A fairly random collection of my historical curiosities, commentary on events of the day, reviews, and the occasional mad raving.
Monday, February 03, 2020
Calling it right now: Tom Steyer is going to win in Iowa
Thursday, October 29, 2015
Republican primary debate #3 review
I’m a big believer in rigor and precision as well as thorough documentation. For elections, the prediction markets give a sense of where a candidate is at any moment and how that changes over time. I’m going to cash out my intuitions into a buy or sell order at the current stated price from Predictwise. Then at the end of the election, we will objectively know if I had a clue.
All quotes will be from the time a post was written, if it gets published a bit later they may be dated. Buy / sell and sizing is based on my gut without any deliberative number crunching. With those preliminaries out of the way, let’s get to content:
Bush now seems like one of many. He isn't very punchy or unique. His front runner status as a natural schelling point was kind of what made him, without that he's toast.
Sell 100 @ $0.103
I still like my long 300 position on Rubio he remains well spoken.
No trade
Ted Cruz just looks too smug. He won't get it but he may go up before he goes down. If I wanted to 'day trade' I'd switch to a long position and try to get back to short before he comes down again. Instead I'll be more moderate and ease off the short just a bit
Buy 100 @ $0.079
Carson still isn’t happening. I said that last time and it's my worst call, but it won't happen. People asked about the tithe, some know he's crazy.
Sell 100 @ $0.089
No change with Huckabee, but I do like what he says about focusing on curing diseases.
No trade
Christie seemed minor now. He didn't seem to be at the core of the debate.
Sell 200 @ $0.045
Kasich has stopped engaging with the questions asked of him and stopped playing the game. At this point he is just trying to talk sense into people..
Sell 200 @ $0.023
Fiorina seems like rubio at the first debate. Generally well spoken and good at the politics thing (awkward closing statement aside). She ran a major company into the ground so she won't get it, but she may go up before she doesn't.
Buy 200 @ $0.03
Trump seemed less like a juggernaut than before, but I still can't call anything.
No trade, I don’t feel I understand this one well enough.
Friday, August 07, 2015
Republican primary debate review
On this blog I review things. I review music. I review cocktails I’m developing, and today I’m going to review yesterday’s republican debates. For those here for the cocktails, don’t worry my next set of tasting notes will go up later today, this post won’t doesn’t replace my usual series.
Cocktails are subjective, I might like a drink with a more bitter note while someone else might prefer it to play down the bitter and use more sourness to provide punch. For a primary, the goal of the candidates is to win and winning provides an objective measure. So instead of rating the candidates on their overall goodness (or badness as the case may be) I’ll go over what the debates made me think about their chances to win.
As you probably can tell, I’m a big believer in rigor and precision as well as thorough documentation. For elections, the prediction markets give a sense of where a candidate is at any moment and how that changes over time. I’m going to cash out my intuitions into a buy or sell order at the current stated price from Predictwise. Then at the end of the election, we will objectively know if I had a clue.
All quotes will be from the time a post was written, if it gets published a bit later they may be dated. Buy / sell and sizing is based on my gut without any deliberative number crunching. With those preliminaries out of the way, let’s get to content:
Bush was enh. His closing statement was quite weak and a few answers were fumbling even if he did have a few good moments. I feel like other people were better at this than him. He has raised a lot of money and gotten a lot of endorsements though.
Sell 100 @ $0.407
Rubio is surprisingly well spoken. He was by far the best at the basic task of just talking and sounding clear, crisp, and not rambling. He had by far the most “presidential” demeanor. I feel like he is a very likely pick for the primary. He cut very far to the right on abortion here giving an answer that says he opposes life of the mother exceptions (though he has proposed and advocated for them previously). That could hurt in the general, but he said it in a way that would be hard to quote.
“Well, Megyn, first of all, I'm not sure that's a correct assessment of my record, I have never said that, and I have never advocated that. What I have advocated is that we pass a law in this country that says all human life, at every stage of its development, is worthy of protection. And in fact I think that law already exists. It's called the Constitution of the United States."
His quote never uses the word "exception", or the phrase “medical necessity”, or “life of the mother”. This would make it difficult to quote in an attack ad. This, to me, shows that he is very careful and good at the basic task of phrasing and can make things easy to quote for sound bytes or make things hard to quote for doublespeak.
Buy 300 @ $0.101
Ted Cruz just looks too smug. No chance, people who see his face are just going to want to punch him.
Sell 200 @ $0.028
Walker looked and sounded surprisingly out of his depth. He really just didn’t seem presidential. Some coverage (inc the Times) seems to think he did well, but seeing this debate I’m sure he won’t make it. If America wasn’t making it very difficult for its citizens to use prediction markets I would put real money on a bet against him.
Sell 200 @ $0.167
Carson isn’t happening, no need for much detail.
Sell 500 @ $0.021
Same with Huckabee, but he sounds more off putting and extreme.
Sell 200 @ $0.034
Rand Paul isn’t going to make it either, too many of his positions are out of alignment with the republican mainstream. What I wanted to see was if he was going to walk back his positions or try to stick with them and get a few delegates to horse trade with. He seems to be walking back from many of his positions and that’s not going to work.
Sell 100 @ $0.043
Christie seemed surprisingly capable to me. He was the only candidate able to talk numerically and precisely about any issue. I don’t think his numbers are actually correct, but he demonstrated an ability to at least engage with substance.
Buy 100 @ $0.029
Kasich seemed and sounded like a surprisingly decent human and seemed less “phony” than the rest. That said, he didn’t focus on his record as governor and kept forcing questions in odd directions to speak about his time in Washington during the Clinton administration (when the budget was balanced). Obliquely reminding people how great the Clinton years were is a not a good strategy for republicans.
Buy 100 @ $0.049
Trump didn’t seem great to me, but he also didn’t seem apologetic or to be changing his core strategy / persona. People who like him will probably continue to like him. That said I don’t see him as playing well in Iowa or New Hampshire so the wind may go out of his sails after those two primaries.
No trade, I don’t feel I understand this one well enough.
Tuesday, May 12, 2015
In the news - Jurassic Park Precursor
Thos who know me well know I have long advocated a real world Jurassic Park as a modern day moon shot. Pour huge amounts of research money into biology; forgive student debt for anyone graduating college with a degree in molecular biology (subject to some yet to be created post graduation competency check.)
The primary nominal goal would be to bring back dinosaurs, mainly for the coolness value. “We choose to resurrect the Tyrannosaurus, not because it is easy, but because it is hard. And also awesome.” But the fact is that the huge investment in biology and the build up a large population of biologists would enable a lot more research and a lot more start ups and that would drive advancement in a lot of other areas.
Mad schemes aside, I’d be happy just to get the dinos and it seems that progress is being made.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/12/science/reverse-engineering-birds-beaks-into-dinosaur-bones.htmlWednesday, April 29, 2015
Shellac - “Dude Incredible”
Next up Shellac - “Dude Incredible”. Number 80
A very rock sounding song. Really good guitar. Just awesome rocking guitar. Its got a strong classic rock vibe but the song is much less structured, or it is structured much more non traditionally with some interesting transactions.
On the negative, I think the song presents a socially harmful view of gender relations. That said, its allegedly written from the perspective of a troupe of monkeys (yay google!). I’m not so sure about that, there are some attitudes in there that sound very familiar to me, and I’ve never had a conversation with a monkey (other than in the narrow technical sense in which people are monkeys). A lot of people whose music is misogynist claim that they are writing from a perspective or that it’s a character or whatever. But on the other other hand, monkeys!
I’ll leave this with a net neutral review, but with the caveat that if you really love guitars or monkeys you should check this song out.
Tuesday, April 28, 2015
Andy Stott - “Faith in Strangers”
Next up Andy Stott - “Faith in Strangers”. Number 81
I like this track. Its pretty good to start with and it improves with repeated listens. There is a lot going on and once you've heard it a few times and your brain is more familiar with the patterns its a lot better. It reminds me of a less radio friendly version of Massive Attack or a warmer softer slower version of some of the loopy tracks from Atoms for Peace. I could also so a resemblance to Aphex Twin. If you like any of those bands check this out.
The album is called “Faith in Strangers” and one of its two 'singles' is also called “Faith in Strangers”. When I first went to check out this track I accidentally opened up a video of the full album. I ended up listening to the whole thing because it was good enough that I never reached a point where I felt compelled to stop listening to it. I think the album works well as a whole and it feels more 'natural' starting at the beginning and listening through. So as a bonus, below is a link to the whole album. If you've got some time check it out. I bet it would reward a headphone listen, but it works just fine for listening to at work. Probably a little slow to check out while running.
Monday, April 27, 2015
Jessica Pratt - “Back, Baby”
Next up Jessica Pratt - “Back, Baby”. Number 82
A sad song but a good one. Maybe more wistful or mourning than properly sad. It’s a song about the past and a relationship that didn’t work out.
She has a really nice voice for a song like this. Her voice is very expressive. Its on top of some simple but very nice guitar strumming that adds mood and doesn’t get in the way.
Based on the small sample size of one song, it sounds like an intersection of Joanna Newsom and Marissa Nadler. Though not to oversell it, this song doesn’t have the lyrical brilliance of Joanna Newsom and the guitar playing doesn’t show the same ability to do everything at once that Marissa Nadler does when she’s playing a small venue with good acoustics.
I’ll probably check out the album and there are a few live shows coming up in the next couple of months, I might well check one of them out.