The Folly Of Prediction

Following on from this post – Freakanomics Radio has an hour long special on the pointlessness of predictions. It’s impossible to predict the future, but humans can’t help themselves. From the economy to the presidency to the Super Bowl, educated and intelligent people promise insight and repeatedly fail by wide margins. These mistakes and misses…

Details

This Sounds Famliar

Superstition appears to arise from situations of uncertainty (Burger & Lynn, 2005; Felson & Gmelch, 1979; Vyse, 1997). Skinner (1948) was one of the first to document’ superstition’ as a way of describing the behaviors pigeons showed when reinforced with food on a fixed time interval. The pigeons were presented with a situation in which…

Details

Fibonacci

Whilst a variety of peanuts bang on about how magic Fibonacci numbers enable one to predict the market his true contribution to the West has been lost in a plethora of pseudo science,  gibberish and fluff that would not be out of place in a women’s magazine.

Michael Burry

If you have taken the time to read Michael Lewis’ The Big Short you will be familiar with the name Michael Burry. Burry is a former neurologist turned hedge fund manager who was one of the few individuals who foresaw the collapse in the CDO market. This is a Bloomberg piece on Burry and the…

Details

Melt Up?

I suppose the opposite of the much talked about meltdown is a melt up – although in some ways it does sound a bit much like those very ordinary sandwiches the yanks have that contain orange cheese. These large outside days are interesting because of what they do to systems. They are often big enough…

Details