Month: April 2024

Rob K. Henderson discusses his writing process, interestingly, downplaying the role of talent: Yes, you need some bare minimum level of ability to be a good writer, but not as much as you might think. It also implies that the writer can only do things he or she is “good at.” Most people aren’t working… Continue reading The importance of talent and the difficulty of ‘good writing’

Item #1: Meta stock falls 10% on weak guidance and concerns over AI spending despite an otherwise strong quarter, shown below: Of course, I lost a lot on this, which amounted to around 5% of the total portfolio. Thanks to diversification this was not as bad as the 20% decline incurred by FBL, an ETF… Continue reading The Daily View 4/28/2024: Meta Crash, Stock Surge, Bitcoin Falls, Biden Approval Falls

From Erik Hoel, I’m a neuroscientist. Our presidential candidates have shrinking prefrontal cortexes. Age-related cognitive decline–or at least some slowing of intellectual ability–is likely real to some variable extent, as Dr. Hoel shows. For tenured professors, there is marked decline of output with age. Public intellectuals produce their most important findings by their 40s, and… Continue reading Age-Related Cognitive Decline is Real

From CNN: Biden just signed a potential TikTok ban into law. Here’s what happens next. Pundits are erroneously calling this a TikTok ban, when it’s anything but. It’s more like a roadmap of options that could, in theory, potentially lead to a ban down the road if TikTok management is somehow unable to avail itself… Continue reading TikTok Ban: Take 2 (Why it won’t happen)

Time for another update on the Bitcoin method, in which I describe a ‘night effect’ for Bitcoin, similar to one that has existed for stocks for decades. A highly-cited paper from 2008 describes a night effect for stocks: We use transaction-level data and decompose the US equity premium into day (open to close) and night… Continue reading A Strong ‘Night Effect’ for Bitcoin: All of bitcoin’s gains come from overnight

I saw this going viral, from The Economist: Generation Z is unprecedentedly rich: Millennials were poorer at this stage in their lives. So were baby-boomers. Gen-z benefited from five key economic tailwinds or trends over the past 15 or so years, although this also applies to many millennials too: 1. Inflated white-collar salaries and substantial… Continue reading Why Generation Z is Unprecedentedly Rich

This week feels like Déjà vu of last week. Item #1: From the NYTs: Muted Reactions to Israeli Strikes on Iran Hint at De-Escalation, “Israel had vowed retaliation for Iran’s attack last weekend, but the strikes reported overnight were limited, and Iran downplayed them.” This agrees with what I wrote last week here and here,… Continue reading The Daily View 4/21/2024: Iran vs. Israel, DJT Stock Comeback

Peter Thiel said that AI will be “worse for the math people than the word people.” My intuition would be it’s going to be quite the opposite, where it seems much worse for the math people than the word people. What people have told me is that they think within three to five years, the… Continue reading AI will not make writers obsolete

I saw this going viral: Harvard will require test scores for admission again (archive link) “Critics correctly note that standardized tests are not an unbiased measure of students’ qualifications, as students from higher-income families often have greater access to test prep and other resources,” Chetty said in a statement Thursday. “But the data reveal that… Continue reading Test-Optional is a Failure: The Return of the SATs

It’s time to expound on the recent situation involving Israel and Iran. With Israel and Iran in full-swing, all the prediction sites like Metaculus have added markets for wagering or estimating the possibility of war involving Israel and Iran. Thank you–where were you guys a week ago? A lot of good that does. Yet again–like… Continue reading Iran vs. Israel: The problem with forecasting, and my heuristic for profiting