Rating

★★★☆☆

Category

non-fiction

Read

2025-10-20

Pages

336

Fun bit of pop-math.

In horse-racing and football, long shots tend to be overvalued by naive gamblers, but in real life we tend to undervalue long shots.

Influencers are difficult to influence. They are influencers because they discriminate before they share online.

An early adopter without good judgement is just a spammer, and no one wants to follow a spammer.

Our feeling of universality about maths is a result of its tautological nature, not a deeper truth.

Nice bit of comfirmatory evidence:

One study, in which, each day after work, UK professionals either played Block! Hexa Puzzle, a Tetris-like puzzle game, or used Headspace, a mindfulness app, found that players of Block! recovered better from work-related stress. Emily Collins, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Bath, who carried out the study, said afterwards, ‘Mindfulness might be good for relaxation, but video games provide psychological detachment. You get these internal rewards and a real sense of control.’