Technology Review Launches Futures Market

prostoalex writes "MIT Technology Review launched a futures market, allowing people to bet on ideas. A similar concept was at some point introduced by the Pentagon, but later the project was shut down. Currently you can bet on major stock indices, on answers to yes/no questions ('Will Oracle acquire PeopleSoft Inc before March 31st, 2004?') and technological achievements ('When will there be a commercially available electronic device using ultrawideband technology?')" Although the game doesn't use real money, the prizes are pretty swell. I like to think of it as the nerd's version of sportsbook.

Comments

DNF

[Anonymous Coward]

"Will Duke Nukem Forever be released? Ever?"
[ ] yes
[ ] no

hmm

[kurosawdust]

what's the over/under on the amount of time until emacs becomes self-aware?

Re:hmm

[Hank Reardon]

Communicating with emacs is easy:

((((((((( setq self-aware-emacs-polite-greeting "Hi!" )))))))))

I hope they consider making this rule:

[saskboy]

No betting on when a time machine will be invented. Because the person who guesses when, is probably the bastard that did invent it.

If this post didn't make your head spin on your shoulders and implode, then you have a better temproral mind than I.

residents of the United States and Canada

[Kris_J]

http://www.technologyreview.com/trif/rules.asp

No purchase is necessary. The promotion is open solely to legal residents of the United States and Canada (except Puerto Rico, and the Province of Quebec) who are 18 years of age or older. Children aged 13-17, persons residing outside of the United States or English-speaking Canada, and persons residing in areas where this Promotion is void (including Puerto Rico and the Province of Quebec) may play the Game for recreation, but may not participate in Prizes.

Crud.

$50

[dekashizl]

$50 says this post gets modded Funny then Overrated.

I'm not in the United States or Canada

[Anonymous Coward]

you insensitive futures exchange clod

Re:How to win

[KrispyKringle]

That doesn't make sense. First, on what cycle do you discard/retest? Extending that, why even discard any? After all, some may be on the downswing and later pick up. So your idea is a needlessly complex version of `how to win: register more than one account.'

Assuming you had an infinite amount of money/debt you could go into, there is a probabalistically certain way to win a given finite amount. Simply keep raising the bet (that amount + the sum of all your previous bets) each time you bet. As n->infinity, the sum of n of some finite value of the probability of winning will converge to 1, i.e. your probability of winning if you wait forever is nearly certain. So you will eventually win back that finite amount more than you've already bet.

Of course, this assumes an infinitely long competition and an infinite amount of debt you can go into before Fat Tony smashes in your kneecaps.

Sladot strikes again!

[richie2000]

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Sorry our servers are temporarily unavailable. Please try again latter.

Not only did we cause their server to go off-line, we caused them to start spelling wrong, too! Now just wait until they re-launch the same service tomorrow, pretending they haven't noticed it's a dupe...