Scientific Study: Emotional types like Modern Art. Intellectuals prefer the Ancient stuff.

According to the abstract….

the authors found that visitors to the ancient art museum conducted their visit with the primary aim of acquiring understanding and knowledge, while modern art museum visitors conducted their visit with an approach that was primarily emotional and pleasure-seeking…Concerning personality traits, no difference was found between the two museum groups on the “Openness to Experience” dimension; differences were found on the “Sensation Seeking” trait; modern art museum visitors attained higher scores as compared to ancient art museum visitors.

Myself, I prefer the newer stuff.

Link: Preferences for ancient and modern art museums: Visitor experiences and personality characteristics. Mastandrea, Stefano; Bartoli, Gabriella; Bove, Giuseppe. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts. Vol 3(3), Aug 2009, 164-173.

Introduction to Game Theory

Needing some mental stimulation, watched this great Introductory Lecture (about an hour) on Game Theory from Yale’s Benjamin Polak

We introduce Game Theory by playing a game. We organize the game into players, their strategies, and their goals or payoffs; and we learn that we should decide what our goals are before we make choices. With some plausible payoffs, our game is a prisoners’ dilemma. We learn that we should never choose a dominated strategy; but that rational play by rational players can lead to bad outcomes. We discuss some prisoners’ dilemmas in the real world and some possible real-world remedies. With other plausible payoffs, our game is a coordination problem and has very different outcomes: so different payoffs matter. We often need to think, not only about our own payoffs, but also others’ payoffs. We should put ourselves in others’ shoes and try to predict what they will do. This is the essence of strategic thinking.

Drives of a Lifetime

National Geographic Traveler recently published “Drives of a Lifetime: The World’s Greatest Scenic Routes” on their website.

Sometimes it’s the journey, sometimes it’s the destination—and sometimes, it’s both. National Geographic Traveler has scoured the globe for the world’s most beautiful, interesting, and off-beat road trips.

It’s worth a look.

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Must Read: Bailout Nation by Barry Ritholtz

Barry Ritholtz’s timely book, Bailout Nation is a must-read for those interested in not only learning about how we got in the current global, economic mess, but also in getting an idea on the outrageous path the current administration has us on (if they don’t get their heads out of their asses soon, we will end up with a much bigger problem that may be impossible to fix). It is also a good lesson on Moral Hazard.

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Tom Friedman lecture: The World is Flat (u betta recognize!)

Hat tip to Joiji for sharing this…

Thomas Friedman giving an outstanding (non-boring) lecture…

Lecture Description

Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman speaks on the MIT campus to discuss the 2007 update to his bestseller The World is Flat. He also provides a preview of his latest book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded.

I’m currently reading Hot, Flat, and Crowded… and I highly recommend it!

Links:
Thomas Friedman’s website
Closet Ambitions (Joiji’s website)