Easy Money : Inside the Gambler's Mind

by David Spanier

forst words in the foreword... "gambling is good for you"

You must have confidence to gamble - it's always the confident civilization that goes gambling.

- there is a camaraderie among gamblers that is independent of social class.

"There is no such thing as luck, it's all mathematics"

There are three kinds of cards - good cards, bad cards, & indifferent cards. You must play them according to what they are.

deep play - playing stakes that hurt

Why? More is at stake than material gamine - namely, esteem, honor, dignity, respect - in a word status. Yet it is only symbolically at stake, no one's status is actually altered. But that is the attraction of a gamble, to lay one's public self out on the line.

The depth is thus not money in itself, but what money causes to happen.... a psychological release of emotion.

Deep play is not utilitarian. The 'play' takes up themes of death, masculinity, rage, pride, loss, beneficence, chance, and gives it a rigid order not possible in life. It expresses the thrill of risk, the despair of loss, and the pleasure of triumph.

Life 2.0 - Rich Karlgaard

How People Across America Are Transforming Their Lives by Finding the Where of Their Happiness

My blogging notes, quotes, and thoughts as I read:

Labor costs will stay flat or fall as the world absorbs the labor force of China, India and in the future the rest of the 'third world'.

Broadband Internet has finally brought about the 'death of distance' era. Instead of following the railway to find a place to settle or build a business, we just need to follow wherever there is a fibre optic cable.

Ogden, Utah.

Printingforeless.com dot-comming the printing business. You can only expand your business sales area physically by so much before a decision must be made to continue expansion by physical salesforce or online.

If you have other small shops with the same 'manufacturing' capabilities as the sales territories overlap, there is classic competition. Online, you can aggregate the spare capacity of the presses to online customers. Provide the needed customer service and prep work, farm out only the printing.

Web commerce needs to grow organically, with low cash burn. Take the time to find customers and nurture them and grow organically.

The 2000s, The Decade of Cheap. The Cheap Revolution.

Moneymaker

Chris Moneymaker's recount of his 2003 WSOP win. He was aggressive, but damn he was lucky.

He entered a $40 satellite of 18 players... wins and gets a seat in a $600 buyin.

Of only 68 entrants with 3 seats to WSOP.

What are the Odds? - Mide Orkin

A simple overview of chance in everyday life. Mentions the I Ching as an ancient chance device to consult 'the gods' for advice.

A new take on this and I guess 'good' astrology in general is that their carefully worded generalities can never be wrong thus one could suggest such generality makes them meaningless. However, any information that gives the seeker new insights could hardly be called meaningless.

Reminds me of the saying, "if you think you can, you can, if you think you can't, you cannot."

The Outsider - Albert Camus

A classic. Rereading this has given me a new understanding of the existentialist message.

Nuances and explanations (points of view) are what colours and defines our lives and experiences. The romantic ideal of absolutes - for truth and spontaneity in Meursault's case - is condemned by society that demands causal narratives to 'fit' situations even if it requires false conclusions.

Freakonomics - Levitt and Dubner

This is the MTV generation book on economics.