http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/-t1.htm A place to post interesting or fun things pertaining to the course. Mon, 08 Jun 2009 03:32:15 GMT 10 http://i83.servimg.com/u/f83/13/73/39/37/social13.jpg http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/-t1.htm http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/bad-grades-maybe-you-can-blame-facebook-t556.htm Kristina Youmaran http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/facebookusers.htm The article above discusses a study done at Ohio State University that found the average Facebook used had an average GPA of 3.0 - 3.5. Whereas non-regular Facebook users averaged a 3.5-4.0. Obviously there could be a lot of things that could account for the lower GPA of facebook users than just constant Facebook usage (many people with the lower GPA claimed that Facebook didn't get in the way of their studying habits). As we all ... Blog Posts Thu, 04 Jun 2009 06:09:36 GMT http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/bad-grades-maybe-you-can-blame-facebook-t556.htm#1301 http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/bad-grades-maybe-you-can-blame-facebook-t556.htm http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/re-bing-vs-google-and-other-search-engine-t600.htm jsc945 Althoguh, Bing gained users almost instantly, most people believe it is due to the mess media and google vs. Microsoft. As in the above, I believe it and others' opnion as in the above. However, recently I read interesting article about Bing's advantage over Google or any other search engine ever! Porn! For example, If you search porn, then it will show the preview of each porn by staying mouse cursor on whatever you wanna see. Although, it is smart to you can see the preview for ... Blog Posts Mon, 08 Jun 2009 03:32:15 GMT http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/re-bing-vs-google-and-other-search-engine-t600.htm#1414 http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/re-bing-vs-google-and-other-search-engine-t600.htm http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/spam-filters-t576.htm jrw615 http://www.paulgraham.com/wfks.html This article talks about something that came up early in the quarter regarding spam. Why do spammers continue spamming when there have been so many filters created and efforts to put them to a stop? this article investigates this issue and the statistics that spammers do this because they are successful some of the time. Will there be a day which spammers completely give up sending spam? The writer of this article does not believe so. Blog Posts Fri, 05 Jun 2009 18:34:56 GMT http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/spam-filters-t576.htm#1331 http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/spam-filters-t576.htm http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/reform-elections-from-first-past-the-post-to-borda-t598.htm Lalith Polepeddi After one of the homework problems comparing majority rule to the US electoral system, I checked out how some of these voting systems are applied. Turns out there is a London-based organization called the Electoral Reform Society looking for alternative ways of voting to improve the voting system. They have a bunch of political information on their website (http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/article.php?id=75) about alternative forms of voting, one of which is the Borda Count. Blog Posts Sat, 06 Jun 2009 06:01:26 GMT http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/reform-elections-from-first-past-the-post-to-borda-t598.htm#1411 http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/reform-elections-from-first-past-the-post-to-borda-t598.htm http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/google-adsense-v-microsoft-pubcenter-t597.htm Lalith Polepeddi Which search engine has a better keyword based advertising strategy? Google has established themselves firmly with AdSense, but Microsoft is attempting to tap into this rich market with its own twist on the ad market, called PubCenter. Check it out here: http://advertising.microsoft.com/publisher. They have a mode similar to Google’s, but pilot tests have publishers reporting more traffic from PubCenter than Adsense. This may be because PubCenter allows advertisers to add pictures in addition ... Blog Posts Sat, 06 Jun 2009 06:00:58 GMT http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/google-adsense-v-microsoft-pubcenter-t597.htm#1410 http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/google-adsense-v-microsoft-pubcenter-t597.htm http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/bingyahoo-t570.htm byroncheng http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/05/did-bing-just-leapfrog-yahoo-search/ This article writes about how Bing, the new Microsoft made search engine, is alread jumping ahead of yahoo to become the the number two search engine in the world, taking away market share lergely from Google. This is kind of interesting, as it's only been here for less than a week. Compare this to the hyped Wolfram Alpha search engine, touted as a new paradigm for searching the internet. http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/03/bing-versus-wolfram-alpha-a-tale-of-two-search-engine-launches/ ... Blog Posts Fri, 05 Jun 2009 16:59:34 GMT http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/bingyahoo-t570.htm#1323 http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/bingyahoo-t570.htm http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/power-laws-and-the-drug-war-t592.htm Kevin Chu http://projects.latimes.com/mexico-drug-war/#/interactive-map The link above is to an interactive map that displays the number of deaths in an area of Mexico connected to the drug trade. What's interesting is to note the distribution of deaths, with a very high amount of deaths in Chihuahua and Baja. These deaths almost follow a power law distribution, because there a few very large circles (the larger the circle, the more related deaths), and a lot of smaller ones. What's more interesting ... Blog Posts Sat, 06 Jun 2009 04:36:17 GMT http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/power-laws-and-the-drug-war-t592.htm#1393 http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/power-laws-and-the-drug-war-t592.htm http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/bidding-internally-the-weight-of-a-phobia-t590.htm Kevin Chu http://travel.yahoo.com/p-interests-28198953;_ylc=X3oDMTFzcGI5Y280BF9TAzI3MTYxNDkEX3MDMjcxOTQ4MQRzZWMDZnAtdG9kYXltb2QEc2xrA3NoYXJrYXR0YWNrLTYtNS0wOQ-- I assume we've all heard this several times, but certain fears are irrational. The fear of flying, for instance, because you're more likely to die in a car crash. This article briefly mentions the fear of sharks, in which you are "more likely to be hit by lightning" than attacked by a shark. This brings up the topic of why our brains ... Blog Posts Sat, 06 Jun 2009 04:12:15 GMT http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/bidding-internally-the-weight-of-a-phobia-t590.htm#1390 http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/bidding-internally-the-weight-of-a-phobia-t590.htm http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/markets-not-efficient-price-of-anarchy-rampant-t596.htm KingTut As the Great recession proves, we see why the Price of Anarchy becomes abnormally high. Everyone vying for themselves seems to make EVERYONE do worse (even individually) - that is, according to this article. How did this faith in the supremacy of market group-think do us harm? For one, as the dot-com and other manias demonstrated, the crowd occasionally gets it wrong. The mistaken faith in markets turned regulators into fawning groupies. Notably, former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan doubted ... Blog Posts Sat, 06 Jun 2009 04:59:33 GMT http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/markets-not-efficient-price-of-anarchy-rampant-t596.htm#1406 http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/markets-not-efficient-price-of-anarchy-rampant-t596.htm http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/palm-pre-versus-the-iphone-t595.htm KingTut
Lets hope people find it MUCH better to adapt to the Palm pre than to stay on the iphone. Heck it was designed by the same guy!!

Quality value at 1/2? l think so.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/166163/iphone_3g_and_palm_pre_headtohead.html]]> Blog Posts Sat, 06 Jun 2009 04:56:49 GMT http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/palm-pre-versus-the-iphone-t595.htm#1403 http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/palm-pre-versus-the-iphone-t595.htm http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/spanish-donor-transplant-system-t594.htm heng.tan http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7183342.stm According to this article, the spanish donor transplant system is great healthcare system available. It seems that we can actually encourage a more donors through better practices (such as in this case of the spanish system) and this would provide more nodes to our trading networks. Increasing the number of donors available would increase the probability of a match. However, a proper system must be in place to help match the donors to the recipients. Blog Posts Sat, 06 Jun 2009 04:55:31 GMT http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/spanish-donor-transplant-system-t594.htm#1402 http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/spanish-donor-transplant-system-t594.htm http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/dr-strangelove-and-his-social-networking-t593.htm KingTut Has anyone seen Dr. Strangelove? In it, one lone man manages to convince everyone from George C Scott to the President (peter sellers) that nuclear war is necessary and use the American Plan R to prevent anyone from stopping the war. The plan has it inbuilt that communication from the planes is halted and that a lone officer (as crazy as he is) can start a bombing run if the American command structure is destroyed. It is a comical and ridiculously funny movie where one miscommunication ... Blog Posts Sat, 06 Jun 2009 04:54:19 GMT http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/dr-strangelove-and-his-social-networking-t593.htm#1401 http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/dr-strangelove-and-his-social-networking-t593.htm http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/why-paper-and-scissors-rock-t577.htm jrw615 http://www.gametheory.net/News/Items/081.html This article talks about professional rock paper and scissors competitions and how scissors is regarded as a risky move. I thought it would be interesting to investigate why this is. We learned in class that all 3 are equal and the best strategy is just to completely randomize. However, if you discover a pattern with your opponent and a less likelihood of your opponent playing a certain set, it would be beneficial to use that information to ... Blog Posts Fri, 05 Jun 2009 18:39:36 GMT http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/why-paper-and-scissors-rock-t577.htm#1332 http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/why-paper-and-scissors-rock-t577.htm http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/the-mouse-and-the-rectangle-t573.htm byroncheng http://dustincurtis.com/the_mouse_and_the_rectangle.html The article talks about a new addition to the pavolovian response experiment. In Pavlov's experiment, he discovered that dogs could be conditioned to salivate when a bell was rung by ringing a bell every time they were fed. The dogs learned that when the bell was rung that they would be fed, and therefore, they began to associate the bell ringing with food being brought This article talks about a second experiment performed more ... Blog Posts Fri, 05 Jun 2009 18:16:43 GMT http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/the-mouse-and-the-rectangle-t573.htm#1327 http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/the-mouse-and-the-rectangle-t573.htm http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/the-truth-about-poker-players-t578.htm jrw615 http://www.gametheory.net/News/Items/082.html This article discusses how poker players usually play randomly and not use too much strategy. This makes sense in accordance with game theory because it can be an attempt to "randomize" their decisions. Since it is extremely difficult to guess how an opponent would play a hand, many decisions are simply made at the last moment. To take poker to the next level, one must know how opponents are influenced by your behavior and your pattern ... Blog Posts Fri, 05 Jun 2009 18:46:07 GMT http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/the-truth-about-poker-players-t578.htm#1333 http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/the-truth-about-poker-players-t578.htm http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/digg-s-new-advertising-system-t589.htm Piotr Maniak Digg has been struggling to find a good advertising system that will generate them good profit. They used many systems, along with Google Ads. They are now in the works of creating, what they call a "social advertising platform". According to Digg, the the system is a “social advertising platform” in which users will get to exercise their natural impulse as consumers and express approval or disapproval for the site’s ads with up or down votes. If an ad gets a lot of approval ... Blog Posts Sat, 06 Jun 2009 03:46:28 GMT http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/digg-s-new-advertising-system-t589.htm#1387 http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/digg-s-new-advertising-system-t589.htm http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/extrapolating-information-t591.htm Kevin Chu http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124424470043690515.html I seem to love this perfect privacy idea, so I promise just one last post on it. This is an article about how the United States intelligence departments are going to judge the influence of certain radical groups in Lebanon by how the votes turn out for their parliamentary elections. This presents quite a quandary to the radical groups. On one hand, if they come out and vote in force, they will win more house seats, but they will also ... Blog Posts Sat, 06 Jun 2009 04:27:25 GMT http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/extrapolating-information-t591.htm#1391 http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/extrapolating-information-t591.htm http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/starbucks-using-social-networks-t545.htm Okechukwu Chika Starbucks launched a massive marketing effort, the first Starbucks campaign to truly take advantage of the power of social networking. The company has put up new advertising posters in six major cities, and is challenging Twitter followers to be the first to post a photo of one on the microblogging social network. The Starbucks VP said that they are launching a colossal social networking campaign because: “It shows a level of connection to our brand that we wouldn’t have concocted on our ... Blog Posts Mon, 01 Jun 2009 07:29:46 GMT http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/starbucks-using-social-networks-t545.htm#1277 http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/starbucks-using-social-networks-t545.htm http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/using-secretary-problem-strategy-in-used-car-search-t588.htm James Yeung My friend is currently looking for a used car to buy for med school. He's been showing me used cars that are up for sale for the past month or two. I just hit me that he could easily apply the secretary problem strategy to his used car search! So I explained to him...since he wants to buy a used car before he goes to med school, in 2 months time, and he has been searching for the past month of so, using the 37% rule, he should settle for anything that is better than all the previous offers ... Blog Posts Sat, 06 Jun 2009 02:37:08 GMT http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/using-secretary-problem-strategy-in-used-car-search-t588.htm#1374 http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/using-secretary-problem-strategy-in-used-car-search-t588.htm http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/condorcet-triple-in-sports-t554.htm KatieBradford http://mungowitzend.blogspot.com/2008/11/marquis-de-condorcet-pays-visit-to-big.html While this article is actually a simple, rather old blog with no scientific or relieable proof, I think it does an excellent job of demonstrating the problems of a condorcet triple in real life situations. The case is three teams, (OU, Texas, and Texas Tech). Each team beat another of the teams (OU beat Texas Tech, Texas Tech beat Texas, and Texas beat OU). As a result of this system it is difficult to justify ... Blog Posts Thu, 04 Jun 2009 03:49:19 GMT http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/condorcet-triple-in-sports-t554.htm#1299 http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/condorcet-triple-in-sports-t554.htm http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/digg-applying-the-user-voting-model-to-advertising-t581.htm adamp The Washington Post reports ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/03/AR2009060303504.html ) that online news site Digg is set to implement a new method of web advertising, where ads are voted on socially just like any other news story posted to Digg. Good ads, or those that are "Dugg" often, will receive better placement relative to their cost-per-click, while bad ads (ads that are "buried" often by users) will often, according to Digg, be priced ... Blog Posts Fri, 05 Jun 2009 20:53:52 GMT http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/digg-applying-the-user-voting-model-to-advertising-t581.htm#1340 http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/digg-applying-the-user-voting-model-to-advertising-t581.htm http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/ten-is-the-magic-date-number-t557.htm KatieBradford http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23051735 This article applies many of the secretary problems to the dating world (somewhat like we touched on in class). However it puts the context of the problem in a more realistic framing, knowing that there are so many single people in the world, yet one does not want to date huge numbers before settlign down there are a few key numbers of advice that can be applied to people truly playing the dating game. The first of which is they suggest only needing to ... Blog Posts Thu, 04 Jun 2009 06:10:10 GMT http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/ten-is-the-magic-date-number-t557.htm#1302 http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/ten-is-the-magic-date-number-t557.htm http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/fix-the-bcs-t585.htm btaylor Here is an article on Borda count that is used in the BCS voting. This is really an issue because it causes the top teams to be always on top, and it allows one vote to totally change someones rankings. This guy proposes switching to a voting system that allows the actual BCS officials to monitor votes, thus allowing some degree of "fairness" instead of letting biased coaches always choose. http://football.kislanko.com/BCSpolls.html Blog Posts Sat, 06 Jun 2009 00:34:14 GMT http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/fix-the-bcs-t585.htm#1357 http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/fix-the-bcs-t585.htm http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/when-wisdom-of-the-crowds-goes-wrong-t586.htm Monil Gandhi In class, we learn that "Wisdom of the Crowds" means that often times a group's opinion is better than an expert opinion because it will average out the "incorrect" answers. In fact, Prof. Immorlica even gave us statistics to prove this on the show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" where the audience was correct more times than the phone-a-friend lifeline was in terms of percentages. However, there are certainly times when the crowd is wrong because of a biased ... Blog Posts Sat, 06 Jun 2009 00:59:17 GMT http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/when-wisdom-of-the-crowds-goes-wrong-t586.htm#1359 http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/when-wisdom-of-the-crowds-goes-wrong-t586.htm http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/international-kidney-exchange-t583.htm Matt Dolph This article discusses potential ways to improve the kidney market in order to save more lives. As we discussed in class there is a great shortage of kidneys for transplant and people are always doing research to find more socially optimal ways of running this market to improve results. This article particularly addresses the idea of creating a joint market between the United States and Canada list that runs a cascading system to cause a trading pattern between those who need a kidney and have ... Blog Posts Fri, 05 Jun 2009 22:20:54 GMT http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/international-kidney-exchange-t583.htm#1345 http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/international-kidney-exchange-t583.htm http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/information-cascade-on-same-sex-marriage-t536.htm Kevin Chu http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/05/31/nevada.domestic.partnerships/ As more and more states debate the option of same-sex marriages, domestic partnerships, and civil unions, more finalized decisions are being reached about a topic that did not even exist in the public medium a decade ago. Essentially, though the same-sex partnership initiatives began to become legally recognized, the going was slow, as it was against the status quo. As more states began to accept the idea, the option becomes ... Blog Posts Mon, 01 Jun 2009 04:35:26 GMT http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/information-cascade-on-same-sex-marriage-t536.htm#1258 http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/information-cascade-on-same-sex-marriage-t536.htm http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/microsoft-s-new-search-engine-bing-t498.htm Eric Chang Microsoft has a new search engine in the brewing. Judging from the video, it would appear that the rumors that Microsoft plans to attack Google (Google reviews) in their upcoming ad campaign are well-founded. For example, the line “telling you we found 47 million links isn’t always a great response to your query” is a clear shot at Google’s results. The product does look significantly different than Microsoft’s current search effort – Live Search. Is it actually better than ... Blog Posts Fri, 29 May 2009 19:05:11 GMT http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/microsoft-s-new-search-engine-bing-t498.htm#1152 http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/microsoft-s-new-search-engine-bing-t498.htm http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/allocating-a-university-s-resources-via-auction-t582.htm adamp Charles Johnson of Claremont McKenna College wrote an interesting blog post ( http://cmcforum.com/opinion/06032009-ebaying-cmc ) advocating that the College allocates many of its resources using an online auction system. He references a system used by the Wharton school of business which allows MBAs to choose classes based on a limited number of points allocated at the beginning of each year. Seems like it could be very efficient at allocating resources. Do you think that this is something ... Blog Posts Fri, 05 Jun 2009 22:04:29 GMT http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/allocating-a-university-s-resources-via-auction-t582.htm#1343 http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/allocating-a-university-s-resources-via-auction-t582.htm http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/spymaster-the-twitter-game-t571.htm byroncheng http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/28/spymaster-the-twitter-game-that-will-assassinate-your-time/ Who doesn't like a game - especially one on twitter? Spymaster uses Twitter's network to play its game. Users tweet out what sorts of things they are doing (ie assassinating people). There has supposedly been a lot of backlash over this game, as the game seems to tweet out fare more than it needs to (looking like spam to some people). However, the game appears to be very popular. It ... Blog Posts Fri, 05 Jun 2009 17:09:49 GMT http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/spymaster-the-twitter-game-t571.htm#1324 http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/spymaster-the-twitter-game-t571.htm http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/google-poised-to-apply-adwords-to-ebooks-t580.htm adamp The Christian Science Monitor worries that Google's recently announced entrance into the eBook marketplace will change the way we read books forever. As the author tongue-in-cheekily asks, will we see ads like "I see you’re reading Emily Post. Can I sell you some stamps?" Perhaps a reader of Jules Verne will be presented with an opportunity to take an undersea vacation, or someone reading Mark Twain will be able to buy whitewash for their fence with a quick link from an ebook-reader. ... Blog Posts Fri, 05 Jun 2009 20:47:11 GMT http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/google-poised-to-apply-adwords-to-ebooks-t580.htm#1339 http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/google-poised-to-apply-adwords-to-ebooks-t580.htm http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/supply-and-demand-market-clearing-prices-t587.htm btaylor Here's a cool article which shows how you can use Excel to calculate market-clearing prices and draw up a nice visualization to go along with it. It shows how the easiest way to calculate the market-clearing price is to take a look at where the supply and demand curves intersect, then calculate the market-clearing price based on that. http://www.tushar-mehta.com/excel/charts/supply_and_demand/ Blog Posts Sat, 06 Jun 2009 01:06:23 GMT http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/supply-and-demand-market-clearing-prices-t587.htm#1360 http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/supply-and-demand-market-clearing-prices-t587.htm http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/market-equilibria-t584.htm btaylor I thought this was an interesting article that helped me better understand market equilibria. It's by Associated Content news, and it talks about how market equilibria is what we should always strive towards in an ideal economy, because all gains from trade have been realized and the gains outweigh the costs. http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1270167/market_equilibrium.html Blog Posts Sat, 06 Jun 2009 00:22:26 GMT http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/market-equilibria-t584.htm#1353 http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/market-equilibria-t584.htm http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/game-theory-behind-the-health-care-plan-t563.htm Lauren Victory http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?parm1=5&docID=news-000003132800 In this piece, former democratic congressional staffer John Edgell analyzes the decisions made by the Obama administration behind the national helath care plan using behavioral economics, game theory, prospect theory, and prisoner’s dilemma. The piece to me is a bit verbose, but its an effort to explain the actions of the Congressional Budget Office appeasing not only the American citizens but also the drug companies, ... Blog Posts Fri, 05 Jun 2009 02:07:06 GMT http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/game-theory-behind-the-health-care-plan-t563.htm#1308 http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/game-theory-behind-the-health-care-plan-t563.htm http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/borda-count-in-the-nl-2007-mvp-voting-race-t565.htm Kevin Kao this article goes over how jimmy rollins won it (deservedly, probably), but if someone really wanted matt holliday to win, they could have left rollins off the ballot and rigged it so that holliday would win by one point. the author goes on to say that Borda designed his voting system to only be used by "honest voters", because it's so easily manipulated. http://mungowitzend.blogspot.com/2007/11/borda-counts-jroll-and-ted-williams.html interestingly, a long time ago ted williams ... Blog Posts Fri, 05 Jun 2009 03:22:11 GMT http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/borda-count-in-the-nl-2007-mvp-voting-race-t565.htm#1312 http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/borda-count-in-the-nl-2007-mvp-voting-race-t565.htm http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/modeling-the-real-market-value-of-social-networks-t579.htm Vanessa Huerta http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/04/the-true-value-of-social-networks-the-2009-updated-model/ This article discusses a model which proposes the value for different social networking sites. It has facebook at the top followed by MySpace, and included for the first time the value for Twitter. The model is based on the idea that users in high-value online advertising markets are financially worth more than the ones in lower value online advertising markets. It is interesting how different the ... Blog Posts Fri, 05 Jun 2009 20:29:29 GMT http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/modeling-the-real-market-value-of-social-networks-t579.htm#1338 http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/modeling-the-real-market-value-of-social-networks-t579.htm http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/finding-new-employees-via-social-networks-t566.htm SBonthu Article Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/31/jobs/31recruit.html Here's an article that pretty much sums up what we already know and have experienced at one point or the other. Software has been created for this purpose alone! A friend who gets a referral can apply for the job if interested. If that person is hired, the company can use Appirio’s service to track which employee found the match and offer a referral bonus. To address privacy concerns, the list of possible candidates ... Blog Posts Fri, 05 Jun 2009 06:07:19 GMT http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/finding-new-employees-via-social-networks-t566.htm#1313 http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/finding-new-employees-via-social-networks-t566.htm http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/game-theory-in-survivor-t575.htm jrw615 http://www.gametheory.net/News/Items/080.html This article relates the games in survivor to "non-cooperative games" in game theory. For the survival games where the player could win immunity it was discussed how Nash equilibrium comes into play and how the best strategy is simply to maximize your chances by picking thee best move in each situation. Like in any game, knowledge is power, especially in survivor. Blog Posts Fri, 05 Jun 2009 18:25:28 GMT http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/game-theory-in-survivor-t575.htm#1330 http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/game-theory-in-survivor-t575.htm http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/more-on-reasonable-voting-schemes-t574.htm Elif Koru The above paper is on topics very similar to what we covered in class. In this paper, the authors analyze Arrow's Theorem on Single peaked domains. Thus, this paper describes the topics that we learned in class in more detail. It focuses specifically on Single Peaked preferences in light of Arrow's theorem. Arrow's Theorem states that given that there are at least three alternatives and at least two individuals that choose between all the alternatives, than a dictatorial preference is the only ... Blog Posts Fri, 05 Jun 2009 18:25:23 GMT http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/more-on-reasonable-voting-schemes-t574.htm#1329 http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/more-on-reasonable-voting-schemes-t574.htm http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/social-networks-self-promotion-t572.htm byroncheng With all this "Real Time" updates stuff going on, is it possible that we begin treating our facebook feeds and twitter feeds as advertising ourselves? For instance, if on our facebook feed we see that someone has been tagged in a photo, we can either just observe it and go on, or we can click on the photo and view more photos from the album. Is this not similar to our discussion on advertising? When our photos appear on the minifeed, it's just as if we are getting eyeballs - impressions. ... Blog Posts Fri, 05 Jun 2009 17:18:12 GMT http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/social-networks-self-promotion-t572.htm#1325 http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/social-networks-self-promotion-t572.htm http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/lemons-to-be-honored-by-chrysler-t564.htm Lauren Victory I posted an article a couple of weeks ago about how people who purchased lemons from Chrysler might not get their money back because of the company's bankrupty. It had left many people in limbo--without a car, without money, and without any inkling if they were going to be reimbursed. Well, there is some hope for a few. The company made an agreement with Fiat S.p.A to honor all lemons under lemon laws. Lemon laws do differ however, so it will affect different people differently. ... Blog Posts Fri, 05 Jun 2009 02:21:37 GMT http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/lemons-to-be-honored-by-chrysler-t564.htm#1309 http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/lemons-to-be-honored-by-chrysler-t564.htm http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/prognosis-large-social-networks-may-help-surgical-patients-t568.htm SBonthu Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/19/health/19prog.html Having a large network of friends and family may help you do better in surgical procedures... this shouldn't be surprising. Interestingly, researchers studied 605 people scheduled for chest or abdominal operations. They estimated their social connectedness by determining how many close friends and relatives each had, and how often they attended social functions. The article suggests that the one-fifth of patients with ... Blog Posts Fri, 05 Jun 2009 06:10:37 GMT http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/prognosis-large-social-networks-may-help-surgical-patients-t568.htm#1315 http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/prognosis-large-social-networks-may-help-surgical-patients-t568.htm http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/social-networks-and-the-business-world-t567.htm SBonthu Article Link: http://www.iq.harvard.edu/blog/netgov/2006/03/social_networks_and_the_busine.html The article talks about Collaborative filtering, a key component of using social networks for different purposes. Here's a little bit more about this: Collaborative filtering systems can produce personal recommendations by computing the similarity between your preference and the one of other people. Social Network Theory and its principles are applied by more and more companies in a way ... Blog Posts Fri, 05 Jun 2009 06:10:05 GMT http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/social-networks-and-the-business-world-t567.htm#1314 http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/social-networks-and-the-business-world-t567.htm http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/international-kidney-transplants-t562.htm Lauren Victory http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5ipikjRywul5Oy90Na-g3nrzPtWTg This article discusses a suggestion by an LA doctor to open up the kidney donor registry to those in Canada so both countries can hopefully increase the chances that their sick are matched up with a compatible donor. The article also discusses the pluses and minuses of"altruistic" donors or as one of the homework problems named them "angel kidneys." This is the type of system ... Blog Posts Fri, 05 Jun 2009 01:41:51 GMT http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/international-kidney-transplants-t562.htm#1307 http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/international-kidney-transplants-t562.htm http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/online-advertising-from-a-different-perspective-t561.htm Brooke Stanislawski In class, we examined the process involved with advertising online in terms of the value to the companies who want to advertise and the payments toward the websites that host the advertisements. But what happens when certain websites can't find companies who want to advertise on their website? This problem arises when these websites do not have a large enough audience. On the other hand, advertisers want to target the audience of these music blogs, but the market was so broken up that marketing ... Blog Posts Thu, 04 Jun 2009 20:31:21 GMT http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/online-advertising-from-a-different-perspective-t561.htm#1306 http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/online-advertising-from-a-different-perspective-t561.htm http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/was-lincoln-the-true-winner-of-the-1860-election-examination-of-the-borda-count-t560.htm Brooke Stanislawski In the class discussions about different voting systems, we explored the validity of the representation in different voting systems. The writers of this article, http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:sIDifz5UNSwJ:mason.gmu.edu/~atabarroWould%2520the%2520Borda%2520Count.pdf+voting+borda+count&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a, analyze the outcomes of different voting systems in the election of 1860 to see if the "Borda Count [could have] avoided the Civil War." After ... Blog Posts Thu, 04 Jun 2009 19:48:05 GMT http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/was-lincoln-the-true-winner-of-the-1860-election-examination-of-the-borda-count-t560.htm#1305 http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/was-lincoln-the-true-winner-of-the-1860-election-examination-of-the-borda-count-t560.htm http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/medical-matchings-t559.htm KatieBradford http://kuznets.harvard.edu/~aroth/SaraRobinson.html This article talks about applying the Marriage Matching Algorithm to the residency match program at hospitals. The problem, according to the article, with the program is the fact that salary is not taken into account until later in the process and so many are unable to target the best candidates with higher salaries, or the candidates themselves end up getting cheated out of money. One proposal suggested incorporating price directly into ... Blog Posts Thu, 04 Jun 2009 06:43:58 GMT http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/medical-matchings-t559.htm#1304 http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/medical-matchings-t559.htm http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/following-the-herd-why-some-trends-die-out-quickly-t558.htm Kristina Youmaran http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv26n4/v26n4-2.pdf The paper above attempts to answer the ongoing question, "Why do some ideas suddenly become popular, and then die out just as quickly?" The paper begins by discussing informational cascades and cites current and historical examples that have become a part of our society/culture. It continues to explain how these information cascades occur in our daily lives and then eventually become the norm. The paper then goes into ... Blog Posts Thu, 04 Jun 2009 06:22:05 GMT http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/following-the-herd-why-some-trends-die-out-quickly-t558.htm#1303 http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/following-the-herd-why-some-trends-die-out-quickly-t558.htm http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/why-the-borda-count-is-bad-t555.htm Kristina Youmaran http://math.crg4.com/borda.html The paper above talks about a few examples on how by using a Borda count, it could lead to bad results. In sum, the Borda count ultimately is bad for the following reasons: "* It can fail to elect a candidate who is the first choice of a strict majority. * It is extremely vulnerable to tactical voting. * It treats ordinal preferences as cardinal preferences. * It often fails to elect the Condorcet winner." The paper ... Blog Posts Thu, 04 Jun 2009 05:52:25 GMT http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/why-the-borda-count-is-bad-t555.htm#1300 http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/why-the-borda-count-is-bad-t555.htm http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/school-choice-and-the-boston-mechanism-t553.htm KatieBradford http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V76-4GGXX7T-1&_user=1458830&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000052790&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=1458830&md5=9b308a549ab18f0615149cd976bde7fc When talking about market theory in class, one area we discussed applications of the marriage matching system was in the Boston Public School system. Unaware of this, because in my hometown the public school you attended ... Blog Posts Thu, 04 Jun 2009 03:24:08 GMT http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/school-choice-and-the-boston-mechanism-t553.htm#1298 http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/school-choice-and-the-boston-mechanism-t553.htm http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/would-the-borda-count-have-avoided-the-civil-war-t552.htm Kristina Youmaran http://mason.gmu.edu/~atabarro/Would%20the%20Borda%20Count.pdf The paper above analyzes different voting methods using graphical representation to see how the presidential election prior to the Civil War would have turned out different, resulting in whether or not the Civil War would occur. In the paper, the authors answer the following questions : "The election of 1860 was one of the most important and contentious elections in US history. It was also one of the most interesting. ... Blog Posts Wed, 03 Jun 2009 19:44:42 GMT http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/would-the-borda-count-have-avoided-the-civil-war-t552.htm#1297 http://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/would-the-borda-count-have-avoided-the-civil-war-t552.htm