prior probability

Performed by Ruslana Semeniuk (voice), Wesley Somers (baroque guitar and voice), and Avery Grethe (steel string guitar) at the Spring Chamber Music Concert, Recital Hall, UC Santa Cruz (4 June 2024).

Bonus link: a TikTok video of Anthony Bourdain’s 2002 visit to French Laundry.

Shout out to my colleague and friend Brian L. Frye, who offered to ghostwrite my next law review article!

One of my favorite Milton Friedman anecdotes is the following story in which Professor Friedman, while traveling somewhere overseas, reportedly spotted scores of road builders moving earth with basic shovels instead of modern machinery. When he asked why heavy tractors weren’t being used instead of mere shovels, his host told him that it was to keep the employment rate high: if the workers used tractors, fewer people would have jobs. “Then instead of shovels, why don’t you give them spoons and create even more jobs?”, Friedman inquired. But did this exchange really happen? See link below …

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein

I joined the virtual #HotFrankSummer reading group last month and just finished reading Mary Shelley’s memorable novel Frankenstein today. (Our informal group read one chapter per day starting on May 15, a fateful day that I shall always remember, for it was the day of my father’s burial.) For me, the parallels between the Dr Victor Frankenstein’s monster and the Tyrell Corporation’s humanoid replicants in the original Blade Runner are haunting. Although the monster is described as “hideous” and “ugly”, while the Nexus-6 replicants are physically attractive, both are intelligent, emotional, and noble beings who rebel against their respective creators. I also wonder whether Sam Altman or anyone in his circle has taken the time to peruse Mary Shelley’s cautionary tale …

Wait, what are the “positive” aspects of royalty?

I dedicate this beautiful ballad to my loving wife Sydjia …

Today (Sunday, 9 June) is my third and final fun-filled day at this year’s Manifest Festival at the enchanting Lighthaven campus in beautiful Berkeley, California. In addition to a plethora of talks on various aspects of prediction markets (the main theme of the conference), I have also attended a wide variety of unorthodox but memorable events, including an informal “speed friending” activity led by Ricki Heicken, a hands-on workshop for YouTube creators led by Justin Kuiper, and an interactive session on “Why are you stuck on your novel?” led by Sy Etirabys. Moreover, I am happy to report that many of talks at “Manifest 2024” are being recorded and will be posted to Manifest’s website (see here) in about two weeks. In the meantime, I will be presenting my work on retrodiction markets later today.

That is the title of my most recent work-in-progress, which I dedicate to the memory of my father, Francisco Guerra, a veteran of Brigade 2506, Sixth Battalion. Below is an excerpt from the introduction to my paper:

I recently discovered that my late father, Francisco Guerra, was a veteran of the legendary “Brigada de Asalto 2506”, an idealistic group of mostly young men who fought to liberate their beloved Cuba in April 1961…. In this work, I wish to share a few more facts about this fateful moment in Cuban-American history — not only general information about the overall composition of the Brigade; but also some details specific to my father’s unit, the Sixth Battalion.