Is Google a monopoly?

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

To be more precise, is Google a coercive or innocent monopoly under Section 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act. (Click on the image above for a better look of search engine market shares. Also, for what it’s worth, the folks at Google say no, since “competition is a click away.”) Section 2 of the Sherman Act requires monopoly power in the relevant market and a willful act. So, in Google’s case, what is the relevant market? The entire world? And what willful acts, if any, has Google committed to achieve its global dominance in the market for search engines? Is this evidence of a willful act? What about this? Addendum (Nov. 22): The European Parliament appears to think so.

Posted in Economics, Law | Tagged | 1 Comment

Street art

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

Posted in Art, History | Tagged | Leave a comment

“Generalissimo of the Nation”

Posted on November 8, 2014 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

That is the subtitle of this excellent paper by our friend William Adler, a professor of American politics at Northeastern University.  His short paper is about war-making and the presidency in the early republic, and it’s one of our favorite papers from this year’s Constitutional Law Colloquium at Loyola Law School in Chicago. Here is an excerpt from the paper (footnotes omitted):

In early America there were numerous small wars involving Indian tribes, pirates, and some European nations, in addition to larger, more protracted wars such as the War of 1812 and the Mexican-American War. Both of the larger conflicts were clearly authorized by congressional declarations of war … The small wars, however, numbered in the dozens; even if individually relatively small (though some led to the use of thousands of troops), the cumulative effect meant protracted battles over land, resources, and trading opportunities for much of the nation’s early existence.

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Wikipedia Text Bubbles

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

German Wikipedia Article [Linear]

You can compare various visualizations of Wikipedia articles by language here (imgur). Hat tip to krikienoid for sharing this beautiful data visualization of Wikipedia articles with us.

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Litigation Games

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

Is a legal trial a search for truth, like the activities of science or philosophy, or is it a combined game of skill and luck, like poker? Although we have modeled the process of litigation in our previous work as a Prisoner’s Dilemma, as a War of Attrition, as a Game of Chicken, and even as a simple coin toss, no one to our knowledge has formally modeled litigation as a game of poker. Our working paper “The Poker-Litigation Game” is the first to do so. Specifically, we present a simple poker/litigation game and find the optimal strategy for playing this game. Enjoy.

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A recent example of the reference-class problem

Posted on November 6, 2014 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

As Zeynep Tufekci explains in this excellent essay, the now-infamous Catcalling Video was not based on a random sample of New York City neighborhoods. Here is the actual and non-random breakdown of time spent in each neighborhood:

In other words, the methodology of the filmmakers of the Catcalling Video is flawed. Over half of the shots in the video are actually taken from just one street: 125th Street in Harlem. The full table of NYC neighborhoods and streets in the video is available under the fold. Continue reading →

Posted in Bayesian Reasoning, Culture, Logical Fallacies, Probability | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

The Wikipedia Paradox

Posted on November 6, 2014 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

According to Wikipedia (citations omitted):

“Ignore All Rules” is a “favorite” rule of the English-language open content encyclopedia, Wikipedia. Its formulation is generally (emphasis in original), “If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it.” Wikipedia has a tradition of treating rules skeptically, except for this rule …

Do you see the paradox here? After all, isn’t the Wikipedia rule — “Ignore All Rules” — itself a rule?!

Can you solve the Wikipedia Paradox ?
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Is Banksy a woman?

Posted on November 6, 2014 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

We have always assumed that Banksy, our favorite mystery graffiti artist, is a man. But what if she is a woman? Kriston Capps makes a persuasive case in this beautiful essay for why Banksy is probably a woman. Hat tip to kottke for the pointer.

Posted in Art, Bayesian Reasoning, Culture | Tagged | 1 Comment

WWII films by country

Posted on November 5, 2014 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

Why are war movies so popular in the United States? What do these data say about North American culture? Don’t we need to know the total number of post-WWII films produced by each country on this particular list to answer these previous questions? In any case, thanks to Bob9999999999999 (that’s Bob followed by 13 nines, not 9 nines) for preparing this pie chart.

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Ideological Turing Tests

Posted on November 5, 2014 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

Now that the midterm elections in the U.S. — as well as the presidential contest in Brasil — are finally over, can you pass an Ideological Turing Test? For example, let’s say you support gay marriage or oppose legalizing the sale of marijuana. Could you make a persuasive argument against gay marriage or in support of drug legalization? An Ideological Turing Test, in other words, is designed to test whether a political partisan or candidate for office correctly understands the arguments of his or her political adversaries. According to Wikipedia:

The partisan is invited to answer questions or write an essay posing as his opposite number; if neutral judges cannot tell the difference between the partisan’s answers and the answers of [his political adversary], the candidate is judged to correctly understand the opposing side. The Ideological Turing Test is so named because of its similarity with the Turing test, a test whereby a machine is required to fool a neutral judge into thinking that it is human.

We love this concept, but where would we find the requisite “neutral judges” to evaluate the test-taker’s answers?

Now argue the opposing side!

Posted in Philosophy, Politics | Tagged | 2 Comments