Just for Fun

  • Making News Beautiful Again

    My mother watches the news religiously.  To her credit, she watches a variety of sources and creates her own takeaways based on them.  Regardless, there's a common theme in all the sources she watched – they focus on fear or shock-inducing stories with a negative bias.  As you might guess, I hear it when I talk with her.

    While I value being informed, I also value things that nourish or make you stronger (as opposed to things that make you weak or less hopeful).

    Negativity Sells. 

    Sure, news sources throw in the occasional feel-good story as a pattern interrupt … but their focus skews negative.  History shows that stories about improvement or the things that work simply don't grab eyeballs, attention, or ratings as consistently as negativity-focused stories do.

    The reality is that negativity sells.  If everything were great all the time, people wouldn't need to buy as many products, they wouldn't need to watch the news, and this cycle wouldn't continue.

    It's worth acknowledging and understanding the perils our society is facing, but it's also worth focusing on the ways humanity is expanding and improving.

    As a brief respite from the seemingly unending stream of doom and gloom, Information Is Beautiful has a section focused on "Beautiful News".  It's a collection of visualizations highlighting positive trends, uplifting statistics, and creative solutions.  It's updated daily and can be sorted by topic.  I suggest you check it out.

     

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    Beautiful News via Information Is Beautiful

    If you're looking for more "good news," here's a list of 10 sources focusing on good news. 

    Let me know if you have a site you'd like to share.

    Have a great week!

  • Just Sardines In A Tincan…

    I fly a lot.

    In fact, I hit five million "butt-in-seat" miles on American Airlines in 2019 (back when frequent flyer programs were about flying frequently rather than credit card spending).

    190331 HMG ConciergeKey Stats

    It is 2024, and I am now just below 5.5M.  That means I averaged a little over 100,000 miles per year, even through the COVID shutdown.

    Yes, I expect that my travel will slow down.  But as I traveled, I didn't expect it to continue at the pace it did. 

    Nonetheless, it has been good for me, and the time spent traveling has been productive.

    I have a different workflow when I travel, and it works for me.

    Ultimately, I believe that good things happen when you are in motion! 

    Many people, however, are focused on the hassle.

    The practical realities of travel mean I spend some time thinking about the things airlines do well or poorly.  Nonetheless, I appreciate the benefits more than the frustrations.

    As you probably noticed, Airline Status means much less today than it used to (which is why it feels even more important to get).  Every week, the airlines seem to make the space between seats smaller while the time it takes to find overhead luggage space gets shorter.  It seems like most airlines could change its slogan to "We are not happy until you're not happy."

    Yet the planes themselves are getting better.  Here, for example, is what an empty 787 looks like. 

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    It looks more like a set from Star Trek than the hellscape passengers complain about regularly. 

    What about the boarding process? 

    Here is a video that presents the findings from studies on experimental boarding methods that work better. 

    via CGP Grey

    If you really don't like commercial flying, you can fly on any of the "economical" private options like JetSmarter or WheelsUp. Or, better yet, you could be like this guy and buy the world's only private Boeing 787 Dreamliner. 

    via Sam Chui

    You can rent it out for a measly $70k an hour … What a bargain!

    Of course, you could also use Zoom.  Times are changing!

  • The Evolution of Michael Jackson

    This lighthearted post has something to do with artificial …  but nothing to do with artificial intelligence.

    While doing my weekly reading and web browsing (which is how I pick those links you probably think an algorithm selects), I happened upon a post about Michael Jackson on Twitter (now called X), and I enjoyed it (or at least was drawn to click and watch it). 

    I grew up a huge Michael Jackson fan. As a kid, I watched the Jackson 5 Saturday morning cartoon show. His albums were the soundtrack to my college years. Later, my first wife and I saw him in concert several times. We shared that love with our youngest son, Zach. 

    It's funny to look back on, but Zach used to dance to Michael Jackson's songs on stage at his Elementary School talent shows or at random restaurants. There was no choreography … but lots of movement. I still smile when I think about it. 

    You might smile (or shake your head) while watching this short video chronicling the evolution of  Michael Jackson's face changes from birth to death. 

     

    via MikeBeast

    It's a staggering difference. I won't pretend to know what led him to make the changes, but they're substantial. 

    That being said, his music is both timely and timeless – which is very rare. He managed to make music in each era that fit in with the times but still felt very Michael Jackson. 

     

    via MikeBeast

     

    Gone too soon!

  • March Is Always Madness …

    March Madness is in full swing and will have the world's attention for a few more days.  As you can guess, almost no one has a perfect bracket anymore.  Yale beat Auburn, James Madison beat Wisconsin, Michigan State beat Mississippi State, and by the end of day 1, only 2,000 brackets remained intact.  That's .008% of all brackets submitted. 

    Before 24/7 sports channels, people watched the weekly show "The Wide World of Sports."  Its opening theme promised "The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat!" and "The human drama of athletic competition." That defines March Madness.

    The holy grail is mighty elusive in March Madness (as in most things).  For example, the odds of getting the perfect bracket are 1 in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 (2.4 trillion based on a Duke Mathematician's formula that takes into account rank).  It's easier to win back-to-back lotteries than picking a perfect bracket.  Nonetheless, I bet you felt pretty good when you filled out your bracket.

     

    via Duke University

    Here's some more crazy March Madness Stats: 

     

    Feeding the Madness

    "Not only is there more to life than basketball, there's a lot more to basketball than basketball." – Phil Jackson

    In 2017, I highlighted three people who were (semi) successful at predicting March Madness: a 13-year-old who used a mix of guesswork and preferences, a 47-year-old English woman who used algorithms and data science (despite not knowing the game), and a 70-year-old bookie who had his finger on the pulse of the betting world.  None of them had the same success even a year later.

    Finding an edge is hard – Maintaining an edge is even harder.

    That's not to say there aren't edges to be found. 

    Bracket-choosing mimics the way investors pick trades or allocate assets.  Some people use gut feelings, some base their decisions on current and historical performance, and some use predictive models.  You've got different inputs, weights, and miscellaneous factors influencing your decision.  That makes you feel powerful.  But knowing the history, their ranks, etc., can help make an educated guess, and they can also lead you astray. 

    The allure of March Madness is the same as gambling or trading.  As sports fans, it's easy to believe we know something the layman doesn't.  We want the bragging rights of that sleeper pick, of our alma mater winning, of the big upset. 

    You'd think an NCAA analyst might have a better shot at a perfect bracket than your grandma or musical-loving co-worker.

    In reality, several of the highest-ranked brackets every year are guesses. 

    The commonality in all decisions is that we are biased.  Bias is inherent to the process because there isn't a clear-cut answer.  We don't know who will win or what makes a perfect prediction. 

    Think about it from a market efficiency standpoint.  People make decisions based on many factors — sometimes irrational ones — which can create inefficiencies and complexities.  It can be hard to find those inefficiencies and capitalize on them, but they're there to be found. 

    In trading, AI and advanced math help remove biases and identify inefficiencies humans miss.

    Can machine learning also help in March Madness?

    “The greater the uncertainty, the bigger the gap between what you can measure and what matters, the more you should watch out for overfitting – that is, the more you should prefer simplicity” – Tom Griffiths

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    The data is there.  Over 100,000 NCAA regular-season games were played over the last 25+ years, and we generally have plenty of statistics about the teams for each season.  There are plenty of questions to be asked about that data that may add an extra edge. 

    That being said, people have tried before with mediocre success.  It's hard to overcome the intangibles of sports – hustle, the crowd, momentum - and it's hard to overcome 1 in 9.2 quintillion odds. 

    Two lessons can be learned from this:

    1. People aren't as good at prediction as they predict they are.
    2. Machine Learning isn't a one-size-fits-all answer to all your problems.

    Something to think about.

  • Overhyped Technologies (Or Not)

    Just because something is overhyped doesn’t mean it’s bad.

    Gartner’s Hype Cycle is a great example of this concept.  It highlights the likely cycle of inflated expectations, disillusionment, and, ultimately, utility.

    The key takeaway from the Hype Cycle model is that much of what happens is predictable … and that a significant portion of the extreme swings are based on human nature rather than technical merit.

    Haters are going to hate, and sometimes a fad is more than a fad.  For example, here is a front-page article from the New York Times in 1879.  It questions the utility of electric lights as a replacement for gas-powered lighting.  In case you were wondering, that one might have been a bright idea.

     

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    The point is that humans have proven themselves to be pretty bad at exponential thinking.  We’re not bad at recognizing periods of inflection, but we often have trouble recognizing the consequences of the change (and the consequences of those consequences) and predicting who the winners and losers will be as a result of those regime changes. 

     

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    There are countless examples.  Here’s a funny one from Maximum PC Magazine in 2008.  It shows that hype isn’t always a sign of mistaken excess.  This list purported to show things that were getting too much attention in 2008.  Instead of being a list of has-beens and failures, many of these things rightfully deserved the attention and hype they were getting.

     

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    It’s been over 15 years since this came out.  How did the predictions hold up?

    Apple has become one of the world’s biggest and most successful companies (with a market cap approaching 3 Trillion dollars).  The iPhone has sold over 2.2 billion phones and accounts for over half of Apple’s total revenue.  Meanwhile, Facebook has become Meta and is also one of the biggest and most successful companies in the world (with a market cap of well over a Trillion dollars).  And the list keeps going: HD video, 64-bit computing, downloading movies from the internet, and multiple GPU video cards. 

    Take just that last one. Nvidia has been the primary beneficiary of GPU growth, and it is one of the highest-performing stocks of the past few decades (with a market cap of well over 2 trillion dollars). 

    It’s hard to believe how poorly this image aged. 

    Remember that the trend is your friend while it continues.

    Just because something is overhyped – doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be excited about it. 

    The key is to stop thinking about the thing that’s being hyped and, instead, to start thinking about how to use things like that to create what you really want.

    Onwards!

  • The U.S. Is Back On The Moon!

    When I was young, the Space Race captured the hearts and souls of Americans.  But, for the past few decades, it was in the background.  Recently, that has changed.  The space race is getting hot again.  Resources are pouring into this area, and SpaceX is leading the pack. 

    In 2018, I shared excitement that the boosters he used were reusable.  Today, people are talking about how his ship, Starship, could render other rocket programs obsolete. 

    Fifty-one years after we last landed on the moon, the U.S. is back, and it wasn’t Elon, but the private company Intuitive Machines finally accomplishing the feat. 

    Odysseus, the unmanned lander, is now sending data back to Earth. 

    Despite the massive leapfrog in technology over the past 51 years, this is still a massive achievement for several reasons.  It was done by a private company, it was still very expensive, it precedes a 2026 manned flight from NASA, and it’s the first commercial flight – not just from the U.S. – to make it to the moon.  The trip’s goal is to research the area NASA plans to use for an upcoming mission.  They believe there are beads of frozen water in the area, which could help sustain a permanent settlement. 

    For many years, landing on the moon wasn’t getting any money.  Money was scarce.  We brought back over 800 pounds of moon rock on our last visit, and what little money there was went to more novel missions.  The moon landing symbolizes excitement about the long-term potential of the moon, not just space travel. 

    I love spaceflight for a lot of the same reasons I love AI. 

    It’s a global initiative heralding innovation and improvements that transform the world.  It’s the genesis of many exponential technologies. 

    Many astronauts, even from back in the Apollo days, talk about the incredible feeling they get after a few days in space.  As they gaze on the Earth from above, they lose their sense of borders and nationality.  The Saudi astronaut Sultan bin Salman Al-Saud, who flew on the Space Shuttle in 1985, commented on this, saying, “The first day or so we all pointed to our countries.  On the third or fourth day, we were pointing to our continents.  By the fifth day, we were aware of only one Earth.”

    It reminds me of Carl Sagan’s video on “The Pale Blue Dot.” 

    In 1977, five years after we left the moon, the Voyager 1 launched into space.  Just over a dozen years later, the Voyager 1 spacecraft had traveled farther than any spacecraft/probe/human-made anything had gone before.  It was approximately 6 billion kilometers away from Earth.  At that point, the Voyager 1 was “told” by Carl Sagan to turn around and take one last photo of the Earth … a pale blue dot. 

    The resulting photo is impressive precisely because it shows so little in so much.

    “Every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there–on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.” – Carl Sagan

    Earth is in the far right sunbeam – a little below halfway down the image.  This image (and the ability to send it back to Earth) was the culmination of years of effort, the advancement of technology, and the dreams of humankind.

    The resulting speech from Carl Sagan is still profound, moving, and worth a listen. 

     

    via Carl Sagan

    Here’s the transcript: 

    _____

    Look again at that dot.  That’s here.  That’s home.  That’s us.  On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives.  The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there–on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

    The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena.  Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.  Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

    Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.  Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark.  In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

    The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life.  At least in the near future, there is nowhere else to which our species could migrate.  Visit, yes.  Settle, not yet.  Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

    It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience.  There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world.  To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.

    ____ 

    Today, we have people living in space, posting videos from the ISS, and high-resolution images of space and galaxies near and far. 

    We take for granted the immense phase shift in technology.  You have more computing power in your pocket than we first used to go to the moon.

    As humans, we’re wired to think locally and linearly.  We evolved to live in small groups, fear outsiders, and stay in a general region until we die.  We’re not wired to think about the billions and billions of individuals on our planet, or the rate of technological growth – or the minuteness of that all in regard to the expanse of space.  

    However, today’s reality necessitates thinking about the world, our impact, and what’s now possible.

    We created better and faster ways to travel, we’ve created instantaneous communication networks across vast distances, and we’ve created megacities.  Our tribes have gotten much bigger – and with that, our ability to enact massive change has grown as well. 

    Space was the first bastion of today’s innovation, but today, we can look toward AI, medicine, epigenetics, and more. 

    It’s hard to comprehend the scale of the universe and the scale of our potential … but that’s what makes it worth exploring!

    Onwards!

  • Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading – February 18th, 2024

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

    Lighter Links:

    Trading Links:

  • Predictions for 2024

    At the beginning of 2022, I shared VisualCapitalist's predictions for the year, and then at the end of the year, we checked to see how well they did. 

    Since they posted a 2024 version, I figured, why not do it again? 

    OC_Prediction-Consensus_03via VisualCapitalist.

    You can find forecasts anywhere … but since they're basically guesswork and I don't know what data they are using or excluding, I don't spend much time on them.

    That said, I found this infographic easy to look at and think about. So, it's as good a place to start as any. Also, VC draws from a database of 700 expert forecasts to make this chart. 

    Some are pretty easy to predict – like GenAI's shift to text-to-video. Or, an increase in lawsuits and regulations around AI. Others are questionable. In the past few months, we've seen TikTok investing heavily in the growth of its e-commerce business. Insiders have stated they believe they're trying to compete with Amazon. We'll see how that goes?

    On a positive note, it seems like most are predicting positive effects on the market & economy, including a decrease in inflation and interest rates, bonds on the way back, and record highs in the S&P 500.

    I'd love to hear your predictions. What do you think?

  • Cowboys In The Playoffs?!

    You’re probably aware that I’m a big Dallas Cowboys fan.  Unfortunately, they were crushed today by the Green Bay Packers in the first round of the NFL Playoffs.
     
    Here is a photo I grudgingly took with a Packers fan at the game.
     
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    The Cowboys looked great all season, except when they didn’t… which was rare (but extreme).  It happened three times this year.  Early in the season against the Cardinals and the 49ers …and obviously, it happened again today.

    Only one team can win the Super Bowl.  I know that.  Yet, somehow, the Cowboys seem to have a real chance most seasons.  That is probably why the NFL tries so hard to create parity … to keep fans interested.

    On a lighter note, one thing we can probably agree about is that geriatric white dudes shouldn’t rap.  At least … that’s what my kids tell me when I try. 

    Unfortunately, the Owner of the Cowboys, Jerry Jones, didn’t get the memo. 

    Here is the video.

    Hopefully, our season (next year) will be better than that video. 

    For another light-hearted NFL video, 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 over 70 million views on YouTube).

    Better luck next year.

  • Almost 20 Years Together …

    I met Jennifer in April of 2004.  We got married in January of 2008.  That means we celebrated our 16th Wedding Anniversary this week – and we're nearing 20 years together. 

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    Wow, how time flies!

    On one hand, it seems like it was just yesterday.  On the other hand, portions of that decade seemed to take forever.

    As an entrepreneur, I live in a weird "tense".  For me, the future and the present are often blended.  Meaning, that I imagine the future I want – and then I find the path to create (or manifest) that destiny.  Not surprisingly, some of the things that were easy to imagine were hard to bring into reality (in a reproducible, efficient, and effective manner or process) … And these things seem to take forever.  

    Other things (like relationships or the growth and maturation of my kids) seemed to happen in the blink of an eye.

    I consciously try to be more mindful and grateful for the progress (and even the minor moments, wins, or curiosities) before me.  The truth is that if you fail to notice them, you don't experience them.

    Here is to experiencing all that you need or want … and I hope the rest serves as raw material, learning, or fuel to get you there faster.

    Onwards!