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Author Archives: F. E. Guerra-Pujol
El Gabo ha muerto …
Did you know Gabriel Garcia Marquez almost became a lawyer instead of a writer? Thank goodness he decided to follow his heart and write for a living. Here is a synopsis (in Spanish) of one of our favorite stories by el Gabo, News of … Continue reading
Why don’t we abolish timeouts in sports?
After all, there are no timeouts in soccer. In the alternative, why don’t we at least consider reducing the total number of timeouts or capping the number of referee reviews? In short, why do we put up with long, drawn-out games? … Continue reading
Crowdsourcing the supreme court?
Note: the post was revised and expanded on 16 April 2014. As things currently stand, nine members of a quasi-legislative committee meet in secret to decide some of the most important cases and controversies in the U.S. (These politicians in robes are … Continue reading
Your tax dollar at work …
Check out this tax-time data visualization from our friends at fastcompany.com: We want our money back!
In defense of Aldon Smith
TMZ Sports was the first to report that police officers in Los Angeles had arrested NFL linebacker and defensive end Aldon Smith at LAX last Sunday afternoon (13 April 2014) for becoming belligerent and making a false bomb threat before boarding his flight. But before we rush … Continue reading
Model this: nice guys finish last?
The Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma, one of the most important models in game theory, predicts that business firms that screw their customers should fail, not succeed. But check out this recent report in Bloomberg Businessweek: The most hated airline is also the … Continue reading
The Coase Theorem and the Game of Chicken
Note: this post was revised and updated on 13 April 2014. There are only two parties to this particular dispute, a public agency and a private cattle rancher (thus so-called “transaction costs” are low), so what’s preventing them from negotiating a … Continue reading
A hypothetical question
The LBJ Presidential Library in Austin, Texas recently convened a Civil Rights Summit to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the historic Civil Rights Act of 1964. Yet no one at the summit raised the most obvious question: is the old Civil Rights Act still … Continue reading
Sumner on Cowen on Silver on Aaron
Scott Sumner just wrote up a thoughtful analysis of Tyler Cowen’s reply to Nate Silver’s counter-factual thought-experiment about baseball. But we here at prior probability are not so much interested in the original question of Nate Silver’s post (“If Hank Aaron had never hit a home run, … Continue reading
Do fake prediction markets work?
There’s a new information quasi-market called SciCast based on “crowd sourcing” methods and reputation effects, not on prices–i.e. participants who make the most accurate predictions move up a symbolic scoreboard but are not paid with real money. You could argue that one well-designed quasi-market is … Continue reading
prior probability 