The New York Times:

Carol Kauffman, an assistant clinical professor at Harvard Medical School: &#8220-When you’re really engaged in a hobby you love, you lose your sense of time and enter what’s called a flow state, and that restores your mind and energy.&#8221- [&#8230-] &#8220-That positive emotion builds your cognitive and social skills. If you follow your bliss [*] for a little while, it really gives you a surge of energy.&#8221-

Dr. Gabriela Cora, a psychiatrist who is managing partner of the Florida Neuroscience Center and president of Executive Health and Wealth Institute: &#8220-Making time for enjoyable activities stimulates parts of the brain associated with creative and positive thinking. You become emotionally and intellectually more motivated.&#8221-

Gail McMeekin, a psychotherapist and owner of Creative Success: &#8220-Any time you take a break from routine, you develop new ways of thinking&#8221-.[&#8230-] &#8220-You have to do some market research first and make sure you could earn a living doing your hobby. You also take the risk that making your hobby your career [*] will take all the fun out of it.&#8221-

[*] His &#8220-bliss&#8221- right now is to chronicle the Writers Guild America&#8217-s 2007 strike on Inkling Markets and Midas Oracle .COM.

[**] Told him 10 times!!!!!!!

RECOMMENDED READING: RGGI auction design flaw: Separate sealed-bid auctions for substitute goods poses needless risks for bidders – by Michael Giberson (at Knowledge Problem)

&#8220-RGGI&#8221- is short for the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (North East and Mid-Atlantic). They want to create a multi-state cap-and-trade program with a market-based emissions trading system. Economist Michael Giberson has found [links to Crampton&#8217-s paper that highlights] &#8220-one serious flaw that threatens the efficiency of the auction: they proposed to auction two goods which are asymmetric substitutes in separate, simultaneous sealed bid auctions.&#8221-

Mike, are there lessons here to learn when it comes to prediction market designs?

&#8212-

Psstt&#8230- The best sentence that Mike has ever told me is this one (from memory):

Maybe there&#8217-s a method in your madness.

Read the previous blog posts by Chris. F. Masse:

• Hot-Linking InTrade’s Advanced Charts
• Prediction Markets on FaceBook
• BetFair SP = BetFair Starting Price
• Gary Flake to David Pennock: Come on board… or die.
• Technology Futurism
• Trade on BetFair-TradeFair as you would trade on TradeSports-InTrade, thanks to order-entry software BinarySoft.
• Pervez Musharraf prediction markets –Eric Zitzewitz Edition