trilogy and forced to fight a real monster in a small town in Oregon (from imdb).

I don't need to know anything else about this movie.

Monday, October 12, 2009

More soccer talk

So, whenever we have an odd number of people at practice, I tend to have to play (to keep the numbers even). Unfortunately, this usually gives my team an advantage, but there's no way around it. I try my best not to play my best (ironic, I know), and sometimes it actually works to an advantage.

Some of my stronger players have discovered that it's fun to go up against me, and see it as something of a challenge to mark me. This is great, because it means they're pushing themselves, but it saddens me that they don't play that well against their teammates (or opponents for that matter). I think that's one of the advantages of playing on a high school (varsity) team as a freshman or sophomore. While you might play more (as one of the better players) on a JV team, you won't be pushed as much in practice, and you spend far more time during the season practicing than you do playing games.

Quite a few of my players have definitely hit their teenage years, and while there's a group that would rather just talk all through practice, I think there's only one player who is actively trying to not do what I say. Which I'm fine with, because I can easily bench one player, but it would be much more difficult to bench four.