knite

Karma: 201

knite Dec 29, 2020, 7:07 PM
3 points
in reply to: Stuart Anderson’s comment on: Where are the post-COVID complainers?

Anyone with half a brain can see what a disaster that would be

This is rather rude.

knite Dec 29, 2020, 7:33 AM
1 point
in reply to: remizidae’s comment on: Where are the post-COVID complainers?
Yup!

“All gatherings with members of other households are prohibited in the Region except as expressly permitted herein.”

“Nothing in this Order prevents any number of persons from the same household from leaving their residence, lodging, or temporary accommodation, as long as they do not engage in any interaction with (or otherwise gather with) any number of persons from any other household, except as specifically permitted herein.”

As far as I can see, the only exceptions are for “worship” and “political expression”.

knite Dec 28, 2020, 11:20 PM
2 points
in reply to: remizidae’s comment on: Where are the post-COVID complainers?
Ah, you’ve made me realize that I haven’t thought through the variability between cities and states. As someone living in California, I currently cannot: eat in restaurants (indoors or outdoors), go to bars (ditto), gather in groups outside my “household”, or get my hair cut.

knite Dec 24, 2020, 11:29 PM
1 point
on: The medical test paradox: Can redesigning Bayes rule help?
I just watched this last night and planned to share it here as well!

Fantastic explanation of Bayesian reasoning. I was already well-familiar (or so I thought) familiar with the concepts, but this video helped firm things up!

knite Dec 15, 2020, 10:19 PM
1 point
in reply to: abramdemski’s comment on: What confusions do people have about simulacrum levels?
So level 4 is...intention masking the absence of identity?
Then level 5 is nonsense words, masking the absence of intention.
For levels 6 and higher, please see [Cuil Theory](http://cuiltheory.wikidot.com/what-is-cuil-theory).

knite Dec 6, 2020, 11:21 PM
1 point
in reply to: sapphire’s comment on: Anti-EMH Evidence (and a plea for help)
I’m interested in this and would also love to chat!

knite Dec 6, 2020, 11:12 PM
5 points
on: Anti-EMH Evidence (and a plea for help)
Two securities (symbols to come later as this is still being actively traded)
Are you trading at a scale where this is relevant? The vast majority of symbols have volumes where a mere mortal’s bank account won’t move the market at all.
Great post overall! There seems to be a lot of recent interest on LW around playing the markets well. I’d love to set up a Discord for ongoing discussion and brainstorming, if there’s interest.
I’ve been sitting on a good nugget of crypto earnings for years and have had a lot of analysis paralysis about diversifying into the real markets and/or arbitraging the highly volatile crypto options/futures markets directly. If anyone reading this is interested in a serious discussion, please reach out!

knite Dec 6, 2020, 8:01 PM
20 points
0
on: The Incomprehensibility Bluff
Option 3: You have insufficient shared understanding/facts/terminology to comprehend each other’s opinions and even begin having a real conversation.

knite Dec 5, 2020, 12:36 AM
1 point
on: Eth2 Staking explained as a Financial Instrument
As a holder of other crypto (primarily BTC), how interesting is this opportunity relative to riding current growth?

knite Nov 21, 2020, 12:33 AM
1 point
in reply to: Pablo’s comment on: 2020 Election: Prediction Markets versus Polling/Modeling Assessment and Postmortem
What were (or are now) the best places for US persons interested in betting significant crypto sums?

knite Nov 21, 2020, 12:31 AM
3 points
on: 2020 Election: Prediction Markets versus Polling/Modeling Assessment and Postmortem
Would love to hear more about your specific bets, as well as your “multiple six figure wins” friends! Personally, after maxing several PredictIt markets for a total of low thousands bet, I didn’t feel like there was a good market place to bet larger size (tens of thousands USD or higher in crypto).

knite Nov 12, 2020, 2:04 AM
0 points
in reply to: River’s comment on: Ongoing free money at PredictIt
Entry fees count as “losses”.

knite Nov 11, 2020, 8:06 PM
1 point
in reply to: River’s comment on: Ongoing free money at PredictIt
Thanks for the link, it looks like you’re right about being taxed on the $100/98.50/93.57. However, the initial $85 can be deducted from your taxable income (if less than your winnings).
So if you’re in, let’s say the 25% tax bracket, you have saved 25% * $85 = $21.25 in taxes, and have still made money on your bet. This becomes a bit murkier when considering standard deductions vs itemizing. Perhaps a more experienced bettor can chime in to step through the implications?

knite Nov 11, 2020, 4:38 AM
8 points
in reply to: River’s comment on: Ongoing free money at PredictIt
I am not a tax professional and have not yet filed taxes for my PredictIt gains. With that said, I am assuming that taxable gains are $93.57 - $85 = $8.75, not the $100 withdrawn.

knite Oct 30, 2020, 5:41 AM
1 point
in reply to: Scott Garrabrant’s comment on: What are good election betting opportunities?
I can confirm that this arbitrage opportunity exists and works as described. At the time of this writing, the sum of all Nos for the EC market is $14.70, and running the loop up to 850 shares turned $1000 into $1078. Depending on which contract actually resolves Yes, there’s an additional payout of a few bucks.
The way PredictIt calculates risk and payouts for multi-contract markets seems very confusing and is making my head hurt a bit. My Max Payout for the market is $850, but I have no idea how this number was calculated, and it doesn’t make any sense—my understanding is that the real max payout is the largest potential payout across the market’s contracts, which is a much smaller $13.
If anyone can explain how these multi-contract markets actually work, I’m all ears!

knite Oct 21, 2020, 12:31 AM
3 points
on: Launching Forecast, a community for crowdsourced predictions from Facebook
I’ve been using Forecast since the beta and enjoy it! A few thoughts:
- There isn’t enough incentive to bet on questions with long time horizons.
- The 1K points/day are rather inflationary overall, which leads to...
- A question’s market can be moved rather significantly for just a few thousand points
- Why is there a max of 10 shares per bet? Especially with the 1K daily point increase, any user who sticks around will have tens of thousands of points, and have a harder time allocating them
- The leaderboard is opaque and varies wildly: I’m sometimes in the top 10, sometimes in the middle hundreds, and sometimes unranked, despite a consistent upward trajectory.

knite Oct 17, 2020, 1:49 AM
10 points
on: Babble challenge: 50 ways of hiding Einstein’s pen for fifty years
Phew, this was hard! 50 is pretty hard, there’s a lot of value in pushing yourself to do even 30. Another option for next time is to time limit instead: “you have 15 minutes, how many ways can you think of?”
Here are my 50:
Dig a hole and bury it
Disassemble it and give each piece to a trusted family
Place it into a lockbox at a reputable bank
Store it in a drawer and include detailed instructions in my will
Find Einstein’s parents and give them the pen
Place it in a drawer with a sealed letter describing what should be done if found
Put it in a tree’s branches
Carve a hole in a tree trunk and place it in the hole
Seal it in a chest and drop it in a lake with an anchor
Glue it to one of those tortoises that lives a long time
Photograph or draw it, make a replica in 50 years
Keep it in an important document like my passport, moving it each time I renew
Convince the Pope the pen is holy and must be preserved
Convince a museum the pen is fine art and should be displayed
Carry it everywhere I go
Give it to a stranger with a promise to pay them if they return it in a year. Repeat 50 times
Become a head of state and pass a law to protect the pen
Start a pen manufacturing company and produce millions of copies of the pen
Start a pen-worshipping cult
Negotiate with the evil forces to return the pen to me later
Convince the evil forces to give the pen to Einstein
Place it in a sewer
Start a family and teach my kids to protect the pen
Join the evil forces, work my way to power, and change the organization’s objective
Infiltrate the evil forces and assassinate their leadership
Give the evil forces a counterfeit pen
Change my name so the evil forces can’t find me
Become a hermit living in a cave
Learn self-defense to protect the pen if attacked by evil forces
Hand the evil forces the pen and then take it back, as they “obtained” it
Give the evil forces the part of the pen they want and replace it
Invent time travel and send the pen to the future
Invent space travel and send the pen to space
Place the pen in a body to be buried
Place the pen in the foundation of a new building
Shoot the pen high into the atmosphere so that it circles the earth for 50 years before landing
Place at the bottom of a jar of pennies
Place at the bottom of a chewing tobacco spittoon
Disguise as a record player’s needle
Just keep it on my desk amongst my regular pens
Hide it in a residential attic
Hide it in a mattress
Hire a private security team to guard the pen
Protect the pen in a secure facility with booby traps
Convince the evil forces they don’t really want the pen
Hide the pen in the handle of a sword
Ass pen (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w12RKy966OU)
Start a foundation and place the pen in trust
Tag someone else “it”, now they have to hide the pen
Forget about the pen, Einstein will probably write his papers anyway

knite Oct 14, 2020, 6:22 PM
1 point
in reply to: philh’s comment on: Fermi Challenge: Trains and Air Cargo
That’s a great catch, thanks! With that correction as a final step, I feel much better about my initial estimate!

knite Oct 13, 2020, 4:28 AM
1 point
on: Fermi Challenge: Trains and Air Cargo
How many miles of train tracks exist in the world?
Radius of Earth = ~3,000 miles
Surface area of earth = 4 x pi x r^2 = 1.13 × 10^8 = ~10^8
25% of the earth is land
10% of the land “needs” tracks
.1% of that land actually is tracks
10^8 x .25 x .1 x .001 = 2,500 miles
This feels obviously wrong, so let’s buff the numbers:
Radius = 5,000 miles, 30% of the surface is land, 25% “needs” track, .5% of the land is tracks
3.14 x 10^8 x .35 x .2 x .005 = ~110,000 miles
Let’s round that off to 100,000 miles.
Edit: Thanks to the comment from @philh, I see that I calculated square miles rather than linear miles. Assuming the width of a track is 1/1000 of a mile:
2500 x 1000 = ~2.5 million miles
This feels reasonable, so if I had performed that step, I would not have done a second round of estimation.
How many metric tons of air freight cargo shipped globally in 2009, and in 2019 (either by commercial airlines or specialized freight companies)?
How much stuff did I order? Everything I use was shipped from somewhere.
Amount of stuff I ordered last year: 200 pounds
That feels low when I think about heavy food and drink containers, so let’s bump to 1,000 pounds
My share of infrastructure “stuff” feels smaller than that, so no modifier.
Most of the world uses less stuff than I do (age, affluence), so nudge it down to 700 pounds.
A ton is 2,000 pounds
Population of the world: 7 billion
7 billion * 700 / 2,000 = ~2.5 billion
Let’s assume 2% growth per year
1.02^10 = 1.22
2.5 billion / 1.22 = ~2 billion
2019: 2.5 billion tons
2009: 2 billion tons
After reading the answers from others, I’ve realized that I assumed all freight was by air. If I had considered that, I would apply a discount factor, revising significantly downward. Keeping my original answer in the spirit of the exercise.

knite Sep 25, 2020, 12:33 AM
3 points
on: Covid 9/24: Until Morale Improves
Thanks for posting these updates regularly! One quick formatting note: region ordering in the Positive Tests section is different from the earlier sections.