Category: Other

Potential Confounding Factors in the Analysis of Kudos/Hits on AO3

~ Crayshack ~ Leave a comment

Created in conjunction with /u/What_The_Function.

Archive Of Our Own (AO3) is a website designed for archiving fanfiction and the occasional amateur original work.  The site has several metrics that it tracks which can be used to measure the success of a particular story.  Among them are Hits (a measurement of how many separate times a web browser has visited the page for a story) and Kudos (a vote of approval for a particular story that can be left by both registered users and guests).  The site tracks them separately and most users just use one stat or the other (or a different independent stat) to measure how successful a story is.  However, some users have suggested looking at the measurement of Kudos/Hits instead.  In theory, this will show a measurement of how much the people who read the story like it and will remove the confounding factors of some stories getting lucky with drawing more readers in and some stories simply appealing to a broader crowd.  However, it has also been suggested that this measurement may introduce its own confounding factors.

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Adjusting Medal Totals for Number of Events

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The Olympics are an event that stimulates a competitive spirit in everyone involved, even simple spectators.  Despite the Games not being designed to crown an overall winner, this often spawns debates over who is the overall winner of the games.  There are several different methods I have seen from determining such a victor, but a common critique I hear of many of these methods is they are unfavorably weighted in favor of nations that are particularly successful in sports with a large number of events.

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Why Minimum Wage?

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When I first saw the idea of a $15/hour minimum wage suggested, I was skeptical.  My skepticism came from not agreeing with the number since I had seen low cost of living areas where it seemed like less than that was far more than what was needed to support oneself.  My counter suggestion at the time was something more like $10/hour since the math I had done for my own finances said that was my own break-even point if I stayed living in the area near my college post-graduation.  I was expecting to be in the main body of the argument against $15/hour and that discussion would be a back and forth about what was the ideal number to increase the minimum wage to.

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Should Election Day be a National Holiday?

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The idea of making elections more accessible is a widely agreed-upon stance by more liberal Americans, even ones who are mostly moderate.  The basic idea is that people have a right to make their voices heard and there should be fewer barriers between the people and the polls.  Where that united stance breaks down is in discussions of how to make that happen.  In particular, a major push by some people is to make Election Day a National Holiday.  This is a measure that I do not agree with.

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A Tale of Two Capitalisms

~ Crayshack ~ 1 Comment

Capitalism is a loaded word.  For good or bad, it exists at the core of modern economic theory and any discussion about economic policy cannot avoid it.  Opinions on capitalism range from it being the greatest economic system ever developed to it being the greatest evil faced in our times.  The problem is, the more I have looked at the issue the less sure I am that everyone means the same thing when they say “Capitalism”.

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A Defense of the Use of Atomic Bombs on Japan

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On August 6th, 1945, the first atomic weapon to be used in a war was detonated over Hiroshima with a blast estimated to be the equivalent of 12,500 tons of TNT (Frank,264). On August 9th, 1945, the last atomic weapon to be used in a war was detonated over Nagasaki (Frank, 283) with a blast estimated to be equivalent of 22,000 tons of TNT (Frank, 285). Somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 people died from the combination of both blasts and the radiation poisoning that they caused (Frank, 287). The surrender of Japan was formalized on September 2nd, 1945 (Frank, 330). To this day there is a strong debate as to whether or not the use of the atomic bombs was necessary. This paper takes the firm stance that the authorities behind the decision to use atomic weapons fulfilled the responsibilities entrusted to them to the best of their abilities with the information available.

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The Dual Housing Market

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Everyone can agree that the housing market is a bit crazy at the moment. Even before COVID, it was a solid seller’s market and the pandemic has just exaggerated the market state that was already there. A lot of people are talking about the various reasons behind this, but there is one facet that isn’t talked about much. There exists two wildly different groups of people trying to buy into the market and because they are competing for the same resource the prices are going crazy.

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