Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without

My parents used to recite that rhyme when describing their parents' and grand-parents' generations (making me think that the saying preceded the ad campaign that produced the magazine copy below). It always struck me as a dramatic example of how American values have changed.

Now Tim Duy has a great post up on this ad campaign comparing the economic contexts of two very different wars on inflation.

I can't cut-and-paste this New Yorker article, which is perhaps just as well

Nicholas Lemann's examination of the entry level culture at McKinsey (reached through a link from Felix Salmon) is one of those pieces that needs to be read in full if you want to understand the state of American business. The New Yorker apparently unlocked the story because McKinsey has been in the news lately, but I think the real importance here goes well beyond the scandals.

Would you rather have Jon Stewart or Felix Salmon gunning for you?

Either way it would certainly suck to have both on your case.

And while on the subject of Salmon, check out this fascinating piece on the attributes in online reviews that bring in customers (they aren't what you'd expect).

Dean Dad makes an essential point about the higher education debate

From Confessions of a Community College Dean:

My sense, very much like Tim Burke’s, is that a category like “higher education” obscures as much as it clarifies. Harvard, the University of Minnesota, the University of Phoenix, Philadelphia Bible College, and Bronx Community College all fall under the category of “higher education,” as different as they are. Popular discussions of, say, climbing walls as drivers of tuition increases are utterly irrelevant in most of the for-profit and community college worlds. Complaints about state budget cuts have a great deal of validity for state and community colleges, but are largely irrelevant to most of the private colleges. Sports may be a religion at Texas Tech; not so much at Cal Tech. (At Proprietary U, every year represented another undefeated season.) College may be a four-year party at some second-tier residential colleges; it absolutely is not at colleges with large numbers of adult students with jobs and kids. Even complaints about “administrative bloat” seem to have validity in much of the four-year sector, but are mostly misplaced in the community college world.

With that much variety, it’s entirely possible that someone who attends, say, a huge state university with a high-profile sports program chose it for precisely that reason. That person may resent invisible professors -- or may not care -- and not mind at all the four-year party. A working Mom who chooses a community college night program might find the entire discussion of the four-year party utterly alien.

With such disparities hidden under a single category, too literal a reading of poll results could lead to destructive conclusions. Yes, Rich Kid Private College may have a lavish student center; does that mean we should cut funding for community colleges? Yes, some for-profits took advantage of legal loopholes to exploit financial aid; does that mean we should layer new regulations on public colleges?

My sense of it is that the sector that’s in real trouble is the expensive-but-not-selective, “nothing special” private colleges. A pricey, tuition-driven college without distinction or a clear niche represents a weak value proposition in a tough market. That’s true whether the college is for-profit or not. A clear niche could mean exclusivity, or a specific programmatic strength, or a strong religious identity. Being okay at a whole lot of things doesn’t justify thirty thousand a year, especially when public options are available for a fraction of the cost.

Why restrict the types of NSAIDs used as active comparators?

I am always surprised when people do not include negative controls when there is a very obvious candidate to be used as such. Consider this article:

Chronic analgesic use with either COT or COX-2 was associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular outcomes. These findings suggest either a selection of high-risk patients to chronic analgesic treatment, coupled with unmeasured or residual confounding, or a potential cardiovascular effect of these medications. Further research is warranted to evaluate causes for this association.

Why did the researchers not use an active comparator that is known to be null (a negative control)? After all, the participants who are tkaing pain medication may be systematically different from those who do not. It is prescription claims data so it is unclear whether or not you can adjust for these kinds of differences.

So why would you not at least look at Naproxen and Ibuprofen users?

Yes, the categories were: Opioids, Rofecoxib, Celecoxib,Valdecoxib, and General population. Covariates were:

We derived variables representing demographics, medical history of angina, coronary heart disease (CHD), congestive heart failure, arrhythmias, ischemic stroke, transient cerebral ischemia, peripheral vascular disease, diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, hypercholesterolemia, smoking, and obesity; and dispensing of nitrates, anti-platelet agents, angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors, angiotensin II receptor blockers, beta-blockers, calcium channel blockers, and diuretics. Baseline history of chronic diseases of the musculoskeletal system, diseases of the esophagus, hyperthyroidism, medical care required for general ill-defined symptoms and respiratory or chest symptoms, including dyspnea and upper respiratory symptoms, were also included.

Now I have done a paper on the misclassification of ibuprofen and naproxen in claims data but the issue there was sensitivity and not specificity. There is no reason that naproxen or ibuprofen could not be negative controls (or that aspirin could not be a positive control). It would certainly make the unexpected results of this analysis easier to interpret!

Weekend Blogging -- technology edition

The following appeared under a slide show of dumb inventions, but they got me thinking about how thin the line between stupid and successful can be. Glowing tires fail but spinning rims make it big. People show no interest in a tiny TV screen in '66 but get excited about watching shows on their cell phones 45 years later.

Was the technology flawed in these inventions. Was it too expensive? Or have we just gotten better at selling stuff?

Libertarian dreams

From Jacob Weisberg:

Though I criticized Ryan for his unsupported rosy assumptions (shame on you, Heritage Foundation hacks), I reacted too quickly and didn't sort out just how laughable Ryan's long-term spending projections were. His plan projects an absurd future, according to the Congressional Budget Office, in which all discretionary spending, now around 12 percent of GDP, shrinks to 3 percent of GDP by 2050. Defense spending alone was 4.7 percent of GDP in 2009. With numbers like that, Ryan is more an anarchist-libertarian than honest conservative.

It is interesting to be reading this as I just finished the book the Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein. What I found interesting about this book was the assumption that one could so easily eliminate all of the functions of government (and yet have highly patriotic individuals willing to die for this version of a state).

But what I found interesting is how these ideas of government cannot be easily reconciled with a strong military. In the novel, Heinlein has the settlers of the moon act as a voluntary militia that is able to hold off another power. But these ideas are simply incompatible with a role as a "global policeman".

So there is a tough decision to be made about the role and scope of the US government in international affairs, if we really are going to put serious libertarian ideas of the state into practice.

This is a big deal

California is considering a single payer health care system. Unlike Vermont, which is a small market, a successful single payer system in California would be strong evidence that the plan is viable in a broader US context.

In the long run, containing health care costs is a major issue. While I am sure that there are alternatives to the US and Canadian systems, it is hard to argue with the better outcomes and lower costs of a single payer system. I suspect that they are even more attractive to a state like California which has a long history of budget issues.

The end of the world as seen by Basil Wolverton

With another failed doomsday prediction in the news, I thought this might be appropriate.

To anyone over forty, Basil Wolverton was the artist behind those unforgettable comic caricatures that were featured on countless magazine covers and posters, drawn in what Wolverton himself called "spaghetti and meatballs style."





But Wolverton's favorite subjects were directly or indirectly biblical. As an elder in Herbert Armstrong's Radio Church of God, Wolverton was immersed both in scripture and in the apocalyptic conclusions Armstrong drew from it.

Wolverton produced a number of wonderful drawings based on Bible scenes. He also provided the amazing illustrations for Armstrong's pamphlet "1975 in Prophesy." Here are a couple of examples. (You can see more at Mippyville.)



p.s. Wolverton was also a huge (and acknowledged) influence on R. Crumb. This story has some particularly good examples of some similarities.

Weekend pop culture blogging -- comic strip edition

Monty by Jim Meddick.


Nice photomontage effect, by the way.

The headline alone makes it worth clicking the link

But if you have any interest in the rabbit hole of intellectual property law, you should read the post as well.

While you're there, check out this one as well.

Both from Dean Baker.

How to lie with statistics -- the category category

It's amazing the conclusions you can manage if you get to define your own categories.

From Krugman:

So it’s good to have Mike Konczal reminding us that Pinto’s definition of “subprime-like” mortgages is just something he made up — and that it turns out that his supposed high-risk categories weren’t that risky at all, that in fact they look more like traditional conforming mortgages than like true subprime:

Dana Goldstein actually visits LA

Which is a bigger deal than you might think. LA County is a huge (over 4,000 square miles) but most visiting journalists (and more than a few who actually take up residence) see only a tiny and highly unrepresentative sliver of the area.

Goldstein has actually made it out into the town and is getting a glimpse of LA the way most Angelenos see it.



Now if she just makes it to Al and Bea's.

Preblogging energy

James Kwak has a follow-up to his previously noted biomass post. I'll be referring to both in a post I'm working on:

Wow. Power plants have only a minuscule impact on emissions? In 2005, electricity generation was responsible for 73 percent of sulfur dioxide emissions, 21 percent of nitrogen oxides emissions, and 11 percent of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) emissions. And biomass plants are less efficient, per BTU, than plants that burn coal or natural gas.

I'll also be mentioning biochar. Here's a relevant passage from Wikipedia:

Biochar may be a substance mostly suited to severely weathered and deprived soils (low pH, absent potassium, low or no humus). Clearly, there is the real potential for carbon sequestration, simply because biochar is so stable and is not accessible to normal microbial decay. Soils require active carbon to maintain micro and macro populations, not the inactive form found in biochar. Biochar can prevent the leaching of nutrients out of the soil, partly because it absorbs and immobilizes certain amounts of nutrients, however, too much immobilization can be harmful. It has been reported to increase the available nutrients for plant growth, but also depress them increase water retention, and reduce the amount of fertilizer required. Additionally, it has been shown to decrease N2O (Nitrous oxide) and CH4 (methane) emissions from soil, thus further reducing GHG emissions. Although it is far from a perfect solution in all economies, biochar can be utilized in many applications as a replacement for or co-terminous strategy with other bioenergy production strategies.

If you're curious, you might also want to check out this this NPR story and this news release from Eurekalert.

Weekend Gaming -- that other chess set is just sitting there

Back at the turn of the millennium when I was wasting away in the suburban hell of [redacted], I found myself killing a lot of time at the Borders down the street. Most days there would be a old man sitting at one of the tables with two chess sets set up up side by side with the edges of the boards touching. At the side of the table was a hand lettered sign inviting people to try the new game, superchess.

I never had the heart to tell him that the game he invented had been around for decades. That's not to say chess with twice the pieces on an 8x16 board isn't a good idea. It's a simple but elegant variation on the game and since, unlike most fairy chess, almost all of the moves and rules are unchanged, it stays remarkably true to the original game.

You move your pieces just as you normally would, only over a board that's twice as wide. You can't castle but other than that the only difference is the objective. Here you have two choices. The more common seems to be where the winner is the first to capture both opposing kings but I prefer playing for first blood (first player to capture a king wins).

You can find a more detailed discussion here or you can just grab a couple of boards and jump right in. As a chess variant, it's not as interesting as hexagonal chess but it's still definitely worth a try.