Entropy, Compound and Game Theory

  20260819 - Prologue 1 20260819 - PART I: SOLON'S WARNING - SKEWNESS, ASYMMETRY, INDUCTION 9 20260819 - One: If You're So Rich Why Aren't You So Smart? 13 Mild success can be explainable by skills and labour. Wild success is attributable to variance. p12 No really. Wild success is attributable to skills and labour and variance. Rich and solid rich is quite different. 20260819 - Two: A Bizarre Accounting Method 28 How can I remind myself of the potential risk? Which part of my perception is illusion? 20260820 - Three: A Mathematical Meditation on History 46 My models showed that ultimately almost nobody really survived; bears dropped out like flies in the rally and bulls ended up being slaughtered, as paper profits vanished when the music stopped. But there was one exception; some of those who traded options had remarkable staying power and I wanted to be one of those. p50 I think Mr Taleb must used leverage. The risk is much lower if no leverage, and close to ze...

  20260808 - Chapter One The Flowering of Human Consciousness - 1 It's surprise that Eckhart Tolle got almost everything wrong, when they are related to science. No doubt he has perfect control of his mind(consciousness), but he is not humble in front of science. There are a lot of things that science itself cannot handle properly, so far. We still need to learn to live in the moment. 20260809 - Chapter Two Ego: The Current State of Humanity - 25 Ego is our major obstacle. At that stage, some children refer to themselves in the third person. "Johnny is hungry." p28 Can I play this trick? If I use my name to replace "I" in thinking, then the real "I" is behind my thoughts. If I notice the difference between these two all the time, then it will be much easier to prevent myself been controlled by emotion or subconsciousness. The ego isn't wrong; it's just unconscious. p42 The ultimate boss is not the ego, but "I". How can I sto...

  20260724 - The Big Picture When the size is increased, the "cost" per unit and the "production" per unit are also changed. The cost(consumption) is getting lower, and the production is getting higher. Here, the production doesn't always mean good things. It could be something like crime rate. There are a lot of factors affect those changes. When we remove a factor as bottleneck, another factor will become the bottleneck. This is astounding. What is changing? New inventions such as solar panel, lithium batter, computer, EV, AI, robots, autonomous driving, smartphone, Internet, Starlink, etc. A lot of limitations will disappear, and then many new bottlenecks will pop up. No matter what, cities will become bigger and bigger. The living cost will be lower, and the average income will be higher. Will this rapid growth of scale make cities more fragile? No. Distributed energy(solar panel and lithium battery) and distributed intelligence(local AI) make each ...

  20260701 - Preface 20260701 - 1. The Theory of Everything 20260702 - 2. Shadows they neither absorb energy nor change their state in any way unless they are struck by tangible photons. Shadow photons have no effect. p46 Shadow photon? I prefer to understand it as "A photon with large possible field". It's energy, not mass. "The possible" cannot interact with the real: non-existent entities cannot deflect real ones from their paths. p49 Maybe, trillions of "the possible" may generate "emergence" to form light? 20260716 - 3. Problem-solving Bayesian inference is not perfect, but it's the best one. The story of the Inductivist Turkey is easy to solve: ask for the reason behind the events, instead of accepting it as it is. 20260718 - 4. Criteria for Reality The problem of solipsism is that it doesn't help to make prediction. If there is no objective external world, then everything and any rule may change at any time. 2026072...

  20260720 - Preface: On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs There was no bullshit jobs before industrial revolution. Is it necessary waste? 20260721 - Chapter 1: What Is a Bullshit Job? The author argues that "bullshit jobs" refer to those that other people can bypass and easily handle directly. According to this definition, in the age of AI, all white-collar jobs are in big trouble. PS: Once humanoid robots become widespread, blue-collar jobs will also be in big trouble. There is a very thin line between extreme luxury and total crap. p22 What is valuable extreme luxury? The ones that improve our life quality and not just because of market branding. Most of documents are useless as no one will read them. It's good idea to let AI to generate them based on relevant information, such as meeting recordings and computer source code. 20260722 - Chapter 2: What Sorts of Bullshit Jobs Are There? There is large latency between technology development and social structure/t...

  20260714 - 1 • Normal is what you’re used to How do we repay the gifts that came to us unbidden and more or less at random? p5 The real question is, how do we know what is right and what is wrong? We need to optimize our perception of the world, in our whole life. Those are the things that no one can take away from us. p24 Reward/money is not that important as it's external stuff, which belongs to "environment". Environment, Behaviour, Capabilities, Beliefs, Identity, and Purpose(Meaning and Mission). 20260715 - 2 • No one deserves anything On the other hand, if we acknowledge the issue of gift guilt, we can deal with it head-on and find ways to overcome it. p42 Gift guilt could be a problem to many wealthy people, and a lot of people when UHI is implemented. 20260715 - 3 • The myth of the level playing eld The first and most important premise is that people are equal. p48 Strongly disagree with this one. People are not equal, on all sides. But it's cri...

 20260617 - Foreword 5 20260617 - Flight into Immortality 7 He knows that this 25th of September will be an important day in world history, and with wonderful Spanish pathos this hardened, unscrupulous adventure manifests how fully he grasps the meaning of his timeless mission. p22 But most people have no idea about Vasco Nunez de Balboa, and that date, and his adventure. I doubt how much importance he really realized, although he was the first European who saw the Pacific Ocean from America continent. The governor Pedrarias opens the trial for alleged rebellion; the case is conducted quickly and unjustly. p31 What's the real reason that Pedrarias killed Balboa? The only one who can benefit from it is the king of Spain. All current top leaders believe that they will own whatever they have forever. But no cell can own the whole body, no matter how strong and how smart it is. How about AI? 20260618 - The Conquest of Byzantium 33 AI: The Fall of Constantinople (1453), as ...

  20260531 - Prologue The almost singular through line behind every major financial crisis is one thing: debt. p14 At the moment, AI related companies are borrowing a lot of money to build AI centres. This year it's over $150B, which is more than the sum of the past 2 years. Will this cause trouble in the near future? https://x.com/_FORAB/status/2060960266322588048 20260531 - Part I 20260531 - Chapter One: February 1, 1929 20260601 - Chapter Two: February 14, 1929 20260531 - Chapter Three: February 16, 1929 20260601 - Chapter Four: March 4, 1929 So far, the only issue I found is leverage. All other factors are fine. 20260606 - Chapter Five: March 5, 1929 20260607 - Chapter Six: March 26, 1929 20260607 - Chapter Seven: March 29, 1929 "The stock market will not have a very material decline unless and until there is an adverse turn in business," p101 Can interest rate changes affect companies' profit? Yes, of course. Why most of the smartest people in 19...

  20260529 - Introduction: An Eater's Manifesto In 2005 we learned that dietary fibre might not, as we'd been confidently told for years, help prevent colorectal cancers and heart disease. p5 Interesting! I don't know this. Part One: The Age of Nutritionism 20260529 - 1. From Foods to Nutrients 20260529 - 2. Nutritionism, Defined 20260529 - 3. Nutritionism Comes to Market 20260529 - 4. Food Science's Golden Age 20260530 - 5. The Melting of the Lipid Hypothesis In pace of those fats, they consumed substantially more vegetable oils, especially in the form of margarine, sales of which outpaced butter for the first time in 1957. p46 Maybe it's not that animal fat is better than seed oils, but that people should eat less. 20260530 - 6. Eat Right, Get Fatter 20260530 - 7. Beyond the Pleasure Principle 20260530 - 8. The Proof in the Low-Fat Pudding 20260531 - 9. Bad Science To really know what a person is eating you'd have to have a second invisible per...

  20260525 - Introduction to the Paperback Edition xi The solution is obvious: the economy desperately needs more fiscal support. p. xv Not just that. When factories all locked down, there were not enough goods produced. Thee goods in warehouses were close to exhausted. MMT doesn't tell us what we should do. It shows us what we can do. p xx Good point. 20260525 - Introduction: Bumper Sticker Shock 1 But evidence of overspending is inflation, and most of the time deficits are too small, not too big. p9 Inflation could be delayed by other countries' "oversea currency reserve". Without the protection of tariff, MMT doesn't work. 20260527 - 1 Don't Think of a Household 15 That can help manage inflationary pressures, by balancing the strain on our economy's real productive capacity. p33 Why does government tax normal people? To reduce the pressure of inflation. Why does government tax rich people more? To redistribute wealth from the rich to the poo...

20260121 - Introduction: The Only True Voyage 3 They are like discerning personal assistants who come to the brain with only the most important information. p9 That's how people get addicted to screen. The Umwelt concept can feel constrictive because it implies that every creature is trapped within the house of its senses. p14 What's Umwelt? Subjective environment. This is one of the reasons that Robots/AI can easily beat human in everything. 20260124 - 1 Leaking Sacks of Chemicals: Smells and Tastes 17 Horowitz found that dogs became more optimistic after just two weeks of nosework. p22 Our habit changes our attitude. Taste is reflexive and innate, while smell is not. p47 We are trained to learn how to handle an odor. In different environment, the same odor may have different meaning, so we learned to love or hate or ignore it. But taste is different. Sweet is always good, and bitter is always bad. In a way, we see by smelling light. p52 Amazing! 20260206 - 2 Endless Ways of S...

20260115 - Preface 20260115 - Introduction ......adult male workers lost out: the share of children workers rapidly expanded, reaching about half of the workforce employed in textiles during the 1830s. p9 I never thought of this! Sending children to school killed two birds with one stone. And more broadly, cascading competition among nation-states made it harder to align technological conservatism with the political status quo. The outside threat of political replacement became greater than the threat of rebelling workmen from below. p19 The political elites never back off unless they are under existential external threat. All the same. Part I. The Great Stagnation 20260120 - 1. A Brief History of Preindustrial Progress - 33 What's the difference between labor-saving technology and enabling(capital-saving) technology? Labor-saving technology use power from sources other than human. This power includes both energy and intelligence. Fierce war and competitions crash the restrain...

20251231 - PART ONE - Peter Keating, p15 To hide the joints in wood - when columns were made of wood, only these aren't, they're marble. p23 It's hard to believe that the archtects in 1940s didn't change their design with new materials coming out, such as steel and concrete, considering that Empire State Building was build in 1931. Howard Roark follow the first principles. That's good. He doesn't care other people's opinion, if those opinions are obviously wrong. That's also good. But no need to let other people realize that directly. We can stay humber, and ignore the objections from others. For example, he should take one year break from school, instead of being kicked out of school. Howard Roark lacks soft skill, such as communication skill and empathy. Keating has both soft skill and hard skill, although his hard skill is far behind Roark. Howard Roark is the modern version of Nikola Tesla, and Keating is more like Thomas Edison. Most of CEO only hav...