game theory

This is one case where you can’t really trust the reviews at Amazon. Take it from me: Game Theory at Work: How to Use Game Theory to Outthink and Outmaneuver Your Competition is an excellent book. It’s been on my reading list for over a year now, and just last night I finally finished. Miller does a fine job of relating game theory to the workplace and to relationships, and his examples are entertaining to read even if you are not as fascinated by the topic as I am.

Just a bunch of random thoughts I’ve been meaning to post …

• It took me for-freaking-ever to recognize that it’s Matt Dillon doing the voiceover on the Pontiac Torrent commercials. It took me five minutes to find and download Struggle, by Ringside — the music from the commercial. I snagged a couple of their other songs, too. Pretty good stuff. I thought (incorrectly) that it was something by Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros, a band I found on the Mr. & Mrs. Smith soundtrack. (Note: If you’re looking to grab the song on the soundtrack via iTunes, they trick you! The song is listed as Mondo Boongo and you have to buy the entire soundtrack if you want to get it. But! If you look, you can find the song on iTunes under it’s actual title, Mondo Bongo. Sneaky iTunes people.)
• I got a black Motorola RAZR (with Cingular) a few weeks before Christmas. With the sole exception of Motorola’s moronic address book — which has been retarded ever since they started making cell phones; why the hell does the same person show up multiple times if I add more than one phone number for the entry?! — this is hands-down the best cell phone I’ve ever had. I’ve had Verizon and Sprint since I moved to LA, and I think that Cingular has the best service here. The reception is even better than it was with my previous Cingular phone (a Nokia) and you just cannot beat the form factor. Slick.
• Quite Frankly, with Stephen A. Smith, on ESPN, is a darn good show. I don’t always agree with him, but I like his delivery. TiVo it. Update: I’ve changed my mind. He bugs.
• If you’re a web developer and you want to add slick graphs and charts to a site, you really can’t do much better than Fusion, from InfoSoftGlobal. It’s good stuff. Easy to build, Flash-animated, XML-driven, works with ASP or PHP. Check ‘em out.
• I’m going to do my damn level best to run the twenty-first L.A. Marathon this year. I’ve been chugging along with a friend since early December and am knocking out 5, 8, and 10-mi runs pretty regularly now.
• Rumor Has It is an excellent movie. Is it Oscar-worthy? No. But it’s very fun and very original and well worth your $10.
• Freakanomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (Amazon) is one of the top twenty best books I’ve ever read. A good friend of mine sent it to me as a Christmas present from my Amazon wishlist. I tore through it in two nights and was floored. It’s making its way through my office now. I highly recommend it. (And thanks, Bob!)

What a great book! I just finished reading “Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions“, and I feel like I need to take a nap. It’s a thrilling, true account of a group of college kids that managed — in two years! — to fleece the big casino corporations out of over $3million by using stastics and good memories to kick ass at blackjack. It will keep you on the edge of your seat, and have you rooting for the Robin-Hood-esque kids the whole time. I highly recommend it.

A long time ago in a life far, far away, I watched a documentary with my dad called The Atomic Cafe. I haven’t seen it in over a decade, but I remember that it was simultaneously funny, fascinating, informative, and disturbing. It’s probably what got me so interested in logic, game theory, and the physics of little, tiny, itsy-bitsy particles.

It’s very strange, this thing that is my mind. I was an English major but my favorite classes were all statistics, physics, and history. I can tell you all about subatomic particles. I devour books on forensics and hyperdimensional space-time. I’m completely intrigued by things I’ll never have a chance to really study. (Oh! To be a paleontologist! An archaeologist!) What a bummer.

The airlines need to play an especially ruthless game of chicken with their customers since a seat on Flight 3206 from Miami to Chicago, unlike a washing machine, becomes worthless if it isn’t sold in time. So as every flight gets nearer, the airline is willing to accept less and less at the very time some of its passengers are willing to pay more and more. The infuriating rules about Saturday night stayovers and so on are a crude alternative to administering truth serum and asking, “So how much are you really willing to pay?”

This is an excerpt from Consuming Gets Complicated, a link I discovered on the consistently excellent blog Follow Me Here …. The essay makes a reference to how capitalism equates to a game of chicken between the consumer and the seller. A wealth of information on this type of situation, and how often it occurs in everyday life, can be found by reading Prisoner’s Dilemma by William Poundstone. It’s really a fascinating book and I highly recommend it.

The bonus question @ sylloge.com is: “Does anyone know if there are an infinite number of chess games? If not, what the limit is?” The answers are “no” and “I couldn’t tell you off the top of my head, but I suspect it’s a great big number”. This is a topic tackled in Prisoner’s Dilemma by William Poundstone, an excellent treatise on game theory and the research of John Von Neumann.

A few days ago I received my first Christmas present of the year! It came from an unlikely source, and it is certainly appreciated. It’s a book called Prisoner’s Dilemma by William Poundstone. The book is about game theory and its relevance to nuclear proliferation and the Cold War and it is excellent. I’ve read it several times (and am reading it again now) but didn’t have my own copy. I’ve bought the book at least five times, but I keep loaning it to people and have gone a year or so now without my own copy. My public thanks, Dan! I love books. Read ‘em constantly. Re-read ‘em all the time. A wonderful gift …

You and a person you love deeply are placed in separate rooms with a button next to each of you. You know that both of you will be killed unless one of you presses your button before sixty minutes pass; furthermore, the first person to press the button will save the other person, but will immediately be killed. What do you think you would do?

from Prisoner’s Dilemma by William Poundstone