I just bought Tom Holland’s book on the rise of Islam for the sole reason that he was attacked by Glen Bowesock, the most prominent living scholar of the Roman Levant. Tom Holland is a popularizer and I would not have taken him seriously otherwise.
A heuristic to estimate the quality of research is the caliber of the highest detractor, or the caliber of the lowest detractor whom the author answers–whichever is lower.
The exam was a philosophy essay: “What is Risk?”. Someone handed a nearly blank sheet, on which was written a single sentence “This is risk”.
NNT spoke at Hedgework in Frankfurt on May 8, 2012.
More pictures at the Hedgework site.
Manche Systeme seien zerbrechlicher, andere weniger. „Wenn Sie ein Wasserglas tausend Mal aus fünf Millimeter Höhe auf den Boden fallen lassen, wird es dies mit großer Wahrscheinlichkeit überstehen“, sagte Taleb am Mittwochabend bei einem Vortrag vor dem Diskussionskreis für alternative Investments „Hedgework“ in Frankfurt. „Aber wenn Sie es ein Mal aus 5 Metern Höhe fallen lassen, wird es wahrscheinlich zerbrechen.“
[Some systems are more fragile than others. “If you leave a glass of water a thousand times the amount of five millimeters falling on the ground, it will survive this with great probability,” Taleb said on Wednesday evening with a presentation to the group discussion for alternative investments “Hedgework” in Frankfurt. “But if you dropped it once from 5 meters high, it will probably break.”]
via Bestseller-Autor Nassim Taleb: Aus kleinen Fehlern lernen – Fonds & Mehr – FAZ.
Dave Lull dropped me a line to point out that Antifragility is now available for pre-order in UK.
Jon points out that it’s also available for pre-order in the U.S.
