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The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
I couldn't put this one down and am going to read it again. This book was much deeper and more interesting than "Fooled By Randomness" and I'm still digesting the ideas of the book. I may review it in depth later when I have time, but I think everyone should read it.
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I read the excerpt from the Random House site:
http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/d...p;view=excerpt
I have a couple of comments just based on this (not including the irony of the name of the publishing house).
1. His assertion that the "inability to predict the improbable" renders the "ability to predict the probable" useless, is itself useless. He uses the 9/11 attacks as an example. He seems to be saying that the only releveant factor in the collapse of the trade towers was that they were attacked in a completely unanticipated way. Of course, he neglects the fact that had the engineering and construction of the towers not focused on the "minutiae" of building skyscrapers, they would have collapsed long ago due to high winds or shifting foundation (or never would have stood in the first place).
2. He uses the Nazi "end run" around the French Maginot line in WWII as another example of a "Black Swan". While I agree the french did a poor job anticipating this tactic, and they did suffer a terrible defeat because of it, there is no way to tell whether or not building the line was the proper strategy since no one knows what would have happened if they DIDN'T. It may have been their best defense, it just didn't work. His argument is purely "results oriented" and as poker players it is our duty to point out that results oriented strategy is hogwash.
Otherwise, it sounds like a very interesting book [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]