The Problem of Bad Articles

The following Tweet complains about a very common problem. An article looks suspicious, yet it attracts countless citations. It’s hard to believe, perhaps, but even retracted articles get cited, sometimes hundreds of times. The citing scientist might be at fault–not assessing the article clearly enough, not looking for reviews, etc.–but I believe the bigger problem…
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Home Schooling Update 1

Continuing my last post, here are some updates (9.22) School resumed, online, which greatly limited our progress. In some ways, school is for the time being less education and more entertainment. We now have roughly 40 minutes per kid for education + 20 minutes to practice reading Hebrew in the afternoon. In the 40 minutes,…
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Papers That Make You Think

A collection of papers that I found to be literally thought-provoking: making you think new thoughts. To be sure: Making you think is decidedly not the same as an agreement with the substance, and sometimes the correlation goes the other way. But either way, here are papers (I thought were) worth reading. Joshua M. Silverstein,…
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Algorithmic Judgments

Should judges be permitted to auto-generate legal opinions? We are sort-of-near a reality where judges can input the briefs to the model which will spit out a judgment. Is it ethical to do it? I’m not talking about the model generating the outcome; decision-assisting algos are important &problematic. I’m talking about the exposition, the billions…
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Home Schooling Notes

During the COVID pandemic, I finally had time and opportunity to sit and develop a curriculum for the twins (who are 6 now). Bryan Caplan wrote a few blog posts once on home-schooling and I found his success inspirational. So in the same spirit, here are some notes from my own experience, maybe they will…
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Vokes v. Murray: The Advertisements

Here you will find a collection of some advertisements for the Arthur Murray Dance Lessons. I must warn you, however, that if you lack in grace and poise, this may not be a good investment of your time. Times-Picayune (published as THE TIMES-PICAYUNE.) (New Orleans, Louisiana)November 11, 1952

Payday — Article Companion

The following is a playlist for the article Payday. It is meant to set a certain mood and correspond with several themes developed in the paper. Playlist (Youtube) (New suggestions welcome!) http://www.youtubeplaylist.org:80/play/p/MDAwMDIyNDAw (old playlist, more additions below) Sixteen Tons – Tennessee Ernie Ford “In Spite of Ourselves” – The Rank Strangers BIG ROCK CANDY MOUNTAINS…
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Theory of the Nudnik

This blog post is a companion to work with Roy Shapira of the IDC on nudniks. The article is posted here: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3501175 We solicit more examples of nudniks! If you encounter them, please send them to yarbel@law.ua.edu or roy.shapira@idc.ac.il Nassim Taleb on Tesla: An angry United Airline passenger: A full page ad on the print…
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All-Caps: Paper Companion

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%27The_Scream%27,_undated_drawing_Edvard_Munch,_Bergen_Kunstmuseum.JPG

What follows is a list of examples of legislation or regulation that requires or recommends the use of all caps in communications with consumers. Fla. Admin. Code r. 2-18.002 (1996). 2-18.002 Disclosure and Cancellation:  . . .(2) It shall be an unfair or deceptive act or practice for the seller of future consumer services to fail to furnish…
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