Here is a graph that I saw on X recently:

It is an example of how the month of birth can affect one's chances of participating in the higher levels of various activities. As you can see, the majority of Oilers were born in the last half of the year. Obviously, this is a small sample, but the effect has been reproduced in much larger samples in a large number of sports.

Some years back, I was involved in a similar study, but this one involved participation rates in university vs month of birth. I was working for a major Canadian research university at the time, and the other parties were from the provincial government. In the data that we looked at, there was a decided tilt, whereby being born towards the end of the year reduced one's probability of attending university.

In both cases, it is thought that the children born near the end of the cut-off data for a given activity are disadvantaged compared to children born near the beginning of the cut-off. In sports that would mean kids born near the start of the calendar year have an advantage over those born near the end of the calendar year (e.g. in minor league hockey that would give more time for physical, intellectual and emotional development). Similarly for school, though the timing of the effect may differ, depending on when the school intake happens to be.

It is quite an intractable problem. Efforts have been made to address it by changing the timing of intake to the activity, but that just tends to move the problem to different parts of the year. Having two intake periods can help, but that creates administrative problems and cost issues (e.g. the need for more teachers).

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It would be interesting to know if this applies to horse racing. A race for three-year-olds could have some horses that were just barely 3, and others might be almost 4. In horse physiology, that could make a big difference.

Anyway, that's my lead-in to flog a horse-racing related short story on Amazon.

A Dark Horse

In “A Dark Horse”, a gambler’s desire to hit a big win seems to lead him to make a Faustian bargain with a supernatural evil. Or is it all just a string of unnaturally good luck?

The story is just $0.99 U.S. (equivalent in other currencies) and about 8000 words. It is also available on Kindle Unlimited and is occasionally on free promotion.

U.S.: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01M9BS3Y5

U.K.: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01M9BS3Y5

Germany: https://www.amazon.de/dp/B01M9BS3Y5

France: https://www.amazon.fr/dp/B01M9BS3Y5

Italy: https://www.amazon.it/dp/B01M9BS3Y5

Netherlands: https://www.amazon.nl/dp/B01M9BS3Y5

Spain:https://www.amazon.es/dp/B01M9BS3Y5

Japan: https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B01M9BS3Y5

India: https://www.amazon.in/dp/B01M9BS3Y5

Mexico: https://www.amazon.com.mx/dp/B01M9BS3Y5

Brazil: https://www.amazon.com.br/dp/B01M9BS3Y5

Canada: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B01MDMY2BR

Australia: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B01M9BS3Y5

Here’s an interesting review from Goodreads:

(BTW, the writer has never met the reviewer and was not even aware of the review until very recently – You can look up the review on Goodreads, if you like)

A Dark Horse

Every gambler is bound to run out of luck eventually, right?

By far my favourite type of horror is psychological horror. I was quite pleased with how Mr. Olausen frightened his audience without spilling a single drop of blood or so much as hinting at anything gory. He knew exactly what hints to drop for us that made us deliciously dread the next scene simply by throwing out hints about who or what the dark horse might actually represent. This is the kind of stuff I love getting scared by, especially as Halloween approaches.

It would have been helpful to have more character development in this short story. While I certainly wouldn’t expect to see as much time spent on this as I would for a full-length novel, I did have trouble connecting to the main characters due to how little I knew about them and how much their personalities seemed to remain the same no matter what happened to them. If not for this issue, I would have felt comfortable choosing a much higher rating as the plot itself was well done.

I must admit to not knowing much about gambling at all, so I appreciated the brief explanations the narrator shared about how placing bets works and why some people have so much trouble walking away from a bet. While I will leave it up to experts on these topics to say how accurate everything was, I did enjoy learning more about the main character’s addiction and what he hoped to gain from betting on just one more game or race. It gave me a stronger sense of empathy for folks in his position.

A Dark Horse – A Gothic Tale was a deliciously chilling story for the Halloween season and beyond.

Why were Geoffrey Hinton and John H. Field (Computing Science Researchers) awarded a Nobel Prize in physics ?

Probably the simplest answer is that AI has a huge hype train rolling along, with upwards of a trillion dollars having been invested in the technology. Investors are beginning to have serious doubts about when and if the technology will ever pay off, in terms of doing useful things cheaper than can be done with current methods and technology.

A Nobel Prize is a high status award, which is great PR for whatever research project is under consideration, especially one that requires huge infusions of cash. There is no Nobel Prize for Computing Science; physics seems to be the category that comes closest (think of all the physics grads that work in AI and data science in general). The Nobel Prize in physics therefore gives reassurance to all those investors that AI is the real thing, and is is worth continuing to pour money into it. It also gives reassurance to all those students, to keep enrolling in the field (and the professors).

Does the Nobel Committee actually think this way? Maybe not, at least overtly. But they care about maintaining the Nobel Prize as something that the population in general cares about and hears a lot about (AI is always in the news). So, it makes sense for them to take a seat on they hype train too.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note: This was originally a Quora post, but it did pretty well, so I thought I should make a blog of it.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I am presently working on a novel where AI plays a major role (about 80% finished). This short story is now the first chapter of that book. Just a FYI.

The Magnetic Anomaly: A Science Fiction Story

“A geophysical crew went into the Canadian north. There were some regrettable accidents among a few ex-military who had become geophysical contractors after their service in the forces. A young man and young woman went temporarily mad from the stress of seeing that. They imagined things, terrible things. But both are known to have vivid imaginations; we have childhood records to verify that. It was all very sad. That’s the official story.”

You can purchase it for all of 99 cents. Alternatively, keep your eyes open for a free
promotions, which occur periodically. Or, get it with Kindle Unlimited.

Amazon:

U.S.: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0176H22B4

UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0176H22B4

Canada: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0176H22B4

France: https://www.amazon.fr/dp/B0176H22B4

Italy: https://www.amazon.it/dp/B0176H22B4

Netherlands: https://www.amazon.nl/dp/B0176H22B4

Spain: https://www.amazon.es/dp/B0176H22B4

Japan: https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B0176H22B4

Mexico: https://www.amazon.com.mx/dp/B0176H22B4

Australia: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B0176H22B4

Germany: https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0176H22B4