Capitalogix

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekend Reading - February 26th, 2017

I think frameworks are an important tool.  Here's one that seems to be in use a lot recently.

 

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

 

Lighter Links:

• The Future of Work Manifesto. (TechCrunch)
• The Art and Science of Learning Anything Faster. (FourHourWorkWeek)
• The Five Best Super Bowl Commercials. (Washington Post)
• How to Find out If Your IPhone 7 Has Faster or Slower LTE Modem. (iPhoneHacks)
• Google Flights Will Now Tell You When Fares Will Increase, Help You Find Cheaper Tickets. (TechCrunch)

Trading Links:

• UBS Wealth Chief on Fintech: 'We are beyond Fighting'. (BusinessInsider)
• Uber Hires NASA Veteran to Help It Figure out Flying Cars. (TheVerge)
• Trump's Bonfire of Banking Rules Could Burn Us All. (Flipboard)
• The Art of a China Deal. (Chinafile)
• Microsoft: Tech Companies Aren’t Getting into Financial Services to Make Friends with Banks. (CBInsights)

Victory Is Near: A Reminder From Tony Robbins and JP Sears

I ran into YouTube sensation JP Sears at a conference this week (where Tony Robbins was going to be the keynote speaker).

If you don't know who JP Sears is ... he's funny.  Some of his most popular videos are parodies on Spirituality,  if meat-eaters acted like vegans, and being gluten-intolerant.

He also does a bit about what it is like to be at a Tony Robbins event. 

 

 

It's mainly comedy, but there are some nuggets of truth hidden in there. 

As for the Tony Robbins event, there is a lot of truth woven through lots of entertainment. And I'm always impressed by how masterfully he controls a room!

I've been to many Tony events in the past, but I get something new every time.

One of the ideas I liked was a concept he uses often ... Victory is near!

The night is always darkest before the dawn.  The storm is roughest before the break.  And even after the coldest, darkest, winter ... Spring appears.

If you're looking for a relatively short (but representational) glimpse at what Tony does – a good place to start is his TED talk on why we do the things that we do. 

 

TED via YouTube.

Hope you had a great week.  And, remember, Winter is just about over ... 

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekend Reading - February 18th, 2016

The Great Canadian Wall is up in the north.  Looks like it will hold till spring.

 

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

 

Lighter Links:

• The Genomics Intelligence Revolution. (TechCrunch)
• Generation Adderall. (New York Times)
• Spending 10 Minutes a Day on Mindfulness Subtly Changes the Way You React to Everything. (HBR)
• Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person. (NYT)
• The 5 Revolutionary Technologies that Will Dominate 2017. (Salesforce)

Trading Links:

• The Immigration Ban is a Headfake, and We’re Falling For It. (Medium)
• Biden at Davos: Russia is Greatest Threat to Democracy. (USAToday)
• Volatility at Lowest Level for over a Year, Says S&P Dow Jones. (HedgeWeek)
• Jeff Bezos Just Passed Warren Buffett to Become the Third Richest Person in the World. (CNW)
• Ray Kurzweil: the World Isn’t Getting Worse. (GeekWire)

Should the Robots That Take Your Job Be Taxed?

A Chinese factory replaced 90% of their human workers with robots and production rose by 250% ... while defects dropped by 80%.

Fascinating or terrifying?

The world is changing.

Some say change is the only constant ...  Others remind of death and taxes.

In this video,  Bill Gates says we should tax robots.

 

 

Are we about to treat robots as "electronic persons"?  It isn't unprecedented ... we already treat certain business structures like people in tax and legal matters.

But, where does it stop?  

If you tax robots ... what's the difference between a robot, an algorithm, a cotton gin, or printing press?

Taxing increased productivity could have happened at any time.

Are we ready to change the face of capitalism and society?

At the extreme, it raises a question, if production and efficiency can be raised without as many humans working, what will humans do?

This quickly leads to some far-fetched (but thought-provoking) ideas and conversations.  For example, recently Elon Musk (and this presidential candidate) proposed a Universal Basic Income.  The basic premise of this is that by giving people the minimum income necessary to survive, you free them up to do what they're passionate about.

Clever ... or crazy?

We live in exciting times. 

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekend Reading - February 11th, 2017

Extreme reactions are just as bad (if not worse) than fake news. 

 

 

 

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

 

Lighter Links:

• Why Having a System is Essential to Increasing Your Creative Output. (Medium)
• Pepsi Created a Tostitos Bag that Will Tell You If You are Drunk. (USAToday)
• Why Stop at Five Senses? Tech is Letting Us Hack Our Brains to Give Us 'Superpowers'. (Wired)
• Cellular Reprogramming Rejuvenates Old Mice and Boosts Lifespans 30%. (SingularityHub)
• What 20,000 Pages of Hacked WikiLeaks Emails Teach Us about Hillary Clinton. (Vox)

Trading Links:

• Vincent Viola, Nominee for Army Secretary, Drops Out. (New York Times)
• Donald Trump Plans to Undo Dodd-Frank Law, Fiduciary Rule. (Wall Street Journal)
• Investors Pull Most Cash from U.S. Stock Funds since Election: ICI. (Flipboard)
• Feng Shui for Your Portfolio: Where to Invest during the Year of the Rooster. (Forbes)
• This is the First Pot Company to Trade on a Major North American Stock Exchange. (News)

 

Population Growth and Climate Change Explained by Hans Rosling

Sometimes complex things can be explained simply.

 

Hans Rosling, a Swedish medical doctor, academic, and statistician became famous for just that.  

 

He died last week.  Sadly, that is what prompted me to review some of his videos, and to share this.

 

Rosling called himself an "edutainer."  He had a knack for explaining difficult concepts (like global inequality, climate change, disease, and poverty)  using a sense of humor and a strange collection of props (including, maps, storage boxes, and colored stones) to tell the story of our world. 

  

For example, in an interview with the Guardian, Rosling beckons:  "Let me show you the world," as he used stacks of Lego-like bricks to demonstrate the dynamics of population growth, child mortality, and carbon dioxide emissions.

 

 

The Guardian via YouTube.

  

"The challenge for the world is to get everyone out of extreme poverty and get the richest people to use less fossil fuels so that everyone can share their energy levels," he said.

 

His messages were often more positive than most would think, demonstrating that life is getting better for more people, if we only bothered to look at the numbers.

 

 

Here are links to two other Rosling posts worth a look.

• How Data Can Solve the World's Most Challenging Problems. 
• The Health and Wealth of Nations.

 

Facts or Fiction: How Faithful is Your Favorite "True" Movie's Story?

Recently, there's been a lot of talk about fake news and fact-checking the contents of the news and what public figure say.  However, I haven't heard much about measuring the veracity of movies.

This site was kind of interesting.

It purports to rank the relative veracity of various movies. 

For example, "Selma" is impressively accurate  (as is "The Big Short") ... "The Imitation Game"?  Not so much.

 

via Information is Beautiful

This interactive breakdown lets you be as "pedantic" as you want -- letting the "truth" be relatively flexible, or seating the truth-scale at "only what objectively happened".

So, where does your favorite film fall?

Pretty interesting.

Why Are The Patriots So Good?

Some things speak for themselves.

The Patriots just came back from a 25-point second-half deficit to win the Super Bowl.

There is a difference between 'luck' and 'skill'.

Nonetheless ... luck favors the prepared.

And, in life as in sports, hard work beats talent, when talent fails to work hard.

The Patriots, under Bill Belichick, epitomize that. 

Belichick has been a coach in 10 of 51 Super Bowls (seven of them with Tom Brady).

When you see this picture from the 2000 NFL Combine, it's hard to believe that Tom Brady would be a 3-time Superbowl MVP taking the Patriots to their 5th under his reign.

 

via CBS Sports.

It didn't happen by accident.

The Patriots are a well-oiled machine, and it's not because their players are better than the rest.  

Keep in mind, the NFL is a league at the top of the food chain (their athletes are the best of the best).  Moreover, the NFL actively creates rules designed to level the playing field and create parity.

So, it is hard to create a team that 'can't be beaten' –  When it happens, it happens because of culture, coaching, and process.  Ultimately, somehow, winners find a way to win. 

Bill isn't known as the friendliest (and he's certainly not known for dishing out praise) – but he is known for discipline (and lauding hard work when it's deserved). 

More importantly, Belichick created a framework of success that isn't reliant on the individual - and it is that which allows the individual to shine. 

Frameworks create the structure that allows, focus, specialty, and the freedom to improvise.

The System is the 'system'; but, within it, you can measure what works, who contributes, and use it to identify the best things to try next.

Win, lose, or draw ... some things speak for themselves.

NFL - Bad Lip Reading

Hope you have enjoyed Super Bowl weekend so far.

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 almost 70 million views on YouTube).

 

 

Recently, they also did one with clips from Trump's Inauguration.  

Pretty funny. 

The Dow Just Broke 20,000

In 2016, we saw some decent pull-backs and volatility.

Then Donald Trump was elected President.  

On November 22nd, the Dow reached 19,000 ... and in only 42 days, it's broken 20,000. That's the second-fastest rise ever.

Coincidence?

 

 via WSJ

With 30 components providing point value ... the 5 "heavyweights" this year are: Boeing, IBM, 3m, United Healthcare and Home Depot.

Are the markets  responding to Trump's consistency with his campaign messages?  Just happy to have some hope in change?

So, as the presidency continues, will the trend keep going up?

What do you think?

 

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