Links: Collapsing NYC Skyscraper, NCAA Bagmen, Yahoo, Health Insurance, Etc.

Now that my PhD is done—for the water wave aficionados out there, I will post a link to the preprint of my research sometime soon, I hope1—it’s time to start catching up on things. The writeup on my math, linguistics and writing freshman seminar is in the works. For now, here are assorted links. This …

Larry Summers and Glenn Hubbard Shooting Hoops

This week’s New York Times magazine features an article by Adam Davison about economists Larry Summers and Glenn Hubbard. Forgive me for being superficial and ignoring the weighty macroeconomic topics discussed in the article; instead I’m going to offer three thoughts about the basketball tie-in. On Scrawny Moderately Athletic Kids The article begins with Larry …

Interesting Articles: The Dickens/Dostoevsky Hoax, the Mars Rover, Jason Collins, Janet Malcolm, Einstein’s Hoagies

If you haven’t read Eric Naiman’s fascinating article about the hoax of Dostoevsky meeting Dickens yet, you should. (It’s a long but fun read; give yourself time to enjoy it.) A great New Yorker article on NASA’s Curiosity rover to Mars, by Burkhard Bilger. A few questions: (1) There’s a high failure rate in these …