Arnie Barnett explains how to improve the U.S. electoral process

One of my favorite professors at MIT was Arnie Barnett. He’s the George Eastman Professor of Management Science, but more to the point he’s a wizard of statistics, able to make statistics understandable (and dryly funny to boot — as tired as I might be, I always made a point of attending his lectures). He …

Everybody loves pi!

Pie!, originally uploaded by cynthiacloskey. Today is Pi Day! It’s March 14, which is sometimes written as 3.14, which in turn is the mathematical constant pi rounded to two decimals. When I taught computer camp in the summer during high school (yeah, yeah), one of the other instructors was working on a project in which …

Mastermind

Amy in the dorm (photo circa late 1980 or early 1981) A notable passing: Gary Gygax, one of the creators of the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, died today. When I first heard, I was surprised that I recognized the name. My high school friends and I played a lot of D&D, and his name …

Immersed in the environment

Continuing my Cambridge/Boston nostalgia trip: I ate lunch at Legal Seafoods. When I was an undergrad, my parents were apparently concerned that I would not eat properly. So my dad gave me a credit card, and instructed me to eat at Legal Seafoods once a month. He’d eaten there when bringing me up to school …