The X-Project

To: {artistic Frenchwoman}
CC: {cutest ever}, {universal translator}
From: {the kitten}
Subject: That stock market expirement

I can start whenever you like. I'm mainly the coallator. *grin*

I'd say we tap anyone who's interested who's powers aren't in futures or probably telepathy either. We want uncorrupted data, and it's hard to be absolutely certain with telepaths. I'd say we could ask any of:

Angelo, Bobby, John, Marie, Rahne, Terry, Jubes, Al, Kurt, Sam, Paige, Clarice, Shinobi, Sarah, Tabs, Waren, Jake, Mr. Wisdom, Dr. McCoy, etc.
Might also be interesting to get Dr. McTaggart, Mr. Lee, and Dr. Samson, for a non-mutant sample, although in theory it shouldn't make a difference.
Would probably be a good idea to not have people who would know anything about stocks, though, which would exclude people like Jake, Shinboi, and Waren, at least. And we might want to include at least one of the adults, so that we're not 'experimenting with our powers without supervision', etc, etc.

What do you think?

-K

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To: {Imax Lass}
CC: {Chewbacca}, {Gorgeous One}
Subject: What stock market experiment?

Did I miss a memo?

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To: (La petite chat)
CC: (Knight of Cups), (Jamiejamiejamie)
From: (High Priestess)
Subject: Oops.

Here I thought -my- email nicknames were silly.

In a basic summary, we are seeing if I can predict something practical involving the stock market. I think Kitty said we would try to see if I could predict twenty stocks, and get some of the rest of you to try the same thing to see how I do in comparison to everyone else.

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That sounds fun. Count me in. I even swear not to intentionally pick funny stocks.

And all e-mail nicknames are silly, it's a rule.

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There are funny stocks? I had no idea.

There is silly, and then there is Silly. It is an important difference.

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I've always thought pork belly futures were pretty amusing. And you never know what'll happen with those three-letter abbreviations.

It is indeed an important difference. Both are fun though.

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What on earth is a pork belly future? Those words make no sense in the same sentence.

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I don't know exactly. I think it has to do with trying to predict how well pork bellies will do next year and investing based on that. Mostly it just sounds funny.

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Nope. I'm picking the stocks, and I'm doing it randomly. Everybody gets the same set of twenty.

-K

(Sorry, forgot to mention to you, Jamie. Or rather, I meant to and then you were all distracting at me and I forgot.)

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So the difference is we decide individually how much to buy and when to sell and stuff?

(No harm done, I know now, and I got to be all distracting at you earlier. Well enough to make you forget stuff, even. :))

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We are definitly going to have to try this before and after I know anything about the stock market.

Right now.. I know that ... Shinobi reads the stock pages. That is about all I know.

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Well, I think we were thinking of starting more simply. Just predicting whether or not they will go up or down, and by how much.

Hmm...

Yeah, I guess we never said anything more than that in our original outline. Not sure how I'd set it up if we were doing 'buying and selling'.

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Oh, that makes more sense. This is why you design the science experiments and I provide the snacks, love. :) So when do we start?

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*laugh*

We start sometime after we get a few more controls. M-A, you want to ask people, since it's your power we're testing? We probably ought to get at least five controls total, (so at least three more), but I could handle up to ten, I'm sure, especially if you're still worried about how Doug's power will affect things.

-K

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I can ask people. At least one teacher, yes?

I am a little worried about Doug's power affecting things when he goes and decides to read about the stock market. He is predictable like that.

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*nod* yeah, and try and get one who doesn't know about stocks.

Hmm. You have a point, but if his data is too abarrant I'll just throw it out. Maybe ask one other person just in case.

-K

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That leaves me with which staff members? Mr. Marko? Nathan? Mr. Logan?

I know Doug too well. Did you -see- his email? He read on it already. He can't not do that. I think it is a side-effect of his power. He's read half my books on tarot cards and I suspect the other half has gone unread because he has not gotten to them.

Yes, I know you can see this, Doug. I love you anyway, even if you are predictable and read everything about everything.

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Trials of dating geeks, right, Angie? :)

'Course, I'm the one who started taking physics for the cute girl in the class and ended up learning how to play with so-advanced-it-can't-see-the-edge holographic technology for fun, so maybe I'm not one to talk.

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The benefits outweigh the drawback of having half my reference material living under my boyfriend's bed.

Which reminds me - if Doug has a book anywhere in his side of the room about the Arthurian Tarot, can you tell him to give it back? I cannot find it.

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Will do. But he's going under there all by himself. I'm not risking any extremely-well-read dust bunnies with laser guns.

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Well, Mr. Dayspring's out, cause he's a 'path. But we could see if Bobby or John or maybe Marie would be willing to be our staff observer. And I guess if they know a little about stocks it would be ok, but not a lot. Er, that might let Mr. Wisdom into it, or maybe Mr. Summers and Ms. Munroe. Oh, and probably Kurt and Sam would qualify, cause I doubt Kurt would know much about US stocks, at least.

And, actually, we might not have to have them actually taking part in the experiment. It might be enough if they were just observing/monitoring to make sure we didn't do something stupid (not sure how we could do something stupid predicting stocks though...) So then you could ask Al or Ms. Frost or really anyone. We're going to want to talk to Ms. Frost eventually anyways.

-K

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x-cypher.livejournal.com

To: (mon coeur)
CC: (Clown Prince), (the shadowcat)
From: (Knight of Cups)
Subject: Re: That stock market experiment

Yeah, I'm ready whenever you guys are. But maybe in addition to predicting whether or not stocks will go up or down, we might also try our hand at actually simulating buying and selling? Because in some cases it would probably be easy to predict things, if you read the business section of the newspaper. I mean, if a company's got a new innovation, their stock will probably go up. If they're under investigation for dodgy business practices, it'll probably go down. We should give some thought to these sorts of issues, I think.

-Doug

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To: ((Knight of Cups))
CC: ((la petite chat)), ((Jamiejamiejamie)
From: ((I need a new email nickname for myself))
Subject: Re: That stock market experiment

I told you! He is predictable!

I have no idea how to read any of those things, and the business page is barely understandable.

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To: {universal translator}
CC: {cutest ever}, {artistic Frenchwoman}
From: {the kitten}

Doug, don't you dare corrupt my control group. The whole point of testing M-A on a topic she doesn't understand is that the data won't have an outside influence. We're doing a secondary test _after_ the first one for which we will learn about stocks, trading, and so on, but if you corrupt the first data set it'll all be a wash.

I've got an inbuilt double blind (since I have no way of controling the stocks prices), but I can't do anything if you go around messing with my source of data.

Sheesh. What sort of experimental theory did they _teach_ you before you got here, anyway? Dr. McCoy would throw a fit.

-K

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To: (Knight of Cups)
CC: (La petite chat), (Jamiejamiejamie)
From: (High Priestess)

Could we make an artifical set of stocks that you alone could know the prices off and see if I could predict those perhaps?

Would that be a lot of work?

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