It's over: Facebook has allowed people to just select all people from your school and invite them to events. Before, the only safeguard from mass spamming was that people had to click through every name, but nevermore! Be prepared to get invited to events left and right.
P.S. Although my post sounds negative, I've actually been waiting for this feature for years. Yay for saved hours clicking through names one-by-one!
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Saturday, March 28, 2009
UVA's taking down their computer labs, what do you think?
So the University of Virginia has found that 99.9% of their students have their own laptops at school (duh?), and 95% of computer lab usage is attributed to the usage of free programs, and as such they've decided to start dismantling some computer labs. Good idea?
Bringing it a Penn context, I don't think it'd be a bad idea. Labs take a lot of money to run and keep updated. But I wouldn't say to take them all down. I'd say consolidate them. For example, whenever I do research using SAS I have to go to McNeil where the computer lab is pretty small and is only open until 8:30PM. Since I need SAS, what I can't do is that I can't walk to the next building over to use the Huntsman computer lab which is much larger, much more widely used, and is open 24 hours. My suggestion? Close the McNeil lab since not that many people use it anyway, put SAS on the Huntsman computers, and use the money saved to give me my own version of SAS so I never have to walk down there in the first place!
Done.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/03/whats-the-point-of-running.ars
Bringing it a Penn context, I don't think it'd be a bad idea. Labs take a lot of money to run and keep updated. But I wouldn't say to take them all down. I'd say consolidate them. For example, whenever I do research using SAS I have to go to McNeil where the computer lab is pretty small and is only open until 8:30PM. Since I need SAS, what I can't do is that I can't walk to the next building over to use the Huntsman computer lab which is much larger, much more widely used, and is open 24 hours. My suggestion? Close the McNeil lab since not that many people use it anyway, put SAS on the Huntsman computers, and use the money saved to give me my own version of SAS so I never have to walk down there in the first place!
Done.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/03/whats-the-point-of-running.ars
If you ever want to be an analyst...
Learn SAS, the statistical programming language. It will open up so many doors for you. I had to learn it while I worked at IBM this past summer, and although I thought I would walk away from the job not learning anything relevant to my future, I was completely wrong. It currently stands as the most useful job I have ever had (however, waiting tables is definitely still the most fun job I've ever had).
And if you ever have a choice to learn SPSS or SAS, learn SAS. SAS is harder to use and people know that, so if you know SAS you can be easily adapted to SPSS whereas vice-versa is more difficult.
And if you ever have a choice to learn SPSS or SAS, learn SAS. SAS is harder to use and people know that, so if you know SAS you can be easily adapted to SPSS whereas vice-versa is more difficult.
Friday, March 27, 2009
NYT Makes Sun sound like a Whore
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/25/intel-boss-says-sun-was-shopped-all-over/
For those of you not in the know (slash those of you who don't really care about the goings-on of IBM), IBM is in discussions about buying Sun for about $7 billion. I'm kinda scared about the possibility (for IBM's sake). I don't really know much detail about either one of the firms, so this is really just coming out of the dark, but just think Sprint/Nextel.
For those of you not in the know (slash those of you who don't really care about the goings-on of IBM), IBM is in discussions about buying Sun for about $7 billion. I'm kinda scared about the possibility (for IBM's sake). I don't really know much detail about either one of the firms, so this is really just coming out of the dark, but just think Sprint/Nextel.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Doctor Cox is Awesome
A line from Scrubs, as Doctor Cox is talking to his girlfriend/life partner Jordan:
"Now hun, and when I say hun I don't mean the 'short for honey' kind but rather the Attila kind..."
Scrubs Season 8, Episode 11.
"Now hun, and when I say hun I don't mean the 'short for honey' kind but rather the Attila kind..."
Scrubs Season 8, Episode 11.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Hopefully, by the end of the semester, This'll be me.
Honestly, I feel pretty shaky on my leadership abilities. I don't know how I get into the positions I get into, but often times I do wish I was as cool, confident, and tactful as Obama. As such, I really enjoyed the following quote from his appearance on Leno which said a lot about how he views leadership, and his role in management:
From http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/heeeeres-barack/
I'm working on it. =/Mr. Obama seemed at a momentary loss for words only once during the session, which lasted 35 minutes (although some of it might be edited for the final show). That was when Mr. Leno, after asking about how Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is holding up, said that “I love that it’s all his problem.”
Mr. Obama recovered and said, “Look, I’m the president. So ultimately all this stuff is stuff is my responsibility. If I’m not giving him the tools that he needs to move things forward, then people need to look at me.”
He added: “One of the things I’m trying to break is a pattern in Washington where everybody is always looking for someone else to blame. And I think Geithner is doing an outstanding job.”
From http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/heeeeres-barack/
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Sunday, March 15, 2009
I think money can buy happiness, for the most part
Sorry, idealists, but I'm gonna have to agree with the New York Times on this one. Unfortunately I've had quite the internal struggle with myself over prospective future income and future careers. I may save that discussion for a later time. Take a look at this article in Economix about the happiest states in America which contains a graph correlating Median Household Income to some happiness Index.
If you're a little low on cash though, you could try making it up by watching more porn (no, that link does not go to a porn-site!), or move to a gayborhood and see if that helps at all (gay does mean happy, after all. I should know that after going to an elementary school named Gayhead for 6 years).
If those suggestions still don't tickle your fancy, try watching other forms of copulation. It sure as heck raises the happy meter for AJ. Yum, slug sex.
If you're a little low on cash though, you could try making it up by watching more porn (no, that link does not go to a porn-site!), or move to a gayborhood and see if that helps at all (gay does mean happy, after all. I should know that after going to an elementary school named Gayhead for 6 years).
If those suggestions still don't tickle your fancy, try watching other forms of copulation. It sure as heck raises the happy meter for AJ. Yum, slug sex.
Larry Summers on the Recession
I enjoyed reading it, and I thought it was informative. Beware the leftist siding.
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2009/03/13/summers-on-how-to-deal-with-a-rarer-kind-of-recession/
Edit:
Some highlights of the talk can be found here: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/13/lawrence-summers-on-the-crisis/
And a more readable version of the full speech can be found here.
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2009/03/13/summers-on-how-to-deal-with-a-rarer-kind-of-recession/
Edit:
Some highlights of the talk can be found here: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/13/lawrence-summers-on-the-crisis/
And a more readable version of the full speech can be found here.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Friday, March 6, 2009
I'm such an idiot: Taxes and Incentives!
So I'm sitting on the Metro North train right now traveling home, and a guy just sat down next to me (he can't see my typing this, don't worry. I'm not THAT dumb.) And he didn't buy a ticket at the station.
The same probably goes for any train service, but if you don't buy a ticket before boarding the Metro North you have to pay like an extra 3-5 bucks for it. I always thought that was just a way for the MTA to squeeze a few mo' dollaz out of you.
[Insert line about me being an idiot here.] No! It's not about squeezing more money out of you! It's about making the train operate more smoothly! If they can create an incentive where you're more incline to buy a ticket before boarding than on the train (ie. make it more expensive on the train) then almost everyone will do just that (which they do). Having people buy a ticket before boarding then means they don't buy it on the train. Having less people buy tickets on the train means that the operators and people don't have to make 5 minute sales transactions with everyone to sell them a ticket. That means they have more time to actually check for tickets and do a more effective job of it. More effective ticket checking means a smoother ride for passengers, and less costs for the MTA.
Therefore, by enforcing a tax on the train, the MTA provides a public good: namely smooth operations.
Now this might be common sense for a lot of people, but honestly whenever I get some sort of tax on something my first inclination is to think about how I'm getting screwed, and how The Man is profiting off me for it.
I will make this post even longer by telling you about, a few weeks ago, I met someone from Harvard at a Civic Engagement Conference studying Folk Anthropology. At first, I was like "what's that good for?" And then he explained: Folk Anthropology studies traditional folk tales of cultures, but does so from the culture's prospective. One of the things he studies is why certain tales came about, and of course it was from the perspective of the studied culture. He said he wanted to major in that because he figured it would teach him how to think about social problems from the eyes of those who experience them, and not from an outsiders.
I think had I studied Folk Anthropology, I would have come to this conclusion about the MTA sooner. And it's too bad more people don't study Folk Anthropology, because then maybe we'd have more public solutions, and less reason for us to act purely for our own good.
One thing that comes to mind is a Nash Equilibrium of a Prisoner's Dilemma game. I won't explain the game as most introductory economics classes teach it (and I was do a down-right awful job), but in the game both participants end up worse-off than they could be because they are acting purely for their own good (which is perfectly reasonable, because else-wise they'd be throw in jail!). But if we'd consider the perspective of the other parties involved, then we might be a little better off. Case in point: had I realized the MTA was taxing on-board tickets for a reason that actually give me more benefit in the end, I would've been much less annoyed with them a year ago when I bought an on-board ticket.
And the last tangent I'll go on for this post will be about homeless shelters. Yeah, I'm taking you guys for quite the random ride, huh? Anyway, I was talking to a friend yesterday who said that Dr. Dennis Culhane (a professor and expert in homelessness in our Urban Studies department) stirred up quite the controversy yesterday when he said that homeless shelters should all be closed down during a homelessness panel.
A little extreme? Maybe not so much as you think. When I asked him about that today he explained by saying that most people don't understand how much the poor hate homeless shelters. They are degrading, crowded, and do not have the capacity to serve their demographic properly. Most of all, they're inefficient, and he argues it would be better just to give the homeless all housing (and the housing's out there, he argues), and that the same social services that a homeless shelter provides can be given more efficiently and at a higher level through other programs which are already in place. One point he argues is that nobody uses the social services a shelter provides unless they are actually in the shelter (as the homeless try to avoid the shelters as much as possible), and as the typical shelter stay is only 60 days long, people stay and receive services for 60 days and then leave, without much followup thereafter, which doesn't help much in terms of homelessness prevention. What the government should do, he says, is to put more money into government social services, and less into subsidizing private shelters.
You can probably imagine that after saying that homeless shelters should closed down at a panel for homelessness he was met with some disagreeance from the crowd. In fact, there was one man who worked at a shelter who had quite a few exchanges with him during Q&A. But what's interesting is that after the panel ended, some people who were homeless or were former homeless came up and thanked him for saying what he did. Because shelters really are that bad to be in, and we really should be focusing more on prevention rather than band-aids. I wonder how many people who volunteer at homeless shelters think about the homeless in that way: that it's the last place they want to be, that it's degrading, that everything about it is just awful from its efficiency to its cleanliness, that they just really don't want to be there. Sure, nobody wants to be homeless and in a shelter, but when was the last time someone thought of it from the homeless guy's perspective.
To really put some light on my last point, let's look at panhandlers on the street. I've seen situations where people have walked back with a carton of leftovers from eating at a restaurant and had a panhandler person ask them for some change for food. The passerby offers to give them his leftovers, but the panhandler refuses to accept. And the passerby leaves muttering words of "you'd think he could take what he can get" etc. to his friends. In fact, to be honest, I've probably been that passerby at one point.
But if you're the homeless guy, it's a pretty hard hit to their dignity to take someone's leftovers. Food that's already been salivated on, and eaten. Food that most other would not eat from a stranger. It's pretty hard to maintain a sense of dignity when accepting that option. Most would argue that nobody deserves to have their dignity completely stripped away from them.
So anyway, this post has drawn long and somewhat missed its original intent, but the main point is that we should all learn to study Folk Anthropology more. If we did, we'd probably see that a lot of things people and businesses do aren't really to screw us, but provide some public good that we don't see. That or we might learn that we're promoting a disservice to some even though we think we're just trying to help. Who knows what we'd come up with.
I, for one, would probably just be less cranky.
The same probably goes for any train service, but if you don't buy a ticket before boarding the Metro North you have to pay like an extra 3-5 bucks for it. I always thought that was just a way for the MTA to squeeze a few mo' dollaz out of you.
[Insert line about me being an idiot here.] No! It's not about squeezing more money out of you! It's about making the train operate more smoothly! If they can create an incentive where you're more incline to buy a ticket before boarding than on the train (ie. make it more expensive on the train) then almost everyone will do just that (which they do). Having people buy a ticket before boarding then means they don't buy it on the train. Having less people buy tickets on the train means that the operators and people don't have to make 5 minute sales transactions with everyone to sell them a ticket. That means they have more time to actually check for tickets and do a more effective job of it. More effective ticket checking means a smoother ride for passengers, and less costs for the MTA.
Therefore, by enforcing a tax on the train, the MTA provides a public good: namely smooth operations.
Now this might be common sense for a lot of people, but honestly whenever I get some sort of tax on something my first inclination is to think about how I'm getting screwed, and how The Man is profiting off me for it.
I will make this post even longer by telling you about, a few weeks ago, I met someone from Harvard at a Civic Engagement Conference studying Folk Anthropology. At first, I was like "what's that good for?" And then he explained: Folk Anthropology studies traditional folk tales of cultures, but does so from the culture's prospective. One of the things he studies is why certain tales came about, and of course it was from the perspective of the studied culture. He said he wanted to major in that because he figured it would teach him how to think about social problems from the eyes of those who experience them, and not from an outsiders.
I think had I studied Folk Anthropology, I would have come to this conclusion about the MTA sooner. And it's too bad more people don't study Folk Anthropology, because then maybe we'd have more public solutions, and less reason for us to act purely for our own good.
One thing that comes to mind is a Nash Equilibrium of a Prisoner's Dilemma game. I won't explain the game as most introductory economics classes teach it (and I was do a down-right awful job), but in the game both participants end up worse-off than they could be because they are acting purely for their own good (which is perfectly reasonable, because else-wise they'd be throw in jail!). But if we'd consider the perspective of the other parties involved, then we might be a little better off. Case in point: had I realized the MTA was taxing on-board tickets for a reason that actually give me more benefit in the end, I would've been much less annoyed with them a year ago when I bought an on-board ticket.
And the last tangent I'll go on for this post will be about homeless shelters. Yeah, I'm taking you guys for quite the random ride, huh? Anyway, I was talking to a friend yesterday who said that Dr. Dennis Culhane (a professor and expert in homelessness in our Urban Studies department) stirred up quite the controversy yesterday when he said that homeless shelters should all be closed down during a homelessness panel.
A little extreme? Maybe not so much as you think. When I asked him about that today he explained by saying that most people don't understand how much the poor hate homeless shelters. They are degrading, crowded, and do not have the capacity to serve their demographic properly. Most of all, they're inefficient, and he argues it would be better just to give the homeless all housing (and the housing's out there, he argues), and that the same social services that a homeless shelter provides can be given more efficiently and at a higher level through other programs which are already in place. One point he argues is that nobody uses the social services a shelter provides unless they are actually in the shelter (as the homeless try to avoid the shelters as much as possible), and as the typical shelter stay is only 60 days long, people stay and receive services for 60 days and then leave, without much followup thereafter, which doesn't help much in terms of homelessness prevention. What the government should do, he says, is to put more money into government social services, and less into subsidizing private shelters.
You can probably imagine that after saying that homeless shelters should closed down at a panel for homelessness he was met with some disagreeance from the crowd. In fact, there was one man who worked at a shelter who had quite a few exchanges with him during Q&A. But what's interesting is that after the panel ended, some people who were homeless or were former homeless came up and thanked him for saying what he did. Because shelters really are that bad to be in, and we really should be focusing more on prevention rather than band-aids. I wonder how many people who volunteer at homeless shelters think about the homeless in that way: that it's the last place they want to be, that it's degrading, that everything about it is just awful from its efficiency to its cleanliness, that they just really don't want to be there. Sure, nobody wants to be homeless and in a shelter, but when was the last time someone thought of it from the homeless guy's perspective.
To really put some light on my last point, let's look at panhandlers on the street. I've seen situations where people have walked back with a carton of leftovers from eating at a restaurant and had a panhandler person ask them for some change for food. The passerby offers to give them his leftovers, but the panhandler refuses to accept. And the passerby leaves muttering words of "you'd think he could take what he can get" etc. to his friends. In fact, to be honest, I've probably been that passerby at one point.
But if you're the homeless guy, it's a pretty hard hit to their dignity to take someone's leftovers. Food that's already been salivated on, and eaten. Food that most other would not eat from a stranger. It's pretty hard to maintain a sense of dignity when accepting that option. Most would argue that nobody deserves to have their dignity completely stripped away from them.
So anyway, this post has drawn long and somewhat missed its original intent, but the main point is that we should all learn to study Folk Anthropology more. If we did, we'd probably see that a lot of things people and businesses do aren't really to screw us, but provide some public good that we don't see. That or we might learn that we're promoting a disservice to some even though we think we're just trying to help. Who knows what we'd come up with.
I, for one, would probably just be less cranky.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
I like this
For profit solutions to social problems. Yes they can exist and they might even work better than non-profit solutions. I've always had my reservations about the effectiveness/efficiency about non-profits as they lack the ability to build capacity and capital in the same way that for-profit businesses do.
It seems like Penn students are getting into the "do business, responsibly!" crowd as well. Some students are trying to start up a Social Entrepreneurship Minor here, and there was just a Social Entrepreneurship Conference here last week.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/05/business/smallbusiness/05sbiz.html?_r=1&em
It seems like Penn students are getting into the "do business, responsibly!" crowd as well. Some students are trying to start up a Social Entrepreneurship Minor here, and there was just a Social Entrepreneurship Conference here last week.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/05/business/smallbusiness/05sbiz.html?_r=1&em
Excuse Me?
For lunch today I went to Magic Carpet (a vegetarian food truck on campus), and I started to get really self-conscious while standing in line there. Not only did the line take me like 7 minutes to get food, but it was all girls. Like ALL girls. I felt really fairy. I almost made a run for it.
And then when the man gave me food I heard "Is that all, ma'am?"
I really hope he said "Is that all, man?"
I really really really hope so...
And then when the man gave me food I heard "Is that all, ma'am?"
I really hope he said "Is that all, man?"
I really really really hope so...
Monday, March 2, 2009
Makes Sense
Maybe if more people cut their cable, then cable companies might have a reason to lower their stupidly high prices (which keep rising every year). Nobody really ever uses the TV in our house (at school, at home that's a completely different story) and I for the most part just watch everything on my computer now. And that bill's really damn expensive. We should cut that jawn.
Now the question is: in the next 10-15 years, will we see internet pricing skyrocket, or the creation of some ridiculous tiered pricing? Oh boy.
Now the question is: in the next 10-15 years, will we see internet pricing skyrocket, or the creation of some ridiculous tiered pricing? Oh boy.
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/02/new-yorkers-cutting-back-on-cable-tv-service/
Giz Says:
One Google search can take up to 1000 computers.
Wow. (Reason being, apparently, is because the entirety of Google's index is stored in RAM).
http://i.gizmodo.com/5157533/one-google-search-uses-1000-computers
Wow. (Reason being, apparently, is because the entirety of Google's index is stored in RAM).
http://i.gizmodo.com/5157533/one-google-search-uses-1000-computers
I'm confused as to how this could happen
The Penn emblem is off center!? The same one that's on like EVERYTHING!? What!?
(Via Under the Button.)
(Via Under the Button.)
Sunday, March 1, 2009
A Two for one: Marsedit and Airline Layovers
It's 2:34AM but for some reason I don't really want to sleep. So I've been testing a new app: MarsEdit. It's a desktop blog publisher (so I don't have to log into blogger.com every time now. Those who know me know that I prefer desktop apps to browser apps).
It also integrates quite well with my RSS reader, NetNewsWire, so I can post things that I read online pretty easily now.
Anyway, below's a cool quickie about airplane layovers AKA expect to see more now that fuel costs have gone down.
The Economics of Airline Layovers: "A new working paper looks at the turmoil the United States airline industry has gone through so far this decade."
(Via Economix.)
It also integrates quite well with my RSS reader, NetNewsWire, so I can post things that I read online pretty easily now.
Anyway, below's a cool quickie about airplane layovers AKA expect to see more now that fuel costs have gone down.
The Economics of Airline Layovers: "A new working paper looks at the turmoil the United States airline industry has gone through so far this decade."
(Via Economix.)
WebMD Blogs and Dog Farts
I happened to have just discovered WebMD blogs. They're kinda neat in a medically-interesting-yet-phrased-for-a-layman sort of way.
This post is pretty funny, actually:
http://blogs.webmd.com/all-ears/2009/02/farting-dogs.html
and from what I've read I like his blog so far. I'll probably stick it in my RSS reader.
For a complete list of WebMD blogs, check here:
http://www.webmd.com/community/blogs
P.S. How is WebMD regarded as a website? I always kinda wondered. Do doctors scoff at the normal people who read it? Or do they think it's a good and legit source of information? Do normal people think that other normal people who read it are fools? Let me know.
This post is pretty funny, actually:
http://blogs.webmd.com/all-ears/2009/02/farting-dogs.html
and from what I've read I like his blog so far. I'll probably stick it in my RSS reader.
For a complete list of WebMD blogs, check here:
http://www.webmd.com/community/blogs
P.S. How is WebMD regarded as a website? I always kinda wondered. Do doctors scoff at the normal people who read it? Or do they think it's a good and legit source of information? Do normal people think that other normal people who read it are fools? Let me know.
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