Month: November 2008

BRAINZ!… Zombie Movies and War, An Odd Correlation

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I have to admit, when I first read the post “War and Social Upheaval Causes Spikes in Zombie Movie Production” , I was a bit skeptical about the conclusion that was drawn dealing with the correlation between war and the number of zombie movies produced in a given year. So I collected data and ran a model. As it turns out, there is a statistically significant relationship between the number of zombie movies produced and whether a war was fought within a two year time period.  More after the jump…

Graduate Students do not face Grues

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…but they do face dissertations.  Orgtheory provides a link to Violet – an award winning text based adventure of a graduate student attempting to finish 1,000 words on his dissertation. Make sure you write! Bonus: MC Frontalot on the dangers of Grues and text based adventures. Edit: The game was quite the procrastination tool and had a nice payoff – and  I may have to go back for some of the easter eggs.

Trade Diversion is up for an award, needs your vote.

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Jonathan Dingel (www.tradediversion.net) is up for a substantial scholarship for blogging and, apparently, is the only economics-based blog up for the scholarship.  Given that there are also no other quantitative political science or formal theory blogs available (there are plenty of normative politics blogs, though) and his posts are actually useful academically, I encourage you to give him your vote as well.  Vote here. View the finalist list of 20. He has a bit of work to do since he is about 1,000 votes behind a baseball blog about the Seattle Mariners.  I would encourage other like-minded blogs to also Continue reading Trade Diversion is up for an award, needs your vote.→

Coffee, Ice Cream, and Democratic Duty

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This November 4th voters will be consuming more than just "democratic duty". They will also be able to receive free coffee from Starbucks and free ice cream from Ben & Jerry's. Starbucks Ben & Jerry's   These promotions could have an effect on voter turnout this year and perhaps even in subsequent years. For this year, people who otherwise would not want to vote this upcoming Tuesday might do so if they want free coffee or ice cream (or they may at least lie about voting to get the free products). As per boosting future voter turnout, getting people together in a Continue reading Coffee, Ice Cream, and Democratic Duty→