Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed

Chefs@Google: Anthony Bourdain – YouTube.

Americans are frozen in place, with mobility at its lowest levels since the 1940s. A new NYT piece looks into the issue, and is worth reading in its entirety, and it include this graphic.

While it doesn’t apply to the NHL, still interesting:

The Penalty Shot/Optional Minor Choice in Ice Hockey

Under the rules of NCAA Hockey and USA hockey, when a penalty shot is awarded, the nonoffending team has the choice of taking the penalty shot or having a minor penalty assessed to the offending team. Since the chance of scoring on a penalty shot normally exceeds the chance of scoring during the minor penalty, most teams will accept the penalty shot. We show, however, that there are times when selecting the minor penalty in lieu of the penalty shot is optimal. We show that when the nonoffending team is ahead near the end of the game, the optimal choice is the minor penalty.

via “The Penalty Shot/Optional Minor Choice in Ice Hockey” by Steven E. Rigdon.

Intriguing new paper showing the higher signal in negative words.

Positive words carry less information than negative words

We show that the frequency of word use is not only determined by the word length [1] and the average information content [2], but also by its emotional content.We have analysed three established lexica of affective word usage in English, German, and Spanish, to verify that these lexica have a neutral, unbiased, emotional content. Taking into account the frequency of word usage, we find that words with a positive emotional content are more frequently used. This lends support to Pollyanna hypothesis [3] that there should be a positive bias in human expression. We also find that negative words contain more information than positive words, as the informativeness of a word increases uniformly with its valence decrease. Our findings support earlier conjectures about (i) the relation between word frequency and information content, and (ii) the impact of positive emotions on communication and social links.

via [1110.4123] Positive words carry less information than negative words.

New paper:

NBA Chemistry: Positive and Negative Synergies in Basketball

We introduce a novel Skills Plus Minus “SPM” framework to measure on-court chemistry in basketball. First, we evaluate each player’s offense and defense in the SPM framework based on three basic categories of skills: scoring, rebounding, and ball-handling. We then simulate games using the skill ratings of the ten players on the court. The results of the simulations measure the effectiveness of individual players as well as the 5-player lineup, so we can then calculate the synergies of each NBA team by comparing their 5-player lineup’s effectiveness to the “sum-of-the-parts.” We find that these synergies can be large and meaningful. Because skills have different synergies with other skills, our framework predicts that a player’s value is dependent on the other nine players on the court. Therefore, the desirability of a free agent depends on the players currently on the roster. Indeed, our framework is able to generate mutually beneficial trades between teams. Other ratings systems cannot generate mutually beneficial trades since one player is always rated above another. We find more than two hundred mutually beneficial trades between NBA teams, situations where the skills of the traded players fit better on their trading partner’s team.

via NBA Chemistry: Positive and Negative Synergies in Basketball by Allan Maymin, Philip Maymin, Eugene Shen :: SSRN.

• Rational Irrationality: Rick Perry’s Ugly Tax Hybrid: Not Flat, Not Fair, Not Credible – http://t.co/Zoh6QFGH #
• Carving pumpkins for kids' carnival, & packing for morning flight at same time. Concerned I'll end up carving clothes & packing pumpkin. #
• Andy Hertzfeld on the Macintosh's early days and its long-term legacy. http://t.co/NYQMwZZr /via @timoreilly #
• Peter Thiel launches Breakout Labs to fund early-stage research http://t.co/Sbjj39rQ #
• My SWA boarding karma these days is ~0.1 Kelvin. #
• Grim Reaper: … you [Americans] talk & say 'Let me tell you something' & 'I just wanna say this.' Well, you're dead now, so shut up. #
• I know men's jean sizes are lies, but is simply absurd that a size 31 pair of jeans has a waist two inches too big. #
• My right knee feels like I went over the bars of my MTB yesterday and smashed into a rock. Curious, that. #
• Today's travel peeve: Adults who regress to toddler state once on a conveyor or escalator. Move, damnit. #
• Just realized moments ago that i may have left a car in an airport long-term parking lot in 2002. #
• Happily, the long term lot is in another country. #
• Why does Shutterfly still exist? What are you kind Shutterfly users doing there? #
• YouTube’s top channels rival cable audiences — http://t.co/BuTHYZos /via @briannorgard #
• Photo series: Bangkok Underwater – http://t.co/czsPL6SU #
• By golly, what we’ve got here is a failure to decorrelate – http://t.co/BJoXX5pK #

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• Dirty money: Canadians mistake a strand of DNA on new $100 bill for a sex toy. http://t.co/EOfPnzoG #
• Madrick/Partnoy: Should Some Bankers Be Prosecuted? http://t.co/Z7vaQd4V #
• Technology & the evolution of tennis: Trading aces – http://t.co/CINAoS4h /via @EddyElfenbein #
• Rumors that I am in talks to acquire RIMM are completely untrue. [There, now there is no-one left unrumored about.] #
• I was thinking of calling it "Kedroxter". RT @ReformedBroker: @pkedrosky Kedrosky in Motion $KIMM #
• Someone emailed yesterday to say he just saw a quote from me running onscreen in an NYC elevator. #ImBiginElevators #
• Zulauf: Alea jecta est, morituri te salutamus, the game is afoot. Or something. http://t.co/eTk2lRYm #
• .@jbminn I am currently Bloomberg's special correspondent for both jello and nuclear fusion. #
• For we Asterix & Obelix geeks only, but … Asterix Latin jokes explained – http://t.co/zvhz6zng #
• BBC documentary: The British establishment: Who for? How it stumbles from crisis to crisis – http://t.co/5hFlntV9 #
• RT @TechCrunch: Wikinvest Brings Its Investment Portfolio Tracker To The iPad http://t.co/rPc18Ufk #
• The moral case for NGDP targeting http://t.co/S0jKmGuZ, by @interfluidity #
• Must we do this again? RT @peHUB: France’s “Silicon Sentier” Thrives as Web Hotbed http://t.co/U7LCkNTV #
• Whoa, Walken and Bourdain together, like a street-style supergroup – http://t.co/H7x94R3O #
• Today in we are _so_ screwed RT @mashable: Leonardo DiCaprio Dives Into the Startup Scene – http://t.co/hgUbHRFU #
• Amazon getting Netflix-ed afterhours. I genuinely thought I bought enough books there this quarter to drive an earnings beat. #
• I feel I should point out that I am the cause of tomorrow's snowstorm in Colorado. #
• I apparently now now get all emails from @herbgreenberg intended for his mechanic. #
• Salomon Freeski TV takes a look at Norwegian ski culture. Gorgeous footage. http://t.co/VRSxXWQJ /via @jeffbrines #
• Opensignalmaps is a nifty idea. Too bad its data seems even spottier than cell coverage. http://t.co/l8FPddO6 #
• It's so cute that humans think a few decades is a long time. #
• Wrote a review of the new Steve Jobs biography. Should be posted shortly, and I'll tweet the link when it's up. #
• Provocative: Why Goldman Sachs is being tarred unfairly – http://t.co/nyRoW03e #
• The perceived absurdity of Bayesian inference http://t.co/cVdINto2 #
• Today in strange Bloomberg headlines: BofC Beats HSBC as Dim Sum Market Opened http://t.co/pzkfEZKt #
• When/how did "I'm/you're/they're doing it wrong" become a meme? #
• More early "Doing it wrong" spotting RT @hedgefundinvest: @pkedrosky January 21, 2004 http://t.co/ZShNQCjq #
• Like Brent, and conceding that RSS readers are passé, I still wish I could find one that synced outside Google Reader – http://t.co/4PjGkEgD #
• El Hierro Submarine Eruption : Image of the Day http://t.co/3mqoOGet #
• Good overview: New Technologies Redraw the World’s Energy Picture – http://t.co/xZfbvjiY #
• Almost perfect edge-of-apocalypse photo from the ongoing Thai floods – http://t.co/Sl2iNfDU /via @GreatDismal #
• We need Dungeon Masters for the real world http://t.co/raxDVJkr #
• What Is It About "Simpler Taxes" That Politicians Don't Understand? – http://t.co/3l65017T #
• New paper: Inattention to rare events – http://t.co/1fKPj89S #

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From Cassidy in NY-er:

Let’s do the politics first. Whatever you think of Cain’s “9-9-9” plan—and as I’ve said repeatedly, I don’t think it bears inspection—it is simple and snappy. Tear up the tax code. Tax workers, businesses, and consumers at nine per cent. That’s it. (Actually, in response to criticisms, it’s become a bit more complicated recently—but that was how it started out.)

Perry’s plan, by contrast, keeps the current tax code in place but gives people the option of opting out of it and paying a flat tax of twenty per cent. This means that under President Perry—say it to yourself a few times and see how it sounds—there would be two tax systems, not one. Perhaps in Texas, that counts as simplifying the tax code and cutting out the army of accountants, tax experts, and other leeches who feed on the current system. Elsewhere, it would mean hiring an accountant to figure out what is the best deal for you. Perhaps it should be called the “H&R Block Plan.”

via Rational Irrationality: Rick Perry’s Ugly Tax Hybrid: Not Flat, Not Fair, Not Credible : The New Yorker.

Good NYT piece on our ongoing energy shift. A little optimistic for my skeptical taste, but these are important changes:

This striking shift in energy started in the 1990s with the first deepwater wells in the Gulf of Mexico and Brazil, but it has taken off in the last decade as a result of declining conventional fields, climbing energy prices and swift technological change.

The United States may now have the means to reduce its half century of dependence on the Middle East. China and India may have the means to fuel the development of their growing middle classes. Japan and much of Europe may have the chance to reduce dependence on nuclear power. And, at least theoretically, poor African countries might be able to lift themselves out of poverty.

For consumers around the world, the new fuels should moderate future price increases.

But giving new life to fossil fuels is a devil’s bargain, probably making solutions to climate change, and the development of renewable energy, even more difficult. “Not only are you extending the fossil fuels era,” said Daniel Lashof, director of the climate program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, “but you are moving into fossil fuels that are dirtier and release more carbon pollution in the process of extracting and using them.”

via New Technologies Redraw the World’s Energy Picture – NYTimes.com.

New paper. Initially looked interesting, but on further reading I’m less convinced. Anyway:

Tracking Traders’ Understanding of the Market Using e-Communication Data

Abstract

Tracking the volume of keywords in Internet searches, message boards, or Tweets has provided an alternative for following or predicting associations between popular interest or disease incidences. Here, we extend that research by examining the role of e-communications among day traders and their collective understanding of the market. Our study introduces a general method that focuses on bundles of words that behave differently from daily communication routines, and uses original data covering the content of instant messages among all day traders at a trading firm over a 40-month period. Analyses show that two word bundles convey traders’ understanding of same day market events and potential next day market events. We find that when market volatility is high, traders’ communications are dominated by same day events, and when volatility is low, communications are dominated by next day events. We show that the stronger the traders’ attention to either same day or next day events, the higher their collective trading performance. We conclude that e-communication among traders is a product of mass collaboration over diverse viewpoints that embodies unique information about their weak or strong understanding of the market.

via PLoS ONE: Tracking Traders’ Understanding of the Market Using e-Communication Data.