Disqus - Latest Comments for KieranMac

Re: This Week In Running: April 6, 2026

KieranMac — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 12:55:03 -0000

There's needs to be an ultra beard of the year award, and it should go to Taylor Spike. And if it doesn't, I want to see the beard that beats it.

Re: This Week In Running: September 8, 2025

KieranMac — Mon, 08 Sep 2025 10:22:49 -0000

https://www.irunfar.com/2013-leadville-100-mile-run-results

There's a lovely pic of Nick and Alistair Clark in this rundown from Leadville 2013. I was standing behind Bryon Powell when he took this pic. Now Alistair's name is featuring in the race results. Man does time fly.

Re: Howie Stern and the Art of Running

KieranMac — Thu, 12 Dec 2024 12:43:43 -0000

That Jasmin Paris shot has to be the best ultrarunning picture ever, right?

Re: Organic Prestige Doesn’t Scale

KieranMac — Tue, 15 Aug 2017 14:27:56 -0000

You are very high status among so-called rationalists, but I suppose few of them have high status. And I think that people who seek out polymath-ish influences value what you do and know who you are.

Given that you already more respected among those people than with traditional economists and academics, perhaps the best strategy is to embrace that path to prestige.

I worked for many years at one of the most prestigious law firms in the world. Then I left to go out on my own. Now, I do more interesting things, charge a fraction of my former rates, and I'm way better at what I do. But from a status and prestige perspective, at the moment, I'm a nobody. But I hope that the cumulative value of my non-traditional endeavors may lead to greater prestige eventually.

I guess the question is: what's more important to you, competing for status on someone else's (perhaps political, crony, artificially constrained, or inefficiently structured) terms or doing what you think is valuable and seeing how your status unfolds organically? Your actions seem to indicate that even you don't think organic prestige scales, that it is still the way you hope to get recognized.

Re: Did An Unknown Hiker Just Break Every A.T. Record?

KieranMac — Tue, 20 Sep 2016 15:34:11 -0000

Thank you for your response. But, when someone makes such an extraordinary claim, a little extra skepticism and research is necessary before publishing. If you genuinely believe the smoker who is the author of this video (https://www.youtube.com/wat... just set the thru-hike record on the AT, outperforming the current record holder for most 100-mile races won and the former 24-hour American record holder and 7-time Western States champion, I don't know what to tell you.

Re: Did An Unknown Hiker Just Break Every A.T. Record?

KieranMac — Tue, 20 Sep 2016 15:27:55 -0000

And there's no evidence, which is really the whole point.

Re: Did An Unknown Hiker Just Break Every A.T. Record?

KieranMac — Tue, 20 Sep 2016 15:26:01 -0000

Hawker is a lifelong runner and 5'4", 100 lbs.

Re: Did An Unknown Hiker Just Break Every A.T. Record?

KieranMac — Tue, 20 Sep 2016 14:00:59 -0000

No - you do NOT just fall into being a world-class endurance athlete. It takes years of hard work to build an aerobic engine capable of performing this kind of feat. It's not possible to do this without years of training, which creates a track record of fitness. Nor does a guy walk off the street and become MVP of the NBA finals or set a marathon world record or become first chair violin of the San Francisco symphony orchestra. That's the equivalent of what this person is claiming. I was a journalist, as it so happens - I worked at the Chicago Sun-Times. This ain't journalism. This person made a ludicrous claim that was never investigated before it was published. The author of this article reported before conducting even the slightest cursory investigation. I hope he has the courage to apologize to Karl Meltzer when this is all done.

Re: Did An Unknown Hiker Just Break Every A.T. Record?

KieranMac — Tue, 20 Sep 2016 10:23:14 -0000

Zero percent chance this is true. This is not journalism, Sean. Irresponsible to publish this in such a neutral light, as it diminishes the accomplishments of those who did actually accomplish their feats. People like Meltzer, Jurek, and Pharr Davis have established histories and physical characteristics that are not lightly earned. Each of those people had national caliber through-hike histories. This person does not have the definition or physique of an elite athlete, is clearly looking for attention, and has no credible data to support her claims. To publish this as if it is equally likely that it is true as not shows National Enquirer-caliber work.

Re: No Short Em Age

KieranMac — Tue, 02 Aug 2016 17:37:13 -0000

My comment was short - Carl's was long. My comment was only trying to get you to acknowledge that: 1) there is a consensus on the subject of whether ems vs. AUI will come first 2) that your position is not only not consensus, but a non-factor for the top 100 cited authors in AI research. You may ultimately turn out to be non-consensus and right, but you seem reluctant to acknowledge that your opinion is outside the mainstream on this.

Re: No Short Em Age

KieranMac — Tue, 02 Aug 2016 15:32:24 -0000

I'd love to see a follow-up or a corollary paper to the 2014 Bostrom (http://www.nickbostrom.com/... paper to ask leading neuroscientists their estimate of when they think an em might be possible. Worth noting that none of the Top100 AI authors by citation in that paper thought that whole brain emulation would contribute to HLMI - so this opinion is certainly way off consensus among that group.

Re: FT Reviews Age of Em

KieranMac — Wed, 11 May 2016 19:45:36 -0000

Congrats! Book arrived at my house in Denver yesterday. Look forward to reading this weekend.

Re: CEO David Siegel is out at Frontier Airlines

KieranMac — Wed, 13 May 2015 19:57:23 -0000

Good luck. Used to be an ascent member. They lost my business for life after this year's shenanigans.

Re: TIME’s Top 140 Tweeters for 2013 | The Reformed Broker

KieranMac — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 16:04:39 -0000

Congratulations!

Re: Where did all the finance bloggers go? My theories.

KieranMac — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 12:32:40 -0000

My theory is that there's an inverse relationship between negative news in finance and both reader and blogger interest. There's fewer blogs today than in 2008 for the same reason CNBC has lower ratings than in 2008. It's less interesting to write about or read about a 70-point rally in the Dow than a 600-point panic, regardless of whether you personally are a bull or a bear at any given moment.

Re: “I’m not familiar with your work”

KieranMac — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 10:45:59 -0000

Here, here!!!

Re: The 'Moneyball' Effect: Are Sabermetrics Good for Sports? - The Editors - Entertainment - The Atlantic

KieranMac — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 17:08:43 -0000

In a follow-up article, our trustworthy panel of writers discusses the pros and cons of bloodletting vs. modern medicine.

"My uncle died of cancer, Jake. Modern medicine wasn't able to save him. You'd think the way that modern medicine advocates talk, that science would be capable of saving everyone. But I saw it with my own eyes. He withered away and died -- and no amount of chemotherapy or radiation was able to prevent that."

"That's right, Hampton. Medicine is about saving people's lives in the future. Not the past. No amount of raw data about what made people sick in the past has ever made somebody feel better in the future. You have to bleed a patient to in accordance with the four tempers to make them feel better -- there's something intuitive about that will never go away -- and with all these newfangled terms like anesthesia and penicillin, I mean, I'm a doctor, not a dictionary."

"As someone who has been slashing people to bits in barbershops her whole life, I just resent that fact that some nerdy, four-eyed biologist in his mother's basement -- who's probably never even stuck a knife into another human being in his life -- is out there lecturing me about blood flow and sterilization. You have to experience what it feels like to see someone lose large amounts of blood before you can treat them. I just don't know that evidence to the contrary will ever make me think differently."

"That's an excellent point, Emma. I just feel that hard evidence about what makes people ill is so tedious. It takes all the excitement out of seeing someone bleed to death. Nothing can replace the experience of seeing someone's face turn ashen to let you know if he's going to get better."

"Well, great. It's settled, then. Modern medicine, while probably fascinating and informative in ways we've never taken the time to understand, can never replace bloodletting as the way to treat ill patients."

"Great. Agreed."

Re: Buy, Mortimer, Buy | Blog - Daily Options Report

KieranMac — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 12:53:36 -0000

It'll be hard to predict a direction for the market until we know how well Danica Patrick performs in NASCAR this year.

Re: Beyond The VIX | Blog - Daily Options Report

KieranMac — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 13:53:04 -0000

Acceleration of Fear sounds like the name of a Slayer album. Which I would buy, if it were real.

I saw your tweet yesterday re: EWP options. Just so happens I bought a EWP April 50 put, which I bought in November (yea me!). Can't sell the damned thing and get any time value at all now tho. You'd think someone out there would want it, given the blow up. Might just have to ride it to April, which, the way things are going, may not be a terrible thing.

Re: In Defense of Belichek | Blog - Daily Options Report

KieranMac — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:53:15 -0000

I think it was a good call. At least a push. Unfortunately, there does not appear to be a single person doing professional football commentary on television that could do an expected value calculation. http://www.pro-football-ref...

Re: What’s a Poor Mets Fan To Do? | Blog - Daily Options Report

KieranMac — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 18:22:02 -0000

I'm coming to your Denver book signing, as soon as that happens...

Re: The Year In VIX | Blog - Daily Options Report

KieranMac — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 10:32:44 -0000

I do some shorting of those, but I wait for overbought/oversold conditions, I do it in small increments, and I leg into positions, never more than one short per month, and i often hold the opposite underlying as a hedge. If you tried to do this with more than 10% of your portfolio, you could end up eating your lunch through a straw. It's a small long-term scalp, nothing more, nothing less. If you were a professional who had to answer to short-term performance goals, this wouldn't be fun, though.

Re: Blogging Network a Better Buy Than BusinessWeek?

KieranMac — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:20:16 -0000

No Daily Options Report? No Calculated Risk?

Re: SSO-SSO SSudidio | Blog - Daily Options Report

KieranMac — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 10:40:30 -0000

I'm long the dollar and losing money doing it. What's more patriotic than that?

Re: SSO-SSO SSudidio | Blog - Daily Options Report

KieranMac — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 10:11:36 -0000

I just sold a Jan 11 BIDU 700 call for 12.80. Not to say that BIDU can't eventually crack a 300 P/E. I just like risk, I guess.