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Here Are Some Links for Your Weekend Reading

Big Data is like teenage sex: everyone talks about it, nobody really knows how to do it, everyone thinks everyone else is doing it, so everyone claims they are doing it.

 

 

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.

 

Lighter Links:

• How Google's "Deep Learning" Is Outsmarting Its Human Employees. (Fastcolabs)
• Interactive Inspiration. List of Top 100 Interactive Visualizations. (Visualoop)
• The World's Most Popular Drink Is ... Not Beer ... Not Vodka either. Care to guess? (Newser)
• 9 Lies About Fat That Destroyed The World's Health. (BusinessInsider)
• LegacyBuilder Helps Families Tell Their Stories Through a Permanent Digital Collection of Timelines, Photos & Videos. (DigitalJournal)

 

Trading Links:

• China Overtakes U.S. As Leading Global Trader. (ValueWalk)
• How Did Managed Futures Do in 2013? A Strategy Review. (AttainCapital)
• The Coming Epic Collapse of the Bond Bubble. (DailyReckoning)
• More Millionaires in Congress Than Ever Before. (24/7 WallSt)
• The Moderation Glitch. Expectation is linear, but reality often has a point of diminishing returns. (SethGodin)

Fake Conference Call Site Captures White Collar Existential Tension & Dread

Conference calls are often mind-numbing and frustrating.  ConferenceCall.Biz is a site that captures that brand of white collar existential tension and dread ... as performance art.

 

via Zach Scott.

 

It is a simulated conference call in which the participants seem perpetually talking at cross purposes, coming into the conversation late, and expressing frustration that they’re discussing material they’ve already covered. Lucky you, it even has distracting background sounds, like a dog barking.

The audio and images are randomized so that each conference call proceeds in a new way.

It's kind of like the Eagles' song "Hotel California" ... you can check-in any time you like, but you can never leave (at least until you close the browser window). From the sound of it, the ConferenceCall.Biz participants have been attempting to get the deliverables to management for a long time.

Who Received the Most U.S. Patents Last Year [List of Top 15]

According to IFI Claims, IBM was assigned a record 6,809 patentsin the United States last year, marking the 21st straight year that IBM has topped the unofficial U.S. patent ranking.

 

via Statista 

 

Google and Apple, often considered the most innovative companies in the world, were ranked 11th and 13th, respectively, both breaking into the Top 20 for the first time.

 

Related articles

Top 15 Recipients of U.S. Patents in 2013

Tech patent leader remains IBM, but Google accelerates

The 10 Most Innovative Companies In The World: 24/7 Wall Street

Global Risks 2014: The Key Risks Indentified at the World Economic Forum

Just read a pretty good analysis of "Global Risks" (where Global Risk is defined as an occurrence that causes significant negative impact for several countries and industries over a time frame of up to 10 years).

A key characteristic of global risks is their potential systemic nature – meaning that they have the potential to affect an entire system, as opposed to individual parts and components.

Here are the Top 5 Global Risks, based on likelihood and severity of impact.

 

 

 via World Economic Forum.

 

So, the big issues are: Financial Crisis caused by or in conjunction with ... Social Problems (employment levels and income disparity), Environmental Issues (e.g., climate and weather), and/or Cyber Threats.  Surprise, Surprise, Surprise ...

The WEF article is much more nuanced and worth reading if you are interested.

On a related note, here is a video clip where Jon Stewart discusses the World Economic Forum:

 

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,The Daily Show on Facebook

 

 

It is a little funny to think about a group of the world's wealthiest people gathering in an secluded mountain enclave to discuss concerns over income inequality. 

Related articles

2014 Davos Annual Meeting: Live Updates From The World Economic Forum

85 richest people own as much as bottom half of population, says report

World Economic Forum says inequality matters

Here Are Some Links for Your Weekend Reading

Seattle fans made the ground shake during a Seahawks football game, something they are calling the BeastQuake.

 

 

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.

 

Lighter Links:

• Our Final Invention:  Is Artificial Intelligence the Defining Issue for Humanity? (HuffPost)
• Look How Many Of Isaac Asimov's Predictions About Robots Are Coming True. (BizInsider)
• A Case for the Private Cloud -- Buy Your Underwear, Rent Your Tuxedo. (AllThingsD)
• A Low Tech Solution to a High Tech Problem: Obama’s Portable Zone of Secrecy. (NYTimes)
• How a Dog Learned a Toddler-Level Vocabulary:  Border Collie knows 1,000 words. (Newser)

 

Trading Links:

• Congressional Performance. 8% Think Congress Doing a Good or Excellent Job (Rasmussen)
• Where in the World to Invest for a Happy New Year. (TheGuardian)
• PIMCO's Economic Outlook for 2014: Synchronized Optimism. (Pimco)
• Harry Dent's Demographic Cliff. Is Another Crisis Near? (BusinessInsider)
• Income Census Zoomable Map. See If You Make More Money Than Your Neighbors (BI)

The Value of an Hour's Work in Different Countries [Infographic]

Everybody might be working for the weekend ...  but how far does that go towards expanding our countries' economies?

In other words, each hour we work contributes to our country's gross domestic product. But by how much?

Here is a look at the GDP per capita, compared with the average numbers of hours worked in each country.

 

SOURCE: OECD.

 

While we may work hard in America, an hour of work produces double the value in Luxembourg.

Here Are Some Links for Your Weekend Reading

If you can read this, you are spending too much time at the computer.

 

 

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.

 

Lighter Links:

• 10 Powerful Online Business Tools for a Productive 2014. (MichaelHyatt)
• Amazon Best-Selling Books of the Year. (BusinessInsider)
• 52 Places to Go in 2014. (NYTimes)
• The Weirdest Photos Of 2013. (Huffington Post)
• Man vs. Beast: Is a Dog's Mouth Really Cleaner Than a Human's? (Mental Floss)

 

Trading Links:

• Is This Economic Momentum for Real? (CNBC)
• Rising Riches: 1 in 5 in US Reaches Affluence. (BigStory)
• 20 Things the Rich Do Every Day. (Dave Ramsey)
• How Real Income Stacks Up Around the World. (WSJ)
• The New Face of Communism: Russia's National Startup Competition. (Yahoo Finance)

Is It Snake Oil or a SuperFood [Infographic]

Here is a data visualization that compares various superfoods and nutritional supplements based on the evidence of the health benefits they deliver, as well as how popular they are with scientists and the general public. 

Click the image to launch an interactive version.  It lets you choose how to sort and sift; in addition, hovering over a balloon causes it to expand -- and gives you more data about that item for a particular purpose.

 

from David McCandless.

Items that fall under the 'no' to 'slight' evidence categories are probably snake oil.

Interesting.

• Here is the underlying data.
• Here is info about the methodology and analysis.
• See the companion Visualization on Nutritional Supplements.

Do You Believe the U.S. Deficit Has Been Cut By More than Half Since 2009?

The markets continue rising despite what you hear about the economy and government gridlock.

Meanwhile, the monstrous budget deficit might actually be dropping at record rates too.

The White House released a chart showing it has cut the deficit in half.

 

Source: White House

 

Remember, the deficit refers to an annual number — how much outlays exceed revenues in a given year. The national debt refers to the total amount a nation has borrowed, over time, to finance these deficits.

What do you think it means, and how will it affect your trading plans?

Related articles

Why don't Americans realize the deficit is falling?

Remember the deficit? It's melting

The National Debt and Federal Budget Deficit Deconstructed - Tony Robbins

Here Are Some Links to Start Your Week

 

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.

 

Lighter Links:

• $292 Million Down The Drain: White House Fires Main Obamacare IT Contractor. (ZeroHedge)
• Consumer Electronic Show 2014 ‘Best Of’ Awards Lists Roundup. A list of lists. (TIME)
• Awesome: A New York Times bot is second-guessing NFL coaches on Twitter. (GigaOM)
• 2013's Most Striking Fine Art Photography. (HuffingtonPost)
• The 40 Most Viral YouTube Videos of 2013. (Mashable)

 

Trading Links:

• Confessions of an Institutional Investor. (Big Picture)
• Hugh Hendry Throws In the Bearish Towel: His Full Must-Read Letter. (Zerohedge)
• Rasmussen Investor Index Reaches Six-Year High. (RasmussenReports)
• Here Is a List of Market Predictions for 2014. (StockTwits)
• The Probability Problem. "Unlikely" happens with surprising frequency. (PragCap)

Related articles

Inside "the richest niche there is" -- StockTwits announces new CEO, funding - pando.com

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