Just to furnish your comment with some more detail. Quants calculate the risks attached to financial instruments. So they can tell you, statistically, what losses may be incurred on an asset in a given time frame or how you should hedge the risks attached to a complex financial security with simpler, more liquid securities. Now, of course quants can't predict the future, but they can (or at least should be able to) prepare you for future eventualities by assigning future eventualities with a probabilistic distribution.
So quants are well accustomed to considering future events, designing models of the future and identifying critical factors that future outcomes are particularly sensitive to. So by considering future dependencies and what-if scenarios, and then attempting to measuring these outcomes, quants are well qualified to model what may happen in the world cup. Now we know there is major unpredictability in sport--this is particularly true for football (soccer), and more so in a cup-format tournament--so much like their analysis of CDOs and other funky products, don't be surprised to discover they are all wrong!
When I went traveling around China/Tibet/Nepal I took my Intel MacBook. I didn't have any problems - just the wariness that I wanted to keep the thing on my person at all times. I could write my blog (http://www.pickingideas.com/) as I went and then upload my entries whenever I found a Wi-Fi connection (word of warning - limited wireless signal on Tibetan base camp!).
Everest bases camp was very cold and with a raw wind. I didn't have any difficulty getting the MacBook out and taking notes, recording podcasts etc, despite the atmospheric conditions.
I found iWeb to be a very useful asset for writing my blog when internet connectivity wasn't available. I took pictures, uploaded them to my local blog and then uploaded to the web when I found an internet cafe or a modern hotel.
I dropped the Mac a few times, it was in my backpack which got chucked about a lot in trains, in the back of 4x4s etc and suffered no ill effects.
There are probably cheaper alternatives, like the EEEpc, but I found the MacBook to be a convenient size and weight, sufficiently rugged with the right tools for my blogging requirements.
As an investment banker I can confirm that this practice is common in the world of Finance too. Banks will often pay a newspaper, investment magazine, investment orientated website a fee in return for their product being 'officially recommended' by the journalist. When I discovered this in my own industry I was (maybe rather naively) shocked; but the ramifications of my discovery are that one needs to question the independence of reviews in ANY industry.
I know to take reviews left on online retailers with a pinch of salt, ie they are probably more shills writing for most products than genuine reviews - how many times have I left a +ve review? None. How many times have I left a -ve review? Often.
Even when reading reviews written by supposedly authoritative journalists working for supposedly independent journals, one must always my mindful the likelihood that the author is not just writing out of a passion for the subject, but just because he has been financially rewarded for writing +ve spin to his/her readership. Evil I know.
There is a magazine in the UK called Which? I believe it is a not-for-profit organisation that carries out reviews of a wide range of products. I recommend.
Slashdot Mirror
So quants are well accustomed to considering future events, designing models of the future and identifying critical factors that future outcomes are particularly sensitive to. So by considering future dependencies and what-if scenarios, and then attempting to measuring these outcomes, quants are well qualified to model what may happen in the world cup. Now we know there is major unpredictability in sport--this is particularly true for football (soccer), and more so in a cup-format tournament--so much like their analysis of CDOs and other funky products, don't be surprised to discover they are all wrong!
Just my tuppence worth.
Sorry, was that obvious?
Everest bases camp was very cold and with a raw wind. I didn't have any difficulty getting the MacBook out and taking notes, recording podcasts etc, despite the atmospheric conditions.
I found iWeb to be a very useful asset for writing my blog when internet connectivity wasn't available. I took pictures, uploaded them to my local blog and then uploaded to the web when I found an internet cafe or a modern hotel.
I dropped the Mac a few times, it was in my backpack which got chucked about a lot in trains, in the back of 4x4s etc and suffered no ill effects.
There are probably cheaper alternatives, like the EEEpc, but I found the MacBook to be a convenient size and weight, sufficiently rugged with the right tools for my blogging requirements.
Enjoy your trip!
If your allusions to civil aviation are true, maybe one day we will see a Greek-owned space corporation called EasySpace?
I know to take reviews left on online retailers with a pinch of salt, ie they are probably more shills writing for most products than genuine reviews - how many times have I left a +ve review? None. How many times have I left a -ve review? Often. Even when reading reviews written by supposedly authoritative journalists working for supposedly independent journals, one must always my mindful the likelihood that the author is not just writing out of a passion for the subject, but just because he has been financially rewarded for writing +ve spin to his/her readership. Evil I know.
There is a magazine in the UK called Which? I believe it is a not-for-profit organisation that carries out reviews of a wide range of products. I recommend.
[I didn't get paid by Which? to say that]