Skepticism II
Well I don't know how much of this is true, but apparently way back during the dotcom bubble in the early 90s, there was an experiment performed by some stock analysts, which consisted of taking three test subjects - a monkey, an 11 year old girl and a professional hedge fund analyst - and asking each of them to select a portfolio of stocks to invest in over a one-year period. The analyst, being the analyst, did some cutting edge analysis of trends in the stockmarket and drew a portfolio of tech stock based on predictions of the upcoming internet explosion. The 11 year old girl picked a portfolio of companies she'd probably "heard of" somewhere around - in other words, word-of-mouth internet giants. The monkey, being a monkey, picked virtually at random.
It's a story with a predictably unpredictable ending. After the one year period, the monkey's portfolio outperformed the whole lot. Because it had picked at random, it had diversified its portfolio and therefore cushioned its losses when the dotcom bubble burst. The other two sustained pretty heavy losses (yes, even the hedge fund manager, which just goes to show you should manage your own damn money).
Anyway, don't know how much of that is true. Something to chew on, anyway. I had another skepticism story to tell, but that'll have to wait - must get to music.
[11:16AM Update - back from music :P]
So the other story is, apparently the two richest men in Europe today (even more so than Brylcream Beckham) are the two brothers who invented the tetrahedral milk carton shape (you know, the one with the clever spout). The story goes that they basically invented it, patented it and watched a certain percentage of every milk carton sold drip into their bank accounts, and are probably living off the interest. Someone else (hi Ken) has pointed out historical inconsistencies about this (apparently the milk carton was invented in the early 1900s), but I heard this from my economics teacher, and maybe he was talking about those new milk cartons - you know, the ones with the round unscrewable caps in the middle. Well, I don't know. I don't even drink milk. Milk has pus and wood glue (PVA) in it. Chew on that for a thought.