2014年4月6日星期日

quant, par excellence, near infallible, quintessential, parlormaid

Epic Fail

By SCOTT A. SANDAGE

Two new books present failure - personal and professional - as a quintessential part of success.

“Downton Abbey”: a quintessential American television show.

What did you think of the first installment of the show’s fourth season? Here is Dave Itzkoff’s take: http://nyti.ms/1dJZHk3

Some, like those of London parlormaids on duty in starchy white aprons over black dresses, seem quintessentially of the moment, made for black-and-white film and rife with social tension. Others, though hardly without such commentary, oscillate stylistically in time. A shadowy image of a girl scrubbing a doorsill variously brings to mind 19th-century photography, Chardin and Rembrandt.

有些作品，比如他在倫敦拍攝的那些身着黑色裙子、圍着拘謹白色圍裙的女僕，看上去帶着鮮明的時代感，彷彿黑白電影，充滿社會衝突。還有一些照片不是沒有評說的意圖，但卻是在時間裡風格化地搖擺着的。一幅女孩擦拭門檻的陰暗畫面，在許多方面都讓人想起19世紀攝影、夏爾丹(Chardin)和倫勃朗 (Rembrandt)。

At first glance, Derman’s past might suggest he should be a model-lover par excellence. Indeed, in the banking world, he is often hailed as one of the great, original “quants”, who paved the way for the derivatives revolution. Yet, in reality, Derman has always been pretty cynical about those models that won him, and other quants, earlier accolades. For while investment bank salesmen might have treated his creations as near infallible, in truth Derman – like many brilliant scientists-turned-quants – has always recognised their flaws.
乍看之下，德曼的过去或许会让人认为，他应该是一个超凡的模型爱好者。确实，在银行业，他常常被誉为为衍生品革命铺平道路的首批伟大的“宽客(quants)”之一。然而事实上，对于为他和其他宽客赢得早期赞誉的那些模型，德曼总是持非常怀疑的态度。尽管投行的销售人员也许认为他的作品近乎完美，但实际上，与许多由科学家转型的杰出宽客一样，德曼始终认识到其中存在缺陷。

par excellence,

(pär ĕk-sə-läNs') pronunciation