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When You Win a Nobel and They Can't Reach You at Home

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Re: When You Win a Nobel and They Can't Reach You at Home

#121
post #29

Old boys' clubs patting one another on the back. The Nobel Prize is an embarrassment to our species.

Awarding a prize for a great scientific achievement is an embarrassment to the species? I'm keen on hearing what you would prefer.

The twitter blue checkmark is the modern day version.

Re: When You Win a Nobel and They Can't Reach You at Home

#122
post #45

Berkeley gives you a parking space if you work there and win a Nobel. They even have signs "Reserved for Nobel Laureate". As far as I know, Stanford does not. Doesn't Google had the leaders in auction theory now? Would someone please devise a way to run a stock market as a repeated clocked auction, so that prices change, say, once every 5 minutes and high frequency trading doesn't work.

What’s the value in making HFT not work? What harm is it causing?

Fairness maybe? People rent server racks right next to the exchange to get a leg up responding to market forces. Lots of others won't be able to compete with that foresight.

Whether you think that's a good or bad thing though I guess can be up for debate.

Re: When You Win a Nobel and They Can't Reach You at Home

#123
post #19
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically, the announcement is a secret until it happens. It happens at a specific time, in Sweden, and they attempt to contact the winners at that time with a personal call ( https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/themes/the-nobel-call/ ). My cynical side suggests it's done mostly to generate PR. See also: https://worldneurologyonline.com/article/receiving-the-call-... https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/04/scien…

I put my phone in airplane mode at night. Don't a lot of people do that? What are they thinking?

Have you ever been called in the middle of the night that prompted this behavior? I have only been woken by my phone twice and both times I'm glad I was.

Re: When You Win a Nobel and They Can't Reach You at Home

#124
post #93
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? In my mind the Peace Prize gets the top billing. If I knew someone had a Nobel prize in economics, I would think they were really smart, and really deep into economics. If I knew someone had a Nobel Peace prize, it's almost certain that they did something of extreme first hand importance to the lives of many.

Publicity is different from prestige and reputation. The Peace prize has received publicity from controversies. Peace prize has been given people who don't deserve it. President Obama was nominated less than two weeks in office and received it after less than nine months in the office. The prize was seen more as criticism of Bush administration than awarding Obama.

Obama said he didn't deserve the prize, and everyone agrees. It's more fair to look at the long history of recipients (MLK, Mandela, Mother Teresa) than to judge the prize on one or two errors. Otherwise, almost all prizes are meaningless.

Re: When You Win a Nobel and They Can't Reach You at Home

#125
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> mobile operator or my bank Yeah no, these companies should NEVER be calling people, period. It's way to easy to phish people for information by calling them and claiming to be their bank. Too many people will fall for it: "Hi, this is SomeDude from Bank of America, and we noticed some suspicious activity on your account. Before we go further I would just like to confirm your identity. Could you please provide your…

Yeah no Which is it? Banks should adopt a policy of only interacting with customers physically, via their web interface with a login, official mobile app, or by the user calling the bank's official, publicized number. Never by calling the user. You either don't travel, don't travel for very long, or don't travel anywhere interesting. I've had several experiences over the years where using a credit card in a country I…

> Which is it?

1 * 0 = 0

> You either don't travel, don't travel for very long, or don't travel anywhere interesting.

I would prefer you didn't make assumptions.

I travel to lots of interesting places, and I have had my credit card disabled several times. Once because my idiot geography-illiterate bank didn't know that Bulgaria was a part of Europe. Good thing I had a stack of cash with me. For less prepared travellers, the bank is doing nothing but stranding their own customers cashless in unfamiliar places.

In any case, my point still stands that they really shouldn't be calling to verify it is me when I don't even have my home country's SIM card in my phone.

They should be e-mailing me instead, which is the only reliable way to reach me while travelling and SIM swapping. Most people are more reachable easily by e-mail than by phone when travelling for the exact same reason.

Re: When You Win a Nobel and They Can't Reach You at Home

#128
post #124
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Publicity is different from prestige and reputation. The Peace prize has received publicity from controversies. Peace prize has been given people who don't deserve it. President Obama was nominated less than two weeks in office and received it after less than nine months in the office. The prize was seen more as criticism of Bush administration than awarding Obama.

Obama said he didn't deserve the prize, and everyone agrees. It's more fair to look at the long history of recipients (MLK, Mandela, Mother Teresa) than to judge the prize on one or two errors. Otherwise, almost all prizes are meaningless.

Personally, I wouldn't include Mother Teresa in a list of examples of people who deserved it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Mother_Teresa

Re: When You Win a Nobel and They Can't Reach You at Home

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you don’t pick up the phone, the ceremony continues without you. The public announcement comes at noon. Why don't the Nobel people just wait until you've been successfully informed before telling anyone else? Where does this self-imposed deadline come from?

The real question is: why don't they try to contact the recipients during the 24hr period prior to the announcement, at that recipient's acceptable local time zone? I don't think a Nobel recipient is going to spill the beans on the announcement.

It's a bit unfair to ask someone to keep their mouth shut when they've received one of the most prestigious awards possible in the world. Given that, it's reasonable to assume they'll share with _someone_ during said embargo and once that cat is out of the bag you might as well assume the news will leak. Hence the curtesy call ahead of the general news breaking just a bit beforehand.

Re: When You Win a Nobel and They Can't Reach You at Home

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you just assume my species?

I disagree with GP, but, I beg of you, _please_ find a new joke.

Sure, I'm always looking.

Anyway, I don't recall using this one before. Maybe it happened once sometime. I honestly don't recall seeing this joke anywhere before, so it's kind of surprising that's so thoroughly played out.

After googling: apparently, it's a thing. Not really in my circles, but at least now I know.

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