Tag Archive
(More Than) A Penny Saved is a Penny Wasted, In Which I Trivialize the Entire Industry of Financial Planning
Prescript: This article is by popular demand, having won our meta poll at the beginning of the year. I predict three categories of reactions to it: (1) This is obvious. (2) This is obviously wrong. (3) This is just the rationalization I needed to keep doing what I’m doing! If there’s a fourth category... »
Car Insurance and an Ear Full of Cider
Yesterday Decision Science News asked “Should you buy car insurance?” By which they mean collision insurance, liability insurance being required by law in these parts. I’m shocked and appalled that decision scientists could even ask such a thing. Actually, it’s a good question with some legitimate subtleties. I just happen to have an unreasonably strong opinion about... »
Ode to Power Laws
Anyone who knows me knows that I love power laws. What other distribution even comes close? The normal? Boring. Poisson? Too fishy. Hypergeometric? Ok, that one’s pretty cool, too. But still, power laws reign supreme in my mind. Evidence of the mystical power of power laws is found by simply looking at references to “power laws”... »
Twelve Years Ago
I got the following email today, sent from myself exactly 12 years ago. A University of Michigan alum was looking for people to join his new startup. I was a little bit tempted by it, but instead just forwarded it to my future self in anticipation of the "prototype" he was pitching... »
How To Do What You Want: Akrasia and Self-Binding
UPDATE: A revised version of this article now appears at blog.beeminder.com/akrasia. Preface: I love dog food, metaphorically speaking, of course. This article is about forcing oneself to do what one wants to do and I, among other things, want a new Messy Matters article to go out no less often than the... »
