Links ...

Dan Ariely on the psychology of financial risk taking [short video].

Sandra Aamodt and Sam Wang on will power:

In psychological studies, even something as simple as using your nondominant hand to brush your teeth for two weeks can increase willpower capacity. People who stick to an exercise program for two months report reducing their impulsive spending, junk food intake, alcohol use and smoking. They also study more, watch less television and do more housework. Other forms of willpower training, like money-management classes, work as well.

John Derbyshire's profile of Leonhard Euler and his mathematics

It was in this period of the later 1730s that he produced some of his ­best-­known work. In 1736, for example, he published a famous paper solving the problem of the bridges of Königsberg (see opposite page). The central part of that Prussian city (now Russian and called Kaliningrad) was on a large island, where two branches of the Pregel River diverged. Seven bridges connected the city’s various parts, and there was much speculation by the citizens as to whether one could make a complete tour of the town and return to the starting point, crossing each of the seven bridges exactly once. Euler proved that this could not be done. His paper, in which he developed a formula for determining the number and layout of different routes from one point to another, is regarded as the beginning of modern graph theory, a major branch of mathematics critical to the design of modern networks and ­circuits.

And a bit later:

The famous Euler equation eiπ+1=0 manages to establish a correlation among five of the most important numbers (0, 1, i, e, and ­π—­the last three all owe their symbols to Euler!) as well as among three key operations (addition, multiplication, and exponentiation).

The last two links come via Tyler Cowen, who also links to a post with lots of artistic barcodes.

How about some funky ideas for toilet paper?

Journal of Toxic Workplaces

Topic the month: Academic Departments. Over to Brian Leiter:

... [S]tudents are well-advised to talk to current students at the programs they are considering. There are often things you will want to know that you won't glean from familiarity with the excellence of the faculty's work, even if that remains the most important, if defeasible, reason for choosing a particular department. Here are some examples of information that no ranking, no departmental brochure, and no "official" departmental representive will tell you about; all of these are drawn from stories I've heard from students over the last few years about ranked departments (the departments will remain unnamed, obviously). You can think of them as representing "types" of problems you should be aware of before enrolling. I've tweaked some of the details to protect identities.

While Leiter's post is largely about philosophy departments, I'm sure the kinds of shady practices he describes are field-agnostic.

* * *

Around this time last year, I had an opportunity to tell potential grad students to avoid choosing jerks and assholes as their advisors. Leiter's post takes a broader look at dysfunctional departments. In both cases, it's important to be armed with as much information as possible, so use all the resources at your command. If possible (unlikely, for foreign students), visit the departments that have accepted you before choosing the place that will be your home for five years or more. In any event, make sure that you talk to students who are already studying there through e-mail, chat and online forums.

All this is pretty common-sense advice, but it's useful to have it spelled out.

* * *

Thanks to Kieran for the pointer.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr

Towards the end of what turned out to be his last public speech on 3 April 1968 (he was assassinated the following day), Dr. King recounts an incident from his life, and follows it up with some stirring rhetoric that takes the listener through the major milestones in the Civil Rights Movement:

You know, several years ago, I was in New York City autographing the first book that I had written. And while sitting there autographing books, a demented black woman came up. The only question I heard from her was, "Are you Martin Luther King?" And I was looking down writing, and I said, "Yes." And the next minute I felt something beating on my chest. Before I knew it I had been stabbed by this demented woman. I was rushed to Harlem Hospital. It was a dark Saturday afternoon. And that blade had gone through, and the X-rays revealed that the tip of the blade was on the edge of my aorta, the main artery. And once that's punctured, your drowned in your own blood -- that's the end of you.

It came out in the New York Times the next morning, that if I had merely sneezed, I would have died. Well, about four days later, they allowed me, after the operation, after my chest had been opened, and the blade had been taken out, to move around in the wheel chair in the hospital. They allowed me to read some of the mail that came in, and from all over the states and the world, kind letters came in. I read a few, but one of them I will never forget. I had received one from the President and the Vice-President. I've forgotten what those telegrams said. I'd received a visit and a letter from the Governor of New York, but I've forgotten what that letter said. But there was another letter that came from a little girl, a young girl who was a student at the White Plains High School. And I looked at that letter, and I'll never forget it. It said simply,

Dear Dr. King,

I am a ninth-grade student at the White Plains High School."

And she said,

While it should not matter, I would like to mention that I'm a white girl. I read in the paper of your misfortune, and of your suffering. And I read that if you had sneezed, you would have died. And I'm simply writing you to say that I'm so happy that you didn't sneeze.

And I want to say tonight -- I want to say tonight that I too am happy that I didn't sneeze. Because if I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been around here in 1960, when students all over the South started sitting-in at lunch counters. And I knew that as they were sitting in, they were really standing up for the best in the American dream, and taking the whole nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the Founding Fathers in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been around here in 1961, when we decided to take a ride for freedom and ended segregation in inter-state travel.

If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been around here in 1962, when Negroes in Albany, Georgia, decided to straighten their backs up. And whenever men and women straighten their backs up, they are going somewhere, because a man can't ride your back unless it is bent.

If I had sneezed -- If I had sneezed I wouldn't have been here in 1963, when the black people of Birmingham, Alabama, aroused the conscience of this nation, and brought into being the Civil Rights Bill.

If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have had a chance later that year, in August, to try to tell America about a dream that I had had.

If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been down in Selma, Alabama, to see the great Movement there.

If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been in Memphis to see a community rally around those brothers and sisters who are suffering.

I'm so happy that I didn't sneeze.

Powerful stuff. The page I linked to also has the audio of the entire speech; it also has a video of the last couple of minutes of his speech:

Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop.

And I don't mind.

Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!

And so I'm happy, tonight.

I'm not worried about anything.

I'm not fearing any man!

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!!

Bribing the professor ...

I have been following scholarly shenanigans -- mostly research misconduct: plagiarism, falsification, fabrication -- fairly extensively on this blog; occasionally, I have also linked to stories about professors who have been assholes. But, I have to admit that this is a new low:

A professor of law at Leibniz University, in Hannover, Germany, has been sentenced to three years in jail for taking bribes from students he accepted as doctoral candidates, the German news agency Deutsche Welle reported.

Quote of the day

Harnack Principle: The Professor comes right next to god. It does, however, not indicate the direction implied by "next", i.e., whether god comes first or the Professor.

Found in this post by Schlupp, discussing the status of assistant professors in Germany and the US. The post has some interesting comparisons, and it follows up on Ponderer's post on assistant professorial worries about how to spend the start-up grant.

After Shashi Tharoor, it's the turn of ET editorial staff

... to push the idea that private colleges/universities are also businesses. In an editorial today on the IIT fee hike, they say this:

Agreed, one cannot compare publicly-funded institutions of higher education with those in the private sector where profit is the main motive

As I said in my rant about Shashi Tharoor's clueless assertions, the land of apple pie and private enterprise may have a few for-profit institutions; but can ET editorialists name a single institution among the top 50 private colleges and universities in the US that are for-profit businesses? In India too, there are tons of private colleges; in fact, a huge fraction -- over 75 percent, by some estimates -- of students in engineering, management and other professional courses study in private institutions. For all practical purposes, many of these institutions are like profit-oriented businesses: they charge exorbitant fees (bribes, really, since no receipt is issued), with electronics engineering attracting a higher 'price' than, say, civil engineering. Legally speaking, though, they are run by non-profit trusts, and the perception that they are businesses is primarily because many of them flout Indian laws with impunity.

There's a lot of blame to go around, and a lot of people -- college 'promoters' and administrators, politicians, regulators, accreditation bodies -- are in this shameful game.

On the other hand, there are also many private institutions that play by the rulebook, and have earned a reputation for quality education. I can cite Chennai's SSN College of Engineering as an example; given the philanthropic backing it has from the HCL Group's founders, I see a great future for this place. ET editorialists insult such fine institutions by claiming that profits are the main motive for private institutions. They want us to ignore the highly desirable outcomes -- Harvard! Stanford! -- that arise when private education is backed by philanthropy, and try to sell to us the snake oil of for-profit higher education.

Of course, ET people may have an agenda: drum up support for for-profit educational institutions. I have just two observations:

1. For-profit institutions may have a place in higher education, but India's own experience with illegal businesses disguised as colleges (and that of the US with legal entities) should caution us: they are not the solution -- at the least, they are not the only solution -- for the problem of lack of quality higher education for India's youngsters.
2. In the area of professional courses (engineering and management, primarily), where private colleges account for a vast majority of graduates, it is still the case that a student has a far higher probability of receiving a decent education in publicly funded colleges (even with all their other problems) or in private colleges with a philanthropic backing than in private colleges that are run as illegal businesses.

Let me end with my request to ET editorial staff: Stop this nonsense, particularly if you wish to avoid gaining Shashi Tharoor's reputation for cluelessness.

Fee hike at the IIMs

CNN-IBN had a show yesterday on the fee hike at the IIMs -- and IIM-A, in particular. Since gains from higher ed -- particularly the kind that leads typically, to jobs with astronomical salaries -- are largely private, I'm generally sympathetic to the idea that students pay for their college education. Still I can't help feeling that IIM-A has decided to go for the kill, with annual fee in the range of 5.5 to 6 lakhs (US $ 14,000 to 15,000 at the present exchange rates). It appears to have decided that students in its flagship program will fund all its activities (infrastructure, faculty salaries, research grants, research students, the works).

The CNN-IBN show's panel featured Premchand Palety, Director of Centre for Forecasting and Research, who started with the following objection.

I oppose this hike simply because it is not transparent. We don’t know why they need the money and we don’t know where they will spend it.

This points to the failure of IIM-A administration to explain the need for such a huge fee hike; as a public institution, it cannot shirk this duty -- a report or white paper would be a good place to start.

Rashmi Bansal, an IIM-A alumna, tried her best to defend her alma mater. The main question, for her, appeared to be this: why are we arguing for a subsidy for a bunch of folks who are going to earn tons of money? To which Palety offered this counter: What if the MBA graduate wishes to be an entrepreneur? What if he/she joins an NGO where the salaries are far lower? [I would add a third group of (possibly a small number of) students who join the course, but are unable to complete it (for any reason); these students wouldn't have a degree, and would have spent serious amounts of money in the process.]

There was quite a bit of discussion about affordability; the new fee structure is bad news for even middle class families -- leave alone poor ones. A partial answer to this problem, of course, is either scholarships or soft loans (most likely it's the latter). Rashmi did offer this as a defence, but it's a weak one at best. T.T. Ram Mohan, Professor of Accounting at IIM-A, shows that his institution's current plan would still leave its beneficiaries with a hefty financial burden. Also, Reality Check has some telling counter-arguments to the plan proposed by IIM-A:

... Words like “eligible”, “need-based”, “family limit”, “deserving student” - are evil, no matter how well intentioned they are. They act as barriers and only encourage groups which are confident of negotiating them. ... The whole “no deserving student left behind for economic reasons” argument holds no water. ... There is a risk of making the whole program unapproachable due to perception of cost and nervousness with the proposed aid system. “What if they reject my financial application on some flimsy grounds ? What if the loan officer does not like my looks, caste, religion, whatever ? My dad earns 7 lakhs, but is in deep debt, can I pull off the aid ? Is this “IIM” thing for rich kids, like Manipal, I do not know if I should try out ? What if by chance my aid gets rejected, I dont have a backup plan ?

RC goes on to demand a system of "guaranteed financial aid" that is "automatic for those who apply." I agree. I find the Australian scheme of funding college education very persuasive: it has a lot going for it for everyone -- the government and the students with great careers; and, it doesn't punish or burden those who end up in jobs that do not pay a lot.

Coming back to the CNN-IBN show, its anchor ended it with the following editorial statement, which is admirably blunt:

A hike is warranted in the fees for IITs and IIMs. The reasons for IIM-A’s phenomenal hike though seem unconvincing. Recovering costs and retaining talent don't tell the full story. Many questions remain unanswered. The promise to increase scholarships can't be a reason to charge more; nor can the availability of finance. IIM-A needs to communicate its reasons more transparently. The bottom line is, for a public institution to charge more simply because it can, is vulgar. The country's leading management institution needs to be clean and transparent. [Emphasis added]

* * *

Let me end this rather grim post with something light: IIT/IIM dating site [caution: it's an April Fool prank, but a good one]

WTF: Pallavi Aiyar edition

We must call a foul on Pallavi Aiyar and N. Ram for peddling this garbage:

... for Beijing to appear ‘soft’ on the Dalai Lama would be as politically unpalatable domestically as it would be in the United States were Washington to decide to engage in dialogue with Osama bin Laden.

To reiterate, this odious comparison in Aiyar's op-ed [1] didn't come from anyone in Chinese government; it didn't come from the Chinese elites; it didn't come from Chinese citizenry; heck, it's not even a direct quote from one of the poorly-informed, angry, foul-tempered, trigger-happy Chinese "netizens" (of whom, apparently, there are many, and Aiyar tells us that they tend to be poorly informed about their country's history). No, that piece of filth is an opinion from Pallavi Aiyar, and the Hindu's Chief Editor N. Ram not only chose to publish it, but also used it in the op-ed's abstract.

Pallavi Aiyar and N. Ram are a disgrace to their profession.

* * *

[1] The rest of Aiyar's op-ed is actually a calmly argued piece that attempts to give us a sense of how the Chinese people view the ongoing protests in Tibet, and about how justified they are in their hostility towards the Tibetan cause. I have no idea about how faithful a messenger Aiyar is in conveying the Chinese people's opinions; given the above quote, I would tend to discount everything coming from Aiyar's pen.

All about stereotype threat

Do read this fantastic article on stereotype threat in the latest issue of Scientific American. It covers a lot of ground: both steretype threat and stereotype lift, cognitive load (as an explanation for the former) and social identity theory (as an explanation of both), and some of the ways of diminishing the nasty effects of stereotype threat (avoidance, deflection, protest). As I said, a fantastic article. Here's an excerpt from the final section:

The first is to adopt a strategy of “social mobility,” which involves individual-level activities that serve to downplay the impact of the group on the self. In effect, this is the kind of strategy that Beilock and her colleagues recommend when they encourage participants to work hard to learn solutions to problems by rote so they will no longer be handicapped by stereotype threat. The limitation of this solution is that it protects the individual by working around the problem but, in the process, leaves the problem itself unresolved. As two of us (Haslam and Reicher) note in a 2006 article in the Journal of Applied Psychology, such activities thus involve attempting to cope with the stress of threats to self through a strategy of personal avoidance. This approach may be cognitively sophisticated but politically naive.

A second strategy is one of “social creativity,” which invokes different in-group stereotypes that deflect the impact of belonging to a disadvantaged group. Traditionally, researchers and laypeople alike have tended to think of stereotypes as fixed and invariant representations of social groups that are impervious to change. In fact, however, the large body of evidence reviewed in the mid-1990s by Penelope Oakes and her fellow social identity researchers at the Australian National University suggests that stereotypes—of both ourselves and others—are inherently flexible.

For example, the degree to which psychology students think of themselves as “scientific” or “artistic” has been shown to vary considerably depending on whether they compare themselves with drama students or with physical scientists. In comparison with physical scientists they are more inclined to stereotype themselves as artistic, but in comparison with people who work in the theater they are more inclined to stereotype themselves as scientific. Psychology students should experience stereotype threat if they are asked to perform a scientific task when compared with physicists or an artistic task when compared with artists, but they should experience stereotype lift if asked to perform an artistic task when compared with physicists or a scientific task when compared with artists.

Leaders and other agents of change are thus able to promote changes to in-group stereotypes by altering the dimensions of comparison, the comparative frame of reference or the meaning of particular attributes. There is a sense, however, in which these strategies of social creativity still work within a prevailing consensus rather than doing anything directly to change features of the social world that give rise to a group’s stigmatization and disadvantage. In this respect, they can still be seen as strategies of threat denial rather than threat removal.

A third alternative, then, is to advocate group-based opposition to the status quo through a strategy of social competition that involves engaging in active resistance. Here group members work together to challenge the legitimacy of the conditions (and associated stereotypes) that define them as inferior—trying to change the world that oppresses them rather than their reactions to the existing world. They work to counter the stereotypes that are tools of their repression with stereotypes that are tools of emancipation. This strategy was precisely what activists such as Steve Biko and Emmeline Pankhurst achieved through black consciousness and feminism, respectively. They challenged the legitimacy of those comparisons and stereotypes that defined their groups as inferior and replaced them with expressions of group pride. They were (as one supporter said of Pankhurst) “self-dedicated reshaper[s]of the world.” And the more their opponents invoked stereotypes against them, the more they acted collectively to contradict those stereotypes and reveal their claims to legitimacy as a lie.

To quote from the evidence that Biko gave at his trial in South Africa in 1976: “The basic tenet of black consciousness is that the black man must reject all value systems that seek to make him a foreigner in the country of his birth and reduce his basic human dignity.”

* * *

Update: Here's one more possible intervention that can help students in vulnerable groups: Test Scores Go Up with Best Friends of Different Race. Link via Swarup.

Three links ...

Let me start with the one with the most striking insights: Drake Bennett's The Sting of Poverty: "What bees and dented cars can teach about what it means to be poor - and the flaws of economics."

Martha Nussbaum on mean-spirited prostitution laws: "these are laws that never should have existed."

In Admission Impossible (which also doubles up as a review of a bunch of books), Keith Gessen discusses the brutal competition for admission into America's elite schools, and the kinds of things people are willing to do (including a serious con job!).

Bonus link: Provoked in part by Gessen's essay, Kathy G has an extended commentary on inequality in the US.

Christian gene?

This video is absolutely fantastic. Onion now has competition -- from Australia. Isn't that great news?

Thanks to Mind Hacks for the link, and to Guru for sharing it on Google Reader.

"Regrettable but unfortunately very necessary"

This stuff about Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky is wickedly funny [don't click through if pornographic language offends you].

"This trial is not about sex, it's about perjury," Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS) said. "Our job is to determine whether or not the president lied under oath. Although the Starr Report contained many detailed descriptions, until we see for ourselves, with our own eyes, exactly what took place during these secret rendezvous between the president and Miss Lewinsky, we won't have all the facts necessary to determine if the president's statements before the grand jury constituted a crime."

* * *

Check out this site, a dating service -- "Matrimony is not our motive!" -- for IIT and IIM graduates. Since it so fits this post's title (and since I find the whole thing almost as funny as the Onion story), I have decided to include it here. Everything there, though, sounds like an April Fools' Day prank [Update: It is an AFD prank, and the link is dead.]. Anyways, here's the site's raison d'être, according to its founders:

... [A]fter noticing that many of our friends at IIT have trouble meeting people they like. The reasons are many. The main reason however is that there is never an opportunity to meet women. In IIT we were busy with academics and there were so few girls in IIT and after IIT, we worked so hard that we never had the time nor opportunity. When we spoke to friends about this issue, we realised that most IIT / IIM graduates have this problem, even the girls. So we thought we’ll create an opportunity to meet people. And so Timedin.com was born. [Emphasis added]

What's in it for the non-IITians? The website's founders have thought about that too!

We looked around and realised that the number of IIT / IIM graduates who are not married are very small. And the number of people who might be interested in meeting such graduates is very large. So, to maintain a healthy balance of interesting people in the group, we’ve restricted entry for non IIT IIM members to be on invitation only! Once in the members area, you can invite friends to join the community.

Sharing through Google Reader ...

Do you use Google Reader for reading blogs and newspapers? If so, you have probably experienced its "Friends' Shared Items", a nifty little feature that could be the starting point for converting Reader -- or its variant -- into a social networking site. By sharing some interesting stuff, you allow it to be seen by those on your network; you can also exercise some fine-grained control over who gets to see what; see here and here for more details.

The best thing is this: sharing on Reader doesn't require you to send e-mails, or to use social bookmarking sites or Facebook; just one click that says "share this item." Easy, no?

This is a wonderful way to spread great ideas -- blog posts, news stories, longer articles, just plain memes. I have found some very interesting stuff through this feature, and I think it's fantastic. Today, for example, a friend shared this PhD Comics strip which deserves to travel far simply because it gives PhD advisers everywhere some ideas about how to torment their students ;-)

Do you use Google Reader? If so, do please turn this feature on, and start sharing some links; when you do so, please include me in your network of friends ...

Everyday, the internets teach me ...

... something new:

In 1969, Princeton University first admitted women as undergraduates.

The man who was Princeton's president at that time died yesterday. It's from the NYTimes obit that I learned about Princeton going co-ed so late.

Exercise ...

Many, many years ago, Ramesh Mahadevan became very popular among newbie grad students -- us! -- with statements like this: "if golf is a sport, I would argue that watching TV is, too." And proceeded to initiate us into the charms of American football -- through TV.

Who would have thought a day would come when NYTimes asks -- and answers -- questions like these: "Is singing exercise? Could I lose weight by vocalizing?"

In the Science section, there's also an article on psychology of pranks.

On this wonderful day, I have to leave you with a mystery link ...