by Christopher Paul on February 11, 2014 Ken Jennings, the 74-day Jeopardy grandmaster champion talks about Arthur Chu who is “gaming” the trivia contest by seemingly randomly hunting for the Daily Doubles.
In any game of Jeopardy!, three clues have been secretly earmarked as Daily Doubles. The player who finds each one can bet any or all of her winnings on responding to it correctly. By and large, Jeopardy! players are a risk-averse bunch. Unless a player is in need of a big comeback, the Daily Double wager is usually a smallish one.
Strategically, this is crazy. Like a poker player trying to increase the size of the pot when he has a good hand, Jeopardy! contestants should maximize their upside when the odds are in their favor. Historically, the odds of getting a Daily Double correct are very good: Between 65 and 70 percent. Too many players instead let games come down to Final Jeopardy, where conversion is much less predictable. (Fewer than half of all Final Jeopardy responses are correct.) Finding the Daily Doubles becomes more important the stronger a player you are, since it lowers the influence of chance on the outcome. Crunching some numbers, I see that my own Daily Double conversion during my Jeopardy! run was about 83 percent. In hindsight, my wagers were almost always too small.
Jennings goes on to look back at his own Daily Double stats and talks about the probability of finding one based on location. Personally, I’d love to see some big data research applied to every one of the games played in its 30 year history. I’d be interested to know what squares are most likely to be answered correctly, what subjects are most answered correctly, the average Daily Double wage, the average Final Jeopardy wage/success rate is, etc.
Going back on 30 years of data could prove interesting to future players and might actually give us some insight on how we behave.
Slate via Matt Jacobs
by Christopher Paul on February 11, 2014 
I love old pictures of New York – especially those of the Subway or, in this case, the elevated tracks built before the Subway was completed.
There are a few more to browse so if you’re into trains or New York history, be sure to check the link.
by Christopher Paul on February 11, 2014 by Christopher Paul on February 10, 2014 Studies show that our left side is our “best” side:
Participants were asked to rate the pleasantness of both sides of male and female faces on gray-scale photographs. The researchers presented both original photographs and mirror-reversed images, so that an original right-cheek image appeared to be a left-cheek image and vice versa.
They found a strong preference for left-sided portraits, regardless of whether the pictures were originally taken of the left side, or mirror-reversed. The left side of the face was rated as more aesthetically pleasing for both male and female posers.
These aesthetic preferences were also confirmed by measurements of pupil size, a reliable unconscious measurement of interest. Indeed, pupils dilate in response to more interesting stimuli – here more pleasant-looking faces, and constrict when looking at unpleasant images. In the experiment, pupil size increased with pleasantness ratings.
Researchers think it could be that the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body. The right side also is said to be what controls emotions and creativity.
via The Atlantic
by Christopher Paul on February 10, 2014 One of the reasons I love living in New York City is access to some of the greatest doctors in the world. As I age, it will become important to use their leading care. Getting to the doctors, however, could be challenging.
As this interactive map shows, the number of subway stops that are accessible is not as great as you’d think. And New York is not alone in this neglect.
Of course, in NYC, there are plenty of buses, cabs, and special access vans for those who need it but that certainly does increase the cost and time it takes to navigate a very small space. Moreover, the outer boroughs don’t always have the same amenities as Manhattan further disenfrancishing the disabled poor.
There isn’t an easy fix for this. Most of these systems were designed over 100 years ago when no one cared.
via Atlantic Cities