Thucydides, Book 4
a petition to preserve Spartan dignity in misfortune takes us back to Solon's warning
1 min read
notes
shorts, fragments, travel notes, culture, books, stray observations
Page 2 of 5
history's first (and grandest) funeral oration
an answer, perhaps the answer, to "what we fight for?", "what we die for?" and, most importantly "what we live for?"
1 min read
"daily standard deviation of 1% moves 1% a day" - not so
In the financial markets, the definition of volatility is assumed to be standard deviation. However, in practice, people seem to either forget the definition or completely substitute it with the mean absolute deviation. For example...
2 min read
placing high-confidence bets in mediocristan and winning
life in Mediocristan is quite enjoyable. It reminds me of Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria. The ocean is nearby, and the climate is pleasant. Never too cold, never too hot.
1 min read
Featured
shorting stocks based on fragility
On principle, therefore, a small short position is in order. Small because we cannot time markets, and small because it's an expression of a philosophical view, not an attempt to make fuck you money with one trade.
1 min read
dying a good death and reading antifragile
against my (acquired) skepticism of anything published in the last 50 years (exceptions: Kazuo Ishiguro's novels, The Selfish Gene), I picked up Nassim N. Taleb's Antifragile.
1 min read
when you cross the street, you remove data
more data--such as paying attention to the eye colors of the people around when crossing the street--can make you miss the big truck.
what we talk about when we talk about correlation
in day-to-day meetings and coffee chats, no big deal, but when it comes to making investing or hedging decisions, beware.
1 min read
the day I finished The Rambler
in every man's life, however splendid or modest, there are episodes that mark one's journey as a reader or as a person. Reading Samuel Johnson's essays is both a personal and a reader milestone.
3 min read
Featured
the victim card on Christmas Eve
for what would so soon destroy all the order of society, and deform life with violence and ravage, as a permission to every one to judge his own cause...
1 min read
beware the ambition of petty accomplishments
the ambition of petty accomplishments, in which we believe we’re advancing, but a wiser perspective offers the opposite diagnosis.
1 min read
how we value the things we value
the assignment of prices by the invisible hand of the market reveals how we value certain things in relation to other things. This unveiling is quite amusing some times, harrowing in other occasions.
1 min read