Writing
Choose
Machine Creativity: Possibly Sooner than Anticipated
Albert Wenger – Mar 18, 2016
AlphaGo has won its series in the game Go against grandmaster Lee Sedol 4-1. I wrote an initial post about AlphaGo after its first victory against a lesser ranked player. Humans have very big brains compared to the neural networks [...] Read more
Insurance Fundamentals (Cont’d): Numerical Example and Reinsurance
Albert Wenger – Mar 16, 2016
In the two previous posts on insurance fundamentals, I introduced a fundamental inequality relating payouts to premiums and the concept of risk aversion. Today we will look at this through a bit of a numerical example. We will look at [...] Read more
Ziggeo Open Sources Video Player and New Javascript Framework
Albert Wenger – Mar 9, 2016
Video is everywhere these days and for good reason. Even a short video clip contains a lot more information than a still image. But playing back videos in a way that works across browsers and devices has been tricky. Just [...] Read more
Insurance Fundamentals (Cont’d): Risk Aversion aka Concavity
Albert Wenger – Mar 8, 2016
In my first post on insurance principles I introduced the inequality that has to hold for the industry as a whole and also for any one insurance company to stay solvent (yes you can collect interest on premiums, so consider [...] Read more
Understanding Insurance Fundamentals
Albert Wenger – Mar 4, 2016
Yesterday with the NYU Stern class that I am co-teaching with Arun Sunderarajan we focused on the fundamentals of different businesses. The class is about product market fit but looking for that doesn’t mean you can ignore the economics of [...] Read more
The Endangered Critical Process in the Digital Age
Albert Wenger – Mar 2, 2016
Today marks my 8-year anniversary of blogging. I have learned so much from it and want to thank everyone who has engaged in the comments over the years. I am particularly grateful for comments that are critical and for ones [...] Read more
Announcing Blockstack: Decentralized DNS and Identity for Blockchain Applications
Albert Wenger – Feb 25, 2016
The blockchain holds great promise for developing decentralized protocols and applications such as marketplaces (e.g., openbazaar), registries for digital and physical assets (e.g. mediachain) and social networks that have no value extraction by a controlling company. Everyone who wants to [...] Read more
Trust and Democracy: The Odd Parallels between Trump and Apple
Albert Wenger – Feb 24, 2016
Confidence in the US Congress is near an all time low according to a Gallup poll on “Confidence in Institutions.” People have stopped trusting government. And government has done a lot to deserve it. Politicians have taken huge sums of [...] Read more
Key-Based Device Unlocking (Question/Idea re Apple Case)
Albert Wenger – Feb 17, 2016
There is a ton of confusion out there about Apple’s refusal to comply with a court order. The most level headed account I have been able to find is by the Register and I highly recommend reading it. The question [...] Read more