Now when I heard the title of Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s latest book, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable for the first time, my mind quickly went to the incredible juggling catch by Lynn Swann in Superbowl X over the sprawled out Dallas defender. The impact of that highly improbable catch led to an eventual win for the Steelers. The impact of the highly improbable Black Swans that Taleb mentions here, are far more devastating or exhilarating, except perhaps to Steeler and Cowboy fans.

Complete aside for those of you, who like me, wanted to see some of Lynn Swann’s incredible catches again, it turns out the NFL is rather protective of their rights to their images (I do seem to recall the phrase without the express written consent of the National Football League is strictly prohibited being thrown at me a few times). Anyway, if you go to this NFL.com link, and then search on Lynn Swann, choose the Baryshnikov in Cleats video, you wont be disappointed, unless you grew up a Cowboy fan.

Continue Reading

So, one of the most entertaining books I’ve read of late has been James Surowiecki’s The Wisdom of Crowds. Surowiecki examines ways in which people can tap into the collective knowledge of everyone. Some of the cool topics include prediction aggregations, how quickly markets are at getting to the right answer given individuals incomplete information, how hive type interactions occur (siting some fascinating studies on the foot traffic in NYC).

By far though my favorite topic is the emerging field of non-good based futures markets, known as decision markets or prediction markets. The most famous of which is the Iowa Electronic market.

Continue Reading