Sunday, July 8, 2012

Dinosaurs Were Cold-Blooded Animals, Right? Maybe Not


True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.
SocratesGreek philosopher in Athens (469 BC - 399 BC) 

I thought this Socrate quote applies perfectly to this recent discovery:
Dinosaurs Might Have Had Warm-Blooded Animals' Fast Metabolism 
[Link to article]
It always feels weird when one challenges things you took for granted, but that's the wonder of science.
To me, Dinosaurs being cold-blooded was as natural as 1+1=2, so the simple fact that this alleged fact can be questioned is quite dazzling.

Monday, July 2, 2012

Wall Street Meets Minority Report

This is not a joke: Twitter (among others) is being used to predict fluctuation of stock values.
This is what The Economist [link to original article] recently reported. Since a 2010 study by Indiana University researchers showing strong correlation between tweets and market activity, it has become popular in the Wall Street milieu to factor in "social sentiment" in their prediction models.

Last June 25, Reuters announced the publication of more than 18,000 indices based on the analysis of tens of thousands of news sites as well as 4.5 million social sites (including social media, tweets, blogs).
At $1,000 per month per indice,

The problem, though, is that though indices, although following trends quite closely in general, are not totally trustworthy... so far.
However, it's interesting to see this kind of technology and approach taken so seriously.
It's not like it didn't already fail in the past [link to investmentweek.co.uk], but the idea that one could predict market fluctuation a la Minority Report gives me food for thought.