April 2009
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Matters of Love and Hyperbolic Discounting
If I ask which would you rather have: 100 pesos *now* or 500 pesos *after 6 months*, which pay-off would you choose? Research says that, given a similar situation, most people would take the former; people generally prefer smaller, earlier rewards to larger, later rewards. In behavioral economics this is called hyperbolic discounting, or how the future’s utility is ‘discounted’...
February 2009
2 posts
Of Life's Tricky Buffet
Imagine waiting in line to a scrumputuous buffet table, catering the most wondrous meals in the world. It’s such an unusual buffet for you are to be given one hour to to choose a dish among all others; one meal from the table which will be the only one you could have for the rest of the evening. Of course, you’ll set out to pick the best of the lot but there’s a catch: You can...
December 2008
2 posts
November 2008
4 posts
Ode to the Nice Guys →
*click on the title to see the article*
They say that girls go for the bad boys, an inexplicable paradox that still occurs to this day. Although how we define “bad boy” or “nice guy” would be subject to interpretation, there are certain broad imagery that I believe we would agree on.
What would be more interesting is the truth of this phenomenon and its workings. Is it...
October 2008
6 posts
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Men Seek Beauty, Women Want Power →
*click on above link to see the article*
This might explain why there’s a dating adage (at least in western countries) that men should date women who are approximately: (age of man ÷ 2) + 7, while women should date men who are: (age of woman x 2) - 7; younger women have a higher probability of being more beautiful than their elders while older men have a higher chance of being more...
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September 2008
11 posts
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stripes
(reblogged from fiftywords)
You, with your no-nonsense stripes, your hair pulled back, your little jewelry, your green eyes, your jelly-wearing French-tipped feet, your icy glances, your 7 jeans, yes you.
Me, Star Wars Forever t-shirt, buddy-holly-glasses-before-everyone-started-wearing-them, black chucks, Beetlejuice socks, Ryan Atwood wrist cuff, Nintendo Champion 1984 windbreaker, yes me.
...
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Girlfriend Potential Test →
*click on the title to see the craigslist ad*
Still about online personal ads, this guy created a short quiz on craigslist to try to snag a date. It’s pretty creative from my point of view, a little on the wordy side but it might work. It would be interesting to find out how many responded to this, or even better, try out my own take on it. Hmm, interesting.
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Man for Young Girl To Be My Wife →
*The title is a link to the guy’s post*
Remember my idea about the ideal mate template? Well this guy has taken that to the extreme. His very selective Qualification/Disqualification List is just for starters: with his suave one-liners such as “Do not fall in love with me until I say so” and “You must be a mail-order type of bride”, coupled with the mush of his...
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A Geeky (But Steaksauce) Wedding Proposal →
*click on the title to see the article*
This guy Peng hacked Bejeweled for Nintendo DS to propose to his lady love. Let’s see how this rates with our Big Four of Wedding Proposals:
Mush Factor? Geeky but works!
Grandeur? Hacking Bejeweled is no ordinary thing.
Unexpectedness? Never would have thought of it.
Context? He did it with her favorite video game. And their wedding was pure...
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August 2008
25 posts
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Matchmaker
One of the story arcs in “How I Met Your Mother” was this matchmaking service which could reportedly find your soulmate by using a computer algorithm. A seeker would just send his profile in and is then compared to the records in the database by rating how compatible they could be according to a rating scale of 1-10. A match is then called if the profile pinged at least an 8.5 rating. The service...
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Applying Game Theory to Win a Spouse →
*click on title to read the article*
This is just about finding the best way to pick your significant other, given that you only have a limited number of choices (you can’t meet everyone on earth) and a limited amount of time (you don’t live forever).
The author explains that the best way to do it is to meet lots of people, rank them according to preference, then date them in...
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Looking for Ugly at Mount Isa, Australia →
*click on the title to see the article*
The “5:1 ratio” (if it was real) of blokes to shielas implies that women will be in very high demand because of their scarcity. Since they would want to satisfy the equilbrium ratio of 1:1 without killing off blokes, this would mean that a population spurt of women - eveny ugly* ones - would be very welcome. (This summarizes the statement, I...
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A Rambling Argument about Speed Dating
1. Speed Dating is (SpeedDating is a trademark) , by framework, an opportunity for guys and gals who, for some reason or other, are not going out on dates. This group can then be called: “People Who Don’t Go Out on Dates for Some Reason or Another”. 2. With this, Speed Dating becomes a dynamic attractor for these same guys and gals, hovering for a shot to meet “The...
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Why I Will Never Have a Girlfriend →
*click on the title to see the article*
This was an old post back in 1998, made by a guy who tried to calculate his chances of getting a girlfriend based on statistical filtering. Off-hand, I’d say his chances are a lot higher than he would think if he would only put into consideration, um, “attractors” that would make it more probable to meet them. He considered only that he...
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“When you fall in love with someone, an 8.5 becomes a perfect 10.”
– “Matchmaker” from How I Met Your Mother
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The Big Four of Wedding Proposals
One thing weird about myself is, occasionally, I get flashes of insight about.. wedding proposals. Yup, about popping that question.These things come as a eureka moment before I sleep or as a full-blown idea cropping out of my head as I am on the (never mind). But the thing is yesterday I finally formulated a workable idea to create a perfect proposal just as I was DMing my friend on Twitter (that...
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The "Stickiness" of Romance
I like using stories about love and passion in my work (take note, I’m a math instructional designer) because these are things that everyone just “knows”. Maybe it’s because everyone has their “inner hopeless romantic” waiting in the wings, a never-ending struggle to chase some far-off dream which makes us hunger for such things.
I write this as afterthought to...
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“I have always believed in numbers, in the equations and logics that lead to...”
– from the movie “A Beautiful Mind”
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"The Girl of My Dreams" →
*click on the title to see the website*
Guy put up at website to increase the chances that he could find the literal “girl in his dream” (which starred zombies, a pizza cutter, and a Bible). Let’s help out shall we? Spread the word.
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“The Four Horsemen of Failed Relationships: Defensiveness, Stonewalling,...”
– John Gottman, University of Washington
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“John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never...”
– from an essay of an anonymous high school student