“In life as in poker, the occasional coup does not necessarily demonstrate skill and superlative performance is not the ability to eliminate chance, but the capacity to deliver good outcomes over and over again. That is how we know Warren Buffett is a skilled investor and Johnny Chan a skilled poker player.” — John Kay, Financial Times
This made me think of a sports gambling database and strategy set that I read about in an ESPN magazine at a barber shop. I don't remember the specifics but I recall that the database was shared by invitation only and had an intentional "barrier to entry" level buy in, which seemed high to me. The article claimed the database was in use by only 9 professional gamblers. I'd like to see some performance data on their bets.
To me, it seems that Avatar could be taken as a "noble savage" dances with wolves trope on a surface viewing, for sure. But a second viewing really shows it as a post singularity society. Every entity on the planet has a neural up-link as a part of it's organism. The Na'vi venerate a tree called "Eywa" (AI-wa?) that seems to be able to control most of the planet, and even aggressively "seed tags" a known invader only to later invite the invader into a situation that allows for the AI tree to upload ... (read more)
The quoits is perfect, it illustrates how welcoming the community can be.