Specialization is for insects

Cool Music

The XX, "Intro"  (Sadly, I can't listen to this song without thinking of Apolo Anton Ohno in this AT&T commercial)

The XX, "Teardrops"

Not Just Your Regular Zombies

I'm surprised this hasn't yet inspired a full-length feature film.  Here is one account:

When I first read that there was a zombie level at the end of the new Call Of Duty I was a bit incredulous.  Why mess with such a highly respected franchise?  I was sure that COD had jumped the shark.  Until I played the zombie level. From the first attempt I was hooked!  My favorite thing about WAW is NAZI ZOMBIES!  Its Dawn of the Dead meets Quinton Taratino meets COD with that 70's style campiness that we all love so much.

The first few times I played the Zombie level it was quite creepy and made me very anxious.  My pulse went up and I was actually mortified when the zombies eventually caught me.  Not for the faint of heart (or small children).

I am happy to say that I have been playing for over a month and the game still makes my heart pound and I still freak out when zombies catch up to me. This game is very addictive and I for one would love to see a spin off game with more buildings to play in, downloadable maps, etc.  I hope Treyarch hears my call and starts working immediately on a stand-alone version of Nazi Zombies.

Nazi Zombies sound pretty cool.  And by cool, I mean totally sweet.

Cool Music

The album Kingdom of Rust by Doves was released a year ago, but it's new music to me.

Doves, "Jetstream"

Doves, "The Outsiders"

George P. Schultz

I don't understand how one person could possibly be the most-qualified individual at the time for all of the following jobs:

• President of Bechtel Corporation
• Secretary of Labor
• Secretary of Treasury
• Secretary of State
• MIT Economics Professor
• Dean of Chicago Business School
• Member of the Council of Economic Advisers

My current theory is that this is prima facie evidence of the "old boy network", which perhaps isn't quite as strong as it used to be.  Alternatively, there is Steve Levitt's (and Laura Beth Nielsen's) view of the world:

My friend Laura Beth Nielsen at the American Bar Foundation has a theory that people who are good at one thing are good at everything. Since she shared it with me, I have thought often about whether it is true. I tend to believe it, with the important qualification that the right kind of practice is critical to being good at anything. It may well be that people who are good at one thing have learned how to do the right kind of practice, not just for that task, but more generally.

Let Me Decide

Bill Simmons writes an insightful, funny piece about the recent Masters golf tournament.  He also perfectly sums up my generation (italics in original):

It's unbelievable that in this current era of sports -- when I can watch a mundane Red Sox-Royals game on my BlackBerry while sitting at a stoplight in Manhattan Beach -- I couldn't watch 60 percent of the holes played on Thursday and Friday by Tiger Woods. I should be able to see anything I want in 2010. Just name me a price and let me decide whether I want to pay it. Augusta doesn't care. I can go screw myself. That's their attitude.

You're lucky you get to watch this tournament at all.

A somewhat related story: there is a new song called "Beam of Light" by the band Ear Pwr, and I can't find the lyrics on-line anywhere.  I can't understand how someone (anyone!) hasn't already transcribed the song for me to read while clicking through a couple of pop-up ads.  I should be able to find the lyrics for any song I want in 2010!

The Composition-Adjusted Unemployment Rate

The Economix blog is quite good (and not just because it mentioned me recently).  Today they highlight an interesting recent paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, which attempts to create a measure of the unemployment rate holding the demographic characteristics of the workforce constant.  This is an interesting exercise, since it suggests that the aging of the workforce has been mechanically reducing the unemployment rate. 

An interesting research question is why the unemployment rate varies so much across the age distribution.  One way to proceed is to first try to understand how much of the demographic variation in the unemployment rate is due to supply and how much is due to demand -- i.e., is the high unemployment rate of teenagers primarily due to low demand for teenage labor or low attachment of teenagers to the labor force?  I have no idea.

Bond girls

I found this via Marginal Revolution:

ABSTRACT

A quantitative content analysis of 20 James Bond films assessed portrayals of 195 female characters. Key findings include a trend of more sexual activity and greater harm to females over time, but few significant across-time differences in demographic characteristics of Bond women. Sexual activity is predicted by race, attractiveness, size of role, and aggressive behaviors. Being a target of weapons is predicted by size of role, sexual activity, and weapon use, while being harmed is predicted principally by role. End-of-film mortality is predicted by sexual activity, ethical status (good vs. bad), and attempting to kill Bond. This identification of a link between sexuality and violent behavior is noted as a contribution to the media and sex roles literatures.

Source: "Shaken and Stirred: A Content Analysis of Women’s Portrayals in James Bond Film" from the journal "Sex Roles", 2009

I originally thought that once they allowed for a time trend and a constant term, they were left with only 18 degrees of freedom.  But I misread the abstract; they analyzed 20 bond films, not 20 female characters.  I think the authors may have been defining "Bond women" too literally, though; I doubt that there are 9.75 Bond women per film on average. 

This is also a good place to mention the Bechdel Test, which I have always found intriguing.  While watching Northanger Abbey last night, I realized that it didn't pass the male version of this test.

Pete Holmes

Here is your study break (or work break) for the day.

Projection Bias

Freakonomics is alive and well!  I have a soft spot for papers with titles that are puns:

"WEATHER TO GO TO COLLEGE"
ABSTRACT
Does current utility bias predictions of future utility for high stakes decisions? Here I provide field evidence consistent with such Projection Bias in one of life’s most thought-about decisions: college enrolment. After arguing and documenting with survey evidence that cloudiness increases the appeal of academic activities, I analyse the enrolment decisions of 1,284 prospective students who visited a university known for its academic strengths and recreational weaknesses. Consistent with the notion that current weather conditions influence decisions about future academic activities, I find that an increase in cloudcover of one standard deviation on the day of the visit is associated with an increase in the probability of enrolment of 9 percentage points.

I already knew those crazy people across the pond spell analyze as "analyse."  I did not know, however, that they spell enrollment as enrolment.  That's crazy!

One thing I like about this paper is that it documents that there is a correlation between weather and willingness to study.  That makes the (otherwise "cute") findings more plausible.