Author Archives: F. E. Guerra-Pujol

That is the title of a spoof college essay posted by Alexis Pereira (@MrAlexisPereira) on Twitter the other day. (See picture below.) According to Wikipedia, Tom and Jerry is a series of animated short films created by William Hanna and … Continue reading →

Once upon a time, the academic economist Harold Hotelling (pictured below, left) developed a formal mathematical model called the median voter theorem to help explain elections. According to this influential theory of politics, a majority rule voting system will select … Continue reading →

Maybe they are not yet big enough! Check out the following excerpt from this report by David Roberts (via Vox; link in original): “It is impressive as an engineering feat, but the significance of growing turbine size goes well beyond … Continue reading →

The headline of a front-page story in last Friday’s New York Times (7 Feb. 2020) states that an estimated $1.6 billion in Hurricane Maria insurance claims remain unresolved. This sounds like a serious crisis of epic proportions, one requiring more … Continue reading →

Review (part 2 of 2) of Matthew W. Slaboch, A Road to Nowhere: The Idea of Progress and Its Critics (U Penn Press, 2018). In my previous post, I mentioned that the concept of progress might have a cultural or … Continue reading →

Review (part 1 of 2) of Matthew W. Slaboch, A Road to Nowhere: The Idea of Progress and Its Critics (U Penn Press, 2018). As soon as I heard about Patrick Collison and Tyler Cowen’s recent call for a new … Continue reading →

Via Wikipedia (footnotes omitted): “Double chess is a chess variant invented by Julian S. Grant Hayward in 1916. The game is played on a 12×16 chessboard with each player in control of two complete armies placed side-by-side. The rules were … Continue reading →

Originally posted on prior probability:
Via POLITICO: Each circle represents the difference in votes between the winner and the runner-up in each one of Iowa’s 99 counties. Larger circles indicate a larger gap between the first- and second-place candidates. Update (2/6): these…