Archive for November, 2008
1st Annual Christmas gift guide…
What kind of low, boring product would a modern blog be if it didn’t promote some solid seasonal consumerism with a Holiday Gift Guide? Lame, seriously lame. So in the interest of being fabulous and not lame here are the Sauce Captain picks for the season.
Booze
These 3 picks have been real surprises for me over [...]
Thailand dangerous? Telegraph opinion lacks perspective…
The Telegraph has recently reported that Thailand is to be considered one of the most dangerous travel destinations on earth right now, right up there with places like Afghanistan, Palestine, Somailia and the Sudan.
The Telegraph must be edited by people who’s detection of hyperpole must be stunted through a lack of logic or common sense. [...]
Gaming addicts don’t exist
In a bold, yet startlingly obivious, move the world’s only gaming addiction treatment centre has admitted that chronic gamers are not gaming addicts. After two years of operation the clinic in Amsterdam says that it has become clear that 90% of excessive gamers are merely poorly socialized. The other 10% are compulsive in general and [...]
Alberta tidbits from OECD stats
After hearing about the interactive OECD regional stats tool I headed over to check it out. If you are at all interested in statistics, economics, demographics or otherwise it’s well worth a visit if you have the time - it’s the kind of tool I’d love to have built. I certainly hope they extend their [...]
Vote Dave Taylor
Just in case it got lost in my last post on the subject, I wanted it to be clear that Dave Taylor is the best bet the Alberta Liberal Party has to make changes and make it more effective and electable.
If you haven’t please ensure that you’ve sent your ALP ballot in with Dave as [...]
Niels Veldhuis says don’t blame greed
An excellent article (PDF) written by Niels Veldhuis of the Fraser Institute lays out solid description of the poor government incentives that significantly contributed to the recent market crunch. He does all of this while discussing the difference between greed and self-interest (one of my favourite topics) and why self-interest is truly what makes the [...]
National Geographic is poor with stats
… or at least with their headlines. From an article at National Geographic this week, comes this headline:
Oceans Ten Times More Acidic Than Thought
If this were true then the expected pH of the Ocean at about 8 would probably be acidic enough to eat through most anything. Though exactly what a 10 times increase in [...]
Bail out everyone dammit…
And merely because I a fan, here’s a quote from P.J. O’Rourke on bailouts:
Print journalists may soon have to send their kids to public schools, feed dry food to their cats, and give up their leases on Prius automobiles and get the Hummers that are being offered at such deep discounts these days. … The [...]
Toronto Mayor clueless on basic economics
David Miller - the seemingly basket-case mayor of Toronto - has decided to change the way they’re trying to discourage plastic bag use by Toronto citizens.
It seems that the original idea was to force supermarkets to pay their customers a dime for bringing in a reusable bag. The change was to instead have the stores [...]
Asymptomatic animals capable of infecting humans
Ok, this really isn’t what I normally blog about but I had to throw this one out. In yesterday’s Post, on the front page was an article that mentioned that animals can carry diseases that do not make them sick, but can make humans sick.
Now, unless I’m mistaken this has been known for decades if [...]
kumo.com…
So back in 1996 there was a company that needed hip name, especially since they were diving into Web and site development. But they thought that there weren’t many decent domain names left, especially since all the 3 letter .com domains had already been taken and a lot of the good 4 letter .com domains [...]
Alberta Liberal Party votes - make it matter
The Alberta Liberal Party (ALP) membership* is voting for a new leader coming up very soon. There are three men standing for the job: David Swann, Dave Taylor, and Mo Elsalhy.
The party has been an also-ran player in the province of Alberta for the past 8 decades, many times fading to single-digit seats in the [...]
The Canadian Human Rights Commission publishes report suggesting they were really really wrong
The Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC), recently famous for the Mark Steyn debacle and other petulant garbage has published a report by Richard Moon, suggesting that the very controversial Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act (CHRA) be repealed forthwith. It goes on to say that the CHRC should get out of the business [...]
Turn the world economy around - legalize drugs
I was reading the Post blog today and came across a clip covering a smoke-in in Toronto. It reminded me of a conversation I had with some friends a couple of weeks ago.
Take general estimates of the Canadian drug trade - let’s assume about $18 billion/year. Now say that legalization and lower business risk would [...]
Science Fiction is mainly collectivist?
L. Neil Smith wrote earlier this year:
But the driving ideology [of Science Fiction] was almost always some form or another of socialism.
While the pap that passes for science fiction for the often has utopian collectivist themes, the truly brilliant writers of the past century wrote of freedom and individualism triumphing over command structures.
Smith continues by [...]
Queen’s Deane doesn’t grasp free speech
Patrick Deane of Queen’s University had the gall to trot out this statement when defending his crack squad of thought police:
Freedom of speech and thought is impossible without respect, consideration and a commitment to mutual understanding.
Is he willfully ignorant or merely inept in his understanding of the words he uses?
Freedom of speech needs nothing but [...]
Parents are confused about how to measure children’s weight
A study by Pene Schmidt, released last month, has the plug: 4 In 10 Parents Wrong On Whether Their Child Is Under Or Overweight. While this is an interesting statistic it seems that the study also identified that:
…different methods of assessing children’s weight – such as BMI or waist circumference – result in different rates [...]
What’s wrong with $70 an hour?
There seems to be a bit of angry-meme competition on the web amongst commentators with respect to how much a GM employee costs - currently circulating at about $70/hour.
James Surowieki was the first I read, stating:
… you only get to that number if you include all of the costs G.M. is paying for retired workers. [...]
New theory of autism development
A quick note about an interesting new theory on the development of autism and schizophrenia through genetic competition. Bernard Crespi and Christopher Badcock suggest that competition between mother’s genes, with a greater disposition toward PSDs (psychotic spectrum disorders) and father’s genes with a bias towards ASDs (Autism spectrum disorders), seems likely to explain the rise [...]
Pay them less and watch the success roll in…
…or at take the hatchet to executive bonuses to at least stem the tide of failure?
Dan Ariely* writes about the effects of varying bonus sizes in a NY Times op-ed piece this past week, which I just read in this weekend’s National Post. He and some colleagues did three experiments that had interesting and unexpected [...]
Spam down 40 to 70%
Depending on who you talk to spam is down 40 to 70% since a major spam gang has been shut down in San Jose, CA.
For those of us who typically get hundreds of spam per day, it’s been nice lately to actually be able to check the junk box and not have to wade through [...]
British clown music a danger to the public, especially children
I know that I seem to be picking on British public policy quite often, but it’s just so easy. From a link off the Reason Brickbats page comes this astounding obtuse abuse of civic power.
Zippos Circus clowns were banned from playing musical instruments because the Birmingham City Council told them the music contravened the Licensing [...]
Sleepless kids pack on the pounds
Jacques Montplaisir from U Montréal presents a study demonstrating that the more sleep your children get - up to 11 hours per day - the less likely they are to gain weight and be hyperactive. In general it seems that:
One quarter of children that sleep less than 10 hours per night, but only one tenth [...]
Like I thought, most strollers suck
After years of railing - mostly quietly, and only to close family - about how annoying strollers are, comes some ammunition against their pervasive use.
Suzanne Zeedyk, in conjunction with Sutton Trust, worked to find the affects of stroller seat orientation on children. When comparing the state of children in forward or rear facing carriers a [...]
Supreme Court of Canada inflicts health tax on airlines
The Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) in their infinite wisdom has passed down a decision forcing airlines to accomodate the disabled, even when the costs become prohibitive. Interesting that by this decision they also included obesity as a disability.
Since Air Canada and WestJet weren’t able to prove that accommodation of the disabled, including the exceptionally [...]
Clean, immoral people less conflicted
In a study published in the past month, Simone Schnall and her team showed that people who viewed themselves as physically cleaner were more likely to find objectionable actions less repulsive than a control group.
The researchers tried two tests to verify changes in behavior - being primed by ideas about physical cleanliness or through actual [...]
UK says littering should maybe not be considered terrorism
In a landmark psuedo-decision the national government of Britain has decided to stop equating littering with terrorism. It is now safe enough to litter since the government has suggested that surveillance tools and regulations used to attempt to stop terrorism are a bit much when it comes to more mundane offenses - offenses such as [...]
Selfish vs self-interest
An excellent post crossed my path today from the blog Adam Smith’s Lost Legacy.
I’ve always been meaning to read more of Adam Smith’s two seminal tomes - The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations - but have so far limited myself to chunks from [...]
Damn, I have no idea if I’m as smart as I thought…
As a response to the 1999 paper by Unskilled and Unaware of It, Burson, Larrick, and Klayman wrote Skilled or Unskilled, but Still Unaware of It to show that regardless of your skill and intelligence you’re likely clueless anyway.
The original study purported to show that the most unskilled people tend to be the least clued in [...]
Yelling improves performance? Nope, it’s random.
While the post I got this from is from an HR blog the insight from the book The Drunkard’s Walk is excellent with respect to child discipline.
Essentially what Leonard Modlinow says is that given that most outcomes and performance are heavily random, it’s unlikely that yelling at your kids (or subordinates in business) for poor [...]
Saskatchewan high school to nix fails
Saskatoon High School, Nutana Collegiate, under auspices of Principal Shirley Figley is considering not putting failing grades on student report cards, replacing sub-50s with an incomplete or no mark. Figley says:
…teachers don’t want their students to fail… [and] We don’t need to degrade the student by giving them a number
Based on what I’ve read about [...]
London boroughs fighting musical terrorism
In a huge push to ensure the safety of chemically enhanced ravers all over the London, police are targeting live music performances that don’t comply with new strict discloser rules.
Detective Superintendent Dave Eyles of London states:
Music promotions attract people who have a propensity to use violence. That’s not speculation. We have a duty to prevent [...]
Britain to Lojack fatties in war on obesity
Ok, the title is a bit hyperbolic but in Britain is now promoting a new scheme to tag and track people in an effort to improve health by targeting obesity. In addition to the tags, which track calories and exertion, marketing campaigns and fitness facilities will be deployed to round out the effort. They feel [...]
Gestational diabetes and lower test results
In a study from Université Laval, researchers compared the language skills of children from mothers with gestational diabetes (GD) to a control group. While nothing in the summary shows specifics, children whose mothers had GD exhibit poorer results on tests of verbal vocabulary and grammar. These findings are tempered by suggestions that:
…the impact of pregnancy-related [...]
Child care subsidies and child development
Chris M. Herbst and Erdal Tekin have produced a study that suggests:
that subsidy receipt in the year before kindergarten lowers reading and math test scores and increases a variety of behavior problems at kindergarten entry.
This they surmise that these children exhibit issues since they are more likely than average to have substantially less than decent [...]
King Charles? Nay says I
So Canada has been a constitutional monarchy since inception in 1867. Through that there have been kings and queens with actual influence and those that mostly faded away. I’d suppose that QE II has skated the fine line between the two general possibilities - facing impending irrelevance with grace, good breeding, and poise …
… Unlike [...]
Lego loses to Canuck copy
So after many years battling it out in the courts Lego loses it’s block shaped patent since it’s an obvious shape. From the Financial Post:
EU trademark law “precludes registration of any shape” that is “sufficient to obtain the intended technical result,” the court said. This is the law “even if that result can be achieved [...]
UK to fine running motorists…
…who are stuck in traffic jams. The incredible British nanny-state has decided to levy fines of £20 on drivers who happen to have their cars running while stuck in traffic. This is likely to:
make a wholesale change in the behaviour of people who are already under stress or,
piss loads of people off and likely cause [...]
But I tried really hard. Honest.
From the Post comes an article about a highly entertaining study that shows the level of entitlement of university students. Ellen Greenberg from UC Irvine polled 400 undergrads and developed some conclusions from the results. From the article:
Ms. Greenberger’s study reveals that students who are academically entitled are more likely to engage in academic cheating, [...]
From today’s Financial Post
A couple of well penned paragraphs in the business section showed up in the Post today.
The first was a reprint of an editorial from the WSJ talking about the potential nationalization of the auto industry (read: Big 3):
A Detroit bailout would also be unfair to other companies that make cars in the U.S. Yes, those [...]
Remembrance Day 08
While war is certainly nothing that I’d wish for, for me my family, my friends or most anyone, I believe that at times war is necessary. There have been certain wars in the last 100 years that have been necessary though I’d presume, given my readings of history, most have been avoidable.
November 11 was established [...]
O’Rourke on how “the movement” blew it
P.J. O’Rourke writing in the Weekly Standard as usual delivers in a libertarian bent with highly engaging and only slightly hyperbolic prose. Writing about how the US conservative movement (in my parlance: libertarianism) blew it over the past many years. I aspire to write as cleanly and here are a few choice quotes:
“After the events [...]
2 for 1 better than half price
The Guardian reports that Broadspeed.com significantly improved sales by changing their tactic from half-price to two-for-one:
Empson said: “It was amazing. We had been trying to sell those cars online at half price for nearly a month and they were selling, but it was nothing special. But when we made the deal two-for-one, we got 22,000 [...]
TRoC explicitly supports Quebec separatism
The Frontier Centre for Public Policy* released an email with a variety of articles showing that the Bloc Quebecois would be utterly sidelined without public campaign cash. Here’s some tidbits from the various articles:
“Without federal financing, the separatist party would likely have been unable to mount a serious campaign in the 2008 election.” concludes [...]
And again DST debunked
Daylight savings time (DST) shifts, and especially the debate on it drives me nuts. It’s been shown many times that the logic used by its proponents is spurious at best. And another study (PDF) by Matthew J. Kotchen and Laura E. Grant proves quite nicely that DST is crap, or at least ineffective:
Our main finding [...]
Blood donation incentives
Also from Vox comes a paper by Nicola Lacetera and Mario Macis that describes the impact of incentives on the willingness to give blood. The most interesting thing I saw was related to symbolic (non-monetary) awards:
for the symbolic rewards, they also appear to increase donation frequency, but only when the prizes are awarded publicly and [...]
Lower pensions equals more children
From Vox comes a summary of a paper by Vincenzo Galasso:
According to the “kids as consumption good” theory, affected individuals should have lower fertility, since – due to the reforms – they have lower lifetime income and can thus only afford to “consume” fewer kids. The “old age security” motive suggests instead that affected individuals [...]
Kids who watch sex on TV more likely to have sex
In a study published this month in Pediatrics, RAND concludes that teenagers that watch sexual or sexually suggestive shows on TV are more likely to have sex and more likely to become pregnant, than their peers who watch tamer fare. From the NPR site:
Anita Chandra, a behavioral scientist at RAND and lead author of the [...]
Read today
Michael Shermer continues his Folk … series with an easy to read installment on Folk Numeracy, covering statistics and confirmation bais.
Thomas F Cooley writes in Forbes about the need for Barack Obama to reaffirm US support for NAFTA.
Rwanda decides that French is no longer going the primary education language in the country - noting that [...]
Economics grad students smarter than most
In the constant struggle to legitimize Economics as an intelligent and challenging pursuit the site Econphd.net put together some stats on GRE results. These show that Economics grad students rank 4th among 28 fields of PhD study - behind only physics, math and computer science, and well ahead of pseudo disciplines like public administration [...]
