reading robert aickman
the best and perhaps only way to describe his stories is with the word Aickmanesque.
idling, adventuring, rambling
markets, history, the classics, and other useless and unimportant things
options tourism is not recommended
you may know well where a stock is headed, but you could still lose money if you're an options tourist
trip to the northern and the Canadian rockies
it's not a competition, but Banff wins.
tennis parlays are mild randomness
Dustin Brown beating Rafa does not spill over into other matches
volatility drag in action
real world example of our insidious friend volatility drag
the man of the cliffs
documentary about Purunga, a traditional cliff fisherman in Peru.
a handful of basic ideas for The Idler
these ideas belong to the world of tinkering rather than to the realm of grand philosophical principles.
songbook 1 (acoustic)
a list of songs to be practiced and played. In the best case, an important cultural transmission takes place as my kids absorb and develop their taste. In the average case, I just have fun.
financial crisis headlines (Oct 7, 2008)
just some notes I took while things were unfolding in September and October 2008
on sampling and its discontents
terrain, models, and inference... the more uncertain the terrain, the less we can rely on sampling
number 1: ensemble vs. time
a first attempt to disentangle the (on the surface) simple question "what is the expected return?"
what is it like in June 2026?
Macro temperature check. June 12, 2026.
the idler capital
the most apt name for an investment endeavor.
later is now (rediscovering Elliott Smith)
i make my wife and kids listen to Between The Bars
wild randomness
an easy to visualize example of wild randomness
samuel johnson on parental responsibility
on our moral obligation to ensure our children's well-being.
when you get too close, you only hear the noise
In the presence of randomness, high-frequency observation obscures signal. Why Djokovic's 55% point wins reveal less than his 88% match record.
black blood that kept drippin'
I am no stranger to you. I was born in Troy, and the blood you see is oozing from no tree...
guitar frustration and the sphere of the known
one climbs a small mountain just to see oneself surrounded by higher mountains that await our approach
virgil is the prince of the poets
in The Aeneid, we find a seamless fluidity that is indifferent to the translator
running makes me think of murakami
contemplating and accepting the role of time
good bye garmin
it's obvious that one can run without a Garmin watch but, at the same time, it's incredible
conceptualizing rhythm (or teaching Bonzo how to count)
when learning how to surf, people don't sit at home reading a technical manual about how to measure velocity, steepness, and hollowness to predict where to position themselves to catch a wave.
six hours of dhh with lex fridman
laid back approach, no desire to stay inside the circumvallation of two or three pre-established topics... paradoxically, this drifting communicates a richer view of the main topics. A broader dynamic range to see what the person sees.