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Big 5 Personality Traits: OCEAN

I have mentioned the Big 5 personality traits before, and the biggest of them all is Conscientiousness. Conscientiousness, or C, is a measure of one's ability to buckle down and work hard, especially at unpleasant tasks. It is correlated with job performance and doing well in school. It

Free Range Children

The Magistra is sometimes amazed that I survived my childhood, given the kinds of things my best friend and I used to do. However, we're both much more risk-tolerant than seems the norm these days. Kids pretty much never get to to anything fun, and I'm

Concealed Carry in Establishments that Serve Alcohol

I had been thinking about this topic since it came up in July after Gov. Brewer signed the bills. Since the laws take effect tomorrow, it gives me the excuse to think about it again. If anyone had asked my opinion, which they did not, I would have agreed with

Intelligence and Conscientiousness

Another interesting editorial from Bruce Charlton, Reliable but dumb or smart but slapdash? Comparing and contrasting g and C as measurable, inheritable traits. Both intelligence and conscientiousness are associated with more success in life, generally considered, and are independent of one another in the statistical sense. Charlton has an interesting

Zombie Modeling

The FSS sent me this paper modeling the spread of zombies as an infectious disease. Well, really they are using an ODE, but it is the same kind you use for infectious diseases that actually exist. The results are unsurprising to anyone who has ever seen a zombie movie, but

Science and Engineering Really Do Pay

At least among those with only a bachelor's degree. This is not particularly surprising to me, but this survey admittedly stacks the deck by looking only at people without graduate degrees, so we are talking about a subset of the college educated workforce. h/t CuriousCat Engineering Blog

The Dangers of Averages: Life Expectancy

Courtesy of Satoshi Kanazawa in Psychology Today, an illustration of the dangers of averages. The human lifespan is now pretty much what it has always been, around 70-80 years. I have heard it said many, many times that "in [insert era here] you were old when you were 40!