January 4, 2014
Posted by Jay Livingston
Two observations on the NFL playoffs this weekend.
1. Longer, Better. Field goals are important. The line on the Saints-Eagles game today and on the 49ers-Packers game tomorrow is three points – a field goal. That was the margin in 15% of all NFL games this season. (I think that the usual percentage is closer to 10%, but it’s still the most frequent margin.)
The Saints just cut Garret Hartley, the place kicker they’ve had all season. He hit only 73% of his attempts, the second worst percentage in the NFL. Twenty years ago, that percentage would have put him ahead of one-third of all kickers. In 1965, with 73% he would have been at the top. The best field goal percentage that year was 67%.
Gin and Tacos has a nice discussion on how and why kicking has increased in distance and accuracy. And don’t miss the link to his companion piece on the first wave of European kickers in the NFL. (I had always thought that “I keek a touchdown! I keek a touchdown!” was an apocryphal comedy bit that started with Alex Karras and wound up on Johnny Carson. But apparently Garo Yepremian actually said it.)
2. The Wisdom of Crowds. Occasional posts here dating back to 2006 have looked at the match-up between The Wisdom of Crowds and The Smart Money. Today offers another example. The Chiefs started as a 2½-point underdog to the Colts. The crowd has been all over the Chiefs, and as we approach game time, the books have made KC the favorite by two or even three points. The smart money was betting the Colts earlier in the week despite having to lay a point or two.
UPDATE, January 5: The Colts pulled off an incredible comeback to win 45-44. The crowd (i.e., Chiefs backers), who mostly bet on Sunday or late in the week and gave up points, lost. But the smart guys, who bet earlier in the week and gave up 1½-2½ points also lost. Looks like this was a very good game for the bookies.
The Big Ten
December 31, 2013
Posted by Jay Livingston
I’ve noticed some other blogs listing their most popular posts of the year, and thought I would do the same, though I’m not sure why. The number of views a post got seems to have less to do with its inherent quality or interest and more to do with who linked or tweeted it. Nevertheless, for what it’s worth, here they are, the top ten posts of 2013 as chosen by you the listener.
10. Is That a Thing? News “themes” created by the media as way to organize events.
9. Emotional Contagion. On being socially isolated when JFK was shot - my first lesson in the sociology of emotions.
8. The Vaper’s Drag The word “vaper” harks back to “viper” of 70 years earlier.
7. Unseparating Church and State. Establishment clause be damned. Conservatives favor an official state religion – Christianity of course.
6. Fish Oil and Snake Oil. Scientific experiments, diminishing effects, and the failure to replicate.
5. Separate Ways. Social scientists’ disenchantment with Malcom Gladwell. (I actually thought this one was kind of amusing.)
4. The Revenge Fantasy - Django Unchained and 12 Years a Slave. Revenge is a dish best served in purely fictional Tarantino fantasies, not in the reality of slavery .
3. Upwardly Mobile Beer Rolling Rock and social class.
2. Murky Research, Monkey Research What appears in the journal article can be very different from what actually happened in the lab.
1. Yes, But Harvard Students Know a Lot More Now Grade inflation – with a copy of the grade sheet from a Harvard gov. course JFK took in 1940 (he got a B-, which was above the median).
Posted by Jay Livingston
I’ve noticed some other blogs listing their most popular posts of the year, and thought I would do the same, though I’m not sure why. The number of views a post got seems to have less to do with its inherent quality or interest and more to do with who linked or tweeted it. Nevertheless, for what it’s worth, here they are, the top ten posts of 2013 as chosen by you the listener.
10. Is That a Thing? News “themes” created by the media as way to organize events.
9. Emotional Contagion. On being socially isolated when JFK was shot - my first lesson in the sociology of emotions.
8. The Vaper’s Drag The word “vaper” harks back to “viper” of 70 years earlier.
7. Unseparating Church and State. Establishment clause be damned. Conservatives favor an official state religion – Christianity of course.
6. Fish Oil and Snake Oil. Scientific experiments, diminishing effects, and the failure to replicate.
5. Separate Ways. Social scientists’ disenchantment with Malcom Gladwell. (I actually thought this one was kind of amusing.)
4. The Revenge Fantasy - Django Unchained and 12 Years a Slave. Revenge is a dish best served in purely fictional Tarantino fantasies, not in the reality of slavery .
3. Upwardly Mobile Beer Rolling Rock and social class.
2. Murky Research, Monkey Research What appears in the journal article can be very different from what actually happened in the lab.
1. Yes, But Harvard Students Know a Lot More Now Grade inflation – with a copy of the grade sheet from a Harvard gov. course JFK took in 1940 (he got a B-, which was above the median).
“Her” – the Magic Pixie Dream OS
December 30, 2013
Posted by Jay Livingston
Random thoughts after seeing “Her” (which I highly recommend), a film about the relation between a man and his computer operating system (OS). Here’s the trailer, which, as usual, gives a better feel for the film than any description I might write.
1. Futuristic, but not by much. The next day, the front page of the Sunday Times had this headline (above the fold).
2. External and internal, doing and understanding.. “Her” is about the blurring of boundaries between the technological and the human. But one of the many trailers that preceded “Her” in the theater where I saw it was for another film based on this same human/technology melding – “Robocop.”
But the technology here seems to be all about accomplishing some external task, mostly the crime-fighting that we usually associate with cops. Will the good guys’ technology beat the bad guys’ technology? (I should probably add that I find “Action” movies tedious, full of sound and fury – also full of special effects and CGI – signifying very little. I’d gladly trade a dozen chase-fight-explosion sequences for one honest conversation among robocops sitting around eating robo-donuts.)
In “Her,” the characters face no external challenge. Instead, they are struggling to understand the feelings, desires, and reactions of someone else and how these mesh with their own. It’s about relationships, not winning. Action movies exaggerate the physical at the expense of everything else (an emphasis they share with porn). “Her” is about the near absence of the physical. The one attempt to make the relationship physical is a disaster.*
3. Ideal and effortless. Samantha (the OS, voiced by Scarlett Johansson) is the perfect soul mate. Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) can expose his entire life to her – she scans his entire hard drive in the first microsecond of her existence – yet we know she will never use the information in any way that hurts him. She is like a child’s imaginary friend, but better. The child must think up the actions and reactions of the imaginary friend. Samantha requires no such effort on the part of Theodore. And everything she does helps him. Siri as girlfriend and therapist.
4. MPDG. As Super-Siri, Samantha resembles the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. This phrase, coined in a 2005 movie review by Nathan Rabin, refers to “that bubbly, shallow cinematic creature that exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures.”** At the start of the film, Theo certainly qualifies as brooding and withdrawn. “I can’t even prioritize between video games and Internet porn,” he says to his neighbor (Amy Adams), who says that she’d laugh at that line if she didn’t think it were true. It is. And true to her type, Samantha brings Theo back into the world just as a MPDG should. They even go to Catalina on a double date (with a two-human couple).
5. Control and surprise. The wonderful thing about imaginary friends is that we have total control over them. The same goes for servants or slaves or prostitutes or others we pay who must relate to us exactly as we want them to. (Of course, it’s more fun when we pretend that they are doing so voluntarily.) The more we control our environment, the more we give up the rewards and delights of the unexpected. The difficulties of relationships with real people make the illusion of control all the more attractive. But, as in “Lars and the Real Girl,” a relationship with the mere extrusion of one’s own fantasies may work for people whose emotional repertoire is severely limited, but ultimately it proves to be thin and brittle. Control certainly has its benefits. But why do we find it so much more gratifying to hear a favorite song unexpectedly on the radio than to select the same track out of our own hard drive and play it? It’s more pleasurable when you let go of control. You can’t tickle yourself.
Pandora and other make-your-own-radio-station sites try to let us have it both ways – control with surprise. “Her” holds out the same seductive possibility but with something more important than music – a meaningful personal relationship.
“Her” is a wonderful film. I’ll be surprised if Spike Jonze doesn’t get an Oscar nomination for the screenplay. It’s funny and touching and thought-provoking.
------------------------
* In a post a few days ago, I referred to the outline of American culture by sociologist Robin Williams. The first element he notes as a dominant theme in American culture is “Active Mastery.” The second is that American culture
**Natalie Portman in “Garden State” epitomizes this trope. For other examples, see the Wikipedia entry.
Posted by Jay Livingston
Random thoughts after seeing “Her” (which I highly recommend), a film about the relation between a man and his computer operating system (OS). Here’s the trailer, which, as usual, gives a better feel for the film than any description I might write.
1. Futuristic, but not by much. The next day, the front page of the Sunday Times had this headline (above the fold).
Brainlike Computers, Learning From Experience
Computers have entered the age when they are able to learn from their own mistakes, a development that is about to turn the digital world on its head. . . . artificial intelligence systems that will perform some functions that humans do with ease: see, speak, listen, navigate, manipulate and control. [the full story is here]Samantha the OS doesn’t manipulate and control – well, just a little, and it’s for Theodore’s benefit – but she does the rest. And much more.
2. External and internal, doing and understanding.. “Her” is about the blurring of boundaries between the technological and the human. But one of the many trailers that preceded “Her” in the theater where I saw it was for another film based on this same human/technology melding – “Robocop.”
In “Her,” the characters face no external challenge. Instead, they are struggling to understand the feelings, desires, and reactions of someone else and how these mesh with their own. It’s about relationships, not winning. Action movies exaggerate the physical at the expense of everything else (an emphasis they share with porn). “Her” is about the near absence of the physical. The one attempt to make the relationship physical is a disaster.*
3. Ideal and effortless. Samantha (the OS, voiced by Scarlett Johansson) is the perfect soul mate. Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) can expose his entire life to her – she scans his entire hard drive in the first microsecond of her existence – yet we know she will never use the information in any way that hurts him. She is like a child’s imaginary friend, but better. The child must think up the actions and reactions of the imaginary friend. Samantha requires no such effort on the part of Theodore. And everything she does helps him. Siri as girlfriend and therapist.
4. MPDG. As Super-Siri, Samantha resembles the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. This phrase, coined in a 2005 movie review by Nathan Rabin, refers to “that bubbly, shallow cinematic creature that exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures.”** At the start of the film, Theo certainly qualifies as brooding and withdrawn. “I can’t even prioritize between video games and Internet porn,” he says to his neighbor (Amy Adams), who says that she’d laugh at that line if she didn’t think it were true. It is. And true to her type, Samantha brings Theo back into the world just as a MPDG should. They even go to Catalina on a double date (with a two-human couple).
5. Control and surprise. The wonderful thing about imaginary friends is that we have total control over them. The same goes for servants or slaves or prostitutes or others we pay who must relate to us exactly as we want them to. (Of course, it’s more fun when we pretend that they are doing so voluntarily.) The more we control our environment, the more we give up the rewards and delights of the unexpected. The difficulties of relationships with real people make the illusion of control all the more attractive. But, as in “Lars and the Real Girl,” a relationship with the mere extrusion of one’s own fantasies may work for people whose emotional repertoire is severely limited, but ultimately it proves to be thin and brittle. Control certainly has its benefits. But why do we find it so much more gratifying to hear a favorite song unexpectedly on the radio than to select the same track out of our own hard drive and play it? It’s more pleasurable when you let go of control. You can’t tickle yourself.
Pandora and other make-your-own-radio-station sites try to let us have it both ways – control with surprise. “Her” holds out the same seductive possibility but with something more important than music – a meaningful personal relationship.
“Her” is a wonderful film. I’ll be surprised if Spike Jonze doesn’t get an Oscar nomination for the screenplay. It’s funny and touching and thought-provoking.
------------------------
* In a post a few days ago, I referred to the outline of American culture by sociologist Robin Williams. The first element he notes as a dominant theme in American culture is “Active Mastery.” The second is that American culture
tends to be interested in the external world of things and events, of the palpable and immediate, rather than in the inner experience of meaning and affect. Its genius is manipulative rather than contemplative.Maybe that’s why “Her” seems so unusual while the multiplexes teem with action movies.
**Natalie Portman in “Garden State” epitomizes this trope. For other examples, see the Wikipedia entry.
Fall Courses – Marked Down and Priced to Sell
December 28, 2013
Posted by Jay Livingston
Every semester when I make out the schedule (we do this several months in advance – I just finished Fall 2014) I have the same worry – making sure that each course attracts enough students so that we don’t have to cancel. Since the university pays teachers per course not per student, it wants high student-teacher ratios. Low-enrolled courses are economically inefficient; they get the axe.
For students here, the timing of a course is crucial. Montclair is predominantly a commuter school, and even the students who live in the dorms like to go home on the weekend, which begins Thursday in the early afternoon. Most students also have jobs; afternoon and evening hours are for work, not school. If only I could schedule all our courses Monday to Thursday between the hours of ten and two, the enrollment problem would be solved.
But every department would like to offer all its courses in prime time, and there are only so many classrooms. So the university forces each department to schedule some of its courses in unpopular days and times. Departments, unfortunately, cannot force students to take those courses.
The solution is obvious once you frame the problem as an imbalance of supply (classrooms/courses) and student demand. In prime time, demand outruns the supply; for other times, demand falls short. What’s missing is the variable that links supply and demand: price. Regardless of a course’s desirability, the price is the same. What we need is flexible pricing. Let the price of a course reflect the demand. If students want a great course at 11:30, let them pay for it.
Of course, you can’t say that you’re charging more for some courses. Instead, you raise tuition across the board, say $300 a course. Then you give a $300 discount for those early morning courses and late afternoon courses or for courses that have a meeting on Friday. With the hefty discount, those times would suddenly become much more attractive.
We might extend the policy to teachers. Some teachers are very popular. Their courses always fill. But less popular teachers run the risk of not drawing the minimum enrollment. Here too, differential pricing can help equalize student demand. Oh, a few egos might be bruised (“You mean I’m being marked down?”*), but enrollments would improve. And for the really popular teachers, we could charge a premium. Like l’Oreal, they’re worth it.
The trouble with variable pricing – aside from the basic unfairness of extending yet another advantage to those who have more money – is that it exposes a reality we would rather not notice. We like to think that what students are buying with their tuition is education, and it is – especially at elite schools. But farther from the upper tiers of higher education, students also think of the academic enterprise as the buying and selling of credits, credits that ultimately add up to a diploma.** In deciding to take a course, students consider the educational quotient, but they also calculate the costs. Right now those costs consist mostly of the opportunity costs (would it mean giving up hours at work, would it reduce the weekend from three days to two?) and perhaps the cost of the amount of work the course requires. For these students, price would merely be one more non-educational variable in the calculation.
But for those who pretend that the university is engaged solely in some ideal of education, variable pricing threatens to give the game away. As Goffman says, for staff in institutions, a large part of life is dealing with the gap between “what we do” and “what we say we do.” But university administrators are already adept at portraying administrative conveniences in terms of educational ideals. No doubt they could come up with a similar idealistic rationale for market pricing.
---------------------------
* That line is spoken by wealthy but insufferable character played by Bette Middler in “Ruthless People.” She is being held for ransom. The kidnappers tell her that her husband (Danny DeVito, who is glad to be rid of her) refused their original demand of $500,000, though he could afford it. He also refused their second demand of $50,000.
“So we’re lowering our price to $10,000.”
“Do I understand this correctly? I'm being marked down?” she asks angrily. Then she starts crying. “I've been kidnapped by K-Mart!”
** This orientation becomes especially visible in the summer, when students comparison shop for their courses based on cost, convenience, and utility (does the course meet a requirement) rather than content and quality. See my earlier post here.
Posted by Jay Livingston
Every semester when I make out the schedule (we do this several months in advance – I just finished Fall 2014) I have the same worry – making sure that each course attracts enough students so that we don’t have to cancel. Since the university pays teachers per course not per student, it wants high student-teacher ratios. Low-enrolled courses are economically inefficient; they get the axe.
For students here, the timing of a course is crucial. Montclair is predominantly a commuter school, and even the students who live in the dorms like to go home on the weekend, which begins Thursday in the early afternoon. Most students also have jobs; afternoon and evening hours are for work, not school. If only I could schedule all our courses Monday to Thursday between the hours of ten and two, the enrollment problem would be solved.
But every department would like to offer all its courses in prime time, and there are only so many classrooms. So the university forces each department to schedule some of its courses in unpopular days and times. Departments, unfortunately, cannot force students to take those courses.
The solution is obvious once you frame the problem as an imbalance of supply (classrooms/courses) and student demand. In prime time, demand outruns the supply; for other times, demand falls short. What’s missing is the variable that links supply and demand: price. Regardless of a course’s desirability, the price is the same. What we need is flexible pricing. Let the price of a course reflect the demand. If students want a great course at 11:30, let them pay for it.
Of course, you can’t say that you’re charging more for some courses. Instead, you raise tuition across the board, say $300 a course. Then you give a $300 discount for those early morning courses and late afternoon courses or for courses that have a meeting on Friday. With the hefty discount, those times would suddenly become much more attractive.
We might extend the policy to teachers. Some teachers are very popular. Their courses always fill. But less popular teachers run the risk of not drawing the minimum enrollment. Here too, differential pricing can help equalize student demand. Oh, a few egos might be bruised (“You mean I’m being marked down?”*), but enrollments would improve. And for the really popular teachers, we could charge a premium. Like l’Oreal, they’re worth it.
The trouble with variable pricing – aside from the basic unfairness of extending yet another advantage to those who have more money – is that it exposes a reality we would rather not notice. We like to think that what students are buying with their tuition is education, and it is – especially at elite schools. But farther from the upper tiers of higher education, students also think of the academic enterprise as the buying and selling of credits, credits that ultimately add up to a diploma.** In deciding to take a course, students consider the educational quotient, but they also calculate the costs. Right now those costs consist mostly of the opportunity costs (would it mean giving up hours at work, would it reduce the weekend from three days to two?) and perhaps the cost of the amount of work the course requires. For these students, price would merely be one more non-educational variable in the calculation.
But for those who pretend that the university is engaged solely in some ideal of education, variable pricing threatens to give the game away. As Goffman says, for staff in institutions, a large part of life is dealing with the gap between “what we do” and “what we say we do.” But university administrators are already adept at portraying administrative conveniences in terms of educational ideals. No doubt they could come up with a similar idealistic rationale for market pricing.
---------------------------
* That line is spoken by wealthy but insufferable character played by Bette Middler in “Ruthless People.” She is being held for ransom. The kidnappers tell her that her husband (Danny DeVito, who is glad to be rid of her) refused their original demand of $500,000, though he could afford it. He also refused their second demand of $50,000.
“So we’re lowering our price to $10,000.”
“Do I understand this correctly? I'm being marked down?” she asks angrily. Then she starts crying. “I've been kidnapped by K-Mart!”
** This orientation becomes especially visible in the summer, when students comparison shop for their courses based on cost, convenience, and utility (does the course meet a requirement) rather than content and quality. See my earlier post here.
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