I know this is a little old, but I was reading the Freakonomics blog the other day and found Stigler’s list of common objections to Economics research, written in 1977. I highly recommend reading it for a nice chuckle, especially if you’re an econ nerd. If you’re not a huge geek like us, you might not get it, but believe me, it’s funny.

In order to make discussions of research papers more efficient, Stigler suggested that one should simply interrupt the speaker by shouting the numbered objection, rather than the usual, overly long interjection.

And the truth is, if you ever come to the seminars, you’ll find that the discussion is almost exactly the same now as it was in 1977. Depressing, isn’t it? Anyway, I’m bookmarking this one, for the next time I have to critique someone’s paper. Teehee!

In a similar vein, you can also check out Mimi’s contributions to my collection: Andrew Lo’s You Might Be a Quant If… I love the line about Judge Lance Ito.

And finally, if you’re like me and my friends, and you’re hitting that quarter-life crisis point, or if for whatever other irrational reason, you feel like you’re over the hill when you’re clearly not, cheer up! You’ve still got lots of living left to do. Check out what you might be missing before you just decide to up and die.