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A Legendary Performance – Weekly Reading Links – June 9th, 2017
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Invented or Discovered?
Nature can be pretty cool!
It turns out a lot of what we think human's "invented" was so natural that nature thought of it first.
Take a look at the British Planthopper that has mechanical gears in it's legs.
Or the fact that the T4 Bacteriophage looks like a lunar lander and has 20 sides.
via biology4u
It's interesting that some of man's greatest inventions are so innate that natural selection (or intelligent design) created it before we did.
Want another example?
Hospital-acquired Infections are diseases caught due to bacteria or fungi at a hospital(or other healthcare related areas). They account for over 99,000 deaths a year.
Because of that, R&D worked extensively to find bacteria-killing surfaces … turns out Dragonflies have been doing it for centuries.
Research companies (and dragonflies) have been using nano-textured surfaces to create a "bed of nails" that destroys bacteria by puncturing the cell wall.
If you like stuff like this, Check out this link on order vs. chaos.
There is always opportunity around you … You just have to know where to look.
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Inspiration Comes In Many Forms …
Once a year, I go to the World BBQ Championship at Memphis in May.
It's three days of friends, food, and fun.
This year was special. My friend, Andy Daniels' tent won third place in the ribs contest.
In addition, I gained some inspiration while spending time at Doug McKnight's tent with Blake Carson.
Have you ever been to a Brazilian steakhouse? On top of an endless supply of meat, they also have a unique "churrasco" cooking and presentation style.
Blake saw that style of cooking – and innovated it – creating the Carson Rodizio kit (which started as a Kickstarter project). It is a multi-rotisserie rack that converts your favorite backyard grill into an open and spinning Brazilian style Steakhouse. It's clever, functional, and cool … and it's been used to win multiple barbecue championships.
I love to experience an entrepreneur's mind at work.
It's not always about what you add. Sometimes, it is about what you take away. Less is often more.
Here is a one-minute interview with Blake.
For more on Carson Rodizio, here is their Facebook page.
Innovation, like opportunity, is all around you.
But it's not there for you if you don't see the opportunity, and seize it.
Tasty!
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Here Are Some Links For Your Weekend Reading – June 3rd, 2017
Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.
- Expanded Laptop Ban Could Cover Half a Million Travelers a Day. (CNN)
- Someone Posted the Codes to Every United Cockpit Online. (TheNextWeb)
- A Neuroscientist Explains the Radical Theory that Our Free Will is Just an Illusion. (BI)
- Scientists Think They're More Rational Than Other People. (Scientific American)
- 50 Books Recommended by this Year's TED Speakers. (Inc)
- Once Considered the Titans of Wall Street, Hedge Fund Managers are in Trouble. (WP)
- Apple: Supercycle Hopes Drive Supersize Bets. (Wall Street Journal)
- To Stabilize the Oil Market, OPEC Refines Its Strategy. (Stratfor)
- Switch It up this Year: Buy in May, till November Stay. (EconomicTimes)
- The Quants: Meet the New Kings of Wall Street. (Wall Street Journal)
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The World’s Stock Exchanges
There are 60 major stock exchanges throughout the world, and their range of sizes is quite surprising.
Click the image to see the whole infographic.
via VisualCapitalist
As Visual Capitalist notes, at the high end of the spectrum is the mighty NYSE, representing $18.5 trillion in market capitalization, or about 27% of the total market for global equities.
At the lower end? Stock exchanges on the tiny islands of Malta, Cyprus, and Bermuda all range from just $1 billion to $4 billion in value. Even added together, these three exchanges make up just 0.01% of total market capitalization.
Back at the upper end, the top 16 exchanges each have a market capitalization above $1 trillion. Together, those top-16 exchanges account for 87% of the world's total value of equities.
That is a lot of money and information … I'd expect big changes, here, as the FinTech arms race escalates.
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Happy Covfefe To You! – Weekly Links – June 1st, 2017
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Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading – May 27th, 2017
There is a place to go with deep wishes …
Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.
- What the Dying Teach the Living. (LongNow)
- Why Close Encounters with Animals Soothe Us. (New York Times)
- Will We Ever Elect an AI as President? (Wired)
- 'SNL' Releases McCarthy's 'Spicey' Outtakes. (CNN)
- The Dark Art of How (And When) to Buy an Airline Ticket. (NYMag)
- The Quants Run Wall Street Now. (Wall Street Journal)
- The MMC Ventures AI Investment Framework: 17 Success Factors For The Age Of AI. (Medium)
- The Real Reason Saudis Rolled out the Reddest of Red Carpets. (Bergen)
- SoftBank and Saudis Launch Largest Tech Investment Fund Ever, $93 Billion in Committed Capital. (CNBC)
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I Don’t Fear Artificial Intelligence – I Do Fear Artificial Stupidity
I don't know if you've ever tried to paint a room – but if you have, I'm sure you've come across some bizarre paint names.
How does that relate to AI?
Well, Janelle Shane is a research scientist, and neural network aficionado – as any good data scientist should, she spends a lot of her free time playing with neural networks (… to varying results).
Recently, she attempted to train an algorithm (specifically char-rnn, a neural network that attempts to anticipate the next character in a sequence) to create new paint colors and accompanying names.
After it was fully trained, here are the results:
via LewisandQuark
As you can see, it knows there are colors, but it struggles to keep the names associated with the appropriate color.
"Turdly" seems pretty close though … but I always wanted to paint my room "Stanky Bean."
As you might know, that was not the first time artificial intelligence has created something artificially stupid.
For example, how about when Microsoft attempted to create an AI chatbot named "Tay" by analyzing tweets?
Tay quickly became very …. very racist.
via TheVerge
Clearly, mistakes were made (and Tay isn't as dangerous as a human racist) – but, it does raise questions.
AI is cool … But, artificial stupidity is still scary.
For now, that is the way it is.
As we explore new avenues and smarter algorithms for AI to be trained with, it will be interesting to see what Frankenstein's monsters we create.
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Here’s How I Got My Wife To Go To Memphis – Weekly Links – May 26th, 2017
We had a good time.
Here is a peek at what I've been reading lately. These are the links I saved this week.
Hope you find some interesting and enjoyable tidbits.
Let me know if you read something I'd like … Or if there are other sources I should add to my weekly reading.
Thanks.
Lighter Links:
Market-Related Links
- A 'Paradigm Shift' is Taking Place in Financial Technology. (BI)
- Farming the World: China’s Epic Race to Avoid a Food Crisis. (BB)
- EBA Cryptotechnologies in International Payments – PDF (Abe-eba)
- Bank Relationships: It’s Not You, It’s Me. (Gtnews)
- Why Thinking beyond Money is Vital for Solving the Poverty Puzzle. (The Conversation)
- What Major Stock Market Tops Look Like. (SeeItMarket)
- Will Technology (XLK) Continue to Lead the Market Higher? (Stockcharts)
- How Central Bankers Get Their Communication Timing Wrong. (Bloomberg)
- America’s Car Market Has Stalled. (Economist)
- Study by MIT Economist: U.S. Has Regressed to a Third-World Nation for Most of Its Citizens. (Theintellectualist)
- The Advantage of Being a Little Underemployed. (Collaborativefund)
- Decoded: Breaking down How an Actual Trading Algorithm Works. Want to Impress Your Friends? Learn How Trading Algos Work. (WSJ)
- Did Volatility Traders Overreact Again Last Week? (SeeItMarket)
- Fundraising Hacks for Venture Capital and Private Equity Funds. (Teten)
- Inflation Could Be the Market's Biggest Upside Surprise of the Year. (CNBC)
- This Bull Market Might Not Be Hated, but It Still Isn't Trusted. (CNBC)
- In Tumult of Trump, Jon Corzine Seeks a Wall Street Comeback. (New York Times)
- The Limitations of Technical Analysis. (Technicality-me)
- It's Official: SoftBank's Tech Fund Becomes World's Biggest with $93 Billion to Invest. (BI)
- The Return of the Proprietary Trader. (LinkedIn)
Let me know what you think.
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Motivation For Your Week
It's easy to think that motivation is for athletes, or for "them" … and not you.
The reality is that motivation is a key aspect of everyone's day!
Here's a video I found this week that is worth a listen.
by Basquiat Picasso via YouTube
The transcript is here.
You can rely on external factors to bring you motivation, or you can make it an internal habit.
The same way people love change – but resist being changed … Being driven (by yourself) feels better than when someone tries to push you or drive you.
Sure, it's easy to be unmotivated and wonder why things never get done.
Often, I'll see employees, or friends, get something 80 – 90% done and then move on to some new exciting prospect.
They get distracted by "shiny" and use it as an excuse to ignore the hard part (that last 10%), and whine that nothing's ever finished.
As long you are making progress (and refuse to give up) you are guaranteed to meet and exceed your goals.
So, stop whining and start grinding! It's time to get to the getting!
