Best of Jackie Chan Fight Scenes

I'm a big fan of martial arts films. And in that genre, no one does it better than Jackie Chan. Here's a compilation someone put together of what they rate as the top ten fight scenes from his movies.


HT: Marginal Revolution

And in case you want more, here's the same fan's compilation of Jackie Chan's top ten stunts:


Enough goofing off - back to work.

Giving an Academic Talk

I can count the number of really good (i.e. memorable) academic presentations I've seen on one hand. If I lower the bar to "pretty good", there's still only a limited list.

If you want to improve your presentation skills, here's a very good collection of advice on how to give an academic presentation from Jonathan Shewchuck, a Computer Science professor at Berkeley. Even if you're not a CS guy, read it anyway - most of what he discusses is relevent to almost any presentation. He breaks down just about everything you need to know:

• How to make sure your slides are clean and crisp (less is more)
• How to organize the presentation (more time on motivation and less on technical details)
• Helpful advice on actually giving the talk (be aware of nonverbal communication).

I'd argue that even most experienced presenters can pick up a tip or two from his piece. Once a given bit of research is completed, it's very hard to improve its quality without significant cost. On the other hand, it's relatively easy to improve your ability to present your research. And the marginal payoff to increased presentation skills is pretty big -- conference presentations are a critical part of building your academic and professional reputation, and if you're on a campus visit, your research presentation is one of the most important factors in determining whether you'll get an offer.

So read Shewchuck's list here before your next presentation.

You're Known By The Company You Keep

I catch one or more people cheating almost every semester. Most times, it's of the "cheat sheet on exams" variety. But sometimes, it involves plagiarism on a project.

I have less and less of a problem with it as time goes on, because I give very detailed guidelines as to what should go in each section of the project. So the likelihood that they'll be able to plagiarize something that matches up with the assignment's requirements is somewhere between slim and none. But still, it happens.

Here's a cautionary tale for those of you who have to do do group projects from Jacqueline Passey, who's now back to blogging (and with a new, improved title for her blog to boot). One of her group members plagiarized a good portion of her "contribution" to a group project in an accounting class. Luckily, Jacqueline caught it before handing it in and redid the work herself.

It's important to remember - if a member of your group plagiarizes on a joint project and the instructor catches it, you're equally screwed. So choose your group carefully, and check their work. If it has your name on it, you're responsible.

HT: Newmarks Door.

update 5/23: The link was to the wrong piece. It's been updated.

Seatology In the Classroom

This might make it into next semester's syllabus.


From PhDcomics.

Brain Rules

I just came across a book called "Brain Rules", written by John Medina, who is (from his website):

...a developmental molecular biologist focused on the genes involved in human brain development and the genetics of psychiatric disorders. He has spent most of his professional life as a private research consultant, working primarily in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries on research related to mental health. Medina holds joint affiliate faculty appointments at the University of Washington School of Medicine, in its Department of Bioengineering, and at Seattle Pacific University, where he is the director of the Brain Center for Applied Learning Research.

His book unpacks a great deal of research on how our brains work best (or worst), and touches on things like the effect of exercise on brain function (it's phenomenally good), how long we can hold attention (very short), how short term memory can be enhanced (a lot of repetition and saying things out loud), the effects of sleep deficiency on brain function (a lot, and it's not good), and the role of vision in learning.

The book seems to have a great deal of info that's relevent to teachers and presenters, and if he writes anything like he talks, it should be a fun read. You can see a video of him talking at Google here, and see his website here.

I'm putting the book at the top of my post-CFA reading list

HT: Presentation Zen

Fantastic Review of Analyst Forecast Research

If you do research in analyst forecasts, this one;s a must read: The Financial Analyst Forecasting Literature: A Taxonomy with Suggestions for Further Research by Sundaresh Ramnath, Steve Rock, and Philip Shane in the International journal of Forecasting (2008)

Here's the abstract:

This paper develops a taxonomy of research examining the role of financial analysts in capital markets. The paper builds on the perspectives provided by Schipper [Schipper, K. (1991). Analysts' forecasts. Accounting Horizons, 5, 105-131] and Brown [Brown, L. (1993). Earnings forecasting research: Its implications for capital markets research. International Journal of Forecasting, 9, 295-320]. We categorize papers published since 1992, describe the research questions addressed, and suggest avenues for further research in seven broad areas: (1) analysts' decision processes; (2) the nature of analyst expertise and the distributions of earnings forecasts; (3) the information content of analyst research; (4) analyst and market efficiency; (5) analysts' incentives and behavioral biases; (6) the effects of the institutional and regulatory environment (including cross-country comparisons); and (7) research design issues.

Note: although it's a forthcoming paper, there's a downloadable version available from SSRN here.

Grade Too Tough And You'll Be Denied Tenure

Inside Higher Education just posted a troubling article involving the case of Steven Aird, a Biology professor at Norfolk State University (a Historically Black College in Virginia). He was known for being a pretty tough grader, and failed 80% of his students some semesters. What makes it troubling is that the university had a policy that if a student missed more than 20% of the class, he or she could be failed. And in fact, Aird's records showed that the average student in his class missed almost twice that many classes. So, just by following the college's policies, the expected grade in the class should have been an F.

Unfortunately, the university also had an unofficial policy that 70% of their students would get passing grades. So, they ended up crucifying the guy for holding the students to the very standard that the university itself had officially set.

RTWT here, and also read the comments that follow.

Construction Worker Foreplay

This one's amazing - undressing a woman with construction equipment. And yes, it's relatively safe for viewing at work. That backhoe operator has some crazy skills.


Stripped by a Mechanical Shovel! - video powered by Metacafe

This is the sort of thing that would have ended up on the old Home Improvement series. Just do NOT let Tim the Toolman operate the equipment - it could get ugly.

Lake Wobegon Stock Recommendations

It's pretty well known that "Sell" recommendations on Wall Street are about as rare as honest politicians in Washington (they're out there, but don't expect to find a lot of them).

It seems like Merrill Lynch is trying to change its ways. They have a new standard for their analysts - Beginning in June, they will require that its analysts assign “underperform” ratings to 20% of all stocks they cover (currently, only 12% of covered stocks fall into that category). Their hope is that the new standard will make their recommendations more credible, since a "buy" will no longer be the default evaluation.

A similar movement is going on in academia. A number of schools (the Unknown Alma Mater among them) have put limitations on grade distributions (i.e. there's a maximum percentage of A's and B's that an instructor can assign). It's not as much of a problem in the Finance and Accounting areas, since we're generally tougher graders than those in the Liberal Arts areas. I'm not aware of how things are done in other areas, but Business Schools have been moving in this direction for a couple of years now. It may be one of the few cases where academia has actually moved faster than the business world. I guess even a stopped clock shows the right time a couple times a day.

Read the whole thing here.

Neuroblastoma is Genetic

Because of the Unknown Son's battle with Neuroblastoma, we try to keep abreast of new developments in treatment. So, we were pretty interested in this news piece. A group of researchers have identified a group of genetic markets that predispose someone to getting the disease. Since both the Unknown Son and his cousin had the disease (and it's rare to see two cases in the same family), I like to think that the samples they took from them played some small part in the discovery.

You can read the news story and see a video segment that ran on the news here. It highlights John Maris, who may be the country's (and possibly the world's) most prolific Neuroblastoma researcher. Since he spearheaded Unknown Son's treatment at while we were at CHOP, we were glad to see him mentioned.

It's too early to see how this discovery will change Neuroblastoma diagnosis or treatment, but learning more about the genetic basis of the disease can only help. And it's pretty cool.