bernardv

I love being able to swear profusely in three languages - it confuses the hell out of people.

Totally agree! Flash and Actionscript were great and allowed both coders and non-coders to produce polished applications/animations/simulations quickly. I would choose Actionscript over Javascript any day of the week for that matter.

Loved VB and VBA but it is too limiting when needing advanced numerical capabilities. Back in the day had to create add-ins making use of compiled Matlab code to get access to decent numerical routines. Eventually moved to Python and never looked back, although I still use Excel for certain tasks.

However I do miss the VBA GUI editor built into Excel. It allowed for relatively polished interfaces in record time.

Loved the post. I spent more than a year trying to pull a prominent reinsurer on the rock, out of spreadsheet hell, and into the modern age. Baby step #1 would have been to transfer critical data to a database environment and baby step #2 would have been to extract business logic and very-poorly written VBA code into an external code library (Python) that is source-controlled and auditable... I can still hear the Chikadees laughing at me. Last I heard said firm was still deep in spreadsheet hell.

UofG in the mid 90’s.. I remember those days, when Gopher ruled.

It’s taken a while.. I bought a TI with MicroPython in France a few years ago- bought at the local supermarket of all places

ResolverOne was an amazing product. It is too bad it never gained much support. Microsoft’s support of IronPython was half-hearted and it never realized its full potential. I don’t get excited for anything Microsoft does these days. MS simply caters to the lowest common denominator client and just doesn’t get its power users.

Let it be a black hole.

He can’t undo the sh*t he sowed

This is a common experience with a lot of expats, diplomatic or not. Very similar experiences here and I hear the same from my expat friends. Forever ‘in transit’ and there’s no going home.

How are these ballons flights managed, in relation to airspace? Given the increasing restrictions on drone flight, I’m surprised such balloons are allowed to wander and descend Without any control.

What a disaster this administration is - literally taking the US backward deep into the Trump cave. I experienced great joy showing up at the US consulate to return my green card with a great big F-U smile on my face. Good riddance.

Yet the models exist and are routinely used to evaluate and price that risk.

It does work in the real world. It is a risk that is covered by insurers and reinsurers as well as capital market investors. The World Bank’s pandemic bond paid-out in response to the Covid-19 event as it was designed to (that bond was criticized for its effectiveness, but had nothing to do with the actual cover it provided and its mechanics).

‘Excess’ or ‘Extreme’ mortality risk is a risk that life insurers accumulate and naturally seek reinsurance for. There is a market for it.

There’s an insurance product for that.

Pandemic insurance is available for businesses - it is a cost that will, by definition, not likely pay back. But if an event occurs it will pay out as expected.

Human behavior is such that only about 12% of Californians in at-risk areas purchase earthquake insurance - even though many significant earthquakes have occurred in living memory.

Very nice - thank-you. Easy to use, great content.

A reflection of the very old-fashioned world of insurance underwriting and contract wording. Legal world is just as antiquated.

I don’t get it.. Why?

Creative use of Dash!

Great article. I learned a bunch of things I didn’t know about Numpy and Clojure. As far as I’m concerned the Dragan does rock.

Quite appaling. This looks like a Ycombinator company given the board composition.

The problem is that the Wild West and unnecessary complexity has just been shifted up a level or two as devs are now facing the Wild West of frameworks, de ops has turned into a monster with an unnecessary large toolbox.

Very little details on the methodology

Very nice - also serves as a visual representation of the confusing fragmentation of web technologies. Many batteries - none included!

The choice of distribution is subjective, especially if you little data to start with and are going on theoretical grounds. Agree on expected shortfall/TVaR.

Oh yes you can. The insurance and reinsurance actuaries, and regulators, have done this for a very long time.

The insurance industry is notoriously afraid of transparency, and the state-based rate filing system makes it too easy to divide and conquer. This is an industry ripe for disruption via total transparency.

Thanks for the link. Just ‘flipped’ through the first few pages and my blood pressure is already way up.. the guy just can’t help himself antagonize his readers. It’s going to be a tough read..

Interesting article. ESG investment factors and metrics have similar issues - many of them are really meaningless.

Totally agree. A second language expands your world dramatically.