This book was strongly recommended to me by a colleague whose opinion I thought and think very highly of. He is a techie with broad knowledge and the best generalised problem solving skills I’ve ever seen. He’s also much more than an uber-geek, with wide and varied interests. So I was expecting good things from this book. Maybe too good.
Summarising Gibbon’s full, unabridged “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” is a little bit intimidating. Nearly as intimidating as the books themselves. It’s essential though. If I read a book but don’t reflect on it then I might as well have never opened the cover. Here’s my attempt at a summary, comparatively brief but longer than average, promoted to a blog post and comments welcome.
There are at least 1.5 million charities world-wide. Which ones should one give to?
That’s a hard question, and I don’t have an answer for everyone, but with some research and reading I do have an answer for me. Each of the charities represents a theme that is important to me.
Earlier this year I realised: I don’t want to receive birthday gifts or Christmas gifts any more. Below: the words of an old friend as inspiration and explanation. I add a couple of personal comments to the end.
So a short while back (erm, January 2015) I promised an update on fasting. This post isn’t it. Instead I want to share my retrospectively obvious tip for consistently doing both each week: Do them on the same days. If I run, I fast. If I fast, I run.
Nominally, “The Alchemy of Finance” is about understanding markets and making better investing decisions. If that is all one learned it would be a crying shame, because the book is actually about understanding reality and making better decisions. To restrict it to the markets is a serious mistake and not one Soros makes.
I like books. I also really like giving and receiving books as gifts. They make the best present, bar none. Let me explain a little bit more.
