I went to Havana with a diverse group of business people, financial professionals and representatives from the US Fed.
Here is a photo taken with some of the classic cars that proudly dominate the roads despite cheaper Russian and Chinese alternatives.
The city was beautiful … dirty and broken, for sure … but still beautiful. Here is a view from my hotel room.
I commented that it was almost like seeing a severely wounded elephant. You can tell that it's hurt (and barely a shadow of its old self). Nevertheless, you can see the amazing bone structure. It is easy to imagine what it once was.
In Cuba, the geography and the architecture are amazing. However, money hasn't been spent on the upkeep. Even though people live there, it seems surreal (almost like a post-apocalyptic wasteland).
In the story of Exodus, the Jews spent 40 years wandering the desert after escaping from Egypt. That means two generations of people, who didn't remember life as slaves, were ultimately the ones who entered the “Promised Land”.
On some level, that's how Cuba is now. Most inhabitants weren’t born (or can’t remember) the 1960s. They have known nothing but this.
Cuba is an interesting place … and I’d bet that it has an interesting future.
The “lack” had a side effect. It produced a mutation. A portion of society grew more resourceful and resilient.
Like natural selection … nature finds a way.
The rules change, the players change, even the game itself changes ... That is how new ideas and new leaders emerge.
Sometimes, almost no one notices. Sometimes they do.
Ultimately, change remains the only constant.
Onwards!
Cool tech often gets adopted by porn and gambling before more mainstream uses.
Porn was the launchpad for video streaming, mobile-enabled sites, VR, and (unfortunately) pop-up ad technologies.
With that said, the next chart surprised me. It shows the number of years it took for various products to gain 50 million users.
Pornhub tracks data like its business depends on it. Well, it is the number one site for pornography. What does that mean? In 2018, over 5,517,700,000 hours of porn was watched on their site. That’s approximately 6,298 centuries of video.
Moreover, last year, it got 33.5 BILLION visits. That’s 1,064 people a second, or 92 million a day. To put that in perspective, that's more people than live in the entire country of Germany.
Here are some additional factoids about its use.
via Pornhub
For the full list of stats click here.
They are so popular, it is almost obscene.
AI has been around in science fiction for over 1oo years. As it becomes reality, it's amusing to look at different depictions and attempt to connect the dots.
AI first broke onto the film scene with Metropolis in 1927. "Maria" the evil robot disguising herself as a human played on many human fears; deception, lack of control, and perhaps most importantly being replaced.
Maria represented a future that was bleak and set the foundation for AI in cinema. Since then, there have been approximately 100 movies starring AI.
According to Enlighten Digital, 52% of movies portray AI positively, which means it's about 50/50, and there has been a 144% increase in AI movies since 2010 - so we're becoming more saturated with AI.
According to a study by Cambridge, seeing more films portraying robots (whether positive or negative) is associated with more positive attitudes toward robots. This is in line with the theory that the more exposure one has with "out-group" members (i.e. robots, or people of other races) the more positive one's attitude toward them.
The depiction of AI has always been a reflection of its time ... as our values, ambitions, and technology has changed, so has on-screen AI.
So what does today's AI look like?
On HBO, we have Westworld. In movies, iRobot, Chappie, and Blade Runner 2049 ... it's clear the promise and the peril of AI has continued to evolve.
These movies all have different tones but there's a trope that remains common from that initial film in 1927 to films in 2018.
We're always imagining that next step. What's going to happen as AI becomes (in some ways) smarter than us? What's going to happen when our creations surpass our control? What's going to happen if the line between human and robot blurs?
There are a lot of advancements in real-life, in respect to AI. As such, there is a lot of movement on AI ethics, and how to best limit or best enable AI.
In film, we gravitate toward two extremes - utopias and dystopias. In real life, we can recognize those extremes are unlikely ... but the effect of AI is still profound.
We're expanding a technology with the ability to radically change our world - for better or worse - so it's important to keep a purpose-driven approach. We can't lose track of humanity in the pursuit of AI.
Metropolis's final title card (that first AI movie from 1927) still rings true ... "The Mediator Between the Head and the Hands Must Be the Heart"
Onwards!
Some Professors put together IKEA inspired instructional booklets for their algorithms and data-structures lecture.
So far they've created assembly instructions for Quick Sort, BOGO Sort, Public Key Crypto, Binary Search, Merge Sort, Balance Tree, Graph Scan, and One Stroke Draw algorithms.
via ideainstruction
This is a pretty cool idea, or at least I thought so. My youngest son said "I don't particularly understand IKEA directions or algorithms so this is basically the worst of both worlds for me." Finally, we agree about something.
Hopefully, you find it helpful. If not, there's always Wikipedia.
Science, Art, or "PooPoo De Toro"...
Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.
A Look Back at "The Crazy Ones"
I remember being mesmerized the first time I saw Apple Computers iconic "Crazy Ones" video as part of their Think Different campaign.
Steve Jobs originally recorded a version of "The Crazy Ones" himself, but chose to release the Richard Dreyfuss narrated version.
via YouTube
Here is the text version of the script.
I think it has held up pretty well, and I had this piece of art commissioned for my office.
There's a lot to be said for carving your own path, for pushing past perceived limits and accomplishing something hard to ignore.
Posted at 04:24 PM in Art, Business, Current Affairs, Film, Ideas, Market Commentary, Personal Development, Trading, Web/Tech, Writing | Permalink | Comments (0)
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