Links for 9 September

Your philosophic beliefs matter for your real world performance. (Via.)
Soon, helium will cost 10,000 times what it does today.
Small schools stand out because they are more variable. Lesson: look for the outliers at both ends.
Casino "carpets are deliberately designed to obscure and camouflage gambling chips that have fallen onto the floor."
Here's what white people really like -- according to their own OKcupid profiles. (h/t CH)
Worried about all those snakes you have on your plane? Try tylenol addled mice.
Reverse psychology.
A review of Merchants of Doubt. See also this.


(Apologies for seeming like a "best of Marginal Revolution" roundup this week.)

back to school

For those of you starting a new school year, here are 9 evidence-supported study tips:

1. Adopt a growth mindset. "Students who believe that intelligence and academic ability are fixed tend to stumble at the first hurdle."
2. Sleep well.
3. Forgive yourself for procrastinating.
4. Test yourself.
5. Pace your studies. "the optimal time to leave material before reviewing it is 10 to 30 per cent of the period you want to remember it for."
6. Vivid examples may not always work best.
7. Take naps.
8. Get handouts prior to the lecture. 
9. Believe in yourself.

That advice may seem obvious. Fine -- but let that serve as #10: you don't have to be original.

on sorting algorithms

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal:

(this is how mergesort really works)

How big is the solar system?

Big. Here is a 8,500,000,000:1 scale model of the solar system. (From/Via)

On an ordinary 72 dpi monitor it’s just over half a mile wide, making it possibly one of the largest pages on the web.

I had forgotten that Neptune is so much farther than Saturn.

How to raise an athlete

1. Give birth between January and March.
2. Raise your future superstar in a small city.
3. Make them practice for 10,000 hours.

Sentences to ponder

A nice observation from Ezra Klein via Marginal Revolution:

Campaigns are built to fool us into thinking that we're voting for individuals. We learn about the candidate's family, her job, her background -- even her dog. But we're primarily voting for parties. The parties have just learned we're more likely to vote for them if they disguise themselves as individuals. And American politics would work better if we understood that.

Can heavy metal singers actually sing?

Some can. (via Kottke)

A classically trained voice teacher has a listen to Bruce Dickinson (of Iron Maiden) and Ozzy Osbourne (of course). Of Dickenson she says:

I have nothing but admiration for this singer. Listen how he starts off with a soft growl, then moves seamlessly into a well-supported, sustained high full-voice sound that then evolves into an effortless long scream! His diction is easily intelligible, regardless of the range he's singing in or the effect he's going for. He achieves an intensely rhythmic delivery of the lyrics without losing legato and musical momentum, something a lot of classical singers struggle with, especially when interpreting the many staccato and accent markings that crowd scores by Bellini, Donizetti, etc.

Click through for her assessment of Ozzy.