I don’t disagree with the quote Arianto has about human capital. But if it were me, I’d find some other athletes to make an example of. Maybe Ali, or Jordan. There are plenty of pitchers (and even more athletes) comparable to Clemens.
If you want to compare pitchers with economists, may I suggest the smartest pitcher who ever lived? He might not have Clemens’ arm, but he’s very economical in his pitches, maximizing on his strengths and always resourceful in exploiting opponents’ weaknesses. Now that has to be the very thing economists love.
Did I mention he’s very smart? Just look at him pitching, he looks like Clark Kent wearing Superman baseball uniform. The Superman logo is a C not an S.
Off topic. This link is for you, Arianto.
GWB showed (again and again) that the best thing that could ever happened to you is people having low expectations of you. It might be degrading at times at first. But then, if you do something right (just right, not spectacular), people are easily impressed. And people are just as forgiving for your mistakes.
In this election, two (relatively) small parties gained a large (again relatively) increase of votes prompting a lot of press coverages. I think this is a bit unfair, because people now expect more of them, while the parties that have more votes actually can govern with low expectations.
Of course expectation is built out of reputation. But reputation alone is not enough (maybe even worthless) in doing the actual job. You have to have necessary number of seats to make a difference in parliament for example.
I’m actually worried with people making a big deal out of the relatively large increase, when the actual number is still rather small, instead of focusing on 40 or more percent of votes still in the hand of the two major parties. I don’t know if this is done in purpose to build different levels of expectations which will lead to different perceptions of accountability.
I proposed earlier that in political dynamics, the first mover has an upper hand. That is, if you want to nominate from without, you should move first. The operative word is ‘if’. The current dynamics place the importance on whether you should make an outside move at all.
If you nominate others, often time people associate you with them. If they win, somehow, you are as accountable as them, without you having any (if at all) contributions in their decisions thereafter. If you provide support, they have the most to gain with any success. If they lose, the winning party still look upon you as their enemy.
Then, there is the game of expectation. People expect a lot out of you. The high expectations demand you to nominate from within. Even if win is possible with this strategy, win might not be the best result. You have to realize that to fullfil all those expectations that come with a win you need a lot of necessary tools not in possession right now.
The alternative is to nominate yourselves, knowing full well, and maybe playing to lose. At least, you fullfil expectations of your main base, while maintaining independence and a good record of associations.
I had an interesting meeting today.
We had results of several auction experiments that could not be explained by current auction theory. The experiments suggested that players did not always necessarily go for the highest payoffs. In fact they also cared for the payoffs of others.
REW believed these results can be explained using different utility theory, not always a different auction theory. All kind of payoffs should be considered, when estimating the utility function. Right now, especially in auctions, people only look at pecuniary payoffs. There is a new model that includes motivational payoffs that explains our results pretty well.
Then, we had an interesting conversation about utility theory. I was skeptic about the new model. If we to replace or extend something so basic like utility model, does that mean the new model should work universally as well? Or, is it enough to offer an alternative model that works only for some generic (yet not universal) instances?
REW explained how the vN-M utility theory has been accepted as given over the years, partly because it has all the nice properties and fits really well. That doesn’t mean it’s perfect. There has been some effort on refinement. But then, just like this new model, there hasn’t been any breakthroughs that change the old theory substantially.
I was bored, and googled my name (forgive me).
The 29th entry gives me this:
Solution for hw3 ;; ;; This solution is suggested …
… for hw3 ;; ;; This solution is suggested by Aria Prima Novianto ;;—beta-redex? …
www.cs.ucla.edu/~palsberg/course/purdue/ cs565/F96/solutions/solutions3
(go down to about the middle of the page).
I know that Palsberg moved to UCLA. But other than that, I don’t remember anything about the Programming Language class, let alone lambda calculus. It seems so long ago.
But, I remember I didn’t do that well in the class to have my solution in there. Oh, well.
My mind is still on the latest election results. I don’t know why, but this election gives me such a rush of adrenaline that I could not stop thinking about it.
Speculations are abound about the presidential election coming up, especially on the forming of coalitions to nominate candidates.
If you are not going to nominate anyone from within, but you want to do it in your own terms, I believe you should move quickly, in fact you should move first.
In the bargaining game, first mover has a huge advantage. Especially in a short (one) period game. First, you set your terms, what you really want out of the candidates. Offer your support to your first choice candidates, their only options being to accept or reject your terms. If it’s still early in the game, they know you have the option to offer it to others.
I know this is too simplistic, but in general, first mover has an upper hand because he can make an offer the other player can’t refuse. The candidates get your votes (albeit in your terms) versus none of your votes. Surely something is better than nothing.
Now, the candidates can make you commit to them, by revealing (to public) that you offer them your supports. If everyone knows your preference, you are less likely to change.
Another journal. Let’s give this blog thing a try one more time. Thanks to Aco for getting me started again.
Right now, I’m, just trying to decide between LiveJournal or Blogger. I’m trying Deepest Sender with LiveJournal and BlogThis with Blogger. Both tools are Firefox extensions.
Once I get comfortable, I’d like to use one of them to organize my ideas, summarize papers I read, or to note anything interesting I stumble upon. Huffington wrote about news blogs, saying, “paradoxically, in these days of instant communication and 24-hour news channels, it’s actually easier to miss information we might otherwise pay attention to,”. Blogs actually help her to concentrate on the things she’s most interested in. So, I’m hoping this journal will reenergize me to get more focused on my priorities.