| Kickbacks anyone? |
[Feb. 5th, 2010|04:32 pm] |
So, NBC 4 had the head of the EMA talking about what people should do since Columbus is getting hit with a storm. His response?
"People should listen to the radio or watch NBC 4 to get the latest information."
They ask "So, head of the EMA, what are you doing to prepare?"
"Just like your excellent meteorologists are doing, we're keeping an eye on conditions."
"Anything else you'd like to say?"
"Absolutely, everyone should watch NBC 4 24-7, as it's definitely the best way to get information. I am so incredibly thrilled that I was invited to be on. I love you, Cabot Rea!!!"
Okay, I exaggerate a bit... But, just a bit. He did actually give NBC 4 at least 3 plugs during the interview.
It was really weird...
Speaking of: apparently one of the accidents on Columbus roads was a Best Buy Geek Squad car flipping. Which, I must confess, made me laugh a little bit... Oh no! Not the Geek Squad!! |
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| UrbanDictionary Meme |
[Feb. 5th, 2010|12:28 pm] |
Go to urbandictionary.com and search your name, then put the first definition you find.(with some censoring)
Super-Bada__ kid. Usually does incredibly stupid things. All around leader. Extremely attractive and cool.
[This was originally a Facebook Status Meme.]
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| Job Market Update |
[Feb. 3rd, 2010|04:52 pm] |
For those that might be interested, and haven't been "in the know" thus far.
I'm currently "on the job market", looking for a professor job. Before The Conference, I had sent out 60 applications. From these, I got 3 interviews at The Conference. From these, I got 1 "no" (described me as a strong candidate, but they have limited flyout spots, and I didn't get one of the two), and I haven't heard anything at all from the other 2. To me, that suggests I'm probably on a "B" list at them. (Typically, post-interviews, most colleges have an "A" list, a "B" list, and a "we'd rather have a vacancy" list. The A list gets called in the first round of flyouts. If they all end up turning down the offer, or are revealed as bad candidates in the flyout, the college proceeds to the B list. So, those two are still possibilities, depending on how the primary market shakes out.)
Being in the position that I'm in - that is, with every lead being at a dead end as far as I'm concerned, I've reignited the job search, and have sent out/will send out this week 15 additional applications, widening my gaze some, especially in terms of the types of positions I'm looking at (throwing in temporary, visiting positions, and some that are Lecturer level). I've not yet gotten to the point where I'm applying for Instructor or Part-time Adjunct positions, but that's not something I've ruled out. |
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| Retro Videos... |
[Feb. 3rd, 2010|10:00 am] |
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For those who haven't seen them, and still remember "Clippy" from MS Office, here are videos you must watch. (Sadly, the audio in the second one is badly out of sync. Also, my opinion is that the third video is simply the best.) |
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| More Americans need to Sell Their Homes |
[Feb. 2nd, 2010|12:57 pm] |
   
Above I've attached a graph of homeownership rates from 1965 through 2009. Notice anything?
YES, that's right! Homeownership rates were VERY high, historically, starting in about 2000 - as interest rates were falling to historical lows - and have been coming down a bit since 2004 - about the time that interest rates started increasing
Here's my claim: We need to get from 67.2% homeownership down to about 64-65% homeownership - maybe less. Or, put more precisely, we WILL go down to about 64-65%, maybe lower.
Why do I claim that?
Because we don't live in a world where homeownership makes sense for a lot of people.
The old "rule of thumb" was that it made sense to buy a home if you were going to live in an area for 5 years or more. For the sake of argument, I'm going to say that this rule hasn't changed. (I think it's a lousy rule of thumb - and think that almost no one should own their own home, but, you know...)
So, who is it that can actually say, with confidence, that they aren't going to be moving in the next 5 years?
I think very few people can. Retirees generally can. For example, I doubt my grandmothers are going to be moving any time soon. People who are very established in jobs that are very stable - I think of school teachers with tenure, and many other government workers - can. People whose jobs are actually tied to the land that they are in - farmers, miners - often can (though that "often" is FAR from "always").
DEFINITELY, most 25-29 year olds should NOT buy a home - in fact, almost 0 SHOULD buy a home. It's simply too early in your career for you to have any confidence that you're not going to move in the next 5 years. Yet, from 1992 to 2009, the proportion of 25-29 year olds who owned their own home rose from 34% to 42%. Really? REALLY? When there's 10% unemployment, and over 2000 mass layoffs in the average month, you think it's a good idea to buy a house?
The high level of homeownership is simply not sustainable. Our society is simply too "mobile" for it to make sense - and as unemployment rates are higher, people should - and will - become more mobile. We see it all the time. Right now, people in high unemployment states like Michigan (14.6%) and Nevada (13.0%) should start looking for jobs in Nebraska (4.7%) and the Dakotas (4.4%-4.7%). Mobility is KEY to solving a personal unemployment problem. And, eventually, people figure that out and start moving.
History shows that, under the economic structure in the US from 1965-1995 or so, homeownership rates tended to be near 64%. Has our economic structure changed since then in a way that makes mobility less important? I think not. If anything, mobility is MORE important now than before.
Right now, abysmally low interest rates are offsetting the natural mean reversion that we'd expect in this rate, but the low interest rate won't last forever - and once it's gone, homeownership rates - and housing prices - will fall to more sustainable levels.
So, yeah, it's not over yet. |
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| How I Know I'm an Academic. |
[Feb. 1st, 2010|04:30 pm] |
I get a certain thrill each time someone sees fit to cite me.
I suppose that's also a sign that I'm a YOUNG academic - I'm not yet to the point where I'm cited often enough that I don't care. |
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| For those further behind than me... |
[Feb. 1st, 2010|01:33 pm] |
Apparently, almost a month ago, HP and Microsoft announced that THEY were coming out with a slate PC - not unlike an iPad.
Except, you know, able to run Windows 7 - and therefore able to do anything that a PC can do - at least in theory.
This is opposed to iPad, which runs "apps", and can therefore do anything an iPhone or iPod Touch can do. Well, except go in your pocket.
Also, HP is claiming their version will sell for under $500, too. Other than platform, it seems that another big difference is release date. The iPad is supposed to be out by the end of March. The HP Slate is supposed to come out in the 4th quarter of the year.
I'm definitely keeping my eyes on these things...
EDIT: It looks like Archos's Microsoft version is already out. |
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| More Research... |
[Jan. 29th, 2010|10:56 am] |
Remember when I was working on my research a couple days ago?
Remember how I improved the speed immensely? Going from 1300 seconds for an iteration to 160 or so?
Well, I made some more improvements this morning, and now I'm down to... 3(ish) seconds.
How did I make such an improvement? Well, here's the way that Nikola Tesla described Albert Edison (THOMAS EDISON! Gah!):
"His method was inefficient in the extreme, for an immense ground had to be covered to get anything at all unless blind chance intervened and, at first, I was almost a sorry witness of his doings, knowing that just a little theory and calculation would have saved him 90 percent of the labor." (Source: Wikipedia entry on Tesla)
More or less that would describe what my method WAS. Then, I figured out that some of the things I was searching for didn't need searched for at all, as they were easily calculable from other things I was searching for.
THEN, I figured out that at least one boundary on my search was something that I could actually calculate - and do so easily. So, that kept me from just guessing, as I was doing before.
My goal: become more of a Tesla, less of an Edison.
EDIT: Make that 0.3 seconds, now. Found another thing I didn't have to search for. Yay! GO TESLA! |
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| iPad looks awesome |
[Jan. 28th, 2010|08:57 pm] |
So, as you know, I've been looking at the nook - and decided that it wasn't what I hoped.
Now, I'm looking at the iPad.
And it looks AWESOME.
Which is weird for me to say, since I'm definitely not a Mac guy. Yeah, I have an iPod - though I don't actually use it much at the moment. (I stopped riding the bus, so I don't have much occasion to use it.) But, for example, I found the iPhone to be silly. Mostly because I just want my phone to be able to make and receive calls. I don't care if I can surf the net, update Facebook, etc. on my phone. If I can receive calls and make calls, I'm happy.
The iPad, though, looks great. Now I just need to scrounge up $500 for one... |
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| Research Plan for Today |
[Jan. 27th, 2010|08:49 am] |
So, a lot of what I do is programming, believe it or not. A lot of trying to solve big systems of equations using Matlab.
Anyway, as programmers go, I'm pretty sloppy - at least during my first run for my program. I prefer a "hands on" approach, which makes for programs that aren't particularly efficient or user friendly. For example, when I'm using bisection (something I do quite a bit), I often just set the bounds, and then check them "manually".
Anyway, that's actually not a huge problem, as long as you're not interested in your program being "robust" - and, typically, I'm not. I just want my program to be able to solve the problem that I'm giving it with a single set of parameters. Once it can do that, I'm fine.
The problem? Well, I'm trying to do some Bayesian stuff with my model now. And, to do that, I have to be able to handle a wide range of parameters.
So, now I'm going through and adding all the checks that should have been there in the first place. Fortunately, it's not that had programming-wise. The big problem is that it tends to slow down the solution process. So, I'm also trying to add OTHER checks that will, hopefully, offset that, at least partially.
Right now, I have all the basic checks in. Right now, I'm slowly adding other checks that will allow me to skip unnecessary procedures. Here's the result so far - these are solution times:
Baseline (with one "skip check"): 1329 seconds
With 2nd check: 1219 seconds
With 3rd check: 1120 seconds
With 4th check: 1313 seconds (hmmm... That's strange...)
With 5th check: 1232 seconds
Cutting out lots of unnecessary lines and rewriting some scripts as functions: 684 sec
Replacing bisection with modified false position in innermost loops: 551 sec
Same thing on next most inner loop: 225 sec (WOW)
Same thing, next innermost loop: 121 sec (I think I stumbled on something brilliant...)
Applied to outermost loop: 167 seconds (huh...)
I'll keep updating as the day goes by. |
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| Louis Theroux's UFO Hunters and Porn |
[Jan. 23rd, 2010|09:08 pm] |
Yeah, not the same documentary...
Anyway, I watched a couple more of Louis Theroux's documentaries today, after watching the one about Christians.
The second one I watched was about UFO Hunters - who generally come across as "nut jobs". Louis talked to some very interesting people... One claims to have killed 20 extraterrestrials. Another claims that he can tune into the subspace radio network - effectively "channeling" extraterrestrials from another dimension.
Watching this episode strengthened my belief that UFO phenomena are often the result of demonic activity. It was a theory I ran across when I was in Jr. High School, and I've never forgotten it... and generally find most UFO evidence to be quite compatible with the theory. In this case, the guy channeling the extraterrestrials was probably the best evidence for the theory in this piece. (If you search "Louis Theroux UFO" on Youtube, you can find the clip.) The similarity between what he was doing and what, say, a medium does when they channel a spirit was startling. When my wife watched it, she first declared it to be fake... then, as we watched more, she said "aliens are demons". Why? Because the man effectively prophesied something that was going to happen in just a couple hours - in particular, he gave the location that Louis was going to go to to see some mutilated cattle - something that Louis wasn't even sure would happen - and that he hadn't revealed to the guy channeling the aliens.
The third one, my wife and I watched together when she got home from work, and it was about Porn.
Interesting point: Louis actually applied to be represented by an agent, was IN a porn film (in a non-sex role), and was offered $250 for a sex role in another film.
The grand conclusion: people in the porn industry are really screwed up, because it really messes with your head. On the other hand, you can make money very fast in the industry. So, basically, the industry is filled with people who have basically literally sold their souls for a quick buck. End lesson: porn destroys people's lives.
Louis has definitely successfully reminded me that I like his style of documentaries... Now, I just need to get Michael Moore's Sicko AND Capitalism: A Love Story out of the library... |
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| Interesting Documentary... |
[Jan. 23rd, 2010|12:44 pm] |
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/louis-theroux-fundamentalist-christianity/
So, amidst watching BBC stuff on YouTube, I came across Louis Theroux. He makes documentary films, mostly about various "subcultures" - especially American ones.
This one is about a kind of vaguely defined "fundamentalist" Christianity.
The surprising thing: Louis is pretty clear that he's not Christian - but he manages to put together a documentary that is surprisingly positive. After watching it, you walk away the feeling that Louis sees the people he talked to as nice, warm, and sincere, but wrong.
Also, something that's nice - the Christians manage to present themselves reasonably well for the most part. I've seen clips from some of his other documentaries where the people he talks to come off really poorly, and all he has to do is give them the rope to hang themselves with. Which, actually, seems to be his technique. He likes to hand people rope to see what they do with it. And it makes for very interesting documentaries - or at least clips. |
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