Cozy Corner

And Belichick shows his sense of style, giving Testaverde his 20th NFL season with a touchdown pass. (I wonder if next year's emergency QB will also be selected to end the season with such an amusing note).

This is the first time I've watched the Titans for an entire game this season. Quite an up and coming team - I think we'll hear them a lot next season. They kept the game close for quite a bit on their muddy field, but, ultimately, it wasn't enough. From what I've heard of Vince Young, his big strength is in moving laterally behind the line, and then using his running ability to open up the field. Except for his one scoring run, the Patriots defensive line kept him well-contained. Pacman Jones, on the other hand, exposed a lot of holes on the Pats special teams - so much that Sauerbrun got told to just kick the ball out of bounds rather than let Pacman have it.

The AFC seeding is still in the air at this point (although it looks like Baltimore and Indy are going to win, which means that if San Diego holds onto its lead, it'll be Chargers, Ravens, Colts, Patriots; if Denver wins, it'll then be Broncos/Jets; if Denver loses, Jets/Chiefs); but anyway it comes out, the Pats have an uphill battle - next week, they'll likely play a team that has already beat them this season (Broncos or Jets (unless Miami comes back with 8 minutes to win, and Denver doesn't manage to overcome the four points they're behind)); if they win that, the following week they'll be on the road - either letting the Colts go home to Baltimore (and thus heading to San Diego), or going to Baltimore if Indy gets eliminated. What a confusing system.

Update: So Denver is out. That means the Jets will come to New England next week. Should be a good game.

Posted by Andy at 07:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Remember Ping Golf and their no discounts for military? Apparently, now Home Depot is up to similar tricks.

Historically, Home Depot has had an unadvertised discount for holders of military ID (active and veterans) of ten percent. The discount was at the discretion of individual store managers, and you had to know about it, and ask for it. It's been a nice policy, especially as we're renovating our house. No longer. The store we frequent has a new manager, who is following new guidance from headquarters, apparently: no more discounts for military, even if the manager wants it. (Our store manager doesn't, and is, in fact, trying to not honor the price we were quoted for some of the items on backorder).

Anyone out there have similar experience or more insight?

Posted by Andy at 01:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Greg Mankiw has a good way to think about the real cost of the minimum wage:

here are some hints about how to think about it in a competitive labor market using supply and demand curves. Let w be the market wage, and let W be the target wage of policymakers. Draw supply and demand curves for labor such that the equilibrium wage in the absence of any policy is below W. Now suppose the government tells suppliers of labor: Whenever w is less than W, you are paid a subsidy equal to W-w. Similarly, it tells demanders of labor: Whenever w is less than W, you are charged a tax equal to W-w. Calculate quantity supplied and quantity demanded as a function of the market wage w. Graph the new supply and demand curves, and I believe the equivalence should be clear.

Unfortunately for the rest of us, I doubt that most policymakers can calculate supply and demand curves; too many of them are lawyers, and too few economists.

Posted by Andy at 07:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Okay, I was too traumatized to talk about the Miami game. And beating the Texans? Not something to brag about, unless you're the Oakland Raiders. Or Tony Dungy, who I'm sure would love to have the Colts' loss back.

But the Jacksonville game was respectable. Sure, they should have tackled Maurice Jones-Drew, instead of letting him get back up (that's the second time I've seen defenders have stopped playing, permitting an offense to make a key play (see the botched sack on Vince Young by NYG)), and Seymour's roughing the passer gave up another 7 points; but all in all, a nicely executed game. Two games in a row of a well-played game.

At this point, I believe the Patriots are stuck at fourth seed, unless Indy loses and the Pats win. Given the Pats are playing Tennessee, we should be able to count on one, and Indy is playing Miami, which has risen to the challenge late this year (defeating Chicago, New England, and Kansas City), so anything can happen.

In an interesting note, the AFC currently has a nicely collated set of standings. As required by ranking, the top four teams each represent a different division. But so do the next four, the following four, and the four after that (West stands atop the first three foursomes, probably due to the Raiders coming in dead last). The NFC, on the other hand, has East holding three of the top six spots, which could make the playoffs look more like a divisional rivalry. This is buoyed by West's mediocre performance (witness the 8-7 Eagles having clinched that division).

Posted by Andy at 07:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

is up at Shiloh Musings.

Posted by Andy at 07:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

That's right. Merry Christmas to all my Christian friends and readers.

It's been an entertaining season, as people become more self-conscious about their holiday greetings. And no, this isn't a War on Christmas. Here's my lessons from this year, they may be applicable next year.

If you're at a specific holiday event - a Hanukkah party, or a Christmas Eve dinner - give everyone the well-wish appropriate to the event, regardless of their creed.

If not at a religious event, and you know the religious preference of the recipient, wish them according to their choice - so Christians, wish me a Happy Hanukkah, and I'll wish you a Merry Christmas.

If you aren't positive of the religion of a person or group, but are reasonable acquaintances with them, or they are a mixed group, a mixed bag of blessings works fine: "Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! Joyous Yule! Frozen Festivus!"

If you don't know an individual, go with "Happy Holidays" or the like.

Oh, and after Hanukkah, don't wish me a Happy Hanukkah any more. Look ahead to the New Year!

Posted by Andy at 11:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Cozy Corner has been on hiatus for a bit; and blogging will continue to be light. In addition to increased business at work, I've got a pinched nerve in my back, and the pain has really driven my attention span down. Fortunately, I can still read.

Just finished A Conflict of Visions, by Thomas Sowell. Of any philosophical work I've read, this is the one I'd most recommend to folks out there trying to create a dialogue across the liberal/conservative gap. Simply put, Sowell argues that there are two distinct visions of how the world - and people - operate. Your political philosophy is built atop your belief - and may therefore seem incomprehensible to someone coming from a different foundation.

Finally read A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter Miller, Jr. Wow. I can see a bit of where L.E. Modesitt, Jr gets some of his inspiration from. If you're interested in post-apocalyptic multi-millennial stories, here's a good one.

Also got, and finished, Island in the Sea of Time, by S.M. Stirling. It's a time-travel triggered alternate history - in this case, Nantucket gets cast back three millennia. A very good read, especially if you're a logisitician. Many of you will find the summary of the interaction with the Olmec quite amusing.

And, finally, Lest Darkness Fall, by L. Sprague de Camp. One of the original time-travelling novels - an historian goes back to the fall of the Roman Empire. A nice read, if a little light on some of the logistics. But when you look at what Martin Padway has to fight up against, you can see why the Empire fell.

On the reading list: A War Like No Other, A Meeting at Corvallis, and Hell's Gate.

Posted by Andy at 09:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As we've noted before, MIT students can be dangerous with their architecture:

The building, folks, is the Stata Center; and apparently, the decor is in response to this from the Wired article:

Given Stata's crew, it's no surprise that a lot of the gripes focus on their caves - or lack thereof. Stata has 370 lockable offices for 1,000 people, and math is something this crowd is good at. When Microsoft comes to recruit, notes one doctoral candidate, "one of their big selling points is: 'Our offices have doors.' With the kind of focused work people do here, spin-up and spin-down times are excessive." (Translation: Distractions are bad.) Gehry's team came up with plywood partitions. To which the grad students answered: Dilbert.

Update: Clearly I just failed my iconic knowledge test. It's actually a Where's Waldo hack, and Waldo is everywhere.

Posted by Andy at 03:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There's water in them thar hills!

A gully on the wall of an unnamed crater in Terra Sirenum, at 36.6 degrees south, 161.8 degrees west, was initially imaged by the camera on Dec. 22, 2001 (Figure A, left). It showed nothing noteworthy at the location where a change would later be observed, but a group of nearby gullies exhibited an unusual patch of light-toned material. As part of our routine campaign to re-image gully sites using the camera, another image of this location was acquired on April 24, 2005. A new light-toned deposit had appeared in what was otherwise a nondescript gully (Figure A, right). This deposit was imaged again by the camera on Aug. 26, 2005, at a time when the sun angle and season were the same as in the original December 2001 image, to confirm that indeed the light-toned feature was something new, not just a trick of differing lighting conditions. In August 2005, the feature was still present.

Very, very cool, if true.

Posted by Andy at 09:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)