By Chewxy, on December 5th, 2009%
I will be first to admit I first fell in love with economics thanks to Levitt and Dubner. The first Freakonomics book transformed my view of economics, from a drab and dull (and dry) subject, to something far more interesting. I guess my career path wouldn’t have been as an economist, if I had never read the book. 4 years on, I am now a proper economist (still working towards my PhD though), and Levitt and Dubner has done it again, and had come out with the sequel freakquel to Freakonomics, called Superfreakonomics.
I frequently read back to the original Freakonomics, to see if my level of understanding of economics is up to par. I told myself, that if I can work out the methods the economists come to their conclusion by myself and just the data, I would have made it. By 2007, I was able to reverse engineer the findings, and the way the academics think in Freakonomics (with a little cheatcode known as JSTOR and other academic journal sources).
Anyways, I recently bought and read half of Superfreakonomics while waiting for a business meeting to start. I promptly came home and read the other half in the bath tub. And I like the book. If anything, Levitt and Dubner romanticizes the economics profession. It was a good reminder why I had read economics in university – to be able, and I quote them, “…cold blooded enough to sit around and calmly discuss the trade-offs involved in… catastrophes”.
Of course, now that I am working, doing analysis, nothing is as it seems in both Freakonomics books. The commercial work environment is a highly political arena, and we economists in general don’t get to do fun stuff as described in Freakonomics as frequently as we’d like to. Sometimes, when we come to a conclusion that is not favourable to the company, some clever things have to be done to the numbers (and yes, from reports from my friends who are working, every company (sample size of 4) does, to some degree, some fudging of numbers in their analyses).
Continue reading Superfreakonomics – A Review
By Chewxy, on August 12th, 2009%
Have you tried turning it on and off again?
^Say that in an Irish accent. And yes, that’s from the IT Crowd. The IT Crowd is a show I enjoy a lot.
One show I DID NOT enjoy at all, was Meet The IT Chicks. Yes, its a real show. And I didn’t enjoy it one bit at . . . → Read More: Hello, IT
By Chewxy, on March 17th, 2009%
Battlestar Galactica is coming to an end this Saturday (for me. For Americans, its this Friday night). Here’s my top ten BSG moments which I totally enjoyed. These are moments of sheer awesomeness, or when the brain just goes ‘ding’ and you say… “whoa”, and you just remember them for life.
SPOILER ALERT: This is not for those who has not watched Battlestar Galactica and want to watch them. Continue reading Top Ten Battlestar Galactica Moments
By Chewxy, on May 23rd, 2008%
HOLY SHIT! I saw Indiana Jones last night and I loved every moment of it. Its a very different Indiana Jones, but it’s still him all right.
spoiler warning: From hereonin, there will be a lot of spoilers. Continue reading Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
By Chewxy, on May 12th, 2008%
This article started as a review of Iron Man, but I had a writer’s block midway through, and couldn’t complete the review. So I’m gonna talk about a few things as well.  Continue reading A Couple of Reviews and More
By Chewxy, on March 3rd, 2008%
I make no attempt to hide the fact that I love John Williams’ music. I’m not so much a conniseur as Nigel is – I don’t clamour for every bit of information, like when Maurice Murphy retired from the LSO, and so the Superman theme won’t sound the same ever again; or who is J.W’s frequent collaborator. But I enjoy his music just as much – in fact, much more than other popular songs, which I hardly listen to. Also, John William’s the top amongst my classical playlists.
Also, a lesser known fact is I do play the piano, and I like the piano. And I was thinking, why not make today, March 3rd, John Williams Day, and Piano Day? Or even better, John Williams Piano Day!
Today, I’m going to show you five (5) not-very-famous YouTube videos that feature lots of talent in the piano, and what I think about them. I’ve looked thru YouTube and vetted thru hundreds of crappy videos. What I’m looking for is skill in piano (i.e. the ability to handle complex notations on both hands). Bonus points to those who arranged their own music. And also, I looked for detail and effort.
Here are the top 5, starting at number 5:
Continue reading John Williams Piano Day
By Chewxy, on January 18th, 2008%
I watched Cloverfield last night, after a lively brainstorm with cfgt about languages (mainly C/C++ vs Python and Lua as a scripting language) and various algorithms regarding probability (sudoku and various stuff!!)
And my goodness… it’s awesome. I have one recommendation for you: bloody watch it!
I must first admit, I am not an alternate reality kind of person. I’m busy enough not to follow all the hype and stuff, so as far as how Slusho.jp is connected to Cloverfield, I’m not really sure (well, I actually know, LOL). Anyways, on to the review.
As usual, I have watched the trailer, and updated myself on the movie before watching it. The movie blurb says ‘Five young New Yorkers throw their friend a going-away party the night that a monster the size of a skyscraper descends upon the city. Told from the point of view of their video camera, the film is a document of their attempt to survive the most surreal, horrifying event of their lives’. I know it’s a monster movie, and I went in expecting a monster movie, nothing more nothing less.
Continue reading Cloverfield – A Review
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