As my wife will tell you, I hate clutter. Stuff that’s lying around I either put to use or throw away. Stray thoughts get the treatment today.
- Have the wasps in my neighborhood learned that the smell of citronella is actually a surefire signal that there’s something good nearby?
- I thank mother Earth for her two hemispheres as I enjoy this persimmon from Chile.
- Can the drunks’ favorite poker game, Indian, be solved like the dirty faces or other those common-knowledge puzzles?
- Classical field theory is doing physics by revealed preference.
- The reason it is so boring watching the Williams’ sisters in a grand slam final is that you either like both or hate both. Either way there’s nothing to root for.
- Is it pure coincidence that the Risk, Uncertainty and Decision Conference is on the exact same day as the Behavioral Economics Summer School two years in a row?
- Johnny Rotten is the perfection of Bob Dylan’s vocal style.
- How well do prediction markets forecast American Idol winners? Completely decentralized information, short time-horizon, shouldn’t this be an ideal test case?
Cheap Talk 
5 comments
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May 24, 2010 at 11:16 pm
Ben
3. I don’t think you would have an equilibrium in Indian poker without bluffing, so you couldn’t solve it the same way as with other common knowledge riddles. Consider a super simplified version of Indian poker where there are 2 players, $1 antes, and player 1 can check or bet $1, and player 2 can only act if player 1 bets in which case he folds or calls. Player 2 always has a trigger strategy if he is optimizing. In this case I think Player 1 optimally will bluff sometimes, in that he bets if Player 2’s value is below a certain threshold and if it is above a certain different threshold (the bluffing). I think the frequency of bluffing would be reduced if you add more players, but I think it would always be there, although possibly approach 0 as the number of players goes to infinity.
Regardless, game theoretic analysis which assumes rationality is not compatible with the actions of drunk people.
May 25, 2010 at 11:55 am
SheffieldSteel
Aha! Numerical error on your part. There are of course FOUR hemispheres (Northern, Southern, Eastern and Western).
May 26, 2010 at 12:40 pm
gappy
7. Yes, absolutely.
8. I haven’t checked past years, but I have visited betting sites on American Idol, and they have been consistently correct throughout the later part of season. Impressive.
June 4, 2010 at 3:53 pm
Kelvin
I got into a lot of trouble last time I thanked someone for her two hemispheres.
June 4, 2010 at 7:19 pm
jeff
you do have to be careful who you thank and why.