reading like a madman.

so since i've been unemployed, i've been reading a lot. here's a list of what i've read so far:
- gig
- smart mobs
- the alchemist
- the paradox of choice
- blink
- wicked
- the life of pi (in progress)
- reading lolita in tehran (next)
- native speaker (after next)

plowing through these books, sitting in front of my computer, playing nba street vol. 3, and watching back to back to back episodes of 24...oh, my eyes.

*oops*

it's been quite some time since i blogged. i apologize for leaving any of my loyal readers hanging with the answer to the question i posed in the last blog entry. i'm sure all 2 of you were hanging by the seat of your pants.

anyway, to answer the question, it's called the endowment effect. once you own something, even if it's not the exact thing that you want, you *own* it now, and having to give it up gives you some kind of pain, simply because it's already yours. so if i were to tell you first that i was going to give you a pen, and give you the opportunity to swap it for a mug, the chances of you swapping are now much higher because you haven't owned the pen yet - it is, in your mind, still an abstraction. so there is no pain involved in giving it up. another way to think of it is you haven't incurred the opportunity cost of taking one thing and sacrificing it for another.

so how does this apply to fantasy sports? the endowment effect causes some fantasy players, imo, to overvalue their guys, because they've had the guy for so long. well, at least it makes for some interesting trade proposals. as an old fantasy nerd (and i guess this involves a bit of psychology too), i'll target players that were recently acquired by the other manager. since he/she hasn't owned the player as long, the endowment effect is less, and therefore the manager is more willing to trade.

i'm sure there are other more practical applications to this theory. as such, i'm too tired to think of them.