Silk Road
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/USA-Update/2013/1003/Silk-Road-101-How-did-the-nowbusted-online-black-market-work http://mashable.com/2013/10/02/silk-road-drug-dealer-interview/ On Tuesday, the FBI shut down Silk Road, an online marketplace that allowed buyers and sellersvto conduct all their transactions anonymously. The site generated sales of about $1.2 billion, andvwas dubbed the “Amazon.com of vice” due to contraband drugs accounting for 70% of salesv(including heroin, LSD and cannabis). Silk Road was kept on […]
Real World Game Theory Application
Link: http://business.financialpost.com/2013/02/27/putting-game-theory-into-real-world-practice/ This article describes how game theory is commonly applied when companies are identifying, analyzing, and trying to make real world strategic decisions that have consequences. The firm discussed in this article, a medium-sized company, is seeking advice using a game theory model, needs to make a choice: acquire a similar sized privately owned […]
Are you the Bluff Master?
Bluff master was an Indian television game show that first aired as Dirty Rotten Cheater on PAX in 2003. It was also aired in France, Italy, Japan, UK, Hungary, Spain and Vietnam with different names. The game show is interesting as it exposes the ability of the players to cheat, lie and deceive in order […]
Bumblebees and the Traveling Salesman Problem
Link to article: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/09/bumblebee-traveling-salesman/ This article describes how Bumblebees have seemingly solved the infamous traveling salesmen problem, the task of finding the shortest path in a weighted graph. Currently, the amount of time that it would take to solve this problem in the worst case is proportional to the factorial of the number of nodes […]
Fantasy Football Auction Draft
Fantasy Football “Auction drafts are the fantasy football version of shows like The Wire or Breaking Bad.” -‐ http://www.sbnation.com/fantasy/2013/8/26/4659994/fantasy-‐football-‐ draft-‐strategy-‐auction-‐draft-‐strategy-‐2013 Fantasy football serves an important function in society. Besides allowing millions to spend Sunday afternoons hyperventilating about how many increments of ten yards a wide receiver will gain, fantasy football provides us a platform for […]
The Internet creates many weak connections allowing the technology sector to grow rapidly
An article by “The Guardian” (http://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/dec/06/technology-sector-growing-faster-economy) describes the technology sector as growing faster than the entire US economy, which isn’t surprising considering the world is constantly centered on new electronics and gadgetry. In addition, it is said to keep growing faster for several decades longer. Thus, it makes sense that technology startups are able to […]
hyperloop
Hyperloop Transportation is all about getting from point A to point B in the least amount of time possible. These paths must be optimized to cover important points such as cities or other areas of dense population, and also account for the topography the path traverses. This is the crux of the hyperloop. […]
Strong Tie and Weak Tie Interactions on Facebook
Based on the paper: Inferring Tie Strength from Online Directed Behavior (https://www.facebook.com/publications/609759812368025) Early in 2013, Facebook published findings that detailed how people with strong ties (best friends) and people with weak ties (loose acquaintances) interact with each other on Facebook. They found that one could deduce strong ties and weak ties by measuring how often […]
Syrian Game Theory
For a little over two years the Syrian conflict has been slowly grinding on with neither side even close to resolution. To add to the complexity of the situation, foreign players such as the US, Russia, and the United Nations have been keeping close watch, adding new dilemmas—such as the chemical weapons negotiations—and altering strategies […]
Feeling Angry? Blame Your Friend.
Have you ever felt happy or upset after hearing that your friend or close family member was feeling this way? Turns out, you’re not alone. Researchers in China recently conducted research to understand how members of a social network emotionally influence one another. In their paper, “Anger Is More Influential Than Joy: Sentiment Correlation in […]
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