EclectEcon

The Thing

We were at a birthday party last Sunday evening, and as part of the party, my son brought out some pie with this contraption on top of it. It started out as a closed flower, and when it was lit, a sparkler went off, then the petals dropped, and the candles on the petals were automagically lit.

In addition to the candles, The Thing played "Happy Birthday" in a high-pitched electronic sound, similar to what one might hear with musical birthday cards. It was a fun gadget, and we all enjoyed it.

When the party was over, The Thing was still playing "Happy Birthday", and my son couldn't find a way to turn it off.

In frustration, he broke off all the petals but still couldn't find a switch to turn it off.

Then he put it in water.

That didn't kill it.

So that night he put it in the garbage can in their garage.

It was still playing "Happy Birthday" the next morning... and the morning after that .... and the morning after that.

I salvaged The Thing from his garbage can and shot the video below on Wednesday evening, three full days after it was ignited. It is still playing "Happy Birthday"!

It's annoying and penetrating, but I've become attached to it. So we have it now, and it's under some blankets in our deck box on our balcony.

I call it The Thing because it reminds me of this 1950 song by Arthur Godfrey:

 

It also reminds me of the John Steinbeck short story, "The Affair at 7, Rue de M".

I'll post updates now and then to let you know when it finally quits.

Harvard's Racial Discrimination and the Counterfactual

According to this article in The Boston Globe, one reason Harvard won its affirmative action defense in the suit launched by Students for Fair Admissions was that they presented testimony from African-American and Hispanic students to the effect that their admission to Harvard was tremendously beneficial to them.

To combat the statistically heavy case presented by two experts from Students for Fair Admissions, eight black, Latino, and Asian-American Harvard students and alumni took the stand to share their personal stories of making it to Harvard and the benefits of using race in admissions. Students for Fair Admissions [SFA] did not call any students or present any cases of applicants who were specifically disadvantaged by Harvard’s admissions process.

Apparently, by implication, the Students for Fair Admissions [SFA] lost in part because they didn't send a parade of students to the stand to testify that not being admitted to Harvard hurt them.

There's a good reason, I suspect.

The hypothetical, potential value-added from going to Harvard for those on the cusp but not admitted to Harvard would likely have been negligible. They almost surely went to other high- or possibly even higher-quality schools and ended up doing, roughly and on average, just as well as they would have done had they been admitted to Harvard. The SFA apparently presented no evidence that these students were harmed, undoubtedly because the value-added of attending Harvard is minimal for bright, capable students, relative to their next-best options.

This same argument should also be reversed and applied to all the students who were racially favoured by affirmative action at Harvard. If they, too, were bright and capable students then they would also likely have ended up attending some other high- or even higher-quality university. The enormous benefits to which they testified were almost surely not all due to having attended Harvard.

The Harvard defense team's strategy, at least in this regard worked, in part, because it is difficult to argue the counterfactual in court.

Let me add, though, that weighing the benefits to those who gained admission versus the losses suffered by those denied admission is the wrong approach. Racial discrimination is morally wrong, and here's hoping Harvard loses on appeal.

Housing Codes, Homelessness, and Affordable Housing

At the end of this month, I get to make a ten-minute PowerPoint presentation to an international conference about how stricter housing codes contribute to homelessness and reduce the supply of affordable housing. Seems like a no-brainer to me, but I expect few if any of the other participants will even agree that perhaps one cause of homelessness and the lack of affordable housing is strict housing codes, and even fewer will even consider the possibility that reducing the seriousness of housing codes might help to alleviate the problems.

Ten Minutes. PowerPoint. Helpful suggestions/criticisms welcome!

Below is a former convent that was converted to a rooming house and that met with great difficulties because the rooms were not up to code. I lived there in the fall of 1978 when I was down, out, and had little money.

Speaking of Plays ... Three Murder Mysteries

During the past year I tried my hand at writing some mystery dinner theatre plays.

The first one, Shrink-Wrapped Murder, involves some semi-famous psychologists meeting for a dinner symposium.

The second and third ones are variations of the theme of Murder at the Office ______ Party. One is for Christmas and one is for New Year's Eve, and other variations are suggested as well.

The final chapter is a lengthy description of the organization and structure of mystery dinner theatre shows.

The scripts are available in both Kindle and Paperback formats  from Amazon.com ($1.28US/$6.98US), from Amazon.ca ($1.71Cdn/$9.29Cdn), and from all the other major Amazon sites.