Yearly Archives: 2008

Our Embargo Policy

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There are scores of reactions out there about Michael Arrington&#8217-s decision to &#8220-break every embargo we agree to.&#8221-

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#1. I WILL RESPECT YOUR EMBARGO.

If you give me and all the other media outlets a news ahead of its official unveiling, I will indeed publish after the date and time you mentioned.

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#2. I WILL NOT PUBLISH YOUR TRADE SECRETS.

Period.

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#3. I WILL NOT RECEIVE ORDERS FROM YOU.

If the news is public (say, published on an official governmental website), then I will go ahead informing the Midas Oracle readers about that public information.

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#4. MIDAS ORACLE IS STRONG ENOUGH TO WEATHER ANY RETALIATION.

– Midas Oracle is the world&#8217-s #1 group blog on prediction markets.

– Our LinkedIn group is the world&#8217-s #1 social networking group on prediction markets (4 times bigger than the San Francisco bozo&#8217-s one).

– Our Open Institute Of Prediction Markets will be the world&#8217-s #1 institution on prediction markets, juicing out luminaries, prediction market companies, and other organizations.

See, life is too short to waste it with psychos who over-obsess with putting up their name in press releases. We are building for the long term, as for us.

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#5. Here are our Terms Of Use.

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Enough already with the prediction markets and Robin Hanson

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– NPR Music – Jazz &#8212- I like their show, &#8220-Piano Jazz&#8221-.

– WWOZ – The official Radio of the New Orleans Jazz Festival. It is set up as a non-profit organization (a foundation).

– Jazz Radio

– Smooth Jazz

– Jazz FM

Obama and Jazz

The sounds of jazz music are set to return to the White House for incoming U.S President Elect Barack Obama&#8217-s administration.

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Let&#8217-s hope so.

That way we will have both the Nanny State and the Jazz music for the price of one.

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Commenting on Midas Oracle

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1. Some members noticed problems when they logged in in the comment area (at the bottom of a post). I have tested yesterday, and this problem seems gone. Let me know, otherwise. UPDATE: Oops, the problem remains. [Might be a cache problem.]

2. I have installed a new login area, on the top of the right-side sidebar. [It’s hand made, this time. The previous login area was generated by a plugin, which I have now deleted. I need to cut down on the use of plugins, generally. I use 32 plugins, as of today. Still too much, probably. Down from 60.]

You can right-click on the login link so as to open the login webpage in another tab &#8212-and then you come back to your first tab. Alternatively, you can bookmark the login link, and use that bookmark to login &#8212-before loading the frontpage.

login

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2. You have to know that Internet Explorer has conflicted with the WordPress administration internal webpages. Do prefer Mozilla FireFox. (Or Opera, or Safari, or Chrome.)

3. As for the bug that prevents Midas Oracle to show the embedded YouTube videos in the feed, it is not yet resolved &#8212-but an engineer from Automattic (WordPress) is looking into it. :-D

4. Do become a Midas Oracle member. Here is how to comment. Here is how to publish.

5. I am going to send soon an e-mail to all Midas Oracle members about my attempt at creating an &#8220-Open Institute Of Prediction Markets&#8220-. See you soon in your inbox. I&#8217-ll tell you everything you need to know.

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Prediction Market Journalism

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Here&#8217-s a new application of prediction markets now under review for a grant: Prediction Market Journalism.

Here&#8217-s how it works: a journalist in London wants to investigate government plans to fund long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARC) in schools.

The journalist opens an either/or real-money, public prediction market question: Will the government fund LARC for girls in school clinics?

The journalist is interested in questions like: How safe is LARC? What companies make LARC? Which company would supply school clinics with LARC, and why that particular company? Who would profit from LARC distribution in school clinics? What other contraceptives are currently government funded in schools? Both the journalist AND prediction market traders want these questions answered. The former, to publish. The later, to make better market predictions from.

So, in Prediction Market Journalism, traders can help answer these questions. Traders contribute documents, video, photos, tips, links- whatever helps the journalist do the burdensome investigative research. With sufficient vetting, User Generated Content (UGC) is posted for public viewing, thus helping everyone to make better predictions.

In short, PM traders can indirectly effect the market on which they make predictions. Journalists get both crowdsourced investigative research and a percentage of trading commissions.

That&#8217-s a new application of prediction markets.

The IFTF X2 Project

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[…] X2 will identify major trends and disruptions in science, technology, and the practice of science over the next twenty years and their impacts on the larger society.

X2 will utilize an open-source web platform that will help individuals and organizations track and analyze global trends in science and technology. The project will employ bottom-up forecasting methods, making use of the collective intelligence of people with different backgrounds, domains of expertise, and geographic locations to synthesize larger patterns and trends. […]

http://www.sciencex2.org/

Flu prediction markets can correct Google Flu Trends.

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2 practicing physicians laugh at using collective intelligence for nation-wide flu detection:

[…] Flu Trends tracks almost perfectly with data on influenzalike illnesses that the CDC obtains from doctors&#8217- offices. And as an added bonus, Flu Trends detects outbreaks up to two weeks earlier, when people are still sitting at home sneezing into their keyboards. […]

But if officials monitored only Flu Trends, it would be difficult to sort the signal from the noise —in addition to losing critical details on who is sick. Things besides an actual flu outbreak can cause people to search the Internet for flu information. We would imagine that Flu Trends would spike on the release date for a flu-related movie —maybe Outbreak 2: Electric Booga-Flu. And what happens if a pandemic flu scare hits the nightly news? Flu Trends&#8217- ability to detect when the real pandemic hits will be obliterated when people, including those without symptoms, start to search the Internet. Monitoring drugstore sales has the same issue: A jump in cold-medicine sales may mean a flu outbreak, but it could also mean that CVS is running a sale or that flu fear is causing people to stock their medicine cabinets. […]

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They end their articles saying that Google can&#8217-t cure the flu, anyway. [???]

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The response to the objections they jot down in the 2nd paragraph above is easy:

  • Informed by all other means, the event derivative traders can determine whether the spikes in Google Flu Trends are due to abnormalities (see the 2nd paragraph in the excerpt above) or due to the real spreading of influenza.
  • Hence, the flu prediction markets have a much higher social utility than Google Flu Trends. Chris Masse said so.
  • David Pennock, go writing another research paper about that.
  • History will retain that David Pennock was research scientist under Chris Masse&#8217-s reign in the field of prediction markets.

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Google Flu Trends

Iowa Health Prediction Market

The “predict flu using search” study you didn’t hear about – by our good Doctor David Pennock

BBC

New York Times

WSJ Health blog

University College Cork (UCC) School of Medicine + Intrade

Dylan Evans&#8217- website

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Previously: #1 + #2 + #3

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People, dont pay real money to attend the San Francisco vendor mini-conference on prediction markets.

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I have gotten many e-mails from business people asking me whether they should attend the San Francisco vendor mini-conference on prediction markets in January 2009. My advice: Don&#8217-t go. Don&#8217-t pay a single cent for it.

  1. It is basically a vendor fair. Four software vendors are lined up. (I am told they have to fork over about $800 to take the stage.) They will over-sell the prediction markets and feed you with promotional material.
  2. The conference organizer is commissioned by some of those vendors. He is biased from the toes to the hair.
  3. Only an idiot would pay $300+ to listen to promotional material. Don&#8217-t. Never pay to listen to salesmen.
  4. One scholar will feed you with highly theoretical material, which you can get for free on Midas Oracle &#8212-99% of which you don&#8217-t need anyway.
  5. One scholar has never published anything on prediction markets &#8212-as far as I know (I could be wrong).
  6. One Robin Hanson fanboy and prediction market enthusiast will pump up the enterprise prediction markets. Never trust the overly enthusiast people. Never trust people who belong to one school of thought. Do trust, instead, the independent minds who use the scientific approach.
  7. Do listen, instead, to the thinkers who have nothing to sell you.

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