Training Archive: randyIn the 7 days ending 2006-06-11:
| [csv] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| « | » |
| » now | ||||||||||
|
|
|
|
| |||||||||
| M | T | W | H | F | S | S | |||||||
Sunday Jun 11 | ||
| orienteering race 54:50 [3] 7.91 km (6:56 / km) | |
| QOC beer chase, official distance less skip distance of #8, loop 1. Time includes 4 beer chugs (about 15 seconds each).
| ||
Saturday Jun 10 | ||
| aerobics 30:00 [3] | |
| weights (up bod) 25:00 [3] | |
Thursday Jun 8 | ||
| running (trail/XC) 54:00 [3] 10 km (5:24 / km) | |
| misery loop 2 (time estimated)
probably a little slower than estimated with the prospect of another 'level 2 15k 5 min pace' run tonite, when one should actually be tapering for the most important race of one's career this weekend -- in 8 years of O'ing I have yet to get to the QOC beer chase, but that black mark on my record looks like it changes this year. My prospects don't look particularily bright, with not one, but 2 parties to hit the day before, where the only carbs in sight will no doubt be the buns on the grilled angioplasty cheesburgers and what is flowing at the bar. ... and I think they should even the odds a bit by requiring all WOC team members in the start field to skip the beer and drink scotch or a similarily endowed beverage ... | ||
| C • Excellent 3 | ||
| running (trail/XC) 1:18:10 [2] 15.15 km (5:10 / km) | |
| TNT joy fatlands
| ||
Wednesday Jun 7 | ||
| aerobics 30:00 [3] | |
Tuesday Jun 6 | ||
| running (trail/XC) 54:57 [3] 10 km (5:30 / km) | |
| misery loop 1
Oh my. There must be an explanation for such a glacial pace on such a fine (tho a tad chilly) morning for a run. Some days your mind just wanders, and you don't think too much about the running, and I think not thinking about the running affects my pace. It all started with the fact that the covered bridge at the end of yellow springs road is out, and a good 2500m up the road, there is a clear sign alerting the mass of commuters that come thru here to this fact. Yet, the commuters keep coming. They hit the bridge, look at the "road closed" sign, and turn around. I mean tons of them. And, of course, I have to spend the run attempting to analyze this apparently irrational behavior. (While a small percentage probably enter ysr where it is not signed, the main commuter path is signed, and probably hit by 90% of the traffic). So, people are risking a 5k round trip vs the probability that the sign is wrong, a probabilty which approaches 0 in my mind. The payoff on this bet, if you are right, can be up to 5K from the point of the sign, depending where you need to go. But still seems like a bad bet to me, even if the risk is as low as 500m. I've always believed that people have been genetically designed to automatically make the right decisions in these sorts of cases, under the logic that those with less economically endowing genes would have not made the cut in some past life when the going was rough. A controversial hypothesis, and apparently wrong, at least in this case. Or, perhaps people don't have enough information to make the right decision, but the basic informaion that everyone has is 'you can't go that way', so that makes no sense. My personal theory is that people are genetically endowed to automatically make the best bet, but we can mis-guess their utility functions. The payoff in this case comes not from the considerable savings yet near nil probability of obtaining it, but from the joy of "beating the system" or "beating the sheep who are respecting the sign", which, I imagine for some, is a near infinite payoff amount, making a low, yet non-zero odds of success worth it. Or, just like the people who feel the 'don't make a road pizza of the people in the crosswalk' signs don't apply to them, perhaps these people feel the rules simply don't apply to them until physics makes it so. (And as I was observing the value of the automobiles making this decision, it occurred to me that an interesting observational experiment would be to sit at the detour sign and log makes of automobiles taking or ignoring the detour, and then comparing that against the value flow on a day without the detour). And that was only the first part of the run. It naturally followed to begin thinking about the game show Deal or No Deal. While the old show Let's Make a Deal mainly focused on the famous three door problem, the premise here is that the player is given a case with an amount between nil and one million dollars, and there are 25 other cases with varying amounts in that range. All the potential amounts are exactly known, therefore the probability of any case containing a given amout is exactly known, as are various other stats that can be calculated. The player opens cases he doesn't own, thereby narrowing down what the potential payoff in his case is. At pre-determined intervals, the house offers to buy the player out, at a price, that, in theory, will save the house money in the long run based on the expected value of the amount in the player's case. It is not known (at least to me) whether or not the house's payoff algorithm is purely linear or pre-supposes some sort of "human" utility function, such as valuing the last dollar of a million less than the first one. (In theory, since the house is the GE corporation, any amount on the board is trivial to it). The player then accepts the house's deal, or opens more cases. So I watch this show to observe if people actually seem to act rationally, or for me to try to understand what it means to act rationally. Or to observe hypothesis that people are built to optimize these decisions automatically (as it seems highly improbable that under the stress and buzz of the show and with no tools that one could solve the decision problem non-automatically). It occurs to me that I can't answer those questions, but what is uncanny is my ability to look at all the numbers and guess to within a very small margin what the house will offer. My son, who is only 8, is even better at this; unbelieavable how often he has nailed it exactly or come within one tick. We are also almost infallable in predicting when the player will accept the house's deal or gamble on. While it would be nice to presume that this proves more than the fact that we seem to be in tune with the house's algorithm, that is about all it proves. Which was what was interesting about last night's show, where they changed the game, and we were out of tune. They drastically increased the amount of money in the game by replacing the 1M, .75M, and .5M cases with 5M, 2.5M, and 1M, and promoted a few more of the next lower ones as well. In our opinions, the house was totally lowballing the player based on the new amounts, thereby incenting the player to play on more than usual, and putting the house more at risk. Of course this became interesting, and the speculation centered not on the possibility of a more discounted utility function where the 5M'th dollar was even less marginally valuable than the 1M'th (a questionable notion in our opinions given the price points where, after taxes and other considerations, these amounts become life changing), but on the fact of completly different incentives for the player and the house. Despite the stated premise, it seems the house is not incented to minimize the payoffs, but make the game as long and as exciting as possible. Thus they will not make a fair offer that a rational player will take before the first commercial, and even tho they can bring on a new player, it was clear that it was a one player episode, and there is more excitement, audience interest, and hence advertiser's interest in the later goings. So, who wins. Clearly the player, if they walk out with anything, and even more so in this senerio where they are strung into the bigger money by unfair offers (barring atrocious luck or stupidity). And of course the house wins, as evidenced by the fact that the producers are still producing the show. So coin is simply transferred from one party to another, yet wealth or value is created for both. Who loses -- you and me buying the sponsors' overpriced products? I've never understood whether or not things were zero sum, or if wealth is created ex niliho by me trading or giving something to you. But I guess as long as the sun is reversing entropy on this rock faster than we create it, it is not, not to mention the exploitation by corrupt governments, corporations, and kleptocrats of uneducated Dilberts like myself. By this time, I'm entering the last slog along ysr, and it became clear I did not get that dismal science gene, and probably never would, yet I suppose there is hope for my son. My thoughts then turned to trading the euro, which seemed like a wise thing to think about given the impending WMOC trip. Looking at a digitized chart showing only US market hours (and it is nice to do all that orienteering so you can develop a killer visual memory), we see what potentially could be a (sort of) three star pattern forming (depending on today) similar to twice before in recent memory, which would have bearish implications. However, given the overall bullish sentiment, one would expect a pullback only to about the support in the 127.42 neighborhood, where we can look to put on a long position. Since everyone in 24 time zones is looking at the same data, one might be a bit tolerant of less of a pullback. We'll see, but one wonders why the carry trade doesn't bring them more in line. I can short the euro at 2.5 and drop it into a 4.5 MM and get to WMOC on the spread. But one has to have quite a bit of guts to short the euro here, especially given the (perceived) competence of the present administration (which of course I don't blame, but the voters, they are a different kettle of fish altogether, and I didn't have time to get back to rational choice again, as the parking lot was only 200m down the road by now). Of course, if the present administration bombed the right country, that could be bad for the euro. Most runs are like this actually. I guess its clear why there isn't much logging going on, not to mention the speed, and why I have to keep saying "wrong thought" to myself during O races. | ||
| C • This is the longest AP entry I have ever read. 12 | ||
| running (trail/XC) 1:16:57 [3] 14.8 km (5:12 / km) | |
| TNT media
they dropped me at about 68 minutes, tho they were only doing a 2 pace. Of course, this was my second go today, on nothing but the fumes of those pralines. I certainly need something to eat before a run. | ||