Book Contest

Because it's the summer holiday's in the northern hemisphere and it's university holidays here, I've decided to put up a list of books on my shelf at the moment that I believe are must reads. In fact, if the book makes this list and you haven't read it, you should buy/borrow/steal/download the ebook or audiobook, and lock yourself in your room with food and water until you finish it. This only applies if you have no life, but if you read the introduction and first chapter of these books, you are probably going to want to do nothing else but read it until you finish it.

This list is probably more for my benefit than yours, because I'm sure I'll look at this list in 25 years or so, i'll get some kind of nostalgic feeling and read them again. If I'm miraculously still writing this blog, I will make another list of must reads and compare them to this list.

The bad thing is that by then I might be really famous and if I list some book titles, you will probably think I'm doing it for the money..I assure you I'm not, and the links to amazon are just so you can see the book and read the first few pages. I don't get money if you buy the book from there so just go to the library and find them.

 

The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman: It seems logical for the book on my profile to be the first book I mention. If you think the world consists of your room and your kitchen, then this book will explain why this is. It's all about globalisation and talks about 10 'flatteners.' These are events or things which have made the world more interconnected. After reading this book you will understand more about how the world works.

 

Surely you're Joking Mr. Feynman! by Richard Feynman: He is probably one of the more smarter people in the world, but when you read this book you will think anyone with common sense can win the nobel prize. In this book he dicusses situations he's faced in his life. You may think this book is full of maths and equations considering he's a physicist, but it's not. It's very funny and worth reading.

 

Lucky Man: a memior by Michael J. Fox: Granted, if you don't like him, you're not going to like this book, but even if you're not a fan of back to the future or family ties, this is an interesting book where he tells his life story in a humourous way. He also goes into how he reacted when he was diagnosed with parkinson's and how he managed to turn his life around. This is definitely worth reading..

 

Against the Odds: the remarkable story of risk by Peter Bernstein: I haven't finished reading this book yet, but I know it will make this list. It is all about risk, and how the concepts of risk have changed throughout time as we learn more about it. This isn't just a book for people interested in finance!!

 

Don't let my poorly written reviews put you off reading these books. Also, please leave a title of a book that you think is a must read with a short review in the comments. A randomly chosen comment will win a prize!

Patriots!

I'm determined to stay up for tonight's America's Cup race (notice how I've caplitalised America's Cup, to empashise the importance). For the last 2 I've stayed up, but I always end up falling asleep and I probably end up seeing about 10min of the race at irregular intervals.

 

Tonight however, I will drink coffee, which I never do. There are only 3 races left so I will watch them all. All patriotic New Zealanders, Yachting lovers and insomniacs should do the same. I purposely left out Swiss, because why would they want to watch themselves lose?

However, I should warn you of the consequences of little sleep, this was actually the main piece of news on tv tonight: mood swings, increased appetite and that's all I can remember. I'm sure you can come up with others. This might be a good time to try polyphasic sleep.

 

This is a short entry because I can't think of what to write now. I'm annoyed they wont show episode 2 of flight of the conchords on the internet. I guess we have to wait for the series to be released here...

8 years

If you don't like soccer, this entry is not for you. Instead, go here.

So Thierry Henry is gone. He's not really. Maybe this was a strategic move by Henry and Wenger to hinder Barcelona when they play us in next years champions league final.

Is it a bad thing that he's gone? Yes and no. He will be missed, but since he is a little prone to injury now and he's starting to get old, it is not that bad. He played his best years for us, he helped us do the double, help us win the league title undefeated...he is great.

People think we sold him cheap? No, considering his age and proneness to injury, it was a great deal. Relinquishing us from paying such a huge salary also gives us the ability to sign a big name player...

Let's pay tribute to him. It's an end of an era.

What would you do?

This entry is similar to 'the debate' featured on the espn poker site. The example comes from the poker tournament I was in yesterday. Heads up, the other guy & me had similar chip stacks. With me on the button I raised 3 times the big blind with Qs8s. My opponent raised all in and had me covered, although if I went all-in, the winner of the hand would win the tourny. My opponent had gone all-in against me a few times, one time I called and we both had A J unsuited, so I knew he wouldn't necessarily have an amazing hand to make him go all-in. I had the pleasure in doubling up earlier in the tournament when I flopped a straight and called my all-in reraise with bottom pair.  The prize for 2nd was $480, 1st was $960. What would you do, call or fold? Answer it before you read on...

 

I ended up calling and when he showed 7-7, it was a coin toss to decide the winner. The flop, turn & river didn't help me, so I left with $480 in my wallet. In hindsight, did I make the right call? If you had my hand and knew the guy had 7-7 would you take the 49% chance of winning?

I would write more, but after reading the 'how to make good blogs,' help topic on blogger, I've decided to try and keep the entries short. I would like to play poker again, but the casino is the shittiest place to play. But I'll go if someone goes with me. I'm glad I held my own against people who play poker there everyday...I must've looked like a fish at the start...

Let's get thinking!

The title may have made you leave this site before you've even read this first sentence, but I would've been happy that you even came to this site so feel free to do what you want. Even if you want to tell everyone about how crappy this blog is..any publicity is good publicity (except if you're already someone super famous & doing something bad could alienate your agent, or pr agency). Don't forget about Flight of the Conchords (see the below entry). They really are awesome!

 

This week for the book club, we are going to discuss an exerpt from "Against the Gods," by Peter Bernstein You may think that this will turn into another 'does God exist,' debate, however this book is actually about the remarkable story of risk. Although it's a book designed for people with an interest in finance, there are many subjects the book covers which are good for anyone to read. (Sorry, it's late and I can't be bothered going to thesaurus.com to find a better word for good).

Here is an extract from the introduction: "There is persistent tension between those who assert that the best decisions are based on quantification and numbers, determined by the patterns of the past, and those who base their decisions on more subjective degrees of belief about the uncertain future. This is a controversy that has never been resolved.

The issue boils down to one's view about the extent to which the past determines the future. We cannot quantify the future, because it is an unknown, but we have learned how to use numbers to scrutinize what happened in the past. But to what degree should we rely on the patterns of the past to tell us what the future will be like? Which matters more when facing a risk, the facts as we see them or our subjective belief in what lies hidden in the void of time? Is risk management a science or an art? Can we even tell for certain precisely where the dividing line between the 2 approaches lies? "

 

Sorry for the long post...but it's intermission!

What I wanted to ask is how do you make decisions? Do you make them through logic and reasoning, do you go by past experiences, do you do a bit of both, or do you not give a fuck and would rather toss a coin than try to comprehend all that shit?

If people are interested, I might let them know how I make my decisions..otherwise I'll assume no one gives a shit and everyone thinks I'm crazy.

Playing against fish

Hi everyone. Most of you will not want to read this entry, so I will put the video at the start. If you like it, then you will want to read on. Otherwise you may want to scroll down to the previous entries (flight of the conchords) which are worth reading, send me hate mail outlining where this blog goes wrong, or go to google & search for porn.

Today I want to talk about poker and is it a good or bad thing to be good? I ask this because I'm a brilliant player (yes I'm a humble person and I'm still saying this so I must be better than brilliant). Whenever I play online and actually pay attention to the game, I can tell the good players from the bad pretty quickly. The bad players are 'fish,' and if you can't spot at least 2 or 3 fish within the first 5-10 mins of playing, then you're a fish yourself.

 

Most fish usually are willing to bet all their chips with top pair, any flush draws and outside straight draws. Betting to get them out is not going to work so what do you do? You bet above the pot odds for what they could be drawing to make sure in the long run they will lose more than they earn (and you earn more than you lose). Fish with top pair generally bet the pot or more than the pot thinking they have the nuts, no matter what kicker they have.

 

So what do you do when you hold a pocket pair, flop trips, bet 3/4 of the pot and get raised all-in by a fish? If you think you're ahead (usually determined by how they bet pre-flop) you will call. They show a straight draw and hit it on the river and you're screwed for the rest of the tournament (if you're not knocked out). Of course you get a bad beat like this only about 1/3 of the time, but with so many fish in mtt's it feels like you're getting them all the time...

 

This is not complaining about bad beats, it's more about is it worth being good at poker where you get frustrated by dumb players so often? Or is it better just being average and not knowing too much about how to play? Phil Hellmuth shows just how frustrating it can be when you're a pro against a heap of fish...

Sorry for the bad quality, it's not my video.

Flight of the Conchords premier

Mythbuster's has to be one of the best shows on TV. How else would you know that you cannot split an arrow by firing an arrow at it, like Robin Hood was meant to have. Assassin's would still be trying to kill people by dropping coins from skyscrapers without this show.

 

Last night they proved that in 1930's, there was a farmer who's jeans exploded. It was the herbicide combined with heat that caused them to explode. Very interesting.

 

More importantly, in America, the first episode of The flight of the conchords aired. You can view the first episode at that link.  If you don't know who they are, they're a 2 man band from New Zealand, who have moved to New York. They played at the sxsw festival and were a hit so you know they are pretty good and funny. I'll put this here to entice you to watch the whole thing.

 

Exams have finished, so I have time to write about what you've all wanted to hear about; the varying permeability model. I'm sure you have all heard the riddle where there is a guy on the top of the mountain dead with wet shoes. He died because he went scuba diving earlier that day, and the radical change in air pressure killed him.

Now with the VPM, you can find out the maximum depth you can go over what period of time. This would be helpful to know if you want to try a stunt where you skydive with flippers on, and just before you hit the water you detach from the parachute, dive into the sea and attempt to go as deep as possible.

 

In conclusion, don't be stupid.