Where do all the prices come from?

The Washington Post has a pretty interesting article on how the Consumer Price Index is measured. It's a human interest story about the experience of a woman who actually goes into the grocery store to collect all the prices. I like this part:

In the case of the bologna, Gaffney is perplexed. She took down the price as $2.49. But her computer tells her that on her last visit the price was $1.99. After some investigating, Gaffney realizes she grabbed the wrong item this time -- the higher-priced all-beef light bologna.

We like to think that measures like the CPI are simply out there and true. The bologna shows us, however, that there is measurement error involved (even if it is likely to be small) and that the measure is stochastic. (Not to talk about the conceptualization problem: What is it that a typical person consumes.)

Desks: Beautiful or messy?

There has been an interesting coincidence (there always is) in two blogs I read for beneficial procrastination: Lifehacker had a competition for the coolest workspace, and the winner (and all contestants, it seems) had a very clean and simple -- and very beautiful -- workplace. And Andrew Gelman linked to a fascinating discussion on Ed Tufte's page on Thinking and Paper, which discusses how to use stacks and folders of paper to organize complex information. This thread is interesting for several reasons: First, Ed Tufte is one of the main authorities on the visual presentation of information, so it's interesting to see how he organizes the information he works with every day. Second, the thread has been active since March 2002 -- nice to see that lengthy discourses can be maintained in the electronic world. Third, there are several very interesting and detailed contributions. I haven't read all of them yet, but there is a lot to think about.

Where do I stand? I tend to favor the messy workplace. In contrast to Tufte et al., however, this is not to organize information , I just don't want to spend time cleaning up every day. Plus, a messy workplace gets me into work mood. (And, to be fair, the Tufte workplace is not necessarily messy but crowded and organized.)

How to make yourself go to class

Okay, okay -- the term just ended and you have other things in mind than making yourself go to class. Well, maybe you are taking Maymester classes.

Anyway, there is an interesting discussion on Ask MetaFilter: What can I do to stop skipping classes in college? Bookmark for fall!

I haven't vanished but...

I haven't had time to post anything. And now I'm in the middle of grading term papers and won't be able to post a lot. So, to while the time away, some interesting links, without much comment:

(Re-?)Segregation in Nebraska

Saturday's (that is, April 15's) New York Times had an article on a Nebraska plan to create three new school districts in Omaha. The districts are designed to be racially/ethnically homogeneous: one is supposed to be black, one to be white, one to be Latino. A clear violation of Brown v. Board of Ed., isn't it? Interestingly, the plan was introduced by the only African-American member of the Nebraska state legislature, Ernie Chambers. Balkinization has an interesting discussion of the issue: here is Jack Balkin's take, and here is Heather Gerken's.

Discovering music podcasts

One of my favorite radio shows, BBC 3's Discovering Music nows posts their newest show as a downloadable podcast. (OK, all podcasts are downloadable, that's the point...) If you're into classical music, this program is a must. And you can listen to old shows (non-downloadably) here.

Funny Honda ad parody

A while ago I posted a link to a nice ad for Honda, in which a choir imitated car noises. Well, 118 118, a British company that provides information about phone numbers, train schedules, etc., produced a parody that I found funny. But then it might be that I have a somewhat brutish sense of humor (being German etc.). Anyway: Enjoy!