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Population Growth and Climate Change Explained by Hans Rosling
Sometimes complex things can be explained simply.Hans Rosling, a Swedish medical doctor, academic, and statistician became famous for just that.He died last week. Sadly, that is what prompted me to review some of his videos, and to share this.Rosling called himself an "edutainer." He had a knack for explaining difficult concepts (like global inequality, climate change, disease, and poverty) using a sense of humor and a strange collection of props (including, maps, storage boxes, and colored stones) to tell the story of our world.For example, in an interview with the Guardian, Rosling beckons: "Let me show you the world," as he used stacks of Lego-like bricks to demonstrate the dynamics of population growth, child mortality, and carbon dioxide emissions.The Guardian via YouTube."The challenge for the world is to get everyone out of extreme poverty and get the richest people to use less fossil fuels so that everyone can share their energy levels," he said.His messages were often more positive than most would think, demonstrating that life is getting better for more people, if we only bothered to look at the numbers.Here are links to two other Rosling posts worth a look. -
Facts or Fiction: How Faithful is Your Favorite “True” Movie’s Story?
Recently, there's been a lot of talk about fake news and fact-checking the contents of the news and what public figure say. However, I haven't heard much about measuring the veracity of movies.
This site was kind of interesting.
It purports to rank the relative veracity of various movies.
For example, "Selma" is impressively accurate (as is "The Big Short") … "The Imitation Game"? Not so much.
This interactive breakdown lets you be as "pedantic" as you want — letting the "truth" be relatively flexible, or seating the truth-scale at "only what objectively happened".
So, where does your favorite film fall?
Pretty interesting.
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Why Are The Patriots So Good?
Some things speak for themselves.
The Patriots just came back from a 25-point second-half deficit to win the Super Bowl.
There is a difference between 'luck' and 'skill'.
Nonetheless … luck favors the prepared.
And, in life as in sports, hard work beats talent, when talent fails to work hard.
The Patriots, under Bill Belichick, epitomize that.
Belichick has been a coach in 10 of 51 Super Bowls (seven of them with Tom Brady).
When you see this picture from the 2000 NFL Combine, it's hard to believe that Tom Brady would be a 3-time Superbowl MVP taking the Patriots to their 5th under his reign.
via CBS Sports.
It didn't happen by accident.
The Patriots are a well-oiled machine, and it's not because their players are better than the rest.
Keep in mind, the NFL is a league at the top of the food chain (their athletes are the best of the best). Moreover, the NFL actively creates rules designed to level the playing field and create parity.
So, it is hard to create a team that 'can't be beaten' – When it happens, it happens because of culture, coaching, and process. Ultimately, somehow, winners find a way to win.
Bill isn't known as the friendliest (and he's certainly not known for dishing out praise) – but he is known for discipline (and lauding hard work when it's deserved).
More importantly, Belichick created a framework of success that isn't reliant on the individual – and it is that which allows the individual to shine.
Frameworks create the structure that allows, focus, specialty, and the freedom to improvise.
The System is the 'system'; but, within it, you can measure what works, who contributes, and use it to identify the best things to try next.
Win, lose, or draw … some things speak for themselves.
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NFL – Bad Lip Reading
Hope you have enjoyed Super Bowl weekend so far.
Here is an oldy, but goodie.
It is kind of the opposite of one of those old Kung Fu movies where the dubbed words you hear aren't synched with the mouth movement.
Here it looks like they are saying what you hear … it's just that someone changed the words. You could call it "So THAT'S what they were saying …"
This video works for the same reason trading often doesn't … Humans are great at finding patterns (even when there isn't really a pattern to find).
Regardless, this was fun (and it's gotten almost 70 million views on YouTube).
Recently, they also did one with clips from Trump's Inauguration.
Pretty funny.
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Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading – February 5th, 2016
Sometimes I wish it was this easy.

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.
- Positive Delusions: Do We Need Them to Reach Our Full Potential? (EmotionMachine)
- MI6 Has Revealed the Real-Life 'Q' is Actually a Woman. (Flipboard)
- How Donald Trump Changed the Presidency in 7 Days. (CNN)
- First Human-Pig Chimera is a Step toward Custom Organs. (Wired)
- Forget the "Praise Sandwich" – Five Better Ways to Give Good Feedback. (FastCompany)
- Divergence Between Dumb & Smart Money Confidence Approaching Record Levels. (ZH)
- The Millionaire’s Map: Which Countries Boast the Most Millionaires [Infographic]. (ValueWalk)
- Who are the 10 Highest-Paid Players in Super Bowl 51? (Cheatsheet)
- Why the Dow 20K Milestone is Meaningless: a Visual Guide. (Quartz)
- Doomsday Prep for the Super-Rich. (NewYorker)
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Trump Immigration Ban Sparks DFW Protest
Trump signed his executive order on refugees while I was in Asia.
I got back today … and, yes, they let me back in the Country.
That didn't surprise me … but this did … there were thousands of protesters at DFW Airport.
How do you think it will play out?
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The Dow Just Broke 20,000
In 2016, we saw some decent pull-backs and volatility.
Then Donald Trump was elected President.
On November 22nd, the Dow reached 19,000 … and in only 42 days, it's broken 20,000. That's the second-fastest rise ever.
Coincidence?
via WSJWith 30 components providing point value … the 5 "heavyweights" this year are: Boeing, IBM, 3m, United Healthcare and Home Depot.
Are the markets responding to Trump's consistency with his campaign messages? Just happy to have some hope in change?
So, as the presidency continues, will the trend keep going up?
What do you think?
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Here Are Some Links For Your Weekend Reading – January 29th, 2017
With the explosion of Alternative Facts and Fake News … It's important to remember to verify what you read.

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.
- Why Each Side of the Partisan Divide Thinks the Other is Living in an Alternate Reality. (The Conversation)
- Check out this Automated Resume Builder (It Could Help Former President Obama Get a Job). (Inc)
- Cybersecurity is Everybody’s Business. (Burrus)
- 25 CEO’s List 20 Things that Keep Them up at Night. (LeadershipFreak)
- Japanese Toilet Industry Agrees to Standardize Complex Bidet Controls. (TheVerge)
- What Does the World Expect of a Trump Presidency? (The Conversation)
- The SEC's Reaction to High Frequency Trading. (QuantNews)
- US Jobless Claims down to 1970S Levels at 234,000 – about as Good as It Gets. (Forbes)
- SpaceX’s Leaked Finances Show Elon Musk is Betting Big on Satellite Internet. (Quartz)
- Fed's Yellen Says She's Upbeat about Short-term Economic Outlook. (Reuters)
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Do We Still Need Humans?
In my office, we use a lot of what seems like "futuristic" artificial intelligence approaches to understanding financial markets. Most of my team are technical or data-science specialists that develop and drive the systems that create our systems. Pretty soon, we may start to question where using humans is still smart or cost-effective.
In the meantime, I'm fascinated by what is becoming possible … and how, even when the A.I. is little more than an elegant use of brute force, incredible results are becoming commonplace.
MIT has been looking at work by many different organizations – including Google Brain – who are working on AI that can develop machine learning software.
In many cases, the results coming from machines coding other machines are matching or exceeding work done by humans.
As a point of reference, virtually all of our training techniques were developed or created by an A.I. process.
AI creating AI has many benefits.But, at this point in time, it still requires lots of human input and insight.
I suspect that won't be true for long.
When that is true, what jobs will humans be doing?
I have some thoughts, but I'd love to hear yours.
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Quick, Draw!
Our non-human overlords haven't taken over yet.
However, A.I. is getting smarter faster.
Can a neural network learn to recognize doodles?
Google's Quick, Draw! will try and guess what you're drawing.
It did pretty well with mine, and I did not inherit my dad's artistic skills.
Try it by clicking below!




