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The Library vs Amazon
A few weeks ago, I discovered the queue at my public library’s website. The process is simple: Select your books, wait a few days, then pick them up. They are available from any library in the county, delivered to my local library. That’s awesome. Much more convenient-and cheaper-than Amazon
So I moved a couple of pages of my Amazon wish-list into the library’s queue.
I must not have been thinking, because two days later, I got an email telling me that 19 books were ready to be picked up and 10 more were in transit.
In this county, each checkout is good for 21 days. For items that don’t have a waiting list, you can reserve 3 times. That’s 12 weeks for 29 books. Hopefully, I’m up to the challenge. Please keep in mind, I’m a father of three, two of whom are in diapers, and I’m married, and I have a full time job.
I have frugally blown every second of spare time for months.
Update: This was another post written in advance. When all of the books came in, I suspended my request list. Little did I realize, the suspension cancels itself after 30 days. That was 30 more books. Whee!
Zimmerman Wins Lottery: A Prank, but What Are the Real Odds of Winning?
Satirical reports regarding George Zimmerman have been misconstrued as factual by several media outlets, which have led to the belief that the man who killed Trayvon Martin is now a multimillionaire due to a lucky lottery ticket. The improbability of the story is astounding, but the more inconceivable notion is that reporters actually believed it enough to pass it on to their audience. The origin of the hoax was the same source that profligates fake news items on a regular basis: The Onion.
The outlet makes no claims about their veracity, and yet they have been regarded as a legitimate resource on innumerable occasions. This is an ultimate embarrassment for any organization that failed to recognize the comedic parody as satire. Errors like this indicate an inhuman lack of humor in tandem with a dense mind. Fortunately, news consumers were not to be deluded, and immediately subjected the reporting to a fact check.Through metaphorical symbolism, the original faux news story implied that Zimmerman’s recent acquittal has visible parallels with a lottery victory because both scenarios seem to bestow an improbable fortune. The report
was obviously meant to be disseminated as sarcasm, but the writers must feel tremendous pride in their ability to dupe the mainstream media. An unintended prank has a marvelous ability to generate a lasting reputation for the satirist. Notoriety is now something the author has in common with Zimmerman.
A stark contrast exists between lotteries and trials, and they are not equivalent. The justice system strides to avoid occurrences of random chance while lotteries promote the notion that anyone can win. The legal process is supposed to rely on evidence. Regardless of the circumstances, a victory in the courtroom has to be vigorously earned. Contrarily, there is nothing anyone can do to increase their chances in a lottery short of buying massive amounts of tickets. In a trial, the concept of reasonable doubt exists to exonerate the defendant, which should eliminate any potential for a toss-up. Courtrooms operate using evidence while lotteries are strictly statistical; therefore, the comparison is non-existent.
Even when it comes to jury selection, the process is not chaotically uncontrolled. Both sides have a general composition is mind, and they meticulously scrutinize prospective jurors as they whittle the numbers down. The pool is always sifted for bias. They are analyzed with hopes of picking people that will be sympathetically swayed towards a certain point of view. At the end, one side picked a better jury. Lotto victors cannot pick the numbers that will be responsible for their fate. Winners of lotteries do not stalk unarmed teenagers with a gun and fatally shoot them, but apparently winners of trials in Florida do.
Lotteries are often labeled as a tax for dumb people; coincidentally, this demographic is the same segment of the population that was targeted by the falsified journalism. In fact, real lottery odds are mathematically insignificant. An ABC News study declares it would take 1,684,841 years for the average lottery player to win a jackpot. Not even Zimmerman is that lucky.
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Good Friday
We don’t have daycare on Good Friday.
We do, however, both have to work today. Two rounds of little-girl tonsillitis have zapped our available vacation time.
On an entirely related note, we put our 12 year old son through Red Cross babysitter training a few weeks ago, just for something like this.
My wife gets nervous at the idea of leaving the girls with the boy for very long. I think she thinks the world will explode if he takes care of them correctly.
Our solution for today is to have a slightly older friend come over and help.
She’s 13 and she brought her 10 year old brother with her.
That’s kids aged 3,5,10,12, and 13 in my house today. Total Lord of the Flies.
Hold that thought.
My son, being 12, doesn’t feel it’s necessary to brush his hair for school, or change his clothes every day, and he needs to be reminded to brush his teeth.
This morning, he woke himself up and ran into the bathroom. He emerged with clean teeth and combed hair. I asked him if he was wearing the same shirt as yesterday, and he flew into his room to change.
Hmm. Something is afoot.
While I was putting my shoes on, I reminded him to take care of the house and his sisters, and he made some smart-aleck joke in response.
She giggled.
Watson, I think I’ve found a clue.
Her father told me, just yesterday, the she thinks boys are gross.
The boy has never shown an interest in girls, until this morning.
Grr. The next decade just got considerably more interesting.
Time to lock them both in their respective basements until college.
Insane Incentives
Spring is in the air.
At my son’s school, that means it’s time for the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment tests. These are the standardized tests created by the No Child Left Behind Act that determine if a school is doing its job in educating children. If too many kids have lousy scores, the school gets put on the “Adequate Yearly Progress” list and will eventually get penalized financially.
That creates a perverted incentive in the school system. The main metric for a publicly-funded school’s success in Minnesota is the MCA. If a school can churn out illiterate trench-diggers, they will get increased funding as long as the test scores are good.
For a full two weeks before this test, the school effectively shut down the education program to prepare for the MCA test. That’s two weeks of studying for a set of standardized tests that focus on reading, writing, and arithmetic. I’m a fan of schools prioritizing the three Rs over other subjects, but that’s not what they did.
They spent two weeks studying testing strategies, not the material contained in the test.
In science class, they covered essential scientific elements like “Answer all of the easy questions first, so you can go back and spend time on the hard ones later.”
Spanish class covered verb usage similar to “When the time is almost out on the test, answer ‘C’ for all of the hard questions you have left, que?”
They weren’t being educated, they were learning the most effective way to solve a test to gain funding for next year.
For 2 weeks.
That’s not reading practice, or reviewing the parts of speech, or covering the necessary math skills. It’s “This is a #2 pencil. This is a circle. Practice until lunch.”
Is this really what NCLB was trying to accomplish? Standardized tests to measure school proficiency should be a surprise. Let’s randomly send in test proctors to take over a school for a day and see what the kids have actually learned.
FINCON Friday
When this goes live, I’ll be on the road to the Financial Bloggers Conference outside of Chicago. That translates to a day off here.
Monday, I’ll be back with a whole bucket full of bloggy goodness.
