Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin
Tails of the Unexpected (bankofengland.co.uk)
32 points by gruseom on June 9, 2012 | hide | past | favorite | 7 comments


I'm puzzled by the references to paper/scissors/stone. Why is "stone" the "most obvious move"?

Later on, the paper states that the game is "well known to be power law distributed". I couldn't immediately find anything online to back this up -- the first hit in google was a link to this paper. Can anybody provide some insight?


I was puzzled by that too. It seemed like the weakest thing in the paper. Other stuff, especially the part about applying contemporary risk models to historical data, was much more interesting.


>Why is "stone" the "most obvious move"?

Since the starting position (closed fist) is very similar to Rock, most people will be lazy and play Rock instead of Paper or Scissors, at least the first round?


Short version: If you get alot of data you get bellends and hockysticks.

Also the reason the rock wins is due to gobal warming as the rock is so hot it now burns the paper :-)

Never bet against schrodinger's cat is all I can say after going thru that PDF briefly.


Is anybody else getting "Sorry! This document is not publicly available."?


Scribd has done this for every PDF page I've tried to access through their site. http://www.scribd.com/word/access_denied/96535114#full

The linked PDF downloads quickly.

(what's strange is the rest of Scribd, including their fruit bot race, renders great.)


The scribd links often do that. Get the actual pdf.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: