The secret lives of academics

Check out this beautiful tribute by Gerald Dworkin to the late G. A. (Jerry) Cohen (pictured below). Here is one excerpt:

We had contests to see who could come up with the best question after a philosophical paper. Jerry’s best–“I would like to make a distinction here. Unfortunately, I cannot think of one.” We would make up titles for philosophical articles. Mine: an article criticizing John Stuart Mill and his father “The Dark Satanic Mills.” Jerry’s: an article by Norman Malcolm (a rather phlegmatic man who wrote on the logic of dreaming) “Am I , all appearances notwithstanding, not Dreaming?”

And here is another:

I presented Jerry with Nozick’s famous Wilt Chamberlin example: If each of his fans chose to contribute money freely to Wilt in order to watch him play, and as a result his income was far above that of his teammates, what could be wrong about the resulting inequality of income? It was, in Nozick’s phrase, simply capitalism among consenting adults. Jerry’s eventual reply was , very roughly, what they consented to were individual transaction not the consequences of the eventual inequality.

Happy Thanksgiving. (Hat tip: @AgnesCallard.)

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Visualization of transport economies of scale

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Check out another version of transport economies of scale here (h/t: u/notGeneralReposti).

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Breaking Bad Promises (podcast edition)

For those of you who are as fascinated by drug deals and narcocorridos (Mexican drug ballads) as I am, check out this fun Ipse Dixit podcast (episode #427) with yours truly hosted by the inimitable Brian Frye. Also, here is a link (via SSRN) to the most recent version of my work in progress “Breaking Bad Promises.” Enjoy!

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Chess piece survival rates

I posted “Chess piece survival rates” here five years ago. Enjoy!

F. E. Guerra-Pujol's avatarprior probability

Someone on digg posted a variant of this question on Quora: “What are the chances of survival of individual chess pieces on average.” In reply, Oliver Brennan, a chess aficionado and computer programmer, posted this answer:

image Image credit: Oliver Brennan

Update (25 Oct. 2014): The excellent Ada Swanson interprets this probabilistic chess board as follows (emphasis ours):

The kings have the highest survival rate … because they can’t be taken. Rooks also tend to be hardy because they spend a lot of time at the back of the board and are generally more active in endgames. The knights and central pawns have the lowest survival rates. Many popular openings involve d and epawns undertaking suicide missions, which are sometimes counter-attacked with cpawns. The wing pawns have a higher survival rate, prompting one forum user to comment …, “If you can’t be the king, be the little…

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Campus humor

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Visualization of candidate attacks

Check out this excellent report by Nigel Chiwaya, a data reporter for NBC News. Mr Chiwaya’s comprehensive report contains a complete compilation of who attacked whom (and how many times) during last night’s Democratic debate as well as a cool interactive graphic (see screenshot below). Also, if you check out Mr. Chiwaya’s previous visualizations of candidate attacks during the September Democratic Debate (12 Sept. 2019) and the October Debate (15 Oct. 2019), you will see an increase in the frequency of attacks over time.

Screen Shot 2019-11-21 at 2.33.20 PM

Credit: NBC News

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Bill Gates Redux

Also, check out this thread on Twitter.

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Why do people hate on Bill Gates?

Jerry Coyne ponders this question here. For my part, I am not persuaded by Coyne’s utilitarian defense of Gates (i.e. the fact that Gates has “donated” a lot of his wealth to charity) for two reasons. First, Coyne does not discuss the monopolistic source of Gates’s riches, and secondly, even if Gates were deserving of his incredible wealth, all he has done is “donate” those monies to himself via his own charity (the Gates Foundation). What’s so generous about such a self-serving tax write-off?

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Cyberethics in one sentence

Credit: @EthicsInBricks

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1919 World Series

Did you know that a century ago eight players from the Chicago White Sox baseball club conspired with professional gamblers to rig the outcome of the 1919 World Series. Here is a recent op-ed (NYT) by John Thorn, a historian of Major League Baseball, about this incident, and here are two Wikipedia entries: “1919 World Series” and “Black Sox Scandal.”

Image result for Black Sox Scandal
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