Ocean’s Twelve is a 2004 American heist comedy film directed by Steven Soderbergh. The second installment in the Ocean’s film trilogy franchise and the sequel to Ocean’s Eleven (2001), it grossed over $362 million on a budget of $110 million.
You know I have invoked Ocean’s Eleven a couple years back in Tayur’s Eleven.
Congratulations to David Simchi-Levi, a fellow Academic Capitalist and good friend, since the mid-nineties when we first met (at Northwestern, I think), making him the 12th MSOM Distinguished Fellow to also be elected to the NAE (I was the 10th, thanks to SmartOps), and also to my co-instructor (of QuIPML Course) and CMU/ECE colleague, Elias Towe (along with others from INFORMS and CMU).
I would be remiss not to highlight:
12 Monkeys is a 1995 American science fiction film directed by Terry Gilliam, inspired by Chris Marker’s 1962 short film La Jetée. It grossed over $168 million (on a budget of under $30 million).
For fun, I have listed some notables above:
2022. Musk. 2018. Bezos. 2009. Brin. 2007. Berners-Lee. 2004. Page. 2002. Wozniak. 1997. Jobs. 1996. Gates. 1987. Bose.
Since he is not a household name:
James Howard Goodnight is an American billionaire businessman and software developer. He has been the CEO of SAS Institute since 1976, which he co-founded that year with other faculty members of North Carolina State University. As of February 2022, his net worth was estimated at US$7.3 billion.
I briefly considered using 12 Analytical Men as an alternative title (to go with 12 Angry Men), but felt that it was way too serious/solemn, and not keeping with the playful theme of these posts. It would have, however, on the provocative side, highlighted a chronic gender issue that is not just a MSOM concern, but at the NAE (or STEM) more generally. I was initially startled, but then realized that it was not so unusual, that, at the DARPA Quantum kick-off last month in Dallas, all 50+ in-person attendees were male.
How many women are MSOM Distinguished Fellows? Five, out of a total of Fifty. 10%.
A delightful first-season in a series that I recall from some years ago:
Dix pour cent (lit. ’Ten Percent’) is a French comedy-drama television series. The series depicts talent agents at the fictional agency ASK (Agence Samuel Kerr) and their relationships with their actor clients, who are real, mainly French, celebrities playing themselves.
As I mentioned in Quantum for Billionaires? I am off to Miami next month, presenting to 20 portfolio managers, all (super) quant, bringing (I am told, around) three of their PhD types to the event. Who wants to make a prediction on what fraction of the attendees will be male? Post your percentage in the comments section.
I don’t want to make a super-big deal about the Chinese Balloon (although it was quite fun to see a F22 shoot it down 😏). I still remember vividly the 1981 incident when two US F-14 Tomcats took out the Libyan Su-22 Fitters. A similar event took place in 1989 when two F-14 Tomcats took down Libyan MiG-23s. You know from Top Fun that I like movies with fighter jets.
Without a doubt, one of the most enjoyable pre-title James Bond opening sequences is one that involves fighter jets:
Tomorrow Never Dies is a 1997 spy film, the eighteenth in the James Bond series, grossing over $333 million (on a budget of $110 million).
What about the Earthquake in Syria and Turkey? The first earthquake I recall experiencing was over 40 years ago, in 1980 I think, as a teenager in high school, in Deccan Plateau, a region that was (and I believe still) largely considered safe (unlike the Anatolian Plate) from serious tremors (although reading some of the geological analysis I am a bit concerned). It was very mild, but pretty unnerving, as one does not really expect the ground beneath to shift. You feel so helpless.
A movie that now comes to mind:
San Andreas is a 2015 American disaster film. The film grossed over $474 million (on a budget of $110 million).
As a James Bond fan, of course one thinks about the earthquake that was prevented just-in-time in:
A View to a Kill is a 1985 spy film, the fourteenth in the James Bond series and is the seventh and final appearance of Roger Moore. It grossed over $150 million (on a budget of $30 million).
Blockbuster movies do not (by design) capture the real human pain and instead focus on entertainment and revenue generation. Talking about money, here is a place one can donate (thanks to Pinar Keskinocak, who forwarded and email from Turgay Ayer):
If you’d like to donate through a registered 501c3 organization in the US, you can try https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/turkey-and-syria-earthquack-emergency-response/
I have donated through GlobalGiving in the past.
And from Feryal Erhun:
I will also donate to Bridge to Turkiye – “Your donations will be sent to the people in the region for the use of children’s health and education.”
