oh shit... i forgot about the acronym contest

Hey y'all!

I forgot about my acronym contest! I'm an idiot!

If you haven't turned in your answers, i'll give you till monday. if you posted them in the previous comments section, please email them to me. jaboling@indiana.edu. i need your name if i'm going to pick a winner. please turn in a complete list.

Social Science

Y=incidence of burrito consumption after midnight. 1=at least one burrito consumed 0=no burrito consumed.

X1=number of drinks consumed/hour, beginning with first drink consumed.

x2=size of pre-drink meal (measured by calorie content)

x3=length of time between last pre-drink meal and last drink

x4=number of burrito-serving restaurants within 5 miles open after midnight (including gas stations)

x5=number of frozen burritos in freezer at home.

B=Coefficient

U=Error Term

Model Specification:

Y=B + BX1 + BX2 + BX3 + BX4 + BX5.

Hypothesis: Modern Joe behavior theorists have long wrestled with the frequency of seemingly irrational choices that Joe exhibits. Such choices serve to problematize rational choice theories of behavior that are posited by a variety of social science disciplines, most notably economics. To account for these behaviors, prevailing Joe theory suggests that Joe's "irrational" behavior stems primarily from a lack of cognitive ability combined with the unusual strength of his physical urges. However, we pose a new theory: that Joe's irrational behavior can sometimes, and perhaps even frequently, be attributed to a decreased cognitive capacity stemming from alcohol consumption. One prominent irrational behavior, Joe's tendency to consume burritos after midnight on Fridays and Saturdays, offers a chance to test this theory. We hypothesize that alcohol consumption will have positive, causal impact on the likelihood of Joe's consumption of late night burritos. Using self-reported and observational data collected over a six month period, we use probit regression to determine the impact of 5 alcohol-related variables on Joe's likelihood of late-night burrito consumption.

Joe weighs in on stuff he barely understands

Sorry I've been such a lame blogger lately. I wish I could blame it on my paranoia over the crashing financial markets, but I don't own anything, so that would be a lie.

Along that thread, I just want to take a moment to acknowledge the heroic efforts of CEOs across the country, who bravely invested in junk mortgages in a herculean effort to make as much money as their peers, creating a frenzy of "irrational exuberance" (Greenspan) and a giant housing bubble. I'd like to further thank them for their courage in taking our money to salvage their retirement plans and caviar-filled swimming pools. For nothing says "Free Market" like begging the government to backstop your bad decisions. I've always liked income transfers; who am I to complain when it goes from the people to the rich instead of the other way around?

Seriously, I don't mind paying it, but goddamn, no blank checks to former Goldman Sachs CEOs. If you're gonna live under our roof, you gotta accept some new rules. No taxation without regulation! Regulate, baby, regulate!

Check it out: The Media Does its job!

A nice summary of the results of McCain's decision to adopt a new campaign strategy: lie his ass off.

The World as Will and Diarrhea

Sorry folks. I think I might just be played out. I ain't much good with women, so all my concentration is going toward that. Still ain't no good at it.

Maybe i can write some verses. Got no ideas. Just nerves and disappointment these days.
I think at 28, life hollows out for the unmarried. It's not bad, but it's got no internal logic.
I wonder if I make these lines approximately the same size if the syllables will match up.
I wonder if Robert Frost tried that. It's easier than counting on your fingers or tapping it.
Probabilistic causation and social science and cannibalistic probable discursive equations
published papers and name dropping and network analysis and regression modelling
and waiting for the fucking phone to ring for some girl to pay attention and call me cool.
And I wonder what it would be like to exist without these cliches polluting my responses.
And when it's this fuckin humid, who can bother trying to make mad passionate love at all?
What turns me on is the gleaming white air conditioner and its cold, dry, peaceful hum.
It hums me in just the right spots. I have to dream about it or sneak off in my car for quickies.
Some might say, you're either into it, or you're not. Give me 30 seconds, i'll know if i love you.
But who knows? The fake stories are all i know, but I know they're fake. They pollute.
You want to purify, find what's true, what's real? Burn off the cliches and motifs and one liners?
Good fuckin luck. You're hollow. We're all hollow, we who plugged in and escaped into the story.
There is no pre-discursive self. There is no natural man. There is no human nature. None.

So the Venture Brothers is worthy of your attention. Dexter...pretty good too. Not great realism,
but some interesting psychological and moral going on. Dexter reminds of Spike from Buffy:
his morality is completely willed. It has not emotional basis. He does not FEEL sympathy or
compassion, but he wills himself into following an abstract moral code. Interesting. Who's
more moral, the person whose ethics stem from native sentiment, or the person who acts from
will? Good question. The cats love to eat moths. That's unrelated to my previous point.

i really got nothin

I seem to be blogging much more when i get in bad moods than when i'm in good moods. I think this introduces bias into billygoatsgruff.

I am in a fairly sour mood at the moment. I won't get into the details. They're not very exciting.

Hmm...maybe I can blog about something else? Like Robert Stack...that guy had a really scary voice! I talked about that with some friends at dinner tonight.

Or my weekly jam..It's making a comeback! We'll see what kind of motley crew we assemble this time.

The cats just broke a lamp. Those bastards. I'm tired..I'm going to bed.

Oh, check out www.ianvjoe.blogspot.com. Vote for me!

Epilogue to Previous Post: What I'm afraid of

King Henry IV, Part 2.
Act V, Scene V

Enter the King and his train

Falstaff: God save thy grace, King Hal! my royal Hal!

Pistol: The heavens thee guard and keep, most royal imp of fame!

Falstaff: God save thee, my sweet boy!

King: My lord chief-justice, speak to that vain man.

Chief Justice: Have you your wits? Know what tis you speak?

Falstaff: My King! My Jove! I speak to thee, my heart!

King: I know thee not, old man: fall to thy prayers; How ill white hairs become a fool and jester! I have long dream'd of such a kind of man, so surfeit-swell'd, so old and so profane; But, being awaked, I do despise my dream. Make less they body hence, and more thy grace; Leave gormandizing; know the grave doth gape for thee thrice wider than for other men. Reply not to me with a fool-born jest: Presume not that I am the thing I was; For God doth know, so shall the world perceive, that I have turn'd away from my former self; So will I those that kept me company.

PC Load Letter?

I can't sleep. too much coffee.

My life feels really weird right now. Maybe it was the three raccoons that sneaked (not snuck) into our living room tonight. One got treed on the ledge above our sliding glass door. My roommate had to knock it off with a broom.

Dang raccoons!

Here's the dominant question of my life right now: who the fuck am I?

I've just joined a club that I'm not sure I want to be a part of. It's called social science. Am I really a scientist? Well, no, but none of us newbies are yet. But do I want to be a scientist?

I don't know!

I'm acting as if I do. I'm passing. Every attempt I've made to figure out what I really want has failed. And figuring out what I want is tantamount to figuring out who I am. What do I really want to do? Well, a lot of different things (you'll recognize this theme from previous posts). Mostly I want to do nothing.

A quote from one of the great Zeitgeist-capturing movies of all time, Office Space.

"What would I do if I had a million dollars? Nothing. I would do nothing. I would sit on my ass, all day...I would do nothing."

At heart, I'm fucking lazy, and that's the way it is. I don't exactly want to do nothing. I just want to do a few different things a little bit. I like listening to the news, reading the paper, chatting on the internet, playing music, writing songs, reading books, watching movies, cooking, eating, drinking booze, hanging with friends, playing board games, working with kids...occasionally doing some sort of exercise or activity, like going to plays or farmer's markets or rock shows.

I also have some ethical impulses: I'd like the world to be better, safer, more just, possessed of less suffering, more sustainable. So one of the few things I want to do a little bit is to do some work toward those goals (volunteering in some capacity I guess).

So, what the hell am I doing this PhD for? I don't want to be a great scientist, making academic breakthroughs! You have to work too damn hard for that. I just want an interesting job that gives me a lot of flexibility, autonomy, free time, and a lower middle class salary.

Academia is soooo weird. It's exactly like The Glass Bead Game (novel by Herman Hesse). In the Glass Bead Game, the highest achievement in the culture of this mythical place is the Glass Bead Game, and the main character, Magister Ludie, spends his life mastering it, only to die when he tries to re-enter the real world.

Most of the classical disciplines explicitly don't care AT ALL about the practical implications of their work. They exist entirely to talk to the tiny world consisting of others in their field, and they're very up front about that. It's a self-perpetuating game of mutual masturbation. Thankfully, my field, public policy, is somewhat more interested in making an impact on the world, but I'm still learning how and to what extent. Even though I know I'm a nerd and even though I DO indeed get interested in pointless theoretical issues, I don't know if I'd be compelled for a lifetime in figuring out how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

I'm babbling. I need to bring these thoughts together into some coherence.

Ok, here goes. I came to academia because I thought it would be a better fit than a 9-5. I guess I'm worried I might have been wrong. Maybe there's a 9-5 out there that I would really enjoy and that would not consume my life. Or that, maybe there's a third way. Like, part time work combined with food stamps and public housing or something like that. Is that crazy? People do that stuff, you know.

Here's another way to put it: I know that this experience is going to change me if I let it. Eventually, being in academia will come to constitute my identity. I will come to see myself as part of that club, and at least part of my present identity will slowly erode away. I guess I'm worried that academia will consume my life and that I'll end up a boring, joyless, masturbatory social scientist who enjoys neither his life, nor his work, nor has any impact on the world. I mean, I see my teachers, and I ask myself, do I want to be them? For the most part, the answer is no. They don't seem to really have any personalities outside of their interest in their fields. I don't want that! I want to have a life outside of my work. I know that I must pay a price for that...the price being that I won't be at the top of the heap. I'll make less money, have less prestige, etc. I'm very willing to make that trade, if it's available.

Long and rambling...sorry, dear readers.