March 2010
22 posts
1 tag
Time Stamp in Stata
I’ve always wanted a decent looking time stamp in Stata. So I made one today. It’s not very elegant.
gen day = c(current_date)
gen time = c(current_time)
egen daytime = concat(day time)
gen _time = clock(daytime, "DMYhms")
gen today = date(day, "DMY")
gen _year = year(today)
gen _month = month(today)
gen _day = day(today)
gen _hour = hh(_time)
gen _min = mm(_time)
gen _dash =...
3 tags
Costs of the Supermajority Senate →
Among other things, Ezra Klein argues that the filibuster contributes to legicide: “It encourages Congress to outsource its responsibilities to independent commissions, the executive branch and its associated agencies, and the courts…”
2 tags
I Don't Care About Last Week Either →
Marco complains about state of calendering software. Like me, he settles for the month view in iCal, generally finding the daily and weekly views too myopic and information sparse.
I’ve found the List view in the iPhone calender to be very useful and the similarly formated iCal Events Dashboard widget.
2 tags
Bloggers Vs Journalists →
David Warsh thinks the key difference between a blogger and a journalist is that journalists are able to remain independent. And bloggers are not:
Most bloggers make their living working for somebody else – a company, a political party, a think tank, a military unit, a religious community, a university, a profession. Their ultimate loyalties are likely to be to their day job, and their career....
2 tags
“My theory of why no one in politics likes to think about political science:...”
– Ryan Sager (via Political Wire)
3 tags
It recently came to my attention that log | tofias dot net looks like crap in Internet Explorer. In particular, IE can’t render the quote posts properly (maybe other things too, I don’t know). I guess this is what happens when you hack apart a nicely designed and maintained tumblr theme, but it’s also a result of me not giving a fig about IE.
I think it would be unacceptable...
2 tags
Against Social Science →
David Brooks doesn’t believe in social science. Economics is on the receiving end of his attack:
Economics achieved coherence as a science by amputating most of human nature. Now economists are starting with those parts of emotional life that they can count and model (the activities that make them economists). But once they’re in this terrain, they’ll surely find that the processes that...
2 tags
“Baseball is probably the most intensely recorded game in the world. And, beyond...”
– Joe Posnanski on measuring heart
4 tags
“Every once in a while a moment comes where you have a chance to vindicate all...”
– Barack Obama to House Democrats
via Paul Krugman.
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“So much as I love my favorite books, the biggest influences in my thinking have...”
–
Ezra Klein
in response to Tyler Cowen’s request for lists of influential books
2 tags
Health Care Pushes Other Issues to the Margins →
Time & attention limited at the White House too.
1 tag
“In what seems to me a deeper sense, however, politics is the dismal science...”
– William H. Riker (1980), “Implications from the Disequilibrium of Majority Rule for the Study of Institutions,” The American Political Science Review, 74(2):432-46.
2 tags
Insert Date
So yesterday I listened to most of the Mac Power User Podcast with Merlin Mann. It’s long. I walked for over 5½ miles and I didn’t get through the whole thing. Hearing about different ways to do Mac things is useful and distracting on a long walk.
Listening to the podcast, I decided to stop using VoodooPad for my to do list and quick note taking. It works great as a sort of notebook...
4 tags
MLB Doesn't Share →
MLB Advanced Media makes a mean iPhone app, but that still doesn’t mean that they get it.
Now they need to figure out a way to leverage the excitement of their biggest fans against their own friends, against those (potential) fans who are less enthusiastic about the game.
Empower us to inspire them.
3 tags
The Same Thing, but Different →
Jason Kottke identifies something important from Amazon customer reviews: context matters and fans (relative experts) sweat what might seem to others like small differences.
If the success of a piece of writing or a product is going to rely on recommendations from real people to their friends and websites, taking the time to make sure the passionate will remain involved and inspired matters...
5 tags
Organizational & Cultural Change →
“81 Words” from This American Life is an incredible story about the American Psychiatric Association ending their practice of defining homosexuality as a mental illness. I listened to it as a case study on how definitions can become powerful institutions and how those institutions can be changed. Highly recommended.
4 tags
Republicans Say Tea Party Candidate is Fake →
What does it mean for a Tea Party candidate to be fake? And why would the Republicans get to judge that?
“Resist the urge to figure it all out in advance. Realize this is when you know...”
– Derek Sivers
3 tags
The Future of Books is Apps →
Penguin’s CEO John Makinson on his company’s strategies for the iPad (via mrgan). It seems clear that those who take an aggressive approach, experiment, and try many things at once are going to be more likely to find success. And I see demos like this and I just get excited for the thing all over again.
2 tags
On Finding an Alternative that Beats the Status... →
It’s a search problem:
As House Speaker Nancy Pelosi searches for votes and the WH hunts for compromises on health care reform, party strategists on both sides remain convinced that a legislative overhaul will pass.
1 tag
Stephen Malkmus Interviewed by Chuck Klosterman →
If you ever had a dream about what an afternoon (or at least reading about an afternoon) with SM would be like, you can rest assured that Klosterman delivers here. An article as perfect as anything on Terror Twilight.
I’ve seen Malkmus perform three times, but I’ve got near-Phish level enthusiasm to see Pavement this summer. Tickets arrived yesterday.