A Very Good Paper

And it's short! The economist who wrote it, Donald McCloskey, is now Deirdre McCloskey. All the papers I've read by McCloskey are interesting, informative, and well written. This is a two pager on statistical significance. I remember when I took econometrics from Dr. Fletcher sophomore year, she spoke about the difference between statistical and economic significance. It's a very important difference, yet gets often overlooked. It took a while for me really to understand what she meant, and I'm sure my understanding will broaden in the future. McCloskey's paper is concise and illuminates the difference from a perspective I hadn't considered. It also office a nice little history of statistical significance. I found this at Marginal Revolution in this post, which itself is worth reading.

We are THE FIGHTING FINDORFFS!!!

Our first game of hockey was today. We got our asses handed to us, but that's because we're playing non-beginners in the beginner's league. That said, we have lots of room for improvement. Coherent line changes would be a good addition. Still, we didn't play terribly. The score was 8 - 1. Even if we lose every game, it'll be completely worth it since we are playing on the same ice as our almighty hockey team. Plus, hockey is a helluva good time.

Spring Break (part 3 - Oompah Loompahs)

Spring break was a lot of the same for the whole time. I'd wake up late, read for a bit, then go to dinner and then out. The notable night was Thursday, the day before the day we had to leave. On Thursday, Carli and Grace came back from Panama City, so the five of us and the two of them all went to a place called McGuire's. McGuire's turned out to be a microbrewery and the beer was quite good - except for their original, which is similar to what watered down Bud Lite would be like. I also dropped a lot of dough on a filet mignon, but it was very tasty and worth it.

That night we went to "Night Town," appropriately enough. You paid $20 for all you could drink at the bar. As it turns out, that's a lot. Jeff and I basically walked the 3 miles back to the hotel. It was a nice night, so it worked out, but the sprinkler systems came out of nowhere. This club had midgets dancing on a stage dressed as oompah loompahs and Big Bird, Big Pig and Big Panda as supporting dancers. A bit later, the midgets came back as Alvin and the Chipmunks, again with the big animals. This was all happening after we'd been there for at least a couple of hours. References were made to the whole thing being a bad trip. I found it pretty amusing. I think the way the bar makes money is through tips, and I'm proud to say I didn't tip once. I think Matt covered my share - he was tipping like a mad man from what he said. The bartenders would notice you were done with your drink and immediately make you a new one without your asking. It's a dangerous place.

On the drive home, Jeff and I decided that, in lieu on the new Ohio license plate (which has apparently been scrapped), Ohio should entice people to visit by blatantly stealing iconic landmarks from other places. Maybe put Mt. Rushmore on there. Or possibly the Statue of Liberty. Perhaps Big Ben, or the pyramids at Giza could grace our plate.

Overall, the trip was a success and now I've got to buckle down and finish undergrad. Then I'm in for the long haul.

An Interesting Agriculture Idea

Vertical Farming!

Grad Schools Again

I found out I was not accepted to Iowa. Oh Well. It's in Iowa. And While I'm sure there are nice things in Iowa, I might fall asleep driving to see them. That wouldn't be good for anyone - especially me.

I did get into Purdue, ranked 42nd for what that's worth. I know they've got someone who is good in monetary policy and their game theorists are good. Their degree also comes close to a Master's degree in Mathematics, which is a plus (to clarify). They also might be the cheapest.

So the schools I have to chose between are:
Purdue
Rutgers
UC Santa Cruz

Deciding sucks.

Spring Break Part II

It all started out with Jeff and I driving to Auburn, a nice little university town about the size of Oxford - except it's in Alabama. Jeff's sister goes there and it just so happened that the first weekend of spring break the MU baseball team was playing Auburn. So Jeff and I decided to watch the game. Apparently, the previous night MU came back to win against the Southern school, but the night we chose to watch MU was trounced. Too bad.

Since we lost, we decided to take our sorrows to the bars (this also happens in the case of a win, but people really just look for any excuse to drink). Auburn has a happenin' bar scene. We went to some snobby bar in an old bank. Since it was full of old pricks, we took ourselves next door to a bar that puts CJ's to shame. It has three floors, live music, and was completely trashed - as were the patrons - at ten o'clock. The cover band was sweet, and we stayed and watched the band for most of the night.

Then we went on to Destin - our final destination. On the way, we drove through a forest fire and some destitute Alabaman towns that rival eastern Europe. I don't mean eastern Europe sucks, it's just not the richest place I've ever been.

Anyways. That first night in Destin we met Chris, Harry, and Matt who were exhausted and burnt from traveling all night and laying out on the beach when they arrived. Brilliantly executed on their part. So when night came, just Chris and I, along with Carli and Grace who were visiting went to Club Overboard. There was jello wrestling, which was interesting to see. I have a hard time believing people actually really get into it, but there was a cash prize in the end. The catch is that there are a couple of club employees in the competition, and since the people running the club basically chose who wins (it's done by "who gets the loudest cheer"), they let the employees win. Oddly, there was a large contingent of Miami students at this bar (the reason we wound up at this particular establishment). One girl, Maria, was the Miami rep in the event. The Miami Students were by far the loudest. Chants of "Muh Ree Uh" dominated the crowd. So she got the money. Ultimately, it was a boring evening because we waited for nearly two hours before the wrestling began.

The next day, Chris, Matt, Jeff and I golfed. It was spectacular. The course was set between houses and swamps. I took some pictures, which I'll upload in Oxford. I actually played pretty well, shooting somewhere in the mid 90's. As usual, it was my short game.

That night, we went to Liz's place a few miles away. It was weird and the consensus among my group was that our presence was resented. We left and drank on the beach in front of our hotel. Actually, it wasn't a bad night.

Yesterday, we didn't really do anything during the day. We walked through the surf and watched Arrested Development. At night, we were indecisive, almost left our island, and wound up at AJ's. I wasn't drinking so I did a lot of standing around watching the band, talking with people, etc. AJ's overlooks some docks and the breeze was nice. After my friends were sufficiently drunk, we went to the dance floor. There was a live band, which is always more fun than a DJ playing the same old tunes over and over. Instead, there are real people on stage playing the same old tunes over and over. But they're tunes we know and love, which is why we let them get away with that. And there's a better atmosphere with a band. Some girl was dancing by herself, apparently abandoned by her friends, and she danced with us. It was a weird situation, but it could have just been five guys standing in a circle kind of swaying around, so have this girl there was much better. From the limited conversations we had, we found out she's from North Carolina and goes to Wake Forest. We have no idea what her name is, but it could be Laura. So we danced and it was a decent night. She actually either told me "Nice Shoes" or "Nice Moves," but it was too loud to know for sure.

And that's spring break up to now, at the fine Holiday Inn, where security is damn tight - we have wrist bands we must wear.

"A Future Fair For All"

And we'll have cotton candy and elephant ears and merry go rounds...

Or we have the new slogan of the British Labour Party.

The Brits have organized their own Tea Party, too, and I think that's nifty.

So that's my commentary of British politics.

Grad Schools II

Firstly: Congratulations to Brian Clark, who got accepted at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. He can go tell a certain someone to suck it now.

So I've been rejected from:

Georgetown

Rice

UC Santa Barbara

And accepted to:

Rutgers

UC Santa Cruz

I haven't gotten money from anywhere and I have yet to hear back from nine other places. Right now, I've got to decide between the two coasts. Once I hear back from all the other places, I'm going to make a pro/con list for them all to compare. As for now, I've been trying to decide which of those two are better and I don't know.

Bloomington

I drove Declan to Bloomington, IN this weekend. It was a different experience. I picked Declan up in Muncie on Friday and drove from there to Bloomington. Kind of taking the sides of a right triangle instead of the hypotenuse, but whatever. The drive to Muncie's a nice one (unlike Muncie, which is a shit hole).

When we got to Bloomington, Declan and I ate at "Cafe Pizzeria." The pizza is pretty good there - and it's cheap. Then I dropped Declan off at some dorm and didn't see him again until Sunday.

The in between part of my visit really isn't that notable. I went to Borders, found the new Christoper Moore book "Fools," and studied. I drove around a lot. Bloomington's a nice town. The one bit of excitement I had, which was unwelcome, came a 6 o'clock last night (this morning?) when some jackass knocks on my door. I was staying in a Motel 6, not exactly the highest quality lodging, so I was not just a little freaked out. For the next half hour, I was wondering who had knocked on my door, and - more importantly - what was still to come. Maybe the cops were going to burst through the door. Maybe someone would throw a brick through the window. Still worse - maybe someone would shoot through the window and an errant bullet might hit me. I was contemplating whether or not I should hide between the two beds or if the bathroom would be the safer option when my phone rang. Since I had spent the last half hour or so scaring myself with incredibly... "likely" scenarios, the phone scared the bejesus out of me. The guy on the other end of the line drunkenly enquired as to the whereabouts of his "Indiana Jones" hat. I hung up in the middle of his emphatic "dammit!" when he learned I didn't know. So he was prank calling or he really did lose his hat. Either way, this is a way more obvious explanation than anything I had thought.

You just gotta be prepared for the worst. And I was really wishing I had a gun for those 30 minutes lying in fear. I might just have to go get one.

After that debacle, I picked Declan up and we ate at a very strange Waffle House. It was much closer to a Denny's than any Waffle House I had ever eaten in before. It was very disappointing, though their hash browns were made with brown sugar which is a pretty good idea.

One thing Bloomington got me thinking about are those big, imposing town halls in many of the smaller towns across Indiana and Ohio (and maybe more states, though I don't know). Why does tiny Liberty, Indiana need such a large town hall? When were these things built? Are these like smaller versions of Cathedrals (medieval status symbols)? Are they just in the smaller towns because the larger towns were more developed and were able to afford larger town halls - or now need modern town halls? Is there some obvious answer to this that I'm missing?