May 2009
148 posts
Prisoner's Dilemma in Reality Television →
If reality TV is good for anything, it’s explaining game theory. Check out this clip of a UK show based around the prisoner’s dilemma for instance.
The prisoner’s dilemma as explained by The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics:
In the traditional version of the game, the police have arrested two suspects and are interrogating them in separate rooms. Each can either confess,...
FREE SHRIMPING! →
catbird:
Um… a competitor to a FOOTwear site, and you’re saying that “shrimping” is something you do with a boat? Hrmmm…..
heyitsnoah:
[Disclaimer: I realize this is probably not funny to anyone but me. But it makes me laugh every time I think about it so I’m making you all listen.]
Yesterday I had this ridiculous idea that I should start an online shoe store or something (like a competitor...
“we are excited to announce that Showtime has decided to offer boxee users a...”
– Very clever. Nice work boxee.
boxee blog » it’s Showtime! watch the premier of Nurse Jackie on boxee
FREE SHRIMPING! →
[Disclaimer: I realize this is probably not funny to anyone but me. But it makes me laugh every time I think about it so I’m making you all listen.]
Yesterday I had this ridiculous idea that I should start an online shoe store or something (like a competitor to Zappos) and instead of offering free shipping, I offer free shrimping (like I have a shrimp boat and when you buy a product you...
Naming Your Baby Something Unique →
MarketingCharts (which I must admit has become one of my favorite sites) points to a study about the increasing uniqueness of baby names:
Researchers found that in 1955, nearly one-third (32%) of boys received one of the ten most popular names, but by 2007, less than 10% got a common name.
For girls, the percentage receiving common names is even lower. In 1955, about one in four (22%) girls...
“We’ve toiled under the tyranny of the click for too long,” IAB chief...”
– Deep Media: Ad Sense? Googlenomics and the Tyranny of Click-Through
The Costs of Medicine →
I swear I read stuff other than The New Yorker, but here is another pointer: This week’s issue has a great article about the costs of healthcare and their inverse relationship to the level of care patients receive. At the heart of the issue is a series of misaligned incentives:
There is no insurance system that will make the two aims match perfectly. But having a system that does so much to...
“Two economists working at Dartmouth, Katherine Baicker and Amitabh Chandra,...”
– A really excellent New Yorker story about the state of healthcare costs in America.
Annals of Medicine: The Cost Conundrum: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker
Your Mom →
A few weeks ago my grandma asked me about Twitter (for whatever it’s worth) and over the last few months both my parents have gotten accounts. In thinking about this, it’s kind of a perfect platform for parents looking to keep up with their adult children. I realized in a conversation this morning that the answer to the common Twitter question, “who cares what I ate for...
“The number 1 most skipped brand on brand tags is Gemmy (makers of Billy the Big...”
– Gemmy: Brand Tags
“If you own a Kindle, you can now access your notes and highlights via the web at...”
– As if I didn’t want one already …
Consumerist - Amazon
When to Market Research →
Mark offers up some good advice on when market research is appropriate:
It’s only if - as classical economics and many of our ‘commonsense’ rule of thumb “I’m-just-a-practical-fella” kinds of models assume - individuals are actually choosing independently of each other that you might find asking them what they like about the thing or what they feel etc of some...
“Mr. Arrington’s bluster aside, I’m pretty sure that most if not all...”
– Fingertips Commentary
“Media workers are the heaviest drinking professionals in England, consuming the...”
– I always felt like every industry likes to claim the title of heaviest drinkers, nice to see that media professionals actually are.
Media has heaviest drinkers, poll finds | Media | The Guardian
“Don’t do stuff that you think is profitable, but potentially messes up the...”
– Not a bad rule to live by.
Enjoymentland » How not to be a douche
The Natural Growth of Cities →
Mathematician Steve Strogatz (who was a mentor of Duncan Watts) has an excellent guest column column up at the Olivia Judson blog about the math of cities. In it he outlines some recent (and…
“There’s a saying at my company: easy to code = hard to use, easy to use =...”
– The Blog of John A. De Goes - Journal - Good API Design: Part 1
WatchPhone Sex Pranks: Early 90’s Slang - CollegeHumor Video
T-Mobile Class Action Lawsuit →
** THIS IS A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT **
If you, like me, were charged an early termination fee from T-Mobile when you jumped to the iPhone you may be eligible to take part in a class action lawsuit:
The Settlement Class includes all subscribers to T-Mobile with personal accounts who paid or were charged a flat-rate Early Termination Fee (“ETF”) (generally $ 200) from July 23,...
“Hong Kong, with its incredible cluster of tall buildings stacked up the slope of...”
– I’m headed to Hong Kong in a few weeks and this makes me very excited about it.
The future is not what it used to be - Paul Krugman Blog - NYTimes.com
“It is way worse than I thought it would be, and that’s no joke,”...”
– Conservative radio hosts gets waterboarded, and lasts six seconds before saying its torture
Nudge blog →
Just discovered this blog from the authors of Nudge. Super excited.
“Tweet and FB are making blogging obsolete! I have literally been Facebooking...”
– Rob Walker - Your content or your life? (via catbird)
What's in your CTRL+V?
From Buzzfeed: “Do it! I dare you. Respond to this post by hitting Ctrl ‘V’ (or Command V if you’re on a Mac) and pasting whatever you have saved to your clipboard. We will try to figure out more about you as a person from whatever you post.”
At the time I read it, mine was http://data.gov
“The purpose of Data.gov is to increase public access to high value, machine...”
– Way to go government!
Data.gov
“Journalism is going to become all about branding.In this gigantic mass of...”
– @bmorrissey: Journalist brands
“A few years ago, we still believed that costs were so low and online advertising...”
– Gawker’s Nick Denton: ‘Original Reporting Will Be Rewarded’ - Advertising Age - Digital
The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness →
From a recent research paper comes a puzzling idea:
By many objective measures the lives of women in the United States have improved over the past 35 years, yet we show that measures of subjective well-being indicate that women’s happiness has declined both absolutely and relative to men. The paradox of women’s declining relative well-being is found across various datasets, measures of...
You wanna hear a mind fuck?
teamtigerawesome:
The Simpsons episode that takes place in the future, “Lisa Get’s Married,” takes place in 2010.
The future parts of Time Cop take place in 2004!
Back to the Future 2 takes place in 2015, only 6 years away!
Where are our flying cars god damnit?
The man has a point. Why isn’t the future as cool as movies made it out to be. I feel gypped.
How Many of Me? →
chartreuse: How many people share your name?
Sweet! Not too much competition.
