My Sunday reading turned up three examples of glaring numeracy errors. I make plenty of my own errors, so I have sympathy for the perpetrators. But I did want to highlight them as examples of what can happen when quantitative thinking runs off the rails. And the need to remain mathematically vigilant in your daily [...]
Archive for the ‘Life’ Category
A Sunday Numeracy Quiz
Posted in Data, Life, Teaching, tagged Ethicist, Gambling, Graphics, New York Times, Wall Street Journal on February 5, 2012 | 2 Comments »
The Behavioral Economics of Leftover Pizza
Posted in Life, Microeconomics, tagged Behavioral Economics, Humor, Life on November 30, 2011 | 10 Comments »
Jared would be proud of me. Whenever I grab lunch to eat in my office, I head over to Subway for a six-inch Veggie Delite with provolone. Just 280 calories. Yum. Depending on my mood and workload, I usually gobble down my Subway lunch between 12:15 and 1:00pm. On Monday, though, I started eating at [...]
Sign Your Tax Return in Blue Ink
Posted in Life, tagged Taxes on November 22, 2011 | 5 Comments »
Esther and I got a scary piece of mail yesterday. The fine folks at the Internal Revenue Service sent our entire tax return back to us. Minus the accompanying check, of course. A cover sheet said we had failed to sign the return, which we filed on a timely basis in October. That sounds easy to fix, except for [...]
A Great Cover of “Rolling in the Deep”
Posted in Life, tagged Music on November 20, 2011 | 1 Comment »
In case you missed it, here’s ten-year old Angie Vazquez belting out Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep,” accompanied by her brothers Gustavo (13) and Abelardo (15): ht: Heidi Moore P.S. I’ll get back to econ blogging soon. Super busy lately.
The Invisible Hand is Made of Delicious Invisible Meat
Posted in Life, Microeconomics, tagged Humor, Incentives, Tragedy of the Commons, TripAdvisor on September 30, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
The incomparable xkcd on incentives, morals, and TripAdvisor: Here’s another favorite.
How Many Continents Are There?
Posted in Life on September 16, 2011 | 1 Comment »
I love a good video about measuring and counting: I am a splitter not a lumper, so nine strikes me as at least as reasonable as seven. And the geologists have a point too … ht: Sarah Cliff at the Washington Post.
Visiting Brazil? Skip the Amazon and Head to the Pantanal
Posted in Life, Nature, tagged Brazil, Nature, Pantanal on September 12, 2011 | 1 Comment »
Posting has been light in recent weeks thanks to a two-week sojourn in Brazil and a week recovering therefrom. I mostly turned off my inner economist to get in touch with my inner Darwin. So I have only a handful of economic observations: After arriving in Rio, the car that picked us up was made in China, fueled [...]
What Happens When a High-Profile Undocumented Immigrant Reveals Himself?
Posted in Life, tagged Immigration on June 22, 2011 | 2 Comments »
Judging by my Twitter feed, the most captivating story of the day is Jose Antonio Vargas’s account, “My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant.” Writing in the NYT Magazine, Vargas recounts how his mother sent him to the United States when he was 12 and how, in the subsequent years, he built a career as a [...]
Misleading Graphics, Not So Honest Tea Edition
Posted in Data, Life, tagged Graphics on June 13, 2011 | 5 Comments »
Are you smarter than Honest Tea, the upstart purveyor of natural (and yummy) teas? To see, please compare the sizes of the yellow and black coffee cups: How big do you think the yellow cup is relative to the black one? About 1/8 the size? About 1/4? Or about 1/2? Take your time. Think about it. [...]
Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse
Posted in Life, Uncategorized, tagged Emergency, Humor, Zombie on May 19, 2011 | 2 Comments »
The Centers for Disease Control offers emergency preparedness tips with a sense of humor: So what do you need to do before zombies…or hurricanes or pandemics for example, actually happen? First of all, you should have an emergency kit in your house. This includes things like water, food, and other supplies to get you through the [...]
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