Category Archives: Contributors

New anti-fragile plastic becomes stronger every time it’s stressed

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New anti-fragile plastic becomes stronger every time it’s stressed
Published on Mon, Sep 2, 2013 by Tibi Puiu
Post filed in: Chemistry, Research
Say hello to drop-proof smartphones and whole new generation of plastic products that will be far more durable and strong than their present counterparts. Scientists at Duke University recently unveiled their most recent, stunning work: a new type of polymer that seems to contradict common knowledge and re-arranges its chemical structure each time its under stress, say a mechanical shock. The test of time is in the plastic’s favor as every time the material suffers a mechanical deformation, it becomes stronger.

via New anti-fragile plastic becomes stronger every time it’s stressed.
HatTip to Dave Lull

Nassim N Taleb’s review of The Science of Conjecture: Evidence and Probability before Pascal

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The Science of Conjecture: Evidence and Probability before Pascal

5.0 out of 5 stars Indispensable, August 31, 2013

(Review) By N N Taleb “Nassim N Taleb”

This review is from: The Science of Conjecture: Evidence and Probability before Pascal (Paperback)

As a practitioner of probability, I’ve read many book on the subject. Most are linear combinations of other books and ideas rehashed without real understanding that the idea of probability harks back the Greek pisteuo (credibility) and pervaded classical thought. Almost all of these writers made the mistake to think that the ancients were not into probability. And most books such “Against the Gods” are not even wrong about the notion of probability: odds on coin flips are a mere footnote. If the ancients were not into computable probabilities, it was not because of theology, but because they were not into games. They dealt with complex decisions, not merely probability. And they were very sophisticated at it.

This book stands above, way above the rest: I’ve never seen a deeper exposition of the subject, as this text covers, in addition to the mathematical bases, the true philosophical origin of the notion of probability. In addition Franklin covers matters related to ethics and contract law, such as the works of the medieval thinker Pierre de Jean Olivi, that very few people discuss today.

via Amazon.com: N N Taleb “Nassim N Taleb”‘s review of The Science of Conjecture: Evidence and Pr….
HatTip to Dave Lull

I have to give credit where credit is due…

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I have to give credit where credit is due. I was at dinner with two people who said that Steve Pinker stood by them at a difficult moment, when it was very unpopular to do so, when other academics abandoned them. And he went out of his way to do so. Very honorable. So one should respect the man, without setting aside the statistical problems, or perhaps look at the statistical problems as good news: here is a man worth fighting against.

via I have to give credit where credit is… – Nassim Nicholas Taleb | Facebook.

Stanislav Yurin’s NNT Facebook Search Engine!

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Stanislav Yurin explored his expanding coding talents by building a Nassim Taleb oriented Facebook search engine!

This place probably have become one of the largest philosophical communities all over the Internet, but the real value of it is how solid it is thanks to tremendous efforts of NNT in building the tribe.
The only real problem, at least for me, who have joined not very long ago a year or something is how hard to draw information from the depth layers of this well, since facebook have no any facilities for searching and hardly any for human-friendly browsing. And it is not indexed by any internet search engine, some more insight about it later.

So, when my nerdiness eventually called myself for some programming exercise, I have chosen to solve this personal problem and have built a small tool for searching this forum archives.
Here it is
http://follownassim.stanyurin.com/

Plain and simple, it requests search term and/or author name, and produces the result in I hope a slightly more valuable manner.
To show the downsides of non-existence of native facebook search, some quick examples of produced results:

Not only you, my fellow NNT reader, may be confused about green lumber problem:
http://follownassim.stanyurin.com/search?searchterm=%22green+lumber%22

We actually have at least two authentic Nassim Taleb persons here:
http://follownassim.stanyurin.com/search?searchterm=Nassim&author=Nassim+Nicholas+Taleb

You came across a math genius in the library, so why not make a quick opinion search?
http://follownassim.stanyurin.com/search?searchterm=Doob

via I have received some encouraging… – Nassim Nicholas Taleb | Facebook.

35 Brilliant Insights From Nassim Taleb – SFGate

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The only valid political system is one that can handle an imbecile in power without suffering from it.
Journalists cannot grasp that what is interesting is not necessarily important; most cannot even grasp that what is sensational is not necessarily interesting.
Never buy a product that the owner of the company that makes it doesn’t use, or, in the case of, say, medication, wouldn’t contingently use.
Just realized that to politely get rid of someone people in Brooklyn say “call me if you need anything.”
Injuries done to us by others tend to be acute; the self-inflicted ones tend to be chronic.
We often benefit from harm done to us by others; almost never from self-inflicted injuries.
You will never know if someone is an asshole until he becomes rich.

via 35 Brilliant Insights From Nassim Taleb – SFGate.