Things I Learned - March 2024
Things I Learned
Over the course of the 1970s, gold as an investment returned 33.8% per year (cite)
The phrase “mother of all [___]” was first coined by Saddam Hussein, to describe the Gulf War. (cite)
In the US, the only two goods for which it is illegal to trade futures contracts are onions and box office receipts (cite, h/t).
One open problem in mathematics is what is the largest area that can be maneuvered through an L-shaped planar region — in other words, what is the largest sized sofa that can move around the corner of a corridor (cite).
It is illegal to charge more than 25% interest on a loan in the state of New York (cite)
There is no evidence Carthage was sown with salt at all; however, the chosen ancient method of ruining farmland was to sow salt with the seeds of particularly aggressive weeds; i.e., salt was often sown not because it sterilized, but because it encouraged the growth of weeds. (cite) (cite)
Walt Disney came up with the idea to mark ski slopes by green circle (easiest), blue square (medium difficulty) and a black diamond (high difficulty) (cite).
The last 5 NBA MVP awards have gone to non-American players (cite)
As of 2024, the United States produces more oil than any country in history, and roughly 30% more than the second and third highest producing companies (Russia, Saudi Arabia). (cite)
Drop shots occur in roughly 1 in 20 of all ATP men’s tennis points (cite)
Women were not legally allowed to obtain credit cards until 1974 (cite)
Alaska is larger than the next three largest states (Texas, California, Montana) combined. (cite)
More than half of all American households hold shares in at least one mutual fund (cite)
π is irrational, and e is irrational, but we do not know whether π+e is rational. (cite)
The Philadelphia Phillies are the oldest, continuous, one-name one city franchise in all of sports (cite)
Guinea is the only country on earth without any telephone lines (cite)
Graphs I Liked
Causes of death by age:
Most common shot locations in the NBA, 2003 vs. 2024 (a.k.a, the rise of the three pointer):
Ridership by US Mass Transit System
Reads I Recommend
Notes on El Salvador, by Matt Lakeman
A very good layman’s summary of the recent history of El Salvador, including gang warfare, Bitcoin, and Nayib Bukele.
The second part (”Mortages”) of Prices vs. inflation and a mortgage puzzle, by John Cochrane
A good discussion of why you can’t take a mortgage with you when you sell your house.
“Fairness as a Constraint on Profit Seeking: Entitlements in the Market” by Daniel Kahnemann
This is in honor of Daniel Kahneman, a great economist who passed away this week (and whose first book, “Thinking, Fast and Slow” had a great influence on me in high school). This article is by no means his most famous, but is an interesting exploration into what types of market-related behavior are seen as “fair” vs. “unfair”.
Kahneman is much more well known for prospect theory, the idea that individuals care more about avoiding losses (relative to some reference point) than achieving similarly sized gains. A common example of this loss aversion is a homeowner particularly averse to selling a house for anything lower than their purchase price. However, my favorite example of prospect theory in action is from Pope and Schweitzer (2011): professional golfers are significantly more like to make a putt for par than a putt for birdie — at every distance, and controlling for every possible factor imaginable. The idea here is that par is a natural reference point, and golfers are more averse to failing to hit par than they are excited about achieving birdie, and so put in much more effort to those putts.
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