Here's a map of the entire "Internet" in 1973:
Reddit via @WorkerGnome.
Wonder what that map would look like today?
Oftentimes, a small breakthrough has awesome and immense consequences.
Onwards!
Web/Tech
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Clown Hysteria: 2016 in a Nutshell
This summer, South Carolinians started seeing menacing clowns in the woods.
As a response to clown hysteria,Target pulled clown masks from shelves , McDonalds scaled down use of Ronald McDonald, and people everywhere have been in a fervor.
Not everyone has been affected negatively though … Surprisingly (to me), Pornhub has seen a massive increase in clown related searches.
via TNWThere you have it … hard data.
2016 continues to surprise … Celebrities dying, phones exploding, the election, and this.
It will be interesting to see how 2016 ends, and what the future brings.
The world changes, but human nature remains relatively constant.
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The Current State of Data Science via Venn Diagrams
Thought this was clever. It shows how different capabilities combine to form specialties.
via Drew Conway.
The second diagram adds one element (and some descriptive 'color') to the combinations.
via Joel Grus.
I think this helps explain a lot.
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Are You Using 2-Factor Authentication?
I just got an e-mail note from my son. Thought it was worth sharing.
From: Ben Getson
Date: Saturday, October 22, 2016 at 7:09 PM
To: Howard Getson
Subject: FYI: Security StuffFYI – I just got an alert that my email address and my Gmail password were available to be purchased online.
I only use that password for my email, and I have 2-factor enabled, so I'm fine. Though this is further proof that just about everything is hacked and available online.
If you don't have two-factor enabled on your accounts, you really need to do it.
Consider yourself warned.
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Here Are Some Links for Your Weekend Reading Enjoyment – October 15th, 2016
A little iconic wordplay. Let’s call this “Trump Has A Potty-Mouth”.
Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.
- Dogs Are Better Than Humans at Resisting Peer Pressure, Filtering Bad Advice. (BigThink)
- Human Brain vs Machine Learning – A Lost Battle? (Data Science Central)
- Why the Best Leaders Want Their Superstar Employees to Leave. (WSJ)
- Here’s How Quantum Computing Will Change the World. (Forbes)
- Jon Huntsman and Other Republicans Call on Donald Trump to Drop Out of the Race. (HuffPost)
- Singapore’s Nugit Raises $5.2M to Make Sense of Big Data Using Artificial Intelligence. (TC)
- Algorithmic Trading Computers Blamed for Sterling’s ‘Flash Crash’. (QuantNews)
- Mohamed El-Erian: Deutsche Bank Not a ‘Lehman Moment,’ but Still a Big Risk. (HITC)
- 3D Printing Grows Up: Scientists are Using the Tech to Make an Earthmoving Machine. (Wired)
- President Trump’s First Term. (NewYorker)
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Can You Control Brain Waves With Your iPhone?
Managing stress and controlling mental states are important components of being successful personally and in business. I know that I operate and respond better when I am in flow, or "in-the-zone." So, I value tools and techniques that help me get there.
One of these tools is called Holosync. It is still incredibly useful to me, even though I've been using it for over ten years.
It induces relaxation and meditative states without any effort or technical know-how. Simply put on the headphones and listen to seemingly normal music. The sounds are specially encoded to do all the work.
The basic premise is that soundwaves can affect brainwaves .
Bill Harris has built a business around figuring out the brain wave patterns for meditation, creativity, compassion, etc. – and finding a way to send tones through headphones to help guide your brain waves into the chosen pattern.
I reconnected with him at a Biohacking conference last week and shot this video.
Bill was a musician and has made sure that the scientific stuff is well-hidden beneath, nicely arranged musical scores and relaxation sounds.
My heart rate calms down, my head clears, and in a few minutes, I'm in a measurably better state. How do I know? Because I have a biofeedback device that measures my pulse, heart rate, galvanic skin response, and other readings to help me learn to relax better.
I have tried various breathing and focus techniques, with varying degrees of success. However, without fail, I simply put on the headphones, and I relax.
Not just me, though, either. I've demonstrated this to skeptical children, friends, and even my wife. All of them experience the same thing. We hook them up to the biofeedback machine, we put the headphones on them, and they relax.
I use it several times a week, and almost every time I travel. I find myself using Holosync mostly at night. However, our portfolio manager uses it at the beginning of the day. He claims that it helps him concentrate and it puts him a better state to do his job.
You be the judge, though. Bill has a free trial at his website. Here is the link. All in all, this is certainly a technology worth investigating.
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Here Are Some Links for Your Weekend Reading – September 25, 2016
At least in Pro Wrestling, there is usually a 'Hero' and 'Villain'
via Cagle
Are you going to watch the Debate?
Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.
- Wells Fargo Just Became the Poster Child for When External and Internal Values Don’t Match. (QZ)
- The Value Driven Product Roadmap – a New Approach. (OmriZiv)
- Mossberg: Apple, the King of Tech Taste and Daring, Takes a Breather. (TheVerge)
- The (Not So) New Data Scientist Venn Diagram. (KDNuggets)
- CIA Using Pokemon Go for Mass Surveillance. (USAPoliticsNow)
- Traders Watching for More Volatility. (CNBC)
- New Kind of Correlation Spotted in Factors Obsessing Wall Street. (Bloomberg)
- Wave of IPOs Could Hit Global Markets within the next 12 Months. (ValueWalk)
- AOL Co-Founder Steve Case: Third Wave of Tech M&A Coming…. (FoxBusiness)
- Apple’s Tax Avoidance Illustrates Gap between Law and Economics. (WSJ)
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Things That Happen Every 60 Seconds [Infographic]
Every 60 Seconds, more than 300 hours of video are uploaded on YouTube; more than 400,000 Tweets are sent … and that is just the tip of the iceberg.
Things are happening faster, and on a broader scale, than most could imagine – even a few years ago.
Here is an infographic with the latest statistics on "The Things That Happen Every 60 Seconds" on the Internet.
via Go-Globe.
Likewise, you should see how fast trading is evolving. There is a virtual arms race for more algorithms, faster calculation, and more ways to win.
Onwards.
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Here Are Some Links for Your Weekend Reading
At some point, it becomes more important to focus on what you want … rather than what you don't want.
Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.
- AI Comes to Work: How Artificial Intelligence Will Transform Business. (BND)
- Princeton Tops List of 2017 U.S. News Best Colleges Rankings. (USAToday)
- iPhone 7 Plus Vs IPhone 6S Plus: What's the Difference? (Forbes)
- Scientists Followed 5,000 Genius Kids for 45 Years — Here's What They Learned about Success. (Insider)
- It’s Now Possible, in Theory, to Predict Life Success from a Genetic Test at Birth. (ResearchDigest)
- One Year Later, This is What Would Prompt Another "Risk-Parity" Blow Up. (ZeroHedge)
- Competition to Reinvent the Car is Getting Fiercer. (Wall Street Journal)
- The Fed's Next Move Will Impact Oil Markets. (OPEC)
- America Has Leverage over China Because It Owns So Much US Debt. (Trump)
- “Complacency” Indicator Implies Market Top. (SocGen)
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iRobot: Artificial Intelligence … or Artificial Stupidity?
We often think of Artificial Intelligence as a relatively recent creation – but that's not necessarily true.
Of course, to compare A.I. of the past with what create now would be unfair. Nonetheless, A.I. has affected thought since Greek mythology.
Stories of golden robots, homunculi and Golems have fascinated for generations.
More recently, a 240-year-old doll was found that can write any custom text up to 40 letters long using a goose feather and has eyes that follow what it writes. Imagine what the creator of that gadget could do with the tools we have today.
Seems pretty simple in comparison to all the different applications of A.I. we have today.
But as smart as Artificial Intelligence has become, it doesn't take much to thwart its purpose.
For example, iRobot's Roomba seems like a pretty cool piece of technology, right? It'll vacuum for you, learn where your furniture is, etc.
Unfortunately, it's not smart enough to tell when your pet has left a "present" on the floor for you … in which case, it just might spread poop over your whole house.
Yup, that's a real Roomba story, worth a chuckle while you read it here.
This image shows A.I. isn't always a substitute for lack of the real thing.
via Facebook
People claim that they fear Artificial Intelligence … I think artificial stupidity is pretty scary too - even when it doesn't result in smearing poop across your carpet.
One of the biggest challenges in automated trading is how quickly we can recognize when things aren't going right, and get back to doing the right thing again. It isn't just about making money, it's about making and keeping money, consistently.
As for the iRobot, they are aware of the automated poop-spreading issue and are working on a fix.
Onwards.
