Tom Jacobs and John Del Vecchio: What’s Behind the Numbers

Google Talk on the book What’s Behind the Numbers by the authors.

Note: It is 1 hour 16 minutes long.

I choose this video because it is a great alternative if you find reading the book is too time consuming.

If you are interesting in trading stocks (and the indices), their work can convince you stop believing in many myths produced by the Wall Street marketing machine.

The question and answer session after their presentation is also a good one.

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Nassim Nicholas Taleb: Antifragile

Mr. Taleb’s talk of the concepts from his book Antifragile.

Note: It is a long talk. Google talks are usually an hour long.

The nice thing about this talk is that it actually adds to the book.

It is also a nice summary in case you are not interested in reading the book.

Meat of the talk is not the part he was doing the presentation. It is the conversation Mr. Taleb had with the audience. It is rare that you get an intelligent crowd who can ask very smart questions these days as book publishers will make sure it does not happen.

Mr. Taleb has my respect that he was not afraid at all to handle any question threw at him.

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Paul Kemp-Robertson: Bitcoin. Sweat. Tide. Meet The Future Of Branded Currency

This video is an interesting take on branded currencies.

What 6 months can do to Bitcoin? This video was filmed back in June 2013 and now Bitcoin is standing at USD $800.

I like to add to the video that an item having the store of value property need people to commit other existing assets into the item first. For example, a bottle of Tide (you have to watch the video to understand) being used as a medium of exchange requires existing money (or any other store of value items) being committed first in exchange for the bottle of Tide. This point has been missed by both supporters and haters of Bitcoin.

The value of a virtual currency comes from the value of the other accepted assets already committed in exchange for the virtual currency. Since we know a lot of money and efforts (which takes money too) have been committed into Bitcoin and other virtual currencies. This alone gives you a valuation of Bitcoin above nothing. This is how we evaluate companies not making money. This is how we evaluate countries. You cannot all of a sudden telling yourself the evaluation method human has used for eons does not apply to virtual currencies.

In other words, many people think that Bitcoin does not worth anything missed the point.

A famous antique painting being committed with $40 million dollars from its latest buyer worth every penny of the $40 million dollars as long as it is real (i.e. what the painting is claimed to be in terms of the painter and picture in question). The operative keyword here is that it worth more than zero. The same logic applies to virtual currencies because existing value has been transferred into these virtual currencies already.

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