Not the Kind of Customer Review You Read Every Day
You never know what you’ll run across while reading Yelp. While sussing out Philadelphia hotels, I came across this review:
First of all, let me just say that, if you can get a room, this is an excellent hotel. Don’t let the fact that a transgendered prostitute was arrested for killing an occupant here and tried setting fire to his room in November 2010. As with any hotel, you should be careful who you let into your room anyway.
The reviewer gave the hotel four stars out of five. It wasn’t the murder (which, though I was skeptical, was for real) that led him to deduct a star, but rather the low water pressure and bad hours at the fitness center.
And you wonder why companies are still nervous about the whole customer-review concept?
Prediction Markets on the Debt Ceiling, U.S. Credit Downgrade
Over at Intrade, there are two “hot” markets involving the odds that Congress will raise the U.S. debt ceiling.
- Congress to approve increase in U.S. debt ceiling before midnight on July 31, 2011: 40% (It was 65% a month ago)
- Congress to approve increase in U.S. debt ceiling before midnight Aug. 31, 2011: 75% (It was 85% a month ago)
And at Irish bookmaker PaddyPower.com, here is the line on a Moody’s downgrade:
Will Moody’s downgrade the U.S.?
-Yes: 9/2
-No: 1/8
Another Salvo in the Tenure Debate
Should professors have tenure? The question, debated recently on this blog, misses the mark—as do the usual answers, whether “yes,” “no,” or “maybe.”
On the “no” side, it is argued that tenure protects incompetent spongers. A very reliable (tenured) colleague, at a university that shall remain nameless, tells me of professors whose interests are no longer intellectual and who spend their time playing the real estate market. Their research productivity, measured in grant dollars or papers, is low; thus, the university is angry. Their teaching is also substandard, yet not quite abysmal enough to get them fired. To urge them to resign, the department punishes them… by assigning extra teaching!
On the “yes” side, it is argued that tenure protects academic freedom. That point is made by my colleague on this blog Dan Hamermesh. Ten years ago I agreed with him. I would not have imagined my future self happy as an associate professor at Olin College of Engineering: Olin offers six-year renewable contracts instead of tenure. Now I see Olin’s system as a reasonable alternative to tenure, for I no longer believe that tenure supports academic freedom. Read More »
and 
. If you haven’t seen it yet, the movie features Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, and was made by a dream team of documentary directors. Paste Magazine named it one of the 