Tag Archive

Olympic Records

By Jake Hofman

This is a guest post by Jake Hofman, part of the original MESS in Messy Matters and now a researcher at Microsoft Research - New York City. We’re not sure where Jake’s own PRs would appear on the charts below but he crushed both Sharad and Dan this summer in the... »

Prediction Without Markets

By Sharad Goel

In the 2008 Summer Olympics Usain Bolt ran 100 meters in 9.69 seconds, earning the gold medal and garnering the international attention that comes with being the "fastest man in the world." While Bolt became a household name, his competitors didn't fare nearly as well: far fewer people... »

The Perfect Bracket

By Sharad Goel

Last week I wrote about a "wisdom of crowds" strategy for picking my March Madness basketball bracket. Down to the Final Four, I'm doing pretty well: tied for 2nd in my office pool, and in the 94th percentile of all 2 million brackets submitted on Yahoo! Sports. But doing well still means... »