Golly, tons of reaction — on all sides — to cyber-libertarian Jeff Shallit's nomination of South Shore District School Superintendent Pynch-Worthylake as "Authoritarian High School Superintendent of the Month." (Apologies for the delayed posting; it's been a busy week.) Chris McCormick writes: I figure someone's right to express their opinion is balanced by my right to ignore them; the principal's reaction just valorizes the 'victim society' where we want to whitewash all differences and offending symbols...

13 May, 2012

Contrarian friend Gus Reed doesn't think altitude maps add much to our understanding of complex social issues: These graphs don't meet the minimum standard for clarity. Your pal Edward Tufte would be appalled. What is the scale of the z-dimension? Are we to suppose that the high peak for narcotics is on the same scale as the high peak for prostitution? Absolute numbers? Percentages? Logarithmic? I'm suspicious that McCune is mixing his units. And I don't like the fundamental assumption that it's OK to smooth this kind of data. Consider the three hills of...

15 June, 2010