Christopher (Walken With Jesus)

Black Swan Notes

noreply@blogger.com (James B) — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 19:58:00 +0000

We will see that, contrary to social-science wisdom, almost no discovery, no technologies of note, came from design and planning—they were just Black Swans. The strategy for the discoverers and entrepreneurs is to rely less on top-down planning and focus on maximum tinkering and recognizing opportunities when they present themselves. So I disagree with the followers of Marx and those of Adam Smith: the reason free markets work is because they allow people to be lucky, thanks to aggressive trial and error, not by giving rewards or "incentives" for skill. The strategy is, then, to tinker as much as possible and try to collect as many Black Swan opportunities as you can.

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What I call Platonicity, after the ideas (and personality) of the philosopher Plato, is our tendency to mistake the map for the territory, to focus on pure and well-defined "forms," whether objects, like triangles, or social notions, like Utopias (societies built according to some blueprint of what "makes sense"), even nationalities. When these ideas and crisp constructs inhabit our minds, we privilege them over other less elegant objects, those with messier and less tractable structures (an idea that I will elaborate progressively throughout this book).

Platonicity is what makes us think that we understand more than we actually do. But this does not happen everywhere. I am not saying that Platonic forms don't exist. Models and constructions, these intellectual
maps of reality, are not always wrong; they are wrong only in some specific applications. The difficulty is that a) you do not know beforehand (only after the fact) where the map will be wrong, and b) the mistakes can lead to severe consequences. These models are like potentially helpful medicines that carry random but very severe side effects.
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Note that I am not relying in this book on the beastly method of collecting
selective "corroborating evidence." For reasons I explain in Chapter
5, I call this overload of examples naïve empiricism—successions of
anecdotes selected to fit a story do not constitute evidence. Anyone looking
for confirmation will find enough of it to deceive himself—and no
doubt his peers.* The Black Swan idea is based on the structure of randomness
in empirical reality.

*It is also naïve empiricism to provide, in support of some argument, series of eloquent
confirmatory quotes by dead authorities. By searching, you can always find
someone who made a well-sounding statement that confirms your point of view—
and, on every topic, it is possible to find another dead thinker who said the exact
opposite. Almost all of my non-Yogi Berra quotes are from people I disagree with.

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Swim Training

noreply@blogger.com (James B) — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 15:38:00 +0000

Today marks the first day I am going to the gym twice. I have 15 minutes of areobic warm up then weights for 45ish minutes.

It should be interesting I"m still hurting from a few days before

Training

noreply@blogger.com (James B) — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 13:50:00 +0000

My arms are just sore and feel like lead. Today I have cardio and nothing to do with my arms so that is good.

Swim Endurance #2 will be tough tomorrow.

Open Water Swim Training

noreply@blogger.com (James B) — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 21:39:00 +0000

So with the plan in mind of swimming 5k 10k then the channel we officially begin intense swim training this week.

I will be swimming over a mile anytime I get into the water. Plus 2 cardo spots a week. I think these will be done at the gym during the day and I'll swim at night.

Either way the total immersion type swimming is amazing. I'd recommend the new dvd to anyone looking to learn to swim better. Also if you live in evanston and want to learn to swim definetly see Craig Strong at the YMCA. He has been a great teacher.

Life as I know it (this week)

noreply@blogger.com (James B) — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 14:07:00 +0000

coaching appointments are taking off. I finally have a few with people who seem like good candidates. That is great.

Swimming has been great and intense training starts soon.

That is the bulk of my life. Brian and Pat are moving in. The folleys of that and the halloween store should provide an interesting 2 months.

Quote I like

noreply@blogger.com (James B) — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 14:02:00 +0000

"Rarely is it effective advocacy to try to convince the judges that the case law compels them to rule in one's favor. For if that were so, the case probably would not have have gotten to the appellate stage. The most effective method of arguing a case is to identify the purpose behind the relevant legal principle and then show how that purpose would be furthered by a decision in favor of [your] position." How Judges Think, Richard A. Posner

So I've agreed to start training to swim

noreply@blogger.com (James B) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 13:26:00 +0000

the english channel in Sep 2009.

First training for a 5k.

Me update

noreply@blogger.com (James B) — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 20:22:00 +0000

Life has been of interest lately. One thing I have noticed is that I am surprised and a bit sad Katie and I have spoken in like 6 weeks.

Coaching has been going well. Finishing this round of training this week in seattle then off to Singapore for two weeks. Should be good and I’m looking forward to it. Well that’s all I have for now.

Swim training tomorrow night. I’m starting to get decent. TP wants to swim the English channel and I don’t know if that is going to happen but it’s something to shoot for.

Swim Training is great

noreply@blogger.com (James B) — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 04:09:00 +0000

The total immersion swim training has been going really well. Just thought I'd keep u updated.

I've been sending traffic to a new

noreply@blogger.com (James B) — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 21:47:00 +0000

Life Coach site hopefully it will be liked. I'll be sending some traffic to it and hopefully people will find it relevant for life coaching.

a life coach knol

noreply@blogger.com (James B) — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 20:36:00 +0000

i wrote this knol (Google's version of wikipedia) here: life coach

My new home for life coaching services

noreply@blogger.com (James B) — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 05:14:00 +0000

Life Coaching from the Life Coach

I figured I should update

noreply@blogger.com (James B) — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 17:43:00 +0000

I haven't updated in a while.

Had drinks last night with TP. Always good and gave me some good insites.

Coaching is hitting a great tipping point with the videos and the product to come out soon. So I have no complaints.

Looking at getting a swim coach to master total immersion swimming.

Quote of the Day

noreply@blogger.com (James B) — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 17:43:00 +0000

“An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.” - MLK JR.

Different 80/20 Principal

noreply@blogger.com (James B) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 17:23:00 +0000

If you can hire someone to do something 80% as well as you then do it.

Seeing What the Blog Poster Does

noreply@blogger.com (James B) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 16:49:00 +0000

I'm in flock and seeing what the Blog Post Feature Looks like

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Flock Browser

noreply@blogger.com (James B) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 15:01:00 +0000

Installed Flock social media browser. It seems pretty cool. At least lets me connect more with social media stuff.

Functionality vs Fun

noreply@blogger.com (James B) — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 14:46:00 +0000

I haven't drawn the line yet. I like my actions to be purposeful but I also like to get lost in a moment with no clear direction or purpose for a short time. I struggle to find "A way" and I think that answer will be in between.

Quote of the Day

noreply@blogger.com (James B) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 13:43:00 +0000

Salvation is living more and more in harmony with God, a process that will go on forever. - Rob Bell

I've wrote about this quote before

noreply@blogger.com (James B) — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 16:06:00 +0000

but i've thought alot about it lately:

Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours.

- C.S. Lewis

Looking it up I find that it's in Mere Christianity. Which I find a bit funny as I don't like apologetics much. Here is the excerpt:

The principle runs through all life from top to bottom. Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favorites wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ, and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.

Here is the new video on motivation

noreply@blogger.com (James B) — Tue, 20 May 2008 03:59:00 +0000

check it out:

The new blog I'll be posting on

noreply@blogger.com (James B) — Mon, 19 May 2008 00:35:00 +0000

is the Life Fulfillment Videos Blog. It's going to cover motivation. procrastination, and getting things done.

The new site is getting traffic and doing well.

noreply@blogger.com (James B) — Sun, 18 May 2008 17:20:00 +0000

My new blog post on Motivation and Procrastination is doing really well. Check out the home page to get a good idea of what is going with Life Fulfillment

a new site i am working on

noreply@blogger.com (James B) — Thu, 15 May 2008 03:32:00 +0000

Life Fulfillment Videos - a great site to find your purpose

Learning of the day

noreply@blogger.com (James B) — Wed, 07 May 2008 18:43:00 +0000

I need to double my rate of failure.

--

James Bird
http://twitter.com/christiancoach