YAY EMILY! WAY TO TEACH!

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YAY EMILY! WAY TO TEACH!

Frighten them into submission? Sigh... yeah, apparently that's the only way. The private school place, apparently not getting my email about already having a job, was apparently sending my resume to all kinds of private middle schools. So tempting...

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I found the Verizon bill and I have to undarn them. It was exactly the same as last month. It was under some piece of junk mail from the Honda dealership where I got my state inspection done and had to wait for two hours even though I had an appointment. Darn that Honda dealership, darn them all the heck.

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I meant the grading, actually.

Private schools, huh?

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Sigh... yeah. They probably have at least one working copy machine for every five. FIVE. And working lights, and projector screens that go all the way up, and a complete lack of jackhammers directly outside their 80-degree classrooms.

But, you know, public school. C'est la vie. I reserve the right to be bitter, however.

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But, you know, public school. C'est la vie. I reserve the right to be bitter, however.

You're doing a good thing. A more noble profession than improving business reporting capability.

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Bills have been paid, now I must leave my cozy little Linux desktop and remotely connect to my work computer to do more work.

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Okay, part of the answer is that the "select a disease that you don't have" example from that article is, well, incomplete. Esponda's paper is here. A key thing that the article left out is that for this to work, at least one of the choices has to apply. Here's an example he uses.

I do not earn

• Less than $30,000 per year
• $30-60,000 per year
• Over $60,000 per year.

Er, and then there's a lot of math. But what I'm getting is that, as the respondent, I have two answers to chose from because of the negative phrasing. If I select "over $60k," I'm not telling you exactly which group I belong to, but I'm eliminating one option, which gives you some information. And I'm more likely to answer honestly because, hey, I'm not telling you much. Especially if I take out the middle choice.

I doubt you'd use this technique with a question like salary ranges, but it does get the idea across. So the "select a disease you don't have" only works if you already know that the respondents have at least one disease. But... okay, say it's a survey of teenagers. You ask them to eliminate one of these options:

• I've never had sex
• I've only had sex with one partner
• I've had sex with more than one partner

That's one where, if they had to pick the one that did apply, you can see where kids might lie even on an anonymous survey. So it might be worth get vaguer answers if it increases the accuracy.

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How would the sage and cunning Buffistas handle a situation with a co-worker, a superior actually, who doesn't quite go to the sexual harrassment place, but is definitely venturing into the category of somene who makes me totally uncomfortable?

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Have to be a bit more specific.

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