NF

Very interesting deep-dive into randomness and the role it plays in our lives. ( )

This will be one I reread from time to time. It discusses how amazing humans are at recognizing patterns. To the extent that we pretty much constantly search for them, even when they are not there. This causes problems.

My favorite example of this was a survey which tracked misconceptions. Most of which seem obvious if you think about them, but our brains are geared to lizard brain them before we actually think about them. One of the questions asked if the respondent thought there were more words in the English language that contain the letter "n" or more that end in "ing"

The overwhelming majority answered "Ing," because they recognized it as an oft-repeating pattern, and blanked right over the fact that there's an "n" in "ing" ( )

http://pro-libertate.net/20100322/116-read-drunkard039s-walk-how-randomness-rule... ( )

Fascinating look at the random nature of the universe.The only book I have that ties together baseball, conspiracy theories and backgammon, not to mention the black death and stock market. Luck is universally underappreciated, and often overlooked entirely - this book shows how that tendency can lead to disastrous miscalculations. Highly recommended. ( )