Archive for November, 2014
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Diplomacy, art, smoke and mirrors (Photo blog)
Diplomacy and mirrors: This is the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles near Paris, France. Built between 1678–1684, it has the site of numerous historical and state occasions, inspiring many now famous paintings. At the time, the Venetian Republic held trade secrets in glass mirror manufacturer, so, following the economic philosophy of mercantilism, the French monarchy poached workers to France to build the huge mirrors. Legend has it the Venice sent agents in an unsuccessful attempt to poison the workers and keep its secrets. (And you thought the language in your non-compete agreement was draconian. Of course, assassination back then was just diplomacy by other means. Then again, this might just be an urban legend.) We’re wrapping our mirrors, animals, consciousness and data theme. (And maybe also our aristocracy and mirrors theme. Or our artwork and mirrors theme.) Although a beautiful work of art, the Hall of Mirrors has more to do with history, politics, diplomacy and perhaps economics than data.… Read the restA Chimp, a Congressional Rep, and a Mirror
Election day photo: chimp art. (Or … holding your Congressional Rep up to a mirror.) No, we didn’t really buy into the old (and false) urban legend that some group of baboons is called a congress. (They’re not. A group of baboons is a troop.) However, Congress is up for election today (when this was originally posted on our IG feed). We’ve done several articles discussing the science around why democracy is important (not everyone in the world believes it is), and are likely to do more in the future. So, if you’re in the US, don’t let the urban legend make a monkey out of you: vote if you’re eligible! (Political science and economics are important applications of data science. This is Hugo Rheinhold’s famous 19th century sculpture of a politician’s closest living relative, the common chimpanzee. That chimp has political skills! He shares 99% of this DNA with members of Congress — and also all the rest of us.… Read the restBlack Friday: data says Stop the Madness!
Black Friday post: stop the madness! These are Actual black Friday shoppers at very long checkout line at a Los Angeles California area big box store (a few years ago). (For our non-US readers, Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving, traditionally considered the start of the holiday shopping season and known for its suppose discount sales … and large, sometimes dangerous crowds.) One person in the above line said he’d been waiting in the same Black Friday line for two hours. Oh yeah. The registers? They’re not at the far wall. They are way off to the left. The line snakes U-shaped towards the far wall in the distance first. This particular big box store notorious did door buster specials that year, then obviously had far too few temporary people at the register to handle the crush of shoppers. Infamously, they tend told people they could still get the Black Friday door buster special price off the Internet site.… Read the restThanksgiving post: Boston colonial law book
Our Thanksgiving post: This is a Boston Colonial law book. This is the printed law book used by the pilgrims. Publication Boston 1685. (If you look at the text of the first section, however, it says the laws were announced 1626 and revised 1671). So this brings together a lot of recent themes: book printing, navigation (the Mayflower, right?) — more on that in bit — the Conquistadors, and, of course, Thanksgiving. Wait, did we say Conquistadors? Well, look at that date on this law book, 1685. Actually, that’s pretty late. Harvard had already been in existence for 50 years, so maybe it’s not surprising colonial Boston was already a publishing center (although let’s remember much of the planet’s population didn’t have printing presses yet let alone a 300-year old law book. This information deficit would have an impact, as we’ll see.). Then again, arch-rival Yale won’t be founded for another 17 years or so.… Read the restRecent Posts
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