a blog about research, art and life 💋

Forward!

My sister lives in north of atlanta. During Christmas holiday, our family drive into malls and malls through highway exits. Stability in Competition Harold Hotelling (1929) The Economic Journal | link In this paper, consumers are uniformly distributed along a line (a street, beach, political spectrum). Location is the only dimension of differentiation. There are two firms and each firm chooses a single location on the line. Entry and exit are ignored. Consumers buy from the firm that minimizes price + transportation cost. Every consumer buys from one of the firms; there is no opting out. Transportation cost increases linearly with distance. Either prices are exogenous or competition forces them to be identical, so location is the only strategic variable. ...

Here’s an interesting paper answering an interesting question where the answer can potential piss off a lot of people: Skill levels and gains in university STEM education in China, India, Russia and the United States Loyalka et al. 2021. Nature Human Behavior ABSTRACT Universities contribute to economic growth and national competitiveness by equipping students with higher-order thinking and academic skills. Despite large investments in university science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education, little is known about how the skills of STEM undergraduates compare across countries and by institutional selectivity. Here, we provide direct evidence on these issues by collecting and analysing longitudinal data on tens of thousands of computer science and electrical engineering students in China, India, Russia and the United States. We find stark differences in skill levels and gains among countries and by institutional selectivity. Compared with the United States, students in China, India and Russia do not gain critical thinking skills over four years. Furthermore, while students in India and Russia gain academic skills during the first two years, students in China do not. These gaps in skill levels and gains provide insights into the global competitiveness of STEM university students across nations and institutional types. ...

Shostakovich was popular and alright in USSR until 1936. Stalin attended several of Shostakovich’s opera and liked them, until Lady Macbeth. Stalin sat in the audience, cringed at loud parts of the score and laughed at sexual moments. Displeased, Stalin left after the end of the third act. A frightened Shostakovich was reportedly “white as a sheet” when he bowed for the audience. Two days later “Muddle Instead of Music” appeared on the third page of the 28 January issue of Pravda. ...

Shostakovich has that weaponized ambiguity—layers of irony so dense that compliance sounds satrical, but the satire itself may also be satirized. You don’t know if you’ve heard compliance, mockery, or mockery of mockery. It’s both artistic strategy and shield. Leaving only one certainty: the music’s brilliance makes the question of intent unquestionable. One piece that showcase this is the Ballet The Golden Age (Op. 22). It premiered on 26 October 1930 at the then Kirov [who was a Soviet Politician] (now Mariinsky) Theatre. ...

It is economically more efficient if Uber/DiDi can do dynamic pricing contingent on user’s phone battery level. Because this is a finer granular of price discrimination and given Uber’s large market share, it’s going to charge consumer more but the market as a whole will benefit. But no one guarantees that the surplus goes to the drivers, given Uber’s dominant network effect, the extra surplus from better price discrimination is likely going to the platform. ...

Recent review article on Science: Recent discoveries on the acquisition of the highest levels of human performance A Güllich, M Barth, DZ Hambrick, BN Macnamara | Science, 2025 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adt7790 Editor’s summary …Güllich et al. looked at published research in science, music, chess, and sports and found two patterns: Exceptional young performers reached their peak quickly but narrowly mastered only one interest (e.g., one sport). By contrast, exceptional adults reached peak performance gradually with broader, multidisciplinary practice. However, elite programs are designed to nurture younger talent. —Ekeoma Uzogara ...

The duopoly of Christmas music is probably Mariah Carey or Tchaikovsky. In Chicago’s airport bathroom, plays a pop-mashed Super Plum Fairy variation in the airport bathroom. The violin carries the melody and the background adds drums (jesus, that is aweful). Remember, the OG composition is supposed to use a celesta, which Tchaikovsky pioneered its use in Orchestra and soon becomes viral: The Revolutionary Sound at the Heart of a Holiday Classic Link NYTimes ...

While most of the time we flutists are happy stealing pieces from violins, for Paganini’s Caprice No 5, I’m happy to just left it to the violinists. I like Itzhak Perlman’s version because he tends to speed up at hard parts, which makes him sound even more impressive and very satisfying to listen to. You feel the momentum and the piece is actually moving forward instead of stuck by a technical bottleneck: ...

Berlioz definitely enjoys gossip and writing, apart from the famous I-write-my-own-program-note of the Symphony Fantastique. He has a memoir, and a frictional book: U of C Press: link. During the performances of fashionable operas in an unidentified but “civilized” town in northern Europe, the musicians (with the exception of the conscientious bass drummer) tell tales, read stories, and exchange gossip to relieve the tedium of the bad music they are paid to perform. In this delightful and now classic narrative written by the brilliant composer and critic Hector Berlioz, we are privy to twenty-five highly entertaining evenings with a fascinating group of distracted performers. ...