Peace and Love: Happy Chanukah

Image Credit: Romaya Puchman

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Merry Christmas: a “Blade Runner” sequel is in the works

We interrupt our sporadic Internet sabbatical with the following update: Forget the overhyped (and totally overrated) Star Wars franchise, because we just discovered that Blade Runner is coming back to the big screen. The “original” Blade Runner is one of our favorite films of all time (we put the word original in scare quotes because there are several different versions of the original movie), so we can’t wait for the sequel.

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In memory of Thomas Schelling, the errant economist

Update (1/22/17): check out this touching tribute to Schelling by Glenn Loury. (Hat tip: Garrett Jones, via Twitter.)

We have been trying to stay away from the Internet during our “Christmas sabbatical” to spend more time with our family, attend to grading duties, and read Roy Sorensen’s beautiful book on thought experiments, but we just discovered that the author of The Strategy of Conflict and self-described “errant economist” Thomas Schelling (pictured below) died a few days ago. Because Professor Schelling had such a great influence on us (he was one of our intellectual heroes), we are interrupting our Internet sabbatical to describe his impact on our approach to law and life. In particular, here is an abridged excerpt (without footnotes) from an essay we published in 2015:  Continue reading

Posted in Academia, Bayesian Reasoning, Cooperation, Economics, Game Theory | 2 Comments

Christmas sabbatical

It’s that time of year again: it’s time for us to get off the Internet to spend more time with our family and friends, so we are taking a sabbatical from blogging during the holiday season. In the meantime, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Tarjetas Pava Prints San El Botin De San Juan Facebook, 54% OFF

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Statistical significance: science or pseudoscience?

Credit: xkcd.com

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Caption this

https://twitter.com/Atom_Murray/status/803778029595938816

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Tree of Philosophy

Image Credit: F. E. Guerra-Pujol

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Standing Rock Map

Does the standoff over the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline falsify the Coase Theorem? In any case, we think Ronald Coase’s analysis of property rights on page 25 of his contrarian but essentially correct 1959 FCC paper might be relevant to the conflict over the placement of this pipeline: “Whether a newly discovered cave belongs to the man who discovered it, the man on whose land the entrance to the cave is located, or the man who owns the surface under which the cave is situated is no doubt dependent on the law of property. But the law merely determines the person with whom it is necessary to make a contract to obtain the use of the cave.”

Image credit: northlandia.wordpress.com

Posted in Current Affairs, Economics, Law | 2 Comments

Negative tipping?

What’s up, doc? As you may be aware of, a growing number of establishments are beginning to flat out ban the practice of tipping. But what if, instead of abolishing tipping, patrons had the option ex ante of giving a “negative tip.” In other words, why is the practice of tipping an asymmetrical one? By way of example, let’s say the standard tip (or “service charge”) for good service at Restaurant A is 20%. Then, in the alternative, why can’t customers deduct up to 20% of their bill for bad service? (It turns out, by the way, that we are not the first to propose this. See this and this.)

Related image

Credit: retailhellunderground.com

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The Mathematics of the Twelve Days of Christmas

Check out this fun blog post by math wizard Ben Orlin, who calculates the total number of gifts in “The 12 Days of Christmas.” In the words of Mr Orlin, “The song invited a lot of questions, but one in particular leapt out to the mathematical mind …: How many gifts, in all, did my true love give to me?” (Tip of our hat to fellow math lover Cliff Pickover.)

Credit: Ben Orlin

Posted in Culture, Mathematics | 1 Comment