08/1/2009

The crew, during an on the road holiday in France, decided to went in a V.A.P. …Very Awesome Place. Not Paris… Not a normal city… when the Crew move their asses… they move with style.

And we went to… MONTE CARLO, Principality of Monaco.

One of the most important Casino’ in the world, one of the most important place where if you have upper than 100€ you can buy a toothpick (if you are lucky). And Here we are…

TA-dhaaaaaaaaaaaa! (In Background: The Casino’ of Monte Carlo)

Beautiful cars, Rolex, Girls and much… much… much Money.

This is MONTE CARLO… This is LIFE!

Lo scorso 24 novembre Shaun ha partecipato all’evento che ha presentato il nuovo numero del magazine Maxim. Ecco 6 fotografie nella nostra gallery.

Inoltre nella gallery abbiamo aggiunto anche una foto di Shaun con il principe Alberto di Monaco al Monte Carlo Television Festival Cocktail Party dello scorso 24 ottobre.

Personally, I find most of the traditional luxury cars at SEMA to be a little boring. I just really don’t care if somebody slapped a sweet set of wheels on a 7 Series BMW and rolled it on to the red carpet. Yawn. That said, I’d like to nominate the following cars for best luxury ride: the black Porsche Panamera (not everyone finds it as ill-proportioned as I do) ,  the killer widebody Bentley in the Nutek Wheels booth, the unreal House of Kolor Monte Carlo, this uber-tough diesel powered Caddy, and David Huang’s aggressively attired Lexus IS 300. Even if you think I’m totally high with these choices, vote for your favorite!

!!!

And so goes the headlines of my life.

Crap, I so badly need a new site right now. So so so badly.
Anyway, Friday night I got dressed up to check out the Monte Carlo fundraiser at the Sheraton Hotel. Getting ready for the event was frustrating enough, because I only have like FIFTEEN DRESSES and we all know you can’t recycle the same dress within the span of a year. At one point I stomped my feet like an unruly toddler and screamed, “I’M NOT PRETTY ENOUGH FOR DOCTORS.”

(The Monte Carlo is some fundraiser thing hosted by the med school students, including my buddy Jagerbomb. And I just realized I missed this week’s episode of Grey’s, omg.)

So we had some drinks at the house and then Chef’s friend proceeds to get stupid-drunk and puke in our sink. This happened all very quickly as we were leaving the house, and I kinda remember seeing it out of the corner of my eye and thinking “did that guy just puke in my sink?” But pushed it off because it seemed like SHEER INSANITY that I’m 23 years old and still have people puking in my sink.
Let me tell you something, having to clean that up after returning home at 3 a.m. isn’t a pleasant stroll through the park. As payback, we drank his $30 bottle of wine.

Anyway, Monte Carlo was alright, but my friends didn’t want to stay long as drinks were $7 each. I did see my super mega hot gym crush there though, so now I’m wondering if he’s a doctor. I run into him everywhere, we’re total soulmates. I can feel it. Except oh yeah, I’m asexual and haven’t been physically touched in months. Did I just say that out loud? TENSIONS ARE HIGH.

We spent the remainder of the night at Lottie’s, taking over the dancefloor and having impromptu photoshoots. People definitely hate us. My quiet, stay-at-home weekend to catch up on shiz turned into me running all over the city and making crafts with the Rangers. I went to the St. Thomas Church and checked out some puddin’ makin’ event, and poked around a museum where Kevin Major was doing a reading. Why is it that everytime I’m in the company of “good” people, I want to roll around on the floor clasping their ankles and begging for forgiveness?

Oh yeah, here’s why.

I made my redheaded accomplice take off her shirt because she wasn't exhibiting her inner skank. And why does my arm look like the flab of an 80-year-old woman who hasn't lifted a barbell in her life?

I don't have the slightest clue who the guy with glasses is, but if I had my time back, I'd ask for his number. And also, wtf is up with the birthday hat?

In the casino, the cardinal rule is to keep them playing and to keep them coming back. The longer they play, the more they lose, and in the end, we get it all. Ace Rothstein (Robert De Niro), Casino

Blackjack is the only fair game in the casino. It’s the only game where you don’t expect a net loss after repeated play. Ever other game will cost you money in the long run. Take roulette for example. For any bet the expected earnings is negative. If you make the same bet over and over and add up what you have at the end you will always find that you have lost money. Therefore, if the casino keeps you playing, they will eventually win your money. Its statistically inevitable.

I came across a “strategy” to win at roulette that I wanted to discuss. A quick google search will reveal that this strategy is everywhere and some pages offer some discussion as to why it is supposed to work. The strategy is as follows:

Now, before any of you go running to an online casino to win big money consider yourself warned: This strategy does not work. The flawed reasoning behind the strategy is simple. A progressive series of losing numbers is increasingly unlikely and by continually betting on the red you are essentially betting on the change of such a series occurring. Since that chance is increasingly small your probability of winning the next round in the series approaches one.

The problem with this logic is two fold. The most serious of these errors is that the roulette wheel has no memory of what occurred in the previous round. A bet on red has a 18/38 = 47.37% of winning regardless of what occurred in the past. There is a probability that is approaching zero but it’s the probability that a specific sequence occurs in a particular order. The sequence “black, black, black, black, black, red” is just as likely as the sequence “black, black, black, black, black, black” which is also just as likely as the sequence “black, red, black, red, black, black” or any other specific sequence of six outcomes. (Here i have neglected the difference between black/red and loss/red, which produces slight difference in the probabilities but does not change the discussion appreciably.) However, the probability of any of these three is approaching zero as the length of the sequence grows. What drives the probability to zero is the fact that the number of possible sequences is growing exponentially.

The second flaw in the logic is that the strategy ignores the fact that you have to have enough money to cover the geometrically increasing bet size. Everyone enters the casino with a finite amount of money to bet. Even if they allow themselves to mortgage their lives there is still a finite amount of money from which to draw. Since the probability of 5 loses and a win is a little less likely as 6 loses, the odds are, that next bet is going to cost you a lot. If you continue to play you will eventually hit a sequence where you cannot afford to bet the increased amount and collect your net dollar. And what is worse is that that final bet will wipe you out financially.

To make this more concrete I decided to model the strategy numerically by simulating repeated plays of a game of roulette. Starting with some initial pot size, the program will play the outlined strategy above. However, once the pot size hits zero or less, the pot size is set to zero for the remainder of the simulation – once you have lost all your money it stays lost. I then repeat this process thousands of time and average the size of the pot after n bets to obtain the expected pot size at the nth bet. The results are plotted below as a percent of the initial pot size.

The red, green, blue and black lines correspond to initial pot sizes of 100, 200, 300 and 400 dollars.  The results are striking and the strategy clearly fails.  Even for the large pot sizes the player is broke, on average, before 5000 pays have been made.  Furthermore, the player expects to begin losing money immediately.  This is steaming from the fact that a red bet has a negative expectation value and geometrically increasing your bet to cover your loses doesn’t change this fact.

The reason the larger pot sizes result in a slower rate of loss is because the initial bet of one dollar was used for each of the cases.  As a result, the player is betting a smaller percent of the pot per turn and thus the rate of loss is slowed.  If you scale the initial dollar bet accordingly all of these curves would fall on one another, as shown below.

Dragă Elena,

Sunt aici cu Camil la munte, numai noi doi și nu pot să’mi crez ochilor de atâta fericire. Știi bine că nu’mi prea place la munte de obicei că este aerul cesta parcă prea rarefiat, de m’apucă tusea una-două de sensibilă ce sunt. Dar acum stau și mă uit la Camil cum vorbește despre călătorii la capătul lumii astea pe care o știm noi, până la linia orizontului zice el. Și în spatele lui sunt munții, văile, cerul, totul de așa o frumusețe, tu, Leano că mă impresionează până la lacrimi.

Nu credeam că o să mai iubesc vreodat după ce îl pierdui pe Bebe în circunstanțele acelea tragice de care nu voi mai pomeni, dar iată că s’a ivit Camil și sunt din nou ferice precum numai în cărți citești. Te salută și el, deși știe că ești neîncrezătoare în ceea ce îl privește. Îmi povestește toate cele, de l’ascult cu gura căscată. Tatăl lui a fost prieten bun cu Petre Cristea, de care tu probabil că nu știi mai nimic,  bleguțo, dar a fost campion mondial la mașini la Montecarlo, în 1936 și tatăl lui Camil l’a cunoscut la Luna Sporturilor chiar aici la Sinaia. Da nici noi nici Camil nu eram născute pe atunci, erau alte vremi.

Te las, că trebuie să mergem în vizită la stațiunea zoologică, unde iară știe Camil al meu pe cineva de vază și vrea să mă prezinte.

Cu drag,
Catrina ta.

Las Vegas residents and vistors alike finally got some great news– they just may be able to actually see the New Year’s Eve half-million dollars of fireworks displays this year!

Las Vegas Events (LVE) and the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) announced late last week that the New Year’s Eve celebration known as America’s Party: Las Vegas New Year 2010 will include a spectacular fireworks show fired from seven rooftop locations along the three-mile stretch of the Las Vegas Strip. 

Although fireworks displays had been launched from the top of Las Vegas Strip hotels since Dec. 31, 2000, the show was launched from resort parking lots and garages last year when new Clark County fire and safety rules tightened regarding rooftop fireworks following the Monte Carlo rooftop fire in January 2008. 

The lower launch point caused the fireworks display last year to not be viewable at many traditional Las Vegas vantage points. 

But, despite the lower aerial displays, last year’s New Year’s Eve still drew nearly 291,000 visitors to the area, include nearly 30,000 downtown, for an nongaming economic impact of $188 million to Las Vegas, according the Las Vegas Visitors Authority.

 The budget for this year’s Las Vegas show, which is funded by the state’s room tax, has reportedly increased by $50,000 to $550,000– not bad for a poor economic year with many residents out of a job. 

The Las Vegas firing locations (from the south, heading north) this year include the following resort properties: MGM Grand, Planet Hollywood, Aria, Caesars Palace, Treasure Island (TI), Venetian and the Stratosphere. 

Fireworks by Grucci of New York will again coordinate the pyrotechnic display. 

The group recently created the spectacular Grand Opening of the Atlantis Hotel and The Palm Jumeirah in Dubai and has executed numerous presidential inaugurations and citywide celebrations.

 Grucci will also do the fireworks for the $8.5 billion CityCenter grand opening planned for Dec. 16 in Las Vegas. 

Michael Green, a history professor at the College of Southern Nevada, said New Year’s Eve fireworks high above the Strip have become part of the fabric of Las Vegas, commenting, “Granting that Las Vegas is still in a lot of economic hurt, the signs are pointing the right way. So maybe the fireworks will give us something to look forward to and up to.”

Clement Marfo & The Frontline

Behold, the future of music is upon us – check out a few tips that I think could come good in 2010. Starting with the magnificent Clement Marfo & The Frontline. This 7 piece act  is the product of a collaboration between Hip-Hop artist Clement Marfo and the Indie / Electronic band The Frontline, and the resulting fusion of music and ideas is fucking ace. Champion for instance layers Electronic glitch & beep samples, Ska-infused prominent brass melodies, guttural driving basslines, subtle bluesy guitar licks and intricate kick / snare patterns to provide the platform over which Marfo spits his venemous rhymes, while Kojo Vihram provides catchy pop-hook choruses. Anthemic pop-sensibility meets grime vocal prowess and a whole host of other cultural and musical influences for good measure – amazing! Lights Out meanwhile takes the bass driven, indie dance-beat and euphoric electronic vibe of bands like The Killers and The Bravery, and throws in some grimey vocals a la Marfo, who puts some of the current Grime-Pop acts of today’s charts to shame with his impressive display of lyricism. These guys and girls are playing a few London shows on the run up to Christmas so be sure to check ‘em out while it’s still hot off the press.

Jenners Field are a really young London-based band who take the bleak death-Pop stylings of White Lies, the vocal pomposity of Tom Smith, and the experimental Electronic Indie feel of Me My Head, and stir it all up in a lo-fi, endearingly under-produced and raw blender. These boys also happen to have written one of the most stirring, atmospheric and infectious tracks I’ve come across in a while in Brave: an experimental rock track which transcends cultural barriers, combining middle-eastern guitar melodies with western popular traditions, and not to mention one hell of a chorus. And they use a theremin.. ’nuff said.

Jeuce is a musical force as yet unrecognised by the masses. However they are steadily building a fanbase for themselves, and are gaining the respect of the electronic music community; up-and-coming labels and producers alike, and for me, 2010 could be their year. They are entrepreneurs unhindered by futile dreams of immediate pop success, and as such there are many strings to the Jeuce bow. Not only are they a phenomenal live dance act, they are also well-reputed DJs, producers, opinion leaders, and have even dabbled in running their own label. It’s their live performance that is most exciting though, and you should definitely check out their grimey brand of dub-infused, bleep & bass indie dance immediately. 2010 could well be the year that the Jeuce brand drops.

Sketches are an emotional, dual-vocal Indie band. Epic and powerful sweeping soundscapes characterise their more soul-wrenching tracks, Dear Heart and Bleed Victoria (due for release on Fandango next week). Simple, brilliantly produced with lush delay and reverb guitars reminiscent of The Edge, and effortlessly endearing, Sketches have a few big-name followers, so fingers crossed 2010 will be their year.

Also in 2010, listen out for these guys: electronic Pop sensations Nite Visions; emo /alt rockers This Familiar Smile whose debut album Ribbons, Regards & the More Machine drops 2010; Pop-Punks Monte Carlo; Rap / Electro group F*Street, who have definitely got what it takes to ride the JLS riptide.

Yeeeaah Rock on 2010!

Following a proposal by Springer-Verlag Paris, I have decided to translate Introducing Monte Carlo Methods with R with George Casella into French, since a new collection of R books (in French) is planed for the Spring of 2010. The translation will a priori be done by Joachim Robert and Robin Ryder, under my supervision and with the support of Springer-Verlag Paris. I have already translated the first chapter as I needed to cut most of the R coverage, since this collection assumes a prior knowledge of R and aims at a smaller number of pages (around 200) to keep the price as low as possible.

Studying the distributional properties of the maximum is gaining more of attention nowadays given the relative failure of the conventional tools the quants used before the recession.

Let’s suppose that an insurance company faces the challenge to cover claims incurring in random time and size. The intensity of the process is , and the process itself is (surprise!!!) Poisson. The claims are iid from a lognormal distribution with parameters and , where is the intermediate time between occurence and .

Some Mathematica code from my Graduate Simulation class is the following.

First we set up the intersity function and the generic vectors recoring Claims (Claimsv) and maximums (Maxv)

λ0 = 25; t0 = 1;
λ[t_] := 100 (t – t^2); Claimsv = {}; Maxv = {};

The main program is the following

Do[S = {}; t = 0; n = 0;
X = -Log[Random[]]/λ0; t = t + X;
While[t < t0, If[Random[] < λ[t]/λ0, n = n + 1; S = Append[S, t]];
X = -Log[Random[]]/λ0; t = t + X];
Claims = 0; S[[0]] = 0; Maxx = 0; Do[rr = Exp[
Random[NormalDistribution[0.75*(S[[i]] – S[[i - 1]]), 1]]];
If[rr > Maxx, Maxx = rr];
Claims = Claims + rr, {i, 1, n}] AppendTo[Claimsv, Claims];
AppendTo[Maxv, Maxx];, {10000}]

And plotting the histograms of the simulated distribution of the Claims and the maximum we nearly finished…

<< Histograms`

Histogram[Claims.v]
Histogram[Max.v]

to be continued…

Last night when I went to bed at about half 2 I left my finished book on a random cabinet in a random corridor for someone else to enjoy, I like doing that. At half 9 this morning it had already gone and in it’s place was Ender’s Shadow. I almost felt obliged to read it but it looks very long and these fantasy/sci-fi novels always have loads of sequels/prequels so I put it back in the end. Is that bad book karma?

I got my ticket for Zaragoza okay, €65 though, ouch. I ordered it in French and confirmed what time it left and got in at and if it was direct. But it’s never like in the text books, she was rattling on about all sorts and I wasn’t getting it all so I had to ask her if she spoke English as I didn’t fancy missing crucial information just to improve my French. Anyway, I have to check-in at least half an hour before it departs, which is crucial information as I often board seconds before they depart.

She said I can leave my bag there for the day which is handy as it will save me €4 and mean I can get the bus to Monaco, which at 40 minutes takes twice the time as the train but is more scenic and another €4 cheaper for the round trip. I need to make sure I’m back by 16:00 to pick it up though.

Crikey, there is some money knocking about here. I’ve been walking up and down the marina trying to figure out which boat I’m going to get when I get home. This was my number one choice but due to space considerations on the Stretford passage of the Bridgewater canal I’ve opted for this instead.

For lunch I ate at a place called Le Botticelli. €9.50 for moules marinières avec frites, not bad at all considering where I was. It does however mean a baguette for tea.

If I’d have had more time I’d have got the boat over from Monte Carlo to Monaco Ville to have a good look round but as it was I only had a bit under 2 hours, which was enough to at least get a feel for the place.

I was a little bit worried when getting back from Monaco as the bus stop that I thought was on the correct road didn’t have my bus number (100) listed and the station name didn’t appear on the Nice to Monaco bus leaflet I had either. There wasn’t any margin for error or else I would likely find my bag impounded for the night and me up little brown river.

I was quited pleased that I managed to ask the driver of a different bus “Excusez-moi, le linge cent pour Nice, c’est arret ici?”. I’m sure there’s plenty of errors in there but it was good enough to get the info I needed which is the important thing, 2 minutes later and I was on the bus.

My long haul bus journey preparation hasn’t gone very well. I’m dying for a waz as the bus station toilets are out of order and my supplies are not what I’d hoped for. I’d planned on getting a ‘4 cheese’ baguette that I saw last night but I couldn’t find the place again and didn’t really have time to. Then it was too late to find anything else so all I have is a large bottle of water, which I can’t really drink because as I just stated, I’m dying for a waz. Also, because of yesterday’s dog dung incident, I’ve no pen to mark out stuff I want to see in Spain in my rough guide.

It’s going to be a long 18 hours, I hope the first stop is soon and is at a well stocked outpost.

One thing I meant to say is that I was probably a bit harsh on Nice yesterday, after going through different parts on the bus today and then rushing around looking for grub at a different time of day, it actually looks fairly interesting. The Côte d’Azur will make a good scooter trip at some point in the future.

Phew, pee had.

Phew, food had. Well, a bag of crisps anyway.

We just passed through Marseille, it looks a pretty lively city. Am I right in thinking it’s where ‘The French Connection II’ was set? One Google search later and it seems I am.

Later, we also stopped at Barcelona. It seems daft going through a city like that and not staying for a night or 2, but I’m short of time now and I’ve been twice before anyway. It’s always a cheap flight away in the future though.

On the bus I listened to the Super Furry Animal’s latest 2 albums via Spotify. Now I’m very reluctant to critisice this band as I love their entire back catalogue (well maybe not ‘Guerilla’), they’ve been putting out great stuff for years. But these latest 2 (2007’s ‘Hey Venus!’ and this year’s ‘Dark Days/Light Years’), while still full of ideas as ever, they just don’t have the tunes for me. A shame. This is only IMHO mind, the reviews in the media have been good for both. I’ll still be very interested in what comes next, I can’t write a band as inventive as that off.

Right I’m finally in Zaragoza. It was a pretty horrible journey really as it was such a busy route the bus was forever stopping and the lights coming on, also all the seats were taken so it was very cramped. 9 hours in and my back knew about it, it was a very sore and uncomfortable 2nd half of the ride. That’s the last monster leg of the journey I have to do now though I think, it should be relatively straight-forward from here on in (hopefully!).

I’ll have a quick look at the train and bus tickets while I’m in the depot and then it’s off to the hostel to collapse.

HoK has always been known for their eye-searing paint schemes, and for their SEMA booth this year, they chose a pretty awesome canvas. The late-70’s Monte Carlo is one of my favorite overlooked classics, and I’m glad we can count on the lowrider and high-riser cultures to make something incredible out of cars that would probably otherwise just be run into the ground as beaters. I loved the classic lowrider metal-flake treatment on this Monte, but there was so much sparkle that it confused the heck out of my camera, which didn’t know whether to barf or go blind–see pics in a variety of different flash modes below the jump!

Just nine days away, there is still time to attend this wonderful event!  Tableau is held by International Furnishings and Design Association at the Scottsdale Plaza Resort in Scottsdale, AZ.  All proceeds go to support Ryan House (see previous post for more info).   Here is what you get for your support:

Public Preview/Day Event 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. 11/14/09:  A chance to view approximately 18 over-the-top, lavish tablescapes by some of the Valley’s best designers!  Do you need ideas for your holiday tables?  Do you want to support a local nonprofit?  Then come on down!  The tables are highly secret and will be a surprise to all.  Only $25 per person with a chance to enter a raffle to win fabulous prizes.  Here is an award-winning example from last year:

Kaleidoscope - Best Use of Color by Adrienne Hart & Maggie Anderson of H2Originals

If  you want even more fun, join the festivities in the evening!  For $150, you will get to view all the tables, dine at one of them, enjoy a fun Monte Carlo night of playing games casino style, and another chance to win great raffle prizes.   Additionally, there will be a Hollywood glam type of fashion show–not kitschy Hollywood,  but really truly glamorous vintage gowns and dresses will be modeled.   Fashion by Robert Black will be presenting this sophisticated fashion show.  Here is a dress from his extensive vintage collection:

Madame Gres White Silk Crepe Dress - circa 1950s

If you want day event tickets, you may contact me directly.  However, the easiest way is to go to IFDA’s dedicated website, www.ifdatableau.com.  Click on the “Attend Tableau” button and it will walk you through the steps to attend either the day event or evening event.

Sponsors of this wonderful event include:  Arizona Foothills Magazine, Sources & Design, Forty, Rustic Stuff,  Repps, Fashion by Robert Black, Ford/Robert Black Agency AZ, Bed, Bath & Beyond, Scott Sandler Photographic, Southern Wine & Spirits of Arizona,  Steinway of Phoenix, Inside/Out, Dunn-Edwards, EuroDream Kitchens, and The Cookson Company.

Be sure to support these wonderful companies!

Capa Revista Mundo PM - edicão 29

Saiu na edição de Outubro/Novembro da revista Mundo PM um caso real de autoria dos consultores Alonso Soler – PMP - Sócio Diretor na J2DA e Fábio Vampel – PMP - Consultor da J2DA , sobre aplicação de Monte Carlo em Projetos de Parada.

Veja breve descritivo sobre o artigo pela Mundo PM:

É sempre muito bom conhecer aplicações reais de métodos que, aparentemente, podem nos oferecer vantagens na condução adequada de nossos projetos. Nesse artigo, os consultores Alonso Soler e Fábio Vampel explicam como foi a aplicação do Método de Monte Carlo no acompanhamento do cronograma da ampliação de uma unidade fabril da empresa petroquímica Kraton Polymers do Brasil, com ênfase no cronograma de parada de operações. Os resultados da aplicação do Método de Monte Carlo foram usados como balizadores da definição da data esperada de programação e da duração da parada, após cada reunião de atualização do desempenho físico do projeto.

O artigo está publicado na última edição da revista Mundo PM da última edição: http://www.mundopm.com.br/destaques2Ed29.shtml

If you are traveling though European countries or cities and find yourself somewhere between France and Italy, don’t miss a day trip to Monte Carlo, the beautiful and luxurious capital of the city-state of Monaco. Situated on the French Riviera, Monaco is known for the rich and famous which frequent its beautiful Mediterannean location, Le Grand Casino, and its rich history. The city-state’s permanent population is only about 3,000, but it’s beauty and glamor make up for it!

Monaco is now the only principality left in Europe and was once home to Prince Rainier III and his wife, Princess Grace Kelly, an American film and stage actress. While visiting Monaco, stop by the Saint Nicolas Cathedral, Monaco where both Kelly and Rainier III are buried.

Walk through the palace gardens and view the spectacular sea cliffs and yachts that line the harbor. The architecture is a beautiful complement to the ocean and the rockly ledges that make up the terrain. Stop for lunch at one of the charming cafes by Port of Monaco and make your way to the palace. It is very magical! You will see the royal crest and guards!  Monaco is the perfect place to spend an afternoon taking in the beautiful mediterannean terrain and soaking up sun on the French Riviera!

Our book Introducing Monte Carlo Methods with R with George Casella, published by Springer Verlag, should appear before Christmas, if I am to believe the following email from the production manager:

Dear Dr. Robert,
I would like to inform you that the estimated publication date for this book is Dec 14 (…)

The production delays have thus incredibly shrunk from what they were even five years ago. This may be related to the new print-on-demand practice that avoids publishing a whole printing at once... So now you know what you should order for X’mas!

We had a conversation with  our old friend, Mungo Park, on Friday the 23rd, primarily to talk about the annual CleanEquityMonaco conference (http://www.cleanequitymonaco.com/) hosted by his company, London-based boutique investment bank, Innovator Capital (http://www.innovator-capital.com/).  The 2010 edition of CleanEquityMonaco* is set forMarch 4-5, 2010, and it will follow the established mandate of finding 50 of the most innovative and potentially world-changing emerging technologies in the cleantech/greentech world. 

Innovator Capital's Mungo Park, organizer of CleanEquityMonaco

Mungo Park (a descendent of the 18th-century Scots explorer of the same name) has spent most of his professional life working with emerging technology companies, largely in the role of  investment banker.  The Irish Mr Park started at Prudential Bache, and then came up through the ranks at northeastern US investment banks of legend, many swallowed up by larger institutions in the consolidation frenzy of the latter years of the 20th century: Alex Brown & Sons, Cowen & Company, Dillon Read & Co.  He headed Nomura’s European i-banking operation before founding Innovator Capital.  Innovator was at first devoted to life science banking, and broadened over the last 5-6 years to include cleantech banking, due to its obvious connection with preventive healthcare and societal wellness. 

The following are excerpts from the conversation:

SCW: You were originally attracted to life sciences.  Why are you now seeking out alternative energy and greentech companies?

MP: I was working on a financing for a company that had a technology to remove oxides of nitrogen from diesel emissions and I realized that not only was this a way to make people healthier (less asthma, fewer respiratory ailments), but the business plans of cleantech companies follow a similar pattern to what I had seen in biotech and healthcare in general.  That is, invention, research, development into a usable product, commercialization.  A biotech product has to survive 7-9 years of test, however, and in many cases a greentech product can be ready for market in 7-9 months, which means the potential for a return on investment is much closer, if the wheel lands on your number.  Most green technologies do not have to clear through an FDA-type regulator in order to be “legal,” which makes all the difference in the world, often reducing the length of time from conception to commercialization.

The most important reason I am working on cleantech is, however, that it ticks the “ethical box” — that is, it improves the quality of human life.  And that is also the reason for CleanEquityMonaco.

SCW: Other than the name, what’s different about CleanEquityMonaco?  There are greentech/cleantech scientific or financial conferences springing up everywhere.  And how does a company get invited to participate?

MP:  About the time I was becoming more and more interested in cleantech, His Serene Highness Prince Albert II became the sovereign of Monaco.  I have had the good fortune to know him and he has significant credentials in environmental issues.  Shortly after his accession I had a meeting with him and we came up with the idea for CleanEquityMonaco, a conference whose purpose is to introduce emerging/early-stage, innovative, next-generation technologies from all over the world.  The fields of interest are, broadly, clean energy, clean earth, clean water, clean air.

Many of the presenting companies are fresh out of academia or an inventor’s laboratory.  Many are working on their first proof of principle and are very early stage.  They need money, yes, but they need other things as well.  CleanEquityMonaco is set up as a platform to introduce them to sources of investment (financial and strategic), but also to media, politicians and political influencers, potential licensees and potential technology partners. 

As to how a company can be invited, there are numerous ways.  We have developed a list of about 300 companies that we are looking at ourselves.  Many of those, as it turns out, are not qualified because they are too large or too well-established.  We try to invite presenters who are below €250 million in fair value — and that is an important distinction between our search for emerging technologies and other conferences’ searches for faits accomplis.  But we accept nominations from people we trust, and apply our diligence principles to those.  We try for a geographic spread that is global, so we don’t want more than, say 10 companies from North America, preferring to be clearly and fairly global.  And we give some preference to companies that are not yet listed for trading in a public market — and that may not have that as a goal either.  We are interested in the entrepreneurial spirit as it affects the cleantech/greentech movement, and, potentially, the health of people around the world.

Hotel de Paris, Monte Carlo

SCW: Why would a company want to present?

MP: If we put it together right — and so far the conferences have gone pretty well — in the 2 days of CleanEquityMonaco, the companies can cover a huge amount of ground.  They can save a lot of time and money because there is such a good mix of people there.  We have heard back from the participants that it is an extremely productive meeting.

We have two levels of participation for companies in different stages of development: full participation for companies who are post-development/expansion stage, and a “Next Wave” participation for companies who are pre-revenue/early-stage.  The Next Wave companies make a shorter presentation, but they have all the opportunities for networking which, in the final analysis, is what the conference is about.

SCW: We hear that Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou will be presenting a new award at the conference. 

MP: Of course Stelios is very well known in Europe as a hugely successful entrepreneur, perhaps most famous from EasyJet and EasyGroup, but from many businesses that he has started or encouraged from scratch.  And as a successful entrepreneur, he wants to give something back to the world.  He has been looking at cleantech for a while, and attended CleanEquityMonaco 2009.  He is sponsoring the conference, and has indeed agreed to present an award for entrepreneurship in cleantech, but he is particularly looking forward to meeting people, sharing his experience.  The Stelios Foundation (http://www.stelios.com/ ) has as its areas of interest: the environment, education and entrepreneurship.

SCW: What makes this conference different from other conferences?

MP: The extraordinary thing about this conference is the rich texture of participation.  We invite 50 companies to present, and about 300 attendees to mix, mingle and offer their help.  The focus is strictly on emerging technologies — not on upcoming financial deals.  The view is global, not country specific, and the attendees tend to be quite senior in their positions, representing international organizations like the UN, sovereign governments, big international corporations, academia, and finance.  We expect to see big multinationals there, shopping for investments and looking for junior partnerships — companies like Philips, GE, Siemens, Nissan and IBM.

Perhaps most important, the attendees go to Monte Carlo specifically for the conference, and they tend to be in attendance for all the sessions both days.  If we tried to do the same thing in London, we would have people popping in and out, coming to the lunch, and some presenters would get short shrift.  That is simply not the case in Monte Carlo.  It is a two-day event for everyone concerned, and the attendees tend to be at the conference 12 hours a day.

SCW: The upcoming conference will be the 3rd annual.  Have you had particular success stories that came out of the first two editions of CleanTechMonaco?

 MP: Several come to mind right away.  Zenergy Power (http://www.zenergypower.com/ ) presented in 2008; they are a superconductor energy technology company, listed on AIM, but operating in Germany, the US and Australia.  They have a variety of products targeted at electric utilities, and have done very well with the technology for transmitting large quantities of electricity over long distances with little or not leakage.  They got a large amount of recognition at CleanEquityMonaco, which also resulted in a lot of publicity.  Subsequently they have received additional funding and are, I believe, the first superconductor developer to be partnered by a major US utility.

Ener1 (http://www.ener1.com/ ) presented at that same meeting.  At the time they presented, they were pretty early-stage, and had recently restructured their capitalization.  They spent a good deal of their time at the conference with Think Electric, an auto company from Norway that was also presenting – and the two have subsequently partnered in several ways.  Ener1 has been a success story on the stock market, and was the recipient of a large US stimulus matching grant to expand its manufacturing in Indiana. 

Heliocentris Fuel Cells AG (http://www.heliocentris.com/en/about-us/profile.html) , based in Berlin and traded in Germany, is a hydrogen fuelcell company that presented to the 2009 conference.  Very soon thereafter they were able to announce a new financing that has helped them expand their business considerably.  They are partnered with many of the leading fuel-cell companies around the world.

US Geothermal (http://www.usgeothermal.com/) is headquartered in Idaho and traded on the NYSE Amex.  It is what its name implies: a company that uses the earth’s own heat to generate power.  They have had a steep growth trajectory, and were recently awarded a grant by DOE for a project in Oregon. 

Scots company Aquamarine Power (http://www.aquamarinepower.com/ ) is installing the world’s first nearshore wave energy device that will generate clean energy from the movement of waves.  They presented at the 2009 conference and have won numerous awards and commendations from all over the world.  They were able to raise a fair amount of new capital during a very difficult market subsequent to their participation in CleanEquityMonaco, and we are pleased that the timing was so propitious for them.

SCW: It is all business then?

MP:  CleanEquityMonaco is held in one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and the camaraderie that comes out of the meeting may be as important in some cases as the sharing of scientific developments. The meeting is small enough and senior enough that it helps create a network that’s not dissimilar to some “old school” or university networks — reaching all over the world and to many parts of society and industry. 

We have special rates from the best hotels in Monte Carlo: the fabulous Hotel de Paris, the beautiful beaux arts Hermitage, and the modern seaside Monte Carlo Bay Hotel.  We will be announcing several social events, including a CEO-only dinner on the night before the first day of meetings.  However serious we are, it is still Monte Carlo, after all.

SCW:  Many thanks. 

*Allen & Caron, publisher of this blog, is working with CleanEquityMonaco on a collegial basis in North America.

The last post on Computer Go (about a year back) was a brief description of the game, and why it is very difficult to approach Go in the same way we tackled Chess.

In a 4 page article on IEEE spectrum, Feng – Hsiung Hsu – the architect and the principal designer of the IBM Deep Blue – discusses in some detail about how Go could be solved using brute force and variations of Min-Max search itself. The article does not go into great detail about the principal problem with computer Go – the evaluation of board positions. Also, one statement caught my eye:

On top of that, in 10 years Moore’s law is expected to present us with still another 100-fold speedup.

I was under the impression that Moore’s law had already reached its limit. However, by adding more and better processors, supercomputers, will undoubtedly be able to do more operations in parallel. In this article we take a look at the most successful technique that takes advantage of the massive parallel processing power of today’s supercomputers – Monte Carlo Techniques using UCT – and deal the advancements made to it in a later post.

As a side-note – For a while now, I had felt that these approaches are not the best way to tackle Go, and that systems that mimic the behavior of human pattern recognition and learning mechanisms are the way to go ( no pun intended ). There was recently a small discussion in the Go mailing list about the use of Neural Networks in tackling Go. This one remark by Alvaro Begue, has affected strongly my sentiments on the issue:

People tried to make flying machines by imitating birds for a long time. Planes and helicopters fly, but not like birds do it. Similarly, I believe that whenever we figure out how to make machines that play go well, they will not do it like a brain does it.

The point being made here is that the computing systems that we have today are very different from the wirings in our own brains. We do not have very good brain-like pattern recognition system. What we do have are really fast parallel systems that perform simple operations at an amazing speed. And our aim should be to learn to use that effectively.

Monte Carlo Go – MoGo and CrazyStone

The introduction of Monte Carlo methods was a great boost to Computer Go. Currently, the best Computer Go program is MoGo and it uses Monte Carlo evaluation with the UCT algorithm. MC-Go engines explore the game tree upto a certain depth and then use Monte Carlo simulation to evaluate the leaf positions. The biggest issue in computer Go is that there is no way to evaluate the resulting board position after the Min-max tree has been explored to a certain depth. Board evaluation is relatively easier in Chess. Positions and pieces directly give away the value of the board. There is no such simplicity in Go. Territories may change hands. And patterns formed initially may have complex implications across the board.

In Monte Carlo evaluation, multiple simulations are run to evaluate the board position. A stochastic player plays a number of random games against himself starting from this position; until the end, and the average of all the final scores is taken as an estimate of the board’s value. In some cases, the frequency of wins from the position is determined as the position’s value.

Something that we could improve is the stochastic player. Ideally, to effectively evaluate the board position, the stochastic player should model the opponent as closely as possible. This is understandably very difficult to achieve. Instead it is far more practical to make the stochastic player biased towards picking better moves ( as both players are in reality going to draw from a set of good moves ) instead of picking all moves uniformly randomly.

A naive implementation of Monte Carlo simulation based evaluation function, where every leaf is evaluated by running a constant number of simulations, will naturally waste simulations on poor board positions. Instead, its better distribute the available simulations properly to evaluate more promising moves more. This leads us to the Exploration vs Exploitation problem.

Exploration vs Exploitation problem

An intuitive example of this is the n-armed bandit problem. A gambler wants to maximize his winnings from a slot machine with n arms. Each arm has a different mean winning associated with it. Through repeated plays the gambler is to maximize his winnings by concentrating his plays on the best levers, except he doesn’t know which lever is the best. In the absence of this knowledge, the gambler’s choices are to choose between a greedy action (exploitation), where he selects the lever which has given him the maximum reward so far; or to explore and choose a different lever in the hope that it’ll give a greater reward. In MC-Go, during evaluation, every move is treated as different bandit problem.

Using UCT ( UCB1 applied to Trees ) in MC-Go

The UCB1 algorithm simply picks the move a_j which maximizes this value , where X_j is the average of all rewards obtained by selecting action a_j, T_j is the number of times action a_j was picked, and n is the total number of times any action was picked. It would be space-wise expensive if we were to maintain information about each bandit problem and its values. Therefore, both MoGo and CrazyStone do the Monte Carlo simulation in two phases. In the first phase, called Tree Policy UCB1 is followed, and in the other, a default policy ( using the stochastic player discussed earlier ) is used.

Starting from the board position to be evaluated as the root, MoGo selects a move according to UCB1. It then descends down the tree in a similar manner, until the selected node is not a part of the tree. MoGo then adds this node to the tree. The Tree Policy ends here. From here on the default policy using the stochastic player is used. The video shown illustrates the technique.

Resources for further reading

• Homepage of Sylvian Gelly (no longer maintaining MoGo) and MoGo
• CrazyStone and Remi Coulom
• University of Alberta – A lot of Go related people here. David Silver (RLGO, RAVE) , Csaba Szepesvári (UCB) and M. Enzenberger( NeuroGo )

Most of the content here is from the slides of either Sylvian Gelly or Remi Coulom. Following up on the side-note, there are in fact two fairly strong Go programs built on neural networks – NeuroGo and Steenvreter. Lets see if I could read up on them and blog on it sometime. But soon, there’ll be a post on RAVE and hints on RL-Go.

Iar ploua marunt dar siciitor. Vrabiutele mele, nu se mai tem de ploaie. Vin si ciugulesc frenetic cocoloasele de piine. Am observat ca de la un timp incoace, din cind in cind se ratacesc in curticica betonata si niste porumbei. Nu stiu sa spun de care sunt, dar sigur nu sunt turturele. Vazind ca atenteaza la piinea vrabiutelor, le-am cumparat porumb cum facusem la Venetia anul trecut, cind am revazut Piata San Marco, Podul Rialto, Puntea Suspinelor…Nu stiu de ce dar, nu prea le-a placut porumbul. Or fi fost boabele prea mari? nu stiu, dar le-am cumparat griu. Si sa vezi situatie : eu am cumparat griu ca sa ramina piinea pentru vrabii, dar vad ca s-au dedulcit vrabiile la griu, si acum ciugulesc aripa linga aripa, vrabii si porumbei laolalta, piine si griu; ba din cind in cind, mai vin si alte zburatoare, dar bunul Dumnezeu stie ce sunt. Bine ca vin.

Aseara, cind am plecat de la restaurantul acela din Cismigiu, restaurantul acela aflat pe insula si denumit cam pompos, Monte Carlo, mergeam ingindurat pe aleile destul de slab luminate, dar animate; la doi-trei pasi in in spatele meu, sporovaiau aprins fiul, sotia si sora mea. Ei stiu despre ce. La un moment dat, ii aud racnind in cor, si aplaudind :

- Bravooooooo!

Ma uit la ei, ma uit la stinga, ma uit la dreapta, nu vad nimic si ii intreb precaut, pentru ca aplaudau privind la mine si rizind, cu gura pina la urechi :

- Dragii mei, v-ati tacanit ?

- Ei asta-i buna! zice cu ochi scaparatori, Silvia. Tocmai te-ai pricopsit !

- Zau ? zic. Da’ cum se face ca voi stiti si eu nu am aflat inca ?

- De pricopsit, te-ai pricopsit, da’ deocamdata doar cu niste gainat de zburatoare, pe spatele hainei.Norocul de-abia acum urmeaza sa vina. Si iara rid de mine de se prapadesc. Rid si eu, ce sa mai fac ?Bine ca de data asta am luat si eu bilet la loto. Vad eu miine daca am cistigat, daca nu oi uita cumva pe unde oi fi pus biletul.

Restaurantul, la care nu mai fusesem de mult, (a fost ideea surorii mele sa mergem acolo) se prezinta exact asa cum stiam : e loc pentru mai bine cit cuprinde. Zeci de sefi supravegheaza sever citiva ospatari nu tocmai tinerei, dintre care cel repartizat la masa noastra, a reusit sa ma bine-dispuna de la bun inceput. Dupa ce am studiat menu-ul, am cerut niste gustari pentru inceput. Neeeeeeeeee. Astea se fac doar la comanda, pentru nunti. Bine, zic, atunci adu-ne citiva mititei ca antreu si cite o bere. Bere am, zice, da’ mititei, nu. Stoic, mai incerc o data : da’ peste, zic, peste aveti ? Nu ma mai uit pe lista, ca vad ca n-are rost.AVEM ! Yupiiiiiiiii! imi vine sa strig. De care, intreb, cu speranta pilpiind. Pai, zice, avem asa : si rosteste la iuteala citeva soiuri de peste. Eu aleg salau meuniere, doamnele pastrav la gratar si saramura de crap, dar fii-miu mai cu mot, il ia la chinuit. Da’ d-aia aveti ? Da’ dailalta. Si tot asa pret de vreo 10 minute, pina cind mi s-a facut foame de-a binelea si m-am uitat urit la el. Stiam de la inceput ce o sa ceara, da’ l-am lasat sa-si faca mendrele nitel. Am incercat vinul casei; gustos, dar bineinteles contrafacut. Tot Jidvei ramine baza si nadejdea. In spatele nostru, o masa luuuuunga la care chiuiau de zor cu mare veselie vreo 40 de petrecareti sadea. Care tocmai il fericeau pe un domn inaintat bine in virsta, care implinea vreo 82 de anisori. Traiasca! le-am urat in gind. Imi plac oamenii veseli. Iar acestia, chiar aveau o regie de chef bine pusa la punct : cintau, aplaudau ritmat, dupa reguli bine stiute de toti. O incintare! ce mai. In stinga mea, o masa de sase persoane, la care se indopau rizind fara motiv, prietenii nostri japonezii.N-as putea sa jur ca erau aceiasi pe care i-am intilnit la tot pasul prin Grecia, dar n-as putea sa jur nici ca nu erau. Simpatici! au participat la cheful batrinelului, de parca chiar ei erau invitatii de onoare!Repet, simpatici! Trebuie sa spun ca mincarea a fost la inaltime. Dar, sigur ca trebuia pina la urma sa ne strice si noua cheful cineva : orchestra.La inceput, au cintat ceva ce semana destul de bine cu muzica de cafe-concert; apoi, au atacat valsuri si slagare dansante, unde lumea s-a zbintuit un pic. Dar se putea altfel ? Au trecut pina la urma la manele, pe care au inceput sa le racneasca din ce in ce mai strident. Bine ca terminasem de mincat, terminasem si cea de-a doua sticla de vin, tocmai la timp ca sa o tulim rapid de acolo. Tocmai la timp si ca sa ma pricopsesc. Stiti cum.

Scheduled to open in Phoenix in 2010, Ryan House is a nonprofit children’s palliative care home.  This special place has captured the hearts of Phoenicians, and there are numerous individuals and organizations coming together to raise funds, donate time and services, and generally make this beautiful home happen.   I am proud to be participating in a great upcoming fundraising event for Ryan House to be held November 14, 2009.

Ryan House, designed and planned by Orcutt Winslow Architecture

Here is the fun part:  International Furnishings & Design Association (IFDA), Arizona chapter,  is hosting a party to raise funds for Ryan House.  This just isn’t any party…as an IFDA member, I am privy to some behind-the-door details, and this is going to be a spectacular event!  Tableau features fantasy tables created by some of the Valley’s best designers.  This event is open to the public during the day of Nov. 14th.  By evening, attendees get to dine at these beautiful tables, participate in a fun evening of Monte Carlo style gambling with lots of prizes and raffles.  Remember, all the proceeds go to Ryan House–this is a don’t miss fall event!

Here are a couple of pix from last year’s event:

“Let Them Eat Cake” by Celia Schauble and Linda Tully of Custom Coverings

“Dinner at Versailles” by Karen Wirrig of Karen Cole Designs

Again, go to www.ifdatableau.com if you would like to design a table yourself, to attend this event, or just to donate.