The Quantitative Peace

Political Science Entertainment Night

Tonight, a few of us are going to gather to participate in a movie and game night.  The goal of which is to be entertained by both while also having it relate to what we study in political science.

Tonight's Agenda:

The movie for tonight is the classic The Princess Bride. The inspiration for having this headline our debut entertainment night is two-fold 1) we found someone in the department who has not seen the film 2) the game theoretic moments in the film are enjoyable and have been widely recognized:

Going against a Sicilian with death on the line
Strategy against the Sicilian (Assuming a fair game)

Beyond the battle of wits, there is bluffing (to the pain!) and other elements that I should have links for.

The Game of the Night - Settlers of Catan. From boardgamegeek.com:

In Settlers of Catan, players try to be the dominant force on the island of Catan by building settlements, cities, and roads. On each turn dice are rolled to determine what resources the island produces. Players collect these resources to build up their civilizations to get to 10 victory points and win the game. Multi-award-winning and one of the most popular games in recent history due to its amazing ability to appeal to non-gamers and gamers alike.

Wikipedia is a bit more specific on player interaction:

There is no combat. Players may harm each other by moving the robber, refusing to trade, cutting off building routes, taking the "longest road" and "largest army" cards, and using certain development cards. The layout of the board and restrictions on building allow for a player to be boxed in through poor play or bad luck. Also, given the random component of the board layout, it is possible for a player to gain a monopoly on a certain resource, then demand steep trade rates from the other players. Home games generally take between one and two hours to complete.

 

Two useful blog posts for connecting in the discipline.

Two extremely useful posts went up while I was at MWPSA and are worth re-blogging.  While I am not sure if my readership is radically different than either site, it is still useful to spread the word.

First, the Monkey Cage posted an update to their blogroll that I will soon copy.  It now includes all active political science bloggers that they could find.  Of course, if you are missing from the list, let them know.

Second, Chris Albon at War and Health compiled a list of "35 global health, foreign affairs, and international security scholars, researchers, and experts active on Twitter".  Every twitter link includes a small description of the individual and their field(s) of interest and/or occupation.  Chris aptly argues: "If blogs post are the ‘conference papers’ of the internet, then Twitter is the small-talk between sessions."

Thanks to both blogs for compiling these immensely useful lists.

MWPSA Paper

I will be flying for Chicago early Wednesday morning for the Midwest Political Science Association Conference.  This is my first co-authored paper with Julie (another contributor to his blog) and we will present the following paper Thursday morning:

The contemporary rise to infamy of Blackwater Worldwide and the private corporation's misdeeds in the Iraq War has historical precedents. That is, it is not unheard of for a state to employ non-state actors to carry out traditional state activities such as the use of force - something the modern
state is supposed to have a monopoly over. In this paper, we build a game theoretic model that determines the prospects for using non-state actors in combat on behalf of the state. From this model, we hypothesize that despite the risk of agency loss by these private combatants, certain
conditions increases the likelihood of their use. Specifically, autocratic polities are predicted to have a positive influence on the employment of non-state combatants while their democratic peers will prefer to abstain from such activities. We test these hypotheses using a censored probit model for all bilateral wars from 1816-2002.

For many, I will be seeing you at the conference.  Feedback on the paper is welcomed.

Reagan meets Putin- Post your Captions

Who would have thought? When Reagan visited the Soviet Union in 1988, he would end up meeting the future President of Russia, Putin, and the world would have a picture to remember the occasion! Unfortunately we do not know what they were saying or thinking at the time. But we can pretend we do. What do you think the caption to this picture should be?

Let me start...

Putin: "I parted my hair to the right today. I hope he gets the signal. You're my hero Mr. President!"

Data and Blogging

Ah Friday, a great day to do final edits on my and Julie's paper for Midwest - also a good time for a quick blog post with a somewhat misleading title as the two subjects refer to two seperate links.

First, via Freakonomics, is a competition for the Fraser Institute to have them collect data.  You write up the brief that suggests what they collect and, if you are in the top 6 suggestions, they pay you.  Time to go through my bin of thoughts that usually begins with "If we had data for..." and ends with "we could then test that theory!"

Also, I recently added Cali Ellis' Pax Bellona to my daily reading list.  Cali's introductory post provides a link to another Professor's blog (in Computer Information Technology) that gives advice to his potential graduate students advisees.  Suggestion number one is:

You must get, have, maintain a blog with at least weekly posts and preferably more. I could care less   about Web 2.0 but I do care about your writing and more importantly your thinking. Besides we have some neat projects we can do that way. (Emphasis original)

While much of the rest of the advice is field and advisor specific, I do appreciate seeing that thought echoed and verify the utility of blogging for professional developmental reasons.  Part of the introductory post for the Monkey Cage over a year ago offered a similar thought (see reason #3). 

So, if anything, I need to post more.

A simple math problem...

A Simple Math Problem.  I may have to save this example (or another in a similar form) as a general probability calculation question.   I imagine a certain class of statisticians would find this easier than a second type.

Happy belated Pi and Square Root Day.

March this year hosted two mathematics-related holidays that now have passed us and March will not contain both of these days for a century (2109 will be the next lucky March, set your calendars!). 

The first holiday in March was Square Root Day celebrated on March 3rd.  For those of you who have missed an opportunity to celebrate this joyous occasion will have to wait another 7 years for 4.4.16 to grace us once again.

March 14 (3.14), as many more people are aware of, was Pi Day.  The Daily Kos reports that Congress passed a non-binding resolution on Thursday recognizing Pi Day as such.  Murtha (Representing Democrat from PA), hopefully jokingly, admits that he thought he was voting for Pie day.  The vote was 391-10 in favor of the resolution.

Gratuitous Blog Post for a XKCD link

Just got out of a bayesian stats workshop and saw this:

I am sure I will see it a few more times as I go down my blogroll for the day...

Edit: Looks like one blog on the list beat me to it.

An Additional Benefit of Rapid Delivery

My teaching style, as well as my presentation style, is marked by a relatively rapid delivery.  I had favored such a style quite awhile ago for many public speaking formats as the general perception of the speaker by the audience is favorable (generally heighten perceptions of intelligence and mastery of the material). 

However, now I can justify such approaches beyond my own perceived benefit and claim that I am doing my audience a favor.  That is, those who engage the presented material will tend to be happier thanks to my public service:

In six experiments, researchers at Princeton and Harvard universities made research participants think quickly by having them generate as many problem-solving ideas (even bad ones) as possible in 10 minutes, read a series of ideas on a computer screen at a brisk pace or watch an I Love Lucy video clip on fast-forward. Other participants performed similar tasks at a relaxed speed.

Results suggested that thinking fast made participants feel more elated, creative and, to a lesser degree, energetic and powerful. Activities that promote fast thinking, then, such as whip­ping through an easy crossword puzzle or brain-storming quickly about an idea, can boost energy and mood, says psychologist Emily Pronin, the study’s lead author.

Drinks with Bloggers at ISA

I, unfortunately, will be leaving ISA and NYC this morning and will be missing a bloggers get together of sorts tonight.  However, for those of you here at ISA and reading blogs instead of attending panels, this gathering may be of interest.