Month: March 2008

The “Monty Hall Problem” explained on video

From my long-time/college friend Chris comes this video that explains the “Monty Hall Problem:”

Now, just to give you an idea about what kind of geek, arguer, and non-science/non-math kind of guy I was: I recall having long and even heated arguments about this topic among the seven other similarly inspired geeky folks I lived with on Davenport in Iowa City as an undergrad. And I even remember this carrying on into my MFA program. One night, a friend of mine and I tried to test this theory in the only way a couple English/creative writing types could have managed: we acted it in little table-top game of “Let’s Make a Deal,” playing it out 100 times. And damned if switching didn’t win 66 times.

Ah, memories.

“The Last Calligraphers”

While surfing about this morning, I came across a promo for a film called “The Last Calligraphers,” which is coming out this summer and which is a documentary about the only newspaper in Asia (maybe the world, I don’t know) written by hand. It’s been running since 1927. They do ultimately convert what they write into plates and print it, but the way that they “get it down” is kind of cool.

Rubber Room on “This American Life”

Yesterday, I heard a pretty interesting story on the public radio show “This American Life.” The overall theme of the show was called “Human Resources,” and it will be available at this link (I think?) starting on Monday. The lead story was “The Rubber Room.”

The rubber room is essentially a holding facility for teachers in the New York City school system who have been suspended for something and are awaiting some kind of hearing and/or reassignment. Basically, these people have to show up to this place and do nothing (well, they can play cards, sleep, chat, etc.) for seven hours a day and get paid for it. On face-value, this might seem like some kind of scam. But as the story suggests, it is far from a happy-go-lucky kind of arrangement. Interesting stuff.

They are trying to make a documentary movie about this, and there’s a web site called RubberRoomMovie.com where you can view a trailer, learn more about the whole set-up, etc.

Turnitin’s less than cool tactics (and another reason to read those notes sent home from school)

From the blog Framed comes this entry, “Don’t Turnitin: Annotated Bibliography:”

Late last year, the company (Turnitin) attempted to induce high school students–minors, mostly–to assent to a new and draconian user agreement by clicking through a document that appeared when one logged in to Turnitin. Turnitin attempted to induce students to agree to its terms without even notifying the school district or the parents of children in the school. This step caused the school to temporarily suspend the service.

Now, however, the school has sent home a form for parents to sign authorizing their children to click through and assent to the Turnitin contract. Unfortunately, the school did not tell parents anything about the content of the agreement they were supposed to authorize their children to assent to.

The blogger in question, James Trumm, also includes a handy bibliography that sums up the problems of Turnitin. But these tactics are pretty dang low if you ask me.