Daoist Time and Cosmology in Light of Modern Physics

I told you guys this blog would be a weird-ass collection of content, and I’m not going to disappoint.

Earlier today, I read an article about how Elon Musk believes it’s overwhelmingly likely we don’t live in a “real” base universe, but rather we’re part of a simulation. I mentioned on Twitter how I wrote a college paper on this topic, which I find incredibly interesting.

 

 

A few people asked me to post that paper here, but I’m pretty sure the digital copy is long gone. I couldn’t find it in my email history – my school email no longer exists – but while searching, I did find another paper I wrote (I think my junior year). This one is about the intersection of time/cosmology in Taoism and modern physics. (Note: I stopped spelling Taoism with a ‘D’ after college…not really sure why or which one is correct, if any.)

I talk a lot about James Altucher’s “idea sex” and how the best insights come from fusing two seemingly unrelated fields, and the Eastern philosophy/physics hybrid is a popular one that’s also perhaps my favorite.

I fully expect just one person to read this article in its entirety: me. Also, some of my views have changed – and I hope I’ve become a better writer since I wrote this years ago – but I do still believe in most of the fundamental ideas. It’s worth noting I tried to tackle like five major concepts in this paper, each of which could be their own book, and I did it in one of the least entertaining ways imaginable. Enjoy!

 

Daoist Time and Cosmology in Light of Modern Physics

The nature of time is such that it cannot escape paradox. It is absolute, yet relative, and impermanent, yet unchanging. Its relation to our universe is also riddled with contradictions. In studying Daoist philosophy, it appears as though the concept of the Dao can help us better understand both time and its place in the universe. In turn, modern physics lends credibility to the claims Daoism has emphasized for thousands of years.

In this paper, I will try to provide an account of this holistic relationship between Daoism and physics. I will first explain how the compatibility of permanence and impermanence that characterizes the Dao can also be extended to time through Planck units, and, on a more cosmological scale, the multiverse: a timeless “sea” of continuous universe formation in which all potential universes are realized. I will then show how Everything and Nothing are interdependent, and, in a sense, the same thing. This idea will liken the multiverse to the Daoist “void,” with both concepts equating to the potential for time and existence. After explaining how the Daoist texts are best interpreted as advocating a beginning-less, yet non-eternal, Dao, I will show how a Hartle-Hawking universe fits well with these qualities. Finally, I will argue that the popular conception of the Dao as cyclical is mistaken. The affirmation of a Dao with no beginning or end can be justified without it being eternal or cyclical if the Dao is understood as a concept that can simultaneously hold “opposite” values.

Thus, the Dao, just like time, is inherently paradoxical. It is impermanent, yet never changes. It has no beginning, yet is not eternal. It is Everything, yet does not even exist.

 

Daoist thought, unlike much Western philosophy, dismisses the notion of true opposite values. Those qualities we generally view as “opposites” actually complement one another. Artificiality, for example, is not a distinct characteristic that is inherently opposed to naturalness, but a contrasting quality that supports, and even allows for, naturalness. What would it mean to say everything is artificial if we had no conception of what is natural? From section two of the Daodejing:

The difficult and the easy complement each other; the long and the short off-set each other; the high and the low incline towards each other; before and after follow each other.

To grasp any of these qualities, you must understand the other. The rejection of a distinct dichotomy also creates a range of contrast. A cell phone is not inherently artificial, but only more or less so than something else. Thus, “opposing” qualities take on a pluralistic characteristic: not absolute, yet not radically relativistic, as the ‘absoluteness’ comes with the implementation of a ‘relative’ perspective. This allows for the concurrent existence of contrasting qualities without a logical contradiction.

Permanence and impermanence hold this complementary, interdependent relationship. The two can not only exist together, but, because they are not diametrically opposed, also support one another. The first passage of the Daodejing illustrates the paradoxical nature of the Dao as it relates to permanence. It reads “The way that can be spoken of is not the constant way.” The Dao is a concept that is often thought of as being permanent, so how can the Dao be both constant and changing?

To illustrate how this can be, imagine the life of a tree. It may start as nothing more than an acorn, yet ultimately transforms into a massive living structure. Although the fully-developed tree has none of the original material that was contained in the acorn, there is something that links the two. The tree has some sort of enduring identity, even though it is a process of constant transformation. In fact, the permanence that gives the tree its identity can be conceptualized from the phrase “constant transformation.” If the tree is truly always changing, then the change is a permanent quality of the process. Analogously, if the Dao is always transforming, then it is a permanent Dao. Not only can the permanence and impermanence of the Dao be maintained without a contradiction, but each quality is a necessary condition for the existence and flourishing of the other.

 

The complementary relationship between permanence and impermanence that Daoism emphasizes is really only just being discovered by modern science. Instead of drawing the proverbial “black and white” conclusions of old, contemporary physics is so much based on the “gray” area in which contrasting qualities come into play.

One component of physics that may support the Daoist permanence/impermanence complementary relationship is Planck time. Planck time is an incredibly small unit of time (roughly 5.4 x 10^-44 sec) at which physics literally breaks down. At this point, thought of as the smallest possible unit of time (even theoretically), physics and time become meaningless (Kaku, 237). Nonetheless, the permanent flow of time is a seamless connection of finite lengths of time. Whether the Planck time is truly the smallest possible unit of time is irrelevant. What is important is that the unchanging fluidity of time does seem to be composed of imperceptible, impermanent units.

The Lieh-tzu discusses this fluid transition from past to future:

The interval between the coming and the going is imperceptible; who is aware of it? Whatever a thing may be, its energy is not suddenly spent, its form does not suddenly decay.

The unchanging qualities of both time and objects is apparent, but perhaps misleading. We are aware of permanence because, as theLieh-tzu claims, we are just incapable of perceiving constant flux. Likewise, as the dissection of time into Planck units shows, the fluidity of time is simply the connection of constant transformations. Further, since each moment in time is simultaneously the end of one moment and the beginning of another, no moment in time is permanent, and, almost paradoxically, no single moment in time really even “exists.” Thus, the permanence of time’s fluidity arises because of these impermanent, almost non-existent units of time, and, in turn, time’s impermanence can only be understood through the permanent transformation of time.

 

It is easier to grasp the nature of the Dao upon a complete understanding of the continuity of permanence and impermanence. As Hans-Georg Moeller writes in Daoism Explained, “The specific elements of time are not permanent, while the permanent elements of time are not specific.” In a way, time itself could not even exist without this seemingly paradoxical relationship between the permanent and the specific, as the two qualities are interdependent.

The Daoist emphasis on contrasting qualities as complementary not only supports Planck time, but also physics from a more cosmological perspective. Interestingly, the majority of physicists today believe our universe is just one of many, having sprouted into existence from an infinite “multiverse” (Kaku). This multiverse is very similar to the Dao: it is permanent and exists without time, yet is not confined to either characteristic, as impermanence and temporality arise in the “baby univserses” that sprout from it. In this way, permanence and impermanence are maintained, as new universes come and go within an unchanging, timeless framework.

One might contend that the Daoist texts state that existence came from non-existence, or a void, which would seem to be opposed to a multiverse. For example, the Lieh-tzu claims “that which gives birth is unborn,” “When Nothing stirs, it begets not nothing but something,” and finally, “The nothingness from which we came is our true home.”

If the multiverse is something, can it also be Nothing? I argue yes, as, again, the nature of Daoist “opposite” values allows for their simultaneous existence. Because the multiverse is a true infinite, it is everything. Everything happens within it, and, importantly, it is not the place where these things happen (as it does not exist at a distinct location), but it is the happening itself. All possible universes continuously spring into and out of existence. However, if everything happens all of the time, is this not the same as nothing? Just as you cannot have artificiality without naturalness, you also cannot have Nothing without Everything. Nothing and Everything necessitate one another. If the multiverse is characterized by infinite creation, then it must also be equivalent to Nothing. How can nothingness exist if Everything does? Because the Everything is the Nothing, and the Nothing is composed of Everything (in much the same way that time retains permanent and changing qualities). To describe the nature of the multiverse in a Moeller-inspired phrase: The specific elements of the multiverse (or Dao) are not permanent, while the permanent nature of the multiverse (Dao) is not specific.

 

The interdependency and possible equalization of Everything and Nothing may also be the solution to the contradictions of set theory, the branch of mathematics dealing with the logic of sets. Various philosophers and mathematicians have found paradoxes within set theory, nearly all dealing with the inconsistencies of a self-containing infinite set. Imagine a set of things which does not contain itself, such as the set of all computers. If we then take all of these non-self-containing sets and put them into an ultimate “set of sets” which do not contain themselves, a contradiction arises. Does this ultimate set contain itself? If it does not contain itself, then it cannot be considered a full set. If it does contain itself, however, then it is not a set which does not contain itself. The set of all sets which do not contain themselves, then, seems to be inherently impossible (Russell).

Like the set of all sets, the multiverse, if it is Everything (and not just every existing thing), must contain the set of all non-existing universes (analogous to the set of all sets which do not contain themselves). The paradox here is obvious; the multiverse, a set of all existence, cannot possibly contain a non-existing universe if it is simply Everything. To contain non-existence, a true infinite (or set of all sets, or multiverse, or Dao) would have to be both Everything and Nothing. In viewing the multiverse in this way, the paradox of the set of all non-self-containing sets vanishes, as the Nothingness which is the multiverse allows for non-existence, while the quality of Everything which embodies the multiverse arises from the set of all existing universes that spring forth from it. The multiverse avoids the self-referentiality of non-self-containing sets because, when viewed as a “void of Nothing,” the multiverse is simply the potential for the set of Everything, not a set itself. The paradox of the “existence” of non-existence can only be solved if this is the case.

 

Viewing the multiverse as simultaneously being Everything and Nothing also fits well with the Daoist texts. The Lieh-tzu says:

Will the Way end? At bottom it has had no beginning. Will there never be more of it? At bottom it does not exist. Whatever is born reverts to being unborn, whatever has shape reverts to being shapeless. . . That which is born. . . must come to an end.

The Dao exists yet also does not exist. In a similar way, the multiverse is Everything, yet also nothingness. Furthermore, not only are these two qualities compatible, but it is because the multiverse is Everything that is must also be Nothing.

Like the Way, the multiverse will never end because it never began. However, neither is eternal because neither exists in time. Both the multiverse and Dao are atemporal. The Dao retains permanence through constant change, a process that takes place in time, but the permanence of this process is non-specific, and thus escapes time’s limitations. Likewise, the multiverse is the source of time, yet is itself not limited by time. The multiverse, like the Dao, escapes time by metaphorically embracing time’s impermanent nature. Again, the multiverse is not a place where change takes place, but the unchanging process of constant alteration itself.

To further emphasize how the multiverse can, like the Dao, be Everything and Nothing and exist and not exist simultaneously, let us return to the tree metaphor. The entire tree grows from a bundle of potential: the acorn. Is the tree the same thing as the acorn? As I have discussed, yes and no; the potential for a tree exists in the acorn, but not the full-grown tree itself. The acorn is analogous to the multiverse because of this potentiality. Inside the acorn, the tree “exists” and does not exist simultaneously, its existence occurring in sheer potentiality, its non-existence arising because it is not yet actualized. While this metaphor is limited by the fact that the acorn is an actualized entity, the premise remains; the acorn, whether actualized or not, contains the tree’s existence and non-existence within it, just as the multiverse is simultaneously Everything and Nothing. The acorn has everything needed to develop into a tree, yet, because the acorn contains only “tree potential,” it is also, in a sense, nothing. The nothingness of the multiverse, like the acorn, comes in its potentiality. Further, the acorn (impermanence) and tree (permanence) support one another because, as the tree develops, it creates more indeterminate acorns that will lead to more determinate trees. Likewise, the permanence of the multiverse and Dao is caused by the constant transformation they undergo, and this change is supported by the unchanging nothingness, the sheer potential, that characterize them. All three concepts, the multiverse, Dao, and acorn, then, are holistic and self-supporting.

The process of indeterminacy, or nothingness, producing determinacy is discussed in the Lieh-tzu:

There was Primal Simplicity, there was Primal Commencement, there were Primal Beginnings, and there was a Primal Material. The Primal Simplicity preceded the appearance of the breath. The Primal Commencement was the beginning of the breath. The Primal Beginnings were the breath beginning to assume shape. The Primal Material was the breath when it began to assume substance. Breath, shape and substance were complete, but things were not yet separated from each other; hence the name “Confusion.” “Confusion means that the myriad things were confounded and not yet separated from each other.

Interestingly, the details of this passage contain striking similarities to the way our own universe may have arisen. The Primal Simplicity, equivalent to potentiality, preceded the birth of the universe, and is thus analogous to the multiverse. The Primal Commencement, Beginnings, and Material were then congealed into a state of indeterminate “Confusion.” This “Confusion” is similar to the relationship our own physical laws had just after the birth of the universe. At a time of just one Planck unit after our universe was born, the four fundamental forces that govern our cosmos were muddled together into one indeterminate superforce. Thus, the Primal Simplicity, “Confusion,” and separation of the myriad things are comparable to the multiverse, superforce, and separation of the four fundamental laws of physics.

Notice that the Lieh-tzu account of Primal Simplicity does not stress a beginning in time. The initial ‘void’ and succeeding “Confusion” are what the Lieh-tzu emphasizes, not a distinct moment of creation. It appears, then, that the text may be arguing for a universe that emerged from a “beginning-less beginning,” where it sprouted into existence, yet not at a definite moment in time.

 

If the multiverse and Dao truly are without a beginning, inevitably, two questions arise: Is the universe eternal, and is it cyclical? There seems to be some evidence that our universe could be without a beginning, yet not eternal. It comes in the form of a Hartle-Hawking universe in which, at the “beginning” of the universe (when the myriad things were in a state of “Confusion” and the laws of physics were congealed together), the time dimension fades away. Instead of originating from a definite point in time, a Hartle-Hawking universe comes from a boundless, timeless state of indeterminacy (Hawking, Penrose, 86). Conceiving of the beginning of our universe, then, is as futile as pointing out the “edge” of the surface of a sphere. The surface of a sphere is boundless, yet not infinite, in much the same way that a Hartle-Hawking universe is boundless, yet not eternal.

While our own universe can maintain a timeless “beginning” without being eternal, so can the Dao. As the Lieh-tzu says, “Everything that is born reverts to being unborn.” Nothing can escape death and change except the multiverse and Dao, as they were never “born.” Quite paradoxically, their “beginninglessness” and ability to escape time arise from the constant flow of time that characterizes their existence. Whether our universe escapes eternity through the Hartle-Hawking concept or from being part of the multiverse (or even a combination of both), the fact that it is indeed without a beginning, yet not eternal, makes it strikingly similar to the Dao.

 

The quality of being without a start in time that many scholars attribute to the Dao has led many to claim that it is cyclical. Section 52 of the Daodejing, for example, reads “Go back to holding fast to the mother, and to the end of your days you will not meet with danger.” In The Philosophy of the Daodejing, Hans-Georg Moeller argues that this passage indicates both time and the Dao are cyclical. He says, “That it is possible to return to the beginning implies that time is understood as a circle.” I argue, however, that this interpretation is flawed. Even if time were cyclical, the ability to return to the “beginning” would prove impossible, as a cyclical existence suggests no ultimate beginning. Cycles of birth and death can certainly arise, so “returning” within these cycles is possible, but they do not necessitate the Dao or time being cyclical.

Further, current research in physics suggests that our own universe is not cyclical. The expansion of the universe appears to be speeding up exponentially. Physicists are nearly unanimous in agreeing that the universe will “end” in a “Big Freeze in which, because there is not enough matter to reverse the expansion, the universal temperature will approach absolute zero (Kaku, 20).

Unlike scholars such as Moeller, however, I argue that this evidence does not contradict the nature of time and the Dao in the Daoism. The rejection of an absolute end of time that a cyclical universe implies does fit well with the texts. Section 14 of the Daodejing, when speaking of the Dao, says “Go up to it and you will not see its head; follow behind it and you will not see its rear.” While this passage could be interpreted as an implication of the Dao being cyclical, it does not necessitate a cyclical Dao. You cannot view the beginning or end of a cycle because there are none, but there are also no beginning or end to a flow of time that exists within a timeless framework. The implementation of a cycle implies that the Dao is part of time. As I showed earlier, however, the texts are probably best interpreted as advocating a Dao that is outside of time, yet still part of it. This way, the Dao can govern the natural cycles that occur within it, yet still retain permanence. The fact that our universe will end in a “Big Freeze” also lends support to the notion that time does not have to be cyclical for there to not be an ultimate end. The universe will never truly “end” because the universal temperature will only approach absolute zero, never reach it.

 

I liken Daoist time to the numbers between (but not including) zero and one. If one represents the “beginning” of time with the smallest number of the set and the “end” with the largest, then both beginning and end will hold paradoxical properties. Neither exists because there is no smallest or largest number, yet both must exist or else we could never reach the number one (or attain the seamlessness of time). The set of numbers, then, is boundless but not a true infinite, just as time is boundless, yet not eternal. The impermanence of the amount of numbers in the set does nothing to affect the permanent relationship between zero and one. This phenomenon is analogous to Planck time, with the connection of impermanent, almost non-existent segments creating an unchanging fluidity.

Ultimately, the similarities between Daoist time and modern physics are analogous to the Dao itself: self-explanatory, paradoxical concepts marked by the concurrent existence of interdependent “opposite” properties, meaning we can implement physics to reaffirm basic Daoist tenets, and, in typical Daoist fashion, vice versa.

 

 

Works Cited

Graham, A.C. (Translated). The Book of Lieh-tzu. New York: Columbia University Press, 1990.

Hawking, Stephen and Penrose, Roger. The Nature of Space and Time. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996.

Kaku, Michio. Parallel Worlds. New York: Random House, 2005.

Lau, D.C. (Translated). Tao Te Ching. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1996.

Moeller, Hans-Georg. Daoism Explained. Chicago: Open Court, 2004.

Moeller, Hans-Georg. The Philosophy of the Daodejing. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006.

Russell, Bertrand. Principles of Mathematics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1903.

 

What It’s Like to Work in Daily Fantasy Sports

The title of this post should probably be something like “What It’s Like to Only Occasionally See Other Humans” or “What It’s Like Eating Cart Food for the Seventh Consecutive Day.” The answer to both of those would be “it’s amazing,” by the way.

I chose “What It’s Like to Work in Daily Fantasy Sports” because…I work in daily fantasy sports…but in reality I’d think my day-to-day is much different from someone who works for DraftKings or FanDuel or something. I imagine working for a big company like that is pretty similar to working for any other company – marketing people have meetings about marketing, developers develop things, you know – with maybe a cool startup vibe or something that makes coming to work a little more fun.

I run a startup, too, but everyone except for the developers at FantasyLabs works remotely. That means my work environment – my apartment – is less “there’s pizza and beer in the break room” and more “I found an old pizza crust under my bed.” Basically, this post is more about what it’s like to work from home, I guess, than to work in DFS.

There are others in daily fantasy sports who work from home, too – professional players and full-time employees of sites like FantasyLabs (although there aren’t too many of either of those jobs floating around). I think the perception of what it’s like to either play DFS as a professional or to run a company like FantasyLabs is probably way off from reality, so I wanted to just sort of run through what a typical day is like.

It’s more or less just this sort of stuff – all day, every day, without the need to do any actual work…

 

Look how fun I just made my life look. Now here’s where I am almost all the time…

The life of someone who works in DFS – or at least for me – is like the life of any entrepreneur who works from home. You work. A lot. Some of it is really fun. Some of it isn’t that fun. Some of it occurs in an actual office. Most of it happens in bed. They say not to work in bed; I don’t know if it’s because I’m just fucked up, but I must be 3x more productive in that bed literally laying down flat with my laptop on my stomach as compared to anywhere else in the world.

This is a tangent, but isn’t it crazy how the internet has changed so much? Imagine just laying down for 12 straight hours (after sleeping in the same spot for nine hours) without internet. OH MY GOD that would be terrible. But with internet, it’s like I don’t even recognize that I’m just wasting my life away in bed. It’s sensational.

 

Typical Day

Occasionally my life is decent with things like travel and sporting events and stuff, but usually I’m at home. Business Insider shadowed me for a day and that story was pretty accurate for what it was, except it was a Sunday during NFL season. There are like 20 of those all year, or less than 6% of my life. I was also watching the games with my friends, which happens basically only during football season because I really don’t sweat DFS.

So the things the average DFS player might think my life is like – exciting, not much work, and watching tons of sports – are pretty much the exact opposite of what’s really going on. Most of my days look something like this:

8am: Wake up, turn over to pick up my laptop, and start working. I almost always start by answering emails, which might take 30 minutes or so. I try not to check in on emails throughout the day too much, instead just answering them again at night. Getting caught up in that email back-and-forth can just be really draining and inefficient.

Then I go downstairs and drink coffee. I drink a lot of coffee because, duh, it gives me energy and makes me more productive. I also eat at that time, and although I feel like it’s cliche to say at this point, it’s almost always a breakfast sandwich (lately either McDonalds or 7-11, both of which I can see from my apartment). After that, I come back up to bed, lay down like a fat piece of shit, and get back to work.

9am: I almost always do the most difficult tasks in the beginning of the day. I think trying to save things that are really mentally challenging – like writing – for the end of the day is just a recipe for disaster. It’s like doing a bunch of cardio and moderate lifting all day, then trying to do a heavy bench press or squat at the end of the workout. I typically do this “intense” work until around noon.

11am: I take Bowie outside to pee and shit. Bowie is my cousin and roommate who has trouble going to the bathroom indoors. Just kidding. Bowie – you guessed it – is a dog. If you think 11am is late to take a dog out for the first time, you’d be right, but he straight up will not go outside in the morning. He’s tired, guys. He’s the only living thing on this planet with an easier life than mine, but he’s tired.

Also at this time, I order food for the day on GrubHub. Current favorite is curry, both Indian and Thai.

12pm: From noon until maybe 12:15 or so, I take a mental break. This usually involves something like watching this highlight video of Tavon Austin, which is so weird because I think he’s a super overrated player (he might not be if he were used more as a true running back). Sometimes I watch a similar sort of energizing video in the morning, too, if I need energy.

Related to this – and something many people might not know about me – is that I am hyper-competitive to the point that it has become a problem in my life in the past. No one wants to play board games or anything with me because I get so angry if I lose, particularly if I lose to someone who plays like a donkey. But that extends into real life and my work, and so part of watching videos is me getting motivated to just win every day. I really, really want to be successful – with my primary focus now being FantasyLabs – to the point that I think about beating everyone else, like, all day long. Most of why I work so hard I think just stems from insecurity about losing.

I think because I’m very shy in person, people think I’m maybe timid in business or just generally not competitive, but I really can’t stress enough how much of my life is driven by this need to win.

1pm: This is the time around when I might normally work out. I’ve been trying to work out more lately – maybe four times per week – and my workouts are short (typically 35-45 min). I was thinking of explaining what I do here, but that might be a cool post on its own that I could do soon.

145pm: You’d think this might be a good time for a shower, but I usually just like to get back to working on FantasyLabs because if there’s one thing I know about working from home, it’s that general hygiene is for suckers. You might ask what the hell I am doing all day, and the answer is sort of everything: I work with marketing, development, content, support – everything that makes the site run. Every day is different in that way; yesterday I had calls with ESPN and an agent for a PGA golfer, the day before that I was creating a plan for our NFL product, and today I’m working on specs for a new Vegas dashboard we’re creating.

230pm: FantasyLabs has three primary Skype calls every two weeks, and they are during this time. I might do an additional five or so calls with guys from different departments each week, for various reasons. If I’m not on a call, this time is spent working on miscellaneous tasks.

5pm: Since it is MLB season, I usually start to do the bulk of my research around 5pm, which is about 120 minutes prior to lock. Ideally I could spend more time on it – and I definitely do research throughout the day, periodically – but I just don’t really have that luxury anymore. I’ve also streamlined my research process so much that I don’t really feel like I need that much time to create profitable lineups. I might make like 5% more with an additional couple hours, but I’d almost certainly be losing EV by not working on FantasyLabs.

7pm: After lineup lock, I try to finish up the day’s work. This might be following up with our employees about their projects, Skype chatting with the developers, or whatever. This entire concept of working with a team is extremely new to me and something I’m really trying to learn to do a lot better. I’ve literally always worked on my own, and so delegating responsibility and leading a team is not currently a strength of mine, but it will be soon.

8pm: After work, I typically go out to eat for dinner. For anyone who lives in the Philly area, some of my favorite places are Heritage, Butcher & Singer, Sampan, Root (just opened in Fishtown…might be the best on this list), Barclay Prime, Same Same, Circles, Abe Fisher, Buddakan, and Barbuzzo.

10pm: I barely watch TV, but shows I do watch around this time include Shark Tank, Real World, The Bachelor, Billions, Million Dollar Listing…the classics.

11pm: Sleep, usually for about nine hours. Sleep is so important in my life and I think is maybe the most overlooked aspect of success. If you feel like you’ve hit a plateau in any aspect of life, I’d say sleeping and working out more are the two most valuable things you can do to get back on track.

So that’s basically my life when I’m at home – not really that action-packed and lots of work, but it gives me the freedom to do whatever I want at any time and to never have to follow the rules, which is something I crave.

What I’ve Been Up to Lately (Part II)

If you missed Part I of “What I’ve Been Up to Lately,” you’re like every other person on this planet except for me since this site was basically created yesterday but I had the article pre-loaded months ago. So go ahead and read that if you want to know what I was doing eight to 12 weeks ago, which many people have been asking me to lay out in great detail.

Since then, I finished another daily fantasy baseball book, which I was forced to write in about two weeks since I just kept procrastinating. Other than that, it’s been basically all FantasyLabs. We launched a PGA product prior to the Masters, and this past week a user won $1 million using our tools, which was pretty awesome. I could have won it myself but decided to not create the winning lineup and instead let a subscriber take it down #branding.

While we were building out the product, I headed up to Boston to attend the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference and meet with our PGA Director, Colin Davy. It was the first time I met Colin irl and he’s as smart as he sounds on our podcasts. He’s won the conference’s Hack-a-thon the past two years – the only two years it has run – this time by quantifying offensive line play (which is something we want to do in NFL this year). We hung out with our Marketing Director – Sean Valukis – and basically just talked about how dumb I am.

Sean also hooked me up with tickets to the Celtics, and it was actually only my second time in the arena and first to see an NBA game…

Blog1

Other things I did in Boston included writing the About Me section of this website, walking around aimlessly at the conference looking for places to eat before just leaving, and of course ordering lobster roll room service for roughly, idk, a million dollars.

In addition to PGA, we also rolled out a bunch of new MLB features at FantasyLabs – news, advanced batted ball data, a multi-lineup builder with stacking, etc. I’ve been really excited for baseball, both for Labs and as a player. The season started really well for me, cooling off (becoming an ice cube) the past two days.

One really cool thing I was able to do last week was throw out the first pitch at a Phillies game on behalf of DraftKings.

Blog3

On Deck game vs. Orioles

I saw some rumblings on Twitter that people were betting ungodly amounts of money against me throwing a strike, which is bananas. Not only did I hit the corner, but if you look closely, you can see flames coming off of the ball…

 

The key was that I wasn’t nervous at all, and by that I mean I honestly thought I was going to shit my pants and throw up all over the field at the same time in front of a packed stadium full of 300 people.

On the food front, I’ve been eating so much halal from the cart outside my apartment that I honestly can’t even look myself in the mirror anymore. No really, there’s so much tahini and hot sauce all over my bathroom mirror I can’t see my reflection.

 

Blog5

Don’t mind those breakfast sandwiches from 7-11 in the background. Nothing to see there.

I love trying new restaurants and have eaten at so many amazing places in Philly – maybe the must underrated food city in America, btw, even though people already know it’s good – and I’m not kidding that this cart food is top-five. Not just in value (it costs five fucking dollars), but also in just overall taste.

So that’s what I’ve been doing – more or less getting diarrhea as many ways as possible – but what’s coming up next is bigger than all that: a rock-paper-scissors tournament at dive bars in Philly…

Blog4

I’ve posted on Twitter a few times how I like to play rock-paper-scissors against a computer because I’m a complete psychopath. Well, this is my time. When I check back in on June 12th, I’ll be $1k richer, but more important, I’ll be a R-P-S champion.

Unless they don’t allow ridiculously long pauses between throws, in which case I have zero chance.

What I’ve Been Up to Lately

Before I co-founded FantasyLabs, I used to do a lot of writing. I enjoy writing – certain types of stuff, anyway – but I just haven’t had much time to do it lately. I want that to change, so I’m going to start posting occasional blogs about what I’ve been up to, what’s going on inside FantasyLabs and RotoAcademy, new stuff on the horizon, and so on. Basically, I’m just gonna write about whatever is on my mind when I feel like doing it, and if you don’t want to read it, then BACK OFF!

 

The goal for this stuff will be mostly for me to talk about myself and just be a total narcissist, but also for anyone who is interested to get a sense of my day-to-day life as a DFS player/entrepreneur/writer. Actually, I’ll probably just post about the more exciting stuff because “Yup, laid in bed and worked on my laptop again today” for 30 straight days might not make for the best content. The truth is that my life is extremely binary – super fun for limited stretches (maybe 10% of the time) and then pretty boring the rest of the time. Other than football, I don’t even really sweat DFS, so I don’t experience the ups and downs that normally accompany that lifestyle.

Anyway, what I’ve been up to…

About a month ago, I was lucky enough to sit courtside at the Sixers, courtesy of DraftKings. I know what you’re thinking – the SIXERS!? That’s amazing! What are you, the president? – and it really is awesome to sit courtside at any NBA game, this one against the Clippers.

Blog - Sixers

This is the second time I’ve had these seats, and the best part is that all the food and drinks are free. What that means for me is that by the 3rd quarter of this game, I had a belly full of sushi and beef jerky and enough courage to walk out onto the court during the game to help up Ish Smith after he fell. I was right out there about two feet past the ‘P’ (toward the other basket), which is territory you apparently don’t want to approach during the game if you don’t have a jersey on.

THREE security guards walked up to my seat to yell at me. “There’s a fucking cop right behind you. Do you wanna go to jail you punk? Stop smirking at me!” Turns out they’re pretty serious about this stuff, so I probably won’t be walking anywhere past the ‘H’ next time around.

After the Sixers, I headed to Dallas for the FSTA conference. Actually, I think Dallas was before the Sixers – like 99.9% sure – but I already formatted the images like this and started the paragraph, so here we are. FSTA was held in Dallas instead of Vegas this year because of Nevada’s ridiculous stance on DFS, but Dallas is…still…fun? The best part was obviously hanging out with FantasyLabs partner Mark Cuban (and by ‘hanging out’ I mean watching him give a speech like everyone else).

Blog - Dallas

It’s really cool to see Mark standing up for DFS.

This was actually the first time I met a few members of the FantasyLabs team since we all work remotely. We currently have employees in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Colorado, California, North Carolina, and New Hampshire. It’s actually pretty pivotal to hang out and spend time together, in my opinion, especially since the majority of our guys haven’t ever worked from home, which, in case you aren’t familiar, can be lonely af. Team chemistry or whatever.

Things we did in Dallas: hung out and drank beer (one of our developers referred to Shock Top as Hot Spot, which is now a thing among the staff at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Dallas), ate BBQ, had meetings that were completely unproductive, went to the Mavs, ate at a steakhouse, and told scary stories around a campfire. Thanks to my really good friend Mark for the tickets.

Blog - Dallas 5

Our Managing Director (I think that’s his title, idk, we aren’t that big on those) Justin Phan took part of Peter Jennings’ action in a $10k head-to-head that night, and this is a shot of Justin at dinner when Peter updated him on it: “No shot dude, less than 1% to win, total disaster.”

Blog - Dallas 2

They ended up winning. This was also the face I made when I found out the price of the four bottles of wine we bought, courtesy of our Marketing Director Sean Valukis (and by ‘courtesy of,’ I mean he told the waiter which type of wine we’d all enjoy). This was Bryan Mears later in the night:

Blog - Dallas 3

Good wine.

Shortly after Dallas, most of the team took a trip to Colorado, fully paid for by Peter because he’s a baller. This was our spot…

Blog - CO

I thought I would get a lot of work done during this trip – including writing my book – but that didn’t work out as planned. I did copy and paste about 800 words from something I already wrote, though, so that counts I think. Colorado was awesome, primarily because three of us decided to try snowboarding (Justin, John Daigle, and me). Justin lost his snowboard, and if we were to replay the day 100 times, there’s no way John doesn’t die in at least 40 of them. Coming out of that experience with everyone alive and ONLY one lost snowboard was a huge win.

So how did Justin lose his board? No one was actually with him, so I’m pretty sure he lied and actually just let it fly down the mountain because he didn’t want to snowboard anymore. But his story is that he took it off to help a little girl who fell, and when he turned around it was hurling down the slopes at warp speed. He then proceeded to walk over two miles to a lodge, where we met him and had a really nice little lunch of borderline inedible $21 burgers. The best part was the rental place didn’t even charge him for the board, and they said “Oh yeah, happens all the time.”

Moral of the story: it’s fine to steal snowboards in Colorado.

John also walked down the slopes, but that was just because he was tired of falling. He, too, was somehow left alone, fell so hard he cracked Bill Monighetti’s goggles, and then decided to retire from boarding after an illustrious four-hour career. He started walking down the mountain and an employee asked if he was okay and needed a ride, which resulted in a grown man getting pulled down a ski slope, pretending he hurt his wrist. John almost died every single day of this four-day trip, so it’s really nice he’s still with us.

On the final night, we did a podcast in front of a fire.

Blog - Dallas 4

Justin might have eaten something special before the show. I can’t recall.

Three other notes from Colorado…1) It is gorgeous.

Blog - Dallas 6

2) John and Jay Persson became full-time employees, which was fun and probably my favorite part of the trip.

 

 

And 3) Peter is somehow worse than me at pool, so clearly we put some money on it. I ended up ahead a couple hundred there, down a couple hundred after getting ROBBED by Aaron Gordon somehow not winning the dunk contest (I had $200 on him at +442 or something like that), and up a few hundred in poker.

Since returning from Colorado, I’ve just been pretty much chilling – mostly working. I did go to the Sixers again last Friday and saw Adam Levitan – who works with us at FantasyLabs – and met both Levitan’s wife and poker player Brian Hastings (and his girlfriend Sonya). I had talked to Brian a few times in the past, but we never actually met, so that was really cool – super sharp guy, and very nice. It turns out he lives like three blocks away from me in Philly, so we’ll probably grab dinner soon and talk more about how much I failed in not really getting into poker when I was younger.

So I guess that’s it for now. I have a couple trips planned in the next couple weeks that I’ll probably update you on months later or something – gotta stay on top of things. And I will publish my new MLB book soon, swear.

Read more …

© 2016 Bales LLC.