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from Emanuel Derman:
Dog’s Lives
I am in Santa Fe, NM, about to spend a few weeks at the Santa Fe Institute where I hope to learn something about market microstructure and agent-based models.
Everyone in Santa Fe (i.e. the few people I've met thru work here in the past -- I wrote a chapter of Models.Behaving.Badly here in 2009, using their excellent library) seems to think Santa Fe is paradise on earth, and maybe it is, though I prefer paradise on the seashore. I have this atavistic urge to find a place that is easygoing but has access to culture, and yet lets you back off from the discontents and irritations of politics and corporations. People here seem to think this is it. But, I should add, people here seem to be close to retirement.
One of the points I tried to make in Models.Behaving.Badly was that models were analogies, comparing something you don't understand to something you do, e.g. a nucleus to a liquid drop, or stock returns to smoke diffusion, whereas theories were (attempts to discover) absolute (rather than relative) descriptions of phenomena (e.g. Newton's laws or relativity). I spent an evening with an accomplished physicist here, and was pleased to see that he agreed. When I was here last I read Maxwell's papers from the 1860s; he called his final description of the electromagnetic field a theory, having first tried a bunch of metaphorical models to warm up his intuition and understanding.
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En route here, Aaron Brown emailed to ask how I came up with the title My Life as a Quant, as background to an article he's writing. This led me to the following recollection:
from Photographers Blog:
Los Galgos Guapos (The Handsome Hounds)
By Erin Siegal
I'd never really known a galgo, or greyhound. To me, they were simply those weirdly skinny creatures in the NYC dog runs that looked like yawning alligators when panting, so rail-thin that they practically disappeared unless they turned sideways.
But now?
Well, let's just say that I think Dreamboat's name is pretty accurate.
"Dreamboat," a.k.a. U.S.S. Dreamboat, enjoys a bath.
In Tijuana, Mexico, the Caliente racetrack is famous. In the city's heyday, high-end thoroughbreds charged past glamorous crowds of onlookers; photos of the horses still adorn the walls in the casino's basement administrative offices. Today, however, a different kind of animal bursts from the starting gates each day: American greyhounds.
from Oddly Enough Blog:
The best goofy but true stories from 2011
As I said recently in a post which began a countdown to tomorrow's final entry in this blog, one of the things I have enjoyed most is presenting stories that are goofy but true.
Sure, it's fun to make up funny stuff and riff on news photos, but real life often finds a way to top me.
from Oddly Enough Blog:
What year is it again?
Welcome back to a regular feature we call, "What Year is it Again?" in which we relate true events that make us question whether we've gone back in time for decades, maybe even centuries.
For instance, I was looking at a very nice photo series about guide dogs in Peru, but I noticed the captions said that shops, banks and buses don't allow blind people to enter with their guide dogs.
from Oddly Enough Blog:
I Hope You’re Proud Of Yourself!
Hey Blog Guy, it's September 14th. This is the day you announce the coveted annual I Hope You're Proud Of Yourself! award.
Yes, I'm sorry for the delay. I was all set to give this year's trophy to the folks at that Tea Party presidential debate on Monday.
from Oddly Enough Blog:
Obama’s golden opportunity?
Okay staff, we all know we've got a problem. The president isn't as popular as he used to be. His numbers are down, and the Republicans are slinging mud. Anybody got an idea?
Uh, could he save a small child from a burning runaway freight train, Boss?
Hmmmm. Not bad, Lamar, but he's done that twice already. I think he needs something different this time.
from Photographers Blog:
Chile’s dog days
By Ivan Alvarado
Today it seems the dictatorship ended only recently….
A newspaper front page shows a dog participating in the demonstrations in Chile. It seems that anything can happen these troubled days around the world, so between slogans and statements it makes sense to write a blog about street dogs and demonstrations.
“Free quality education.” - Student movement
“Nothing is free in life.” - President Sebastian Pinera
“Education should not be for profit.” - Student movement
“Gang of useless subversives.” - Carlos Larrain, president of the ruling party
“We don’t need mediators, and especially not from the Catholic Church.” - Camila Vallejo, student leader.
“It’s going to fall, it’s going to fall….the education of Pinochet.” – Demonstrators.
“Education is a commodity.” – President Pinera.
“The government exaggerates the students’ claims to demonize them.” - Mario Waissbluth, expert on education.
“The only thing they [the demonstrators] want to do is destroy the country and us.” – Chile’s National Police.
“I’m a gardener and I want my son to be an engineer.” – Street graffiti.
from Oddly Enough Blog:
You’re a mean one, Mister Grinch…
Man, I hope this guy is proud of himself.
But let me back up a minute.
When I was a boy, there was a Disney movie about a plucky little terrier who went to Edinburgh with his master, who then died. The dog kept a 14-year vigil at his master's grave, passing away himself in 1872.
Watching this as a child required more tissues than I could even carry into the theater. The movie was called "Greyfriars Bobby, the True Story of a Dog."
from Oddly Enough Blog:
Sit, Spot, it’s time for our conference call!
Regular readers know I seldom volunteer my personal opinions, which tend to be uninformed and moronic.
But just this once, I'm going to support a good idea that is coming up very soon.
from Photographers Blog:
Luxury dog care open for business
Affluent South Koreans have just about every fashion accessory imaginable from designer clothes to handbags and the latest trend in Asia’s fourth biggest economy is small dogs.
Just like their well-groomed owners in the ritzy suburbs of the capital Seoul, pets are now big business for groomers, healthcare businesses and even mood music, helping to create a whole new service industry.
