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Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets: Difference between revisions
Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets (view source)
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Amazon provides an interesting statistical commentary on this and all other products on its site: a graphic of the relative proportions of different star ratings assigned by customer reviews. If you flip this on its side it looks a lot more like what it is: a statistical representation of customers' views of the book. | Amazon provides an interesting statistical commentary on this and all other products on its site: a graphic of the relative proportions of different star ratings assigned by customer reviews. If you flip this on its side it looks a lot more like what it is: a statistical representation of customers' views of the book. | ||
Nassim Taleb's Fooled by Randomness has an unusual "curve": a short "head" of 5 star reviews and a long tail of lesser ratings which | Nassim Taleb's Fooled by Randomness has an unusual "curve": a short "head" of 5 star reviews and a long tail of lesser ratings which doesn’t tail off. A large [[standard deviation]], then, against a mean of four stars, compared to {{author|Leonard Mlodinow}}'s {{br|The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives}} - also a four star average, but a much more conventional distribution of grades with a tighter standard deviation (a consistent curve from 50% five star to 2% one star, against Taleb's 46% five star and 11% one star). | ||
So I have learned something from this (or Mlodinow's) book. | So I have learned something from this (or Mlodinow's) book. | ||
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There is a seam of useful information in the second half of this book, but you must wade through quite a lot of self-aggrandisement to find it, and none is unique: as mentioned, there are better presented and less irritating accounts of the same information elsewhere, so Mr. Taleb may be disappointed to see yet another equivocal assessment of his book. | There is a seam of useful information in the second half of this book, but you must wade through quite a lot of self-aggrandisement to find it, and none is unique: as mentioned, there are better presented and less irritating accounts of the same information elsewhere, so Mr. Taleb may be disappointed to see yet another equivocal assessment of his book. | ||
Except, he tells us, he | Except, he tells us, he won’t be: he doesn’t read or care about "amateur" reviewers anyway, so no harm done. | ||