Who’s afraid of a little competition? Click on the map for a larger version.
Creative Commons
Blogs I Follow
South Beach Story
My wife and I were in Miami Beach last night. We enjoyed a late dinner at Prime 112 on Ocean Drive, and then went to Dream nightclub on Washington Street. We had fun, but I did not like the DJ at Dream. The DJ kept interrupting the music to announce when a table in the VIP section purchased bottles (which was very frequently) and also when a table was not buying any bottles. Specifically, he called out some football players from the New England Patriots for not buying any bottles during the evening. We know that shaming and peer pressure are often very effective ways of influencing people’s behavior, but these NFL players were guests at your nightclub and were actually doing you a favor by being there …
Let’s get ready to rumble …
Frequentists have suffered another significant setback (pun intended) in the social science world. Via the amazing Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution, we’ve just learned that a psychology journal has officially banned significance testing from its pristine pages. (Also, check out this excellent blog post by Steven Novella, who describes this move as “the first real crack in the wall for the almost-universal use of the null hypothesis significance testing procedure …”) In other news, man bites dog …
Rest in peace; it’s only logical …
The original Star Trek series, which we watched as a child, has always represented the future to us. Now, with the loss of Leonard Nimoy, it is part of our collective past …
Posted in Uncategorized
1 Comment
World Black History Month (Canary Islands edition)
We recently stumbled upon this fascinating paper titled “Black Presence in the Canary Islands (Spain)” by Roberto Nodol. According to Dr Nodol, historical documents dating as far back as 1602 indicate the presence of African slaves on the island of La Palma. These historical documents also indicate that there was a “large and uninterrupted importation of [West African] slaves to sugar-growing areas such as Tazacorte” and that a “large number of slaves … settled in some urban areas such as La Laguna and Santa Cruz de Palma.” Professor Nodol concludes that the slave population of the Canary Islands was large enough to sponsor cultural and religious festivities, such as the festivity of San Benito de Palermo (pictured below). Since his paper was published in 1981, we wonder if there has been any subsequent research on this topic. (Image courtesy of Colonial Arts.)
Cuba libre?
Our Cuba was an imperial Spanish colony until 1898 and a prosperous quasi-colony of the United States until 1959. Now, it’s an impoverished military dictatorship. When will our Cuba be free? (Image of the “Cuba Libre board game” below courtesy of GMT Games.)
The law and economics of Hemingway’s “Old Man and the Sea”
Here is an edited excerpt (without the footnotes) from our latest paper “Misappropriation and The Old Man and the Sea,” which we shall be presenting at the Cuban Research Institute at FIU this Friday: Continue reading
The young man and the sea
The Gulf Stream–an oil painting by Homer Winslow–depicts a solitary man in a small fishing boat, surrounded by sharks and struggling against the waves of the sea. But at a deeper level, what is it ‘really’ about? According to one art historian (Albert Ten Eyck Gardner), this painting portrays “a particularly enigmatic and tantalizing episode, a marine puzzle that floats forever in a region of unsolved mysteries.” In any case, we wonder if Ernest Hemingway was aware of this painting when he wrote his masterpiece “The Old Man and the Sea”?
23 Feb. 1945
On this day 70 years ago, Joe Rosenthal took this famous photograph during the historic Battle of Iwo Jima. So, is this picture still under copyright?
Posted in History, Law, Questions Rarely Asked
Leave a comment
“Do not cite or circulate”
That is the title of this 13-page paper by Lee Ann Fennell, a law professor at the University of Chicago. Her short essay questions why law professors often attach formulations such as ‘Do Not Cite or Circulate’ to their drafts or works in progress. After all, what’s the penalty for citing or circulating a draft paper? (Hat tip to the amazing Tyler Cowen of Marginal Revolution.)
Posted in Academia, Questions Rarely Asked
Leave a comment
