derivative antifragility?

I've just been reading that newish AntiFragile book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. It's about how adaptive behaviour can strengthen systems, although ex-derivatives trader Taleb's pompous style requires a reader's mental machete to hack to the main points.

The book's core message takes a kind of Nietsche theme of 'what does not kill me makes me stronger' and expands it out to several hundred pages. When you think you've finished reading an idea, another whole section of the same theme appears, like the doubling regrowth of a severed Hydra's head.

I'll summarise it. We know if we shake a box marked 'Fragile' we break the contents. People don't mark boxes 'Robust' and if we were to shake them then nothing inside changes. A box marked 'Antifragile', when shaken, could reconfigure its components into something better. A bit like evolution. Yes, that's the main riff of the book. Things that gain from disorder.

The Mr Bombastic style insults as many people as possible on the way to this conclusion, whilst hinting that the self-aggrandising author dead lifts 330lbs, so we'd better not insult him. As a burly ranter fond of Malbec in Michelin restarants, his good lines are flashes spread across oft-times repetitive and self-justifying pages. "The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence," as Taleb would surely state it. Several times. Cross referenced. And maybe in Latin.

Taleb previously wrote the Black Swan book about 'one off' events that can't be predicted but have big effects. If that book identified the randomness of some key events, this one tries to turn the events and interconnectedness to advantage.

There's some good ideas in the book, which I found only started to lock in after 15% read and by treaing his asides as humorous. There's plenty of other people quoting Taleb's brilliance, although I wonder how they have suppressed their irritation of his style to get to the end of the book?

Instead I'll be reminded of Kanye West, whose oft-played stadium lyrics sampling Daft Punk and quoting Twilight of the False Gods, make a similar point to the book.

(Work it, make it, do it,
Makes us harder, better, faster, stronger!)

(Work it harder make it better,
do it faster makes us stronger,
more than ever, never over,
Our work here is never over)

N-now th-th-that that don't kill me
Can only make me stronger
I need you to hurry up now
'Cause I can't wait much longer
I know I got to be right now

rocking to the rhythm in the ice cream van

Two Polish guys with a big box arrived today.

I asked them to carry it upstairs, half expecting that it wouldn't go around the bend in the stairs.

It didn't.

That's not the first time this has happened and previously I've had to make a hole in the wall to get the offending item upstairs.

These guys were on a schedule and after the five minutes they'd budgeted for drop-off they were on their way to the next place. "Call customer services," they explained as they ran back to their truck.

Something like a reverse robbery really.

I then had a three dimensional geometry puzzle to get the large item upstairs. Unpack it from the cardboard, measure it and work out that I'd got about 2 cm of clearance if I jigged it at various tortuous angles.

It was also deceptively heavy and a very warm afternoon. I think it took about half an hour, at the end of which at least a replacement tee-shirt would be a good idea.

Maybe after a celebratory an ice-cream.

power trip

I've been out on the road again for the last couple of days, although not as a part of my day job. This has been more of a foray into media-world a part of one of my side projects.

The short term pit-stop back home was enough time to jettison one set of luggage and move to a carry bag for my subsequent stopover.

For the shorter trip I don't need all the power chargers in the illustration above, which is from last week. Eagle eyed may spot the UK power strip which I take on longer trips and which serves two purposes. 1) It provides more sockets than the average hotel room 2) It means I don't carry a whole set of those country adapters. Just one for the power strip.

Some may notice that the above could be rationalised for USB charging, but as soon as there's cameras, the various little chargers appear.

So the power strip only goes on longer journeys with checked luggage. Not exactly power trips, but you know what I mean.

sun along the south bank

The blue sky and sunshine seems to be working here in London too. The grassed areas are beginning to fill up, although around this area it is the tourists taking the space at the moment, ahead of the office workers.

The South Bank also has its miniature beach re-instated, without any bathing huts this year. Instead there's a kind of neighbourhood exhibition along with some ecological looking structures that I haven't had time to investigate.

Although I did find time for a coffee alone the Thames, early enough to miss the crowds and before the power drills in the mysterious construction site under the bridge had started up for the day.

dawn

I think it was the blackbirds that woke me this morning. They started before the yappy dog in the distance. I didn't mind either sound effect, whilst morning crept in and early cloud gave way to clear blue skies.

We'll make today's plans over breakfast, before zig-zagging our way back across the island.

stalactite and stalagmite

Instead of reporting from today's scenic beach/harbour/cafe, I thought I'd go underground. We'd decided to head for some nearby caves.

I was genuinely surprised at the scale and quantity of stalactites and stalagmites, almost from the moment we entered. I always think that stalactites have to hold on Tight - because they are the ones that hang down and stalagmites Grow upward. But that's just me*.

From the start when we were hardly a few metres below ground, we were already in vast chambers dating five or more million years ago into the miocene period. That's proper 'Planet of the Apes' territory. And I can't remember seeing real stalactites before - although I've been into other caves and mines and seen them on telly.

It wasn't just a handful. There were millions of them. All sizes and shapes, including some that looked almost like paper or cloth. The caves were around a kilometre long and descended to around 25 metres - I gather they have been formed by the pounding of the Mediterranean into the rocks.

Our guide was quite helpful, but I decided that my Spanish/German and his English didn't quite transfer the information, so I'll spend some quiet time checking the facts later.

For now, I'll just be amazed.

* others use 'c' for ceiling and 'g' for ground

sand me the wi-fi

The little footpath by the side of the villa leads to another bay and a further beach. The main bay and beach along the road seems to be known to the tourists, whilst this other one seems to be mainly known to the locals.

The whole coastline around here is small bays, some of which have received a commercial makeover and others seem to be part of various national parks and therefore protected.

Either way, we're not complaining, because we can switch from beachside amenities to quiet and secluded with just a short walk.

It's the first time I've noticed those beach umbrellas with built-in safes for wallets and gadgets - although I'm not sure about whether the accompanying wi-fi on the beach is somehow missing the point?

another day, another beach

east across the island

We're moving along today, to a new base camp further to the east. We threw everything into the little car we've hired and cut across winding roads, past fields of orange trees against a backdrop of the mountains.

The new place is spacious and airy, although the weather is so wonderful I think we'll be spending most time outside.

The view looks out towards a hilltop castle. I guess we'll need to take a look tomorrow. Fortunately there's mountain bikes waiting to be used.

Maybe that's before we try the pool here; I see there's four poster beds at the poolside to lounge upon.

But this evening we'll have a suitably late Spanish supper waiting.

sun in my eyes

It was a bit tricky starting this post because the sun was in my eyes. I'm not complaining; I've just moved a little further around. I still need to be able to reach the sangria, so it's a bit of a balancing act.

I've already acquired one of those English white wrists caused by sudden exposure to sun rays on a dutifully office based skin. Now I've cast the wrist-watch aside for a few days so we'll have to see if the stripe evens out.

Today has been filled with sunshine and beaches, even a very orange flavoured ice cream at one point. Tomorrow we're moving on, to another coastline and more areas to explore.

squirly pastries

Today's breakfast included some little squirly pastries, which I initially thought were a type of Danish pastry. They turned out to be a simple but tasty ensaïmada, which left a lingering aroma of dusted icing sugar long after they'd been eaten.

Later I noticed the same confection in shops, where they were much larger and clearly a speciality of this area. Another culinary surprise were the apparent Cornish pasties stocked in the same shops. They were actually empenadas, but the ones I've usually seen have been much smaller. Some of the ones here made Cornish pasties look small. And don't get me started on the doughnuts. Some would require two hands to lift.

I normally think of Spanish cuisine more in terms of seafood, grilled fish, paella, tapas and tortilla. Maybe the Crema Catalana would also be on the list, but that's where my Spanish pudding knowledge starts to taper away.

So then into the town, which has a large port full of fancy yachts and a cathedral which received a partial makeover from Gaudi. The cathedral is on a truly dramatic scale, with the inside draped with gold. A sculpturally interesting crown of thorns cuts across the alter, but compared with structures in Barcelona, the Gaudi influence, to me, seemed less obvious.

Instead, I found myself wondering whether the skull and crossbones on some of the graves were simply the old symbols of death, or whether when the symbol of the bones passing behind the symbol of the skull, meant a possible pirate.

ramble

Another spot of cafe society today, although this time it's in Spain. We've headed to the Mediterranean for a few days and right from the start there's a strange yellow orb in the sky that hasn't been seen so much in England.

Today we've been gently rambling the narrow streets, and there will be more of that for the next couple of days, until we head off to somewhere with a beach. Although, come to think of it, we were sipping drinks down by the harbour today whilst waiting for the sunset.