The Iron Yuppie

All You Can Eat Data

2009-08-26T15:35:00.001-07:00

One of my favorite things in science is when a researcher takes a look at a very simple situation and applies some simple analysis of the underlying data. For example, how rad is this?:

Eating Behavior and Obesity at Chinese Buffets

First, I love the fact that there were secret people in the restaurants who’s job it was to watch other eaters. Could you imagine if you got caught, how you would explain that? But, second, and more importantly, what I’d like to know is to what extent there’s a causal relationship here. The authors make it clear that they were not looking for causation, but it is an interesting question nonetheless. For example, people with high BMI scores sat facing the buffet – did this cause them to eat more? Or was that a symptom of them constantly being hungry.

What’s especially interesting are some of the data points measured here – chopsticks vs. fork; large plate vs. small; napkin on lap vs. not. Incredibly fascinating stuff.

And then, a second study also came across my desk recently which also deserves some comment:

Do Firms Maximize? Evidence from Professional Football

This is something that makes absolutely no sense to me. TMQ has talked about this for years – that football teams play far more conservatively than they should. And not just a little bit… check this:

But on the 1,068 fourth downs for which the analysis implies that teams are on average better off going for it, they kicked 959 times.

Holy cow! This paper goes through some possible rationale for this (momentum, information about the players, being interested in always being “in it”, rather than taking a swing early and having the game essentially be over, etc), but rejects them all. TMQ suggests that it’s just coaches playing traditionally just so they don’t have to answer annoying questions (and likely be fired). I’m not sure which is right, but wouldn’t it be awesome to see a team actually follow the way the math indicates?

W. T. F.

2009-07-30T10:00:00.001-07:00

Forty-one years ago, the Internets were created. There have been many twists and turns, but there can be no question, that all the tumult was leading to a single creation. That creation is the below video.

Crime and Democrats

2009-07-01T12:15:00.001-07:00

My favorite bit of research recently is basically to just draw a big circle around an anomaly and figure out what it is. The problem, of course, is that this leads to a lot of correlation without causality, so I offer this up with no analysis whatsoever.

City (Mayor)	Crimes Per Population
Springfield, Ma (D)	0.331
Reno (R)	0.318
Columbus (D)	0.241
Richmond (I)	0.234
St. Louis (D)	0.215
Columbia, Sc (D)	0.204
Orlando (D)	0.204
Little Rock (D)	0.203
Birmingham (D)	0.202
Memphis (D)	0.200
Rochester (D)	0.187
Salt Lake City (D)	0.186
Kansas City (NP)	0.184
Flint (D)	0.178
Miami Gardens (D)	0.175
Tacoma (D)	0.174
Detroit (D)	0.173
Chattanooga (D)	0.170
West Palm Beach (D)	0.168
Atlanta (D)	0.167
Fayetteville (NP)	0.163
Knoxville (R)	0.163
Jackson (D)	0.160

Interesting – out of the 20 top cities (over 100,000) by crime per capita, 18 have Democratic (or Democratic-leaning non-partisans) as mayor. The stat I do not have here, which is critical, is the percentage of mayors that are Democratic, but I doubt it’s over 90%.

Amazing Picture of the TwitterVerse

2009-06-25T15:46:00.001-07:00

I’ve never seen anything like this – the ENTIRE twitter-verse is posting about Michael Jackson dying. 100% of Twitscoop is MJ related – crazy.

The Great Magnet Sees All

2009-06-25T12:03:00.001-07:00

My favorite new religion is The Great Magnet (jump on that page and contribute, it’s my first Wikipedia article ever!). I’m a HUGE fan of the Adam Carolla Podcast and I heard him talking about this the other day. I won’t go so far as to call it a religion (as an atheist, he doesn’t believe it’s a religion either, but he positions that it’s as close as you can get to him believing in religion).

The Great Magnet (n): The theory that as you become aware or start thinking about certain things, you are more likely to encounter similar things. Example, I have a bowl of Mac and Cheese for dinner and think it’s great. The next morning, The Today Show is talking about making killer Mac and Cheese, and then in the afternoon I read an article about how bad carbs are for your heart.

Anyhow, whether or not there’s some degree of correlation involved, or if it truly is causality, I’ve definitely experienced this many times. Like over the past few days, I’ve had non-stop exposure to the concept that the vast majority of your senses are actually filled in by memories in your brain, rather than actually detecting new inputs from the outside world (blog post coming very shortly on this). Everywhere I turn, it seems I run into the same concept, though the majority of these pieces seem to be totally unconnected. I think it’s just a sense of awareness you get when something is on your mind – but it’s nice to have a name for it. And remember:

"Nine out of ten religions fail in their first year" – God, The Simspons [9F01]

Fix Your Database, Slingbox!

2009-06-03T20:31:00.001-07:00

Ouch!

I'm in the process of setting up a cool Slingbox, but the stupid cable box doesn't respond as it should. According to this post, the Pace TDC577X actually should be listed as a Motorola DCT 6412. Thank God for the Interweb, or I'd be trying to figure this out for hours! I don't know who I'm more mad at here... Slingbox for not updating your DB, or digital cable providers for not having a dead simple USB interface that all devices can talk to. Come on!

Exactly What I Wanted

2009-05-28T15:44:00.001-07:00

I hate reading in bed. Actually, let me correct that. I hate reading in bed in the way I currently read in bed. I can’t lie down because my arm falls asleep. I can’t sit up because I always slide down in some way, and my back feels weird. I’m a giant lazy complainer, but I don’t care, I want what I want.

Before you dive in and propose anything, let me tell you what I have seen but don’t like:

BookHolder isn’t bad, but seriously, you still feel the pain of flipping pages. Not to mention the fact that I don’t anything to hang over/near my head/groin that I’ve installed while lying down.

BookGem bad either, but, AGAIN, I hate flipping pages, and it seems like every time I flip, I’ll have to deal with that page holder, and resetting the installation of the book.

So, I gave up. Who could possibly solve this seemingly intractable problem? But it is often said that when looking for love, the first thing to do is stop looking.

While browsing the xkcd blog the other day, I came upon EXACTLY the same problem. Could this be true? Am I in love?

Here’s his custom crafted holder (from a steel hanger!)

And here’s it is in action!

Genius! But the real AHA was that the problem with existing book holders was not the angle or position, it was the book. The irregular shape of the book, and the need for occasional access to the front (to turn pages) causes the difficulty. In fact, swapping the book out for the Kindle is the root problem, and makes the other devices nearly ideal as well. For example, te BookHolder (#1) would be fine with the Kindle – though I would still have the annoying raising my arms to turn the page issue. A small, but noticeable annoyance.

I hope Mr. Munroe starts selling these asap!

BTW, while researching the pictures for this story, I came upon this gem:

True, it’s for laptops only, but I love it. Right now, propping my knees into an inverted-v position provides this functionality, but this device is much better. The price point is a deal breaker … why is this worth $99?

Dunkin Donuts … How Did I Miss This?

2009-05-17T13:53:00.001-07:00

My brother has always been an enormous fan of extra, extra Dunkin Donuts coffee (aka Light and Sweet, which are apparently the same thing). I lived on the East coast for nearly nine years, and somehow I never tried it. Today I tried it at 6:30 AM in between flights. Delicious! All those countless horrible cups of coffee and I missed this? Terrible.

Bravo JetBlue

2009-05-15T03:40:00.001-07:00

Well, the most recent flight on JetBlue wasn’t quite as good as I had hoped. Everything went great on the flight, but while I expected to watch the Thursday night lineup on NBC, instead I fell asleep for a fitful night’s rest – apparently getting older really does make it harder to fall asleep (and stay asleep) on the plane. In the olden days, I could curl up bent over on the tray table and sleep for hours. Now, my back already hurts.

But walking out into the JetBlue terminal at JFK, they deserve SERIOUS commendation on having an end-to-end brand experience. Gone are the totally generic chairs, walls, etc, with customized and very nice looking ports for laptops, food, markets – even customer service. Great look, giving the right stuff away for free (wifi, power), appropriate layout (food in one place, that doesn’t feel like a communist market) – I must say it must have been difficult to put together an ROI on this, but it’s worth it for me.

And they’re not even paying me. In fact, I’m paying them! Now if I could only find a replacement power cord for my laptop.

Go Mommy!

2009-05-10T10:36:00.000-07:00

My wife just ran a half marathon… which is about a half marathon longer than I can run. Oh, did I mention she just gave birth to our SECOND child in as many years six months ago?

We had a little dude on the scene for support.

Go mommy! Oh, also... Go peanut butter and jelly!

Promote It!

2009-04-23T13:05:00.001-07:00

Search engines are smart… but why did it take me forever to figure out how to import a self signed cert in Internet Explorer? It’s a hard problem. I must have tried a million different permutations of that link in order to find the result, and it was right there, exactly what I wanted when I changed “install” to “import”. Shame.

Actually, the people I blame is MS… it may be an edge case, but either you disable the feature altogether or, better, improve the help. I worked on the IE team and I know how much they’ve gone out of their way to make things dead simple, but there’s still way too much exposed to the user that will never make any sense to them, and WORSE, that they can do nothing about. “Mixed Content” error, I’m pointing the stink eye at you…

Windows 7 Faster Than Android?

2009-04-03T10:05:00.000-07:00

I know it's a bit of a ridiculous statement, there are about a billion variables and at the end of the day, you still come down to comparing a sky scraper to a blue whale, but I had an impromptu experiment today which was pretty cool.

At the exact same moment, for whatever reason, both Windows and my new G1 phone alerted me that at a system level they had updates to install. Both required rebooting during installation. And I started both at the exact same time (and then got up to have a cup of coffee). I got back and watched the progress - and to my amazement, Windows was back up first.

I don't think this is a measure of anything in particular, except it does come as some surprise - I could have run this test in the past with a patch the size of a thimble on Windows against a slug in the hundred yard dash and Windows would still lose. Bravo guys!

D

Who’s Responsible?

2009-03-11T12:24:00.001-07:00

One could write novels on who’s responsible for our current economic situation – likely thousands upon thousands of novels are already underway. I believe the failure lies entirely with the lack of regulation in the markets, both with rating agencies and with ~~insurance~~ credit default swaps. You solve both those (create a firewall/Glass-Steagall-Act-style barrier for rating agencies, and an open marketplace and regulatory requirements for anything that has even the slightest whiff of being insurance) and you would have prevented the whole disaster. I can’t say who is at fault for not enacting these earlier.

But I can say who the financial liberals (aka Republicans) think is at fault: Obama (and to a lesser extent, Freddie and Fannie Mae). Despite the fact that Obama took office in January of this year, some how he’s to blame. Or the fact that Freddie and Fannie, who rolled up around $5 trillion of the mortgage market and another $2.3 trillion in derivative transactions (http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11751139) – but the rest of the market was over $60 trillion in derivative transactions – these are the guys to blame. , Look at this snippet:

Since it became apparent that Barack Obama would be elected president at the end of September 2008, the stock market has steadily declined.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/03/022973.php

Ok, even that is stretching it a bit far. You’re blaming a guy who hasn’t even been elected president yet for the failure of the market? That’s like Obama turning around and blaming whomever is going to be elected in 2012/2016 for the countries current situation. Or the pilot who steps into the cockpit after the plane is already in a nose dive. Just ridiculous.

Data!

2009-02-03T12:25:00.001-08:00

Seriously, I don’t know who at the NY Times has a statistics degree, but their graphs and data presentations never fail to amaze me. Even back in the day, they could present data that absolutely cut through the mess and get at the interesting story. Some things I remember particularly well are the Supreme Court Rulings graphed by Justices, the Graph of Words People Used during the conventions, the split in voting for Obama or Clinton with moveable squares or a graph of Parking Tickets in Manhattan for a year. Many times these are nothing more than just the data cross referenced with a map or interesting display. But doing that simple exercise clarifies the world and bring real knowledge to people who may have missed stories.

But this most recent graph of Twitter during the Super Bowl blew me away.

There’s got to be a place for disseminating information like this in the “new world.” Yes, I know that large media outlets are looked at about as nicely as professional dog fighting coaches these days, but intelligence and insight like this really should have a home. And for those that say, “It already has a home, and it’s called your blog” – I just don’t think that blogging for blogging’s sake is sustainable as a productive output. There are only so many coffee breaks people can take and steal from their corporate masters. If you’re lucky enough, you get to be one of a thousand or so people in the world that can actually make a living blogging, and then you can spend your full time doing analysis like this. But I don’t know if that produces this kind of quality.

Why am I Seeing This a Year Later?

2009-02-03T10:10:00.001-08:00

It’s funny cause it’s true. VERY true.

New Media Douchebags in Plain English

Also I hate it. Follow all the things I hate on my awesome blog, Linked In, Facebook Profile, Twitter Account, Friend Feed, Yahoo Buzz, StumbleUpon, Plurk, and many others!

Also, you can follow all the things I’m directing my COMPANY to hate as well, on our Soundbite Facebook App, Blog, Now Playing Feed, and lots more!

It’s cool to hate! Also cool? Not working.

Yeah, I’m Kind of Going to Have to Agree

2009-02-02T10:46:00.001-08:00

That was completely an incomplete pass. The comments on this page are hilarious:

http://kissingsuzykolber.uproxx.com/2009/02/this-is-an-incomplete-pass.html

Only you would laugh at a fumble with a goddamn spiral on it.

Hilarious! BTW, I don’t really care who won, but ending an exciting game like that on a fumble is pretty weak. BTW, pt 2, again not that I care, but:

Man do I love the interweb.

So Rad. SO Rad.

2008-12-14T23:59:00.001-08:00

Up working late at night, and came upon this infomercial:

I don't know what's cooler... that you can wear it around or it kind of makes you look like a wizard while you do it.

I think I have a new God. And that God is whomever came up with this garment. BTW, is it a garment? Is it a blanket? How would one classify this in a catalog anyway?

More Embedded Fun!

2008-12-05T15:43:00.001-08:00

I really do like our embedded players - any suggestions?

D

You Spent HOW LONG On That Project?

2008-11-19T12:13:00.001-08:00

Interesting from the delivery suite discussion - to haver a pregnancy is 9 months, which to us, seems like quite a while. I would imagine it seems even longer for women, where I can merely assume it seems long, having never been pregnant myself ( ). But then we expanded out to talking about other animals, and my Google-fu had to kick in... How bad would it be for other animals? Thanks to this site (which put all the data together as a statistics exercise) we can know!

Species	Maximum Life Span	Gestation Period	Percent of Life Dedicated to Creating a New Life
African elephant	39	645	4.57%
Giraffe	28	400	3.91%
Cow	30	281	2.56%
Donkey	40	365	2.50%
Asian elephant	69	624	2.48%
Guinea pig	8	68	2.45%
Gray seal	41	310	2.07%
Sheep	20	151	2.07%
Goat	20	148	2.03%
Horse	46	336	2.00%
Baboon	27	180	1.83%
Gorilla	39	252	1.76%
Mouse	3	19	1.63%
Rhesus monkey	29	164	1.55%
Red fox	10	52	1.45%
Water opossum	3	14	1.28%
Chimpanzee	50	230	1.26%
Raccoon	14	63	1.26%
Rat	5	21	1.22%
Jaguar	22	100	1.22%
Arctic Fox	14	60	1.17%
Pig	27	115	1.17%
Golden hamster	4	16	1.12%
Gray wolf	16	63	1.06%
Ground squirrel	9	28	0.85%
Man	100	267	0.73%
Cat	28	63	0.62%
Little brown bat	24	50	0.57%
Big brown bat	19	35	0.50%
Rabbit	18	31	0.47%

Man, compared to all these other mammals, has it easy! African elephants get screwed... this would be the equivalent of spending 4.5 years in pregnancy! Youch!

An alternative is to convert all time spent doing anything into percent of your life - One hour meeting that makes you want to eat a gun? Congrats, you just wasted 0.0011% of your life!

Uh, Hint To Sarah Palin

2008-11-11T14:59:00.001-08:00

Think what you will about her, but she's clearly a strong politician. But two moves recently, seem to be just weird:

#1) Insulting the (new?) media

Yes, that's very smart. The people who helped get you the nomination were bloggers. Insulting them is probably not a good move. Fine if you were just talking about a subset, but that's still no good boss. Bloggers are very defensive about not being characterized as unprofessional.

#2) Announcing you're running in 2012. What? WHAT?? First, you have some damage control to do with aides/Republicans. Look at the rumors being spread by your own people. Second, aren't you still governor? Wouldn't you like to finish that out? Third, the president-elect hasn't even had his first day in office - maybe you'd like to work WITH him before you get him out of office?

Did She Or Didn't She?

2008-11-03T09:35:00.001-08:00

I dunno... I think Sarah Palin knew at some point through the phone call that she was being punked. ( )Nothing you can do to prevent idiots from calling you up I suppose.

Not About Politics (Sort Of)!

2008-10-31T11:29:00.001-07:00

Did you know as the next political election is upon us, that we have over 15,000 different political quotes and sound bites on our site? Barack Obama quotes, John McCain quotes, Sarah Palin quotes, Joe Biden quotes... everything you need to make your decision on Tuesday!

Here are some of my favorite...

Obama on clothes:

Biden on Obama's Spine:

Palin on becoming a VP nominee: McCain on being a responsible spender.

Whomever you feel like voting for, do it! It's shameful that we need to convince people to vote at all... it should be the law.

2008-10-22T10:35:00.001-07:00

Feel free to ignore... testing what an ET URL looks like through Ping.fm: http://ping.fm/7QKLR

Wow, Lucky Us!

2008-10-21T11:54:00.001-07:00

Sometimes the rest of the world occasionally feels in synch with the way you feel... my company happens to have been mentioned both in Silicon Alley Insider (via Brian Garrity of the NY Post), AND have been featured on the IE Addons Gallery. Cool!

Not Zombie Strippers cool, but still.

Really cool messages

My favorite is Mr. Kafka's assessment of us: "Thanks to the NY Post's Brian Garrity for this one, via something called Entertonement, which seems pretty cool. We hope it survives." We'll do our best!

Art = Life

2008-10-17T11:19:00.001-07:00

I don't even think we have a separation between art and life any more. They're just merged together. Thanks to VideoGum and GigaOm for catching this... Michael (Steve Carrell) mentioned he watched Cookie Monster singing Chocolate Rain during Thursday's "The Office" episode, and now someone has gone and created it.