A guaranteed gambling system from a man you can trust ...
... and you really can trust him when it's Julian Simon. The late great free-market economist has a treasury of his writings on the Web. These include not only the second edition of The Ultimate Resource, but also the almost-complete draft of The Science and Art of Thinking Well in Science, Business, the Arts, and Love. It's yet another must-read to join the groaning bookshelves of must-reads I may never get round to reading. (I'm a voracious non-reader of books as well as a fertile and industrious non-writer of blogs.)
But check out these chapter titles. Some sound like something from conventional economics textbooks:
Weighing Present Versus Future Benefits (and Costs)
Dealing With Risks
Reconciling Multiple Goals
Others sound tastier, like something from a self-improvement book:
Choosing Goals and Criteria of Success
Getting and Eliminating Ideas
Self-Discipline and Habits of Thought
Some come from a 'personal experience of deep and prolonged melancholy' (as he describes it in another book at the site, Good Mood: The New Psychology of Overcoming Depression):
The Nature of Sadness and Depression
Overcoming Depression
Step-By-Step Fight Against Sadness and Depression
Yes, I shall be reading those chapters. I can't describe myself as a depressive, but I do certain self-destructive things that seem to have affinities with what depressives do. I suspect there's something in Simon's pages to benefit a voracious non-reader and copious non-writer.
So there seems to be something for most everyone in The Science and Art ...
And the gambling system? One chapter is called 'Winning in poker and business'. Poker, of course, is a game of skill - I expect business is, too - so there's nothing unreasonable in the idea of a winning method. Simon writes:
How to Make Money Playing Poker
To win money in a serious poker game when there are at least
four other players, you need to do only one thing: play the
hands that you know you ought to play, and drop out when you know
you ought to drop out. That is, winning or losing depends almost
completely upon your self-control. It is really as simple as
that.
... Of course you must sometimes bluff, that is, bet even when
you do not have a good chance to win. But the purpose of the
bluff is simply to ensure that other players know that you
sometimes bluff, and therefore they cannot afford to drop out
whenever you stay in. ... Losers bluff too often, and they do so
in hopes of winning bad hands by bluffing others out.
Games with less than five players are a different matter, ...
... but read the full text to find out why. And to find out the answer to an obvious question:
Now we come to the bottom line: If I can win money playing
poker, why don't I devote myself to it, rather than quit playing
as I did after a year or two?
Placed under observation
I felt I had to make an entry today. This afternoon I'm meeting Adam Reed, who sociologizes, or perhaps ethnographs, about blogging at Anthroblog, and has apparently mistaken me for a real blogger.
A press release from the Institute of Physics, guaranteed to upset environmentalists. It's about a technological fix that might distract us from the serious business of creating a sustainable zero-growth hair-shirt economy:
Nanotechnology could save the ozone layer
For further information, please contact: Joanne Aslett, The Institute of Physics, joanne.aslett@iop.org, 02074704875
30 January 2003
Whilst experimenting with nanospheres and perfluorodecalin, a liquid used in the production of synthetic blood, researchers at Germany's University of Ulm have stumbled across a phenomenon that could ultimately help remove ozone-harming chemicals from the atmosphere. The perfluorodecalin, against all expectations, was taken up by a water-based suspension of 60 nm diameter polystyrene particles.
The scientists believe that this occurred because nanoscopic perfluorodecalin droplets became encapsulated by self-assembled polystyrene nanospheres. Perfluorodecalin has very similar properties to chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), the inert liquids that are known to destroy the Earth's protective ozone layer. And the Ulm team reckons that aerosol particle-carrying water droplets or ice crystals in clouds may be able to collect up chlorofluorocarbons in the same way, eventually returning them harmlessly to Earth as rain, hail or snow. … Sommer says that if tests confirm the predictions from the simple model system, the result could be a practical strategy to stop, or possibly even repair, one of the two potentially most destructive global problems caused by mankind. He reckons scientists could use space technology to carry large amounts of specially designed non-toxic nanoscale particles into the heart of the ozone hole.
NASA is reconsidering whether tank foam debris caused the Columbia disaster. That’s quite a shift from days earlier when the foam was the "leading candidate" -- an explanation that quickly became embarrassing. … Until 1997, Columbia’s external fuel tanks were insulated with a Freon-based foam. Freon is a chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) supposedly linked with ozone depletion and phased out of widespread use under the international treaty known as the Montreal Protocol.
Despite that [ugh! They say this in the States?] the Freon-based foam worked well and that an exemption from the CFC phase-out could have been obtained, NASA succumbed to political correctness. The agency substituted an allegedly more eco-friendly foam for the Freon-based foam.
…
NASA says computer modeling fails to show how foam insulation striking the thermal tiles could do enough damage to cause catastrophe -- apparently ignoring that [Aargh! Another one!] flaking foam substantially penetrated thermal tiles on an earlier flight.
NASA has even offered up the ultimate exculpatory theory -- that space junk or even a meteor could have hit the wing and damaged the thermal tiles.
…
The investigation into what happened to Columbia needs to be turned over to a truly independent and qualified commission -- and before the evidentiary trail starts to disappear.
A pity Richard Feynman isn't still around to do the job, as he did on the Challenger enquiry.
