For Nerds: I got my USB headset today so I can play Team Fortress 2 and make witty comments to my team-mates and hopefully, suck less. So I’m part of a strike force to take the enemy intel and my job was to sap the sentry guns that were stopping us. The coordinated strike is going well when 12 soldiers come out of nowhere and kill everyone but me. In my team’s death throws everyone and sentries die, leaving me with 2 hit points and a big empty base in front of the intel. I grab it, and gun back to the base to when I decide to use my headset for the first time and state I’m going through the enemy sewers to bring the intel back. Little did I know the server had open communication so everyone on both teams could hear what I’m saying.
Me: I’m returning to the base with the intel through the enemy sewers.
Enemy 1: Spy’s coming through the sewers with intel.
Enemy 2: What he say about our intel going through our sewers?
Enemy 3: Set up an sentry gun in the sewers to kill the spy with the intel.
Enemy 2: I’m setting up a sentry gun to kill the spy with the intel.
Teammate 1: Send a Scout to their sewer to pick up the intel when the spy dies.
Enemy 4: I’m ready to kill a spy.
So, I’m pretty sure I’m going to die when I see a force of impending doom approach me as a peek into the sewers. I gun across the main bridge dodging fire and missiles and shooting other spies that suck at cloaking. I narrowly make it back to drop the intel and die immediately to a sniper that had followed me the whole way. Immediately four people drop from the opposing comments like “you faggots, we lost and he even told us where he was going” and “12 of us couldn’t kill a single uncloaked spy”. BRA HA HA.Lesser Nerds: Pat Toye asked me a number of months ago about how firms buy insurance for stuff like the x-prize and hole in one insurance or anything else that’s essentially a random event. I did some investigation and found that those policies typically cost 10% of the face value past a given level of possibility. Pat asked about the 1 billion dollar prize and I he was skeptical about the 100 million price tag. I did some more investigating and found Pepsico had taken out a blanket policy with Berkshire Hathaway and probably pooled it with other risks and paid far less than 100 million.
Today, I finally decided to ask the CPCU ratemaker that teaches one of my classes and got this response: “100 million is absolute bullshit. I’ve worked with these people and there are three requirements to make a rate for these things. 1)Four people that have at least 7 letters after their names in titles and designations. 2)a bottle of Wild Turkey per person 3)a Ouija board. The ratemakers at BH sleep on mattresses stuffed with money and consider a rate of return of less than 20% to be abysmal. These people could have invested the tip from the lunch where this was discussed and have made enough on investments to pay the 1 billion by the time it’s due.” Wow, old actuaries are almost as crusty as the D-day veterans at the Claridge Black Jack tables.