Tuesday Link Dump

Since I'm teaching on a MWF schedule this fall, today is an off off day - no teaching. But tomorrow is also an off day. Unknown University has a very interesting approach to calendars and the days of the week. Since today is election day, we have it off (somebody must have done a great job in negotiating - we get days off for alomost every conceivable holiday, and a few that aren't).

But, it gets even stranger - since classes on Tuesday were skipped, tomorrow (which is Wednesday anywhere else) becomes Tuedsay and Wednesday disappears into some academic black hole. Other times, if we have a Monday off, Tuesday becomes Monday. It has something to do with making sure all days meet an equal amount of time, but it does get a bit surreal at times.

So, without further calendarial confusion, here's the Tuesday (or whatever it is this week) Link Dump:

In addition to being one of the smartest economists around, Kevin Murphy of the U of Chicago also had one of the more unusual goals in life - to be the "world's best coauthor." He's done that HT: Marginal Revolution

Barry Rehfeld of the NY Times online discusses the Long-term investment performance of spinoffs

Craig Newmark links to a list of 50 Things for professors to do on the first day of class. Maybe next semester.

Since I just linked to an interview of Eugene Fama yesterday, it's only fitting that I link today to a Wall Street Journal Article on Dimesionsl Fund Advisors. It's run by former Fama students who use a lot of his work, and Fama sits on the board.

There's a story in Marketwatch.com about a new search engine called Powerset. It's not publicly available yet, but it sounds very interesting - it allows "natural language" queries and seems to understand the context of a question.

Back to the world of research. I'll get back to teaching stuff on Wednesday (er, ah, Tuesday. Or whatever they call it this week).