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Yorick
Joined: 11 Jul 2006
Posts: 12101
Location: In the undersnow
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 Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2013 3:52 pm Post subject: |
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wait, what's wrong with Freakonomics?
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Yorick
Joined: 11 Jul 2006
Posts: 12101
Location: In the undersnow
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| Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2013 3:59 pm Post subject: |
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| Vox Raucus wrote: | What are the best non-fiction books you've read?
I get five months of (paid) parental leave starting the end of January, and one of the things I'm planning to do is read more seriously. I already read a fair amount of fiction, and I like to learn and stuff, so I figured I would focus on the non-fiction.
EDIT - I'm asking in this thread because I'm too lazy to comb through the book thread. |
Unbroken by Laura Hilenbrand
story of an Olympic runner who, in WWII, survived a crashed plane only to be sent to one of Japan's horrific prison camps
srsly, you think US internment of Japanese was a terrible thing, you've no idea what the Japanese were doing to their prisoners
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Dogen
Joined: 10 Jul 2006
Posts: 11005
Location: Bellingham, WA
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| Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2013 8:19 pm Post subject: |
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| Yorick wrote: | | wait, what's wrong with Freakonomics? |
Most of the criticism seems to be that they started out well but then got too ambitious, without the work or the data to support their arguments. Krugman called it a "counterintuitive train wreck," regarding the desire to "upset the bourgeois" by making claims that seem nonsensical and then explaining why they work, which is a good way to sell books, but lacks the statistical controls and rigor to claim what they claim. Noam Scheiber makes a similar argument when he says that clever studies can only take you so far, and it's easy to be misled if you're more concerned with the method than the result. Some questions simply aren't counterintuitive, and approaching them looking for counterintuitive answers is more likely to produce type I errors. John DiNardo (economics, University of Michigan) writes that the book is mostly "art" pretending at science, and, "Levitt’s scholarship and the scholarship of others are put in the service of telling a 'good story' rather than the other way around." Andrew Gelman (statistician at Columbia) describes his misgivings here. Steve Malanga (a writer for City Journal, WSJ, NYPost, etc) here.
Several of them (Scheiber, Gelman, DiNardo) also point out that the way he describes the research of others isn't always... totally in line with the conclusions reached by those researchers themselves. It's not flat-out lying, but sometimes subtle warping of conclusions to make material stick to Levitt and Dubner's own conclusions better. His most-celebrated argument, about the effects of abortion on crime, has been disputed by other researchers as being both flawed and easily verified (that is, Googling crime rates for specific years would have shown Levitt that the first cohort after abortion was legalized had higher crime rates than the last cohort before it was legalized). Others have shown that crime rates dropped significantly across demographics, not just youth crime (Malanga covers this). Our man Malcolm Gladwell notes that the introduction of the contraceptive pill roughly 18 years prior, and which caused a much larger reduction in births, had no such effect on crime rates.
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Canopus
Joined: 13 Sep 2010
Posts: 623
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| Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2013 8:42 pm Post subject: |
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| tl;dr Freakonomics is better at showing examples than making arguments. |
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DeD CHiKn
Joined: 04 Aug 2006
Posts: 10227
Location: Baltimore, Maryla*gunshot*
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| Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2013 11:23 am Post subject: |
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| Dennis J. Squidbunny wrote: | recently watched the first season of Homicide the TV show and really enjoyed it.
David Simon is just really fucking good. |
Homicide was awesome. |
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mouse
Joined: 10 Jul 2006
Posts: 17706
Location: under the bed
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| Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2013 9:26 pm Post subject: |
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homicide was great! you've probably got some silly hangup about comparing it with real baltimore cops.
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Darqcyde
Joined: 11 Jul 2006
Posts: 10753
Location: A false vacuum abiding in ignorance.
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| Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2013 11:23 pm Post subject: |
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So, anyone here good with 3d designs and art, specifically scenery, clothing & prop design, and hair textures with physics? It can be in Blender, or Daz, Renderosity, or maya, as long as it's either .obj files or .FBX. I know there's a few artistic folks here, a class mate of mine is looking for people to help her produce a trailer which she can shop around to studios. Pm me and I'll give you her contact info.
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trustedfaith
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 3366
Location: My own little world...
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| Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2013 4:32 am Post subject: |
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Why are insurance companies so effin' stupid?
One primary care physician, one psychologist, and two psychiatrists have diagnosed me with A.D.D. and they still want me and my doctor to jump through hoops to prescribe me Adderall. Is this shit made from liquid diamonds? Wtf...
Yeah yeah I know, it's regulated. Regulated in a stupid fucking way.... *grumble grumble* 
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Darqcyde
Joined: 11 Jul 2006
Posts: 10753
Location: A false vacuum abiding in ignorance.
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| Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2013 7:10 am Post subject: |
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| trustedfaith wrote: | Why are insurance companies so effin' stupid?
One primary care physician, one psychologist, and two psychiatrists have diagnosed me with A.D.D. and they still want me and my doctor to jump through hoops to prescribe me Adderall. Is this shit made from liquid diamonds? Wtf...
Yeah yeah I know, it's regulated. Regulated in a stupid fucking way.... *grumble grumble* |
What's wrong with you? Weren't you paying attention . . . oh wait, n/m 
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...if a single leaf holds the eye, it will be as if the remaining leaves were not there.
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DeD CHiKn
Joined: 04 Aug 2006
Posts: 10227
Location: Baltimore, Maryla*gunshot*
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| Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2013 12:10 pm Post subject: |
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| mouse wrote: | | homicide was great! you've probably got some silly hangup about comparing it with real baltimore cops. |
I was introduced to homicide late in it's life, the sniper episodes at the end of season 4 (maybe 5) were the first I saw, but back logging as best I could at the time turned out a very awesome show.
I drink across the street from the set quite frequently. |
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Martian Kyo
Joined: 12 Jul 2006
Posts: 1542
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| Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2013 1:20 pm Post subject: |
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I loved the characters on that show.
The whole dynamic between Munch and Frank was amazing, I remember it that way at least. I refuse to watch the show again, I like the memories of it.
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DeD CHiKn
Joined: 04 Aug 2006
Posts: 10227
Location: Baltimore, Maryla*gunshot*
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| Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2013 1:28 pm Post subject: |
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Richard Belzer is the man.
Yaphet Kotto was always a fun character too, by fun I don't mean he was always in a good mood, just good at what he did. |
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Celaeno
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 3037
Location: Kzoo
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| Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2013 9:50 pm Post subject: |
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| Vox Raucus wrote: | What are the best non-fiction books you've read?
I get five months of (paid) parental leave starting the end of January, and one of the things I'm planning to do is read more seriously. I already read a fair amount of fiction, and I like to learn and stuff, so I figured I would focus on the non-fiction.
EDIT - I'm asking in this thread because I'm too lazy to comb through the book thread. |
My favorites:
Thinking, Fast and Slow
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
Steve Jobs (did the audiobook)
Also high on the list:
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
The Professor and the Madman
The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in the Jazz Age
The Secret Life of Pronouns: What Our Words Say About Us
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers |
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Dogen
Joined: 10 Jul 2006
Posts: 11005
Location: Bellingham, WA
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| Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2013 10:11 pm Post subject: |
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| Celaeno wrote: | My favorites:
Thinking, Fast and Slow
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
Steve Jobs (did the audiobook)
Also high on the list:
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
The Professor and the Madman
The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in the Jazz Age
The Secret Life of Pronouns: What Our Words Say About Us
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers |
All of these are great. I just picked up "The Professor and the Madman," and I'm tearing through it quick. I've raved about "Stiff" before here, and anyone who likes science, medicine or social justice should read about Henrietta Lacks. It's just a great book. It was recommended to me by an old professor/neuroscientist, and I've since passed it on to a half dozen people at work. This is an excellent list.
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"Worse comes to worst, my people come first, but my tribe lives on every country on earth. I’ll do anything to protect them from hurt, the human race is what I serve." - Baba Brinkman
Last edited by Dogen on Mon Jan 07, 2013 10:26 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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WheelsOfConfusion
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 12454
Location: Unknown Kaddath
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| Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2013 10:25 pm Post subject: |
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| I haven't read the book, but I've known about Henrietta Lacks and her (in)famous HeLa cells for years. Utterly fascinating phenomenon by itself, but I only know bits and pieces of the social context. All my library's copies (including the audio book!) have been in perpetual Checked Out state for a while, so I might have to wait to read it. |
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