Books like Rock breaks scissors by William Poundstone

The IgNobel Prize-winning author of How to Dunk a Doughnut draws on the science of game theory to explain how human beings cooperate in everyday life.

A playful yarn tracing the playful origins of the classic game Rock, Paper, Scissors, where each buddy battles the other and wins over children worldwide.

An examination of how decisions made by individuals combine to form unexpected and often counter-intuitive aggregate results.

The book is organized around parallel analyses of emotion and addiction in order to bring out similarities as well as differences. Elster's study sheds fresh light on the generation of human behavior, ultimately revealing how cognition, choice, and rationality are undermined by the physical processes that underlie strong emotions and cravings. This book will be of particular interest to those studying the variety of human motivations who are dissatisfied with the prevailing reductionisms.

"Predictive analytics unleashes the power of data. With this technology, computers literally learn from data how to predict future behaviors of individuals. In this updated and revised edition of Predictive Analytics, former Columbia University professor and Predictive Analytics World founder Eric Siegel reveals the power and perils of prediction. New material includes: - The Real Reason the NSA Wants Your Data: Automatic Suspect Discovery. A special sidebar in Chapter 2, "With Power Comes Responsibility," presumes--with much evidence--that the National Security Agency considers PA a strategic priority. Can the organization use PA without endangering civil liberties? - Dozens of new examples from Facebook, Hopper, Shell, Uber, UPS, the U.S. government, and more. The Central Tables' compendium of mini-case studies has grown to 182 entries, including breaking examples. - A much needed warning regarding bad science. Chapter 3, "The Data Effect," includes an in-depth section about an all-too-common pitfall, and how we avoid it, i.e., how to successfully tap data's potential without being fooled by random noise, ensuring sound discoveries are made. - Even more extensive Notes, updated and expanded to 70+ pages, now moved to an online PDF. Now located at www.predictivenotes.com, the Notes include citations and comments that cover the above new content, as well as new citations for many other topics"--

How to Predict the Unpredictable teaches how human biases like representativeness shape decisions and how we can use these insights to improve everyday choices – from tests and passwords to sweepstakes and investing.