New Google Chrome Notebook

About a week or so ago I saw that Google was accepting applications to test out a new Google Chrome notebook.  It appeared that the offer was to receive a free computer; the only thing one had to do was test it out and give feedback.  The offer looked legitimate, so I decided to fill out an application.

Today, when I checked the mail, I had a notice that I had a new package.  I assumed that it was one of a couple of Christmas presents that I had ordered online.  When I got the package, it was a large, heavy box with no "Amazon.com" markings on it.  I opened it up and saw a slightly smaller box that looked like this:

I couldn't think that anything I had ordered which this box could be.  Then I opened it and saw that it was a new Google Chrome notebook (or Cr-48 Chrome Notebook, as this model is officially called.)

Much to my surprise, Google just sent me a free computer.  I was excited to set it up because I had heard so much about it.

It runs on Google's Chrome OS.  I had seen this video about it:

The idea is that it is a computer, but it's stripped down to just the Internet browser.  There are certainly many settings where I just need the Internet (especially since I started using services such as Google Docs.)  This has the advantage (supposedly) of making the computer faster and safer, and an overall cleaner experience.

The computer itself is pretty cool.  It is a plain black computer with no logos of any kind, which I find super cool and exclusive.  It has a different keyboard than most computers:

If you can see, the top line is different than on a standard keyboard.  There are buttons for things such as "back", "reload", etc. which tie directly into the web browser.  There is also no caps lock button; instead there is a search button in its place.  I am told this is because UNLESS YOU WANT TO MAKE INSIGHTFUL COMMENTS ON YOUTUBE you don't really need caps lock.  However, if I really want caps lock, I can change the settings.  The touch pad is similar to a mac.

It has a 12 inch display and weighs 3.8 pounds.  My current laptop is very large and heavy, so it is much nicer to carry around.  Here is a side-by-side comparison:

It takes about 10 seconds to boot up, as compared to a normal computer which can take a minute or to.  If I close it, when I open it, it pops up in about 1 second.  This aspect is very nice.

This notebook needs Internet connection to be any good.  It has one program: Google Chrome.  It's a test product, so I was warned that I may need to have patience with it.  Today I needed patience to figure out why my Wi-fi was being so slow.  I finally figured it out, and learned a lot about my Internet router in the process.  The Internet is decently fast.  I would say that it is a little bit faster on my old laptop, which also runs Google Chrome.  This thing was free, however, so I don't know what I was expecting.  When they actually start selling Chrome notebooks for real, I imagine the processor on those things will be a lot faster.

If Wi-fi isn't available, 3G is an option.  This test notebook comes with 100 MB of data per month (for two years) via Verizon, and then offers more at "reasonable prices".  I don't envision myself using the 3G too much since 100 MB isn't that much. (Plus I have a smartphone with 3G.)  Fortunately, Wi-fi is widely available these days, so I will be able to use my notebook extensively in a lot of public places.

The version of Google Chrome on the notebook emphasizes "apps."  The idea is that I will be able to replicate a lot of programs on a standard computer by installing Internet-based apps.

There are a lot of cool and intriguing things about this Chrome notebook.  I'll update in a month or so to share how this new gadget fits into my lifestyle.

Is It OK to Lie During a Game?

Here are some different examples I have been thinking about.

Bluffing Games


There are a lot of simple games of chance that one can play which require some element of bluffing.  For example, I am familiar with a game called BS where bluffing is a central element.  In these games, it is encouraged to "trick" the other players with bluffs.

Sports


There are different ways that one can misrepresent the truth in sports.

For example, in soccer, sometimes players will "flop"--that is, they fall over as if they had been fouled by an opponent.  If a referee calls a foul, the flopper's team can get a free kick or even a valuable penalty kick.

I read about another example a few weeks ago.  In college football, California played a close game with Oregon, who is number one in the country.  Oregon's style of play is to do everything they can to start each play as quickly as they can.  This has the effect of wearing down the opposition who is not used to such a fast style of play.  California employed the strategy of faking injuries.  After certain plays, a player would pretend they were injured.  The protocol when a player is injured is to stop the game and examine the player.  Faking injuries had the effect of slowing down the game enough for California players to catch their breath.  Was this worse than flopping in soccer?

Survivor


I have seen many seasons of the TV show Survivor.  Honesty is one subject that is brought up.  One school of thought is that players ought to be as honest as they would in real life.  Anything else is compromising their integrity.  Another school of thought is that it is a game like poker.  If you lie, it is OK because it is a bluffing game; it's not as if you are a dishonest person.

How I Unsubscribed from Annoying E-Mail Lists

The other day Allison won tickets to a concert.  When she signed up for the promotion, she gave out her "alternate" e-mail address because she didn't want to receive annoying e-mails from them.  Unfortunately, she doesn't check her alternate account on a regular basis, so she got an "important" e-mail about the concert a couple days late.

In my Mr. Know-It-All way, I told her that it was easy to unsubscribe from e-mail lists.  I told her that all you have to do is click unsubscribe at the bottom of the e-mail and you stop receiving those e-mails.  I decided as an experiment, I would test out my words to see if I could unsubscribe myself from e-mail lists.  As of a couple weeks ago, I regularly received junk e-mail from several sources.  I hadn't taken action until now because I wasn't bothered by receiving the extra messages.  What happened was that I was able to get off of most e-mail lists by clicking unsubscribe.  The best e-mail lists have a simple unsubscribe button on the bottom of their e-mails which can be clicked and presto: unsubscribe successful!  It was easy to unsubscribe from things like Target, Office Depot, Amazon.com, and Kimpton Hotels, just to name a few.

The Worst Offenders

There were just a few, however, that kept coming even after I was sure that I had unsubscribed.  I was wrong in telling my wife that she could just click unsubscribe on all e-mail lists to stop getting those e-mails.

First, Ebay Daily Deals kept coming to my inbox.  When I clicked unsubscribe, it took several minutes to figure out what I needed to do to unsubscribe.  When I finally did that, it said that it would take up to two weeks to get my name off, as if they didn't have the computing capability to remove my e-mail address until then.

Next, I kept getting e-mails from Busted Tees, a website that sells funny t-shirts.  I have enjoyed their t-shirts, but I have been unable to unsubscribe from their e-mail list.  When I clicked unsubscribe on their e-mail list, it asked me to enter my e-mail address to finish unsubscribing.   Apparently didn't work, because in a few days I got another e-mail from them.  I did the unsubscribe again and once again it didn't work.

Finally, the most disappointing offender is Deseret Book.  After I unsubscribed, I kept getting just as many e-mails from them as ever (which is to say, pretty much every day).  When I would unsubscribe to one, it would say that I had unsubscribed from some obscure sublist of their overall list.  I gave them more benefit of the doubt then the other ones, but despite my best efforts I ended up still receiving daily e-mail from them.

I just don't see what's the point of forcing me to be on their e-mail list.  I read in a book the following sentiment: don't take no for an answer is the wrong attitude; people can't or shouldn't be forced to do anything; the right attitude is don't take maybe for an answer, because a maybe is waiting to be talked into a yes.  I think continuing to send me unwanted e-mails is taking no for an answer and not taking maybe for an answer.  I just feel like it actually makes me want to deal with them less for doing that.

Solution


My brother mentioned to me that I could just set-up an e-mail filter and stop receiving any unwanted e-mails. I went ahead and did this.  I am currently using Gmail as my primary e-mail service.  On each unwanted message, I clicked "More Actions" to drop down a list, and then clicked "Filter messages like these".  It sent me to a menu where I could fill in criteria or simply choose all messages from an e-mail address.  Once I did that, it gave me options of what I wanted to do with those messages.  I decided to choose to delete them all.  Problem solved.  Even better, I even have the ability to filter certain school e-mail lists which I am unable to unsubscribe from.

Update (01/21/11)


The filters solution is working well.  I have really reduced the amount of unimportant e-mail coming to my inbox.

I have peeked at my trash folder to see if these offending e-mails are still coming to me.  It looks like Ebay Daily Deals finally stopped; I just think it's annoying that it took so long.  Also, it doesn't look like I received anything else from Busted Tees after I unsubscribed from them the second time.  I am therefore not mad at them anymore and would like to say that they have some cool, funny t-shirts.  As for Deseret Book, I still don't understand why they need to keep spamming me.  What do they gain by antagonizing my e-mail inbox?

If you would correct my sentence fragment...

I have noticed that I have the tendency to say a lot of sentence fragments starting with "if" in place of asking questions or making direct requests.  For example:

• What I say: "If someone could pass me the butter."
  Proper English: "Could someone please pass me the butter?"
• What I say: "If you guys would do your homework."
  Proper English: "You guys should do your homework."

I noticed that lots of people speak like this.

Which is better: Classical Music or Today's Pop Music?

I recently watched the movie Amadeus about Mozart.  One scene in the movie showed a clip from a four-hour-long opera.  The scene showed Mozart's rival Salieri riveted as he watched it.  I realized that musical consumption was much different back then.  In those days, they did not have record players, a Walkman, a CD player, or an iPod.  Music was less accessible, and there was no skipping tracks or fast-forwarding.

I realized that I would have a very hard time keeping my attention span fixed on a four-hour-long piece of music.  My music consumption lately has been the same as my Internet consumption: I skim over lots of songs and rarely have the patience to process anything complex.  I wonder if this is why pop music is so simplistic.  I would venture to say that the average person today would pick their favorite modern tunes over anything classical, but is it because (a) pop music is better or (b) they have a much different musical pallet?  I think it is probably (b).

My opinion is that top notch classical music is probably "better", but you have to have the pallet to enjoy it.

Why Can't I Read Books Anymore?

The Internet, that's why.  I recently read an article entitled "Is Google Making Us Stupid?".  It makes an interesting point that the Internet has changed the way our brains work (at least those of us who use it regularly). Instead of being able to sit for hours soaking in a long book, we get bored, we skim the book over, and we jump to the next thing.

I have been thinking about the contrast between skimming over information and diving deep for understanding.  These are really two complementary skills.  For example, in researching this subject, I did a Google search and sifted through information to find the most pertinent information.  As an example of "diving deep", in my experience mathematics is a subject that can only be learned through deeply studying it out.

I have been of the habit to do a whole lot of skimming as well.  Indeed, it is easy to get lost for large chunks of time just surfing the web, superficially absorbing tons of useless, or at least low value, information.  This is something I am going to be working on.

Studying the Scriptures Smarter, not Harder

Recently I had a post called "Study Smarter, not Harder."  Part of my inspiration for thinking about this is that I have been thinking about how I study the scriptures.

How Does Scripture Study Compare to Studying for School?

I have recently been analyzing scripture study and school study side by side for inspiration on how to improve my scripture study.

Goals and Plans

In school there is a strict plan (a syllabus) and explicit, measurable goals (get good grades).  In my scripture study there is no plan and there are no goals which are forced on me.  This makes school easy and studying the scriptures hard because I have to try that much harder to figure out what I am going to study and to keep myself motivated to study it.

Focus

I have an incentive to study focus 100% when I get into my studying for school (as explained in this post).  If I focus, I can get better grades in less time.  In my scripture study, when I am at my worst, my main goal is to do my scripture study for a "sufficient" amount of time.  When I focus only this goal, my incentive is to study while focusing as little as possible.  This requires less effort but still accomplishes my imperfect goal.

Activities and Results

In "Study Smarter, not Harder" post, I put forth the following theory:

Study Power = Quantity of Study X Quality of Study.

When I am studying for school, I have a natural incentive to have a low "quantity of study", i.e. I don't want to spend more time studying than I have to, while maintaining a high level of "study power", i.e. good grades, etc.  Therefore, according to my formula, I aim for a high "quality of study".  A big part of my "quality of study" is my choice of study methods.  I avoid study methods in which I learn slowly, and I replace them with methods in which I learn quickly.  Further, once I feel that I have sufficiently learned something for school, I will spend very little time reviewing it between when I have learned it and when I am tested on it.  My school study is very results-oriented.  I do things in the quickest, best way I know how.  I try to exploit the 80-20 rule as much as possible.

My scripture study, on the other hand, has been more activity-oriented.  In the past, I haven't thought as much about what is the quickest, best way of doing things because my incentive is not to finish studying the scriptures as quickly as possible, my incentive is just to do it like I am supposed to.

New Information

In school, I am typically given a constant stream of new information.  All I have to do in this case is understand the most important items.  If possible, I try to boil down a subject into a few overriding principles and then just focus on those principles.

In scripture study, I am not given a constant stream of new information.  By just doing an ordinary scripture study, I am likely to see large chunks of material that I have seen before.  In this way, scripture study is different from school study.

I compare this to my learning Portuguese.  During my first few months in Brazil, when I was just barely learning Portuguese, out of all of the things I did to learn, my Portuguese skills improved the fastest from simply talking to Brazilians in their language than anything else I did.  In speaking with the natives, I was given a constant stream of new words, new grammatical constructions, etc.  Practicing the language, in the beginning, was way more effective than studying vocabulary and grammar from a book.

As my Portuguese improved, I didn't learn as much of the language from talking to people.  I could now understand and talk to people effortlessly in Portuguese.  I was getting a stream of familiar words, familiar grammatical constructions, etc.  At that point, I improved more quickly by conscientiously studying grammar and vocabulary.

In school, I am always on the first phase where there is lots of new information; this is the easiest phase.  In scripture study, I am on the second phase; I have simply crossed a plateau where I am not receiving new information organically; I feel "comfortable".

Note Taking

In school, I (sometimes) take notes.  All I have to do is get one notebook per class and take notes.  I write down the date each class period so that my notes are in a nice logical order.  When I need to refer back to them, it is easy to find information.  When I finish a class, then I have a completed set of notes for that class.

In scripture study, it takes more work to get a logical order out of my notes.  Currently I am exploring digital alternatives to old-fashioned methods of notebooks, filing systems, and scripture marking.  I mentioned this here.

Filling a Requirement vs. Learning

In school, I am at my best trying to learn something, but at my worst what I do is only to fulfill a requirement.  As mentioned, I exploit the 80-20 rule in that I spend 20% of the effort to learn 80% of what the class has to offer.

In scripture study, I am not bound by requirements.  I can design it to meet my needs.  This aspect is easier than school work because I can work on the things that I am motivated to work on. 

Study groups are overrated

This post is a continuation of my thoughts on quality study.  In my previous post "Study Smarter, not Harder", I talked about how I discovered the following relation:

Study Power = Quantity of Study X Quality of Study.

I mentioned that one habit I have is to focus intensely.  I have mentioned other things in previous posts as well.  Here is another one of my ideas on "quality study".  Some of my ideas on this topic are unconventional and therefore a lot of people will disagree with them.  However, I know that they have worked for me.

Study groups are overrated

Collaboration is important in many endeavors. However, when I am trying to learn something complex, it is important to me to learn it for myself.   There are many arguments for working in study groups.  I have attended study skills talks where I was told that study groups are an important study skill.  Despite this advice, I don't see how people can learn complex concepts without intense, alone study.

Don't skip the hard problems 

When I do a homework assignment for a class that requires problem solving, I commit to doing all of the assigned problems on the assignment.  I realize that most people don't do this.  Most people give up on the hardest problems and go over these problems later in study sessions, recitation sessions, in office hours, etc. or simply don't do them at all.  Being that most people don't do as I am doing, most will disagree with my opinion that it's better to do all the problems.

I have the most effective studies when I am trying to figure out things that I don't know how to do.  By doing all the problems, I figure out how to do all the problems.  Therefore, when I finish my homework for a class, I don't need to study hard for my exams; I already learned the concepts.

That Sounds Too Hard

Some people would argue that they are not good at (fill in the blank) or not smart enough to do this.  To that I have a couple points.  

Don't Give Up


Especially in graduate school, I have had assignments where it seems like I am not going to be able to finish because there are problems which I am just not getting.  In these moments, I have learned no to give up.  With more work, I always am able to do all of the problems.  In the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, he brings up a point that studies show that those who don't get frustrated by learning math slowly but stick to it are able to learn it.  There is no royal road to learning mathematics or any other complex subject.

Have Confidence

Being good at school subjects has more to do with "I can" than IQ.  For example, a student in the class I assist in brought a problem to me.  She had done most of the steps in the problem, but had stopped when she got to a "hard" step.  She said that she wasn't good at the concept which was required for the step. When I looked at it, the hard step had nothing to do with the thing she said was hard for her.  It just required doing the same stuff as the other problems, just with a hard-looking thing.  If she had pressed on instead of giving up, she would have for sure succeeded at the problem because she was able to do the other identical problems.  She made the problem harder than it needed to be.

Go Back and Review to Fill in Holes

When there are things that I don't understand as well or that I learned but forgot, it is not that hard to fill in those holes in my knowledge.  When I am in this situation, I Google things or look them up on Wikipedia.  Going back to the example in the previous paragraph, when the student said, "I am not good at (fill in the blank)," she could have taken the time to figure out how to do (fill in the blank).  Her specific topic could have easily been found on Wikipedia.  Another more heavy-duty solution have been to pick up a book at the library to review (fill in the blank) more heavily.  Doing this will take more time in the short run than to ask someone the answer, but in the long run it will pay off in terms of both time saving and in better grades.

Procrastination


I see this subject like procrastination.  If I eat something, put my dish in the sink, and then wait to wash it, it is going to take more work to clean it later than it would have been to clean it immediately.  If I do a load of laundry and then wait a long time to fold and hang it, my clothes are going to get wrinkled and I will have to do the extra work of ironing them.  If I am doing homework for a class, and I avoid figuring out a hard problem, I am going to have to put in more work to make up for it.

Football Strategy

In the same spirit as the Jeopardy! posts, there are some outside-the-box strategies for (American) football.

• This article talks about a high school team that never punts.  Their rationale is by looking at the numbers, the gain of punting (gaining a number of extra yards of field position) is outweighed by the loss of punting (when you go for it on 4th down, you possibly will get a first down, which means you keep the ball and have a possibility to score).  
• Here is an academic paper on NFL teams and the decision to go for a 4th down.  It shows that based on simple probability, NFL teams are more conservative than they should be with this decision. 
• Here is a post from the Freakonomics blog which talks about the NFL draft.  Essentially it says the best pick to have in the NFL draft is not the 1st pick but a later pick.  This is because the highest picks in the draft are paid, on average, much more than they are worth whereas later picks are paid more in line with what they are worth, if not less than they are worth.  If a team chooses not to pay a high pick a large salary, than that pick will holdout, and the team is left with nothing.  Here is an academic paper which supports this thought.
• Here is a Wikipedia page which talks about the A-11 offense.  It was devised by a high school team.  Instead of having one quarterback and five eligible receivers, in the A-11 offense there are two quarterbacks and every player is an eligible receiver.  It is a cool idea to see the basic elements of football strategy turned on their heads.

Study Smarter, not Harder

This has been a topic which has been on my mind a lot lately.

• I recently came across the website Study Hacks. It has some interesting insights into how to study.  Specifically, it aims to show people how to study smarter, not harder.
• I realized today that one of my study habits is that I focus on a problem in short spurts without being distracted.  When I have math homework, my mode of attack has been in the past to take an assignment and work on it until I have completed it.  In my single days, this involved me secluding myself from the outside world and studying as intensely as I could.  Now that I am married, I notice that when I am doing a homework assignment, I don't take being bothered well.  I get irrationally irritable when even my wife asks me a question while I am doing homework.  I have taken to calling this state "being in the zone".  I simply lack the extra brain power in these moments to respond to anything not related to my task at hand.  I have been trying my best, therefore, to limit my intense study times to hours when my wife is not around.
• For some reason, when I think of being a "good student", in the past I always equate it to one variable: how many hours one studies.  Lately, however, I see that effective study is perhaps a two-variable equation.  That is:
  
  Study Power = Quantity of study X Quality of study.
  

  I have always compared my quantity of study to others, and when I see someone who has a higher quantity of study than me, I always consider them better students.  However, lately I have come to realize that there is no shame in studying smarter, not harder.  For example, if instead of having an intense focus on my study I had a 75% focus on my study, it would take me 33% longer to finish my homework.
• I am trying to figure out all the ways in which I can study more efficiently, not only to do my math homework faster, but to learn a bunch of things I am interested in in a more efficient way.

Jeopardy Strategy, Part 2

I have also wondered about the betting strategy on Daily Doubles.  Once I saw a game with a dominant contestant, i.e. he was answering most of the questions (or is it providing questions to most of the answers?)  When he landed on Daily Doubles, instead of betting a modest amount (which is common) he would go ahead and "make it a true Daily Double," i.e. he would bet everything.  At first I was shocked by his strategy, but after thinking about it it made sense. (He won the game, even though he missed a Daily Double.  He was just a lot better than his challengers.)

After thinking about it, if a player has a large lead, it may not be wise to make such a large bet on a daily double.  It actually decreases one's chances of winning to do that.  By winning, they are allowed to play on the next show.  In the olden days where there was a five-show limit, however, it was justifiable for a contestant to bet big in order to maximize his or her earnings.

For a player who doesn't have a large lead, he or she should think about betting bigger.  For example, digging around on Youtube led to this clip.  By going for a true Daily Double and making it, this contestant put himself in a great position to win: he more or less assured himself of leading going into Final Jeopardy! and gave himself a great chance of either being out of reach (meaning he won) or having the 2/3 rule (see my previous post on Jeopardy!).  If he had missed a modest Daily Double, there wasn't enough time to reasonably climb into first place.  If he had made a modest Daily Double and inched into the lead, his lead would have been very shaky  The other contestants could reasonably catch him by answering just one more $2000 question.  From that point of view, what he did looks smart.

By contrast, in a recent episode I watched, a trailing contestant landed on a Daily Double near the end of Double Jeopardy!.  She was hovering just over half of what the 1st place contestant had.  She made a modest wager and got the question right.  By doing that, she stayed in 2nd place.  She ended Double Jeopardy in second place.  The Final Jeopardy was a question which both her and the 1st-place player got right.  She lost the game.  In that situation, I wanted her to bet big.  If she had bet most/all of her money and got it right, she would have probably finished in first place and by correctly answering the Final Jeopardy! question she would have won.  If she had lost such a bet, she would have lost the game; she lost the game by getting it right and betting small; further, if she missed the Daily Double after betting so small, she (and the 3rd-place contestant) would have likely ended the game with less than half of the leader's total, which would have guaranteed defeat.

I think a part of the uneasiness to wager so high is that the contestants are playing for real money.  If it was all for fun, I think contestants would be more aggressive.  However, I think that even though the prize is real money, contestants should risk more so that they can win the game.  They don't get to keep their score in money if they lose the game.

Jeopardy Strategy

I wife and I have recently been watching Jeopardy!, which can be done quickly with a DVR.  I have been interested in the betting strategies.  It has seemed to me that some players don't use optimal strategies.  For example, there was an episode where a player who was leading correctly answered the Final Jeopardy! question, but lost because she failed to wager enough money.  I dug a little deeper to see what others had to say.

In Final Jeopardy!, the players each make a wager before answering a question.  They may wager any dollar amount between $0 and the total they have gained through the episode.  I want to know if there is a sure strategy for how much one should wager.

If one player has won more than double the other opponents, then he is assured of winning as long as he picks a wager so that even if he gets the question wrong, he would still have more than double what the other opponents started with.  If he wants to maximize his expected winnings, then he should bet as much as safely possible if he thinks he has a better than 50/50 shot at answering correctly, and he should bet 0 otherwise.

If one player does not have more than double the other opponents, then she may possibly lose.  I found through my Google search (I'm not including links, but there are many sites that talk about this) the 2/3 rule.  Suppose that the player in the lead has more than 1.5 times her nearest opponent, but less than or equal to 2 times her nearest opponent.  Then the best play is to bet so that if she gets it right, she will have more than double what the nearest opponent started with.  In mathematical formula terms, suppose the leader has $A and the 2nd-place player has $B, and that 2 B >= A > 1.5 B.  Then the leader should bet an amount $x so that A-B > x > 2B-A, which is possible since A-B > 2B-A is equivalent to A > 1.5 B.  If the leader gets it right, she wins.  If she gets it wrong and the 2nd-place player gets it right and bets big, she loses, but that would have happened regardless of what she had bet.  If both players get it wrong, then the leader wins because she still has more than what the 2nd-place player started with.  In this situation, the 2nd-place player might as well bet as big as possible, unless he is concerned about the difference in prize between him and the 3rd-place player.

If the leader is ahead by less than 1.5 times his nearest opponent, then the situation is trickier.  My search said that the leader will always have the same betting strategy: bet so that he has barely more than double of what the 2nd place person started with.  This is not because it is the most proven strategy per se, it is just because that is what you see on TV.  The case then is that the 2nd-place player needs to assume this and bet so that she just beats out the leader in the case that he gets it wrong and she gets it right.  One link for this his here.
This however doesn't sit well with me because the proper strategy for the 1st place player can't be to always bet big.  For example, in the scenario that the 2nd-place wagers a very small amount, if the 1st place player bet $0, he would beat the 2nd-place player no matter what.  In this scenario, there is no fool-proof bet that either player can make (i.e. there is no Nash Equilibrium, as named for the guy from A Beautiful Mind.)  If the 1st-place player doesn't like his chances in getting the Final Jeopardy! question right, why not bet small instead of the standard leader bet?  Why is that a bad strategy?  (I do note, however, that it is most often the case that some or all of the contestants get Final Jeopardy! right.)

A Better Way to Study

I recently read the free ebook Holistic Learning from this site. It talks about a way to study which is different from brute-force memorization. I thought it was interesting because it describes how I naturally study. In retrospect, because I studied this way, I feel like I have cut down on the amount of time I have had to study many times over. I have observed many friends and acquaintances who have studied very hard for things, whereas for some reason I have always had a lot of free time. When finals came around especially, I studied very sparingly while others slaved over their work. When grades came out, I did well whereas my friends didn't always do well.

I have wondered about this from time to time. How do such hard working people not figure out how to get an A? This book implies that it is not necessarily because they weren't smart, it is because they didn't know how to study. Actually, I know many people who I know to be very smart who for some reason spend a lot more time studying than I do but who probably go about their studying the wrong way.

I feel like if those friends only knew that there's an easier way they would have a much less stressful life.

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Why Is Everyone Hating on LeBron?

In looking at the comments posted on the new LeBron Nike ad, I see that most people have negative things to say.  I posted about LeBron a couple posts ago, but I have more to say about it.

I am getting to the point of my schooling where I am now thinking about my different career options.  I want so much to make a good decision.  As I go throughout the process of exploring careers and ultimately finding a job, I know that ultimately I need to do what's best for me and my newly-formed family.  If I wanted to do something high paying and low stress but that takes me away from the work I have been doing for the past few years, I am not going to feel ashamed about leaving that to "sell out."  If I made a huge life decision based on not wanting to "let people down" by choosing a career that they think I should choose, then I am really only letting myself down.

I see a parallel with this experience and that of famous athlete Lebron James.  He simply picked the team where he thought he would be best off.  He did let a lot of people down in Cleveland, but if he would have stayed there he would have let himself down.  For the Cleveland fans: it's only sports; it's a for fun thing; it's not as if LeBron committed a crime or some immoral act; it doesn't matter that much.  For LeBron: it's his job for the next few years; it's where his family is going to live; it matters quite a bit.

As far as being Dwayne Wade's sidekick, I watched the game with the Celtics the other night and it looked more like Dwayne Wade was Lebron's sidekick in that one.

Urban Legends

The following post has to do with my church.

In the church we partake in a lot of talks and lessons.  In these, there are often many stories or anecdotes told.  In a recent class I heard a story that sounded amazing.  I made a note of it so that later, when I was at home, I could research it further.  What I found was that said story was a myth, an urban legend.  It appears it was a story that someone had made up years ago, which had just circulated, because it was so amazing, among members of the church.  Such a story is not part of the doctrine of the church, it is just one of those things that people pass along which sounds cool.  It's like when people say that Mikey from the LIFE cereal commercials died from drinking coke and pop rocks.  It's not true, but it sounds amazing enough that it has been passed around.  During my search, among all the links that I found, I found pages such as this which are dedicated to debunking such urban legends which circulate among the members of the church, similar to a Mormon snopes.  I found many stories which I had heard, even from my youth, which were debunked.

For those of you who are less familiar with my church, I will say that having urban legends floating around does not mean that any religion is true or false.  Urban legends pop up everywhere.  It's human nature.  I will say that I do like how my church does handle false things which people spread around.  I invite you to research the church more if you have any questions about this.

For those of you who are familiar with the church, this experience reiterated to me the importance of knowing things for ourselves and always having credible sources.  I had an institute teacher who compared these stories to finding cupcakes on a sidewalk.  If you were walking on a sidewalk found a cupcake, you would not eat it.  It doesn't matter how good the cupcake looks or whether or not it looks like it's in good condition, you don't know where it has been and therefore you can't trust it.  The same goes with these stories which are passed along.  I am not going to trust a sensational story for which I have no sources.

NBA Season!

I am pretty excited about the upcoming NBA season. It's one of the reasons I have cable.

One of the biggest, if not the biggest, stories is LeBron James joining the Miami Heat. He has been widely criticized for leaving his hometown team to play with better players. He has also been criticized for the way he has handled his move. My opinion though is that I at least agree with him wanting to be on a better team. In any other arena in life, I don't think people would be so judgemental about leaving a job in one place to go to a better job in another place. Some have said that he would be looked at as the Robin to Dwayne Wade's Batman because Dwayne Wade is a proven winner. To that I say that that is unlikely because LeBron is a better player. It would be silly to look at a lesser player as Batman. LeBron is a much bigger name than Dwayne Wade.

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Who's Watching Survivor?

I've been watching Survivor: Nicaragua.  It hasn't been my favorite season.  I was therefore glad when on the preview for the next episode it indicated that the tribes would be shaken up. So far it has been a unlikeable younger tribe versus a crazy older tribe. (Of course the older tribe is going to lose most of the challenges.)

From the way the episodes have been cut, I am guessing that Marty and Brenda are going to go far (specifically Marty.)  There is another player who has gotten a lot of air time, NaOnka. She says a lot of crazy things and is therefore interesting. I am not amused by her, but she is definitely controversial. Even though she has the hidden immunity idol, I don't think she's smart enough to leverage it to propel her far in the game. Being so obnoxious is going to catch up with her sooner rather than later.  The other players have gotten significantly less air time, which means they probably won't be the last one standing when all is said and done.

YESSSS YESSSS YESSSSSSSS

ESPN NCAAF BYUvUSU,10/01/2010

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"Tell Santa I Want an Amazon Kindle*"

Here is an interesting link which talks about e-books versus regular books.  In particular it predicts that books will largely be replaced by e-books. I agree with a lot of the points in the article which I referenced above.
I am particularly pleased as well with the ability to have all of the books I need for church on my phone.  I used to bring a backpack with a few books and a notebook for notes.  Now all I need is my phone.  Plus I can access my electronic notes for future reference.

Here is the downside: there are lots of (legal) ways to read books for free. Using the library is easy, and in many cases the library has hot recent books. Physical books can also be lent and borrowed. A Kindle book can really only be legally used on the book owner's device. It's much cheaper for me to read new books, as much as possible, by checking them out from the library.



*In case Santa comes across this post, I don't actually want an Amazon Kindle.  I have been very spoiled this year on electronics.

Is a Double Major Worth It?

I had a double major in college. Ultimately, my life has taken me in a good direction, and I enjoyed learning lots of things. But no, I don't think it was worth it. I would just major in math if I had to do it again. Here is an interesting article on the topic.

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Should I Get Rid of My Cable?

I have recently pondered cutting my cable bill out of my budget and looking at lower cost options.

• Netflix: I currently have this service.  I get movies and old TV shows.  Some of these I can get streamed directly to my TV.  It costs about $10 a month.
• Watching shows the next day on the Internet: This is free.  This includes services such as Hulu.  I can either watch these on my laptop or connect the laptop to my TV via an HDMI cable, which tends to be low quality.  This option does not include a lot of cable shows as well as a lot of live sporting events.
• Hulu Plus: This is a new service from Hulu.  For about $10 a month, I would be able to get TV shows streamed to my TV in high definition.  This includes current seasons of many popular TV shows.
• Apple TV: With this device (which is about $100), one can rent TV shows for about $1 per episode as well as movies.  This is actually not a serious option because I would rather pay $10 for unlimited episodes instead of $1 per rental episode on Apple.

Ultimately, my wife and I like things such as Food Network and ESPN too much to give up cable.  We'll probably just stick with cable plus Netflix and call it good.

Is Rosetta Stone Worth It?

At Costco recently I passed by the Rosetta Stone software.  I stopped to look at the price: it is expensive.  I realized that that price is a reflection of the value people place on knowing a language.  Rosetta Stone is, from my perspective, the most well-known language learning software.  I tried it at my school's language learning lab for free, and I didn't really like it.  In contrast to my experience learning Portuguese as a missionary in Brazil, I felt like Rosetta Stone was not very efficient for me.  On this note, I have recently been looking at some language learning websites which I think are better than Rosetta Stone.  Surprisingly, these websites can be used for free for the basic version of the site, which is what I have been using, or for a small fee for the premium version.

• LiveMocha is a website that offers lessons which, for the most part, are similar to that of Rosetta Stone.  One feature I have enjoyed is that you can get your practice exercises corrected by native speakers.  You either write something out or record your pronunciation of a few sentences, submit it, and native speakers, who are using the site to learn English or another language, will correct it.  The cost is that you have to correct someone else's English assignments.  I have found it easy to correct a basic level English assignment.
  
  One feature with LiveMocha which I have not used is the chat feature.  One can find "language partners" to chat with to practice the language.  For example, if I am learning Portuguese, I can find someone who speaks Portuguese who is learning English and chat with them.  Friends can help one to learn a language a lot faster.
  
• Lang-8 is a website which does not do what Rosetta Stone does.  It may be better for the more advanced learner.  What you do is you write a small post in the language you are learning.  It can be about anything.  You can write about your day, about a movie you saw, or anything else that you might normally blog about.  Then, like with LiveMocha, someone corrects your writing.  In return, you correct someone else's English writing.  This is a simple website but it has a powerful idea.  I have been pleased with the things I am able to learn with it.  And again, it is free to use the basic version.

In conclusion, I would not invest in Rosetta Stone.  In addition to these websites, I am aware of other websites which also do a good job; none of them costs nearly as much as Rosetta Stone, and most of them are probably at least as good if not better than it.  In addition to this, there are things like language learning podcasts, blogs in other languages, and other foriegn-language material available for free online.

Is Snuck Not a Word?

I recently noticed that my Internet spell check didn't have the word "snuck" in it.  As I type this, snuck stands with a squiggly red line under it.  I googled it and found that indeed it is not the proper past participle of sneak.  One would more properly say, "I sneaked into the room," or, "I had sneaked into the room," instead of, "I snuck into the room," or, "I had snuck into the room".  However, as I found here, the usage of snuck instead of sneak has become so pervasive over the past 20 or so years that it can no longer be said that snuck is non-standard usage of the verb to sneak.  So there.

German Coast Guard Video

Here it is:

How to Take Notes in the 21st Century

I have been trying to figure out how to best utilize technology to take notes.  Since I am a college student, I have the task of taking notes for classes.  I also go to academic talks.  I also attend other sorts of meetings where note taking might be useful (for example, church meetings).

The traditional way is to use pen/pencil and paper.  There are various techniques for efficiently using ones notes, and that I will not go into.  In the past, I have only needed notes for a class during the period I took the class.  After I had taken the final exam, my notes became useless to me (from my perspective).  As I have progressed in my education, I have needed the information contained in notes more and more, especially in the future.

As I researched this subject, I have found that this is why people use filing systems.  I probably sound quite naive in saying that, but I guess I never had the study skills to get to the point of needed a file system.  I put together a quick and simple filing system for some of my math notes.

With some other subjects, however, I found that a filing system seemed too inefficient.  For example, with my study of the scriptures, there are so many different topics and categories to place notes in that creating a physical filing system would be a lot of work; also, I don't have space in my apartment for a large filing system.  I have, therefore, been playing around with electronic solutions to this problem.  Having all of my notes in an electronic format would benefit me because I would be able to arrange said notes with much greater ease.  Further, if I needed to put together a talk, as I did in this post, it is easier to copy and paste bits from document files than it is to copy those bits from a printed source.  Finally, I can access my filing system via a portable device and call up information wherever I go; with a large physical filing system I can't do that.

I would be interested to see someone who has this concept down better than I do.  To a point, I am collecting things electronically with the expectation that in the future there will be something much better which will can utilize my electronic files.

Public Speaking

Yesterday I had to speak in church.  I have not had to speak in church for over three years.  Also, I am not a good public speaker anyway.  However, I am an experienced audience member to many church talks.  I have thought for a long time how I can deliver a good talk when called upon.  In studying this principle, here is what I came up with.

• Prepare beforehand
• This should be a no-brainer.  A good talk can be delivered on short notice, however, as I am not a strong speaker, I wouldn't want to risk giving a poor talk because I failed to prepare.
• At the same time, prepare to be flexible.  It is common to run out of time or to simply feel inspired to change ones message.
• Don't start with negative statements
• Sometimes people start by mentioning how unprepared they are, or how the or not a good speaker, and that we, the audience, should "bear with" them.  This, ironically, has the opposite effect, and causes people to pay less attention to the talk.
• Voice and appearance
• Vary tone of voice to add emphasis and color to the talk
• Smile
• Exude confidence
• If you don't have confidence, "fake it until you make it"
• Share stories and personal experiences
• From Marcus Sheridan, "Delivering an Effective Talk," Ensign, Aug. 2010, 42-43
  "When we share a powerful story or personal experience, our message can have a lasting impact on our listeners. People love to hear stories. That’s why heads pop up and attention increases when we share them."
• Have a collection of notes to draw things from
• I keep a habit of studying every day.  As it is a good study habit, I take notes.  It is much easier to prepare a talk when I already have good material stored up in an organized set of notes.
• Explain things well
• Explain the context of quotes used
• Given a general audience (like mine yesterday) it is nice to explain things in a way that even the most uninformed listener can understand
• Don't exceed the time limit
• "The difference between an interesting meeting and a boring meeting is five minutes"
• I don't know why, but when a meeting goes over, my mind automatically turns off.  I know that this is the case for most people as well.

I tried to incorporate these principles into my talk yesterday, and I felt good for having completed the assignment.  I'm just not sure that very many in the audience paid attention to my talk as there was a large quantity of small children in the congregation yesterday.

Book Report

I recently read two books which struck me as books that are for me.

1. Soccernomics: This book used economic analysis to analyze soccer.  I enjoy sports, and having double-majored in economics, I enjoy rudimentary economic analysis.  Here are a few (but not all) interesting points the book makes:
• Soccer (really professional sports as a whole) is a poorly-run business.  For example, a team will fire its coach after one bad season and then hire a new coach within a couple weeks.  In the real world, companies spend months interviewing candidates for a high-level position.
• Soccer is so popular around the world because when the English introduced it to many of their colonies.  American football, on the other hand, is not something which the United States has been too keen to export.  Americans seem content to like football without caring what the rest of the world thinks of it.
• Having a professional team does not benefit a city's economy.  It does, however, increase the level of happiness of its citizens in a statistically significant way.  Further, this as well as having large international sporting competitions in which ones country is a participants is shown to decrease suicide rates.  This subject reminded me of my childhood basketball team, the Seattle SuperSonics, who moved away from Seattle, in part, because the city did not want to pay to build them a new arena.  The point I took away in relation to the Sonics was that although the team would not make up the arena money by stimulating economic activity, having the team was a benefit to the community in a significant way.

2. Eating the Dinosaur: It is hard for me to describe exactly what this book was about.  It talked a lot about popular culture.  It referenced a lot of things in which I am interested—for example, the podcast This American Life, the TV show Friday Night Lights, basketball, football, music, etc.  It talked about some things that I hadn't really thought hard about—for example, what is the deal with laugh tracks?  It generally looked at things in an interesting way.  I would recommend this book to those who have some of the same tastes as I do.

An example of why I am not good at explaining things...

It came to my attention that in my last post I made it sound like I was going on a strict regimen of work, blocking out all other concerns.  Here are a couple points:

1. I just don't have the gift of explaining things well.  I know that.  Therefore, it is not surprising that my last post was misunderstood.
2. My point was that by dedicating myself to working for a set period of time, and not outside that set period of time, that I hope to achieve more AND have the free time to dedicate to my family or other private interests.  I definitely value having balance in my life and not letting work consume me.

Having Free Time

I Googled across an interesting article about productivity and priorities.  It presents the case studies of a few people who impose upon themselves a fixed schedule. They decide that they will work during a fixed set of hours—let's say, for example, something like 8:30 A.M. to 5:30 P.M., Monday through Friday—and then they don't waver from that.  These are people whose lines of work would otherwise influence them to work long hours; for example, my current profession, graduate student, is one such profession; I have to set my own schedule, and I have to produce results from said schedule.

In my experience, there is a lot of pressure to work long hours.  It stands to reason that the more I work on something, the better I will be at it.  I can think of many people in other fields for whom this is the case; Michael Jordan, famously, dribbled a basketball around with him everywhere after he was cut from his freshman basketball team tryouts.  When I was a high-school wrestler, I was told the story of Dan Gable, who after winning the national championship in his weight class, instead of celebrating, was seen that very night jogging, preparing for the next big tournament. The book Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell, talks about the 10,000-hour rule; people who are masters in their fields typically have put in at least 10,000 hours of work to become masters.  I have been taught, either directly or indirectly, that one must work tirelessly to rise to the top of one's field.

The article I have linked makes an interesting point.  By forcing themselves to be constrained, the people in the article put themselves under pressure to do the most important and most efficient tasks possible.  It was interesting to read how once people implemented a fixed schedule they actually improved their overall production even though they were now working less hours.

I am going to implement this idea and see how it works.  It is definitely something I need.

Addendum:
The story of The Fisherman and the Businessman seems appropriate for this topic.

Riskopoly

I am a fan of board games.  Some time ago, I came across rules for a game called Riskopoly.  Here is a set of rules.  The game is essentially both Risk and Monopoly at the same time.  Players gain money from their Monopoly properties as well as their Risk territories in order to buy armies.  With these armies, players try to conquer the world.  I have never played this game, but I would be interested in trying.  The major hurdle is that since both Risk and Monopoly are notoriously long, such a game would be even longer.  It is a tall order to find people who would be interested in making the time investment necessary to play this game.

If I one day complete a game of Riskopoly, I might try next Settlers of Riskopoly.

Also, I wonder what other board games could be combined to form even better games?

Projects

As I was working on one of my newest projects, I peered over at my bookshelf and noticed a book I bought to work on another project which I had long since abandoned. I realized how often I start ambitious projects to improve myself in some way, only to abandon them once the demands of every day life get to me. My new goal is going to be to stick to my projects.

I make this goal with one caveat: I need to pick projects which are absolutely the most important and best uses of my time. Virtually every ambitious project that. I can imagine is a "good" use of my time. Some of these projects are better than others. The key for me is to figure out which projects are the best uses of my time. The ideal is for me to identify this early so that I don't have keep quitting something that I started.

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Anki

I recently installed the Anki app to my phone.  It is a flash cards app.  I have used flash cards off an on in the past to help learn languages and memorize scripture passages.  They have helped me learn things but they were a hassle because

• If I was making flash cards for vocabulary, I didn't want to waste a whole 3 by 5 card on one word.  I therefore cut 3 by 5 cards into fourths.  I then marked each side with a distinctive color so that I knew which side was the front and which side was the back.
• If I was making flash cards for long passages to memorize, it took a long time to write out each passage.  Some of this time was useful because it helped me learn; however, I feel that I learned faster once I had the card and was free to give my full attention to the memorizing task.  Also, handwriting long passages led to the occasional error, which means I ended up memorizing some things slightly incorrectly.
• I did try printing out these passages, cutting them out, and pasting them onto a 3 by 5 card, but this was still a bit of a hassle.
• The advantage of flash cards is that they can be reviewed while one has a spare moment--e.g. while walking to class, while waiting for some kind of appointment to start, etc.--but the problem is figuring out where to stash them.
• The biggest issue was that I had a hard time trying to organize a regular review of my cards.  I didn't have a good way of figuring out how to balance studying new cards and reviewing old cards on a regular basis.

Anki is better in all of these issues.

• I can create cards by copying and pasting things into the computer and then loading it all onto my phone.  It's quick and easy.
• I just have to carry around my phone, which I do anyway.
• The program is set up to keep track of how much I have reviewed each card.  Each time I see a card, I can input whether I thought the card was "hard", "good", or "easy" and the program will set that card for review based on my self-assessment.

I have been using it for a couple weeks now, and I really feel like it is helping me a lot.  It has been a great study tool.

Productivity, 2 Weeks Later

I blogged about productivity about two weeks ago.  In said post, I said that I would check my progress in two weeks time.  Here is what I am seeing.

• I have the hardest time remembering to do all of the simple little things I ought to be doing every day.  What has worked for me during these two weeks is keeping a to-do list.  I got a to-do list app for my phone which I have been using to keep track of everything.  I have small daily tasks repeat every day.  Every time I think of something random that I ought to do, or that would be good to do, I put it on my to-do list so that I make sure that I remember it.  My progress on this front has been satisfying.  I have had a virtually perfect record on my small daily tasks, and I have taken care of a lot of one-time tasks that either (1) I had put off for a long time or (2) if I hadn't had written them down, I might not have done them.
• I still have a lot of room for improvement, unfortunately.  Obviously it is not realistic to expect that I can solve all of my problems in two weeks.  However, I have been inspired by the good things that I have been doing lately and have set a few more goals to improve.
• I feel better when I do what I am supposed to.  I feel like doing what I am supposed to for an extended period of time will give me a lot of personal strength.  We'll see how I am doing in three months.

Productivity

I admit that I am a bit of a procrastinator.  It's true.  However, recent developments have increased my daily productivity dramatically.  In no particular order:

1. I got married.  Being around someone who, like me, has good goals and good intentions has given me more strength to act on my good goals and good intentions.
2. I got organized.  My apartment is finally getting over our move-in clutter.  I am sticking to my agenda and to-do list that I have loaded onto my new phone.  Whenever I think of something else that I should be doing, I note it down for future reference.
3. I am doing.  The big thing about acting on ones intentions is actually acting on ones intentions.

I really hope that I can keep this up.  In addition to becoming more productive, I am also getting rid of some poor habits (like eating so much fast food).  I feel really good about the direction I am going.  I will only be able to feel better about it though once it becomes a permanent change.  In two weeks time, let's see how I am doing.

DROID

I recently found myself in need of a new phone plan. After much thought, I decided to get the Droid X from Verizon. The clincher was probably the hypnotic robotic voice featured in the Verizon commercials. Here are my thoughts about the phone after one week of using it.

Things I like:

1. I like being able to find directions on the fly.  
2. I like that it plays music.  It can access all of the music on my computer as well as Pandora internet radio and even old fashioned FM radio.  I can even make mp3 ringtones based on files on my computer.
3. Having the Internet in my pocket is useful in general.
4. I installed a to-do list app along with my calendar.  I really wanted this phone to help keep me organized.  Having computer assistance saves me a lot of time over writing out agendas and to-do lists by hand.  I also appreciated being able to sync my phone with my existing Google Calendar account.
5. I like being able to receive and send e-mail on the fly.  I can even use the Google Voice app to send free text messages.
6. I appreciate the gospel study resources I have been able to find on there.  The church I belong to has a Gospel Library app with all of the references I need when I go to church each week.  Further, I was able to upload my personal study notes to Google Docs, which I can now call upon on my phone.  Finally, I am able to add pdfs and ebooks of other scripture resources to the phone for easy access.
7. It is also cool that I can use the phone to read ebooks in general.
8. I can also keep track of my budget from my phone.
9. It's also a camera/videocamera.

Things I don't like:

1. I wasn't exactly paying for phone service before, so my expenses will be increasing with the phone.
2. Although it can do many of the same tasks as my laptop, I can still do a lot of things faster with my laptop, such as typing and surfing the web.

I am overall impressed with the phone.  I now have a reason to carry my phone around with me.  If I am careful not to let it distract me, I am sure that this phone can be a useful tool for making myself more efficient.

Update: 02/21/11


After having the phone for a while, here are some of the things that I actually use it for.

• Running errands: I can compare prices of products using Google Shopper or ShopSavvy (in particular, I can ask "how much does this sell for on the Internet?")  I have full use of e-mail to communicate with my wife while she is at work.  I can take pictures of things and send them in e-mail to people.  Finally, if the store I go to doesn't have what I need, I can look it up on the Internet and find a store that has what I want.  If I don't know where that store is, I use Google Maps to give me GPS-aided directions.  This is a lot more efficient than what I did before, which is go home, research it, and look for what I wanted another day.
• Going to church: At church, I used to bring a backpack and bring my scriptures, my class manuals, and my notebook.  Now I only have to carry my phone, which is nice.  Further, I can look things up on the Internet to find more on a topic on the fly.  Finally, I take notes on my phone using Springpad and review them later.
• Going to school: The smartphone is an mp3 player, so I can listen to music as I go to school on the bus.  If I want to listen to a Podcast, I can download it with Google Listen.  If I want to read blogs, I can use the Google Reader app.  If I am studying something, I can study flashcards using Ankidroid.  Finally, I use Google Calendar, Springpad, and e-mail to keep my day organized and make sure I don't forget things.
• Latin night: Every Thursday my wife and I have noche latina where we speak Spanish.  It is nice to have Google Translate to look up words on the fly.
• Taking trips: Getting directions to unknown places is super convenient.  It's nice to not have to worry about getting lost or have to hassle with stopping to ask people for directions.  Basically, it's nice having the utility of a GPS device.

Why Is the World Cup Only Once Every Four Years?

1. The players aren't paid a salary to play for their country.
2. The national teams aren't as cohesive as a professional team that consistently trains together.

That being said, wouldn't it be quite a treat to have events like the World Cup and the Olympics more often than once every four years?

The Key To Landing LeBron: Possibly Worldwide Wes

The Key To Landing LeBron: Possibly Worldwide Wes

Why the TV Show House Bugs Me

The plot of every episode is as follows: someone comes into the hospital with a baffling ailment.  House and his medical team spend the entire episode trying to solve the problem, but don't really get anywhere.  House is condescending and cranky.  At the end of the episode, someone says something random from which House solves the problem.

I suppose there are more shows that follow such a strict formula; however, whenever I watch House anymore in the back of my mind I know that the episode will unfold as I described above; that really takes the fun out of it.  Even on Law and Order you don't know what the ending will be.  Harrumph.

Upside-Down Maps

The other day I was wondering what would a map look like if north was down and south was up? The designation of north as up seems arbitrary. I googled it and apparently other people had thought of that first.

American Sports Leagues Are Socialist

...and ironically European sports leagues are capitalist. The Washington Nationals have the first pick in the Major League Baseball draft for the second year in a row based on their poor performance. It just so happens that in these past two years two of the best prospects in recent memory have been available: Steven Strasburg, the best pitching prospect, and Bryce Harper, the best hitting prospect, who has been described as the Lebron James of baseball.  In a few years they could potentially have the best two players in baseball on their team. (On the other hand, who know what will happen).

Constructed Languages

Esperanto is the most widely-spoken constructed international auxiliary language.  Basically, it is an artificial language designed with the intent that other people from can communicate with each other in this international language.  It is apparently really easy to learn.  Here is a quote from the linked Wikipedia article:

The Institute of Cybernetic Pedagogy at Paderborn (Germany) has compared the length of study time it takes Francophone high school students to obtain comparable 'standard' levels in Esperanto, English, German, and Italian. The results were:

• 2000 hours studying German =
• 1500 hours studying English =
• 1000 hours studying Italian =
• 150 hours studying Esperanto.

It should be noted, however, that these figures can only reflect the respective learning difficulty of these languages for native French speakers. They should be compared to figures from other countries to allow for a more general perspective on the learning difficulty of Esperanto. It should be noted in the chart above, Italian would naturally be easier for French speakers to learn since they are both Romance languages, where German is a Germanic language, for example.

Another intriguing artificial language is Interlingua.  It is designed to be easy like Esperanto, but it is based more on Romance Languages.  Here is a video of someone speaking Interlingua.  If you speak a Romance Language you may be able to understand quite a bit of this.

Besides these, there are several other such constructed languages.

How Much Is Home-Court Advantage Worth in the Playoffs?

In honor of Game 1 of the NBA Finals, which starts Thursday night, here is a post about home court advantage.  The Lakers have home court advantage over the Celtics.

Here is a scholarly article on home advantage.  It its introduction it notes that in the NBA, about 61% of the time the home team wins.  The article does argue that due to the construction of the league schedule this number is inflated because the visiting team typically has had less time between games than the home team.  For sake of argument we will assume home-court advantage is 61%.

Consider a theoretical seven-game series between two evenly-matched teams.  One team has home-court advantage, meaning they will have four out of the possible seven games in their home arena.  We therefore assume that the home team has a 61% chance of winning any given game.  What is the probability of the team with home-court advantage winning?  The probability is about 53.5%.  This implies that home-court advantage increases the probability of winning by about 3.5%.

As noted here and here, the Celtics focused their regular season on preparing for the playoffs and worried less about accumulating wins.  In this case, it appears that the trade-off was worth it as they did make the finals even without home-court advantage for the last two rounds.

In the NHL the home team wins approximately 55% of the time.  In a seven-game series between two evenly-matched teams, the home team will win with a probability of 51.6%.  Home-ice in the NHL is therefore worth about a 1.6% percent increase in winning.

Most-Spoken Languages

Here is a list of the most-spoken languages by number of native speakers (link) (In parentheses are the estimated number of speakers):

1. Mandarin Chinese (1.1 billion)
2. English (330 million)
3. Spanish (300 million)
4. Hindi/Urdu (250 million)
5. Arabic (200 million)
6. Bengali (185 million)
7. Portuguese (160 million)
8. Russian (160 million)
9. Japanese (125 million)
10. German (100 million)
11. Punjabi (90 million)
12. Javanese (80 million)
13. French (75 million)

Here are the languages by number of secondary speakers:

1. French (190 million)
2. English (150 million)
3. Russian (125 million)
4. Portuguese (28 million)
5. Arabic (21 million)
6. Spanish (20 million)
7. Chinese (20 million)
8. German (9 million)
9. Japanese (8 million)

Therefore combined we get:

1. Mandarin Chinese (1.12 billion)
2. English (480 million)
3. Spanish (320 million)
4. Russian (285 million)
5. French (265 million)
6. Hindi/Urdu (250 million)
7. Arabic (221 million)
8. Portuguese (188 million)
9. Bengali (185 million)
10. Japanese (133 million)
11. German (109 million)

Here is a list based on the number of countries where each language is spoken:

1. English (115)
2. French (35)
3. Arabic (24)
4. Spanish (20)
5. Russian (16)
6. German (9)
7. Mandarin (5)
8. Portuguese (5)
9. Hindi/Urdu (2)
10. Bengali (1)
11. Japanese (1)

Finally, here is a list of "most influential languages":

1. English
2. French
3. Spanish
4. Russian
5. Arabic
6. Chinese
7. German
8. Japanese
9. Portuguese
10. Hindi/Urdu

Chart of Family Relationships

My mom found one of her French cousins on Facebook the other day. She asked me what I would be to him. I looked it up here and found out I would be his first cousin once removed.

Lottery Part 2

And even if you did win the lottery, who's to say that you wouldn't just blow the money within a few years.

The Lottery Is a Tax On People Who Are Bad at Math

This topic recently came up in discussion, so I thought I would comment on it. Here is a longer more mathematical explanation.  This same reasoning applies to casinos and many other forms of gambling.

Let's consider a hypothetical example.  Suppose there is a simple lottery for $20 million.  Any given ticket has a probability of 1 out of 80 million of winning.  Suppose each ticket costs $1.  If 80 million people play this lottery, one would expect on average one person to win the jackpot.  In such an average case the lottery gains $80 million in ticket sales and pays out $20 million to the winner for a net of $60 million.  The average payout for each player is therefore $20 million divided by 80 million people, or $0.25.  This $0.25 is considered the expected payout of this lottery based on the probability.  Therefore each player loses an average of -$0.75.

Here is the Wikipedia page on Powerball.  It calculates that the expected payout per dollar spent is less than a dollar for jackpots less than $322.274.  Therefore, when the jackpot is less than this number, on average one loses money by playing.  When the jackpot rises above $322.274, one could argue that money is made by playing the lottery.  It seems to me, however, that this is not the case.  If multiple people win the jackpot, then the prize is divided among the winners.  In theory such a situation would present a prisoner's dilemma, causing so many tickets to be sold that on average the pot is likely to be split.


In my view, one would be wiser taking the money he or she spends on the lottery and investing it.