Austrian National Day

Yesterday was Austrian National Day here in the alpine republic. Like many things Austrian, what we commemorate on this day is a bit roundabout and even contradictory. Many Austrians would say that we celebrate our freedom from occupation forces following World War II. This is certainly true. The last occupying soldier left Austria on October …

Death as a career move

I finished The Thirst on Friday. It was an entertaining diversion and has already provided the basis for an earlier blog entry about the availability heuristic. Jo Nesbø is a true multi talent. Before becoming a writer, he was a professional soccer player and successful stockbroker, and for 29 years he has been the lead …

Why we fear terrorism but not car crashes

Jo Nesbø’s The Thirst is my current eye candy book. If you enjoy fast paced Scandinavian crime fiction, I highly recommend Nesbø’s brilliant but alcoholic protagonist Harry Hole. The Thirst is the 11th book in the series and also provided me with an opportunity to return to cognitive biases, something I have written about in …

Death as a Motivator

Yesterday I ran across the following statistic in a back issue of Science: 40%: Boost in performance of college basketball players in back-to-back games who answered questions on how they felt about death in the interim. Players who answered questions about basketball showed no boost. Following up, I learned that the specific study is rooted …