Category Archives: Uncategorized

Do free agents play game theory?

Posted on July 10, 2014 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

Who will sign first? Melo, Lebron, or Bosh? In game-theory terms, what type of “game” are these free agents playing: Prisoner’s Dilemma, Chicken, Stag Hunt, or Battle of the Sexes?

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We saw a Black Swan today!

Posted on July 9, 2014 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

Nate Silver — yes, that Nate Silver, who had predicted Brasil to win the World Cup (see diagram in the post above, courtesy of FiveThirtyEight) — compares his complex (and, dare we say, opaque) statistical methods, like the Soccer Power … Continue reading →

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William Faulkner Reviews Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and The Sea

Posted on July 7, 2014 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

Originally posted on Biblioklept:
His best. Time may show it to be the best single piece of any of us, I mean his and my contemporaries. This time, he discovered God, a Creator. Until now, his men and women had…

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What if the colonies had never declared their independence?

Posted on July 4, 2014 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

Amid today’s Independence Day festivities, let’s reflect … Why don’t we see closer political cooperation among all English-speaking peoples, to borrow Winston Churchill’s beautiful phrase? Suppose, for example, that the 13 North American colonies had never declared their independence from Britain or that the British … Continue reading →

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What the world’s urban poor really want …

Posted on July 4, 2014 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

… relief from traffic congestion! Here is an excerpt from Michael Hobbes’s excellent essay “What I learned from the crippling gridlock in Dhaka, Bangladesh”: I am in a tiny steel cage attached to a motorcycle, stuttering through traffic in Dhaka, Bangladesh. In … Continue reading →

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Does sex improve athletic performance?

Posted on July 3, 2014 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

Credit for the diagram goes to David Yanofsky. Read more here: “All of the teams that banned sex at the World Cup have been eliminated … so have a lot of the teams that didn’t ban it. So let’s not draw any inferences.” … Continue reading →

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This isn’t a math test …

Posted on July 2, 2014 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

Two cheers for Team USA … next time in Russia!

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Evidence of match-fixing at the World Cup?

Posted on July 1, 2014 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

In German: here. In English: here. We blogged about this possibility on 23 June. So, we need to update our priors …  World Cup match-fixers?

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Faking it

Posted on July 1, 2014 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

We can’t help but cheer for Pepe (although his little headbutt looks fake too!) … Also, you will find a plausible theory explaining why players have an incentive to fake injuries in Michael Gard’s excellent essay Faking it: why football players feign injury. … Continue reading →

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“Bayesian reasoning” postscript

Posted on June 30, 2014 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

Note: We recently concluded a five-part review of the main points in Howson & Urbach’s important paper “Bayesian reasoning in science” (see our various Bayesian blog posts from 25-28 June). We now wish to present our own thoughts in this postscript. Spoiler … Continue reading →

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