On Pitchers and the HOF

Bob Matthews (sports editor for my local paper) had another good column today on various players and their chances for the Baseball Hall of Fame. This time his focus was on active pitchers with 200 or more wins.

I agree with most of his assessments. I don't rate Schilling as high as he does -- 70-30 chance to make it. His 213-142 record, 3.46 ERA, and obvious post-season heroics just aren't enough for me. If he can somehow manage a couple more quality seasons, or even more post-season heroics, then my view will of course change.

I found Bob's comment about Kenny Rogers to be pretty funny. After summing up his numbers, he wrote "A claim to fame is being the only 200-plus game winner in baseball history to be less famous than a singer with the same name." LOL

And he gives John Smoltz a 90/10 chance of making it to the HOF. I'd say at this point Smoltz is 100%, though given the way the voting works he might not be a first-ballot HOFer.

Interesting OS Bug Fix Statistics

Paul Thurrott's WinInfo Daily email newsletter is something I've read for years, as Paul often provides the very latest information on computers and the Internet faster than anyone else -- and he often corrects stories or rumors in the mainstream media that are not in line with the facts. Although the general focus of his newsletter is Windows, he is often very critical of Microsoft and often has very positive things to say about its various competitors (Apple, Linux, Google, et al.). And the topics of the newsletter really do cover the entire industry, broadly construed. Oh, and his SuperSite for Windows is a great resource for product reviews too!

A couple of his "short-takes" from Friday summarized the situation with bug fixes for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux:

Microsoft: We Patch More Quickly than Apple or Linux
Well, duh. And anyone who disagrees with this hasn't been paying attention. Microsoft on Thursday released data showing that Windows users were at risk from security flaws for less time than users of Apple Mac OS X or Linux over the past few years because the company responds to flaws more quickly. According to the company, Windows users were at risk an average of less than 29 days last year, compared with 46 days for OS X and 74-107 days for various Linux distributions. Hey, that's great, really. But on the flip side, Windows is hacked more than all those systems combined, so it's unclear whether this data makes much difference. Let's flip it around again: In 2006, Windows also had the fewest actual security flaws, with 90 for Windows XP, compared with 129 for OS X and 232-301 for various Linux versions. In the end, security is a tough one: Although it's very easy to protect a Windows system against electronic attack, it's equally true that Windows is the target of most actual attacks, even if it has the fewest actual flaws or shortest length of time before flaws are fixed.

But... Microsoft Patched Windows XP More Quickly than it Patches Windows Vista
But wait, there's more. Although Microsoft wasn't trying to highlight this fact in its revelation about security flaws, the company's data also shows that it's patching security flaws in Vista far more slowly than it did with XP. According to Microsoft, it patched 12 of 27 security flaws in the first six months since Vista was generally released. But the company had patched 36 out of 39 known security flaws in XP in the same timeframe when that OS was released. To be fair, most of Vista's unpatched bugs are not critical security flaws, which might explain the discrepancy. And the lower number of actual flaws suggests that Vista is more secure than XP, especially given that electronic attacks are more frequent and more sophisticated now than when XP first shipped. Yeah, I'm making lemonade here, but it seems there are many ways to interpret this data.

Assuming his numbers are accurate, the only angle missing from this is how many of those bugs for each OS are "critical" vs. lesser status. Unless the Windows ones are predominantly "critical" and the Linux and Mac OS X ones aren't, these numbers do indicate a common misconception in the OS world and in the press.

AFI Updates Top 100 Movies List

This past week CBS ran a 10th Anniversary version of the American Film Institute Top 100 Movies special. Here is a news item from Yahoo! that summarizes the updates results. There were 4 new movies on the list from the past 10 years: 2001's "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" (No. 50), 1998's "Saving Private Ryan" (No. 71), 1997's "Titanic" (No. 83) and 1999's "The Sixth Sense" (No. 89). There were various other films that cracked the top-100 that didn't ten years ago, and of course many other films moved spots up or down.

One that rose significantly was Raging Bull from 24th to 4th, something I don't agree with at all. That places it higher than The Wizard of Oz, Lawrence of Arabia, The Graduate, Star Wars, and many others that I find more deserving. Another top climber was Vertigo, going from 61st to 9th. I think 9th is too high for it, but perhaps 61st was too low. Personally, as far as Hitchcock classics go, I prefer The Man Who Knew Too Much, but it didn't even make the top-100 at all.

These top-100 shows from AFI are always a joy to watch, and certainly good argument-starters. I look forward to the next one (or next 10-year anniversary show).

Pandora Introduces Me To Dargaard

Another plug for Pandora.com here. I first blogged about this internet radio service here, and then again later here. The latest song that my "Enya-centered" radio station has introduced me to that I really like a lot is the depressingly-titled "In the Omnipresence of Death". It is by an Austrian group called Dargaard (for more info, see the Wikipedia entry about them, their website, and the Napalm Records promo page for them). It is from their 2001 album "The Dissolution of Eternity".

Unfortunately, iTunes doesn't have the song available yet. And Amazon doesn't provide clips from this album. But you can listen to a clip of just the beginning of it at the eMusic page for this album. The song begins with chimes with some haunting background voices. Then the song picks up the pace with female vocals and heavy what I assume are bass and timpani percussion. It returns to the chimes and then back again to the female voice with deep percussion, and some strings as well. And there are keyboards throughout (indeed, some of what I just described could be keyboard/synthesized for all I know).

Just another song I've come to really like a lot... and only through the wonder that is Pandora!

Star Wars Parody by Robot Chicken

There was a great Star Wars parody special (by Robot Chicken) the other night on Adult Swim. So many great skits! Here it is in three parts on YouTube:

• Part 1 (8:07)
• Part 2 (8:15)
• Part 3 (6:42)

And here are shorter ones (duplicate from above):

• Vader calls the emperor
• Vader tells Luke the truth
• Bush vs. Star Wars
• Brief trailer for the show

And then for good measure, here is a Star Trek one by Robot Chicken as well... its a little intense, so you are warned!

Classic Humor, Part 8: Performance Evaluations

Here is another in my series of classic humor bits from the Internet (here is Part 7), which I'm posting as I clean out my old Humor email box. This listing dates back to 1998:

Quotes from actual Federal Employee performance evaluations:

• "Since my last report, he has reached rock bottom and has started to dig."
• "His men would follow him anywhere, but only out of morbid curiousity."
• "I would not allow this employee to breed."
• "This employee is not so much of a has-been, but more of a definite won't be."
• "Works well when under constant supervision and cornered like a rat in a trap."
• "When she opens her mouth, it seems that this is only to change whicheverfoot was previously in there."
• "He would be out of his depth in a parking lot puddle."
• "This young lady has delusions of adequacy."
• "She sets low personal standards and then consistently fails to acheive them."
• "This employee should go far--and the sooner he starts, the better."
• "This employee is depriving a village somewhere of an idiot."
• "Not the sharpest knife in the drawer."
• "Got into the gene pool when the lifeguard wasn't looking."
• "A room temperature I.Q."
• "Got a full six-pack, but lacks the plastic thingy to hold it all together."
• "A gross ignoramus -- 144 times worse than an ordinary ignoramus."
• "A photographic memory but with the lens cover glued on."
• "A prime candidate for natural deselection."
• "Bright as Alaska in December."
• "One-celled organisms out-score him in I.Q. tests."
• "Donated his brain to science before he was done using it."
• "Fell out of his family tree."
• "Gates are down, the lights are flashing, but the train isn't coming."
• "Has two brains; one is lost and the other is out looking for it."
• "He's so dense, light bends around him."
• "If brains were taxed, he'd get a rebate."
• "If you stand close enough to him, you can hear the ocean."
• "It's hard to believe that he beat out 1,000,000 other sperm."
• "Some drink from the fountain of knowledge; he only gargled."
• "Wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead."

WHS Will Be the Next Big Thing

I've said it before... or at least clearly implied it before: I think WHS (Windows Home Server) is going to be a big deal. In a blog posting in January of this year I sang the praises of WHS; if you haven't read that one, do so now since I describe the many reasons why I am excited about this forthcoming product.

Compared with some other upcoming technologies -- such as Apple iPhone or Microsoft's "Surface" technology -- WHS doesn't seem to be getting a lot of a buzz. I guess that is in part because there isn't anything really visually cool to show in video clip or advertisement -- except what will inevitably be extremely happy customers! And yet, I really think WHS will be a hugely important product. Put me on record as predicting it now -- or better, back in January. There is huge pent-up demand for a product that does what WHS will do. It must perform all those functions, do them all well, and be easy to setup and maintain. And from the ongoing beta-testing and development news I've been reading for months, WHS seems well-poised to deliver on every count.

Here are a couple of recent news bits: PC World on the RC1 release, and then a Smarthouse review (a technology guide from Australia). The latter I think hits the nail on the head with its title: "Windows Home Server The Next Big Thing".

A Brief History of Economic Time

University of Rochester Economics professor Steven Landsburg wrote a nice opinion piece in the 6/9-10 Wall Street Journal, titled "A Brief History of Economic Time". He begins with the following rapid history review:

Modern humans first emerged about 100,000 years ago. For the next 99,800 years or so, nothing happened. Well, not quite nothing. There were wars, political intrigue, the invention of agriculture -- but none of that stuff had much effect on the quality of people's lives. Almost everyone lived on the modern equivalent of $400 to $600 a year, just above the subsistence level. True, there were always tiny aristocracies who lived far better, but numerically they were quite insignificant.

Then -- just a couple of hundred years ago, maybe 10 generations -- people started getting richer. And richer and richer still. Per capita income, at least in the West, began to grow at the unprecedented rate of about three quarters of a percent per year. A couple of decades later, the same thing was happening around the world.

Then it got even better. By the 20th century, per capita real incomes, that is, incomes adjusted for inflation, were growing at 1.5% per year, on average, and for the past half century they've been growing at about 2.3%. If you're earning a modest middle-class income of $50,000 a year, and if you expect your children, 25 years from now, to occupy that same modest rung on the economic ladder, then with a 2.3% growth rate, they'll be earning the inflation-adjusted equivalent of $89,000 a year. Their children, another 25 years down the line, will earn $158,000 a year.

Against a backdrop like that, the temporary ups and downs of the business cycle seem fantastically minor. In the 1930s, we had a Great Depression, when income levels fell back to where they had been 20 years earlier. For a few years, people had to live the way their parents had always lived, and they found it almost intolerable. The underlying expectation -- that the present is supposed to be better than the past -- is a new phenomenon in history. No 18th-century politician would have asked "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" because it never would have occurred to anyone that they ought to be better off than they were four years ago.

That is a good point, and one I hadn't thought of! Landsburg's history review then goes beyond income alone:

One hundred years ago the average American workweek was over 60 hours; today it's under 35. One hundred years ago 6% of manufacturing workers took vacations; today it's over 90%. One hundred years ago the average housekeeper spent 12 hours a day on laundry, cooking, cleaning and sewing; today it's about three hours.

As far as the quality of the goods we buy, try picking up an electronics catalogue from, oh, say, 2001 and ask yourself whether there's anything there you'd want to buy. That was the year my friend Ben spent $600 for a 1.3-megapixel digital camera that weighed a pound and a half. What about services, such as health care? Would you rather purchase today's health care at today's prices or the health care of, say, 1970 at 1970 prices? I don't know any informed person who would choose 1970, which means that despite all the hype about costs, health care now is a better bargain than it's ever been before.

The moral is that increases in measured income -- even the phenomenal increases of the past two centuries -- grossly understate the real improvements in our economic condition. The average middle-class American might have a smaller measured income than the European monarchs of the Middle Ages, but I suspect that Tudor King Henry VIII would have traded half his kingdom for modern plumbing, a lifetime supply of antibiotics and access to the Internet.

Some interesting numbers and thought experiments here. I've read the health care comparison he poses somewhere before, and it is an important point to make when considering the rising cost of health care in this country. He then goes on to praise what he sees as the source of this wealth: technological progress and ideas, not just technological ideas, but ideas of all kinds including new ideas in economics. He makes good points here, but I don't think that he has really hit the fundamental source. The examples of economic ideas that he cites are very particular, concrete ideas, like Julian Simon coming up with the idea of bribing airline passengers to give up their seats on overbooked flights and so on. But the fundamental source of the incredible progress of the past 100 years is a particular economic-political system that fosters and allows for such progress in technology and ideas, and that system is of course capitalism, the system that promotes liberty and protects individual rights.

Baseball Lists, Part 5: HRs by Position

Here is Part 5 in my series of baseball entries that note what I am finding interesting as I go through the newly released SABR book The SABR Baseball List & Record Book (available at Amazon). (Here is a link to Part 4 in this series.)

I've been waiting a few weeks to write this one, because I needed a particular event to occur this season. It was delayed because of inter-league play, as you'll understand in a minute.

Lists 103-111 show the top HR hitters by position -- that is, the most HR hit while playing each defensive position. So at Catcher we have Mike Piazza at 396, Carlton Fisk 351, Johnny Bench 327, Yogi Berra 306, and then Lance Parrish 299. I wouldn't have remembered Parrish as being up that high.

At 1B there is Mark McGwire with 566, then Lou Gehrig 493, Jimmie Fox 482 (he played some C early in his career), Fred McGriff 462, and so on. Willie McCovey had 521 career knocks, but here ranks 7th with 439, because he played some OF early in his career. And Eddie Murray had 504 career HR, but only 409 at 1B because he hit as the DH in about a fifth of his games played.

At 2B active slugger Jeff Kent leads with 319, plus he has 9 more this year too. Next is Ryne Sandberg with 277, then Joe Morgan 266, Rogers Hornsby 265, and even Bret Boone with 251.

At 3B, of course Mike Schmidt is tops with 509, as apparently his 39 other HR came while playing other positions or pinch hitting. Eddie Mathews is next with 486, and then Graig Nettles with 368. Like Parrish at catcher, I wouldn't have immediately have thought of Nettles this high on the list, but it makes sense.

SS is an interesting list. Cal Ripken has 345 and remains the narrow leader here, but only because A-Rod is playing 3B these days. He has 344, so if ever hits two or more while playing SS again, he'll take over the top spot. Ernie Banks is only in third place with 277, since he split his career between SS and 1B. Miguel Tejada could also pass Ripken one day, as he is currently fourth with 237 (plus 7 more so far this year), and is only 31 years old.

For LF, we have Barry Bonds way out in front with 698, then Ted Williams 477, Ralph Kiner 334, and even Luis Gonzalez with 326. He can claim he hit more HR as a LF than the mighty Babe Ruth, who comes in fifth with 313 (though Ruth is also currently fifth on the list for RF!).

For CF, Willie Mays has 640, but Ken Griffey Jr. has a shot at catching him as he has 540 plus 18 so far in 2007. Mickey Mantle is in third place with 431, and then Duke Snider with 356, and Joe Dimaggio with 344. Andruw Jones should rise up this list, as he was in 7th place with 328 through 2006.

In RF, Sammy Sosa is in first place with 536, having edged past Hank Aaron with 527. Mel Ott 433, Reggie Jackson 431, and again Babe Ruth 354 round out the top five. As long as he can continue to play RF as opposed to DH, Vlad Guerrero will rise in this list from his current 7th place spot with 325 through 2006.

And lastly, today Frank Thomas hit his 244th as a DH (496th HR overall), surpassing Edgar Martinez for tops amongst designated hitters. Harold Baines ranks third with 236, and then Don Baylor is in fourth with 219, although David Ortiz had 192 through 2006 and is climbing this list fast. It was Mr. Thomas that kept me from posting this one sooner, as I knew he was on the verge on passing Martinez.

Classic Humor, Part 7: Road Signs

Here is another in my series of classic humor bits from the Internet (here is Part 6), which I'm posting as I clean out my old Humor email box. This listing dates back to 1997, and was titled "Road Signs":

The following are actual signs seen across the good ol' U.S.A.:

1. At a Santa Fe gas station:
   We will sell gasoline to anyone in a glass container.
2. In a New York restaurant:
   Customers who consider our waitresses uncivil ought to see the manager.
3. On the wall of a Baltimore estate:
   Trespassers will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. --Sisters of Mercy
4. On a long-established New Mexico dry cleaners:
   38 years on the same spot.
5. In a Los Angeles dance hall:
   Good clean dancing every night but Sunday.
6. In a Florida maternity ward:
   No children allowed.
7. In a New York drugstore:
   We dispense with accuracy.
8. In the offices of a loan company:
   Ask about our plans for owning your home.
9. In a New York medical building:
   Mental Health Prevention Center
10. On a New York convalescent home:
    For the sick and tired of the Episcopal Church.
11. On a Maine shop:
    Our motto is to give our customers the lowest possible prices and workmanship.
12. On a display of "I love you only" Valentine cards:
    Now available in multi-packs.
13. In the window of a Kentucky appliance store:
    Don't kill your wife. Let our washing machine do the dirty work.
14. In a funeral parlor:
    Ask about our layaway plan.
15. In a clothing store:
    Wonderful bargains for men with 16 and 17 necks.
16. In a Tacoma, Washington men's clothing store:15 men's wool suits, $10. They won't last an hour!
17. On a shopping mall marquee:Archery Tournament -- Ears pierced.
18. Outside a country shop:We buy junk and sell antiques.
19. In the window of an Oregon store:
    Why go elsewhere and be cheated when you can come here?
20. In a Maine restaurant:
    Open 7 days a week and weekends.
21. On a radiator repair garage:Best place to take a leak.
22. In the vestry of a New England church:
    Will the last person to leave please see that the perpetual light is extinguished.
23. In a Pennsylvania cemetery:
    Persons are prohibited from picking flowers from any but their own graves.
24. On a roller coaster:
    Watch your head.
25. On the grounds of a public school:
    No trespassing without permission.
26. On a Tennessee highway:
    When this sign is under water, this road is impassable.
27. Similarly, in front of a New Hampshire car wash:
    If you can't read this, it's time to wash your car.
28. And apparently, somewhere in England in an open field otherwise untouched by human presence, there is a sign that says "Do not throw stones at this sign."

Wafa Sultan's 2006 Al-Jezeera Appearance

For some reason I thought I had blogged about this last year, but after doing a search of my blog it seems I didn't. So this isn't new material, just a late posting about something that I found amazing to watch.

In February 2006 Wafa Sultan, an Arab-American (Syrian-born) Psychiatrist, made this appearance on Al-Jezeera. Her thesis is that it is wrong to claim that we face a "clash of civilizations", but rather a clash between the mentality of the middle ages and that of the 21st century. She is extremely articulate and forceful in this speech.

For more information about her, see the Wafa Sultan entry at Wikipedia (with of course the necessary caveats about potential errors in Wikipedia content, esp. a controversial figure like Sultan). She seems to be a very courageous person!

On Cognitive Biases

This past week I somewhere found this list of 26 cognitive biases. I find this to be a pretty interesting and valuable list (aside from the reference to Jung in the description of the first one). But then, as usual, when one visits the-wonder-that-is-Wikipedia, one finds a List of Cognitive Biases page that seems quite thorough, and of course provides links to the entries for each item.

It'll Function Fine Until the Next Storm

In the May 14 issue of BusinessWeek there was an article titled "Hurricane Ahead, But Lower Insurance", subtitled "Why the price of property coverage is going down in the face of dire predictions". The article notes that even after Katrina and other recent, costly storms:

In most of the country, property insurance rates for homeowners and businesses are actually lower than they were before Katrina. And amazingly, insurance rates have been falling recently in many parts of Florida and the Gulf Coast that stand to suffer severe losses from hurricanes, encouraging continued construction in low-lying areas.

There are some financial reasons given for this, but the other big one is government interference in the market:

Regulators and the insurance industry are only beginning to grapple with the problems of pricing coverage in an era of potentially big storms. By some calculations, actuarially correct premiums would be so high as to freeze economic development in places such as Miami and New Orleans.

But of course that isn't happening, because actual risk calculations are not determining the market. Government regulators are capping rate increases and in some cases "broadening the availability of state-subsidized insurance for highly exposed property owners who can't get coverage from the private market". Consider this:

Under Governor Charlie Crist, Florida has gone the furthest in challenging market forces. In January, the state legislature massively increased government involvement in the insurance business in hopes of rolling back homeowners' rates. It blocked rate hikes by the state-controlled Citizens Property Insurance Corp., which insures people who can't get coverage in the private market. That allowed Citizens to undercut private insurers. To keep private companies from bailing out of Florida, it intends to make available an additional $16 billion in highly subsidized reinsurance from a state fund.

Trouble is, if a series of big hurricanes empties out the Citizens reserve fund and the reinsurance fund, the state will have to raise the money to pay claims via a special assessment of thousands of dollars apiece on all policyholders in the state. "It'll function just fine until the next storm. Then we'll see," says Joshua D. Shanker, an equity analyst at Citigroup Investment Research.

Well, duh. That is a classic line: "It'll function just fine until the next storm. Then we'll see."

How many times have you seen people's homes or businesses destroyed, not by freak occurrences that are hard to predict like a tornado, but by regular occurrences that one should expect in certain areas, like damage from being too close to a river or an ocean? And how often do those people then say, on camera, "Well, it is a tough loss. But we'll rebuild." The many times I've seen and heard this I've always thought two things. First, I'm glad you are picking yourselves up and are eager to rebuild your lives and rebound from disaster. But second, why are you going to rebuild in the same location?!?! How could you afford to do that given the massive increase in insurance that will no doubt hit you... oh wait, it won't, because the government will subsidize you and encourage you to rebuild in that high-risk location. And this will be a cycle that will continue and continue, with billions of dollars wasted time and again.

The article continues:

The political fix temporarily alleviates the financial pain, but it worsens the underlying problem. Developers continue to erect condos in vulnerable parts of Florida in part because of the availability of state-subsidized insurance. Florida already has $2 trillion in coastal exposure and remains one of the fastest-growing states. That will raise the cost of the next Big One. "People have the expectation that insurance is a commodity and should be flatly priced," says Robert Muir-Wood, chief research officer of Risk Management Solutions Inc. But in an actuarially ideal world, he says, the rate for the South Florida beachfront should be perhaps 50 times higher than the rate for an elevated property in northern Florida. "The wealthiest people tend to benefit the most from this aberration," Muir-Wood says.

Meanwhile, the Florida state government's decision to fight the market and absorb more hurricane risk is benefiting other parts of the country. As private insurers and reinsurers are being driven out of Florida, they are writing more policies elsewhere, which is helping to lower rates in other places, like Mississippi.

The dip in rates is not likely to survive another year like 2005. Insurers are being more rigorous in setting rates and paying closer attention to their risk models than in the past, says Timothy R. Gardner, global head of the property specialty practice of Guy Carpenter and Co. The influx of capital could ebb. And if another Katrina-type hurricane hits, regulators and politicians will find it harder to defy nature and enforce unrealistically low rates for coastal property.

Harder, perhaps. But I don't think one more Katrina-level disaster will lead to change in this system. A change in thinking is what is needed, not just more financial disaster and hardship -- and I don't think just one more massive-damage event will get the relevant parties' thinking to change. Government needs to get out of the insurance-subsidizing business, and individuals and businesses need to stop building and re-building in such high-risk areas. If you are wealthy and can and want to take the risk -- either by not having insurance or by buying expensive insurance that is priced according to the actual risks involved -- then fine. But anything other than that is an evasion of reality. I mean, do people expect the government to subsidize the insurance for their new home or business that they want to build on the side of an active volcano? I'd like to think that the obvious answer there is "of course not", and the essence of the situation in Florida and other high-risk areas is relevantly similar. Live there without an insurance safety net, pay the price for your insurance safety net, or don't live there at all.

Postmodern Learning?

My confusion-radar perks up whenever I see the word "Postmodern" used, and especially when it is used in some neologistic phrase that I've not heard before.

The May 14 issue of BusinessWeek magazine had a commentary piece by Michelle Conlin titled "Cheating -- or Postmodern Learning?". It mentions Duke Business School, and reports that they recently had 10% of their class of 2008 caught cheating on a take-home final exam. It doesn't mention any details of the Duke situation, such as what kind of final exam it was, or exactly how the students supposedly cheated. That would have been very helpful for the rest of this commentary, as you'll see. Instead the commentary wants to raise the notion that there is a fuzzy ethical line in such contexts between "sharing" or "collaborating" and outright "cheating".

I don't see it all. She writes:

It's easy to imagine the explanations these MBAs, who are mulling an appeal, might come up with. Teaming up on a take-home exam: That's not academic fraud, it's postmodern learning, wiki style. Text-messaging exam answers or downloading essays onto iPods: That's simply a wise use of technology.

One can understand the confusion. This is a generation that came of age nabbing music off Napster and watching bootlegged Hollywood blockbusters in their dorm rooms. "What do you mean?" you can almost hear them saying. "We're not supposed to share?"

Well, hold on. Teaming up on a take-home exam is OK if the professor has said it is OK, otherwise the assumption must be that your exam should reflect your understanding and work only. That is the basic difference between an exam and a group-project. Text-messaging each other answers during an exam is cheating, pure and simple. The folks who "nabbed music off Napster" were stealing property, pure and simple. The fact that most of a generation of young people don't understand this doesn't change the facts: it just speaks to a massive failing of education and personal responsibility in this country.

Conlin continues:

That's not to say that university administrators should ignore unethical behavior, if it in fact occurred. But in this wired world, maybe the very notion of what constitutes cheating has to be reevaluated. The scandal at Duke points to how much the world has changed, and how academia and corporations are confused about it all, sending split messages.

We're told it's all about teamwork and shared information. But then we're graded and ranked as individuals. We assess everybody as single entities. But then we plop them into an interdependent world and tell them their success hinges on creative collaboration.

Is this really all that confusing? I don't think so. I don't think we need to "reevaluate what constitutes cheating." If a professor's instructions for a final exam or a class project are vague or unclear, then they are at fault. And perhaps professors need to be even more clear about what constitutes cheating and what does not, in light of the growing emphasis on collaboration in so many aspects of life (which is a good thing of course). But assuming that the professor is clear that their final exam is what most final exams are (whether take home or in-class) -- that they are intended to be assessments of the knowledge or skills gained by each individual -- independently of others -- then I just don't see that the students have much of a defense if they are caught copying each others work or whatnot. So that is why the lack of any additional information about the Duke case is so important here -- without knowing that, we can't make a judgement as to whether the Professor was vague or the students cheated. In either case though, I don't see the emergence of a fuzzy-ethics conundrum.

Her paragraph that begins "We're told..." is blantant context-dropping with the purpose of obfuscation of the issues. Teamwork and sharing information are praiseworthing in certain contexts only. Exams, typically, are for evaluating individuals. And the fact that we "plop them into an interdependent world" and "tell them that their success hinges on creative collaboration"... so what? This doesn't negate the fact that final exams are traditionally used to evaluate individuals as individuals, everyone knows this, and assuming the professor hasn't said otherwise, it would be bizarre to now just assume otherwise.

To be fair, her next paragraph shows that Conlin does understand the need to evaluate individuals as individuals:

The new culture of shared information is vastly different from the old, where hoarding information was power. But professors--and bosses, for that matter--need to be able to test individual ability. For all the talk about workforce teamwork, there are plenty of times when a person is on his or her own, arguing a case, preparing a profit and loss statement, or writing a research report.

And then her final paragraph she also writes: "This is in no way a pass on those who consciously break the rules." So that is good to see.

But I just think she is giving way to much strength to the potential claims of cheaters that they were somehow confused by "mixed messages" from society. As long as there are no mixed-messages or ambiguities coming from their instructor, there is no problem here and cheaters have no excuse.

And finally, getting back to the use of "Postmodern Learning" in the title of her commentary, what is "Postmodern" about it (whatever that even means)? And to what extent is the type of thing being described in this commentary "Learning" at all? I don't deny that people can learn by working together, collaborating on a project, and so on -- that is all obvious. But one example in the commentary was from a Stanford professor, who spoke approvingly of someone who "found somebody to help you write an exam". Well again, if the exam is a traditional one that was intended to test the knowledge of each individual, then this is cheating -- it isn't an assessment of learning, of any variety, postmodern or otherwise.

Costa on the Format War

The June 26 issue of PC Magazine had a good column by Dan Costa, on the Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD format war for video on optical discs. I'll admit I don't know very much about this battle, other than it exists. And that's because a while ago I came to the same conclusion that Costa states in this column: that it really doesn't matter, in the long-run, what wins this "format war". Once we can reliably download movies from massive and reasonably priced media libraries, why would very many people want to buy them on physical media (of any format)? To be sure, when that day comes, the existing media formats will linger for a long time, just as music CDs are lingering and will continue to for some time. But I agree with Costa that the long-term media distribution solution is downloading/streaming, not physical media. (Well, at least not single-movie discs, as I suppose if someone could purchase a single piece of physical media/hardware that had tens of thousands of movies already stored on it, that might be appealing if priced reasonably. But that doesn't seem like a viable approach, since it would presumably come with a hefty price tag.)

I'll go even farther than Costa, by just noting that I've even stopped buying regular DVDs. Since I switched from VHS to DVD relatively late, I never really acquired very many DVDs -- two dozen or so. But a while back I decided there was little reason to own many more movies on DVD. If I can get a great movie on DVD for 50 cents or a dollar, then I might do it. But any more than that it just isn't worth owning it. Presumably, one day in the not-too-distant-future we'll be able to access pretty much any movies we could want to see, from massive media libraries, at reasonably per-movie or subscription prices. For now, I use and really like our Blockbuster Access membership to see new movies, but I really have no need to own movies on physical media.

John Stossel on Double Thank-You Moments

John Stossel recently wrote a great column, The Double "Thank-You" Moment. In it he writes:

I suspect ignorance about economics leads many to believe that when two people exchange goods and money, one wins and the other loses. If rich capitalists profit, the poor and the weak suffer.

That's a myth.

How many times have you paid $1 for a cup of coffee and after the clerk said, "thank you," you responded, "thank you "? There's a wealth of economics wisdom in the weird double thank-you moment. Why does it happen? Because you want the coffee more than the buck, and the store wants the buck more than the coffee. Both of you win.

Economists have long understood that two people trade because each wants what the other has more than what he already has. In their respective eyes, the things traded are unequal in value. But this means each comes out ahead, having given up something he wants less for something he wants more. It's just not true that one gains and the other loses. If that were the case, the loser wouldn't have traded. It's win-win, or as economists would say, positive-sum.

We experience this every time we have that double thank-you moment in a store or restaurant.

It doesn't matter that you wish the price of coffee were lower. We want the price of everything to be lower (except the price of what we're selling, whether it's our products or labor). What matters is that you bought the coffee for a buck.

This is a great phrase that is new to me: "The Double Thank-You Moment". He then goes on to apply this same reasoning to the notion of "fair trade" vs. "free trade".

"Fair trade" is code for protectionism disguised as retaliation against other countries that may or may not practice protectionism, and it's a bad sign when even Republicans talk about "fair" rather than "free" trade.

We should practice free trade no matter what others do. Why? Because freedom is good in itself. If foreign governments want to hurt their citizens, it's no reason for ours to hurt us.

People who live in different countries are divided by a political boundary, but boundaries are accidents of history or the results of politicians' arbitrary decisions. Political boundaries are economically irrelevant. When left free, people trade across them as naturally as they do across state lines. Trade is trade. Buyer and seller both benefit. "Thank you." "Thank you ."

If you're worried about a trade deficit with, say, China, imagine that China became the 51st state. We'd immediately forget all about that so-called deficit. Who cares if New York runs a trade deficit with Pennsylvania? As Adam Smith wrote, "Nothing ... can be more absurd than this whole doctrine of the balance of trade."

That is a great point and something to keep in mind the next time you hear someone, of either political party, bemoaning the "trade deficit" with China or whoever. He concludes with:

Once we choose trade over self-sufficiency, we're just arguing about how big the free-trade zone should be. Since trade is always mutually beneficial, the answer is: The bigger the free-trade zone the better.

Worldwide is best of all.

Indeed.

HR 2046 and Poker

I heard recently that there was a new bill up in the House to try and save or protect online poker. So I went to the Poker Players Allliance website to get some info, and at this page they provide the following info about HR-2046 "The Internet Gambling Regulation and Enforcement Act of 2007":

HR 2046 protects poker players. Applicants for a gaming license would be required to provide comprehensive financial statements and corporate structure documents, and to agree to be subject to U.S. jurisdiction and all applicable laws related to Internet gambling. No license would be granted to any applicant convicted of a criminal violation of any law relating to gambling, money laundering, fraud or other financial laws.

HR 2046 protects consumers. The framework set forth in the bill would for the first time effectively regulate Internet gambling, thus making it possible to address underage and compulsive gambling, neither of which are prevented under prohibition regimes. Regulation combined with proven technology would establish a system of effective controls to block children and compulsive gamblers from gambling.

If HR 2046 becomes law, online poker will be safe, secure and regulated. The bill would create stringent licensing to ensure that poker operators are legitimate. HR 2046 protects poker players, and it protects consumers.

This might not be exactly what I'd like to see happen, and I'm against government regulating the economy and the actions of consenting adults. But passing this into law would be better than the current situation, because last year's legislation -- slipped into other legislation and passed under the cover darkness -- has made it far more difficult for Americans to play the great game of poker online. So given the choices of only regulation or prohibition, I'll of course go with regulation.

The PPA continues to provide great info on the issue of poker and the law, and I really wish them success in the fight with congress. Their homepage provides the following "Important Facts Congress Should Hear", with links to supporting info and argumentation:

• Poker is one of the great American pastimes. The game has been enjoyed by presidents, generals, Supreme Court Justices, Members of Congress and average Americans for more than 150 years.
• Poker is a game with a predominance of skill. Like chess, poker is a "thinking man's" game which relies on mathematics, psychology and money management.
• Poker is a source of charity. In 2006, millions of dollars were raised for local and national charities through poker tournaments. One event in D.C. featuring 15 Members of Congress raised more than $288,000 to fight cancer.
• Billions of tax revenue is being lost. According to an economic analysis, 3.3 billion in federal tax revenue and addition 1 billion in state tax revenue could be raised if the federal government were to regulate Internet poker.
• 75 percent of Americans oppose banning online poker. According to national polling, a vast majority of Americans oppose federal efforts to ban online poker.
• Supporting an online poker ban can cost you an election. Exit polling has shown and the national media has noted that a leading advocate to ban Internet poker in the 109th Congress was negatively impacted by his leadership on the issue.

Those are all fine points to make for the purposes of trying to win votes in Congress. Different legislators might be swayed by some or all of the above. I think the second point is particularly important, because it is relevant to the total hypocrisy in last year's legislation, and in the politician's attitudes towards gambling in general: they allow horse-racing and state-run lotteries, but not games like poker. And yet, the lottery is completely a game of chance, while poker is a game where skill plays a major role. So how is the lottery OK -- not just OK, but state-run! -- but poker is banned? That is just ridiculous, pure and simple.

But as valuable as the above bullet points might be to convincing this or that legislator, the real reason that online gambling -- indeed gambling as such -- should be legal is a matter of individual rights. It simply isn't the proper role of government to keep two or more free adult people from doing something that isn't violating the rights of anyone else. The arguments in favor of gambling prohibition have always been and will always be invalid. It is the role of government to protect people from mistakes they might voluntarily make. Nor is it acceptable for a particular morality to be imposed upon individuals by law -- and that quite clearly from the history of gambling prohibitions is a large part of the issue here: conservatives, particularly religious conservatives, imposing by force their view that gambling is somehow immoral.

We often talk about separation of church and state, because that is how it was worded in founding American documents. But what really matters, philosophically, is the underlying separation, the necessary separation between religion and law.

All-Time Favorite Television Series

I've now posted to my website a page listing and briefly describing my all-time favorite television series. There is quite a range here, covering my childhood and also current favorites.

Gas Prices "Too High"?

The Ayn Rand Institute's Alex Epstein recently wrote a good op-ed piece titled "What to Do About Rising Gas Prices". Here is an excerpt:

There is no moral or economic justification for any politician or consumer to declare market prices "too high," and to use the government to coerce lower prices. To do so violates both the rights of gasoline producers and their productive customers to set voluntary prices -- and, in doing so, causes destructive shortages. When shortages exist, how much gasoline one is able to get depends not on one's willingness to pay a mutually agreeable price, but on one's political pull to secure rations, or on whether one has time on one's hands to wait in endless lines (as in the 1970s).

There is only one sense in which we are entitled to tell the government to "do something" about gasoline prices: insofar as these prices are made artificially high by the government's many regulations on oil and gasoline production.

He then goes on to cite a few such regulations that cause the price of gasoline to be as high as it is, and the concludes: "What should the government do about gasoline prices? Get its hands out of the market--and keep them off."

On the Right to Assisted Suicide

During the week that Dr. Jack Kevorkian was released from prison, The Ayn Rand Institute had both a press release, and an op-ed "The Right to Assisted Suicide" Thomas Bowden. Both are excellent.

From the Op-Ed:

What lawmakers must grasp is that there is no rational, secular basis upon which the government can properly prevent any individual from choosing to end his own life. When religious conservatives use secular laws to enforce their idea of God's will, they threaten the central principle on which America was founded.

The Declaration of Independence proclaimed, for the first time in the history of nations, that each person exists as an end in himself. This basic truth--which finds political expression in the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness--means, in practical terms, that you need no one's permission to live, and that no one may forcibly obstruct your efforts to achieve your own personal happiness.

But what if happiness becomes impossible to attain? What if a dread disease, or some other calamity, drains all joy from life, leaving only misery and suffering? The right to life includes and implies the right to commit suicide. To hold otherwise--to declare that society must give you permission to kill yourself--is to contradict the right to life at its root. If you have a duty to go on living, despite your better judgment, then your life does not belong to you, and you exist by permission, not by right.

For these reasons, each individual has the right to decide the hour of his death and to implement that solemn decision as best he can. The choice is his because the life is his. And if a doctor is willing (not forced) to assist in the suicide, based on an objective assessment of his patient's mental and physical state, the law should not stand in his way.

And then commenting on Oregon, the one state that has "provided clear procedures by which doctors can end their dying patients' pain and suffering while protecting themselves from criminal prosecution", Bowden continues:

Religious conservatives' opposition to the Oregon approach stems from the belief that human life is a gift from the Lord, who puts us here on earth to carry out His will. Thus, the very idea of suicide is anathema, because one who "plays God" by causing his own death, or assisting in the death of another, insults his Maker and invites eternal damnation, not to mention divine retribution against the decadent society that permits such sinful behavior.

If a religious conservative contracts a terminal disease, he has a legal right to regard his own God's will as paramount, and to instruct his doctor to stand by and let him suffer, just as long as his body and mind can endure the agony, until the last bitter paroxysm carries him to the grave. But conservatives have no right to force such mindless, medieval misery upon doctors and patients who refuse to regard their precious lives as playthings of a cruel God.

Secular and rational state legislators should regard the occasion of Dr. Kevorkian's release from jail as a stinging reminder that 49 of the 50 states have failed to take meaningful steps toward recognizing and protecting an individual's unconditional right to commit suicide.

More on Elon Musk, and What is Wrong with NASA

Back in April I blogged a bit about Elon Musk, after learning a bit about this amazing entrepreneur in Wired magazine. So I was pleased to see the latest issue of Wired have a cover story titled Rocket Boom, which goes into more detail about Elon Musk's efforts to build privately-funded space rockets. It is a well-written piece, as it gives a glimpse of what his work is like in this field.

And another, shorter item in that issue is also worth reading: How NASA Screwed Up (And four ways to fix it). Author Gregg Easterbrook really makes clear the failings of NASA -- not just failed projects, but more importantly its misguided priorities for projects going forward. Consider the moon-base plan, being pushed by George Bush:

For a sense of how out of whack NASA priorities have become, briefly ponder that plan. Because the Apollo missions suggested there was little of pressing importance to be learned on the moon, NASA has not landed so much as one automated probe there in three decades. In fact, the rockets used by the Apollo program were retired 30 years ago; even space enthusiasts saw no point in returning to the lunar surface. But now, with the space station a punch line and the shuttles too old to operate much longer, NASA suddenly decides it needs to restore its moon-landing capability in order to build a "permanent" crewed base. The cost is likely to be substantial -- $6 billion is the annual budget of the space station, which is closer to Earth and quite spartan compared with what even a stripped-down moon facility would require. But set that aside: What will a moon base crew do? Monitor equipment -- a task that could easily be handled from an office building in Houston.

In 2004, former astronaut Harrison Schmitt, now an engineering professor at the University of Wisconsin, calculated that NASA can place objects on the moon for $26,000 a pound. At that price, each bottle of water a crew member uncaps will cost the taxpayer $13,000. Even if the new moon rocket being designed by NASA cuts launch costs in half, as agency insiders hope, that's still $6,500 for one Aquafina (astronauts and moon base are extra). Prices like this quickly push the total construction bill for any serious facility into the hundreds of billions of dollars. A private company facing such numbers would conclude that a moon base is an absurd project -- at least until a fundamentally different way of reaching space is found -- and would put its capital into the development of new propulsion technologies. But NASA takes a cost-is-no-object approach that appeals only to those who personally benefit from the spending.

Although the article begins by laying out several projects that would be more rational for NASA to focus on than what it currently has as its priorities, I was glad to see the article end with the following emphasis on the need for a turn away from NASA and towards the private sector:

Given NASA's politicization, we should hope that the space industry evolves as aviation did — transitioning from ponderous government-run projects to mostly private-sector activities attuned to customer needs. That raises the question: Could entrepreneurs like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos eventually put NASA out of business? Perhaps, but not for the next couple of decades — space has colossal economic barriers to entry. Given that NASA is sure to be around for a while, taxpayers should insist the space agency be recon figured to produce tangible benefits for all of us. With any luck, private space enterprise will eventually find success and begin to exert competitive market pressures on the government space program. NASA's success in putting men on the moon in the 1960s is one of history's enduring achievements. But it's the 21st century now — long past time for a new set of space priorities.

RCTV Censored, Turns to YouTube

Venezuela's dictator Hugo Chavez recently shutdown (by not renewing their license for political reasons) the longest standing television station in Venezuela, RCTV. This made news worldwide, with many free-speech advocate groups, governments, and others condemning the move. But when I read a version of this AP article in my local paper, I was pleased to learn the good effect that the Internet can continue to have on the world. This time it is YouTube which is providing the journalists at RCTV a means to continue to broadcast their viewpoint, even when they have been otherwise silenced by a tyrant.

After days of street protests by students and others, against the move by Chavez to shutdown RCTV, and after many other mounting problems in the country -- including food shortages, even though the nation is flush with oil revenue -- it is easy to ask the obvious question: when will this nation erupt into a major class between the people and the government? True, Chavez has many supporters, as he hands out money and services to many of the poor in the country, even while keeping the country from growing because of his socialist economic policies. Will there be a violent clash between the poor and the middle-class? or between the middle-class and opposition parties and the government and military? How many more egregious acts by Chavez will it take to push this beyond the breaking point I wonder?

Walter Williams on the FDA

Walter Williams makes some good points in his article FDA: Friend or Foe? In particular, he notes the following tension:

Some drugs are highly beneficial to certain patients but pose an unacceptable risk to others. ... So if you're an FDA official, what are your incentives in terms of whether to approve or disapprove the marketing of a drug that has a tremendous benefit to some patients and poses a health threat to others?

Former FDA Commissioner Alexander Schmidt hinted at the answer when he said, "In all our FDA history, we are unable to find a single instance where a Congressional committee investigated the failure of FDA to approve a new drug. But the times when hearings have been held to criticize our approval of a new drug have been so frequent that we have not been able to count them. The message to FDA staff could not be clearer."

There's little or no cost to the FDA for not approving a drug that might be safe, effective, and clinically superior to other drugs for some patients but pose a risk for others. My question to FDA officials is: Should a drug be disapproved whenever it poses a health risk to some people but a benefit to others? To do so would eliminate most drugs, including aspirin, because all drugs pose a health risk to some people.

He also notes that the FDA lately has been rejecting drugs because they aren't unique enough from what is already on the market. To which he responds:

According to the FDA's literature, its mandate is: "Once a new drug application is filed, an FDA review team — medical doctors, chemists, statisticians, microbiologists, pharmacologists, and other experts — evaluates whether the studies the sponsor submitted show that the drug is safe and effective for its proposed use."

Nothing in the FDA mandate requires that a drug has to be better than what's currently available in order to win approval.

Henderson and Hooper argue that in the worst-case scenario where Arcoxia is no better than existing drugs, it would compete with those drugs. Two centuries of economic theory and evidence show that competition is good. A new drug that competes with existing drugs would moderate drug prices and cause competitors to stay on their toes.

Classic Humor, Part 6: Newspaper Headlines

Here is another in my series of classic humor bits from the Internet (here is Part 5), which I'm posting as I clean out my old Humor email box. This listing dates back to 1997, and was titled "Actual Newspaper Headlines":

1. Something Went Wrong in Jet Crash, Expert Says
2. Police Begin Campaign to Run Down Jaywalkers
3. Safety Experts Say School Bus Passengers Should Be Belted
4. Drunk Gets Nine Months in Violin Case
5. Survivor of Siamese Twins Joins Parents
6. Farmer Bill Dies in House
7. Iraqi Head Seeks Arms
8. Is There a Ring of Debris around Uranus?
9. Stud Tires Out
10. Prostitutes Appeal to Pope
11. Panda Mating Fails; Veterinarian Takes Over
12. Soviet Virgin Lands Short of Goal Again
13. British Left Waffles on Falkland Islands
14. Lung Cancer in Women Mushrooms
15. Eye Drops off Shelf
16. Teacher Strikes Idle Kids
17. Reagan Wins on Budget, But More Lies Ahead
18. Squad Helps Dog Bite Victim
19. Shot Off Woman's Leg Helps Nicklaus to 66
20. Enraged Cow Injures Farmer with Ax
21. Plane Too Close to Ground, Crash Probe Told
22. Miners Refuse to Work after Death
23. Juvenile Court to Try Shooting Defendant
24. Stolen Painting Found by Tree
25. Two Soviet Ships Collide, One Dies
26. Two Sisters Reunited after 18 Years in Checkout Counter
27. Killer Sentenced to Die for Second Time in 10 Years
28. Never Withhold Herpes Infection from Loved One
29. Drunken Drivers Paid $1000 in `84
30. War Dims Hope for Peace
31. If Strike isn't Settled Quickly, It May Last a While
32. Cold Wave Linked to Temperatures
33. Enfields Couple Slain; Police Suspect Homicide
34. Red Tape Holds Up New Bridge
35. Deer Kill 17,000
36. Typhoon Rips Through Cemetery; Hundreds Dead
37. Man Struck by Lightning Faces Battery Charge
38. New Study of Obesity Looks for Larger Test Group
39. Astronaut Takes Blame for Gas in Spacecraft
40. Kids Make Nutritious Snacks
41. Chef Throws His Heart into Helping Feed Needy
42. Arson Suspect is Held in Massachusetts Fire
43. British Union Finds Dwarfs in Short Supply
44. Ban On Soliciting Dead in Trotwood
45. Lansing Residents Can Drop Off Trees
46. Local High School Dropouts Cut in Half
47. New Vaccine May Contain Rabies
48. Man Minus Ear Waives Hearing
49. Deaf College Opens Doors to Hearing
50. Air Head Fired
51. Steals Clock, Faces Time
52. Prosecutor Releases Probe into Undersheriff
53. Old School Pillars are Replaced by Alumni
54. Bank Drive-in Window Blocked by Board
55. Hospitals are Sued by 7 Foot Doctors
56. Some Pieces of Rock Hudson Sold at Auction
57. Sex Education Delayed, Teachers Request Training
58. Include your Children when Baking Cookies

My First Race: Chase Corporate Challenge

I've been a jogger/runner for many years now, going back to my college years in the early 1990s. I do it mostly for exercise, and also because I find it pleasureable and a good way to clear my head -- and sometimes do some really good thinking. In fact, I find that some of my best ideas arise while running. From April - November I try to run 3-4 miles, several times a week. It is always weather and schedule dependent. I think the longest I have ever run is 6 or 8 miles, many years ago.

I had never been in an official race, until last night when I participated in the JP Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge, a 3.5 mile charity race here in Rochester, NY. Several people from work were a part of it, even though we didn't have an official company team with a tent, etc. It was a hot and humid night, but overall I'm glad I participated, and I plan to do so again next year.

It was a very interesting experience, not least because of the huge number of people involved. There were over 10,000 people crammed onto the RIT campus (apparently a record for this event in Rochester). With so many people lined up and involved in the race, the first 5 minutes or so was stop-and-go traffic at best: standing, walking a bit, standing, and so on. And all but the very fastest runners were asked to start well behind the official starting line. I'm sure all of this is standard procedure for such large races, but it means your "time" for the race is not all that meaningful really. I finished in 34 minutes, 10 seconds -- but I'm sure I lost about 5 minutes because of the craziness of the beginning of the race. I didn't push myself at all during the race, so I'm fine with that result. Of course, the top man came in at just under 17 minutes, and the winning woman at just over 20 minutes, so I was just an average joe jogging along.

Something else I found fascinating, which again I'm sure is quite normal for these kinds of races, was the noise and chaos of the two water stations they had setup during the race. With thousands of plastic cups being dispensed, the noise of them hitting the ground, and then being trampled repeatedly, was rather strange. I don't envy the groundspeople who will be cleaning up those messes! I also found it rather difficult to actually drink the water in such cups -- no wonder people often just toss it on their faces or over their heads to cool off.

You can read about the event in our local paper here, and there are a few other articles linked from that page, plus a 17-photo gallery too. The race included various local politicians and other well-known folks, perhaps most notably Rochester Mayor Robert Duffy -- who is actually a serious runner from what I understand (I think he was taking it easy during this event). See also the longer writeup at the Chase CC website.