In an extraordinary irony, the 100 trillion dollar note – a symbol of financial mismanagement on a colossal scale – has turned into one of the best-performing asset classes of recent years.
Author: Edouard Chazal
How I Used Maths To Beat The Bookies
There is a caveat to all of my modelling work, a small detail that I haven’t yet revealed. It is this. What I haven’t mentioned is that I had a fifth model. It was called “ask my wife”. Lovisa Sumpter is a very talented individual. She is an associate professor of mathematics education in Sweden, where we live, and a qualified yoga instructor. She also has a much better record than her husband in football betting. When she was still a student, Lovisa correctly predicted the outcome of every one of the 13 matches in the Swedish Stryktipset. The chance of getting these right by picking randomly is 1 in 3 to the power of 13 (or 1/1,594,323). Although the pay-out for her winning week was relatively small, she remains proud of being one of the few people in Sweden to “get 13 right”.
What Tech’s Unicorn Cult Can Learn from the Art World
The art world knows about prices floating ever higher on abstraction and hope. The resonances aren’t completely coincidental. Both venture capitalists and art buyers are in the business of valuing the invaluable. Both stake their reputations on exquisite selection. Both nurture talent before it can support itself. Both have a soft spot for youth, for unbowed ego, for the myth of solitary genius, for the next new thing. Both operate in a world of frustratingly limited information and maddeningly unpredictable success. Both depend on consumer culture while holding themselves superior to it. And both the art market and venture investing have become increasingly winner-take-all games, with more clout to the companies and artists backed by the most powerful dealers or venture capitalists.
Credit : Harold Cunningham
Experience: I own the world’s ugliest dog
A lovely story :
I wish I’d known her as a puppy. I picture her small enough to hold in your hand, and she’s with her brothers and sisters; they’re all normal little dogs and then there’s this tiny hunchback. Working at the shelter, I could adopt all the beautiful purebreds if I wanted to; but Quasi shows that you don’t need to be the most perfect-looking animal to be a loving pet. She gets on with all our other animals and cuddles up to one of our cats who likes sleeping with her.
I don’t feel sorry for her. She teaches people tolerance, especially those who initially stare, because they think she’s ugly or they’re afraid; she always wins them over. She’s taught me not to dwell on what’s wrong in life. She’s not self-conscious. She doesn’t look in the mirror and go, “Oh, poor me.” She’s the epitome of happiness.
Jo felt being an MP mattered. She was right
I am tired beyond words of the cynical nonsense spouted every day by professional pundits (as well as amateur ones) that politicians are just in it for themselves, want nothing other than glory or the opportunity to fiddle bath plugs on their parliamentary expenses. Attention must be paid. Most MPs, of all parties, are decent people doing a tough job as well as they can.
When do we ever stop to applaud the manifold virtues of our politics? Why are we so receptive to the calumny that politicians are habitual liars? Jo Cox has been added, senselessly and without compensating progress, to the roll-call of people who lost their lives doing a democratic duty.
Abnormal Capitalist 