Nate Silver became justly famous for making the transition from sabermetrics to election predictioneering, but color me skeptical of this New York magazine article that includes his take on the upcoming Oscars. His statistical model, it says:
…involved building a huge database of the past 30 years of Oscar history. Categories included genre, MPAA classification, the [...]
All Posts Tagged: 'Kevin’s Musings'
Questionable Odds
The Americans
One of the great pleasures of living on Capitol Hill is the ability to walk out the front door on an unseasonably warm Sunday afternoon in February and amble down to the National Gallery of Art. Great national museums are normally experienced during short vacation-related timeframes that force you to engage in a fairly brutal [...]
Taking Requests for Non-Education-Related Pop Culture Posts
From time to time I’ll be at an event or conference of some sort and someone will walk up, introduce themselves, and say “I like your blog.” (This is, FYI, a surefire conversation-starter; I’m as susceptible to flattery as the next guy.) Yet often—it actually happened twice this week—this is followed by “especially the posts [...]
The Wire, Season Five, Episode 8
At this point, I think the major weakness of Season Five is clear: David Simon didn’t have the good sense to repeat himself. Imagine this: There is no Scott Templeton. Instead, the season revolves around Alma Gutierrez. She’s young, a little naïve, and wants to write about Baltimore’s rapidly-growing Latino population (according to Simon, the [...]
Please Stop
Acknowledging that few observations are more banal than the soul-deadening nature of airline travel, for me the single worst thing is the televisions BLARING cable news around departure gates. Yesterday — I’m not making this up — I sat in the Detroit airport across from a nun while CNN ran an extensive piece investigating the [...]
Ooh, Good News
It seems that a new Neal Stephenson book will be published in September. Apparently, “It’s set on another planet and has aliens and so on. It’s really about Platonic mathematics, but he needed the aliens and space opera-ish elements to spice it up a little bit.” Exciting! I’ve read objectively better books over the last [...]
The Wire, Season Five, Episode 7
In which Clay Davis plays every card in the race deck, except, presumably, the King of Diamonds, because that’s McNulty.
Summary: Davis beats the rap with the help of real-life Baltimore criminal defense attorney Billy Murphy, who once got Don King acquitted, so I’m guessing this wasn’t much of a stretch. McNulty gets everything he ever [...]
The Wire, Season Five, Episode 6
Last week, we noted that Omar is apparently Superman. This week, Marlo clarifies: Omar is Spider-Man, albeit more of the rage-filled alien black suit variety.
Summary: The New Day is done, as Marlo takes control of the B’more drug trade with Omar hobbled but bent on revenge. Nancy Grace does a hilarious cameo suggesting she has [...]
The Wire, Season Five, Episode Five
I which Marlo reminds us that the future ain’t promised to no one, as he seizes the crown. When it became clear that Marlo was going to become the new force on the West Side at the end of Season 3, I was relatively non-plussed; I wasn’t sure what more could be said after the [...]
Knocking Some Vegans Together to Start a Mosh Pit
Carrie Brownstein, of the late, lamented, forever awesome Sleater-Kinney, has a new blog. Here’s a sample:
Each of us has a deal-breaker when it comes to songs, albums, or musicians….My deal-breaker is preciousness: when the music is a tiny, baby bird that needs us to be nurturing and respectful, otherwise it can’t spread its wings. I [...]
Terrible Sleater-Kinney Breakup News
Sleater-Kinney, arguably the greatest rock and roll band in the entire world, announced that they’re breaking up. They’ll be playing the 9:30 club here in DC in August and then a final show at Lollapalooza in Chicago. On the off chance that there’s any significant crossover between Quick+ED readership and S-K fandom, I’ll [...]
Lowering Student Loan Default Rates: What One Consortium of Historically Black Institutions Did to Succeed 
College and Career-Ready: Using Outcomes Data to Hold High Schools Accountable for Student Success
03/19/10 | Ben Miller is quoted on college graduation rates and the NCAA Tournament in the Detroit Free Press.
03/19/10 | Linda Perlstein links to Education Sector's "College- and Career-Ready" event.
03/17/10 | Ben Miller's column on graduation rates and NCAA Tournament eligibility is mentioned on The Wall Street Journal's The Daily Fix.
03/17/10 | Kevin Carey's critique of Diane Ravitch's latest book is quoted in Doublethink's Conventional Folly blog.
03/15/10 | Ben Miller pens an op-ed for US News & World Report on using graduation rates to determine NCAA Tournament eligibility.