Did you ever wonder where talent in Silicon Valley comes from?
Here is a map that purports to show that … and a lot more.
via Businessweek.
Some of the data is hard to believe. Interesting though.
Web/Tech
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Here Are Some Links For Your Weekend Reading
The Game of Thrones is getting more popular. Who do you think will win?
Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.
- Sun Tzu's 33 Best Pieces Of Leadership Advice. (Forbes)
- Lessons From The Samurai: The Secret To Always Being At Your Best. (Bakadesuyo)
- Obama Is Finally Acting Like Lincoln. (The Week)
- John Oliver: Stop Calling It Net Neutrality; It's 'Preventing Cable Company F**kery'. (TechDirt)
- Scientists Discovered A Way To Reverse The Process Of Aging. First Succesful Organ Regeneration in a Living Animal. (Discover)
- Record Numbers Renounce U.S. Citizenship—And Many Aren't Counted. (Forbes)
- 5 Dirty Secrets About the U.S. Economy. (Harvard Business Review)
- AngelList’s Newest Experiment: a $25 Million Fund to Invest in Angel Investors. (WSJ)
- The End of Behavioral Finance? (PragCap)
- Introduction of the Commodity Markets. (Voices)
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Here Are Some Links For Your Weekend Reading
The Game of Thrones is getting more popular. Who do you think will win?
Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.
- Sun Tzu's 33 Best Pieces Of Leadership Advice. (Forbes)
- Lessons From The Samurai: The Secret To Always Being At Your Best. (Bakadesuyo)
- Obama Is Finally Acting Like Lincoln. (The Week)
- John Oliver: Stop Calling It Net Neutrality; It's 'Preventing Cable Company F**kery'. (TechDirt)
- Scientists Discovered A Way To Reverse The Process Of Aging. First Succesful Organ Regeneration in a Living Animal. (Discover)
- Record Numbers Renounce U.S. Citizenship—And Many Aren't Counted. (Forbes)
- 5 Dirty Secrets About the U.S. Economy. (Harvard Business Review)
- AngelList’s Newest Experiment: a $25 Million Fund to Invest in Angel Investors. (WSJ)
- The End of Behavioral Finance? (PragCap)
- Introduction of the Commodity Markets. (Voices)
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Turning a Profit: See How Quickly Tech Giants Build Wealth
Do you want to know how much Apple earns in a minute? What about Twitter or Google?
Here is an interactive graphic that highlights how quickly these businesses are making money.
Click image to open interactive version (via WorldPay Zinc).The results are surprising. Here is an example showing how much revenue and profit these tech giants make per minute.
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It Is the Rubik’s Cube’s 40th Anniversary – Can You Solve It Yet?
The Rubik's Cube just had it's 40th anniversary of invention.
It is, arguably, the world's best-selling toy, having sold over 350 million units.
Here are a few things you might not know about it.
1. The Rubik's Cube was invented by Erno Rubik, a Hungarian professor of architecture and design, who wanted a working model to help explain three-dimensional geometry to his students.
2. The toy was originally named the Magic Cube. In a recent interview with The New York Times, Rubik admitted that it was strange to refer to his creation as a "Rubik's cube" and says that he calls it "my cube." Rubik introduced the toy as the Magic Cube in Hungary, named for his theory of "magic cubology," but the Ideal Toy Corp. dubbed it the Rubik's cube in 1979.
3. All possible Rubik's cube combinations can be solved in 23 moves. No matter how the cube starts out, its colors can be perfectly rearranged in 23 or fewer steps. See here.
Toys aren't just for Kids.
CubeStormer 3, built from Lego mechanical and robotics parts and powered by a Samsung Galaxy S4, shattered the world record by solving a Rubik’s Cube in only 3.253 seconds – considerabley faster than the fastest human time of 5.55 seconds.
You can watch the robot break the world record yourself below:
via YouTube.
The smartphone acts as the brain of the robot. It uses a custom app that uses the camera to make note of what the scrambled cube looks like, then sends instructions to eight Lego Mindstorm EV3 bricks, which then in turn manipulate the arms of the robot to move the cube.
“We knew CubeStormer 3 had the potential to beat the existing record but with the robot performing physical operations quicker than the human eye can see there’s always an element of risk,” Gilday said in a statement, “In the end, the hours we spent perfecting the robot and ensuring its motor and intelligence functions were properly synchronized paid off. Our big challenge now is working out if it’s possible to make it go even faster.”
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Here Are Some Links to Start Your Weekend
Do you believe that our Democracy was bought and sold a long time ago?
Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.
- Why You Should Hustle Every Day. (TheNextweb)
- Discovering Two Screens Aren’t Better Than One. (NYTimes)
- You Could Read An Entire Harry Potter Book In Under 90 Minutes With This App. (HuffPost)
- 35 Expensive Things for Your Dream House. (Distractify)
- Military's 'Iron Man' Suit May Be Ready to Test This Summer. (LiveScience)
- Remember Lotus Notes? It's Still a Billion-Dollar IBM Business. (WSJ)
- What Will Robots Do to Property Values? (Freakonomics)
- Can Emerging Market Bonds Help Us Predict the Next Bear Market? (FinancialSense)
- How Do You Rein In High Speed Trading? (Points and Figures)
- Welcome to the Odd World of Alternative Currencies. Believe it or not, they're coming. (Futures)
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Here Are Some Links to Start Your Week
Trading pros may not think things are different. However, the public is reacting to suggestions that Wall Streets may be rigged against them.
In this cartoon, Darkow draws the Carnival Midway Game of Wall Street, "Spill the Milk" … which disguises the super-fast high-frequency stock trading center for insiders only.
The Carny beckons to the 'Little Guy': "Step right up, friend… It's a game of skill. Trust Me!".
This kind of public sentiment often triggers regulatory scrutiny … which, in turn, triggers new games of 'skill'.
Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.
- The Science of Making Your Story Memorable – Scott Adams. (Dilbert)
- 45 People Share the Best Piece Of Advice They’ve Ever Heard. (Thought Catalog)
- The Best April Fools’ Pranks of 2014. (TechCrunch)
- Meet The Seven People Who Hold The Keys To Worldwide Internet Security. (The Guardian)
- Chicago Police Department Believes It Can See The Future, Starts Warning Citizens About Crimes They Might Commit. (TechDirt)
- Will Last Year's Winners Be This Year's Losers? (BlackRock)
- Goldman Sachs Chief: The Responsible Way to Rein in Super-Fast Trading. (WSJ)
- Themis Trading Response To Goldman Sachs Market Structure Op-ed. (ThemisTrading)
- Technical Analysis Practice: Contrast between Individuals and Professionals. (DragonflyCap)
- Scott Adams Blog: Robot Geniuses are Coming. (Dilbert)
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Watch “The Expert” Comedy Sketch Video
Here is a Dilbert-style parody of how a corporate team uses an expert.
What happens when people don't have a clue about problem solving (or 'definition'), realistic goal setting, or practical reality?
You end up with ridiculous tasks that are literally impossible. And that's exactly what "The Expert" nails perfectly.
Funny (and sometimes too true).
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Is the U.S. Stock Market Rigged?
Did you see the 60 Minutes report on Michael Lewis' new book, "Flash Boys," that reveals some of the ways that high speed traders work the stock market to their advantage.
Here is an excerpt from the intro.
Steve Kroft: What’s the headline here?
Michael Lewis: The Stock Market is rigged. The United States stock market, the most iconic market in global capitalism is rigged.
Steve Kroft: By whom?
Michael Lewis: By a combination of these stock exchanges, the big Wall Street banks and high-frequency traders.
Steve Kroft: Who are the victims?
Michael Lewis: Everybody who has an investment in the stock market.
The 60 Minutes piece has a interesting explanation of what is happening.
For an even better one, click to watch this Michael Lewis interview on Bloomberg, where he defends his claim that the market is rigged.
via Bloomberg Television's “Market Makers.”
Let me know if you want to talk about high frequency trading or what is likely to happen as a result of press coverage like this and the ensuing regulatory scrutiny.
We live in interesting times.
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Here Are Some Links to Start Your Week
We just passed the five-year anniversary of economic stimulus.
Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.
- Are We Alone in the Universe? (NYTimes)
- Some of the Most Plausible Scenarios for Alien Civilizations. (Io9)
- Lockheed Martin Working on a Spy Plane that Can Fly Anywhere on Earth—in an Hour. (Newser)
- The Future of Health Tech Is Going to Try to Improve Your Life In 2014. (TechCrunch)
- Six Famous Thought Experiments, Animated in 60 Seconds Each. (Brain Pickings)
- Are Banks Obsolete? (Forbes)
- How close are we to the self-driving car age? (The New Yorker)
- Drone Deliveries May Be a Sideshow to Amazon’s Real Ambition for the Skies. (Quartz)
- Why colonize planets when you can colonize outer space? (Dvorak)
- A “Future-Hunter” Examines the Dangers of Stock Trading at the Speed of Light. (ScientificAmerican)
