
A focus on the exceptions that prove the rule (2006) - mercer
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/5372968a-ba82-11da-980d-0000779e2340.html
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gumby
Amazingly by Benoit Mandelbrot and Nassim Talib.

(This is from 2006 btw but quite relevant)

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SomeStupidPoint
Is there a good place to read up more on the "fractal" distribution idea?

I assume at least some work has been done in the last 10 years.

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PhantomGremlin
They're not just about "fractal" distributions, but a few of Taleb's[1] books
are more-or-less expansions of this article.

Two which had wide acclaim for more-or-less predicting the financial crisis of
2008-2009 were _Fooled by Randomness_ and _The Black Swan_. But I happen to
like his later _Antifragile_ the best.[2]

My biggest criticism of Taleb's books is that, while he tells us what can
happen and why, he only has generalities on how to prepare and respond. I'd
prefer more specifics.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb)
[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifragile](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifragile)

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golemotron
It was only on rereading Antifragile that I realized that Scott Adams' book
'How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big' is practical Taleb. I
don't think he's ever acknowledged the influence on the book directly, but he
has said that he considers Taleb one of the smartest people he knows of.

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bariumbitmap
Halfway down the page there's a typo where a paragraph is duplicated:

> of variables such as financial markets...

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teddyh
> _30m kg_

That’s a weird notation. I would have preferred “30.000 metric tons”.

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kwhitefoot
Using kg makes more sense in two ways, one is that kg is the base SI unit for
mass but the other, more relevant, is that this number is to be compared to
the 300 kg mentioned earlier in the article. Of course it should be 30 M or
perhaps 30 million not 30m. It's unfortunate that the SI mass unit has an
embedded multiplier but we seem to be stuck with it.

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jwilk
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exception_that_proves_the_rule](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exception_that_proves_the_rule)

