the game of life
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Survival modeling on the job
I often joke that some bureaucracies are so tight that you can’t get hired unless one of their employees dies. For a lot of the feds, it ain’t a joke. The good news for grads in math, stats, and management science is that the staffs in Carter Administration outfits like the Department of Energy were Read more
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My kind of guy
Read about the energy biz in the NY Times: “Things are picking up,” said Cody Chase, 24, who had just finished an overtime shift at a coal mine north of here and was having a 7 a.m. burrito and beer at a downtown breakfast joint. Hours at the mine are up, said Mr. Chase, who Read more
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The latest craze: the Chicken Swap
St Petersburg, Florida, leaps to the leading edge of the Urban Chicken Movement. Tip from the Instapundit. Update (11 April). It IS possible for this urban chicken thing to get out of hand. Read more
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Maybe y’all should listen to those old squares
Mom’s First Law of Floods: Where water has been before, water will be again. Lots of Japanese ignored that law, but the folks of Aneyoshi followed it scrupulously. Too bad most folks don’t stop to read the writing on the wall–or on those corny old stone markers, either… Update (9 April). Masanobu Shishikura didn’t need Read more
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The fix is in, and we’re tired of it
Michael Barone begins to get at the motivation behind middle-class Tea Partiers: The recoil in 2010 against the Obama Democrats’ vast expansion of the size and scope of government seems to have a cultural or a moral dimension as well. It was a vote, as my Washington Examiner colleague Timothy P. Carney wrote last week, Read more
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OK, there’s at least one sane teacher in this country
Mike Mazenko’s neighbor had a frozen pipe fixed, for $300. “…current education reform based almost entirely on standardized test scores and college degrees is the wrong direction for Colorado and for the United States.” Tip from Community College Spotlight. Update (26 February). Thomas Benton thinks this is the beginning of a perfect storm in education. Read more
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Pocket squares!!
Yesterday was “Wear Red for Valentine’s Day” in my statistics classes; the students hit about 90% with reds, pinks, and plums. (Well…it WAS extra credit). To set a good example, I dressed up a black suit with a plum shirt, Queen of Hearts tie, and a bright red pocket square. Briggsy had raised my consciousness Read more
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$5 gas?
Lots of bloviating (and wisecracking) about “What Would Happen If You Woke Up To $5/Gallon Gasoline?” over at The Truth About Cars. The answer is much simpler than anyone has mentioned. Not a g*ddamned thing. It was $4.989 a gallon when you went to bed, a$$hole, and nothing besides another record wave of home foreclosures Read more
The Random Texan 