Friday, January 30, 2004

Snowed

Ice has beginning to melt a bit, but it's still slippery. Almost slipped a few times. Somewhat like ice-skating or roller blading with a normal pair of sports shoes. And water gets into my shoes occassionally when it rains heavily. I need a pair of boots.

I wonder what's the logic of spraying salt on roads and certain areas only and not on the pavements where people walk. To save money and pounds?

Psychology of decision making

I really like this course... really interesting to study how people make decisions and form judgments and to learn how we can make decisions better and undertake risks. All decisions and judgments rest on the way we see and interpret the world. And that these are influenced by selective perception, pressures toward cognitive dissonance, biases in memory and changes in context and so on and so forth......

The following is another classic problem taken from a study by Tversky and Kahneman (1982).

Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken, and very bright. She majored in philosophy. As a student, she was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and also participated in antinuclear demonstrations. Which is more likely?

A: Linda is a bank teller.
B: Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement.

What do you think? How do you decide and judge? How do you make that choice? =p

"Today isn't any other day, you know."

"I don't understand you," said Alice. "It's dreadfully confusing!"

"That's the effect of living backwards," the Queen said kindly: "it always makes one a little giddy at first..."

"Living backwards!" Alice repeated in great astonishment. "I never heard of such a thing!"

"... but there's one great advantage in it, that one's memory works both ways...... It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards," the Queen reminded.


adapted from Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking-Glass"

Must-dos
(1) Read and read.
(2) Experiment at 1600 at Room 208.

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