Wednesday, June 8, 2016

3rd book of the year



It took me a while to finish this book.
I probably bought this many years ago (maybe a decade?), but only managed to get into the habit of reading this consistently over the past 3 months after my second book.

The book teaches me to think more critically on the use of statistical methods on areas where single 'Black Swan' event could overshadow the long history of past events in terms of its impact. Like the financial crisis back in 2008 that the book kept bringing up.
I felt it was quite critical on the statistics that are being used now, and I felt it more because I'm a practitioner of this tool that he felt was bullshit (not in all areas, just those areas with the swans).

Most of the time I found it hard to understand and remember some of the terms that he used. Sometimes it gets rather technical. But overall, it was an okay read to ponder over the negative effects of the black swan and how to protect, or be robust against it, and also think about how to optimize with positive black swan.

Haven't been blogging much nowadays.
Kinda lost the momentum from the early stage of the year due to work.
And also, have been giving less (actually zero) focus on developing my Java skills.
The self-learning process is rather tedious and felt somewhat like wandering around in a haystack sometimes.
I am planning to get started on a Udemy course on Mobile App development to get my engine started again, and specifically in the area that I wanted. The purpose of learning Java was to help in my learning in app development, but since this course also teaches beginner in Java, I suppose it would be more ideal to dive right into this course than to continue on my self-learning, and unguided (except by the textbook) journey.

Wondering what's the next book to read on the train... hmm...

Best line from the book:

"Missing the train is only painful if you run after it."

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