The Illusion Of Skill

Because our impressions of how well each soldier performed were generally coherent and clear, our formal predictions were just as definite. We rarely experienced doubt or conflicting impressions. We were quite willing to declare: “This one will never make it,” “That fellow is rather mediocre, but should do O.K.” or “He will be a star.”…

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The Last Place Aversion

How does last-place aversion play out with regard to redistribution? In our surveys, we asked Americans whether they supported an increase to the minimum wage, currently $7.25 per hour. Those making $7.25 or below were very likely to support the increase – after all, they would be immediate beneficiaries. In addition, people making substantially more than…

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Email Of The Month

Occasionally at blog central we get an email that requires us not to wait till the end of the month before awarding our email of the month. Sometimes some fucknut is so far above the competition that we have to go off early as no doubt our winner this month has on many occasions. Louise…

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Positive Contagion

I am not certain of its application to trading but I am certain there is one somewhere. Putting Like a Pro: The Role of Positive Contagion in Golf Performance and Perception Abstract Many amateur athletes believe that using a professional athletes equipment can improve their performance. Such equipment can be said to be affected with…

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Risk

A mate of mine in the medical profession lobed this in my inbox. I believe Jobs also tried acupuncture, herbal remedies, psychics and colonic irrigation – all of them profoundly unsuccessful and basically bullshit. In reading about Steve Jobs’ death, I was disappointed to learn that after his carcinoid tumor (a rare type of malignant…

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How David Beats Goliath

I am not normally a fan of Malcolm Gladwell – I find his writing quite simplistic and often wide of the mark. I found his last missive Outliers to be particularly trite. Steven Pinker the noted psychologist wrote – The themes of the collection are a good way to characterize Gladwell himself: a minor genius who…

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