This post is adapted from a letter I wrote to Penn sociology professor David Grazian. It’s basically a review of his book On the Make: The Hustle of Urban Nightlife, but I was too lazy to change it into a different format. Here’s a description of the work:
It’s nighttime in [Philadelphia] and everybody’s working a [...]
Archive for the ‘Miscellaneous Commentary’ Category
The Hustle of Urban Nightlife
Posted in Culture, Miscellaneous Commentary on July 16, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Trading Time
Posted in Business and Markets, Miscellaneous Commentary on July 9, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
[N.B. This blog post is adapted from a more technical post on The Margin Call.]
Time is the justice that examines all offenders. –Shakespeare
With an impossibly busy July and August ahead of me, I’m starting to weigh the pros and cons of shoring up my long-term positions with my day-trading capital.
Two things happened this week. For a hot [...]
True Life, Loudly Exaggerated
Posted in Miscellaneous Commentary, tagged Frederick Exley, Honors Thesis, Philalawyer, Sean Wilsey, Tobias Wolff, Tucker Max on July 5, 2009 | 4 Comments »
True life, even loudly exaggerated, has deficiencies in organization and plot line and a muddiness of symbolic content. It’s hard to draw even the most common wisdom from the messy events of daily existence until they’ve been told over and polished and improved upon a few hundred times. –P.J. O’Rourke
I’ve begun to ponder my [...]
On Stops, Sex, & Speculative Self-Destruction
Posted in Business and Markets, Miscellaneous Commentary on June 26, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Scorned speculators are scattered across the globe, tallying wins and losses, unable to recall the glamour of the halcyon days because they can’t stop thinking about that One. Tough. Beat.
In the opening scene of Rounders, poker player Mike McDermott (Matt Damon) loses his life savings in a single round of Texas Hold ’Em. His opponent [...]
Thoughts, As They Come
Posted in Business and Markets, Internet and Technology, Miscellaneous Commentary on June 6, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Thoughts, as they come…
The Hangover: This movie was epic. It’s Tucker Max meets Road Trip made visible. Very rarely does a film capture the intricacies and complexity of the often sick and perverted sense of humor of my generation’s males, as well as our trying but cozy relationship with alcohol; our diverse and maladaptive interpersonal [...]
Is Twitter Making Us Stupid?
Posted in Internet and Technology, Miscellaneous Commentary on May 17, 2009 | 5 Comments »
We cannot stop the reduction of content, but with conscious effort, we can prevent the reduction of ourselves.
Markets, Money, and Hot Human Impulse
Posted in Business and Markets, Miscellaneous Commentary on March 3, 2009 | 1 Comment »
In light of recent turmoil in the economy and markets, I highly recommend this New Yorker piece from 2002 by Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers. Superficially, Gladwell tells the story of the trying relationship between Victor Niederhoffer, a fabulously successful hedge fund manager, and an unknown quant by the name [...]
Musings on Time, Space, and Sir Isaac Newton
Posted in Miscellaneous Commentary on March 2, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Newtonian mechanics was founded on the view that space is something distinct from body and that time is something that passes uniformly without regard to whatever happens in the world. Newton sought to demonstrate absolute time thus:
Absolute, true, and mathematical time, in and of itself and of its own nature, without reference to anything external, flows uniformly and by another [...]
Tom Brady and Jurisprudence
Posted in Law and Economics, Miscellaneous Commentary on February 26, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Just out of field goal range, down 13-10 with less than two minutes to play in the AFC Divisional Playoff game, Tom Brady dropped back to pass. Standing tall in the pocket, he surveyed the open field and cocked his arm back. He looked poised to release the ball, but with an impending hit from [...]
The Senior Slump Syllabus
Posted in Culture, Miscellaneous Commentary on September 15, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I’m slumping in school. I’m burned out. Tired of classes. Bored in lectures. I have some general requirements left, but I can’t take them now. I’ll save them for next semester. This is a regrouping period — a time I need to take classes I’m inspired by regardless of academic need.
Here are the courses I’m taking. [...]
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