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10 Aug, 4 tweets, 1 min read
PHILOLOGY DU JOUR
Friends, in Modern Greek, καιρός means both TIME and WEATHER. Same with Romance languages (temps, tiempo, tempo).

Any other languages?
In Persian, روزگار maybe. Interestingly Persian uses the Semitic هوا while Arabic uses the Greek طقس.
So an interesting flipping of roots: Arabic uses, for weather, IndoEuropean (Greek) τάξης (order, εν τάξει) طقس, while I-E Urdu uses the Arabic mawsam موسم, an agricultural term linked to seasonality of crops.
Coastal Levantine vs farming Central Asia?

Same apparentl for Hindi, unless this is wrong. Image

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More from @nntaleb

Nassim Nicholas Taleb Profile picture
10 Aug
It turns out that Mr @Snowden is not willing (or not able) to debate me.

Incidentaly, his repertoire includes tricks used by charlatans (pathologization):as Karl Popper said, when you question psychoanalysts, they accuse you of having problems with your father.
Incidentally...
PROBABILITY DU JOUR
People misanalyze the way Mr @Snowden presence in Russia dramatically changes probabilities (misestimation of probability in FBR). I fell for it myself.
Exercise: Now add his intellectual dishonesty and rederive!
Read 4 tweets
Nassim Nicholas Taleb Profile picture
6 Aug
The frauster @Snowden didn't realize that if my books are robust, it is because I take *good faith* criticism SERIOUSLY and generously thank the corrector in the INVERTO.
Snowden is a fraud.
Re: Ed-the-Fraud @Snowden. One cannot possibly be a "hero" AND commit such intellectual dishonesty.

Allora: practically everything HE claims abt his own story, (incl. autobiography), is suspect. EVERYTHING.

This is the positive side of "ad hominem": Credibility of source.
The best way to become my friend is to find a mistake in my work!

I generally become friends w/those who report mistakes in the Incerto. Became close friends with Jon Elster, Gur Huberman, many many others that way.

@paulskalas got yuuuuge credit finding the blue problem. ImageImage
Read 6 tweets
Nassim Nicholas Taleb Profile picture
3 Aug
The #BedofProcrustes 3rd Ed: so far 100 new aphorisms. Image
Corrected typos Image
The #BedofProcrustes 3rd Ed: so far 100 new aphorisms, page 2. Image
Read 4 tweets
Nassim Nicholas Taleb Profile picture
31 Jul
Flaneuring cities in non-fancy, non-touristic streets, getting the neighborhood spirit Σ' αυτή τη γειτονιά:
Naples (#1 by far)
Beirut
Athens
Istanbul
Palermo
Belgrade
Bucharest

Non Med, non-post-Ottoman cities ("North Atlantic") are too self-conscious abt hanging laundry...
2) Perhaps my best flaneuring was with @sez_dss in Tripoli when #ISIS was still present in some neighborhoods where stores sold #ISIS flags.
3) ODORS
In Patrick Süskind's Perfume, the wet nurse returns an orphan, repulsed at his lack of smell.
You get the same w/cities of the North, or those with large avenues, as if there was a truncation into lower dimensions.
Did Jane Jacobs discuss the odor of neighborhoods?
Read 5 tweets
Nassim Nicholas Taleb Profile picture
25 Jul
Mikati might be part of the old school in Lebanon, but he is a real businessman & made much of his money outside the country. If you *must* stick with the old establishment, he is the most capable of them all.

PS: Mikati is also richer (& more solid businessman) than Trump.
2) The point is: Lebanon can't afford the stalemate.

You don't pick the least corrupt one, but the one who understands business enough to *not* block the growing adaptation by industry post #RiadPonzi.

Others are both corrupt & stupid: like parasites that kill their host.
3) The Brazilian Paulo Salim Maluf used to say "rouba mas faz": I steal but deliver.
Pbm in Lebanon isn't parasites & corruption.
It is parasites killing their host! Patronage is worse than corruption.

I would settle for a Maluf over both an incompetent but honest technocrat.
Read 5 tweets
Nassim Nicholas Taleb Profile picture
22 Feb
Gratitude to @JeffBezos: my Saga.

1) As an author, I owe Amazon. Before, publishers were subservient to bookstores & their book placement.
So when I wrote FBR *on my own terms* it was a problem: fictional characters, math discussions, philosophy... Was it popularization? No. Image
2) Was it about finance? No. It's about what? So no publisher.
I found a weird outfit who accepted at ½ price. Bookstores were good at ignoring my work: why should a neighborhood bookstore isn't interested in higher things, just moving books.
Amazon did not have rigid shelves!
3) There is this romantic idea of the neighborhood bookstore out to save literature, social life, & thinking: these people survive on books that have a specific public. So the "monster" that drove them bust allowed me to get an audience I would've never had.
Read 5 tweets

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