MapMyRun

Recently, I became aware of web-based training route application called MapMyRun.com. It allows you to create and share training routes and browse routes that have been submitted by other users. The site also has functional tools like a distance calculator and a workout calculator that determines your pace, speed and calories burned based on your sex, age, weight, height and time required to complete the route.
I tried to measure a route I regularly time myself on. According to my bicycle computer it is 9.65 km. Drawing it up on MapMyRun.com gave me a total distance of 9.60 km.

All in all, a useful (and seemingly accurate) tool, so give it go by clicking here.

Rationality and impatience

In recent post I discussed Tobias and time preference -the general conclusion was he was very impatient, although there was also an element og inconsistency in his choices. Eric Bettinger and Robert Slonim have an article in the Journal of Public Economics (Feb 2007) touching on children's rationality and patience. According tot he authors children are impatient and probably not rational and there is a lack of a relationship between mathematical ability and pateience. An extract from the abstract below:

....little is known about the nature of children’s patience, how it varies across children, and whether children can even make rational inter-temporal choices. This paper examines the inter-temporal choices of 5- to 16-year-old children in an artefactual field experiment. We examine their choices between varying levels of compensation received in 2 or 4 months in the future and in 0 or 2 months in the future. We find that children’s choices are consistent with hyperbolic discounting, boys are less patient than girls, older children are more patient and that mathematical achievement test scores, private schooling and parent’s patience are not correlated with children’s patience...

The paper is available here (forthcoming version)