Tag Archives: book reviews

Amazon.com: N N Taleb’s review of The Hour Between Dog and Wolf: Risk Taking…

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent exposition of overcompensation, December 9, 2012
By N N Taleb “Nassim N Taleb”
This review is from: The Hour Between Dog and Wolf: Risk Taking, Gut Feelings and the Biology of Boom and Bust Hardcover
I read this book after completing my exposition of overcompensation, how a stressor or a random event causes an increase in strength, in excess of what is needed, like a redundancy. I was also looking for evidence of convex reaction to stressor, or the effect of a mathematical property called Jensen’s inequality in domains and found it exposed here in other words, why a combination low dose most of the time and high dose rarely beats medium dose all the time. The authors presents the evidence for the phenomenon in the following: 1 acute stressors cum recovery beat both absence of stressors and chronic ones; 2 stressors make one stronger post traumatic growth; 3 risk management is mediated by the deep structures in us, not rational decision-making; 4 winning causes an increase in strength the latter are more complicated effects of convexity/Jensen’s Inequality.Great book. I ignored the connection to financial markets while reading it. But I learned that when under stress, one should seek the familiar.Bravo!

via Amazon.com: N N Taleb “Nassim N Taleb”‘s review of The Hour Between Dog and Wolf: Risk Taking….
HatTip to Dave Lull

Book Recommendations from Nassim Taleb | Farnam Street

Farnam Street covered NNT’s Amazon Book Review Page.

Information: The New Language of Science 5 stars
If you want an introduction to information theory, and, in a way, probability theory from the real front door, this is it. A clearly written book, very intuitive, explains things, such as the Monty Hall problem in a few lines. I will make it a prerequisite before more technical great books, such as Cover and Thompson.

Free The Animal: Lose Weight & Fat With The Paleo Diet 5 stars
A charming primer on the paleo idea, with an illustration through the authors own life. I read it in one sitting. Why Everyone Else Is a Hypocrite:

Evolution and the Modular Mind 5 stars
This is a great synthesis of the modularity approach to cognitive science. It covers the entire field and has the right footnotes for the patches. The style is readable, & the author has an attitude with is a very good thing, but his jokes are often bland, not aggressive enough. While I strongly disagree with his treatment of morality I am deontic, I can safely say, so far, that this is not just one of the best books in cognitive science, but certainly one of the most readable.

via Book Recommendations from Nassim Taleb | Farnam Street.
HatTip to Dave Lull