Bernie Will Never Co-operate

Frankly speaking, Messr. Bernard 'Bernie' Lawrence Madoff doesn't have an incentive to co-operate with the investigators.

Firstly, he is a septuagenarian, thus, he is edging closer towards the end of his Earthly existence. (This assertion is underpinned by the assumption that he is not immortal). To him, a 25 year sentence is equivalent to a 50 year sentence, and a 150 year sentence: they are all life sentences. Therefore, it is unrealistic for anyone to expect him to co-operate, as he'll be spending the rest of his life behind bars, irrespective of whether he co-operates or not. (It is asinine to try to bargain with Bernie on the basis of a lesser sentence.)

Another related point: Let us postulate a best case scenario, where Bernie's normal life expectancy is 120 years. This means, given Mr. Bernie's current age, that he would have, ceteris paribus, close to 50 years left to live. However, according to The Christian Party, each two years in prison shortens a man's life expectancy by one year. Thus, this implies, based on a 120 year life-span, that Bernie can expect to live another 25 years in prison, in a best case scenario. Therefore, to encourage Bernie to negotiate, they'd have to offer him a prison sentence of less than 25 years, which they can not afford to do, as this would contradict their key goal to use Bernie's sentencing to set a loud and clear example to all would-be Bernies. Simply put: they have nothing tangible to offer Bernie, and since Bernie is evidently an astute person, he already knows this.

Furthermore, Bernie Madoff's epic grift scheme aggrieved a lot of powerful and 'well-connected' people. By now, he should know that he is not safe roaming the streets; in the 'free world', some vigilante-mercenary-type dude/dudette might be contracted to deal with him. Or, to state it explicitly, Bernie knows that he is safer in prison than in the free world.

Clearly, Bernie has no incentive to co-operate.

As my grandfather used to say, "A man who has lost everything has got nothing more to lose; he is bolder, irreverent and pays no attention to right or wrong."

A recommendation: They should put him in the most notorious penitentiary, where the most hardened, die-hard criminals are kept. Trust me, if they do that, he'll opt to co-operate, with the expectation of being placed in a 'better' prison.

Why Health Advice on 'Oprah' Could Make You Sick

Note to Reader: I will never blog about this nonsense again, but, as a good citizen of the world, I am duty bound to comment

Whenever my schedule is congested, I suffer from a mass disconnection from everything else that is not on my 'to do list'. Hence, this sometimes causes me to be ignorant about important events precipitating in the world at large. (Or, otherwise put: When I am busy I pay limited attention to things I should focus intensely on.)

For instance, when I saw the cover story on the current edition of Newsweek, which is entitled Why Health Advice on 'Oprah' Could Make You Sick, I skimmed through it in a hasty fashion, and failed to distill key insights from the article, which were subtly emitting hints about an industry that is manifesting itself in our midst: the life extension industry.

Ever since the dawn of civilization, people have had an atrocious obsession with preserving their youth. Underlying this obsession, are deep desires for vitality, strength, aesthetic finesse and immortality. This seemingly primordial desire, has, over countless millennia, fueled quests for youth potions, and it has also created mythological realms and landmarks, like the fountain of youth, that supposedly possessed the powers to restore one's youthfulness.

However, until now, the promise of everlasting youth could only be satiated by myths (and not reality).

As you know, exponential technological progression, which has been a quintessential feature of the majority of the 20th century, has given us the knowledge and means to manipulate the aging process. Most of the technological breakthroughs that gave us this power occurred less than 30 years ago, and understandably, there is currently a spectre of uncertainty surrounding them. Hence, everything that has been written and said about them is largely speculative.

Having said that, I have some views that I have to state, and it is my sincere hope that they'll help someone.

Most of my comments are centered on this part of the said article:

• "Each morning, the 62-year-old actress and self-help author rubs a potent estrogen cream into the skin on her arm. She smears progesterone on her other arm two weeks a month. And once a day, she uses a syringe to inject estrogen directly into her vagina. The idea is to use these unregulated "bio-identical" hormones to restore her levels back to what they were when she was in her 30s, thus fooling her body into thinking she's a younger woman. According to Somers, the hormones, which are synthesized from plants instead of the usual mare's urine (disgusting but true), are all natural and, unlike conventional hormones, virtually risk-free (not even close to true, but we'll get to that in a minute)
  

• Next come the pills. She swallows 60 vitamins and other preparations every day. "I take about 40 supplements in the morning," she told Oprah, "and then, before I go to bed, I try to remember … to start taking the last 20." She didn't go into it on the show, but in her books she says that she also starts each day by giving herself injections of human growth hormone, vitamin B12 and vitamin B complex. In addition, she wears "nanotechnology patches" to help her sleep, lose weight and promote "overall detoxification."

That quoted part made me pause for a while, and after a few moments of suspended animation, I realized that Ms. Somers' beauty regimen has a lot of similarities with the demented 'buffing' regimen used by professional bodybuilders. The only difference being that she uses estrogen in her regimen, whereas professional bodybuilders use testosterone and testosterone mimicking substances (otherwise known as 'anabolic androgenic steroids' or just 'steroids').

If you'd like to see the effects of this kind of lifestyle, you only have to look at what has happened to professional bodybuilders of the steroid generation, i.e. from 1975 onwards. Most of them never made it past 55 years of age; the major cause of their deaths is cardiac arrest during sleep; and, the use of human growth hormone has caused most of them to have health problems that are associated with having enlarged internal organs (HgH causes internal organs to grow as well).

Thus, what I am simply saying, in layman's terms is: "beware of celebrities bearing/peddling miracle solutions".

Usually, when man fights nature, he may win a few battles, but he inevitably loses the war. If you love life, and being healthy, stay away from the 'Somers mania' and use the tried and tested methods: a balanced diet, exercise with progressive intensity, laughter and a productive 'labor of love'.

Otherwise, you're just f***ing (read: messing) yourself up.

Mining the Twittersphere

Twitter or a Twitteresque technology will, in the not too distant future, emerge as one of the most disruptive Web 2.0 technologies to be ever created. Why? Because Twitter enables one to instantaneously decipher, from discernible trends, topics and subject matters that are saturating (at any given time) the collective consciousness of a diversified mix of people from across the globe.

Interestingly, this trait not only enables marketers to understand their target audiences better; it continually gives the human race an enhanced understanding of itself, which may at a certain point, consequentially enhance the quality of the choices that are made by the global society as a whole. (After, all knowledge is power, and self knowledge is infinite power - which contributes inordinately toward better decision making.)

Currently, my dominant passion is Artificial Intelligence. Although it might seem like an insurmountable goal, I envision bringing into being, at some point in the future, a trading and investment artificial intelligence that has the aggregate trading skills of the best traders in the world, and lacks the weaknesses of human beings.

Surprisingly, I was utterly clueless on how such a trading system could be designed, until I became acquainted with Twitter. I shan't go into the particulars, but from Twitter, one can collect volumes of time-series data from hundreds of thousands of individuals. This data is particularly useful in the realm of investments, and can be used for an infinite range of alpha-enhancing purposes, including the design of smarter investment algorithms.

Late at night yesterday, when I was extracting trends from the Twittersphere, I discovered that people Tweet about Money in a stable unvarying pattern (see Chart Below). I also discovered that people Laugh Out Loud (i.e. Lol) in their Tweets most between 6:30am - 7:30am. (see Chart below). Now, I need to figure-out the driving force behind these discerned trends, and I also need to find out how I can use the derived underlying insights to create robust quantitative trading algorithms.

Click On Image For Better Visibility

Enough said.

Michael Tsarion is Afflicted with a Potent Type of Romanticism

Late last night, because of my unquenchable fascination with conspiracy theories and fantastical realms, I had the opportunity to peruse through Mr. Michael Tsarion's fantastical and eccentric text entitled Atlantis, Alien Visitation and Genetic Manipulation.

When I completed the text, I came to the realization that Mr. Michael Tsarion is afflicted with a potent form of romanticism, and I also concluded that his whimsical, eclectic account of the history of mankind should simply be regarded as Fiction.

Mr. Michael Tsarion writes authoritatively (and in a bombastic tone) about concepts he clearly does not comprehend fully, and thus, he leaves the reader with the indelible impression that he (i.e. Mr. Michael Tsarion) is either discombobulated, or demented.

For instance in Chapter 12 of the text, which goes by the title Stargate and Quarantine, Mr. Tsarion alleges that the moon is a recent feature in the heavens, and that it was put in place by extra terrestrial beings to forever imprison an alien diabolical race that was using this planet as a hideout.

According to French astronomer Dr. Jacques Lasker, if the Earth did not have a large moon, it would not be able to sustain life. Dr. Jacques Lasker conjectures that if the moon were to be obliterated, the Earth's axis would oscillate between zero and fifty-four degrees, which would trigger (or precipitate) extreme weather conditions that are incompatible with, or hostile to, life. Simply put, the moon's existence contributes inordinately towards the Earth's ability to sustain life.

Therefore, this point discounts Mr. Tsarion's assertion that the moon is a recent ethereal body that was put in place by extra terrestrial beings to imprison diabolical aliens who sought refuge on Earth. Why?

Answer: If the moon did not exist during antediluvian times, the Earth would have been uninhabitable to all forms of life, including the diabolical alien beings that Mike wrote of, and thus, the said alien race would not have sought cover on this planet in the first place. Furthermore, if the moon did not exist during antediluvian times, there would not have been any single trace of life on this planet. Thus, the diabolical aliens that supposedly fled to this planet, if they managed to survive the harsh climatic conditions that would have been caused by Earth's being "moonless", would never have encountered any intelligent life or non-intelligent life on Earth thereof. Therefore, the corruption of the Neanderthals' genome by diabolical alien beings, that Mike alleges, would have been a non-event. Thus, evidently, the moon is not a recent feature in the heavens; Mr. Tsarion's assertion, that the moon is a recent feature in the sky, is logically flawed.

Hence, this all serves to illustrate that Mr. Michael Tsarion's florid conspiracy theories are just plain fiction!