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Category Archives: History
Happy Daylight Saving Time Day
Not! (Hey, if we can’t get our corrupt and lazy lawmakers to end daylight saving time, then at the very least let’s change the name of Daylight Saving Time Day to “Path Dependence Day.” In the meantime, can you think … Continue reading
Posted in Bayesian Reasoning, History
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Role reversal experiment: what if The Donald were a Donalda?
He would have still won the election! Maria Guadalupe and Joe Salvatore, professors at NYU, conducted an ingenious experiment (see video below) and found some surprising results. Happy International Women’s Day and be sure to check out the video below (hat tip: … Continue reading
Posted in Bayesian Reasoning, Current Affairs, History, Politics
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Ancient probability
Although modern probability theory dates to the 1600s, our ancestors have been playing games of chance for a very long time. Via the amazing Cliff Pickover, for example, check out this ancient die (circa 2500 B.C.) from the Indus Valley Civilization. (Photo Credit: … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Games, History, Probability
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The End of Risk-Taking?
Our friend and colleague Tyler Cowen has just published a new book with a catchy title: The Complacent Class. At the risk of over generalization (pun intended), Professor Cowen’s book claims that North Americans are becoming intellectually lazy and spiritually complacent–more … Continue reading
Posted in Bayesian Reasoning, Economics, History
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Emancipation Proclamation
In honor of Honest Abe’s birthday today (2/12), we pose the following essay question regarding the Emancipation Proclamation, one of the most famous executive orders of all time. Was President Lincoln’s historic proclamation constitutional? That is, did Lincoln have the … Continue reading
Posted in History, Law
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Square-Mile Street Network Visualization Project
As part of his PhD dissertation in urban planning, Geoff Boeing has developed a computer program that visualizes one-square mile of the road network of any major city in the world. (Check out his cool website here.) By way of … Continue reading
Posted in Art, Culture, History, Maps
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Black History Data Visualization
In honor of Black History Month, we are reposting this hand-drawn visualization of demographic data created by W. E. B. Du Bois in the year 1900. You can find more such turn-of-the-century data visualizations here. (Hat tip: digg.)
Facebook’s birthday
Facebook was launched from Mark Zuckerberg’s dorm room 13 years ago today (it was called thefacebook back then), yet there is still no DISLIKE button after all these years. But when should the billionaire CEO celebrate Facebook’s birthday: when he … Continue reading
Happy Birthday, Mr Hamilton
Alexander Hamilton was born on this day (1/11) in the British West Indies.
What was your first computer?
Anil Dash put this nostalgic question up on Twitter, a question that has been posed many times before. (See here and here, by way of example.) Ours was a Macintosh SE, like the one pictured below, which our parents purchased for us as a graduation gift during … Continue reading
Posted in History, Questions Rarely Asked, Web/Tech
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prior probability 