Monthly Archives: December 2010

Lottery policies – places for transparent arbitrariness

Posted on December 31, 2010 by Richard Tsukamasa Green

As a summer exercise I’ve been thinking about places where more lotteries might be a good idea. By lotteries, I mean a decision maker selecting an option randomly, albeit perhaps from a selected pool, rather than using flawed criteria. After … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics and public policy, Uncategorized | 6 Comments

I couldn’t figure it out even after clicked through to the game

Posted on December 30, 2010 by Nicholas Gruen

White to play B Kovanova vs N Pogonina 22. ? See game for solution. about our puzzles But you can look up the game, and the computer analysis on chessbomb if you’re curious.

Posted in Chess | Comments Off on I couldn’t figure it out even after clicked through to the game

Poh’s Laundry

Posted on December 30, 2010 by Ken Parish

Being in holiday mode, my brain is deeply immersed in trivial thoughts, not least who the Australian selectors could sensibly pick to begin the process of rebuilding a competitive cricket team. However an even more burning question is this: why … Continue reading →

Posted in Films and TV, Food | 8 Comments

A suppliers’ advocate? Bleg of the day

Posted on December 30, 2010 by Nicholas Gruen

When debating policy and strategy within firms for instance, the debate takes place as if the discourse will get us to truth or falsity. In fact our decision making is riven with biases, so an alternative to this would be … Continue reading →

Posted in Blegs, Economics and public policy | 7 Comments

Computer flips lid: Hal eat your heart out

Posted on December 30, 2010 by Nicholas Gruen

Computers are very clever beasties – at least most of the time. Sadly their matches against each other are deadly dull. The games virtually never have strong strategic lines of thinking – which is the main thing that makes chess … Continue reading →

Posted in Chess, Humour, IT and Internet | 2 Comments

Privatising profits, socialising losses: Airlines and banks

Posted on December 29, 2010 by Nicholas Gruen

Banks privatise the gains they make and in times of crisis initially socialise their losses (amongst the private providers – so that larger more solvent banks mop up after smaller less solvent ones), and failing that us customers get the … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics and public policy | 3 Comments

Selfishness and the community, Adam Smith and a couple of miraculous new modes of production

Posted on December 29, 2010 by Nicholas Gruen

It’s a pity we lost Troppoarmadillo, not the blog so much (for ClubTroppo lives on) as it’s archives. Anyway, I had occasion to look up the post and comments below, and they are safely encoded at archive.org, even if we … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics and public policy | 1 Comment