fractionalhare

8 ms·

31.
by fractionalhare 6y ago
I don't think any large tech company is capable of shipping a feature that quickly. Even for a feature as narrowly scoped as this, going from ideation to deployment in a few weeks seems completely unrealistic. There's just way too
32.
by fractionalhare 6y ago
No, because that's a loan rather than an R&D expenditure from income. I guess that probably sounds flippant, but the mechanics are different. If a business received a loan, the tax prospects wouldn't be as favorable as expendi
33.
by fractionalhare 6y ago
That's not equivalent. An equivalent example would be a person who makes a large amount of money in their 20s, but spends the majority of it on things that could conceivably appreciate, such that their income artificially represents a
34.
by fractionalhare 6y ago
Sure. But again, practically speaking, that isn't the reality of how we learn. The commenter wasn't refuting Kolmogorov complexity. They're just saying it's an extremely limited way of viewing the problem. Useful sure,
35.
by fractionalhare 6y ago
The parent commenter is not disagreeing with information theory (and what you're saying is shown in the article anyway). They're making a practical distinction that you generally don't have access to the actual thing in an em
36.
by fractionalhare 6y ago
Speaking as someone outside the autonomous vehicle industry, can you provide sources or reputable commentary on how Waymo is furthest ahead? And maybe a rough ranking of the rest of the major players?
37.
by fractionalhare 6y ago
You say it’s not about the example, then go on to talk about the example...as I said, this article is only about betting insofar as it’s a toy example to illustrate ergodics. In the real world you wouldn’t analyze a bet this particular way,
38.
by fractionalhare 6y ago
I'm a little confused - ergodic theory very much cares about the time average. Or do you mean the toy example of betting shouldn't care about it? It seems like you think the problem here is too unsophisticated for ergodic theory o
39.
by fractionalhare 6y ago
I agree it's not perfectly explained. But I think someone new to ergodic theory would find the article clearer (or at least more helpful overall) than your second paragraph here.
40.
by fractionalhare 6y ago
"Time average" and "ensemble average" are standard vocabulary in the statistical mechanics literature. Your comment is essentially a restatement of the article's point. I think it's uncharitable to say the ar
41.
by fractionalhare 6y ago
Yes. Given 1000 players and 1000 turns, if each player starts with $100 in capital under your chosen parameters: import random l = 0.33 w = 0.5 c = 100 m = 1000 p = {k: c for k in range(m)} n = 1000 for k
42.
by fractionalhare 6y ago
The thrust of the point is that while the wealth of a group will rise on average when playing a game with positive expected value, individuals with significant upfront losses will lose over time if the reward percentage is too close to the
43.
by fractionalhare 6y ago
I don't think they're speaking too strongly. I think a lot of the time when we correctly infer causality without empirically interacting with the system, it's because we have built up significant categorical experience about
44.
by fractionalhare 6y ago
I bet this person also believes farmers are gambling when they partake in agro futures markets to insure against crop failures...
45.
by fractionalhare 6y ago
I see. I wasn't trying to make an ethical statement about lottery profits, just compare the likelihoods of winning.
46.
by fractionalhare 6y ago
It probably seems cavalier or maybe dismissive, but yes. If most people want to take on more risk, I'd suggest just levering up SPY. Without an edge buying options is just going to be beta anyway, but costlier and with extra steps. Tak
47.
by fractionalhare 6y ago
No you didn't address it all. It's also not a strawman because buying options is literally a form of insurance... Have you ever priced a derivative? What about the estimation of future/realized risk using implied volatility d
48.
by fractionalhare 6y ago
I disagree. If you open a probability textbook they'll recite the same thing. But in actual colloquial usage, gambling usually implies a lack of statistical edge and rigor. If you tell people your uncle goes to Vegas every weekend to
49.
by fractionalhare 6y ago
> Please explain to me how I can lose money by writing a covered call option. When you to sell the underlying to cover. It's right there in the name. Of course you lose money, it's just that your downside risk is capped. &
50.
by fractionalhare 6y ago
It's an old strategy. Without an actual edge and significant (read: sophisticated and costly) risk management, that strategy will eventually get blown out by someone who is better at pricing long tail risk events than the seller. There
51.
by fractionalhare 6y ago
Yeah, lol. Love reading all these myths about the finance industry regurgitated on HN. Most options traders I know don't have a PhD. Of the subset that do, it's usually more multidisciplinary than just stats because there's a
52.
by fractionalhare 6y ago
If your trading strategy has a positive expected value, "gambling" ceases to be a useful descriptor for it. As I said elsewhere, calling everything gambling just because it isn't literally guaranteed is reductive and unproduc
53.
by fractionalhare 6y ago
> Anyone who buys options is literally gambling. I guess you also believe the entire insurance industry is gambling too. Out of curiosity, what parts of finance do you think aren't gambling? If you categorize all speculative act
54.
by fractionalhare 6y ago
It's an easy product to sell. They gamified the lottery. Complete with a faster turnaround time, higher frequency, and stronger dopamine hits. The winners are more visible too.
55.
by fractionalhare 6y ago
On a risk-adjusted basis, without an actual edge helping you determine which options to buy, this will not outperform SPY.
56.
by fractionalhare 6y ago
I don't agree with the parent comment either. But if you're going to critique it, you might as well levy a substantive criticism rather than a driveby dismissal calling it a "logical fallacy"...
57.
by fractionalhare 6y ago
In all likelihood, Apple would just refuse to play ball and tell them to go ahead and sell it to someone else if they're so confident. Zerodium and other markets already exist, and I don't think people at Apple lose much sleep ove
58.
by fractionalhare 6y ago
You state this confidently but I don't see why it's true a priori. I don't see a strong correlation between Apple's cash on hand, assets or market cap and the severity of a zero day in Mail.app. The better comparison i
59.
by fractionalhare 6y ago
That's not an excuse. It's just a blunt explanation. Out of the ordinary processes can only proceed so quickly in the presence of massive bureaucracy.
60.
by fractionalhare 6y ago
Yes, it's the payment request.

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