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Craig Antonucci's avatar

LOVE this article, made me realize I had done this once, something I can channel again. I'm a musician, so when Rock Band came out, of course, I and my bandmates HAD to play. We grew frustrated that we couldn't make it past the first few stages even though we were good musicians (first context clue as to why this article is relevant). So, in our frustration, we started downing Irish Car bombs like we were not going to live another day (which, the next day, we wish we weren't alive...what a hangover). Back to the game, as I was the singer of the group my voice grew tired, and I was the only one that had to use a physical ability to play. I then started humming and buzzing on the note instead of actually singing the words. It worked. The game didn't care if I said, "Mississippi Queen," or, "BZZZZZZZZZZ" it sounded the same according to the software. Luckily, the car bombs numbed the senses of the annoying sounds I was making, and we were able to get pretty far into the game before we lost track of any further memory of the moment. So, the rational thought was that if you were a musician, you should excel at this game...but it was the contrary, you just needed to know how to play the game.

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jjjulio's avatar

Michael Mauboussin wrote a nice paper about size v. frequency of winnings which is not too long or too technical and, of course, he's super smart on this stuff.

https://www.valuewalk.com/2016/04/michael-mauboussin-babe-ruth-effect-frequency-vs-magnitude/

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