Download or read book Responding to Black Swans written by Simon H. Okoth and published by WestBow Press. This book was released on 2017-06-02 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Given the frequency of natural and man-made disasters and the degree to which ordinary citizens find themselves as first responders, this book offers some well-researched answers to the following and frequently asked questions: What motivates ordinary citizens to (or to want to) assist others in danger even when their own lives might be at stake? To what extent do human emotions influence public policy and administrative decisions on how to mitigate, prepare for, and respond to catastrophic events? How can governments better prepare for emergencies knowing these facts? The book goes further to suggest a number of strategies for policy makers, communities, and individuals to protect human lives and property. Tool kit URLs for preparing to different types of emergencies are included.

Download or read book unSpun written by Brooks Jackson and published by Random House. This book was released on 2007-04-24 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The founders of FactCheck.org teach you how to identify and debunk spin, hype, and fake news in this essential guide to informed citizenship in an age of misinformation. Americans are bombarded daily with mixed messages, half-truths, misleading statements, and out-and-out fabrications masquerading as facts. The news media is often too intimidated, too partisan, or too overworked to keep up with these deceptions. unSpun is the secret decoder ring for the twenty-first-century world of disinformation. Written by Brooks Jackson and Kathleen Hall Jamieson, the founders of the acclaimed website FactCheck.org,unSpun reveals the secrets of separating facts from disinformation, such as: • the warning signs of spin • common tricks used to deceive the public • how to find trustworthy and objective sources of information Telling fact from fiction shouldn’t be a difficult task. With this book and a healthy dose of skepticism, anyone can cut through the haze of political deception and biased eportage to become a savvier, more responsible citizen. Praise for unSpun “Read this book and you will not go unarmed into the political wars ahead of us. Jackson and Jamieson equip us to be our own truth squad, and that just might be the salvation of democracy.” —Bill Moyers “The definitive B.S. detector—an absolutely invaluable guidebook.”—Mark Shields, syndicated columnist and political analyst, NewsHour with Jim Lehrer “unSpun is an essential guide to cutting through the political fog.”—Mara Liasson, NPR national political correspondent “The Internet may be a wildly effective means of communication and an invaluable source of knowledge, but it has also become a new virtual haven for scammers–financial, political, even personal. Better than anything written before, unSpun shows us how to recognize these scams and protect ourselves from them.”—Craig Newmark, founder and customer service representative, Craigslist

Download or read book Stalking the Black Swan written by Kenneth A. Posner and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2010-03-31 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kenneth A. Posner spent close to two decades as a Wall Street analyst, tracking the so-called "specialty finance" sector, which included controversial companies such as Countrywide, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, CIT, and MasterCard many of which were caught in the subprime mortgage and capital markets crisis of 2007. While extreme volatility is nothing new in finance, the recent downturn caught many off guard, indicating that the traditional approach to decision making had let them down. Introducing a new framework for handling and evaluating extreme risk, Posner draws on years of experience to show how decision makers can best cope with the "Black Swans" of our time. Posner's shrewd assessment combines the classic fundamental research approach of Benjamin Graham and David Dodd with more recent developments in cognitive science, computational theory, and quantitative finance. He outlines a probabilistic approach to decision making that involves forecasting across a range of scenarios, and he explains how to balance confidence, react accurately to fast-breaking information, overcome information overload, zero in on the critical issues, penetrate the information asymmetry shielding corporate executives, and integrate the power of human intuition with sophisticated analytics. Emphasizing the computational resources we already have at our disposal our computers and our minds Posner offers a new track to decision making for analysts, investors, traders, corporate executives, risk managers, regulators, policymakers, journalists, and anyone who faces a world of extreme volatility.

Download or read book The Black Swan Effect written by Felicity Dale and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2014-03-24 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: All it took was one. One black swan changed people's minds forever. The Black Swan Effect presents a vision for what can happen as men and women work together in the Kingdom of God. The authors (both male and female) encourage men to champion women as equal co-laborers and partners in the harvest. They give women permission and inspiration to follow the Lord—to reach their own full potential and encourage others to fulfill God's call. The Black Swan Effect equips both men and women to bring an informed and positive contribution to the increasingly crucial conversation on gender in the church. If you are like most Christians, one of three primary motivations propels you into this discussion about women in ministry: • Many Christians have come to the conclusion that there is no better way to increase the size of God's missions workforce than to fully deploy women to use their spiritual gifts and God-given capacities. • Some are asking theological questions. They are investigating how the Bible portrays women, especially women leaders. How did Jesus treat women? Were the New Testament writers—in particular, the apostle Paul—misogynists? Are there alternative interpretations for some of the really difficult passages of Scripture? • Others are drawn to this discussion because of issues related to justice and human dignity around the world as well as in the church. As they study Scripture, they are assured that God creates all men and women in his image, and they can't even imagine a God who would discriminate against women. Fourteen different authors contribute to these themes, each writing from their own area of passion and expertise, the whole being woven together into a single narrative. Encouraging stories of women who are doing marvelous things for God today accompany each chapter. Change is coming! Let's get ready.

Download or read book The Black Swan written by Nassim Nicholas Taleb and published by Random House Digital, Inc.. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the author's point of view, a black swan is an improbable event with three principal characteristics - It is unpredictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random, and more predictable, than it was. Why do we not acknowledge the phenomenon of black swans until after they occur? Part of the answer, according to Taleb, is that humans are hardwired to learn specifics when they should be focused on generalities. We concentrate on things we already know and time and time again fail to take into consideration what we don't know. We are, therefore, unable to truly estimate opportunities, too vulnerable to the impulse to simplify, narrate, and categorize, and not open enough to rewarding those who can imagine the 'impossible'.

Download or read book The Gray Rhino written by Michele Wucker and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2016-04-05 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The #1 English-language bestseller in China--the book that is shaping China's planning and policy for the future. A "gray rhino" is a highly probable, high impact yet neglected threat: kin to both the elephant in the room and the improbable and unforeseeable black swan. Gray rhinos are not random surprises, but occur after a series of warnings and visible evidence. The bursting of the housing bubble in 2008, the devastating aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and other natural disasters, the new digital technologies that upended the media world, the fall of the Soviet Union...all were evident well in advance. Why do leaders and decision makers keep failing to address obvious dangers before they spiral out of control? Drawing on her extensive background in policy formation and crisis management, as well as in-depth interviews with leaders from around the world, Michele Wucker shows in The Gray Rhino how to recognize and strategically counter looming high impact threats. Filled with persuasive stories, real-world examples, and practical advice, The Gray Rhino is essential reading for managers, investors, planners, policy makers, and anyone who wants to understand how to profit by avoiding getting trampled.

Download or read book The Survivors Club written by Ben Sherwood and published by Grand Central Publishing. This book was released on 2009-01-26 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discover how to become the kind of person who survives and thrives with this "must-read" New York Times bestseller that's filled with fascinating true stories and helpful advice (New York Times). Each second of the day, someone in America faces a crisis, whether it's Covid-19, a car accident, violent crime, or financial trouble. Given the inevitability of adversity, we all wonder: Who beats the odds and who surrenders? How can I become the kind of person who bounces back? The fascinating, hopeful answers to these questions are found in The Survivors Club. In the tradition of The Tipping Point and Freakonomics, this book reveals the hidden side of survival through: astonishing true stories gripping scientific research the 5 Survivor Profiles top 12 Survivor Tools There is no escaping life's inevitable struggles. But The Survivors Club can give you an edge when adversity strikes.

Download or read book Green Swans written by John Elkington and published by Greenleaf Book Group. This book was released on 2020-04-07 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Even leading capitalists admit that capitalism is broken. Green Swans is a manifesto for system change designed to serve people, planet, and prosperity. In his twentieth book, John Elkington—dubbed the “Godfather of Sustainability”—explores new forms of capitalism fit for the twenty-first century. If Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s “Black Swans” are problems that can take us exponentially toward breakdown, then “Green Swans” are solutions that take us exponentially toward breakthrough. The success—and survival—of humanity now depends on how we rein in the first and accelerate the second. Green Swans draws on Elkington’s firsthand experience in some of the world’s best-known boardrooms and C-suites. Using case studies, real-world examples, and profiles on emergent technologies, Elkington shows how the weirdest “Ugly Ducklings” of today’s world may turn into tomorrow’s world-saving Green Swans. This book is a must-read for business leaders in corporations great and small who want to help their businesses survive the coming shift in global priorities over the next decade and expand their horizons from responsibility, through resilience, and onto regeneration.

Download or read book Incerto 4 Book Bundle written by Nassim Nicholas Taleb and published by Random House. This book was released on 2016-01-26 with total page 1253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s landmark Incerto series is an investigation of luck, uncertainty, probability, opacity, human error, risk, disorder, and decision-making in a world we don’t understand, in nonoverlapping and standalone books. All four volumes—Antifragile, The Black Swan, Fooled by Randomness, and the expanded edition of The Bed of Procrustes, updated with more than 50 percent new material—are now together in one ebook bundle. ANTIFRAGILE “Startling . . . richly crammed with insights, stories, fine phrases and intriguing asides.”—The Wall Street Journal Just as human bones get stronger when subjected to stress and tension, many things in life benefit from disorder, volatility, and turmoil. What Taleb has identified and calls “antifragile” is that category of things that not only gain from chaos but need it in order to survive and flourish. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better and better. What is crucial is that the antifragile loves errors, as it incurs small harm and large benefits from them. Spanning politics, urban planning, war, personal finance, economic systems, and medicine in an interdisciplinary and erudite style, Antifragile is a blueprint for living in a Black Swan world. THE BLACK SWAN “[A book] that altered modern thinking.”—The Times (London) A black swan is a highly improbable event with three principal characteristics: It is unpredictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random and more predictable. The astonishing success of Google was a black swan; so was 9/11. In this groundbreaking and prophetic book, Taleb shows that black swan events underlie almost everything about our world, from the rise of religions to events in our own personal lives, and yet we—especially the experts—are blind to them. FOOLED BY RANDOMNESS “[Fooled by Randomness] is to conventional Wall Street wisdom approximately what Martin Luther’s ninety-five theses were to the Catholic Church.”—Malcolm Gladwell, The New Yorker Are we capable of distinguishing the fortunate charlatan from the genuine visionary? Must we always try to uncover nonexistent messages in random events? Fooled by Randomness is about luck: more precisely, about how we perceive luck in our personal and professional experiences. Set against the backdrop of the most conspicuous forum in which luck is mistaken for skill—the markets—Fooled by Randomness is an irreverent, eye-opening, and endlessly entertaining exploration of one of the least understood forces in our lives. THE BED OF PROCRUSTES “Taleb’s crystalline nuggets of thought stand alone like esoteric poems.”—Financial Times This collection of aphorisms and meditations expresses Taleb’s major ideas in ways you least expect. The Bed of Procrustes takes its title from Greek mythology: the story of a man who made his visitors fit his bed to perfection by either stretching them or cutting their limbs. With a rare combination of pointed wit and potent wisdom, Taleb plows through human illusions, contrasting the classical views of courage, elegance, and erudition against the modern diseases of nerdiness, philistinism, and phoniness.

Download or read book Black Swan Rising written by Lee Carroll and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2012-08-28 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating new urban fantasy series by an award-winning author

Download or read book The Black Swan written by Anne Batterson and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2001-10-05 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Set against a spontaneous cross-country road trip following the migrating birds, this passionate, lyrical memoir is one woman's reflections on midlife, her important personal relationships, her kaleidoscopic past, and her uncertain future. To fifty-six-year-old Anne Batterson, a woman whose life has been filled with adventure -- as a commercial pilot, an international skydiving champion, a trekking guide in Nepal -- her husband's decision to retire felt like a death sentence. Yearning for some way to reconcile herself to the future that was rapidly unfolding before her, she packed up her VW camper and hit the road with maps, bird guides, and little else except the desire to follow the fall migration and the bone-deep hunch that birds had something important to teach her. In this beautifully written narrative of that extraordinary trip, Batterson writes movingly not only about her experiences with the birds but also about the people she loves, has lost, and connects with along the way. Events from the present trigger vivid stories from the past. In the chapter "The Journey Within the Journey," a long, lonely night in a deserted campground in Virginia conjures up the ghosts of a desperate solo road trip she made when she was twenty-one. A towering cumulus cloud in Illinois brings back a breathtaking free fall into a similar cloud in "My Time as a Bird." An encounter with a great blue heron summons a compelling account of her mother's last afternoon in the world. "Bears in the Woods" describes a run-in with two Deliverance-type men in West Virginia, which brings back the murder of a dear friend in the woods of Connecticut. By the end of the journey, the ghosts of the past, like the author herself, have become part of a more fluid, more spiritual reality -- wild and spare and elegant and timeless -- one that is always out there, "quickening on the far side of reality." A unique mix of memoir and nature writing, The Black Swan is a charming story of a woman's odyssey.

Download or read book Shaping the University of the Future written by Stephen James Marshall and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-01-02 with total page 592 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book focuses on developing an understanding of the complex interplay of forces acting on individual universities and higher education systems to enable leaders and practitioners to take purposeful and strategic action. It explores the challenging landscape of higher education and the pressures that are reshaping the university as a societal institution, describing the complex interplay of technological, sociological, political and economic forces driving change. The issues analysed are global in scope, reflecting the diversity of contexts, but also the common nature of the challenges facing institutions individually and collectively. The analysis draws on the lessons learnt and evidence from over fifty organisational case studies undertaken by the author over the past decade, exploring organisational change in higher education institutions in New Zealand, Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom, and on his engagement as president of the ACODE organisation with colleagues responsible for learning technological change in Australasia. The book helps institutions respond to technological change purposefully, in ways that build upon a clear understanding of the complex nature of the existing institution, its students and the organisational context.

Download or read book Three Black Swans written by Caroline B. Cooney and published by Delacorte Books for Young Readers. This book was released on 2010 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When sixteen-year-old Missy Vianello decides to try to convince her classmates that her cousin Claire is really her long-lost identical twin, she has no idea that the results of her prank will be so life-changing.

Download or read book Black Swan Green written by David Mitchell and published by Random House. This book was released on 2006-04-11 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By the New York Times bestselling author of The Bone Clocks and Cloud Atlas | Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize Selected by Time as One of the Ten Best Books of the Year | A New York Times Notable Book | Named One of the Best Books of the Year by The Washington Post Book World, The Christian Science Monitor, Rocky Mountain News, and Kirkus Reviews | A Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist | Winner of the ALA Alex Award | Finalist for the Costa Novel Award From award-winning writer David Mitchell comes a sinewy, meditative novel of boyhood on the cusp of adulthood and the old on the cusp of the new. Black Swan Green tracks a single year in what is, for thirteen-year-old Jason Taylor, the sleepiest village in muddiest Worcestershire in a dying Cold War England, 1982. But the thirteen chapters, each a short story in its own right, create an exquisitely observed world that is anything but sleepy. A world of Kissingeresque realpolitik enacted in boys’ games on a frozen lake; of “nightcreeping” through the summer backyards of strangers; of the tabloid-fueled thrills of the Falklands War and its human toll; of the cruel, luscious Dawn Madden and her power-hungry boyfriend, Ross Wilcox; of a certain Madame Eva van Outryve de Crommelynck, an elderly bohemian emigré who is both more and less than she appears; of Jason’s search to replace his dead grandfather’s irreplaceable smashed watch before the crime is discovered; of first cigarettes, first kisses, first Duran Duran LPs, and first deaths; of Margaret Thatcher’s recession; of Gypsies camping in the woods and the hysteria they inspire; and, even closer to home, of a slow-motion divorce in four seasons. Pointed, funny, profound, left-field, elegiac, and painted with the stuff of life, Black Swan Green is David Mitchell’s subtlest and most effective achievement to date. Praise for Black Swan Green “[David Mitchell has created] one of the most endearing, smart, and funny young narrators ever to rise up from the pages of a novel. . . . The always fresh and brilliant writing will carry readers back to their own childhoods. . . . This enchanting novel makes us remember exactly what it was like.”—The Boston Globe “[David Mitchell is a] prodigiously daring and imaginative young writer. . . . As in the works of Thomas Pynchon and Herman Melville, one feels the roof of the narrative lifted off and oneself in thrall.”—Time

Download or read book Fooled by Randomness written by Nassim Nicholas Taleb and published by Random House. This book was released on 2008-10-14 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fooled by Randomness is a standalone book in Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s landmark Incerto series, an investigation of opacity, luck, uncertainty, probability, human error, risk, and decision-making in a world we don’t understand. The other books in the series are The Black Swan, Antifragile, Skin in the Game, and The Bed of Procrustes. Fooled by Randomness is the word-of-mouth sensation that will change the way you think about business and the world. Nassim Nicholas Taleb–veteran trader, renowned risk expert, polymathic scholar, erudite raconteur, and New York Times bestselling author of The Black Swan–has written a modern classic that turns on its head what we believe about luck and skill. This book is about luck–or more precisely, about how we perceive and deal with luck in life and business. Set against the backdrop of the most conspicuous forum in which luck is mistaken for skill–the world of trading–Fooled by Randomness provides captivating insight into one of the least understood factors in all our lives. Writing in an entertaining narrative style, the author tackles major intellectual issues related to the underestimation of the influence of happenstance on our lives. The book is populated with an array of characters, some of whom have grasped, in their own way, the significance of chance: the baseball legend Yogi Berra; the philosopher of knowledge Karl Popper; the ancient world’s wisest man, Solon; the modern financier George Soros; and the Greek voyager Odysseus. We also meet the fictional Nero, who seems to understand the role of randomness in his professional life but falls victim to his own superstitious foolishness. However, the most recognizable character of all remains unnamed–the lucky fool who happens to be in the right place at the right time–he embodies the “survival of the least fit.” Such individuals attract devoted followers who believe in their guru’s insights and methods. But no one can replicate what is obtained by chance. Are we capable of distinguishing the fortunate charlatan from the genuine visionary? Must we always try to uncover nonexistent messages in random events? It may be impossible to guard ourselves against the vagaries of the goddess Fortuna, but after reading Fooled by Randomness we can be a little better prepared. Named by Fortune One of the Smartest Books of All Time A Financial Times Best Business Book of the Year

Download or read book The Power of Resilience written by Yossi Sheffi and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2017-03-24 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How the best companies prepare for and manage modern vulnerabilities—from cybersecurity risks to climate change: new tools, processes and organizations for developing corporate resilience. A catastrophic earthquake is followed by a tsunami that inundates the coastline, and around the globe manufacturing comes to a standstill. State-of-the-art passenger jets are grounded because of a malfunctioning part. A strike halts shipments through a major port. A new digital device decimates the sales of other brands and sends established firms to the brink of bankruptcy. The interconnectedness of the global economy today means that unexpected events in one corner of the globe can ripple through the world's supply chain and affect customers everywhere. In this book, Yossi Sheffi shows why modern vulnerabilities call for innovative processes and tools for creating and embedding corporate resilience and risk management. Sheffi offers fascinating case studies that illustrate how companies have prepared for, coped with, and come out stronger following disruption—from the actions of Intel after the 2011 Japanese tsunami to the disruption in the “money supply chain” caused by the 2008 financial crisis. Sheffi, author of the widely read The Resilient Enterprise, focuses here on deep tier risks as well as corporate responsibility, cybersecurity, long-term disruptions, business continuity planning, emergency operations centers, detection, and systemic disruptions. Supply chain risk management, Sheffi shows, is a balancing act between taking on the risks involved in new products, new markets, and new processes—all crucial for growth—and the resilience created by advanced risk management.

Download or read book Murder on Black Swan Lane written by Andrea Penrose and published by Kensington Books. This book was released on 2017-06-27 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Regency London, an unconventional scientist and a fearless female artist team up to trap a cold-hearted killer: “Thoroughly enjoyable” (Deanna Raybourn, New York Times–bestselling author). The Earl of Wrexford possesses a brilliant scientific mind, but boredom and pride lead him to reckless behavior. So when pompous, pious Reverend Josiah Holworthy publicly condemns him for debauchery, Wrexford unsheathes his rapier-sharp wit and strikes back. As their war of words escalates, London’s most popular satirical cartoonist, A.J. Quill, skewers them both. But then the clergyman is found slain in a church—his face burned by chemicals, his throat slashed ear to ear—and Wrexford finds himself the chief suspect. An artist in her own right, Charlotte Sloane has secretly slipped into the persona of her late husband, using his nom de plume, A.J. Quill. When Wrexford discovers her true identity, she fears it will be her undoing. But he has a proposal—use her sources to unveil the clergyman’s clandestine involvement in questionable scientific practices, and unmask the real murderer. Soon Lord Wrexford and the mysterious Mrs. Sloane plunge into a dangerous shadow world hidden among London’s intellectual enclaves to trap a cunning adversary—before they fall victim to the next experiment in villainy . . . “Sharp, engaging characters, rich period detail, and a compellingly twisty plot, Andrea Penrose delivers a winner.” —Deanna Raybourn, New York Times–bestselling author “Fans of C.S. Harris take note! A riveting ride through Regency London, from the slums of St. Giles, to the mansions of Mayfair.” —Lauren Willig, New York Times–bestselling author “Historical chemistry meets alchemy . . . A delight of a book.&rdquo