Blog Entries - July 2008

Books: Why Not?

rsambandam@trchome.com — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 01:00:00 +0100

Why Not? How to Use Everyday Ingenuity to Solve Problems Big and Small by Barry Nalebuff and Ian Ayres

As readers of their Forbes column know, Nalebuff and Ayres have a long history of suggesting quirky and unconventional ideas. In this book they show us how, with easy writing and plenty of examples. How do you ensure you don't forget your keys? Did you know a variation of the solution makes European hotels more energy efficient? Can you buy insurance to protect against a drop [...]

What You See is Not What You Drink

rsambandam@trchome.com — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 01:00:00 +0100

In a series of classic studies done in the 1960's, the Swiss developmental psychologist Jean Piaget showed how children can misperceive volume. When colored liquid was poured from a taller cylinder to a shorter wider cylinder, they thought the volume of liquid had decreased. These primary school children were using only the height of the container when making volume judgments and were hence making mistakes. Ah, you say, they are children and are naive enough not to understand that more th [...]

Insighter: Stephano DellaVigna

rsambandam@trchome.com — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 01:00:00 +0100

Does movie violence increase crime? Does Fox News have an impact on voting? Do people pay not to go the gym? Are companies correct in expecting that investors pay less attention to information released on Friday? These and other interesting questions are asked and answered by Stefano DellaVigna, an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of California at Berkeley. To study movie violence, he and his colleagues looked at actual crime statistics surrounding movie releases, rath [...]

Books: The Reluctant Mr. Darwin

rsambandam@trchome.com — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 01:00:00 +0100

The Reluctant Mr. Darwin - An Intimate Portrait of Charles Darwin and the Making of His Theory of Evolution by David Quammen

On the evening of July 1, 1858, six scientific papers were read to the Linnean Society in London. One of them was an idea independently discovered by two authors, Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. Neither author was there; the young man, Wallace, was in New Guinea collecting insects, while the older man, Darwin, was moaning the death of his young son [...]

Does Pat Burrell Have Leverage?

rsambandam@trchome.com — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 01:00:00 +0100

First let's discuss leverage and then get to (the Philadelphia Phillies outfielder) Burrell. Leverage can briefly be described as the ability to exert influence. When a person has the ability to influence another or a situation, then that person is said to have leverage. It is a term often used in financial dealings. Have you seen it applied in sports such as baseball? Here's the set-up. In baseball are all runs equal? In other words, do runs scored in the early innings have the same [...]

Insighter: Teresa Amabile

rsambandam@trchome.com — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 01:00:00 +0100

Do you procrastinate? Have you ever told yourself that you do your best work if you wait till the last minute? You may not be as creative as you think, according to Teresa Amabile the Edsel Bryant Ford Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. A leading authority in the field of organizational creativity, she has conducted intensive multi-year studies to understand the nature of creativity in organizations. One of the findings that surprised even her was that time [...]