prior probability

What’s going on here? Why won’t these people sell their lottery tickets? Endowment effect? Anticipated regret? Market failure? (Hat tip: Alex Tabarrok, via Marginal Revolution. More details here, via kottke.org.)

1. Daniel Lemire

2. James Roper

3. Wikipedia

What’s up with the proliferation of fake stop signs, especially on privately-owned roads and shopping center parking lots? Our student Gabriel Feliciano brought to our attention this fascinating thread on fake stop signs. Our recommendation: in place of fake stop signs, why don’t shopping centers and private subdivisions install yellow signs with the word SLOW instead? (Traffic expert John Carr explains the difference between “real stop signs and decorative red octagons” here.)

If you missed yesterday’s total eclipse of the sun (21 August 2017), the next one will occur in less than seven years (8 April 2024). (Bonus material: Walter Cronkite reports on the 1979 eclipse, and here is a collection of the best photographs and videos of the 2017 eclipse. Double hat tip: Jason Kottke.)

Hat tip: MachoTaco24, via Reddit

Even after so many years, one of the things that I loved the most and still remember about my political theory professor Cedric J. Robinson was the quiet cadence and authoratative tone of his voice. Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, you too can listen to Dr Robinson here:

We are writing a series of blog posts in honor of our teacher, mentor, and friend Cedric J. Robinson (1940-2016). Dr Robinson was a prolific and creative scholar who wrote about culture, history, political theory, and much more. For your reference, here is just a small sample of his work:

• 1980a: The terms of order: political science and the myth of leadership
• 1980b: Notes toward a “native” theory of history
• 1983: Black Marxism: the making of the black radical tradition
• 1990: Oliver Cromwell Cox and the historiography of the West
• 1993: The appropriation of Frantz Fanon
• 1998: Blaxploitation and the misrepresentation of liberation
• 2007: Forgeries of memory and meaning

    

I have just learned that my teacher and mentor Cedric Robinson (pictured below) passed away last summer. (I was his student at UCSB and was awarded a scholarship named after him.) Dr Robinson was a student and critic of Marxist theory. Among other things, he wrote about “racial capitalism,” and his critique of traditional politics anticipated the organization of “horizontal movements” such as Black Lives Matter, a decentralized political movement without a single, unifying political leader. I will share some remembrances about my teacher, mentor, and friend in my next blog post.

1. Introduction (Tyler Cowen): Do we undervalue routine?
2. Mornings (Kristin Wong): Why your morning routine isn’t working
3. Afternoons (Patrick Allan): You need an afternoon routine
4. Evenings (Sam Thomas Davies): The evening routines of the most successful people
5. Writing (Peg Boyle Single): A writing routine
6. Against routine (Jessica Stillman): An argument against routine