Another reason why the Stanford 20/20 for 20 is a joke

Samit who?

Who the heck is Samit Patel and why is he eligible to win a million bucks for a couple of hours work?

Yet another reason to hate this overhyped event, Samit Patel has not done the hard yards of some of the England bowlers and yet because of the conditions (some of them created by Stanford himself in his choice of location and groubnd preparation) this obscure country cricketer gets a shot at an obscene payout. The Stanford 20/20 for 20 is rapidly losing what genuine credibility it had.

Typical England, though, rather than promoting the game that they claim to so love and enjoy, they sign up for the first greedy, self interestedm narrow focused and, lets face it, potentiallt win-able event that comes their way. England fared poorly in both the ODI and 20/20 world champs last year, they do not deserve to be in the Stanford 20/20 for 20.

Down here, we are doing our best to ignore the whole Stanford 20/20 for 20 hype, but the conspicuous consumption aspect of it shocks and offends us. For all its mania and weirdness, I am supporting the ICL comp from now on, because at least that does involved genuine international players and not some obscure English players with no real track record.

Sujit Kumar

The Weekend Herald has just published two stories, including a feature, on 36 year old Fijian Indian Sukit Kumar, who spent over six years of his life in a chicken coop after his parents died. It is a very sad story, but one that possibly may have a happy ending. Sujit’s brain appears to be responding to human speech and he is starting to understand people.

The story is interesting from a knowledge management perspective, in that there is a detailed discussion about neuroplasticity. This is very serendipitous – as I just finished an article myself about young people and wine where I mentioned brain plasticity as an important factor in shaping our ideas, attitudes and tastes.

Prediction markets come to New Zealand

NZPA have just issued a story (“Making predictions now online business”, Tuesday 9 Sept), which I read via Stuff about iPredict.co.nz, the new, online prediction market.

There are a few things that need to be corrected about this story. Firstly, prediction markets are not strictly following the wisdom of crowds rules, as outlined in the famous book of that name. For one thing, in a prediction market you can see trends from other people’s choices. You are aware of what the other agents in the market have been/are doing. Which is why prediction markets can be gamed, the prediction market itself going on to influence public opinion. This leads on to the next point and that is, although prediction markets were gaining in academic credence, there has, in fact, been a recent backlash against prediction markets.

But typically the journalist who wrote this piece did not investigate the negative sides of prediction markets, instead relying on the media spin presented to her/him by the founders of iPredict.

Hedy Lamarr and CDMA

Great article in this morning’s National Business Review by Stephen Ballantyne about Austrian film siren Hedy Lamarr and her extraordinary connection with current wideband internet technology CDMA. I would link you to it, but alas the NBR online subscription edition has now gone live.

Human Guinea Pigs Required

Wanted!

Intelligent, Good Looking Geotechnical Engineers for Social Experiment.

Must be willing to work for FREE beer or sushi (if your religion allows it.)

Apply: Big Phil, ext 890, or write (in confidence) to: prt@tonkin.co.nz