- When radiation isn’t the real risk. Hospital patients were evacuated after the nuclear accident at Fukushima to protect them from radiation. The evacuation led to 1600 deaths, but the radiation would have led to none. An interesting article on decision-making under uncertainty.
- The dad who wrote the check using “Common Core” math doesn’t know what he is talking about. Different isn’t always worse.
- Tallys Yunes has a model for building the best fantasy football team using optimization.
- Selfies are killing more people than shark attacks. And yet I’m not replacing “being eaten by a shark” with “taking a selfie” on my list of irrational fears.
- The unwritten rules of college. One educator argues that giving “transparent” assignments with clear rationales and grading criteria can make a significant impact in student performance, confidence, and retention. I can’t disagree.
- K12 schools are continuing to overlook introverts
- A PNAS study finds that women are just as ambitious as men but weigh the potential downsides of promotion more. This may result in a gender gap in promotions. Why is this the case that women focus on the negative? Maybe because men in general tend to take more risks and exhibit overconfidence and underestimate the negative. Interesting stuff.
September 28, 2015
Punk Rock Operations Research 
September 29th, 2015 at 1:40 pm
FYI, the Chronicle article is behind a paywall.
‘And yet I’m not replacing “being eaten by a shark” with “taking a selfie” on my list of irrational fears.’ Being eaten by a shark (in Wisconsin!) is a legitimately irrational fear. Fear of selfies, however, is entirely rational, for all sorts of reasons.