Original Cin

Found on the blog of Seth Godin, some amazing predictions from 2002: “Predictions“

Merry Christmas everyone. Things have changed a lot for me this past year, and even though there’s still a lot to do (and I didn’t do as much as I would have liked), I’m proud of what I’ve done.

• I moved from a rural to an urban environment and changed from a retail to an office job.
• I learned a bit of Actionscript.
• I created some Wordpress templates.
• Although I haven’t (yet) created a physical clock, I made the graphical clock on this blog and also created a personal XUL task scheduler. I learned XUL.
• For my 2008 theme, I also made a (cheap but functional) full-sized bed. The materials used (heavy, brand new cardboard) made Scott remark that I’ve become a professional hobo, but I prefer to think of myself as crafty and frugal.
• Not related to me: Someone made money shorting gasoline.
• Did well on the GRE.
• I visited lots of neat locations in Chicago.

Found this on Rotten Tomatos. It almost seems like it was custom-made for SpaceBattles:

The big news that I’ve seen lately on several blogs is that fewer people are taking the GRE; I think I saw it at Marginal Revolution first. Anyway, posting at both this blog and FanCruft have been slim lately because I was studying for both a calculus exam and the GRE. I did great on both of them. Some thoughts:

• I did, in fact, get very, very discouraged by an experimental section where I had to guess at most of the answers, although I realized it was experimental about halfway through the next section. (An unlikely alternative: what I think was the experimental section was the real deal and I’m the luckiest person alive, having solved dozens of problem by guessing). Experimental sections suck.
• Studying made a huge difference. When I first took a GRE practice test, my quant score was only average. After reading about the GRE for a few months and doing a lot of practice problems, the next time I took a practice test, I got an average score for people trying to get into master’s programs in econ. My actual score on the test was above average for everyone that said they were hoping to get into a econ program. I used an ebook version of GRE Prep Course by Jeff Kolby and Scott Thornburg; I only got about halfway through the math section and only glanced at the verbal section on the book, but I’d still highly recommend it. (I’m getting my “averages” from ETS’s own PowerPrep)
• On a related note, reading about the format of the test actually helped a lot. Among other gems in the book; some types of problems on the test will yield faster to a “brute force” attempt where you plug in numbers than trying to solve them the “right” way. Since this is dangerous if you do it wrong, see the book for details.
• I decided that I wanted to go to grad school long before people were complaining about the current economic conditions. I am not easily swayed by minor, impersonal statistics in my grand plans. Maybe the fact that applications to take the GRE are down is a sign that, unusually, other people aren’t for a change either.
• Alternatively, maybe most of the people who would normally go into grad school are under the impression that GDP will increase by 10% overnight once Obama is sworn in, and the world will instantly be filled with candycanes, gumdrops, and
• On the flip side, having less competition to deal with can sometimes be a good thing, and I’m pretty sure this is one of those cases, so I like the news I’m reading about fewer people taking the GRE.

Robin Hanson, “Hated Because It Might Work,” on the always wonderful Overcoming Bias:

Saying you want to do something weird for value or symbolic belief reasons is far less threatening than saying you want to do something weird for instrumental reasons. Common social norms encourage acceptance of weird values and symbolic beliefs, as long as those don’t much effect ordinary behavior. But by saying your weird act is a much better way to achieve important ordinary goals, you are saying the rest of us are making a big mistake.

I don’t have a clue about what to do with a significant other that doesn’t want you to do weird things, but then again, I’m not married, either.

Seen on Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State:

Blagojevich was [....] a governor crazy enough to believe he could make a run for President in 2016.

This page at NutrionData states the obvious:

Sugar has sugar in it? I never would have guessed…

I saw this AP story on Yahoo while I was checking my email. Usually, Illinois governors leave office first, then they’re arrested:

CHICAGO – Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was arrested today on charges that accuse him of trying to benefit from his ability to appoint President-elect Barack Obama’s replacement in the U.S. Senate.