ajra's comments

ajra | 3 years ago | on: On Charlie Munger (2019)

He didn’t have an undergraduate degree because he dropped out of college to serve in the military during WW2, and then graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard Law. Yes, his family connections certainly helped, but it’s hard to say he wasn’t deserving of a place.

ajra | 5 years ago | on: Invert, always, invert

Great advice! I have to say though, I love the irony of the author mentioning reducing investment losses by asking the question "Am I diversifying enough to prevent long term loss?" when Munger+Buffett have the opposite view of diversification for the savvy investor - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJzu_xItNkY

ajra | 7 years ago | on: Apple announces Apple Card credit card

Sounds awfully cartel-like.

Unfortunately I agree with you regarding the lack of incentives Apple has. IIRC, the money for cash back rewards comes out of the interchange fee. How do you get consumers to adopt a card that's opaquely better for businesses and immediately worse for themselves?

ajra | 7 years ago | on: Apple announces Apple Card credit card

It seems to me that Apple can offer reduced fees due to the fact that they'll have less fraud as a result of requiring touch/face ID for every purchase.

While interesting, it doesn't come close to solving what I feel is the largest problem with cards in the US today -- interchange fees.

ajra | 7 years ago | on: Show HN: World Cup 2018 Predictions with Bayesian ML

Awesome project, I love the use of TrueSkill Through Time here! Really interesting that it beats out Elo as well.

FiveThirtyEight actually posted their WC predictions earlier today [1]. Finding where the two models diverge is a fun exercise -- they have Morocco as a 40% favorite tomorrow while your model has Iran as a 46% favorite.

It would be interesting to test the model by applying the Kelly Criterion [2] when you have an odds advantage to a fake initial $1000 bankroll and seeing where you end up at the end of the tournament.

If Iran does end up being a 46% favorite tomorrow then that Kelly test will start to look really good, really quickly - the market is only giving Iran a ~25% chance right now!

[1] https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2018-world-cup-predicti...

[2] http://www.elem.com/~btilly/kelly-criterion/ for the background, http://www.albionresearch.com/kelly/ for a useful calculator

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