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Author Archives: F. E. Guerra-Pujol
What is the optimal number of time zones?
Allison Schrager, a New York-based economist and writer, explains here how the US could coordinate on just two time zones: This year, Americans on Eastern Standard Time should set their clocks back one hour (like normal), Americans on Central and … Continue reading
Pop Quiz
From the math/science section of the G.E.D. high-school equivalency exam: Assume the probability of rain on each of the next three days is as follows: Tuesday: 30% Wednesday: 45% Thursday: 50% Based on the above probabilities, what is the probability … Continue reading
Aliens or robots as parents?
That is the fun title of this report by Richard Perez-Pena in the Sunday Times about a small but growing number of top colleges that have added off-kilter or oddball questions to their admission applications to measure the creativity of their … Continue reading
“Yo la tengo …”
Yesterday morning, Professor John Nowak shared the following short story at the opening plenary session of the Fourth Annual Constitutional Law Colloquium in Chicago: During the 1962 major league baseball season, New York Mets center fielder Richie Ashburn and Venezuelan shortstop Elio Chacón often … Continue reading
“Redskins” forever?
(Note: this post was revised and updated on 5 November 2013) Some (many?) people find the Washington “Redskins” team name and logo to be highly offensive. (What about the Chicago “Blackhawks” (see below) hockey team, by the way?) What, if … Continue reading
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Tagged Chicago Blackhawks, Coase Theorem, Coercion, Redskins, Washington Redskins
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How likely is it that your boyfriend/girlfriend and you will break up?
Jon Kleinberg, a researcher at Cornell University, and Lars Backstrom, an engineer at Facebook, recently posted this fascinating paper, “Romantic Partnerships and the Dispersion of Social Ties: A Network Analysis of Relationship Status on Facebook,” on the open-access science website arxiv.org. The researchers analyzed a large … Continue reading
Should the third year of law school be optional?
Why does it take three years to get a law degree? Why don’t law schools do their students a favor by dropping the third year altogether, or at least making it entirely optional? Bonus link: Teach blogging in law school?
How long did the gunfight at the O.K. Corral last?
And how many rounds were fired? According to Wikipedia, about 30 rounds were fired in 30 seconds during the famous gun battle at the O.K. Corral. Here is more: Despite its name, the gunfight actually occurred in a narrow lot six … Continue reading
Why did Jeff Bezos buy The Washington Post?
After buying out the Graham family–the old owners of The Washington Post–for $250 million, Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeffrey Bezos formally took control of The Post on 1 October 2013, but why? (a) because he wants to revitalize the newspaper … Continue reading
Prosecution Bias?
Originally posted on Cheap Talk:
Why are conditional probabilities so rarely used in court, and sometimes even prohibited? Here’s one more good reason: prosecution bias. Suppose that a piece of evidence X is correlated with guilt. The prosecutor might say,…
