The Penguatroll’s return!

I finished my last exam today. I haven't submitted it yet -- since it isn't due until tomorrow, I'll take a look at it then, make any appropriate edits and then send it in. Since I am largely done, however, I am announcing my return to the blog! I'll have some reviews for everyone in…

Sound Advice For Continued Living

Follow every piece of advice here.  And follow it up with this stuff, especially the part about avoiding Japan.  Remember:  a good offense is your best defense, and supernatural beings often get more time to think up plans than you do.

Fedora Season Begins Anew

One nice thing about it getting cold is that I can start wearing my fedora again.  I can trade cycling for styling. Next up, I'm going to have to get a good image so I can join the Axis of Fedora, though not if I have to wear a tie... Via Paco, who remains the…

Buffalo’s Defense Sucks In Two Dimensions

The Bills have started incorporating a "heavy 4-3" front with 3 defensive tackles and a 3-4 end on the line.  This is to help deal with their porous run defense.  Naturally, given how bad their pass defense has been, it probably can't hurt all that much (more) there... I compare this to the Four Aces…

Rogue Water Bottles Soon To Be Allowed Again

In Europe, airports will soon get bottle scanners.  Via Samizdata. The liquids thing was, for the most part, security theater rather than an effective security mechanism to deter legitimate threats.  But there's always somebody willing to work out how to make a profit off of security theater.

Efficient Markets

xkcd, via Alex Tabarrok. It's a fair point in general.  But take it in the other direction as well:  take a wacky theory that you believe in, and try to monetize its implications.  If you are capable of doing this, you get to update the priors of everybody who thought it was impossible while making…

Harry Reid: “I’ll Lose This Thing Yet!”

Patty Murray is one of the dumbest members of Congress.  I don't mean this in a polemical sense---at one point, as I recall, Murray was voted (by Senators) in an informal poll as the dumbest Senator.  I think she should be happy that Harry Reid is trying his very best to take on that mantle,…

Krugman-Murphy Debate

Bob Murphy is trying to raise enough money (for a New York City food bank) to entice Paul Krugman into debating him.  I would absolutely love to see this happen, and so I plan on pledging a few bucks.

Where’s the Penguatroll?

Beginning today, I will be on hiatus from the blog, as I have my doctoral exams beginning later today. Penguatroll... away!!

In The Papers: Social Networks

Joan de Marti and Yves Zenou have written on the formation of social networks in a working paper entitled Social Networks. Abstract: We survey the literature on social networks by putting together the economics, sociological and physics/applied mathematics approaches, showing their similarities and differences. We expose, in particular, the two main ways of modeling network…