Apparently humans are more competitive when there are fewer of us competing for the prize: Students taking standardized tests in more crowded venues got lower scores. Students asked to complete a short general-knowledge test as fast as possible to win a prize if they were in the fastest 20 percent completed it faster if they […]
Google Books continues to expand their range of available material and it’s great to see. Not only does it increase access to information but, for the material that you have to purchase, it increases the efficiency of the market for information. Previously you had to buy an entire textbook, or purchase a membership at an […]
Paul Roberts has a very interesting and worthwhile discussion of sustainable farming over at Mother Jones. The key issue is: Organic farming uses a LOT more resources than normal farming; To call yourself organic and get that market recognition you need to be 100% organic; There is no market standard for recognising that a farmer […]
With the advent of iPredict, New Zealand has jumped on the prediction market bandwagon. But now a paper suggests that, for election results at least, polling data is more accurate than at least one popular trading market: The market price is superior to a naïve reading of the polls. For instance, if the incumbent leads […]
Overcoming Bias’s new sister site, lesswrong, has a new post up that tries to make me feel better about going to school: We are interested in developing practical techniques of rationality. One practical technique, used widely and successfully in science and technology is formalization … We will reason better about the correctness of the form […]
A couple of NZ city councils have recently considered changing the way they run recycling after a brief discussion with experts from www.kuringgaiskipbins.com.au, as it high time we give back to the earth more than we take. Wellington and Christchurch currently fund their kerbside recycling scheme through rates. They proposed to switch to a system whereby […]