http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_envelope_problem

You are given two envelopes to choose from, and are told that one has twice the amount of money as in the other. You pick one and open it, finding $20. The host asks you if you would like to switch. It is apparent from the random nature of the initial choice that switching would not change the payoff.

The only possible amounts in the other envelope are $10 and $40. I became tempted to assign 2/3 probability to $10 and 1/3 probability to $40, so that the expected value came out to $20. This is wrong, however, because the host could announce that he would pay a square of whatever amount of money I ended up with ($100 for $10, $400 for $20, $1600 for $40) and still switching would not matter, yet those probabilities (2/3, 1/3) would prescribe switching.

This is apparently a state of ignorance in which the possibilities are finite and known, and yet probabilities cannot be assigned to them. This disturbs me.

HT: Lee Hsien-Yang's New York talk last Friday

When I went from undergrad to grad school, the introduction of a monthly stipend into my life gave me a natural unit in which to measure my monthly consumption. I never did itemized budgeting, but net positive savings was definitely a goal. This goal was easily reached, mostly due to my realization that scrimping on rent got me very far. As of a month ago, I started working, and for the first time ever, have substantial savings.

This introduces a degree of freedom, and with that, one more thing to optimize. There were a few decisions necessitated by the living environment, like eating out and using the wash-n-fold service instead of the laundromat. Other than that, however, it seems like the other decisions are going to be made by my choice of company more than anything else. Tonkatsu curry is the most delicious dish I can think of, and I really don't think anything will change that. I do follow along when people go to fancy restaurants though.

I've stopped reading the news recently because I think it is terribly time-consuming given how little knowledge it conveys. The credibility of news depends a lot on social proof, I find - just because everyone around you has the same sources and believes the same things about far away worlds doesn't mean those beliefs are more dependable.

News informs belief choice, and is most useful when surprising. It can be unsurprising because it is predictable, or because it is noise. In either case, uninteresting because the candidate beliefs are not differentiated by the evidence.

My particular candidate beliefs at this moment mean that news does not interest me.