In 2015 I wrote a blog post titled “Uber’s Greatest Trick Revealed” in which I argued that Uber’s success was the result of providing a transportation service. This was and is exactly what consumers wanted but is not a neutral platform or marketplace. It would appear that regulators have finally caught up with this with the European Union’s top court ruling yesterday that Uber is in fact a transportation service. Now we will hopefully enter a new phase in which regulators figure out how to ge...

This will be the last Uncertainty Wednesday for 2017 as I am about to go away on vacation. In the last post I had introduced the idea that sometimes when volatility is suppressed it comes back to bite us. I wanted to have a really simple model for demonstrating that and so I wrote some Python code to make a 50:50 coin toss and depending on the result either increment or decrement a value by +/- 2 (I set the initial value to 100). Here is a plot of a sample run:Now to suppress volatility, I mo...

In 2015 I wrote a blog post titled “Uber’s Greatest Trick Revealed” in which I argued that Uber’s success was the result of providing a transportation service. This was and is exactly what consumers wanted but is not a neutral platform or marketplace. It would appear that regulators have finally caught up with this with the European Union’s top court ruling yesterday that Uber is in fact a transportation service. Now we will hopefully enter a new phase in which regulators figure out how to ge...

This will be the last Uncertainty Wednesday for 2017 as I am about to go away on vacation. In the last post I had introduced the idea that sometimes when volatility is suppressed it comes back to bite us. I wanted to have a really simple model for demonstrating that and so I wrote some Python code to make a 50:50 coin toss and depending on the result either increment or decrement a value by +/- 2 (I set the initial value to 100). Here is a plot of a sample run:Now to suppress volatility, I mo...

At our house we were all refreshing our computers furiously starting at 8pm with ever increasing excitement as the evening progressed. We were absolutely thrilled when Doug Jones victory was certain. If Doug Jones can win in Alabama, the state where Trump had his biggest victory, after Trump endorsed his opponent, well then Trump too can be defeated. I have come to think of Trump’s candidacy and presidency as the last hurrah of a past that we need to leave behind for good. Trump, and the mone...

At our house we were all refreshing our computers furiously starting at 8pm with ever increasing excitement as the evening progressed. We were absolutely thrilled when Doug Jones victory was certain. If Doug Jones can win in Alabama, the state where Trump had his biggest victory, after Trump endorsed his opponent, well then Trump too can be defeated. I have come to think of Trump’s candidacy and presidency as the last hurrah of a past that we need to leave behind for good. Trump, and the mone...

Planes fly differently from birds. Cars move differently from horses. And computers think differently from humans. That had always been my assumption but if you needed more proof, Google’s AlphaZero program, which had previously shown novel ways of playing Go, has just learned how to play chess incredibly well. It did so in 24 hours and without studying any prior games. Instead it just played games following the rules of the movement of pieces and learned from that. I encourage everyone to ch...

Planes fly differently from birds. Cars move differently from horses. And computers think differently from humans. That had always been my assumption but if you needed more proof, Google’s AlphaZero program, which had previously shown novel ways of playing Go, has just learned how to play chess incredibly well. It did so in 24 hours and without studying any prior games. Instead it just played games following the rules of the movement of pieces and learned from that. I encourage everyone to ch...

We are about to go away on a three week trip. Long trips have been a wonderful aspect of homeschooling our children. We are fortunate to have the means to show them different parts of the world and this year we are going to Southeast Asia, which will also be new to Susan and myself. During our travels I also tend to detox from the Internet and find time to read. I already have a couple of books with me about the region we are going to, but am looking for a few more recommendations (I will als...

We are about to go away on a three week trip. Long trips have been a wonderful aspect of homeschooling our children. We are fortunate to have the means to show them different parts of the world and this year we are going to Southeast Asia, which will also be new to Susan and myself. During our travels I also tend to detox from the Internet and find time to read. I already have a couple of books with me about the region we are going to, but am looking for a few more recommendations (I will als...

Later this week the FCC Commission is expected to vote along party lines to do away with net neutrality in the US. I have written extensively about why net neutrality is important for innovation. I will not rehash any of those arguments today (if you want to read from some of the pioneers who helped bring us the Internet, read their letter). Instead, today is simply a call to action. Contact your representatives and let them know why you support the existing net neutrality regulation.

Later this week the FCC Commission is expected to vote along party lines to do away with net neutrality in the US. I have written extensively about why net neutrality is important for innovation. I will not rehash any of those arguments today (if you want to read from some of the pioneers who helped bring us the Internet, read their letter). Instead, today is simply a call to action. Contact your representatives and let them know why you support the existing net neutrality regulation.

Last Uncertainty Wednesday provided a recap on our adventures with sample means and what those implied about the difficulties of inference. Now we will look at another equally fascinating complication: inferring volatility. As the title of this initial post gives away, we will see that it is easy to make large inference errors when we are dealing with situations in which volatility is somehow suppressed. It turns out such situations are all around us all the time. Let’s work our way into this...

Last Uncertainty Wednesday provided a recap on our adventures with sample means and what those implied about the difficulties of inference. Now we will look at another equally fascinating complication: inferring volatility. As the title of this initial post gives away, we will see that it is easy to make large inference errors when we are dealing with situations in which volatility is somehow suppressed. It turns out such situations are all around us all the time. Let’s work our way into this...

[This is a talk I was going to give at Slush but had to change my travel plans.] A 12 minute talk should be plenty to address this simple question. Just kidding. This is one of the profound questions that humanity has grappled with for a long time. Here are three artistic takes throughout history. The first is a biological take on being human. This plate from ancient Greece shows centaurs who are half human and half horse. Mythology is full of human animal hybrids. The centaur myth is likely ...

[This is a talk I was going to give at Slush but had to change my travel plans.] A 12 minute talk should be plenty to address this simple question. Just kidding. This is one of the profound questions that humanity has grappled with for a long time. Here are three artistic takes throughout history. The first is a biological take on being human. This plate from ancient Greece shows centaurs who are half human and half horse. Mythology is full of human animal hybrids. The centaur myth is likely ...

The last few weeks in Uncertainty Wednesday, with the exception of my net neutrality post, we have been looking at the relationship between sample data and distributions. Today is a bit of a recap so that we know where we are. One of the reasons for writing this series is that in the past I have found that it is super easy to get into lots of detail on mechanics and in the process lose sight of how everything hangs together. So now is a good time to remind ourselves of the fundamental framewo...

The last few weeks in Uncertainty Wednesday, with the exception of my net neutrality post, we have been looking at the relationship between sample data and distributions. Today is a bit of a recap so that we know where we are. One of the reasons for writing this series is that in the past I have found that it is super easy to get into lots of detail on mechanics and in the process lose sight of how everything hangs together. So now is a good time to remind ourselves of the fundamental framewo...

One of the objections against crypto currencies has been their volatility. Bitcoin for instance just rose by about 60% over 2 days only to then fall by about 15% in a matter of hours. Steam just ended bitcoin support citing volatility. This has led a number of teams on the quest to create a so called stable coin: A coin that does not fluctuate in value. Now that raises some immediate questions. First, an easy question, relative to what is a stable coin stable? Other crypto currencies? The US ...

One of the objections against crypto currencies has been their volatility. Bitcoin for instance just rose by about 60% over 2 days only to then fall by about 15% in a matter of hours. Steam just ended bitcoin support citing volatility. This has led a number of teams on the quest to create a so called stable coin: A coin that does not fluctuate in value. Now that raises some immediate questions. First, an easy question, relative to what is a stable coin stable? Other crypto currencies? The US ...