Quick reviews: The Dip, The Black Swan, Capitalism: a Love Story, and Ajab Prem...

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Living in NYC and taking the trains now means I actually might have time to get some reading done! Woohoo!

So let's start with the books:
I finished "The Dip" by Seth Godin (really slim) The message (or more accurately what I remember):
First, know when to quit; second, remember there is disproportionate reward for being the "best"; third, being the best requires having the will and determination to power through "The Dip".

Great examples, and fun and useful read in a psychology-for-people-who-re
ally-want-to-over-achieve kind of way. I definitely recommend it.

I'm about two-third's of the way through Nassim Taleb's "The Black Swan" It a very engaging read. The book goes over a number of biases we humans have and the fallacies and errors in judgement we perpetuate. Lot of great examples of how we don't really know how much we think we know, how we try to force logic and ill-fitting explanations on situations and most importantly, how we're just terrible at considering random events in our thinking and planning. Lot of great stuff (i.e. rants and commentary) on philosophy and the theory on knowledge thrown in there for good measure as well. The take-away for me was not just to reduce the biases/error I have, but to watch out for it in others arguments and not be taken in by them.
People try just a little too hard to explain everything! :)

The Movies:
Capitalism: A Love Story. I disagree with the premise; and think the ending takes things too far. However, a lot of what's in between is extremely powerful and compelling. The level of corporate greed and machination is shocking. Greed may be good, but the people who're greedy are also evil and arrogant (which they often are) and that's where the tragedy lie.


And finally, the wife and I caught Ajab Prem Ki Gajab Kahani the weekend before the last. It was fun... and pretty funny too. It was good to see Raj Kumar Santoshi direct a comedy again and a pretty young one at that... and holy crap, it looks like Ranbir Kapoor is heading for super-star territory already!



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