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Fooled by Randomness

If you have not already discovered Nassim Nicholas Taleb, do so.  There is a link from my blogroll.

Vivendi and Activision Sittin’ in a Tree…

The Economist frequently publishes thoughtful articles on the business of video games.  Here is one such on the topic of Vivendi Games and Activision's merger.
As the article points out, the deal makes excellent strategic sense.  As someone who has always enjoyed good game design, I will be watching the result.  Two of the best game [...]

Checklists alleviate mental burden

Insurance and finance professionals are always told to use checklists to avoid error.  See how it has worked in the medical industry in this excellent article by Atul Gawande in The New Yorker:
The Checklist

Releasing Private Credentials on the Internet

See this post on Bruce Schneier's security blog:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/11/dan_egerstad_ar.html
 I will post my own comment to it in the comments of this post; you can see them on Bruce's blog as well.  I must be feeling contrary; I chose to take the less popular position.

Let us now subsidize the jackasses

When will they send the RTC after the sloppy lending institutions, and the FBI after the people falsifying loan applications? Dave Shafer at Marimark Mortgage recently told me that 1/3 of the imperiled sub-prime mortgages are from 'investors.'  Dave and his partner Mark, by the way, are among the best people to call if you are in Tampa [...]

CRM Software

I am looking for a CRM solution that will work for All County Insurance. I need a good follow-up system, and some strong reporting functions would be nice. I am looking over OpenCRX this weekend and have a prospectus for Varria CRM that Gary at Integrate Technology Professionals was nice enough to send me. We [...]

shugyo!

Another minor update to the shugyo journal. My blog secretaries are on vacation (Ok, actually Secretia quit because she got a job offer with Pre-Paid Legal Services that she said paid better than me and gave her financial freedom…) so I am trying to at least keep the 'stats' up to date. I still plan [...]

Property Rates

Today I delivered a property insurance renewal to the owner of an office building.  There was a loud "thump" at the end of the line.  One minute we were talking about financing, and the next minute, in the background, someone was shouting about smelling salts.  After a long time eavesdropping through the phone I heard [...]

• welcome

  You have entered 'start your head on fire,' housed at www.robertbeverly.com. 'start your head on fire' is the blog of Robert Beverly. It is not a very serious blog. Mr. Beverly writes most of the news items, but you will also see us (Debbie and Secretia) posting from time to time to clarify things. We are his "blog secretaries."

• View Robert Beverly's profile

• who?

  Rather than publish a biography or ask Mr. Beverly to record his memoirs (which would be dull), we thought we would post a summary for anyone who was wondering. He said we should do something like this because that's what other people's blogs have on them. Mr. Beverly goes by Rab, which is a common name for Scotsmen and their dogs. We call him Mr. Beverly in person because we're trying to talk him into a raise, but you can really call him Rab. Rab drinks gallons of coffee daily and makes jokes that we usually don't understand. We laugh politely because he writes the paychecks for Debbie and I (he hired us both as blog secretaries back in October 2006... we didn't even know what a blog was before this). Mr Beverly goes to the gym a lot, which is why he doesn't have time to type in his blog entries, and he does all kinds of weird exercises like Kung Fu and Yoga (NEVER ask him about this unless you want to hear all about martial arts). He enjoys literary analysis and esoteric reading and games like "Go" (the ancient Japanese strategy game) and chess, not to mention those weird "role playing" and "strategy" games he designs himself, all of which account for why we do not to start conversations with him. (Secretia here... what the hell was wrong with Yahtzee, I ask you?!) We like talking about peekapoos and the best grocery store sales, but we don't get to talk about that here.

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• starting your head on fire

  Delivers oxygen to your brain faster than all other methods! Proven in double blind placebo controlled studies.

• Places to Go

  • The Cato Institute
  • The Florida Insurance School, Tampa and Tallahassee, FL
  • All County Insurance, Tampa FL
  • Florida Insurance School Continuing Education, Tallahassee FL

• Blogroll

  • Cato @ Liberty - Cato is a libertarian research foundation. If you wish to stay informed on public policy, you can not ignore the Cato blog. Pay them a visit.
  • Greg Lincoln
  • Modo Vernant Omnia - Tampa local with many topics of interest to my readers. As you might imagine, I could not resist blogrolling a site that has tags as diverse as: economy (with views similar), spinning (as in wool), ancient Greek stuff, and occult.
  • Nassim Nicholas Taleb - Fooled by Randomness - The Economist turned me on to Mr. Taleb, a trader turned philoisopher (as described by Forbes). His writing and his thinking are quite interesting, and certainly more worthwhile than anything you will find here.
  • Ouralexander.org - Site discussing informed consent in pediatric medicine, by a family that experienced the worst possible tragedy.
  • RiskProf - An Insurance Blog - A truly marvelous blog. I know risk & insurance are less interesting to most of you than organizing your sock drawer, but this is excellent writing. Besides, if you understand insurance you have the right to complain about it.
  • Schneier on Security - This will be your favorite security blog. Bruce Schneier exposes “security theatre” and proposes realistic problems and solutions. Stay up to date on security policy and IT risk management with CRYPTOGRAM, his email newsletter.
  • The Goodly Mr. Plotkin - My excellent friend Richard Plotkin. Read his musings and insights, or wander through the social network of MySpace users. Several of his blog-friends are people I went to school or knew other ways… I wonder if they will Google me and say ‘hi.’
  • Worlds Healthiest Foods - I love this website. It is all about the nutritional value of foods that are considered ‘healthy,’ with tons of sources cited.