These are my links for February 22nd through February 24th:
- Logic and Formal Semantics for Epistemology Longversion.pdf (application/pdf Object) – This essay introduces some of the formal apparatus of epistemic logic and discusses its applicability to epistemological questions. The literature on knowability and belief revision are discussed in other chapters in this volume and so they will not be treated in detail here.
- How Did Economists Get It So Wrong? – NYTimes.com – It’s hard to believe now, but not long ago economists were congratulating themselves over the success of their field. Those successes — or so they believed — were both theoretical and practical, leading to a golden era for the profession. On the theoretical side, they thought that they had resolved their internal disputes.. in the real world, economists believed they had things under control: the “central problem of depression-prevention has been solved,†declared Robert Lucas of the University of Chicago in his 2003 presidential address to the American Economic Association. In 2004, Ben Bernanke, a former Princeton professor who is now the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, celebrated the Great Moderation in economic performance over the previous two decades, which he attributed in part to improved economic policy making.Last year, everything came apart.
- How Google’s Algorithm Rules the Web | Magazine – [Google] has used its mysterious, seemingly omniscient algorithm to, as its mission statement puts it, “organize the world’s information.†But over the past five years, a slew of companies have challenged Google’s central premise: that a single search engine, through technological wizardry and constant refinement, can satisfy any possible query. Facebook launched an early attack with its implication that some people would rather get information from their friends than from an anonymous formula. Twitter’s ability to parse its constant stream of updates introduced the concept of real-time search, a way of tapping into the latest chatter and conversation as it unfolds. Yelp helps people find restaurants, dry cleaners, and babysitters by crowdsourcing the ratings. None of these upstarts individually presents much of a threat, but together they hint at a wide-open, messier future of search — one that isn’t dominated by a single engine but rather incorporates a grab bag of services.
- PROFESSIONALS DO NOT PLAY MINIMAX: EVIDENCE FROM MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL AND THE NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE.pdf (application/pdf Object) – We observe more than three million pitches in baseball and 125,000 play choices for football. We find systematic deviations from minimax play in both data sets. Pitchers appear to throw too many fastballs; football teams pass less than they should. In both sports, there is negative serial correlation in play calling. Back of the envelope calculations suggest that correcting these decision making errors could be worth as many as two additional victories a year to a Major League Baseball franchise, and more than a half win per season for a professional football team.