A reminder

Well weren’t the events today quite interesting…car bomb almost set off in Picaddilly. I’d kind of forgotten that I was living in a city where the possibility of this going down was quite real. The bus I can catch to work is the no. 30, one of the buses bombed last time. A mate from school was actually working in a bar 20 metres from where the car stopped and they had to be evacuated last night…this is more rhetorical than anything but I just thought it served as a reminder…

If you want to see how big an explosion from just one kitchen gas cyclinder is then check this link:

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/559159/gas_cylinder_big_explosion_in_the_road

5 minutes with a conservative

Sorry about the link but it’s best you read it for yourself:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21984669-7583,00.html

I know there have been a few posts from me around this point, but it still amazes me that people like this exist!
I’d encourage anyone to put up some counter literature as the rise of right wing ignorance and ’staus quo’ is more disheartening than any environmental crisis. We are basically having an idealogical crisis!

‘The Black Swan’

(Sorry for the long post)

I am almost finished reading ‘The Black Swan’ by Nassim Nicholas Taleb; it is his second book one the subject of humans inability to predict the future and it is completely unlike anything I have read before. It is hard to effectively sum up what it is all about in a simple way because in doing that I would be going against a lot of what the book is talking about. For the sake of this post I will try and give a little overview but there is a good chance I have missed some of the points of the book.

The books main premise is that humans are epistemologically arrogant and we think the quality and depth of our knowledge is a lot better than it actually is; this leads to us making predictions for the future that is primarily based on the past and because of this we discount the possibility and impact of ‘Black Swans’ that we do not see coming. A ‘Black Swan’ is an unexpected event that has a big impact. I will go into how the name came about later.

Throughout the book a contrast is made between two worlds ‘Mediocristan and Extremistan’ (nothing to do with terrorism). In Mediocristan things are easy to predict and the ‘Gaussian bell curve’ explains things nicely; in Extremistan the bell curve is useless and fails to explain the probability (or impact) of an event occurring. Another way to look at is, in Mediocristan no single observation with make much difference to the average of a set of data. For example: Take a room with 1000 people in it; think of the heaviest person in the world, say 400kg in the extreme. If someone of that size entered the room, the mean weight would not change very much at all. Now take those same people and the average net worth; if Bill Gates walked into the room the average net worth would increase dramatically. Wealth is in the realm of Extremistan and it is not inconceivable that one person will have a net worth of ten ‘Standard Deviation’ away from the mean; how the hell do you account for that using ‘Gaussian’ probability??

The book also talks about how we tend to mistake no evidence of something with evidence of it not happening. An example is black swans and it is how the book got its title. Until Australia was discovered it was thought that all swans were white; every white swan that people saw confirmed their belief that this was the case. That was until they saw a black swan in Australia; this single sighting completely invalidates the theory of white swans. People were mistaking no evidence of black swans with evidence of no black swans.

The author used to be a trader of both securities and foreign currency so he knows a bit about how finance works. His recommendation for a financial portfolio is 80% – 85% of your money in the safest possible investment, say treasury bills and the remaining money in the highest risk category available. His reasoning is that you both simultaneously shield yourself from the effect of any negative black swans whilst leaving a small about of your money open to positive black swans (e.g.: a biotech company that discovers the cure for a major disease). The theory being that if you benefit from a positive black swan your pay off will be huge from the small amount you invest and if you lose out to a negative black swan you won’t lose anymore than 20% of your money. I don’t know how sound this theory is but to me, with my limited knowledge it certainly looks as though it has some merit. Leigh? Your thoughts??

I would love to talk about this book with someone who has read it so I strongly recommend one of you does.

Here is another review of it as well.

http://www.platformonomics.com/BookReviewTheBlackSwan.aspx

Loose.

Update – Wiki link explaining more of the story.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Benoit 

Check out this link, relating to Chris Benoit….

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21988443-2,00.html

Incredible if this is true.  It could be just a loose statement that got lucky, but it does introduce an interesting topic.  Wikipedia updates quite quickly for an encyclopaedia.  Its amazing how quickly that reality is turned into information history as fast as it is.  Whether its true or not is debateable, as we’ve all seen some wikipedia posts that are blatant advertisements cough*Amway/Network 21*cough., but the fact is there is somone out there who is writing history as it is happening.

In the case of Benoit, it appears that his wife’s death (not the fact it was a murder suicide) was reported on wikipedia a full 14 hours before police even entered the house.  Assuming this was written by a person with knowledge of the situation, this is an astounding reflection of what the information age has become, not to mention an additional person-of-interest in an ongoing investigation.  Maybe Benoit was a closet wiki-fanatic??

It’s ok not to know…

I only include this as a link because I think it is important to read some of the responses from our fellow countrymen. I must admit that blogs have made me realise that, without sounding righteous, so many people have no fucking idea!

http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/yoursay/index.php/theaustralian/comments/atheism_shall_make_you_free

There are some parts of this article that stretch a little but overall I think it has a good message. It is ok not to know… We all find faith in our own little way – we don’t need an institution to provide that for us…

Conspiracy, A Divine Plan or Poth?

Have a history teacher explain this…..if they can…

Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846.
John F. Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946.
Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860.
John F. Kennedy was elected President in 1960.
Both were particularly concerned with civil rights.
Both wives lost their children while living in the White House.
Both Presidents were shot on a Friday. Both Presidents were shot in the head .
Now it gets really weird…
Lincoln ’s secretary was named Kennedy.
Kennedy’s Secretary was named Lincoln.
Both were assassinated by Southerners.
Both were succeeded by Southerners named Johnson.
Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln, was born in 1808.
Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy, was born in 1908.
John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated Lincoln, was born in 1839.
Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated Kennedy, was born in 1939.
Both assassins were known by their three names.
Both names are composed of fifteen letters.
Now hang on to your seat…
Lincoln was shot at the theater named ‘Ford.’
Kennedy was shot in a car called ‘ Lincoln’ made by ‘Ford.’
Lincoln was shot in a theater and his assassin ran and hid in a warehouse.
Kennedy was shot from a warehouse and his assassin ran and hid in a theater.
Booth and Oswald were assassinated before their trials.
And here’s the kicker…
A week before Lincoln was shot, he was in Monroe, Maryland.
A week before Kennedy was shot, he was in Marylin Monroe!

I’ve written an article on HECS…

… and I’d love to get some feedback and input from the crew.

How does a HECS-HELP debt effect your life?

Have a read over at my blog, and let me know what you think.

The state of Australian Rugby

After going to see the Wallabies play Wales on Saturday night, I am both quietly confident and extremely concerned about their chances in the up coming world cup. 

The first half of the game was quite possibly the worst game of professional rugby I have eve seen, and I watched a lot of Reds games this year… The ball security, backline moves, and lineout throws were just appalling. The wallabies, quite fittingly were booed off the field at half time. 

After about five minutes of the second half I was convinced that the real wallabies had just run out on the field and that the team in the first half was a team of “look-alikes” out there to lull the Welsh into a false sense that they could still win it. The back line was slick, lineouts going well and been stolen from the Welsh, we even scored a few tries!! All in all, the second half was an enjoyable half of Rugby to watch. 

So what was the difference? I am sure there were a number of factors that contributed to the Wallabies playing much better in the second half; John Connelly going off his nut at them in the dressing rooms certainly would have helped, but I think the most important factor was bringing George Gregan on and putting Matt Giteau into the centers. This may be an unpopular position to take but hey, this is my post. 

For all of Gregan’s faults he still adds a hell of a lot to the back line; this comes in the form of direction, strong defense, fast flat passes, and the combination with Larkham.

The main criticism of his game has been that he takes too many sideways steps away from the ruck before passing and I will concede, he does this, but show me half back who doesn’t from time to time. One of the things that people often praise Gregan for is his running of the ball when he sees a gap around the ruck but in order for him to do this he needs to take a few steps to the side to get around the ruck and see if there are any gaps. I am sure you can see the difficulty faced in this situation. 

Either way I don’t think anyone is overly confident about Australia’s chances in the up coming world cup but I think they will be a hell of a lot better if Gregan is at halfback.

GBL update…

For all the unireds out to sea and around the world.

We started 2-4, and have won our last 6 to be equal second at 8-4. Knocked over Saints, Crosby and Lang Park in the last three weeks.

Massey is tearing it up – would have had 30 the last three on an array of post moves, jumpers, putbacks etc – most dominant. Cam has been killing it as the one, completely outplayed LP guards on Wednesday and shut Shawy down completely also. Little Adds has been Vinnie Johnsoning it also – guy can flatout play with the best of em’. Aside from this, Tim G has been solid, BG has been reincarnated as a screen setting, jump shooting 4 and Shaneo has seen a renaissance of sorts, putting up decent numbers (in spite of no stat keepers) in the last few.

Unireds is in good hands

Pete – can we please see some of your shots of late Reply in kind.

Euro-fling!

Well I thought since most of us know that it should be declared to the collective…..

Pete has a Euro-fling!

This is not just your average Euro-fling, this is your genuine Eastern European Czech fling – with all the trimmings! For those of you who watched 18th B’day, I’ll leave the rest up to your imagination

Bravo Carey! The legacy continues far and wide….
We all require camera photo’s please…and don’t hold back!