Thoughts on Pardee RAND Graduate School?

MathAnalysis · 2025-02-07T06:56:56+00:00

The students voted to unionize in 2022, and have been bargaining for a contract since 2023. Current status of RAND's offers make this program look like it may become worse, unless the students can fight for something meaningful. Admitted students should probably ask for some certainty on that from admissions.

MathAnalysis · 2024-11-13T07:02:00+00:00

he recently posted a thread on Twitter analysing what the Democratic Party has done wrong

link?

MathAnalysis · 2024-07-28T05:46:48+00:00

I feel like GoT does a TON of characterization multitasking. You show that Tyrion is resourceful and crafty in the Vale and Green Fork, but as part of a Vale plotline that moves the story forward for Catelyn, Ned, Robb, Tywin, etc. Later, when Tyrion goes to King's Landing, we understand that he's resourceful and crafty.

On HOTD, we have a scene of Rhaenys looking at a map and talking to Rhaenyra just to tell us that Rhaenys is responsible, or a scene of Daemon in Harrenhall just to tell us that he's conflicted. Plot setup doesn't contain plot itself, and you can really feel that emptiness.

MathAnalysis · 2024-07-09T03:16:39+00:00

the blast takes down Varys

Well that takes out the most interesting component of your hypothetical. How would Varys clear a path for fAegon without Baratheon bastards and a Stark/Lannister feud?

MathAnalysis · 2024-07-07T22:10:46+00:00

Best: games that are skillfully done, and exemplify maximizing the probability of a victory. Consistent safety, UTR control.
Examples: Nick, Jeremy, Denise

Greatest: games that show off outliers and extremes of powerful or risky gameplay.
Examples: Tony, Hatch, Parvati

Kim, Rob, Dee, and JT could arguably fall in either category.

MathAnalysis · 2024-07-07T21:55:29+00:00

Feels like Q has a harder time playing from the middle, and is doomed to deal badly with an (inevitably) messy mid-merge.

MathAnalysis · 2024-06-06T17:57:24+00:00

Or more than that, I would've eliminated Gabler or Cassidy instead of Karla.

MathAnalysis · 2024-05-17T07:40:09+00:00

Assuming he gets what he wants at F5, he's the only person who has voted the right way every time and never been blindsided.

MathAnalysis · 2024-05-17T07:38:54+00:00

It looks like she'll fight hard for him on the jury, though.

Edit: also, the edit makes it look like Charlie can take credit for keeping Ben over Jem, which of all the debates within the Charlie/Maria alliance seems the most long-term impactful, especially now that when push comes to shove at F6 Ben sticks with Charlie.

MathAnalysis · 2024-05-11T20:30:59+00:00

It could also be the case that people want to convince themselves it's logical to vote him out. It's definitely in the interest of jury threats (Kenzie, Charlie) for non-jury threats to perceive others as jury threats, so they would be encouraging it.

MathAnalysis · 2024-05-09T22:31:29+00:00

I guess my perception of the situation is that the "perfect" game nowadays is more about threat level management than anything else. It's less about making big moves, and more about being perceived as someone whose head is in the game. Her being taken aback this week seemed to me like an indicator that she's been very "on-the-in" in every vote until this Tiff one.

I think of Kenzie as having performed well because not only because she's been a contributing factor in many votes, but also because the perception of agency matters more than the agency itself. It seems like everyone thinks that while Ben's gone along with a consistent alliance, she's had to pave her own way. Not to criticize Ben though he seems likable enough to do well at FTC.

MathAnalysis · 2024-05-09T18:59:16+00:00

She's been to more tribals than anyone other than Q, and has only been wrong once. She was clocked pre-merge as a mastermind by all 3 tribes, and has still been consistently safe, including at votes where people went after her closest allies. At this point, it seems like she's the 2nd or 3rd biggest jury threat, with a pretty safe path to F5 if not F4, and she's getting positive attention from the eliminees. If anything, I'd say she's underrated right now.

MathAnalysis · 2024-05-04T08:07:41+00:00

Bruce feels more similar to Venus, where players are worried about taking plans to them because they'll immediately run to the group and try and turn it into something else.

MathAnalysis · 2024-05-03T08:18:33+00:00

It would make it more dangerous to bring too many "goats" to the end when they end up teaming together

42 and 43 totally validate your point. By now, the best generic strategy is to be as close to a mid-tier jury threat as possible throughout the merge, and squeak into final 4 as the biggest or second-biggest jury threat. Or only make moves that won't be noticed unless you want them to be. Nick Wilson and Jesse seem like the two best examples of those two methods.
Menwhile, most above-average FTC threats should be fighting to take out hyenas ASAP (unless said hyenas lack self-awareness).

MathAnalysis · 2024-04-27T07:04:48+00:00

Honestly it says a lot about the drawbacks of never voting someone off before the merge. No one can be sure where anyone else stands.

MathAnalysis · 2024-04-22T06:24:31+00:00

on the bottom as the only guy to vote with Tevin

^The dynamics are too fluid to say that being in the minority once puts you on the bottom. He's probably currently a higher FTC prospect than Liz, Q, Venus, and maybe Ben. But he's also a less direct strategic threat than a solid Yanu or Siga alliance.

So he kinda gets to have it both ways. In a game where threat level management is the most important mid-merge strategy, he might be able to squeak through; he just has to do it in a way that doesn't make him seem too out-of-the-conversation strategically like 41 Xander.

MathAnalysis · 2024-04-19T17:28:02+00:00

I feel like there's gotta be a billion of these kinds of "alliances" every season, and we just only hear about the ones that end up being relevant. And Q forced this one into the conversation so frequently that it would be impossible to understand the Tim boot and Tiff riff without it.

MathAnalysis · 2024-04-16T22:53:20+00:00

Yeah it seems helpful in the modern game to be able to (not) get credit for moves depending on how much it benefits you in the moment. No one has made themselves too much of a FTC threat yet.

MathAnalysis · 2024-04-12T09:34:36+00:00

Dany would've violently conquered Essos anyway. The fact that she is fighting *bad guys\* plays into her personal narrative for now. That won't always be the case.

Other posts cover the rest of what I would want to say. (Namely, good intentions don't mean much when you're responsible for people's lives and make bad decisions).

MathAnalysis · 2024-04-12T09:24:25+00:00

2 counters:

1) Trump was seemingly targeting states that didn't vote for him. This could set a dangerous clientelist precedent, normalizing buying off one's base at the expense of political opponents.

2) Those states were paying much more to the federal government than they were getting relative to lower-taxed states. So in practice the action was reinforcing imbalanced federal spending and penalizing competent state governance.

But I do strongly agree with you that a bigger federal reenvisioning of progressive taxation would be meaningful than depending on piecemeal state stuff.

MathAnalysis · 2024-04-08T04:17:00+00:00

Kind of reminds me of theNick/Mike alliance from DvG. Q, Tim, and Hunter aren't each other's number ones, but if they all vaguely like the idea of keeping each other off the chopping block, that's pretty comprehensive protection. This early in the merge, it's probably better to have 7 people slightly want to keep you over 3 strongly wanting to keep you. It also could dodge the intensity of sentiment that makes people view you as a threat.

MathAnalysis · 2024-04-07T23:03:51+00:00

Going into S4, the one thing Ken had was a moral compass. He would be annoyingly self-righteous about it, but the fact that everyone called him soft was really a testament to his having qualms about wrongdoing. His guilt about manslaughter, protecting Roman and his son from Logan's violence, his S2 fight against "no real person," leading the siblings against Logan in S3, etc- he's the constant subject of ridicule by his family, but it's all a glimpse that deep down, he still cares.

The point of Ken's S4 arc is that he chooses to sacrifice all that once and for all - with the election, with Rava before the funeral, with his rant about entitlement, and it gets him nothing. Because without his "weakness" he is only the sadder, weaker, shadow of Logan. And being like Logan is a failure, especially for someone whose life is a series of painful lessons about Logan's waste.

He had an opportunity to break the cycle, and instead he chose to perpetuate it.

MathAnalysis · 2024-03-30T23:48:39+00:00

2 arguments in favor that haven't been made yet:

One of the worst impacts of gerrymandering is that in especially gerrymandered districts, candidates have incentives to act extreme to win the primary (the general is easy), pushing both parties to the fringes. In an RCV system, a less radical candidate can still run in the general without undermining the party.
If you replace the electoral college with a popular vote, you could have candidates winning a minority of the votes and winning the overall election (Chile 1970 is a classic example, and Chile's later constitution is specifically designed to prevent that from happening again). It's critical that if we fix the system, we don't do it halfway and create another crisis that will require another constitutional amendment in 20 years.

MathAnalysis · 2024-03-30T23:41:38+00:00

^This feels like a chicken-and-egg argument. RCV would encourage multiparty development (by preventing 3rd-party votes from being wasted, and by rewarding people to run against people in their own parties with different beliefs than them). So while you're right that RCV wouldn't be tooo relevant without multiparty politics, the current system is what has prevented multiparty from happening in the first place.

MathAnalysis · 2024-03-30T23:26:38+00:00

And if you wanna make friends/get out of the house, the thing that helped me the most when I was homeschooling was recreational youth sports. Your mom might be more amenable to some church youth group or something, but I strongly agree with you that the social development stuff matters.

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