January 2010
15 posts
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How stupid are people (who watch movies)?
This econ paper that Freakonomics linked to is pretty darn cool. It’s called “To Review or Not to Review? Limited Strategic Thinking at the Movie Box Office” (authors: Alexander Brown, Colin Camerer, and Dan Lovallo). It suggests some interesting results:
Movie critics actually matter. The paper compares wide-released movies that were screened for critics before opening with...
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new project
I’ve decided I’m going to find a word that ends with “-LESSNESS” while playing online Boggle.
There are 22 that have 11 letters in them:
‘agelessness’, ‘aimlessness’, ‘airlessness’, ‘artlessness’, ‘awelessness’, ‘endlessness’, ‘godlessness’, ‘gutlessness’,...
THERE WAS A LADY GAGA CLUE ON THE JEOP TEST.
natface:
end transmission
Well I got at least one right then.
tygertherapy:
Darondo - Didn’t I
It’s...
Guys, I got it
The Mercator Project is not going to be the name of the secret cabal. The Mercator Project is a visible, nonprofit funded by all the big map companies. The stated purpose of Merc Pro is going to be to promote map-awareness internationally. Outwardly, this takes the form of bringing maps and education-y programs to third world countries, especially those involved in some sort of history changing...
I've been giving it some careful thought,
and I’ve reached a perhaps intractable problem concerning The Mercator Project, the Indiana Jones as a mapmaker action movie Ben and I aren’t actually going to make.
Let’s stay you’re in the map making and selling business, and you’re putting together a secret cabal to affect geopolitics (and hence the names of things on maps). And assume that this is a big enough...
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Henri Bowane - Cheri Natou
Remarkably, the high...
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Our Unwritten Screenplay
Ben and I, once we get rejected from all the graduate schools we applied to, are going to begin working on a screenplay. Here are some potential details (I haven’t run any of this by Ben yet):
It concerns a cabal of mapmaking companies that promote geopolitical unrest so currents maps become outdated, thus dramatically increasing demand for new maps. The cabal is known as The Mercator...
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Online Test for Jeopardy! (in 2 weeks) →
If I had until January 26 to prepare for the Jeopardy! online test, what should I study?
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A Peek Into Netflix Queues - NYTimes.com →
These are very cool maps.
yojess:
Fascinating interactive map of Netflix top rentals by zip code. It’s a hyper-localized version of Netflix “Local Favorites.” A few observations (I’m sure Alex could take this a whole lot further):
-The most popular movie in my Catholic enclave of a neighborhood: Doubt. Shocker! Poor, poor souls.
-Tyler Perry movies do extremely well in areas to the SE of DC....
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