Two websites that everyone should know
The internet has been around for a while now, but it's only recently that it's started to live up to its immense potential.
Here are two sites that I think represent the realization of said potential. Both sites are celebrations of the free market, but in different ways.
1. Wikipedia.com
I use this site like every day. They have information on EVERYTHING. It's an online encyclopedia written entirely by the readers. They have nearly a million articles on every topic from that obscure, underground musical artist you like to San Marin (which they note has a "Reputation for Hostility"). They have everything here. Seriously.
You'd think an encyclopedia written by readers would blow. But it's the best encyclopedia I've ever read.
Although I could do without their extensive biographies of video game characters (Mega Man X and Sonic the Hedgehog come to mind) but I guess that just goes to show: THEY HAVE EVERYTHING =)
Here's the wikipedia article on San Marin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Marin_High_School
2. tradesports.com
This site is game theory put into practice. Here, people place cash bets on future events. Who will win the world series? Who will be President Bush's nominee for the supreme court? But it's more like it's own little stock market than an old fashioned sports book.
It works like this:
You buy 5 units of "George Bush is going to be President" and when he is, you get 500 bucks. In the mean time, you can buy or sell these issues at your disccretion. Tradesports tracks all of this, and they allow you to see the lowest price at which anyone is willing to sell and the highest price at which anyone is willing to buy.
Now here's the scary part: So if, hypothetically, the market for "George Bush will be assassinated" is trading at around $11 per unit, it means that the market really believes that there's a 11% chance that George Bush will be killed. What's kind of eerie about these markets based on game theory is that they're usually right. Of the things that they say have a 11% chance of happening, 11% of them actually happen.
Nobody knows why these markets can be so accurate, but it is believed that the people who have the best information about these events are willing to spend the most money, and they will simply exploit the market until it reflects the probability that they believe the event to really have. And then we all have access to that information. It's truly amazing.
So as far as sports, politics, world events, anything, tradesports.com will do a very good job of predicting outcomes.
I have a buddy who is a fan of the Detroit Red Wings. According to the market on tradesports, the Red Wings have about a 15% chance of winning the Stanley Cup, tied with the Senators for the best overall chance to win it.
The odds of them winning their game tomorrow? 75%
Anyway, it's an awesome site.
Good night, Red Wings fans.
Here are two sites that I think represent the realization of said potential. Both sites are celebrations of the free market, but in different ways.
1. Wikipedia.com
I use this site like every day. They have information on EVERYTHING. It's an online encyclopedia written entirely by the readers. They have nearly a million articles on every topic from that obscure, underground musical artist you like to San Marin (which they note has a "Reputation for Hostility"). They have everything here. Seriously.
You'd think an encyclopedia written by readers would blow. But it's the best encyclopedia I've ever read.
Although I could do without their extensive biographies of video game characters (Mega Man X and Sonic the Hedgehog come to mind) but I guess that just goes to show: THEY HAVE EVERYTHING =)
Here's the wikipedia article on San Marin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Marin_High_School
2. tradesports.com
This site is game theory put into practice. Here, people place cash bets on future events. Who will win the world series? Who will be President Bush's nominee for the supreme court? But it's more like it's own little stock market than an old fashioned sports book.
It works like this:
You buy 5 units of "George Bush is going to be President" and when he is, you get 500 bucks. In the mean time, you can buy or sell these issues at your disccretion. Tradesports tracks all of this, and they allow you to see the lowest price at which anyone is willing to sell and the highest price at which anyone is willing to buy.
Now here's the scary part: So if, hypothetically, the market for "George Bush will be assassinated" is trading at around $11 per unit, it means that the market really believes that there's a 11% chance that George Bush will be killed. What's kind of eerie about these markets based on game theory is that they're usually right. Of the things that they say have a 11% chance of happening, 11% of them actually happen.
Nobody knows why these markets can be so accurate, but it is believed that the people who have the best information about these events are willing to spend the most money, and they will simply exploit the market until it reflects the probability that they believe the event to really have. And then we all have access to that information. It's truly amazing.
So as far as sports, politics, world events, anything, tradesports.com will do a very good job of predicting outcomes.
I have a buddy who is a fan of the Detroit Red Wings. According to the market on tradesports, the Red Wings have about a 15% chance of winning the Stanley Cup, tied with the Senators for the best overall chance to win it.
The odds of them winning their game tomorrow? 75%
Anyway, it's an awesome site.
Good night, Red Wings fans.