[Ganchrow]

I just started reading The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, and it's quite excellent.


Book description from Amazon:

A black swan is a highly improbable event with three principal characteristics: It is unpredictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random, and more predictable, than it was. The astonishing success of Google was a black swan; so was 9/11. For Nassim Nicholas Taleb, black swans underlie almost everything about our world, from the rise of religions to events in our own personal lives.

Why do we not acknowledge the phenomenon of black swans until after they occur? Part of the answer, according to Taleb, is that humans are hardwired to learn specifics when they should be focused on generalities. We concentrate on things we already know and time and time again fail to take into consideration what we don’t know. We are, therefore, unable to truly estimate opportunities, too vulnerable to the impulse to simplify, narrate, and categorize, and not open enough to rewarding those who can imagine the “impossible.”

For years, Taleb has studied how we fool ourselves into thinking we know more than we actually do. We restrict our thinking to the irrelevant and inconsequential, while large events continue to surprise us and shape our world. Now, in this revelatory book, Taleb explains everything we know about what we don’t know. He offers surprisingly simple tricks for dealing with black swans and benefiting from them.

Elegant, startling, and universal in its applications The Black Swan will change the way you look at the world. Taleb is a vastly entertaining writer, with wit, irreverence, and unusual stories to tell. He has a polymathic command of subjects ranging from cognitive science to business to probability theory. The Black Swan is a landmark book–itself a black swan.

Taleb also wrote Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets, another excellent read.

[pags11]

another I recommend is "The Game" by Neil Strauss...

[pico]

"Bust" by Adam Resnick

i read the black swan, but how many of you are really doing what he proposed? who is going to do trifecta and crazy parlays everyday til they hit a jackpot? i bet most of you just do straight bets, maybe sometimes bet on slight underdogs.

[jjgold]

The more you read the smarter you are

[hitbitritz]

best betting tip ever - go against the public. when a game looks "perfect", bet the other side.

[Korchnoi]

Ganch,

Your the second person to recommend this book to me, so I walked over to bookstore to pick up a copy today. They were sold out. I'll probably have to do Amazon, but I like to get three or four books from them at a time so now I could use a few more recommendations :-)

[LGBoots]

Looks an interesting read

You can buy it for $5 at the below site. It comes as a download PDF file ...

http://www.garpdigitallibrary.org/di...t.asp?pid=1470

Edit: Actually forget about ordering from the above site. Seems like you only get a 'preview' of 11 pages for your 5 bucks . Thought it was too good to be true!

[zootiehead]

Originally Posted by jjgold

The more you read the smarter you are

Ignorance is bliss jj.

[Korchnoi]

Originally Posted by picoman

"Bust" by Adam Resnick

i read the black swan, but how many of you are really doing what he proposed? who is going to do trifecta and crazy parlays everyday til they hit a jackpot? i bet most of you just do straight bets, maybe sometimes bet on slight underdogs.

if that's what you took from the book, i might suggest you re-read it.

[Korchnoi]

Originally Posted by Korchnoi

Ganch,

Your the second person to recommend this book to me, so I walked over to bookstore to pick up a copy today. They were sold out. I'll probably have to do Amazon, but I like to get three or four books from them at a time so now I could use a few more recommendations :-)

Just finished it.

I'm torn, b/c on one hand I really like what he has to say and he does make some great points. On the other, he can be arrogant to the point of being obnoxious. He uses loads of obscure (to me at least) references that really make you feel uneducated. I had to take the book in little doses. Overall though, I a big Taleb fan, although it sure does paint a bleak picture of many traders and financial parishioners. This is the third book of his I’ve read (I suppose I only skimmed Dynamic Hedging).

[austintx05]

Originally Posted by jjgold

The more you read the smarter you are

which explains how stupid you are

[moses millsap]

I've made it about half way through this book (took a week and a half off from it as I was busy with other things), but picked up right where I left off and it's been top notch so far. Some of his points are right on (I have the exact same thoughts, but since he verbalized first, he can take the credit ), i.e. the last paragraph on page 73:

"If you work in a randomness-laden profession....you will likely suffer burnout effects from that constant second-guessing of your past actions in terms of what played out subsequently"

Fits right in with poker and sports bettors. If you continually dwell on your bad beats and bad luck, you'll never have a chance to get to the top, because you'll get burned out like he said or like they teach you in AA meetings "Regret only wastes the human spirit."

There was another passage I wanted to discuss, but alas, I forgot to mark it down/highlight so I'll have to skim back later.

[Scorpion]

I Dont Read Books

[durito]

I finally read this and Fooled by Randomness over the weekend.

Excellent books. I'd highly recommend both.

[pico]

Originally Posted by durito

I finally read this and Fooled by Randomness over the weekend.

Excellent books. I'd highly recommend both.

you know what is funny. the head trader that lost 40 mil is almost exactly like the "John the head trader" from chapter 3. i gave my copy to one of the traders there. he finished reading it when the head trader started losing it...almost like the re-enactment of the book.

[Panic]

I suggest brownian motion. For you guys that want to mathmatically and systematically figure things out...this will help you. Have fun.

[pico]

Originally Posted by Panic

I suggest brownian motion. For you guys that want to mathmatically and systematically figure things out...this will help you. Have fun.

do you need to eat a lot of fiber to have brownian motion? what is the math formula on fiber intake?

[durito]

Originally Posted by pico

you know what is funny. the head trader that lost 40 mil is almost exactly like the "John the head trader" from chapter 3. i gave my copy to one of the traders there. he finished reading it when the head trader started losing it...almost like the re-enactment of the book.

I find it funny that people think what I do is gambling.

When's the last time they changed the rules in the middle of a baseball game?

[Panic]

Originally Posted by pico

do you need to eat a lot of fiber to have brownian motion? what is the math formula on fiber intake?

Yes, Pico. The fluctuation may increase or decrease dependant on mass v. velocity. Not to mention, diameter v. length.