I’ve been rather busy all week, so here is sommat quick:

1. Best Quote of the Week (On Self-Deception):
   

   …You see, the ancient Romans and Muslims did not have kings. Kings were tyrants, and the early Roman and Islamic polities rejected such tyranny on principle. So of course, instead of kings, the Roman Empire was headed by an emperor, while the Muslims had caliphs. Get it?

   From Gene Expressions, Posted by Robin Hanson in OvercomingBias

2. Zemanta
   I’m testing out Zemanta. My first thoughts are: OMFG, those MFA CnP bloggers are going to have a field day. But after using for a while, I think the concept is solid, though likely to be misused. I can already see about 10 ways to improve it. I haven’t used a single article it suggested though, since I usually do my research long before posting anything (stuff like this blog.. I’ve been recursively adding to it since last week).
3. Bayes
   I’ve been thinking a lot about Bayes Theorem, and its uses (and how). Rev. Thomas Bayes is interesting.. most interesting indeed. Ah… lemme repeat a joke by Eliezer Yudkowsky - “One who fully grasps Bayes’ Theorem, yet remains in our universe to aid others, is known as a Bayesattva“
4. Value
   Another thing I’ve been considering this week is the value of a person. I know that there are many academic articles out there that tells you how to put a price on human lives, but that’s not what I really want. Yes, I still want to put a price on human lives, without considering risk of injury and death (Viscusi et al., 2004). I want to put a price on human beans beings by considering other things like productivity (Aaron noted correctly that in a competitive market, income is a good measure of price), and social factors like number of friends (impossible) and number of children (courtesy of Aaron as well); et cetera.
5. Disillusionment
   I’ve been thoroughly disillusioned about insurance when cfgt (who is studying actuarial science) told me how to value people… turns out that actuarists value people as how much value one can provide to the insurance company (i.e. for how long they can pay for their insurance). I think “Don’t Be Evil” should apply to insurance companies.
6. Apple iPhone SDK
   I remember the good old days of Palm PDAs. I remember when cfgt wanted to write a program for his PDA, he needed to get Palm’s approval - the whole complex faxing of your signature to Palm’s office and stuff - it was a huge hassle (I had a PocketPC Windows Mobile, so coding for my PDA was easy). Apple iPhone SDK = Palm 2.0? Ugh. I mean, if you want to release an SDK, might as well open all.
7. Shitty Internets
   Its been raining, and TPG has been shiiting all over my internets. It keeps dropping, and I’m less than 2km away from the DSLAM. DAMMIT!!!!! 3 days ago, I had a new record for the shortest uptime - 45 seconds. That’s right. My internets connects (takes about 30-40 seconds), and dies 45 seconds later! GAAAAAAAAA!!!!!! And I should stop saying “Internets”.
8. 2nd Best Quote of the Week (Random Sampling):
   

   Of course this requires the sample be random. In a sense the sample of those who actually vote from the universe of eligible voters is not random. It’s self selected. It’s people who have strong feelings (and sometimes even, yes, better information) about the outcome. But that’s the way it should be. Do you want people flipping coins in the voting booth

   From YouNotSneaky. (yes this is old, but still gold - came from researching value of people)

With so many short posts… makes you wonder why I don’t use some microblogging format (like Twitter). The answer is : BECAUSE.

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