A golden saddle on a sick horse makes the problem feel worse; pomp and slickness in presentation (TED-style) makes absence of substance, which would otherwise be tolerable, very nauseating.
via A golden saddle on a sick horse makes the… – Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
Temporaty Title of Mathematical Book: “Elements of Tail Risk and Fragility”.
Let you voice opinion.
Now I need a subtitle (with probability in it). If needed.
via Temporaty Title of Mathematical Book: “Elements… – Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
Georges Brassens aficionados: His friends claim that he took the greatest pride in his weightlifting; many pulled tricks on him by rigging the weights to make the bar heavier and confusing him.
Can we try to figure out how much he could lift from the picture?
If your approach to mathematics is mechanical not mystical, you’re not going to go anywhere.
via If your approach to mathematics is mechanical… – Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
Tomorrow I will complete a 12-month literary “fasting” with almost no reading at all outside mathematics (and some, very very few classic texts, plus this page and a few links). RESULT: The BS detector is oversensitized. I don’t know if the effect will go away soon; for now things I used to find mildly BS are now totally repellent, but things that I used to enjoy reading (like Italo Calvino’s Folk Tales) are just as pleasant.
But modern literature, and the very notion of “public intellectual” I can no longer stand. It feels largely like hype and fashion-magazine discourse. I am scheduled to go to Jaipur festival in January and can’t bear the idea of listening to writers, talking to them… I am in trouble.
Tomorrow I will complete a 12-month literary… – Nassim Nicholas Taleb.