How to make A Million from a buck in one year !

Betting is a relatively easy way to make a quick buck. Or is it ?
A disciplined investment plan for punters .

Can betting be built on a long term strategy ? Its a matter of discipline ... and patience and very high returns. What if we did have discipline ?

Introducing .......

*Drum Rolls*

.... the 5% compounding rule in Betting.

It works like this... You start off with 1£ on the first day.
You discipline yourself to bet and "earn" 5% of that amount the next day... and so on.
( assuming that a win in 2nd or 3rd round US open match between a top-seed player and an unseeded player will get you an easy 5-7 % - or on the other side , a win on either of the teams on a friendly football match between Argentina and Spain would bring you anywhere between 150-180% of the bet money - suite your risk appetite )
( - But we will just stick on to the 5%. - and why did I choose 5% rather than 3% ?, see the note at the bottom )

The amount gets compounded everyday. On day two , you bet your seed + win .. and it goes on. ( considering that you can endlessly find a supply of such low risk matches )

After the First 10 days, you will "earn" - £0.5
In the next 10 days, you will make around £1 and £1.6 in the next 10 days ..
well ... for the first 50 days , you will "earn" only about £9.9
And the Next 50 days , - £114 .
But if this goes on for a year .... A YEAR ..., ( if you have the steam to go on .. that is..) you would have made .... a whooping £51.6 Million ! ( i.e you would be raking in at the rate of £141,452 a single day ! )







Wait .. wait ... Something seems to be terribly wrong. Why doesnt this work ??? Hmm .. theoretically nothing stops it from working ! - Just like the Martingale System ! ( Read more about my experiments with Martingale System here )

Now that you instinctively say it wont work, Lets see why ..
1. You donot find low-risk matches all through out the year.
2. There is an upset loss somewhere . ( where a top-seed looses to an unseeded )
3. Greed - to risk more and win bigger and faster.
4. Beyond a point, the system caps the amount you can bet on a match
5. Human factor - Beyond a limit, a seemingly low-risk match would look like a high risk one ! ( Imagine .. half way down the year, betting £6500 - probably half your earnings )
6. Time required to choose the right matches to bet.
Why 5% ?
For my experiments, I started off with a seed capital of £25 and a 10% cumulative index, but I realised that somewhere between the 8th and the 10th day, things started reversing . ( i.e I made almost double the amount, but the time required to be invested and the risk did not seem to be proportional to the resultant returns )

So I thought why not 1% ? Consider this .. If you go by a 1% return model, using the above methodology, at the end of the year, you make around £38 !!! Where as, if you increase the return by 3% (of your seed), your returns at the end of the year will be close to £1.58 Million ! ( A return of close to 3.86% ( compounded ) would ensure that you would get a Million out of a buck in a year. )

What else can we do with the idea ?
1. A trust fund -
Consider this - A compounded 1% return would give you 38 times the seed money. That means A 0.2% returns ( compounded ) will give you 100% returns by the end of a year. -
Equivalent to a risk of a team loosing a football match ( in the last 5 minutes ) when it is 2-0 up at the 85th minute !! - Which is almost no risk at all !
Whats the best savings rate in a bank ? 5% ??
Whats the best returns on a fixed deposit in a bank ? 11 % ?
Whats the best returns on a favorable year on gold ? 30 % ??
Now whats the best that a share market can give you over a year ? 60 % ??
..
Remember .. these are all very optimistic figures. For an easy betting - The figure is 100% ! Beat that !
I would say ... its high time we bet on betting !

After Note : Fallacy of risk and return percentage
When you say, an increase in returns from say 3 % to 5% , it does not *definitely* mean that the risk has increased in the same basis points . More probably, the risk has more than doubled . ( quantifying this number is beyond the scope of this post )

Building a Lucid Dreaming Machine

Almost 10 years ago, I came across this concept of lucid dreaming where one can have two way interaction with the self and the subconcious.
And then after much reading and searching , I came across the Kvasar dream mask. (LINK)

I wanted to build a more intuitive and biological one , since Iam no much of a electronics guy, I decided I would stay away from the circuitary and take the ideation part to myself .

Draft 1 :
So these are the things you need to do
1. Identify your REM state
2. feed in light and sound source ( intensity not high as to wake one up )
3. end the light and sound feed when out of REM phase

Research to be done
1. Can you elongate REM state ?
2. Do you necessarily go through an REM every sleeping session ?
3. Is it that REM necessarily means dreaming ? ( only that we dont remember them ? )

Bible as an instruction guide.

I was always interested in religions - particularly its effect on humans - when the clash of morality and pragmatism happens quite more often, like the clash of morality and scientific reasoning. ( think about Heinz dilemma )

So I set upon a quest to collect the rules and instructions mentioned in the bible - Not just the Ten Commandments - but a comprehensive listing of it - And tried to ask people what could be the possible punishment that could be given ( according to him ... and then compare with what the Testaments say )

eg : I ask " What do you think would be an apt punishment for a man who beats his male or female slave with a rod and if the slave dies ?"

Please Note : This is just a mere compilation of the rules and instructions found in the bible. This is not a critique.

Well - this could be a life long research , but Iam almost sure its worth the pursuit - Starting from the Ten Commandments . Here we go -

------------- The Ten Commandments -----------

1. You shall have no other gods before/besides me. ( deuteronomy 5:7 )
2. You shall not make for yourself an idol (deuteronomy 5:8 )
3. You shall not bow down to them or worship them ( idols )(deuteronomy 5:9 )
4. You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God ( deuteronomy 5:11 )
5. Observe the sabbath day and keep it holy ( deuteronomy 5:12 )
6. (On the sabbath,) you shall not do any work—you, or your son or your daughter, or your male or female slave, or your ox or your donkey, or any of your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns ( deuteronomy 5:14 )
7. Honour your father and your mother ( deuteronomy 5:16 )
8. You shall not murder ( deuteronomy 5:17 )
9. Neither shall you commit adultery ( deuteronomy 5:18 )
10. Neither shall you steal. ( deuteronomy 5:19 )
11. Neither shall you bear false witness against your neighbour. ( deuteronomy 5:20 )
12. Neither shall you covet your neighbour’s wife. ( deuteronomy 5:21 )
13. Neither shall you desire your neighbour’s house, or field, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour. ( deuteronomy 5:21 )
------------- Rules for Sabbath
14. Who ever does any work on the sabbath day must be put to death ( Exodus 31:15 )

----------------- New Testament ----------------

If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it from you ( Mathew 18:8 )
If your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out and throw it from you. ( Mathew 18:9 )
If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother ( Mathew 18:15)
(Your brother can sin against you)up to seventy times seven. ( Till then you can forgive him) ( Mathew 18:22 )

Women should remain silent in the churches . If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church (1 Corinthians 14 :34 )

I also want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes ( 1 Timothy 2:9 )

A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. 12I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent

I want men everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer, without anger or disputing ( 1Timothy 2:8)

Buying land
'If you sell land to one of your countrymen or buy any from him, do not take advantage of each other. Leviticus 25:14
About Slavery
'Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves Leviticus 25:44
You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. Leviticus 25:44

'If one of your countrymen becomes poor among you and sells himself to you, do not make him work as a slave. 40 He is to be treated as a hired worker or a temporary resident among you; he is to work for you until the Year of Jubilee (Leviticus 25:39-40)
Assaulting Slaves
"If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished, 21 but he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the slave is his property. (Exodus 21:20)

If a man hits a manservant or maidservant in the eye and destroys it, he must let the servant go free to compensate for the eye. 27 And if he knocks out the tooth of a manservant or maidservant, he must let the servant go free to compensate for the tooth. (Exodus 21:26)
Murder
Anyone who strikes a man and kills him shall surely be put to death (Exodus 21:12)

Cursing ones Father
Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death (Exodus 21:17)
Ye shall not oppress one another; but thou shalt fear thy God ( Leviticus 25:17)

Testing the Martingale Betting System Online

.... Currently being Experimented .........

In a classic Roulette, what are the odds that the ball lands on 'a black number' 8 times in a row ? Or , if you keep betting on 'red', what are the chances that you loose 8 times in a row ?

I would say ... almost none. Now thats exactly what the trap is !

Welcome Martingale System . ( Read about this in wikipedia ) and then it takes a whole new dimension.

Simply put, Martingale Betting System is when you double your wager every time you loose, so ultimately , if you win (atleast once) , you get back all the wager money and a little extra ( the base amount ).

I wanted to test it out myself ... and that too with real money . But first a few rounds of trial and then with real money .

Conclusion with play-money :


Conclusion with real money :
1. You need to have a whole lot of money .
2. There should not be any table limit.
3. You should have the balls to keep going when you are loosing 7 times in a row and are forced to pool in all your money on the 8th - ( when the chances of you loosing is 50-50 ! )


Conclusion :

Can you predict your emotional state when things have not yet happened ?

Here is the postulate - One cannot imagine one's emotional state of an instant which hasn't yet occurred, even if one is well aware of its imminence ( and has prepared himself for the consequences of the outcome )

Here are a couple of examples on different emotional instances which the subject is primed for.

Despair - tell a student that he is to fail in an exam , and tell that you are pretty sure of it. The student prepares for that event ( emotionally ). Even though he might imagine the mental state he might be when the results are out, he would not be able to predict the actual state of mind he might be in when he is encountered with the result .

Anger - Imagine that you are in a freakish road accident involving you and another driver, where you are not hurt. But the chassis of your car is mildly damaged. You can prime yourself of the emotional state you might be , in such a situation. And even though you are well prepared for that event, and you promise yourself that you would not loose your temper in that situation, you cannot but be angry - either at the other person involved in that accident or at the situation or in the worst case - at yourself.

How can I quantitatively measure/prove this hypothesis ?

Hospitals should not show movies on their TV.

When a patient waits for his turn for consultation with the doctors, they usually wait in a room which has a TV which gives live feeds of movies / news / programs that are not screened for their content.

Recently I went to a hospital and was waiting for my turn. I was accompanying someone who had to go through one round of endoscopy ( a relatively painful experience ). The TV was showing something of a emotionally un-savory movie which had the usual dose of violence in it. ( Also death )

My postulation is that these programs ( violent / ones showing negative emotions like pain, loss and grief or visuals involving death/accidents) affect the patients in such a way as to increase their fear of pain of a treatment that is immediately due to them.

Here are a few suggestions :

1) The programs/shows shown on TV should not be live. ( Unless it is sports or music/entertainment channels )

2) For a child-care hospital , they could be cartoons.

Color recognition

Iam color blind .- Hmmm not completely ! .... Well atleast I dont have the sense of color ! ( Wait ... let me not be so harsh on myself ... I dont have the dressnig sense .... hmmm or a little milder would be My sense of fashion is weird .. !
Well maybe its because I cannot recognize different shades of color ? Here is a little experimental thought ....

• You are shown one particular shade of brown .... for maybe 5 seconds .. ( CONTROL sample )
• And then .... you are shown a palette of different shades of brown ( POPULATION sample )..... and asked to choose from it , the shade just saw ....
  
• Can you pick the right shade ?? How much of a deviation would you cause ?

After thought : I found this task difficult with both CONTROL and POPULATION , both shown to the subject ! Now I can imagine how difficult it would be if the control sample is not shown ! Phew !

Future actions :

• Build a small software and test it on different gender and age group .
• Show the gradient ! Ask them to choose from it.
  
• Now lets make the steps a little more difficult ... We donot give it as a gradient .. but a random scatter of shades ! ( whoa ! I know thats difficult )
  

I had this idea with the octaves - ( hmm ... the sounds .... do , re, me ...ring a bell ? ) . More on that later.

How would it be .... to be old ?

Very similar to an old idea that I had ... which I called 'Future on a napkin' ... But this is much personal ! I have started imagining how would it be ... 10 years from now ... and 20 years from now .
Well ...on one hand it is interesting , partly due to the uncertainty of it .. and partly because of the imaginative creativity you are bestowed with.
And on the other ... it disappoints you, because 'your future' is only as good as your imagination ! ( And if you dont have a good one , you dont have a good future ! )

So I kept a blog of the future where I keep entries which are way ahead of the future and ...wait .. when the future is on you, you update the blog with how true your 'prediction' was . Interesting isnt it ?

A sample blog entry looks like this :

Entry for 2027 January 31

My kid will be 10 years old today. Written on 2004 April.

Okay my kid will be older than that. ( Looks like I would be too old to make a kid that late ) Modified on 2005 May 12th

I think I would not get married ! Modified on 2007 October 2nd

I thought this would be a great idea :)
See my related post on future on a napkin.

Additional points :

1) Save each entry as "scheduled posts".
2) Subscribe to the blog that you made so that you get an email reminder when that entry is posted. ( eg : You create a blog entry for 6 months in advance and then when it actually posts on that day , you get a mail of what you thought about that day , 6 months ago ! Whoa ! )

Checking your response time .

Small Decisions.
Thats the word for the day. ( okay .. 2-words) How can you ability to quickly adapt and respond to small decisions affect your life ?

That sounds a little deep. Here is the simpler version ! Very similar to checking your response time on some of those flash games . But this time,


To implement :

• A software that takes in inputs from the user .
• To start with, the screen flashes either of the 4 direction keys in random. ( step 2 )
  
• The user responds by pressing the key displayed on the screen. ( step 3 )
  
• The software calculates the time difference between step 2 and step 3.
  

How much is your life worth now ?

Here is a thought experiment I do to others ! ( Somehow it does not work with oneself ! )

Ask this question to your friend ( mind you ... only close friends ) ...

• Imagine , there's a gun with 100 bullet chambers ( than the usual 6 round one ) .
• And 99 of it is empty.
• 1 chamber has a bullet.
• The chamber is rotated - so you dont know finally if the round is empty or has a bullet (Oh just like the Russian-roulette ! )
• Now ask your friend if he would be willing to keep it on his temple and fire. ( oh just like the russian roulette - but ... you dont play .. just your friend )
• But here is the reward . If he is alive, he will get $1 as reward. Is he willing to do it ?
  
• Not willing ? Okay how about a MILLION dollars ... would he do it ? ( remember .. the chances are 1/100 *only* )
• If he says yes, .. wait ... it means he values his life against risk worthiness somewhere between $1 and $1 MILLION !
  
• Now increase the lower figure and decrease the upper figure .
  
• Keep doing that .. until he / you reach a bracket of figure where you would not be able to make a decision ... maybe something like ... between $16,000 - $75,000 ( Which means ... he would not be willing to do it for $16,000 but definitely for $75,000 ! )
• See if you can come with a fixed figure .

Now do this sometime later in his life ! And see if that has changed !

I realized that this figure depends on many things -
1) The current financial situation he is in.
2) Is he contented with his life . ( higher the dollar figure, the chances are it is a closer indication of whether he is happy or not )
3) Social obligations and responsibilites. ( The $ figure is higher for people with higher social responsibilities )


Modifications
1) You can change the number from 100 to any other that you like

How long does it need for one to recognize a face ?

If I were to flash a picture of a celebrity for 100 milliseconds , can you recognize that face ? Now how about 20 milliseconds ? Well .. it could vary between images - Is that what you think ?

To do :

Okay .. recognition of a face is little complex . Lets get to the micro level - Numbers.
If I were to see the number plate ( a 6 digit alpha-numeric pattern ) of a vehicle for a split second, can I remember that for a while ? ( atleast store it in my short term memory ? )

Implications :
Does this in anyway help decrease the myth of photographic memory ? Oh wait .. Iam talking split second photographic memory . ( If ever that exists ... )

Effect of time, mood swing and sleeplessness on biological clock

When I started off this experiment on myself, I was almost sure ( from the readings that I had done over the years) that there is a definite effect on our estimation of time based on the temperature of the body. ( I cannot recall the source though ) .

In other words, it meant something like " when you have a fever, your body clock runs faster .. so you think that 50 seconds might be actually 1 minute" or in other words.... time runs slower.

Factor 1 : Time of the day: Now I wanted to estimate this quantitatively, based on different factors . I estimated that probably time runs faster in the mornings ( when you are getting ready for office ) ... and runs little slower when you are bored . ( yeah .. dont we all know it )

Factor 2 : State of mind :
What is our perception of time with respect to our mood swings ?

Methodology
I developed a software ( screenshots attached ) which does the verification of the same .

To do :
Since this, like most of my other experiments , was done solely on myself, I wanted to extend it to the other spectrum of the society.

• People with blindness.
  
• Women in their different phases of ovulation cycles
• People affected by cerebral Palsy (CP )
  

Future on a napkin

I use this much like an exercise in thinking beyond the present... and a peek into future. I call this one ... "Future on a napkin" . It works like this :

You are out with one/few of your friend(s) for a coffee/dinner . And the conversation is drying up with mundane ideas - soccer, family et al. And here is something you put forward .

You take a napkin and start writing a question :
For example .... something like this -

When will I get married ?
Person A : 2014
Person B : 2015
Person C : 2015
Person D : You wont get married


Well ... i did this sort of thing ... and well .. trust me, it would be wonderful to look at it once in a while later on !

Additional things to do with this :
1) Scan the napkin and send it to your friends the next day ( or better still sometime when the event actually happens - if you still have that copy :) )