For Sale: One White Dress, Yet to Be Worn
"AS more brides try to sell their used wedding dresses online, some have found a way to stand out from the competition: putting their gowns up for sale before even walking down the aisle.
A growing number of postings for so-called presale dresses have popped up among the listings on sites like oncewed.com, preownedweddingdresses.com and woreitonce.com.
...
"A used dress generally sells for about 50 percent off retail, whether sold before or after the wedding. But brides see an advantage to selling before the wedding because the styles are still current and other brides often can try on the same dress in stores. That, they say, enhances the likelihood of a quick sale.
...
"Zofia Gajdamowicz, 27, a bartender in Toronto who hopes to sell her Modern Trousseau dress before her wedding in late October, said she will “have to be a little more careful” if she finds a buyer.
“I already told my friends, ‘Don’t let me drink any red wine,’ ” she said."
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Saturday, July 31, 2010
The market for professionally taken digital photographs
I was recently the subject of a magazine story, and, before it was published, the photographer Shawn Henry came to campus to "take my picture". That phrase doesn't do justice to what he actually did, which resulted in 148 photographs, eventually edited down to 30, and then to 5 that were sent to the magazine editors to choose the final one.
Mr Henry has given me permission to link to his copyrighted photos, in case you want to see how this sausage was made: here are the 148 pictures, the 30 pictures, and the final one (this link may take a minute to load, it's to the Forbes article...)
These pictures didn't take a lot of time for him to make; as I recall, we were together for about half an hour. (Even though we were outdoors, he deployed some lights and reflectors.)
Seeing how a pro works has made me feel better both about how I often don't like either how I look in pictures, or how other people look in pictures that I take. Many of the pictures linked above were not so flattering (particularly in the set of 148), but I liked the final one. So selection from a wide variety helps. (And now I just need to lose a little weight:)
Modern electronics have probably changed not only the equipment that photographers use, but also how they work.
Mr Henry has given me permission to link to his copyrighted photos, in case you want to see how this sausage was made: here are the 148 pictures, the 30 pictures, and the final one (this link may take a minute to load, it's to the Forbes article...)
These pictures didn't take a lot of time for him to make; as I recall, we were together for about half an hour. (Even though we were outdoors, he deployed some lights and reflectors.)
Seeing how a pro works has made me feel better both about how I often don't like either how I look in pictures, or how other people look in pictures that I take. Many of the pictures linked above were not so flattering (particularly in the set of 148), but I liked the final one. So selection from a wide variety helps. (And now I just need to lose a little weight:)
Modern electronics have probably changed not only the equipment that photographers use, but also how they work.
The market for boasting
How did people boast signal before they had blogs?
Not long ago I was the subject of a flattering profile in Forbes (which I wrote about in this earlier blogboast post).
Yesterday I received a letter in the mail from a company that "specializes in turning articles into custom designed plaques."
It's not a bad idea, and if I were a restaurant, I'd buy one right away, and post it next to the menu, preferably where it could be read from the street.
Not long ago I was the subject of a flattering profile in Forbes (which I wrote about in this earlier blog
Yesterday I received a letter in the mail from a company that "specializes in turning articles into custom designed plaques."
It's not a bad idea, and if I were a restaurant, I'd buy one right away, and post it next to the menu, preferably where it could be read from the street.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Kidney transplantation advice from the Netherlands
Two recent reports from the Netherlands give advice drawn from their active transplant program.
The (American) National Guideline Clearinghouse highlights one set of recommendations: Kidney donation. In: Guidelines on renal transplantation. European Association of Urology - Medical Specialty Society. 2009 Mar. 23 pages. NGC:007337 (full text here.)
The first three recommendations under the first category of recommendations, "Ethical Issues in Transplantation," illustrate some of the conflicting forces at work:
- "It is the right of individuals to donate as well as to receive an organ.
- "Commercially motivated renal transplantation is unacceptable. It has been widely prohibited by law and is strongly opposed by the International Society of Transplantation.
- "With the increasing success of living-donor transplants, as judged by graft and patient survival, and with the scarcity of deceased donor organs, living-donor transplants should be encouraged. "
- The altruistic living donor must give informed consent, which can only be obtained if he or she has a proper understanding of the risk involved.
They have this to say about kidney exchange:
- Paired kidney exchange if permitted by national law is a way of increasing the number of kidney transplants..
Another report, focused specifically on kidney exchange is from Clinical Transplants 2009:247-52, "On chain lengths, domino-paired and unbalanced altruistic kidney donations," by de Klerk M, Zuidema WC, Ijzermans JN, Weimar W. Dept of Internal Medicine - Transplantation, Erasmus MC, University Medical Centre Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
"Abstract: Kidney transplantations with living related and unrelated donors are the optimal option for patients with end-stage renal disease. For patients with a willing--but blood-type or HLA incompatible donor--a living-donor kidney exchange program could be an opportunity. In Asia, the United States and Europe, kidney exchange programs were developed under different conditions, with different exchange algorithms, and with different match results. The easiest way to organize a living-donor kidney exchange program is to enlist national or regional cooperation, initiated by an independent organization that is already responsible for the allocation of deceased donor organs. For logistic reasons, the optimal maximum chain length should be three pairs. To optimize cross-match procedures a central laboratory is recommended. Anonymity between the matched pairs depends on the culture and logistics of the various countries. For incompatible donor-recipient pairs who have been unsuccessful in finding suitable matches in an exchange program, domino-paired kidney transplantations triggered by Good Samaritan donors is the next alternative. To expand transplantations with living donors, we advise integrating such a program into a national exchange program under supervision of an independent allocation authority. If no Good Samaritan donors are available, an unbalanced kidney paired-exchange program with compatible and incompatible pairs is another strategy that merits future development."
PMID: 20524290 [PubMed - in process]
Their conclusion that "the optimal maximal chain length should be three pairs" has certainly not been the U.S. experience: my conjecture is that they are limited to the operating rooms they can organize in a single hospital.
Kidney exchange in Haaretz
Here's an article (in Hebrew) on kidney exchange, featuring the work of Itai Ashlagi. (The article is also here.)
Update: it wasn't in Haaretz itself, but in an accompanying magazine supplement.
Update: it wasn't in Haaretz itself, but in an accompanying magazine supplement.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Economics and computer science
The links between economics and computer science are growing steadily closer, judging from this report conveyed by Noam Nisan about the Shanghai summer school in algorithmic game theory.
Paul Klemperer's "product mix auction"
Paul Klemperer writes from Oxford:
"the Bank of England has now been running my "product mix auction" for the last two months almost exactly as set out in Section 2 of "The Product-Mix Auction: a New Auction Design for Differentiated Goods" (including "paired bids" etc.)
"Although I designed it for the financial crisis when I was consulted in 2007 after Northern Rock bank run, full implementation was slow. But it is now fully implemented and running regularly (in part, so using it is not seen as a signal of crisis).
"It's perhaps best understood as a "proxy" version of a simultaneous multiple round auction. That is, bidders input their preferences, and the auction chooses the outcome that an SMRA would select assuming straightforward bidding. Because the auction is "sealed bid", it runs instantaneously (important in the Bank's financial-market context), and it therefore also less vulnerable to collusion. Another novel feature is that the auctioneer also bids its preferences about how the proportions of different varieties that it will sell will depend upon the auction prices. (By contrast, SMRA implementations I am aware of specify the number of each type of good to be sold in advance.) It's also related to Paul Milgrom's independently-invented assignment auction, but the way bidders represent their preferences is different (easier and more general in some ways).
"The Bank's specific problem is to auction loans linked to varying qualities of collateral [to inject liquidity into the banking system rapidly], but
--charge different borrowers different interest rates reflecting the different collateral-qualities [to reduce moral hazard];
--allow market conditions, as revealed by the bids, to determine BOTH the interest-rate-premium for inferior collateral AND the proportion of inferior collateral accepted [because the Bank may neither be sufficiently informed about conditions, nor wish to send a 'signal' to the market];
--permit borrowers to specify how the collateral they supply will depend upon the auction outcome [because the interest-rate-premium is not - see above - pre-specified]
"I've advised other Central Banks. Other future applications might include other purchasing "toxic assets", selling electricity, and trading biodiversity."
Peer to peer overnight accommodations
The NY Times reviews sites of "social network bed and breakfasts" on which you can reserve rooms for overnight stays in cities around the world: Europe Without Hotels.
The sites have various ways to protect against scams:
"In Paris, AirBnB has places in every arrondissement, including $13-a-night rooms in the western suburbs and $285-a-night houseboats on the Seine. As the first Web site of its kind to grab the headlines, the system has already developed a large and loyal user base. Some properties have as many as 70 user-generated reviews, which give paying guests a greater sense of confidence. It is similar to how eBay works: you’re more likely to buy from an eBay seller with good feedback." ...
"After the brief tour, I gave Mr. Mostaedi the code that allows him to collect my payment from iStopOver. That’s one of the safeguards that iStopOver offers to guests. If a listing turns out to be fraudulent or misstated, you can refuse to give the owner the code, and the fee is refunded in full. Other services offer similar protections: AirBnB withholds a host’s payment until 24 hours after guests check into an accommodation in order to fend off potential scammers, and Crashpadder uses credit card payments to verify guest identities (though it says it will monitor but not otherwise involve itself in any disputes)."
Here are the sites mentioned:"AIRBNB.COM
AirBnB.com, founded in 2007 in San Francisco, is the largest of this new generation of social B&Bs and has the most user reviews.
Where: About 5,378 cities in 146 countries.
Accommodations: Air mattresses to entire villas.
Price: In New York, from $10 for a room to $3,000 for a loft.
ISTOPOVER.COM
IStopOver, founded in 2009 in Toronto, specializes in big events, like this summer’s World Cup in South Africa.
Where: Mostly North America, Europe and South Africa.
Accommodations: Apartments and houses.
Price: $10 to $8,000 a night.
CRASHPADDER.COM
Founded in 2008 in London, Crashpadder.com operates mostly in Britain, with a surge expected during the 2010 Olympics in London.
Where: 898 cities, including more than 1,000 listings in London.
Accommodations: Bedrooms to houses.
Price: From £15 (about $21 at $1.43 to the pound) a night, plus £3 booking fee.
ROOMORAMA.COM
Founded in 2008, Roomorama.com focuses on higher-end properties, especially in New York City.
Where: 36 cities, including more than 1,000 listings in New York.
Accommodations: Bedrooms to houses.
Price: From $30 to $5,000, plus an 8 to 12 percent booking fee. "
AirBnB.com, founded in 2007 in San Francisco, is the largest of this new generation of social B&Bs and has the most user reviews.
Where: About 5,378 cities in 146 countries.
Accommodations: Air mattresses to entire villas.
Price: In New York, from $10 for a room to $3,000 for a loft.
ISTOPOVER.COM
IStopOver, founded in 2009 in Toronto, specializes in big events, like this summer’s World Cup in South Africa.
Where: Mostly North America, Europe and South Africa.
Accommodations: Apartments and houses.
Price: $10 to $8,000 a night.
CRASHPADDER.COM
Founded in 2008 in London, Crashpadder.com operates mostly in Britain, with a surge expected during the 2010 Olympics in London.
Where: 898 cities, including more than 1,000 listings in London.
Accommodations: Bedrooms to houses.
Price: From £15 (about $21 at $1.43 to the pound) a night, plus £3 booking fee.
ROOMORAMA.COM
Founded in 2008, Roomorama.com focuses on higher-end properties, especially in New York City.
Where: 36 cities, including more than 1,000 listings in New York.
Accommodations: Bedrooms to houses.
Price: From $30 to $5,000, plus an 8 to 12 percent booking fee. "
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Unraveling of law firm interviews of 2nd year students
Catherine Rampell has an informative article about The Other Law School Arms Race. The date at which large law firms interview 2nd year law students (for summer associate positions that are the entry path to permanent positions after graduation) has moved earlier, to the summer before the second year begins.
"Speaking of the career paths for new lawyers, we’ve noted before that the sour legal job market has encouraged law schools to find creative ways to make their students look more attractive to employers, at least when compared with students from other schools. Intentional grade inflation is one particularly controversial tool schools have been using.
"But the arms race has found another battlefield as well: on-campus interview week.At most top schools, early in the second year of law school, dozens of law firms visit campus to conduct a round-robin of job interviews with students. These interviews are the first step to a summer associate job after the second year, and oftentimes a permanent job offer after graduation following the third year of school.
"The exact timing of this “on-campus interview week” has traditionally varied by school, and from firm to firm, thereby allowing different firms to send recruiters to Harvard one week, Columbia the next, Chicago the following week, and so on.
"But with the job market so tight, last year schools began worrying that if law firms visited them later in the fall, the few job offers available would already be gone. So many top schools bumped up their on-campus interview weeks from October to September to finally August, before the school year even starts, because they wanted their students to have a chance to claim a job slot before their counterparts at other schools did."
...
"In February the organization that creates guidelines for legal recruiting process, NALP, released new rules about how long job offers could stay open, a measure intended to curb this interviewing arms race. But the new guidelines have not so far inspired any coordinated new schedule for interviewing process. "
...
The article closes with a news release from Northwestern: Northwestern Law, Jones Day Agree to On-Campus Interviewing in September
"CHICAGO --- Northwestern University School of Law and the global law firm Jones Day announced today July 26 that the firm will conduct its on-campus interviews for 2011 summer associates in September instead of during the law school's official on-campus interviewing (OCI) program, which begins Aug. 11. In a move benefiting both students and law firms, Jones Day will conduct interviews on behalf of its 14 U.S. offices on Monday, Sept. 13.
"Jones Day joins Northwestern Law in the belief that the current recruitment system has created a competitive race among law schools and law firms to conduct on-campus interviews earlier. The result is an inefficient system that does not serve employers or student applicants well, according to the law school and law firm.
"The current system discourages the efforts of law firms to learn about all the competencies (over and above grades) of potential associates," according to David Van Zandt, dean, Northwestern Law. "It also requires firms to make employment decisions and predictions about their hiring needs too far in advance of permanent start dates.
"The compression of summer associate interviews in August is also problematic for students since it constrains their time to make sensible decisions about with whom to interview, to adjust interviewing techniques based on what they learn during the process, or to make sound decisions about offers of employment," said Van Zandt. "It contributes to a frequent lack of fit between graduates and the law firms, which inevitably leads to higher attrition levels for the firms."
"Taking this step with Northwestern will help show that a more balanced, less frenzied approach to on-campus recruiting is not only still possible, but indeed desirable for all concerned -- students, law schools and law firms," said Greg Shumaker, firmwide hiring partner at Jones Day.
HT: Eric Budish
"Speaking of the career paths for new lawyers, we’ve noted before that the sour legal job market has encouraged law schools to find creative ways to make their students look more attractive to employers, at least when compared with students from other schools. Intentional grade inflation is one particularly controversial tool schools have been using.
"But the arms race has found another battlefield as well: on-campus interview week.At most top schools, early in the second year of law school, dozens of law firms visit campus to conduct a round-robin of job interviews with students. These interviews are the first step to a summer associate job after the second year, and oftentimes a permanent job offer after graduation following the third year of school.
"The exact timing of this “on-campus interview week” has traditionally varied by school, and from firm to firm, thereby allowing different firms to send recruiters to Harvard one week, Columbia the next, Chicago the following week, and so on.
"But with the job market so tight, last year schools began worrying that if law firms visited them later in the fall, the few job offers available would already be gone. So many top schools bumped up their on-campus interview weeks from October to September to finally August, before the school year even starts, because they wanted their students to have a chance to claim a job slot before their counterparts at other schools did."
...
"In February the organization that creates guidelines for legal recruiting process, NALP, released new rules about how long job offers could stay open, a measure intended to curb this interviewing arms race. But the new guidelines have not so far inspired any coordinated new schedule for interviewing process. "
...
The article closes with a news release from Northwestern: Northwestern Law, Jones Day Agree to On-Campus Interviewing in September
"CHICAGO --- Northwestern University School of Law and the global law firm Jones Day announced today July 26 that the firm will conduct its on-campus interviews for 2011 summer associates in September instead of during the law school's official on-campus interviewing (OCI) program, which begins Aug. 11. In a move benefiting both students and law firms, Jones Day will conduct interviews on behalf of its 14 U.S. offices on Monday, Sept. 13.
"Jones Day joins Northwestern Law in the belief that the current recruitment system has created a competitive race among law schools and law firms to conduct on-campus interviews earlier. The result is an inefficient system that does not serve employers or student applicants well, according to the law school and law firm.
"The current system discourages the efforts of law firms to learn about all the competencies (over and above grades) of potential associates," according to David Van Zandt, dean, Northwestern Law. "It also requires firms to make employment decisions and predictions about their hiring needs too far in advance of permanent start dates.
"The compression of summer associate interviews in August is also problematic for students since it constrains their time to make sensible decisions about with whom to interview, to adjust interviewing techniques based on what they learn during the process, or to make sound decisions about offers of employment," said Van Zandt. "It contributes to a frequent lack of fit between graduates and the law firms, which inevitably leads to higher attrition levels for the firms."
"Taking this step with Northwestern will help show that a more balanced, less frenzied approach to on-campus recruiting is not only still possible, but indeed desirable for all concerned -- students, law schools and law firms," said Greg Shumaker, firmwide hiring partner at Jones Day.
HT: Eric Budish
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Squirrel game theory
Natalie Angier reports on squirrel game theorists in the NY Times: Nut? What Nut? The Squirrel Outwits to Survive
"But the squirrels don’t just bury an acorn and come back in winter. They bury the seed, dig it up shortly afterward, rebury it elsewhere, dig it up again. “We’ve seen seeds that were recached as many as five times,” said Dr. Steele. The squirrels recache to deter theft, lest another squirrel spied the burial the first X times. Reporting in the journal Animal Behaviour, the Steele team showed that when squirrels are certain that they are being watched, they will actively seek to deceive the would-be thieves. They’ll dig a hole, pretend to push an acorn in, and then cover it over, all the while keeping the prized seed hidden in their mouth. “Deceptive caching involves some pretty serious decision making,” Dr. Steele said. “It meets the criteria of tactical deception, which previously was thought to only occur in primates.”
"But the squirrels don’t just bury an acorn and come back in winter. They bury the seed, dig it up shortly afterward, rebury it elsewhere, dig it up again. “We’ve seen seeds that were recached as many as five times,” said Dr. Steele. The squirrels recache to deter theft, lest another squirrel spied the burial the first X times. Reporting in the journal Animal Behaviour, the Steele team showed that when squirrels are certain that they are being watched, they will actively seek to deceive the would-be thieves. They’ll dig a hole, pretend to push an acorn in, and then cover it over, all the while keeping the prized seed hidden in their mouth. “Deceptive caching involves some pretty serious decision making,” Dr. Steele said. “It meets the criteria of tactical deception, which previously was thought to only occur in primates.”
Monday, July 26, 2010
Paid drug trials
The Chronicle of Higher Ed has a (gated) story about professional volunteers for drug trials: Inside the Risky World of Drug-Trial 'Guinea Pigs'
"Mr. Abadie spent time with anarchist activists who are attracted to guinea-pigging because of the flexibility it offers. Between 1996 and 2002, that milieu was documented in Guinea Pig Zero, a Philadelphia zine published by and for activist medical volunteers.
"But Mr. Abadie's book also examines two other types of medical volunteer. First, he describes transient, economically struggling people who travel from place to place in search of lucrative trials. These volunteers are often less educated and more socially isolated than the anarchists.
"Second, Mr. Abadie spent months at an HIV clinic where patients were participating in long-term trials to determine the effectiveness of new drug combinations. That environment is very different from the Phase 1 trials described elsewhere in the book. At the clinic, the HIV patients knew they had a personal stake in the development of new drugs, and the financial compensation they received was much smaller. Even though they were taking risks by participating in the drug studies, Mr. Abadie says, those volunteers seemed to reap psychological gains."
I'm reminded that we teach kids that the tooth fairy buys their baby teeth for money. But of course many sales of body parts are regarded as repugnant transactions and are illegal, while paid drug trials are legal.
"Since 1980, when Phase 1 drug tests on prisoners were banned in the United States, university medical schools and pharmaceutical companies have depended on volunteers like Mr. Little to test the safety of new drugs. Bioethicists have devoted thousands of pages to debates about the system. Some fear that high payments for volunteers are an "undue inducement" that might tempt them to take risks against their better judgment. Others say that people like Mr. Little are consenting adults who are reasonably capable of assessing danger.
"Most of those debates have been conducted in the abstract. But now an anthropologist has produced a study of several dozen medical volunteers, including Mr. Little. Roberto L. Abadie, a visiting scholar in the health-sciences program at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, spent a year living in youth hostels and group houses in Philadelphia, trying to get a sense of why volunteers do what they do and how they understand their risks.
"He offers his findings in The Professional Guinea Pig: Big Pharma and the Risky World of Human Subjects (Duke University Press, August). The book's primary purpose is to offer a detailed description of medical volunteering and its contexts, not to weigh in on the ethics of clinical trials. But after his year in the field, Mr. Abadie does have opinions about policy: Volunteers underestimate their long-term risks, he says, and universities should do more to protect them."..."Mr. Abadie spent time with anarchist activists who are attracted to guinea-pigging because of the flexibility it offers. Between 1996 and 2002, that milieu was documented in Guinea Pig Zero, a Philadelphia zine published by and for activist medical volunteers.
"But Mr. Abadie's book also examines two other types of medical volunteer. First, he describes transient, economically struggling people who travel from place to place in search of lucrative trials. These volunteers are often less educated and more socially isolated than the anarchists.
"Second, Mr. Abadie spent months at an HIV clinic where patients were participating in long-term trials to determine the effectiveness of new drug combinations. That environment is very different from the Phase 1 trials described elsewhere in the book. At the clinic, the HIV patients knew they had a personal stake in the development of new drugs, and the financial compensation they received was much smaller. Even though they were taking risks by participating in the drug studies, Mr. Abadie says, those volunteers seemed to reap psychological gains."
I'm reminded that we teach kids that the tooth fairy buys their baby teeth for money. But of course many sales of body parts are regarded as repugnant transactions and are illegal, while paid drug trials are legal.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Internet dating moves (back) into the real world
Computers can provide a multitude of services, and a new class of dating services uses them not to help people meet others, but to preserve their anonymity until they decide to relinquish it: The New Dating Tools: A Card and a Wink.
"This is the next generation of online dating. Unlike traditional dating sites where members spend hours on computers writing autobiographies and scrutinizing photographs, a raft of newfangled dating tools are striving to better bridge the gap between online and real-world romance.
"Some companies offer a combination of flirty calling cards and Web pages. Others operate dating applications that use the global positioning systems in cellphones to help local singles find one another.
"All of them contend they are superior to big online dating sites like Match.com; eHarmony.com because meeting people is faster, more organic and less formal. And participants are not limited to a database of members: the world is their dating pool.
“It’s almost like you’re shopping online,” said Ms. Cheek, “but you’re shopping in real life.”
"At the same time, these hybrid dating tools still enable users to keep their names and personal information private for as long as they like.
"Ms. Cheek, an architect who works part-time in sales for a high-end Manhattan furniture company, founded one such venture, Cheek’d, which had its debut in May. Users receive calling cards to dole out to alluring strangers they encounter in their everyday lives, be it in a club or in a subway on their morning commute. Recipients of the cards can use the identification code printed on them to log onto Cheekd.com;and send a message to their admirer. A pack of 50 cards and a month’s subscription to Cheek’d, where users can receive messages and post information about themselves, is $25. There is no fee for those who receive cards to communicate with an admirer through the site."
...
"On each red FlipMe! card is an explanation for the recipient: “I’ve said ‘what if’ too many times ... not this time.” A pack of 30 cards and a three-month membership to flipmedating.com is $24.99. The cards, which all say the same thing, are sold online and in some salons and spas in the Northeast. A cellphone application is in the works."
...
"Card users said companies like FlipMe! and Cheek’d are emboldening them to approach people who might otherwise have been missed connections. They also appreciate how the companies reverse the online dating process — observe someone in person first, then send an electronic message. There’s no need to contend with false advertising on dating Web sites."
...
"Other companies are helping singles connect through location-based technology on their mobile phones. In the last few years the number of Web sites and applications like Grindr, Are You Interested? and Urban Signals, has swelled.
"One of the biggest is the free iPhone dating application Skout, which recently surpassed its millionth member. Skout uses a cellphone’s global positioning system to help users to find like-minded people within a walkable radius of one another. (For safety reasons, Skout does not identify a user’s precise location.) Those who sign up for the application create basic profiles with photographs and then use an instant message feature to communicate when they are within range of each other. Then, they can arrange a mutual meeting spot.
“It’s really combining the best of online dating and real-world people discovery,” said Christian Wiklund, Skout’s founder."
"This is the next generation of online dating. Unlike traditional dating sites where members spend hours on computers writing autobiographies and scrutinizing photographs, a raft of newfangled dating tools are striving to better bridge the gap between online and real-world romance.
"Some companies offer a combination of flirty calling cards and Web pages. Others operate dating applications that use the global positioning systems in cellphones to help local singles find one another.
"All of them contend they are superior to big online dating sites like Match.com; eHarmony.com because meeting people is faster, more organic and less formal. And participants are not limited to a database of members: the world is their dating pool.
“It’s almost like you’re shopping online,” said Ms. Cheek, “but you’re shopping in real life.”
"At the same time, these hybrid dating tools still enable users to keep their names and personal information private for as long as they like.
"Ms. Cheek, an architect who works part-time in sales for a high-end Manhattan furniture company, founded one such venture, Cheek’d, which had its debut in May. Users receive calling cards to dole out to alluring strangers they encounter in their everyday lives, be it in a club or in a subway on their morning commute. Recipients of the cards can use the identification code printed on them to log onto Cheekd.com;and send a message to their admirer. A pack of 50 cards and a month’s subscription to Cheek’d, where users can receive messages and post information about themselves, is $25. There is no fee for those who receive cards to communicate with an admirer through the site."
...
"On each red FlipMe! card is an explanation for the recipient: “I’ve said ‘what if’ too many times ... not this time.” A pack of 30 cards and a three-month membership to flipmedating.com is $24.99. The cards, which all say the same thing, are sold online and in some salons and spas in the Northeast. A cellphone application is in the works."
...
"Card users said companies like FlipMe! and Cheek’d are emboldening them to approach people who might otherwise have been missed connections. They also appreciate how the companies reverse the online dating process — observe someone in person first, then send an electronic message. There’s no need to contend with false advertising on dating Web sites."
...
"Other companies are helping singles connect through location-based technology on their mobile phones. In the last few years the number of Web sites and applications like Grindr, Are You Interested? and Urban Signals, has swelled.
"One of the biggest is the free iPhone dating application Skout, which recently surpassed its millionth member. Skout uses a cellphone’s global positioning system to help users to find like-minded people within a walkable radius of one another. (For safety reasons, Skout does not identify a user’s precise location.) Those who sign up for the application create basic profiles with photographs and then use an instant message feature to communicate when they are within range of each other. Then, they can arrange a mutual meeting spot.
“It’s really combining the best of online dating and real-world people discovery,” said Christian Wiklund, Skout’s founder."
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Advice for Wake County schools
It sounds like the troubled Wake County school system is about to get some advice on school choice. But, to the extent that you can judge from a newspaper story, they may not be looking for the right kind of advice, or in the right places (more about right places at the end...)
Here's the problem. Suppose you want a school choice plan, and would like to be able to say that it results in lots of families getting their first choice. That might be hard, if the most popular schools are overdemanded. But you could adopt a choice procedure that is punitive to those who fail to get the school they list as their first choice. That would present families who liked overdemanded schools with a risky decision, and the safe choice would be to choose a school (e.g. their local school) that they could be pretty confident of getting into, and saying that was their first choice. When parents feel compelled to play it safe this way, it looks like they are getting their first choice, even though they aren't really. Once upon a time that was how schools were chosen in Boston, and that kind of system is still used in some places, including Cambridge, MA.
So, here's the news story that makes me worry about this.
Idea intrigues Wake school board factions
"A controlled choice model for Wake would create a dozen or more attendance zones, each of which would reflect the makeup of Wake County - no rich zones or poor zones, said Massachusetts education consultant Michael Alves, who's helped design dozens of such systems nationally.
"Parents would be able to choose from a wide range of school offerings in their zone, with a lottery to make another choice when schools are too crowded or apply to a countywide system of magnets, Alves said. He will be in Raleigh on Tuesday for a presentation before the board committee charged with developing a new plan. Parents would not be guaranteed of getting their first choice, but in systems that use controlled choice, such as Lee County, Fla., and Cambridge, Mass., a large majority do.
"We've been looking at a number of plans from a number of districts across the country," board chairman Ron Margiotta said Wednesday. "He's very close to what we have in mind, to my understanding."
Here's some background on School choice that pays attention to making it safe for families to reveal their true preferences. Which brings me to where the Wake County school board can look for advice.
One of the world's experts on the design of school choice systems is Atila Abdulkadiroglu, who is a professor at Duke, in Raleigh NC, the largest city in Wake County. So he's on location. Here is Atila's blog on school choice.
Here are my previous posts on Wake County: School choice in North Carolina, School choice gets contentious in Wake County, NC
Here's the problem. Suppose you want a school choice plan, and would like to be able to say that it results in lots of families getting their first choice. That might be hard, if the most popular schools are overdemanded. But you could adopt a choice procedure that is punitive to those who fail to get the school they list as their first choice. That would present families who liked overdemanded schools with a risky decision, and the safe choice would be to choose a school (e.g. their local school) that they could be pretty confident of getting into, and saying that was their first choice. When parents feel compelled to play it safe this way, it looks like they are getting their first choice, even though they aren't really. Once upon a time that was how schools were chosen in Boston, and that kind of system is still used in some places, including Cambridge, MA.
So, here's the news story that makes me worry about this.
Idea intrigues Wake school board factions
"A controlled choice model for Wake would create a dozen or more attendance zones, each of which would reflect the makeup of Wake County - no rich zones or poor zones, said Massachusetts education consultant Michael Alves, who's helped design dozens of such systems nationally.
"Parents would be able to choose from a wide range of school offerings in their zone, with a lottery to make another choice when schools are too crowded or apply to a countywide system of magnets, Alves said. He will be in Raleigh on Tuesday for a presentation before the board committee charged with developing a new plan. Parents would not be guaranteed of getting their first choice, but in systems that use controlled choice, such as Lee County, Fla., and Cambridge, Mass., a large majority do.
"We've been looking at a number of plans from a number of districts across the country," board chairman Ron Margiotta said Wednesday. "He's very close to what we have in mind, to my understanding."
Here's some background on School choice that pays attention to making it safe for families to reveal their true preferences. Which brings me to where the Wake County school board can look for advice.
One of the world's experts on the design of school choice systems is Atila Abdulkadiroglu, who is a professor at Duke, in Raleigh NC, the largest city in Wake County. So he's on location. Here is Atila's blog on school choice.
Here are my previous posts on Wake County: School choice in North Carolina, School choice gets contentious in Wake County, NC
Abandoned horses not headed for foreign tables
Speaking of the pony express, Activists Keep Nev. Horses From Going to Slaughter
"With the financial backing of the wife of oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens and others, activists on Saturday purchased almost all 174 horses up for sale at a state-sanctioned auction in Nevada to keep the horses from going to the slaughterhouse.
"Stephanie Hoefener of the Lancaster, Calif.-based Livesavers Wild Horse Rescue group said activists purchased 172 horses for $31,415. The other two horses were acquired by private individuals for their personal use, she said.
...
"The horses were rounded up by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management last month near the Nevada-Utah line and turned over to the Nevada Department of Agriculture for disposal.
"Agriculture department officials acknowledge the stray horses could have wound up at slaughterhouses because they did not have the federal protections afforded to wild-roaming horses.
"The horses are believed to be strays or descendants of horses abandoned by private owners over the years in Pilot Valley north of West Wendover.
''For advocacy groups to step up to the plate and make a financial commitment like this to save the horses, we think this is a wonderful thing,'' Nevada Department of Agriculture spokesman Ed Foster said.
"Jill Starr, president of Lifesavers, said the purchase of the horses at the Fallon auction was made possible by the financial backing of Madeleine Pickens and other donors.
"Starr said high bidders of such horses usually are representatives of slaughterhouses in Mexico and Canada. The meat of the horses is processed for sale in Europe and Asia, where it fetches as much as $25 a pound, she added. "
"With the financial backing of the wife of oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens and others, activists on Saturday purchased almost all 174 horses up for sale at a state-sanctioned auction in Nevada to keep the horses from going to the slaughterhouse.
"Stephanie Hoefener of the Lancaster, Calif.-based Livesavers Wild Horse Rescue group said activists purchased 172 horses for $31,415. The other two horses were acquired by private individuals for their personal use, she said.
...
"The horses were rounded up by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management last month near the Nevada-Utah line and turned over to the Nevada Department of Agriculture for disposal.
"Agriculture department officials acknowledge the stray horses could have wound up at slaughterhouses because they did not have the federal protections afforded to wild-roaming horses.
"The horses are believed to be strays or descendants of horses abandoned by private owners over the years in Pilot Valley north of West Wendover.
''For advocacy groups to step up to the plate and make a financial commitment like this to save the horses, we think this is a wonderful thing,'' Nevada Department of Agriculture spokesman Ed Foster said.
"Jill Starr, president of Lifesavers, said the purchase of the horses at the Fallon auction was made possible by the financial backing of Madeleine Pickens and other donors.
"Starr said high bidders of such horses usually are representatives of slaughterhouses in Mexico and Canada. The meat of the horses is processed for sale in Europe and Asia, where it fetches as much as $25 a pound, she added. "
For previous posts on the American repugnance for the use of horse meat for human consumption, as compared to the high prices it fetches overseas, see here.
Express mail 1.0
The Pony Rides Again (and again)
" The heroic, nearly 2,000-mile delivery of mail across the country hemorrhaged money, from the first day a rider saddled up until the click of the transcontinental telegraph shut it down 78 weeks later. "
" The heroic, nearly 2,000-mile delivery of mail across the country hemorrhaged money, from the first day a rider saddled up until the click of the transcontinental telegraph shut it down 78 weeks later. "
Friday, July 23, 2010
Matching Marine officers to MOS
A reader writes:
"Dear Al,
"Dear Al,
I was a grad student a few years ago in your econ 2010a segment.
I came across a market design problem recently that I thought you might find interesting. My brother is a Marine officer and is approaching the point when he gets matched to his "Military Occupational Specialty"-his future job (infantry, engineering, logistics etc). As in matching medical residents, upcoming officers provide a ranking of their preferences. Then the Marine administration ranks all the upcoming candidates on the basis of their performance in basic training (their overall average grade in "military skills, leadership, and academics").
The matching process is as follows: in a class of 100 officers, the officer ranked #1 gets his first choice, the 33rd ranked officer gets his first choice, then the 67th ranked officer gets his first choice. Then the #2 ranked guy gets his top choice of the remaining jobs, then 34th, 68th, 3rd, 35th, 69th etc.
The intended purpose is clearly to ensure that there is an even distribution of "quality" in all specialties (you don't want all the best officers doing infantry (highest prestige) and all the worst officers managing logistics or supply). (Actually this seems like a good idea for doctors too.) However, the mechanism is clearly not incentive compatible-the 32nd ranked guy tries to fail his last tests to drop in rank to 33...
More details are here: http://www.dbdriven.net/mymos/All_MOS_Assignment_Process.asp. I also believe that the Army and other branches use similar systems.
Anyway, perhaps you've already seen this. And perhaps the Marines are totally uninterested in changing a "tried and true" system. But it sounded like an interesting question on a socially important topic.
Best,
A.L.
Misc. repugnant transactions
A transaction is repugnant if some people don't want other people to do it. Here are some recent developments:
International Space Station sex ban : "Commanders do not allow sexual intercourse on the International Space Station, it has been disclosed"
The journal of the American Enterprise Institute has an article by a father-daughter kidney recipient and kidney donor called Our Deeply Unethical National Organ Policy. It argues in favor of compensating organ donors. It ends with this list of further readings on the subject:
"FURTHER READING: Gershowitz earlier offered, with Stephen Porter and Stephen Fuller, “A Stimulus That Would Work.” Dr. Sally Satel discussed “The National Kidney Foundation’s Bizarre Logic” against rewarding kidney donors, and “The Limits of Bioethics.” Satel lauded Israel’s steps to solve its organ shortage in “Kidney Mitzvah,” and just published a book on compensating kidney donors: When Altruism Isn’t Enough."
Argentina Approves Gay Marriage, in a First for Region July 15, 201 BUENOS AIRES — Argentina’s Senate narrowly approved a law early on Thursday authorizing same-sex marriages, making Argentina the first country in Latin America to allow gay couples to wed.
"After nearly 15 hours of debate, the Senate voted 33 to 27 in favor of the measure, which was sponsored by the government of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. For weeks, she waged a bitter war of words with the Roman Catholic Churchover the issue, saying that it would be a “terrible distortion of democracy” to deny gay couples the right to wed and that it was time for religious leaders to recognize how much more liberal and less discriminatory the nation’s social mores had become.
"In its race to derail the change, the church organized large protests involving tens of thousands of opponents of the measure, with Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, the archbishop of Buenos Aires, calling the bill a “destructive attack on God’s plan.”
"Portugal and Iceland also legalized gay marriage this year, adding to the small but steadily expanding list of nations, most of them in Europe, to do so."
Vatican Revises Abuse Process, but Causes Stir July 15, 2010 VATICAN CITY — "The Vatican issued revisions to its internal laws on Thursday making it easier to discipline sex-abuser priests, but caused confusion by also stating that ordaining women as priests was as grave an offense as pedophilia."
International Space Station sex ban : "Commanders do not allow sexual intercourse on the International Space Station, it has been disclosed"
The journal of the American Enterprise Institute has an article by a father-daughter kidney recipient and kidney donor called Our Deeply Unethical National Organ Policy. It argues in favor of compensating organ donors. It ends with this list of further readings on the subject:
"FURTHER READING: Gershowitz earlier offered, with Stephen Porter and Stephen Fuller, “A Stimulus That Would Work.” Dr. Sally Satel discussed “The National Kidney Foundation’s Bizarre Logic” against rewarding kidney donors, and “The Limits of Bioethics.” Satel lauded Israel’s steps to solve its organ shortage in “Kidney Mitzvah,” and just published a book on compensating kidney donors: When Altruism Isn’t Enough."
Argentina Approves Gay Marriage, in a First for Region July 15, 201 BUENOS AIRES — Argentina’s Senate narrowly approved a law early on Thursday authorizing same-sex marriages, making Argentina the first country in Latin America to allow gay couples to wed.
"After nearly 15 hours of debate, the Senate voted 33 to 27 in favor of the measure, which was sponsored by the government of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. For weeks, she waged a bitter war of words with the Roman Catholic Churchover the issue, saying that it would be a “terrible distortion of democracy” to deny gay couples the right to wed and that it was time for religious leaders to recognize how much more liberal and less discriminatory the nation’s social mores had become.
"In its race to derail the change, the church organized large protests involving tens of thousands of opponents of the measure, with Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, the archbishop of Buenos Aires, calling the bill a “destructive attack on God’s plan.”
"Portugal and Iceland also legalized gay marriage this year, adding to the small but steadily expanding list of nations, most of them in Europe, to do so."
Vatican Revises Abuse Process, but Causes Stir July 15, 2010 VATICAN CITY — "The Vatican issued revisions to its internal laws on Thursday making it easier to discipline sex-abuser priests, but caused confusion by also stating that ordaining women as priests was as grave an offense as pedophilia."
Thursday, July 22, 2010
School choice gets contentious in Wake County, NC
19 arrested as protesters claim school plan would resegregate system
"Police in Raleigh, North Carolina, arrested 19 people at a rancorous school board meeting Tuesday afternoon where protesters accused the Wake County School Board of adopting a plan that will resegregate the school system.
The Wake County School School Board voted in March to stop the decade-long practice of socio-economic school assignment and assign students to their neighborhood schools. The system plans to transition into the new practice in the next 15 months."
The story includes a video of the arrests, that makes me think that the school board meetings I've been to haven't really been so bad...
My previous posts on Wake County schools are
Blog on school choice by Atila Abdulkadiroglu and School choice in North Carolina
HT: Parag Pathak
"Police in Raleigh, North Carolina, arrested 19 people at a rancorous school board meeting Tuesday afternoon where protesters accused the Wake County School Board of adopting a plan that will resegregate the school system.
The Wake County School School Board voted in March to stop the decade-long practice of socio-economic school assignment and assign students to their neighborhood schools. The system plans to transition into the new practice in the next 15 months."
The story includes a video of the arrests, that makes me think that the school board meetings I've been to haven't really been so bad...
My previous posts on Wake County schools are
Blog on school choice by Atila Abdulkadiroglu and School choice in North Carolina
HT: Parag Pathak
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Me and market design, in Forbes
Susan Adams in the August Forbes magazine (but online now) has a nice article about me and market design called (maybe for search engine reasons)" Un-Freakonomics: A Harvard professor uses economics to save lives, assign doctors and get kids into the right high school."
Here's the sentence I liked best:
"Leaning over a cup of Turkish coffee at a cafe across the Charles River from his messy journal-strewn corner office, he bends over backward to give credit to his younger protégés, students and coauthors. "Market design is a team sport," he insists."
If you want to see me bend over backwards while leaning over a cup of coffee, we'll have to have a cup of coffee:) But seriously, Ms. Adams got that part very right--lots of people have to do lots of things before a new marketplace is designed, adopted, and implemented. I'm very lucky in my colleagues.
The article title might suggest I have some sort of quarrel with Freakonomics, but that's not the case, although my work is very different. I recall reading Freakonomics and being full of admiration for the way it brought Steve Levitt's work to a general audience. I wouldn't mind doing that someday with market design, and maybe Ms. Adam's generous article will be a step towards making market design known to a wider public.
Here's the sentence I liked best:
"Leaning over a cup of Turkish coffee at a cafe across the Charles River from his messy journal-strewn corner office, he bends over backward to give credit to his younger protégés, students and coauthors. "Market design is a team sport," he insists."
If you want to see me bend over backwards while leaning over a cup of coffee, we'll have to have a cup of coffee:) But seriously, Ms. Adams got that part very right--lots of people have to do lots of things before a new marketplace is designed, adopted, and implemented. I'm very lucky in my colleagues.
The article title might suggest I have some sort of quarrel with Freakonomics, but that's not the case, although my work is very different. I recall reading Freakonomics and being full of admiration for the way it brought Steve Levitt's work to a general audience. I wouldn't mind doing that someday with market design, and maybe Ms. Adam's generous article will be a step towards making market design known to a wider public.
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