Vitas

We're not hiring this year, but if we were, and if I were on the committee, and if I saw a vita that were the Econ equivalent of the one below, I would move heaven and earth to get the applicant an interview at the AEAs.I'd put high odds that one or two folks round the traps would see this kind of vita as being a reason to rule a candidate out. It would be highly interesting if some job market candidate next year were to do a randomized trial on whether this kind of vita or the generic sort landed more AEA interviews. Highly interesting 'cause the costs don't fall on me and I'd want to know the results. If there weren't so many veto players in hiring processes, the strategy would induce a nice separating equilibrium.

As a side note, I can imagine how I'd come up with scores on strength, dex, con, intelligence: get measures of strength, dexterity, stamina and IQ, get some population averages, then map them to the 3d6 distribution. I have no clue how wisdom could be measured in the real world; charisma would similarly be tough.

I don't buy the guy' scores if he's using a standard early edition set of D&D rules. 3d6 gives an average of 10.5 and sd is 3. So he's claiming to be >4sd above average - IQ 162.5 - in a part of the distribution you can't get by standard rolls. Of course, I'd expect any PhD-bearing candidate in Econ to score at least a 19 INT; I'd also expect to see some GRE scores to back that up. My GRE scores gave me a D&D INT score that rounds to 21, if 1998 GREs are still a reliable predictor. The rest of my scores would be much much worse.

Could be fun over Christmas...the D&D Vita. Publications and such as Inventory...

Dunedin for the jocks, Chicago for the nerds

Drinkwater points to an excellent Slate column on the battles over Chicago's Olympic bid reflecting the jock/nerd divide.

The bid's most visible opponents have spent years howling that the Olympics will breed graft and political corruption and bleed an already cash-strapped city dry. Chicago 2016's supporters, by contrast, have argued that the Olympics will improve the city's standing, create jobs, and boost local morale. The debate here wasn't best understood as an honest disagreement over what's best for Chicago. Rather, the rhetoric was indicative of a more fundamental clash: the eternal battle of jocks vs. nerds.

For two years, wonks like Ben Joravsky of the Chicago Reader and Tom Tresser of No Games Chicago have denounced Chicago's Olympics gambit as poorly conceived and wasteful. These stalwarts of the city's nerd opposition have couched their arguments in numbers, rules, and historical precedent, hoping to persuade the Games' supporters through tireless skepticism.

...

Though the Chicago 2016 committee has produced a detailed plan for the IOC that lays out the logistics of paying for and hosting the Games, its message to Chicagoans has emphasized emotion. A recent Huffington Post article by bid chairman Ryan has no numbers. Rather than explain the committee's financial plan, Ryan simply calls it "strong" and cautions readers from throwing in with the naysayers who are too afraid of the scale of the Olympics to take them on. Translation: "Shut up, nerds. The Games are going to be awesome!"

The hard-to-refute fuzziness of concepts like "the world stage" and a city's "global profile" resonate with large segments of the public. They also drive nerds into a rage by giving them no data to refute. It's hard to avoid the conclusion that the two sides are talking past each other, appealing to their constituencies by speaking different languages.

We see this same jocks-vs.-nerds conflict play out every time a pro sports team threatens to skip town unless the taxpayers cough up money for a new stadium. The opposition to these arena grabs typically consists of good-government types who argue that the alleged economic impact of the new building is greatly inflated—and wouldn't that money be better spent on education? The jocks play to municipal pride and the desire for the beloved local team to stay in town. And usually, though not always, the stadium gets built.

I was never more proud of Winnipeg than when we let the Jets go rather than give in to NHL extortion. But the jocks won in Dunedin and got City Council to front up for a new stadium for the rugby world cup. They won so handily that the nerds had to pay court costs, which is kinda like finishing off the wedgie with a swirly.

I'm a fan of Caplan's Jock/Nerd theory of history and of progressive taxation.... In the long run, the nerds will win though.

Afternoon roundup

• Luke Malpass at CIS argues that the government should realize its losses and sell off KiwiRail: privatisation and immediate culling of unprofitable lines makes more sense than continued stagnation. He's right.


• Grocery line optimisation algorithms. I'm glad to see that I'm not the only person in the world trying to run these models in his head while standing in line. Long story short: ballpark 50 seconds per person ahead of you with fewer than 3 items and add in an additional 3 seconds per item beyond that. Of course, adjust for the usual confounds like chatty or trainee clerks or elderly folks in the queue. In NZ, add in 10 second fixed cost per person in line with alcohol so the clerk can get a manager's check on age. HT: Marginal Revolution

Wolfram Alpha passes my test

Wolfram Alpha, what is the meaning of life?



Update: Wolfram Alpha, what is the velocity of an unladen swallow?



Update 2: it gets even better. Click on velocity of a European swallow, above, and you get the actual speed. More easter eggs below:

How many roads must a man walk down?
How much wood could a woodchuck chuck?
Why did the chicken cross the road?

Please add any other found easter eggs in the comments!

Update3: Josh Gans seems to be tweeting Alpha eggs! He found this one.

Update4: Technewsreport finds a few more.