Erudition without bullshit, intellect without cowardice, courage without imprudence, mathematics without nerdiness, scholarship without academia, intelligence without shrewdness, religiosity without intolerance, elegance without softness, sociality without dependence, enjoyment without addiction, and, above all, nothing without skin in the game.
(A letter of advice to a younger person)
Here is what I wrote in my endorsement: Emanuel Derman has written my kind of a book, an elegant combination of memoir, confession, and essay on ethics, philosophy of science and professional practice. He convincingly establishes the difference between model and theory and shows why attempts to model financial markets can never be genuinely scientific. It vindicates those of us who hold that financial modeling is neither practical nor scientific. Exceedingly readable.
From the remarks here, people seem to be blaming Derman for not having written the type of books they usually read… They are blaming him for being original! This is very philistinic. This book is a personal essay; if you don’t like it, don’t read it, there is no need to blame the author for not delivering your regular science reporting. Why don’t you go blame Montaigne for discussing his personal habits in the middle of a meditation on war inspired by Plutarch?
via Amazon.com: N N Taleb “Nassim N Taleb”‘s review of Models.Behaving.Badly.: Why Confusing Illu….
ANTIFRAGILITY OF LOST & FOUND
The natural benefit of a cell phone, laptop, and other indispensable modern items is the joy one gets finding the object after losing it. Lose your wallet full of credit cards and you will have a chance to have a great day.
(From Jensen’s inequality).
“An environment that doesn’t learn from mistakes is one that’s not very healthy,” Taleb said today in an interview with Erik Schatzker on Bloomberg Television. “We should have broken up the banks, we should be decentralizing. Instead the system is getting more centralized.”
Infuriating? The breakneck speed with which the reader engages the book reminds me of the scene in 2001 where the astronaught is propelled through the star gate. As he moves forward everything is changing around him and he is awestruck by the carnival of lights until he finds himself in a somewhat recognisable room but still changes come. Essentially what I am saying is that there is so much a reader can take at any time and the book is a Pandora’s Box, a treasure trove of ideas that it is very hard to absorb all of them as you read.
via Amazon.com: Junglies’ review of Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder.