Sky’s The Limit
Today is a travel day. Six-foot-two inches, two hundred pounds of man stuffed into a space designed for five-foot-three one-hundred-ten pounds of woman—for six hours. I may or may not see comments left during this time and after they prise me from my seat.
I hate flying.
Act Now Before It’s Too Late!
Good news. Three people so far have signed up to be slaughtered—literarily, that is—on this blog. You have until Saturday to join the ranks of the undead.
I encourage you to do so not only because it will cause my purse to swell, but, and let’s be honest with ourselves, this may well be the last shot you have at eternity. If your name is not set forever into the Internets, no one will ever know that you have lived. Live forever through dying—in etheric print.
The right to usher into their coffins readers who don’t pony up in a mundane fashion is still reserved.
See the blog Saturday for news about the details and timing of the Mini Play.
School’s In Session
This Sunday starts my two-week impersonation of an employee. My class at Cornell begins. Like most years, I’ll probably “live blog” the days. This is as close as I’ll get to an on-line class this year.
For those who want to follow along, I’ll be using this book (PDF), which is badly in need of an update. Which I’m writing, as regular readers know, but which isn’t ready for public view yet.
Usually I write the posts before I give the class, in anticipation of the day’s lesson (many old ones are linked on the Classic Posts page). But this year I think I’ll write them after, highlighting the discussions we have. I have some lectures, but mainly I use the Socratic method—one reason I haven’t yet embraced an on-line course—and each class never goes exactly as planned.
Emails
Thanks for all the hot tips and links! These next two weeks, I’ll be even slower responding than I already am.
Is it unusual that a stats guy is a conservative? (really, I have no idea)
JMJ
That would be the same eternal fame as the inventors of the cooking fire, the wheel and the written word are enjoying?
What if my name is already out there on the internet? 🙂
Jersey: I am wondering how we would figure out if a stat guy being conservative is the usual. What statistics and questions would we need to figure this out? What defines a conservative? What defines a statistician? Seems unlikely we could even agree upon questions to ascertain who is what. I suppose we could just go with “self-identified” conservatives.
I don’t know with statisticians, but some studies and surverys say economists are more conservative. Could be the same with statisticians. Again, the term “conservative” is very broad.
Ah, a timeless topic. While this Inside Higher Ed article takes on the question of “are students more liberal before or entering college or more liberal after being exposed to liberal professors?” (never mind the mindsets that students encounter pre-college), the comments take on the perceived worldview of the academy: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/06/10/study-finds-students-themselves-not-professors-lead-some-become-more-liberal-college
“This Sunday starts my two-week impersonation of an employee. My class at Cornell begins.”
Please take precautions against exposure to Educator’s Disease.
‘..for six ours’
Your defences against the enemies need strengthening.
It was a generic question. People of math and philosophy and such tend to be very whatever they are. 😉
JMJ
Jeremy,
a fun question:
frequentist = conservative of various types
subjective bayesians = leftists of various stripes (belief trumps )
logical probabilists/bayesian = Aquinians (a la Thomas)
non-parametricians => neo-reactionaries/libertarians or assorted other crazys
bill, JMJ (= Jesus, Mary, Joseph),
That list might not be too far off. Except most frequentists, academics anyway, are lefties, too. But then most academics are lefties (so it follows, get it? get it?).
View,
They find me even when I’m suspended mid-air!
MattS,
Easy, since it’s Summer and the major sources of infection won’t be present.
Matt,
6’2″ and 200 pounds. Heh, that’s cute. I was that short in grade school, and passed 200 as a freshman. Unfortunately, I was 1/8″ inch of a draft deferment (Vietnam) when I stopped growing. Airplanes are not sized for those of us in the upper quantiles. Extended seating is the way to go.
Bill