virgil is the prince of the poets
in The Aeneid, we find a seamless fluidity that is indifferent to the translator
1 min read
notes
shorts, fragments, travel notes, culture, books, stray observations
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how is it that such an occurrence can occur?
so there it was: Emerson filled the remaining $15.06 needed on top of the cheap plastic pretend play doctor kit... how is it possible?
1 min read
Thucydides, Book 4
a petition to preserve Spartan dignity in misfortune takes us back to Solon's warning
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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?"
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"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
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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.
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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
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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