Science

  • What Does The Average NFL Player Look Like (By Position)

    Football season is officially underway! In honor of that, here's a look at each position's composite player!

    As you might expect, different sports have a different ratio of ethnicities. For example, you might expect more Pacific Islanders in Rugby or Asians in Badminton.

    The same is true for different positions on a football team.  Apparently, offensive linemen are more likely to be white while running backs are more likely to be black. 

    Here is a visualization that shows what happens when you average the top players' faces in various positions?

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    osmutiar via Reddit

    Composites are interesting.

    While you may be thinking "this player must be unstoppable" … statistically, he's average.

    The "composite" NFL player would be the 848th best player in the league. He's not a starter, and he plays on an average team. 

    We found the same thing with our trading bots.  The ones that made it through most filters weren't star performers.  They were the average bots that did enough not to fail (but failed to make the list as top performers in any of the categories).  The survivors were generalists, not specialists.

    In an ideal world, with no roster limits, you'd want the perfect lineup for each granular situation. You'd want to evaluate players on how they perform under pressure, on different downs, against other players, and with different schemes. 

    That's what technology lets you do with algorithms. You can have a library of systems that communicate with each other … and you don't even have to pay their salary (but you will need data scientists, researchers, machines, data, alternative data, electricity, disaster recovery, and a testing platform).

    You won't find exceptional specialists if your focus is on generalized safety. Generalists are great, but you also have to be able to respond to specific conditions.

    Onwards.

  • Getting Used To A New Normal

    In the first part of this exercise series, I talked about mindset and action.

    In Part 2, I talked about normalizing your habits and picking consistent, normalized metrics. This doesn't just work at the gym; it applies to life and business as well. 

    Today, I want to explain how and why this helps. To do so, we will talk about controlling your arousal states. 

    Watch the video, it is only 90 seconds.

     

     

    Chemically, most arousal states are the same.  Meaning, the same hormones and neurotransmitters that make you feel fear also can make you feel excited.  They affect your heart rate, respiration, etc.  … Though, the outside stimuli you experience likely determines how you interpret what is happening.  

    In most situations, a heart rate of 170 beats per minute is an indicator of extreme danger (or an impending toe-tag).  If I felt my heart racing like that in a meeting, it might trigger a fight or flight instinct.  I prefer conscious and controlled responses.  So, I train myself to recognize what I can control and to respond accordingly.

    One way I do that is by being mindful of heart rate zones during exercise.  

    My goal is to get as close to 170 bpm as I can, then stay in that peak zone for as long as possible.

    Here is a chart showing a Fitbit readout of an exercise session.

    8102017 dads heartrate

     

    As you can see, every time I reach my limit … I get my heart rate back down.  It becomes a conscious and controlled learned behavior.

    Here is a different look that shows effort based on my maximum heart rate.  It is from an app called Heart Analyzer.  

     

    190902 HMG Heart Analyzer Graph-1

     

    Recognizing what this feels like is a form of biofeedback; it's not only gotten me better at controlling what happens after my heartrate reaches 170 but at identifying when I'm close – even without a monitor. 

    Now, when my heart rate is at 170 bpm (regardless of the situation), I don't feel anxious … I think about what I want to do. 

    I currently use an Apple watch with the HeartWatch app to measure heart rate during the day.  The Oura Ring is what I use to measure sleep and readiness.

    These are useful tools.

    It's the same with trading … Does a loss or error harsh your mellow – or is it a trigger to do what you are supposed to do?  

    Getting used to normalized risk creates opportunity.  

    When you are comfortable operating at a pace, or in an environment, that others find difficult – you have a profound advantage and edge.

  • Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading – September 1st, 2019

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

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  • Measuring Normalized Behavior – Stop Worrying and Love The Pain

    When your doctor tells you that you are fat, it is easy to discount (because you pay them to tell you that).  When your massage therapist tells you that you are getting fat, you've got to listen (because they're trying to be nice to get a better tip).

    Well, for the past two months, I've been getting back into fitness.

    I used to be a competitive athlete.  In the past, for me, exercise was about gaining an edge and competing better.  In a sense, that is still true (just on a different field).   Now, I work out to stay healthy, fit, and vital while managing the challenges of running a company, navigating an overbooked calendar, and traveling every week.

    In my last post on mindset and action, I talked about the habit of conditioning yourself to take the next best step.

    This is about focusing on the right things so you can best measure progress.

     

     

    Normalizing your habits and picking the right metrics isn't just a habit for the gym.  It's a habit you should pick up in life. If you don't set the right measuring stick you'll always be unhappy or underperform. 

    Plan forward – but measure backward … you have to make sure you're not so focused on the horizon that you don't track what you've accomplished. 

    Normalizing the result makes this easier and better.

    In running, for example, it is the time it takes me to finish one mile, while never going above 170 heartbeats per minute.

    Meanwhile, in trading, we do this by comparing different opportunities based on a constant risk level (for example, the expected return for the next day of $1M, assuming a 2% maximum drawdown).  It doesn't matter what market we trade, or how many trades the system makes … we can make a fair comparison and get better insights about performance.

    Hope that helps.

  • Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading – August 25th, 2019

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

     

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  • World’s Smallest Computer

    Just saw this and thought it was worth sharing.

    Can you guess what this picture shows?

     

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    The "thing" next to the fingernail is a functioning computer created at the University of Michigan (and it measures just .3 mm a side).   It's run by photovoltaics and is primarily used as a precision temperature sensor. The caveat is that once it loses power, it loses all prior programming and data.

    It tests the limits of what we call a computer – but it's multitudes better than the previous iteration, and innovation breeds innovation. 

    Exciting stuff!

  • Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading – August 18th, 2019

    Larry Kudlow confirmed that Trump wants to buy Greenland.

     

    190818 Trump Wants Greenland

     

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

     

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  • Finding A Way – Just Do It!

    6202017 Dad Sweat 3It's hard to fight Mother Nature.

    Willpower isn't always enough. 

    The trick is recognizing that you can create conditions that make your success much more likely.

    No matter how much internal resolve you have, changing the story you tell yourself, and the environment you create for yourself, are reliable ways to make meaningful and lasting change.

    Is How You Do Something, How You Do Everything?

    On some level, I think so.  To make the point, let me start with a brief story. 

    I was at the gym and getting pretty close to the end of my workout.

    Frankly, I was at a point where being done was way more attractive than the option of doing additional exercise.

    Over time, I've developed many habits and beliefs that focus on finding the best next step – or a way to do just a little bit more. So this time, I used reverse-counting to help me finish that workout strong.

    I started with 10 push-ups. I know I can do 10 push-ups, even at the end of a hard workout. Without putting my knees down, I can rest in plank position for a moment or two … then I do nine more push-ups. That has to be easier than 10, right? Then eight more … seven … six. You get the point.

    Each set is a little bit harder than the one before; but mentally I'm prepared for it, and can convince myself that I'm so much closer to the goal.

    So I get to three, and sweat is dripping off my nose, my arms are shaking, and my hips want to sway. Somehow knowing that there are only two more sets, then only one more, allows me to finish.

    That story could have been about creating profitable trading systems, developing a new database, or recovering from a setback.  It's about finding a way, regardless of external circumstances.

    Finding a Way to Do Just a Little Bit More.

    There are many times that it seems easier to do nothing, or to give up. That's just not my nature. It's not in my "nurture" either.

    My father used to say that the secret to success was getting up. What he meant was that if someone knocked you down 10 times, then the secret to success was getting up 11 times. And if someone knocked you down another time, then the secret was to get up 12 times. There's a lot of truth in that.

    I laugh when I think of all the little things I do that condition me to take the best next step. Here are a few examples of small things that help define that mindset.

    • I never stop reading until I finish a chapter.
    • Also, when I play a strategy game on my iPhone, I never stop until I win.
    • And, when I play a strategy game that I'm good at, I never stop until I achieve a certain score. 

    It doesn't matter if I'm frustrated or tired.  I find a way.  Each of these things, in its own small way, helps condition me to know that I can do anything I commit to do.  Ultimately, what that means is that regardless of what happens, my outcome depends most on what I choose to do.

    Sometimes these habits seem silly, quirky, or even a little bit OCD to me. Yet, they serve me.

    Many benefits come from knowing that the game's not over until you say it is … or until you win.

    Moreover, it's comforting to know that there's always a best next step, or at least a different perspective that will create new opportunities and possibilities.

    Nike-just-do-itI tend to take that perspective in business as well. We focus on the progress we're making, and what that makes possible, rather than how far we are from the ultimate goal. Why? Because, as we continue to make progress, the things we shoot for are bigger and farther away. Focusing there would always show a shortfall. Obstacles and setbacks become the raw material for new growth, ideas, and strategies.  The trick is getting back up, isn't it?

    Sometimes the best advice is simple. Nike got it right in their ad … Just Do It.

  • This Week in AI: AI’s Weaknesses

    AI has plenty of weaknesses – I've talked about some before, and I'll continue to talk about them in the future, but two specific weaknesses were brought to my attention this week. 

    AI Portraits – Won't Steal Your Data, But Might Steal Your Soul Dorian Gray-Style

    I assume most of you have seen the FaceApp trend – people age-ifying their photos and unwittingly giving the rights to their photos to a shadowy Russian tech company.  You've also likely seen AI paintings selling for ridiculous money. 

    But have you seen their lovechild AI Portraits – a more wholesome experiment run by the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab. AI Portraits uses approximately 45,000 different Renaissance-esque 15th-century portraits and General Adversarial Networks to translate your selfie into an artistic masterpiece. It's novel because instead of simply drawing over your face it's generating new features and creating an entirely new version of your face.

     

    Mauro Martino via YouTube

    It's impressive because it determines the best style for your portrait based on your features, your background, and more. 

    However, it's not without "flaw". The choice of 15th-century portraiture creates a couple of clear biases. At the time, portraits of smiling or laughing individuals were rare, so your smile will likely not transfer. As well, there's a clear bias towards anglo-saxonification. 

    Screen Shot 2019-07-22 at 2.53.22 PM

    via AI Portraits

    My son got excited while playing with the app and sent several of his coworkers, friends, and family through the app. If you look at the bottom right, you'll see my lovely wife Jen's portrait. 

    Most of you have seen my wife and know that she is Indonesian, something that is very much removed from the translation. 

    You can also see it in Beyonce's AI portrait. 

    AI Portraits of Beyoncé

    via MyModernMet

    All photos are immediately deleted from their servers after creating your image, so your privacy is safe (this time!)

    All biases can be considered quirks of this current iteration of the program – which I do earnestly believe is interesting. 

    Later, you can imagine an AI choosing between various different styles of art based on a cornicopia of factors – or off human selection – but you have to walk before you can run, and this is a fun way to get people excited about AI. 

    Computer Answering Systems – No, The Answer Isn't 42

    “Yes…Life, the Universe, and Everything. There is an answer. But I’ll have to think about it…the program will take me seven-and-a-half million years to run.” – Deep Thought, Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy

    Think of the global excitement when IBM's Watson first beat Ken Jennings in Jeopardy … it's widely considered one of the holy grails of AI research to create a machine that truly understands the nuances of language and human thought. Yet, if you've talked to Alexa recently, you know there's a long way to go. 

    Today's question answering systems are basically glorified document retrieval systems. They scan text for related words and send you the most relevant options. Researchers at the University of Maryland recently figured out how to easily create questions that stump AI (without being paradoxical, impossible to answer, requiring empathy etc.) in order to enhance those systems.

    A system that understands those questions will be a massive step toward a real understanding and processing of language. 

    So what's the secret to these "impossible" questions?

    From the University of Maryland article: 

    The questions revealed six different language phenomena that consistently stump computers. These six phenomena fall into two categories. In the first category are linguistic phenomena: paraphrasing (such as saying “leap from a precipice” instead of “jump from a cliff”), distracting language or unexpected contexts (such as a reference to a political figure appearing in a clue about something unrelated to politics). The second category includes reasoning skills: clues that require logic and calculation, mental triangulation of elements in a question, or putting together multiple steps to form a conclusion […]

    For example, if the author writes “What composer's Variations on a Theme by Haydn was inspired by Karl Ferdinand Pohl?” and the system correctly answers “Johannes Brahms,” the interface highlights the words “Ferdinand Pohl” to show that this phrase led it to the answer. Using that information, the author can edit the question to make it more difficult for the computer without altering the question’s meaning. In this example, the author replaced the name of the man who inspired Brahms, “Karl Ferdinand Pohl,” with a description of his job, “the archivist of the Vienna Musikverein,” and the computer was unable to answer correctly. However, expert human quiz game players could still easily answer the edited question correctly.

     

    The main change is increasing the complexity of the questions by nestling another question. In the above example, the second question forces the AI not only to decide the composer inspired by Karl Ferdinand Pohl, but also to decipher who is inspiring (hint: It's Karl Ferdinand Pohl). 

    AI isn't great yet at mental triangulation; at putting together multiple steps to form a conclusion. While AI is great at brute force applications – we're still coding the elegance. 

     

    An Elegant Use Of Brute Force_GapingVoid

    via Gaping Void

  • Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading – August 9th, 2019

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

     

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