The human brain is often described as the most complex system in the known universe. Predicting how it will behave should therefore be a huge challenge. In reality, it’s often a breeze.
Take the recent debacle over how hackers broke into the Apple accounts of celebrities and published their photos on the internet. Apparently a flaw in Apple’s iCloud service allowed a simple program to find out who was using predictable passwords. And it seems many celebrities were doing so.
Be wary of schadenfreude, however. According to William Poundstone, a former physicist turned best-selling author, such incidents are symptomatic of a fundamental flaw that virtually all of us possess: a feeble grasp of randomness.
In his latest book, How To Predict The Unpredictable, Mr Poundstone shows the ubiquity of this key human failing, and how it can be exploited.
Many games involve trying to outwit one’s opponent by behaving in supposedly unguessable ways – which, it turns out, are much more guessable than one might think.
In the game of “Rock, Paper, Scissors”, players like to think they’re good at randomly switching between the three gestures, making them hard to second guess. Research shows that most people are kidding themselves.
Most players tend to avoid “Scissors”, but for reasons perhaps best left to psychologists, male players have a particular preference for the fist-like “Rock”.
Knowledge of this lack of randomness shows that the optimal choice in any single play is “Paper”, which beats “Rock” and loses out only to “Scissors”. Of course, now that this little secret is out, it may not work as well as it used to. So Mr Poundstone outlines another trick: announce what gesture you’re going to choose – and then do it. Most people can’t believe you’ll eschew a random choice in favour of a true declaration of intent.
Some manifestations of such human predictability are rather more serious. The outcome of everything from driving tests to professional examinations has long depended on the use of multiple-choice tests.
They’re widely regarded as a simple way of distinguishing those who know from those who simply guess, with the correct answer being randomly buried among the various options.
Or at least they’re supposed to be. After all, it would be pretty disastrous if there were an exploitable pattern that know-nothings could exploit.
Yet Mr Poundstone has uncovered evidence that such patterns do exist, thanks to exam designers who aren’t very good at mimicking randomness.
After analysing the locations of the correct answers in tests for everything from college grades to online safety, Mr Poundstone found strategies that anyone stumped for answers can benefit from.
In simple true/false tests, one should guess “true”, as exam designers typically include about 25 per cent more of these responses than “false”.
On multiple-choice tests with four possible choices, the second one is most often correct, while on five-choice tests, the final choice is the best pick for guessers.
There’s a flip side to our inability to act randomly, however – and one that’s just as exploitable. While we like to think of ourselves as rational, most of us are easily fooled into seeing significance in meaningless noise.
Mr Poundstone calls this “hot hand theory”, after the belief – common among basketball fans – that players on high-scoring streaks are doing more than just being lucky.
In fact, such streaks occur through randomness far more often than people think. Given utterly random sequences of hits and misses to examine, people routinely see patterns that fool them into believing that a player possesses a “hot hand”.
The danger here is that this theory tempts us to believe that we can see the future.
If something is really responsible for a run of decent performance, then it makes sense to expect the past to be a guide to the future. But if the “hot hand” is an illusion caused by randomness, the past tells us precisely nothing about the future.
The problem, of course, is that it’s not always easy to decide which explanation is true. And as Mr Poundstone shows, there’s one notorious arena where both really do apply: the stock market.
Everyone from Nobel-prize-winning economists to amateur investors argues about the predictability of stock markets. A classic argument against predictability claims that the markets are “efficient”. That is, if there is any predictability, it’s quickly spotted by Wall Street’s finest, thoroughly exploited, and thus rendered useless.
On the other hand, a graph of the stock market in the United States over the last century shows a long, upward curve, which suggests predictability on some timescale. But what is it, and how can it be used?
According to Mr Poundstone, some answers have been found by Robert Shiller, a Yale economist and Nobel laureate. Along with fellow economist John Campbell, Mr Shiller has devised a measure of stock-market performance known as the Cyclically-Adjusted Price-Earnings (Cape) ratio.
While television pundits focus on market movements over periods of weeks, days or even hours, the Cape ratio ignores all this. Instead, it looks at market behaviour over the previous 10 years.
Only on that timescale can one see through the random jitters to glimpse the market’s “hot hand” behaviour. And according to Messrs Shiller and Campbell, this provides a pretty reliable guide to future market performance.
Stock-market data that harks back to the 1880s show that when the Cape ratio is markedly above its long-term average, the market is heading for a cooling-off period, when shares will perform relatively poorly.
Thus the time to buy shares is when the Cape ratio is lower than its long-term average of about 16.
Now for the bad news: the Cape ratio for the S&P 500 index currently stands at over 26, a level only previously surpassed in 1929, 1999 and 2007 – the dates of the three most notorious financial-market crashes.
Mr Shiller has stressed that he isn’t saying a crash is imminent. But we may be advised to brace ourselves for a long period of disappointing returns.
Whether the Cape ratio is as trustworthy during these strange economic times as it once was remains to be seen. What is certain is that most of us need all the help we can get to differentiate market signal from noise.
Robert Matthews is a visiting reader in science at Aston University, Birmingham.
newsdesk@thenational.ae
'Downton Abbey: A New Era'
Director: Simon Curtis
Cast: Hugh Bonneville, Elizabeth McGovern, Maggie Smith, Michelle Dockery, Laura Carmichael, Jim Carter and Phyllis Logan
Rating: 4/5
COMPANY PROFILE
Founders: Alhaan Ahmed, Alyina Ahmed and Maximo Tettamanzi
Total funding: Self funded
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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The specs
Engine: Direct injection 4-cylinder 1.4-litre
Power: 150hp
Torque: 250Nm
Price: From Dh139,000
On sale: Now
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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Moon Music
Artist: Coldplay
Label: Parlophone/Atlantic
Number of tracks: 10
Rating: 3/5
Joker: Folie a Deux
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Brendan Gleeson
Director: Todd Phillips
Rating: 2/5
DMZ facts
- The DMZ was created as a buffer after the 1950-53 Korean War.
- It runs 248 kilometers across the Korean Peninsula and is 4km wide.
- The zone is jointly overseen by the US-led United Nations Command and North Korea.
- It is littered with an estimated 2 million mines, tank traps, razor wire fences and guard posts.
- Donald Trump and Kim Jong-Un met at a building in Panmunjom, where an armistice was signed to stop the Korean War.
- Panmunjom is 52km north of the Korean capital Seoul and 147km south of Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital.
- Former US president Bill Clinton visited Panmunjom in 1993, while Ronald Reagan visited the DMZ in 1983, George W. Bush in 2002 and Barack Obama visited a nearby military camp in 2012.
- Mr Trump planned to visit in November 2017, but heavy fog that prevented his helicopter from landing.
Why it pays to compare
A comparison of sending Dh20,000 from the UAE using two different routes at the same time - the first direct from a UAE bank to a bank in Germany, and the second from the same UAE bank via an online platform to Germany - found key differences in cost and speed. The transfers were both initiated on January 30.
Route 1: bank transfer
The UAE bank charged Dh152.25 for the Dh20,000 transfer. On top of that, their exchange rate margin added a difference of around Dh415, compared with the mid-market rate.
Total cost: Dh567.25 - around 2.9 per cent of the total amount
Total received: €4,670.30
Route 2: online platform
The UAE bank’s charge for sending Dh20,000 to a UK dirham-denominated account was Dh2.10. The exchange rate margin cost was Dh60, plus a Dh12 fee.
Total cost: Dh74.10, around 0.4 per cent of the transaction
Total received: €4,756
The UAE bank transfer was far quicker – around two to three working days, while the online platform took around four to five days, but was considerably cheaper. In the online platform transfer, the funds were also exposed to currency risk during the period it took for them to arrive.
COMPANY%20PROFILE%20
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The specs
Engine: 2.7-litre 4-cylinder Turbomax
Power: 310hp
Torque: 583Nm
Transmission: 8-speed automatic
Price: From Dh192,500
On sale: Now
The specs
Engine: 1.5-litre turbo
Power: 181hp
Torque: 230Nm
Transmission: 6-speed automatic
Starting price: Dh79,000
On sale: Now
Most%20ODI%20hundreds
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South Africa v India schedule
Tests: 1st Test Jan 5-9, Cape Town; 2nd Test Jan 13-17, Centurion; 3rd Test Jan 24-28, Johannesburg
ODIs: 1st ODI Feb 1, Durban; 2nd ODI Feb 4, Centurion; 3rd ODI Feb 7, Cape Town; 4th ODI Feb 10, Johannesburg; 5th ODI Feb 13, Port Elizabeth; 6th ODI Feb 16, Centurion
T20Is: 1st T20I Feb 18, Johannesburg; 2nd T20I Feb 21, Centurion; 3rd T20I Feb 24, Cape Town
Company%20profile
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Company%20profile
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COMPANY PROFILE
Initial investment: Undisclosed
Investment stage: Series A
Investors: Core42
Current number of staff: 47
Company%20Profile
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SPEC%20SHEET%3A%20APPLE%20TV%204K%20(THIRD%20GENERATION)
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Living in...
This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.
How to protect yourself when air quality drops
Install an air filter in your home.
Close your windows and turn on the AC.
Shower or bath after being outside.
Wear a face mask.
Stay indoors when conditions are particularly poor.
If driving, turn your engine off when stationary.
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Almnssa
Started: August 2020
Founder: Areej Selmi
Based: Gaza
Sectors: Internet, e-commerce
Investments: Grants/private funding
Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
What is graphene?
Graphene is extracted from graphite and is made up of pure carbon.
It is 200 times more resistant than steel and five times lighter than aluminum.
It conducts electricity better than any other material at room temperature.
It is thought that graphene could boost the useful life of batteries by 10 per cent.
Graphene can also detect cancer cells in the early stages of the disease.
The material was first discovered when Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov were 'playing' with graphite at the University of Manchester in 2004.
Company%20Profile
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Specs%20
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info-box
COMPANY PROFILE
Company name: Happy Tenant
Started: January 2019
Co-founders: Joe Moufarrej and Umar Rana
Based: Dubai
Sector: Technology, real-estate
Initial investment: Dh2.5 million
Investors: Self-funded
Total customers: 4,000
UAE%20SQUAD
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The specs
Engine: 1.5-litre 4-cylinder petrol
Power: 154bhp
Torque: 250Nm
Transmission: 7-speed automatic with 8-speed sports option
Price: From Dh79,600
On sale: Now
Difference between fractional ownership and timeshare
Although similar in its appearance, the concept of a fractional title deed is unlike that of a timeshare, which usually involves multiple investors buying “time” in a property whereby the owner has the right to occupation for a specified period of time in any year, as opposed to the actual real estate, said John Peacock, Head of Indirect Tax and Conveyancing, BSA Ahmad Bin Hezeem & Associates, a law firm.
Why does a queen bee feast only on royal jelly?
Some facts about bees:
The queen bee eats only royal jelly, an extraordinary food created by worker bees so she lives much longer
The life cycle of a worker bee is from 40-60 days
A queen bee lives for 3-5 years
This allows her to lay millions of eggs and allows the continuity of the bee colony
About 20,000 honey bees and one queen populate each hive
Honey is packed with vital vitamins, minerals, enzymes, water and anti-oxidants.
Apart from honey, five other products are royal jelly, the special food bees feed their queen
Pollen is their protein source, a super food that is nutritious, rich in amino acids
Beewax is used to construct the combs. Due to its anti-fungal, anti-bacterial elements, it is used in skin treatments
Propolis, a resin-like material produced by bees is used to make hives. It has natural antibiotic qualities so works to sterilize hive, protects from disease, keeps their home free from germs. Also used to treat sores, infection, warts
Bee venom is used by bees to protect themselves. Has anti-inflammatory properties, sometimes used to relieve conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis, nerve and muscle pain
Honey, royal jelly, pollen have health enhancing qualities
The other three products are used for therapeutic purposes
Is beekeeping dangerous?
As long as you deal with bees gently, you will be safe, says Mohammed Al Najeh, who has worked with bees since he was a boy.
“The biggest mistake people make is they panic when they see a bee. They are small but smart creatures. If you move your hand quickly to hit the bees, this is an aggressive action and bees will defend themselves. They can sense the adrenalin in our body. But if we are calm, they are move away.”
Directed by: Craig Gillespie
Starring: Emma Stone, Emma Thompson, Joel Fry
4/5
Jigra
Starring: Alia Bhatt, Vedang Raina, Manoj Pahwa, Harsh Singh
The more serious side of specialty coffee
While the taste of beans and freshness of roast is paramount to the specialty coffee scene, so is sustainability and workers’ rights.
The bulk of genuine specialty coffee companies aim to improve on these elements in every stage of production via direct relationships with farmers. For instance, Mokha 1450 on Al Wasl Road strives to work predominantly with women-owned and -operated coffee organisations, including female farmers in the Sabree mountains of Yemen.
Because, as the boutique’s owner, Garfield Kerr, points out: “women represent over 90 per cent of the coffee value chain, but are woefully underrepresented in less than 10 per cent of ownership and management throughout the global coffee industry.”
One of the UAE’s largest suppliers of green (meaning not-yet-roasted) beans, Raw Coffee, is a founding member of the Partnership of Gender Equity, which aims to empower female coffee farmers and harvesters.
Also, globally, many companies have found the perfect way to recycle old coffee grounds: they create the perfect fertile soil in which to grow mushrooms.