Thursday, February 14, 2019

Pineapple right-side up cake

Happy Valentine's Day! Laura made me (and her class) a pineapple upside down cake. Lacking a non-stick spring form cake pan however, forced them to be right-side up cakes. They were still mighty tasty:


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The water works guys must've worked through the night because our water didn't return until this morning.

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I made some progress on a data science project I've been working on recently. I was a failure at task-switching though. I basically worked on the same thing all day. Tomorrow I'll do better.

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I did manage to switch over to reading Everybody Lies this evening. He described the proliferation of A/B testing on-line. Websites randomly offer visitors small variations in wording, icons, arrangement etc. They keep track of what people prefer and use those preferences to determine the final form.

I also learned about the myth of elite schools. For example, students that got into both Harvard and Penn State, but chose different schools had the same outcomes in terms of later earnings. Even though Harvard is perceived as more prestigious, it does not change outcomes for similar students.