Two prongs of computer advice needed.

1. My computer has gotten incredibly unstable -- it freezes constantly, the pointer freaks out and moves with random velocity, and tonight it developed the charming behavior of taking >60sec to respond to any button press. I am typing this now from safe mode, and am having no difficulties, which tells me that a large chunk of my problem is software. What should I do? It is a just-past-warranty Dell (how many of you are surprised?) running XP Service Pack 3. It has antivirus software (Norton?) with automatic updates, IIRC.
   
   
2. Obviously, it will soon be time for a new machine -- probably a laptop given all the travel I'm still doing. I will probably not get another Dell -- their service is (mostly) exemplary but their hardware just isn't. At the moment my main needs are word processing, spreadsheet, Internet, and some random proprietary programs. I am somewhat committed to Windows because of some software I used in grad school, but as that world fades my need for the software may fade, too. However, it would be nice to publish the dissertation first. I am very open to a suggestion that includes Windows XP as a second system, if such a thing exists.

I want you all to go read a fantastic blog post by linguist Mark Liberman. It will explain in very clear terms, if you didn't already know, why mass-media reports of scientific findings about group differences are so frequently misleading in a way that engenders and supports stereotype. It is THE most important statistical fact I know and I never learned it in school even though I have a PhD. I learned it from Mark Liberman.

Go read it now.

So I am reading this book, which my in-laws kindly got me for Fake Christmas (so long had passed since Real Christmas that I'd forgotten I asked for it). The book is about the effect of, as an economist friend put it, low-probability, high-cost events: things whose impact dwarfs the events we can predict, making prediction itself a fool's errand. I am so far really blown away by how he's taken a topic and ideas that are very exciting to me and encased them in a book that deeply annoys me.

• The author is, simply put, a jerk. This is his attitude: "Look at me! I'm a Real Intellectual! Not one of those effete morons who have tenured professorships and publish in peer-reviewed journals, oh no, that's not for me! Tenure is for charlatans! Peer review is for sheeple! Editors enforce mediocrity! The mark of truly Novel and Important ideas is that you develop them on long walks with brilliant people and then publish them on an ugly website!"
  
• Ahem. Anyway, while discussing most of the social sciences in a way that veers past provocation into simple bad manners -- for instance, liberal use of scare-quotes, as when describing economics as a "profession" -- he inexplicably spares psychology. I genuinely don't understand this; I think that to the extent that the criticisms he levels at social science are apt, the judgment and decision-making world he loves has to cope with them also. I'd love to ask him to clarify, but see exhibit A, and also it appears from his site that he's getting a lot of email.

Perhaps I will flesh out my thoughts more thoroughly when I have finished the book, but I just had to vent a bit.

Because I needed cheering up, and maybe you did too:



Courtesy of the National Zoo -- and also littlepurple.

Recent conversations prompt this poll!

[Poll #1321348]

In the spirit of optimism, a poll.

[Poll #1296231]

Okay, so I am totally thrilled about the presidential results. I have to get that out there. This victory was all the more wonderful for its unsurprisingness. I could have gone to bed at eleven but I couldn't bring myself to do it.

But the night wasn't all victories. It looks like Prop 8 is going to pass in California. I don't want my frustration about this to be lost in the joy today. I remember two years ago when the anti-union amendment passed in Wisconsin and part of the reason it was so awful was that none of my friends seemed to understand that even though the Democrats had won in Congress, I lost.

I want to state publicly: the success of these amendments does not protect my marriage; it makes me feel less secure in it. When other people get to set boundaries on who we can and cannot love, we are all diminished in power and possibility. I do not cherish the feeling that my marriage is a contingent thing, dependent for its existence on the consent of others. That's not the reality, of course. We would love each other even without the tax break. But government-sanctioned marriage is so entrenched in this culture that when they parade their ability to deny it to people for no good reason, I feel naked and vulnerable and small.

If Massachusetts has the right to go one way, California has the right to go the other (legally speaking). But make no mistake: California, you deeply, deeply suck, and I will hold this against you until you make a change.

Reading Obama's memoir, you learn that as a kid he was called Barry. As a young adult he reverted to using his full name. That's not all that striking; a lot of young people change their self-presentation in this way. But I think it is a fairly striking choice for anyone with political ambitions. I think a lot of people would have switched back to the more "American" (more on that in a later post, I hope) -sounding name on entering Harvard. Obama's success with the other route is a reminder, I think, that squashing your identity is no way to get elected.

Catbus, anyone?

Link courtesy of roommate-in-law gomi_no_sensei.

A poll!

[Poll #1276034]

In other news, once I register, I am totally hitting you guys up for donations.