frances mcdormand and google search

Feet

Not sure how she feels about feet showing up so much....
Is that really what she's most famous for?

Posted May 1, 2012

Before you think you're doing well....

PRICE inflation remains relatively subdued in the rich world, even though central banks are busily printing money. But other types of inflation are rampant. This “panflation” needs to be recognised for the plague it has become.

Take the grossly underreported problem of “size inflation”, where clothes of any particular labelled size have steadily expanded over time. Estimates by The Economist suggest that the average British size 14 pair of women’s trousers is now more than four inches wider at the waist than it was in the 1970s. In other words, today’s size 14 is really what used to be labelled a size 18; a size 10 is really a size 14. (American sizing is different, but the trend is largely the same.) Fashion firms seem to think that women are more likely to spend if they can happily squeeze into a smaller label size. But when three out of four American adults and three out of five Britons are overweight, the danger is that size inflation reduces women’s incentive to eat less. Meanwhile, food-portion inflation has also made it harder to fight the flab. Pizzas now come in regular, large and very large. Starbucks coffees are Tall, Grande, Venti or (soon) Trenta. “Small” seems to be a forbidden word.

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Inflation is also distorting the travel business. A five-star hotel used to mean the ultimate in luxury, but now six- and seven-star resorts are popping up as new hotels award themselves inflated ratings as a marketing tool. “Deluxe” rooms have been devalued, too: many hotels no longer have “standard” rooms, but instead offer a choice of “deluxe" (the new standard), “luxury”, “superior luxury” or “grand superior luxury”. Likewise, most airlines no longer talk about “economy” class. British Airways instead offers World Traveller; Air France has Voyageur. Sardine class would be more honest. The value of frequent-flyer miles is also being eroded by inflation: it is increasingly hard to book “free” flights; they cost more miles, and redemption fees have increased. This was inevitable: airlines have been issuing so many miles (for spending on the ground as well as in the air) that the total stock is worth more than all the dollar notes and coins in circulation. Central bankers would shudder at such reckless inflationary policies—were they not themselves earning triple miles up in first class.

Some other strains of inflation have more serious economic effects. One example is grade inflation, the tendency for comparable academic performance to be awarded higher grades over time. In Britain the proportion of A-level students given “A” grades has risen from 9% to 27% over the past 25 years. Yet other tests find that children are no cleverer than they were. A study by Durham University concluded that an A grade today is the equivalent of a C in the 1980s. In American universities almost 45% of graduates now get the top grade, compared with 15% in 1960. Grade inflation makes students feel better about themselves, but because the highest grade is fixed, it also causes grade compression, which distorts relative prices. This is unfair to the brightest, whose grades are devalued against those of average students. It also makes it harder for employers to identify the best applicants.

Fight the flab

Employers are themselves distorting the jobs market with job-title inflation, which has recently accelerated because a fancier-sounding title is cheaper than a pay rise. Firms are awash with an excess of chiefs and directors, such as Director of First Impressions (receptionist) and Chief Revenue Protection Officer (ticket inspector). This is not just a laughing matter. Job-title inflation has economic costs if it makes the jobs market more opaque and makes it harder to assess the going pay rate.

Inflation of all kinds devalues everything it infects. It obscures information and so distorts behaviour. A former German central banker, Karl Otto Pöhl, compared inflation to toothpaste: easy to squeeze out of the tube, almost impossible to put back in. The usual cure, monetary and fiscal tightening, will not work for panflation. Women will never squeeze back into their old clothes unless they reject size inflation. Instead, it is time for everybody to tighten belts (literally) and fight all sorts of inflationary flab.

Be mindful of inflation

Matlab figures on OS X lion look smaller than they print

http://blogs.mathworks.com/desktop/2011/05/02/update-on-matlab-for-the-mac/

There's a nice tidbit on displaying matlab plots on OS X Lion vs Windows 7.  On Windows 7, displayed Matlab figures are pretty much consistent with how they are printed.  Making those same plots in Matlab 2011b for OS X, the same figures are quite a bit smaller, and relative positions are no longer what you expect. Even though the display looks funny however, the printed plots on OS X are the same as on PC. 

It turns out that on post 25, Ken Atwell at mathworks has figured out the problem. The displayed dpi on OS X is 72 and on Windows 7 is 96. Simply accounting for this, the display of OS X Matlab plots is figured out. This leaves a Mac Matlab programmer the conundrum of adding an ispc/ismac switch statement for getting the right display on either platform with the same code.

Jonah Lehrer on How to Be Creative

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Think of creativity as a skill to be developed. Train with small doses of laughter

visualizing season betting odds

It'd be curious to know how betting odds fluctuate as a season progresses.

Below are the betting odds from about 15 English bookkeepers for a Premier League Top 4 finish at the end of the season.  This is critical as such a finish qualifies for Champions League games and about 25 million in additional revenue.

On february 4th, a bet on Arsenal had more than 3/1 odds.  Today, you can get 4/9 odds.  It would be interesting to see if one could buy in to multiple clubs at long odds following bad performances.  Remember multiple spots are up (well 2 at least for this year) to win.

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Posted March 4, 2012

the nike store checkout

if you're looking for limited edition nike shoes -- you'll have to rely on luck.  at the nike store, you'll submit, and wait for the server at each step of the checkout.  occasionally you'll get this warning.
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at some point after retrying you'll get to the order processing -- (this is after you've reviewed your order details)
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after a few minutes, you might get this error -- which in and of itself is strange - because to be honest, the cart was totally legit.  (you see, the site does know when you've added too many shoes to your cart the moment you try to add it to your cart)

anyways, these were going to be for my brother, and so i'll wait till next week.  hopefully i'll get lucky, but my last two limited release attempts, were awful checkout experiences (and failures). 

at some point, they'll have to implement an indicator system where a dynamic queue indicator shows where every checkout person is in line -- that way others won't feel the need to be refreshing every two seconds and (making their checkout farther down the line).

(download)

Manny Pacquiao vs. Juan Manuel Marquez - how it really went down

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I was watching the fight from a european stream tonight, and i must say the Pacquiao majority decision is complete garbage. The british commentators easily had marquez cruising.

In fact, here is a score from someone who saw what i saw. The round eleven description is spot on: "Given American judges preference for aggression over smart countering may mean that the scores at ringside are closer"

It doesn't matter anyways, this should open up the opportunity for Pacquiao and Mayweather to fight. Unfortunately for Pacquiao, Mayweather is an entire class up in terms of defensive speed and timing compared to Marquez. And the last time someone knocked down Floyd, 2006 (Zab Judah, but ruled a slip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPe8-JDQ2-g), (when he hurt his own hand) and 2001 (Carlos Hernandez, injured his hand http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fswFNvqgyk&feature=related)

Actually if you still like Pacquiao's odds against Mayweather, take a look at Mayweather vs Marquez on compubox: http://compuboxonline.com/news.php?news_id=9
Mayweather lands 290/493 punches, 185/316 jabs, 105/177 power punches. Marquez lands 69/583 punches, 21/288 jabs, 48/295 power punches.

I'd predict Mayweather to outpoint by a healthy number of rounds, unless of course, the same three judges are back on duty.