Capitalogix

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - January 20th, 2019

Most citizens don't have big savings account to buffer them against an unexpected expense or loss of income.

The Government Shutdown is one of the curveballs most workers haven't planned for adequately.

 

Actions have consequences.

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

 

Lighter Links

• Full Translation: China's 'New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan' (2017). (Newamerica)
• Apple Buys 50 Business Class Seats from San Francisco to Shanghai Every Day. (MacRumors)
• Ford Built a Sweaty Robot Butt to Simulate Your Sweaty Human Butt. (BGR)
• Intimate Portraits of People over 100 Years Old Reveal the Beauty of Aging Bodies. (MyModernMet)
• Costco is Selling a 27-Pound Tub of Mac and Cheese that Lasts 20 Years. (BusinessInsider)

 

Trading Links

• Fear of Algorithm Trading is Really Just the Fear of the Unknown. (Quartz)
• Hedge Funds Suffer Worst Year since 2011. (FT)
• Nearly Half of Workers Earn Less Than $30,000. (Ritholtz)
• Michael Dell Gets $12 Billion Richer with Break from Public Eye. (Fortune)
• The New Impossible Burger 2.0 Won Everyone's Mouth at CES 2019, but That's Just the Beginning. (Forbes)

How Long Does It Take To Get 50 Million Users?

Cool tech often gets adopted by porn and gambling before more mainstream uses.

Porn was the launchpad for video streaming, mobile-enabled sites, VR, and (unfortunately) pop-up ad technologies. 

With that said, the next chart surprised me.  It shows the number of years it took for various products to gain 50 million users.

 

 

Pornhub tracks data like its business depends on it.  Well, it is the number one site for pornography.  What does that mean? In 2018, over 5,517,700,000 hours of porn was watched on their site. That’s approximately 6,298 centuries of video.

Moreover, last year, it got  33.5 BILLION visits. That’s 1,064 people a second, or 92 million a day.  To put that in perspective, that's more people than live in the entire country of Germany.

Here are some additional factoids about its use.

• 4403 Petabytes of data transferred (574 MB of data for every person on earth)
• Consumed more bandwidth than the entire internet in 2002
• Stormy Daniels was the number 1 "trend" search in 2018  (followed by Fortnite ...)
• 4k ultra-hd overtook 1080p in search trends

 

via Pornhub

For the full list of stats click here. 

They are so popular, it is almost obscene.

A.I. in Film: A Retrospective

AI has been around in science fiction for over 1oo years. As it becomes reality, it's amusing to look at different depictions and attempt to connect the dots. 

AI first broke onto the film scene with Metropolis in 1927. "Maria" the evil robot disguising herself as a human played on many human fears; deception, lack of control, and perhaps most importantly being replaced.

Maria represented a future that was bleak and set the foundation for AI in cinema. Since then, there have been approximately 100 movies starring AI.

According to Enlighten Digital,  52% of movies portray AI positively, which means it's about 50/50, and there has been a 144% increase in AI movies since 2010 - so we're becoming more saturated with AI.

According to a study by Cambridge, seeing more films portraying robots (whether positive or negative) is associated with more positive attitudes toward robots. This is in line with the theory that the more exposure one has with "out-group" members (i.e. robots, or people of other races) the more positive one's attitude toward them. 

 

(Click to view Full Size) via NovaStor 

The depiction of AI has always been a reflection of its time ... as our values, ambitions, and technology has changed, so has on-screen AI. 

So what does today's AI look like?

On HBO, we have Westworld. In movies, iRobot, Chappie, and Blade Runner 2049 ... it's clear the promise and the peril of AI has continued to evolve.

These movies all have different tones but there's a trope that remains common from that initial film in 1927 to films in 2018. 

We're always imagining that next step. What's going to happen as AI becomes (in some ways) smarter than us? What's going to happen when our creations surpass our control? What's going to happen if the line between human and robot blurs?

There are a lot of advancements in real-life, in respect to AI. As such, there is a lot of movement on AI ethics, and how to best limit or best enable AI. 

In film, we gravitate toward two extremes - utopias and dystopias. In real life, we can recognize those extremes are unlikely ... but the effect of AI is still profound. 

We're expanding a technology with the ability to radically change our world - for better or worse - so it's important to keep a purpose-driven approach. We can't lose track of humanity in the pursuit of AI. 

Metropolis's final title card (that first AI movie from 1927)  still rings true ... "The Mediator Between the Head and the Hands Must Be the Heart"

 

Onwards!

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - December 30th, 2018

Christmas Eve saw Dow's historic low ... but it was immediately followed with a 1086 point rally (its largest single-day gain). The S&P and Dow both rallied approximately 5%.

 

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

Lighter Links

• A Nobel Prize-winning Psychologist Says Most People Don't Really Want to Be Happy. (Quartz)
• There is No Such Thing as Conscious Thought. (Scientific American)
• Automated Cyber Attacks are the next Big Threat. Ever Hear of 'Review Bombing'? (Entrepreneur)
• NASA's Scientists Formed a Club to Dream up Uses for AI like Self-replicating Robots and Harpooning Comets. (Quartz)
• A Chinese Company Said It Created a Photo with Such a High Resolution that You Can Zoom from Thousands of Meters Away to See People's Facial Expressions. (BusinessInsider)

 

 

Trading Links

• Alan Greenspan: Investors Should Prepare for the Worst. (CNN)
• 5 Charts that Explain the Global Economy in 2018. (WEForum)
• The 7 Most Anticipated IPOs in 2019. (Fool)
• Wall Street Quietly Shelves Its Bitcoin Dreams. (Bloomberg)
• After a $2 Billion Company Bonus, Every Employee at Juul is Now a Millionaire. (RobbReport)

A Look Back At The Future, Part 2

As the holiday season begins, I was thinking about my father.

I love him and miss him ... but, truth be told, I teased him mercilessly about being technologically challenged (especially around the holidays, when I'd buy him a new gadget –  only to roll on the floor laughing while watching him try to figure it out).

Karma is a bitch!  My Dad used to say "whatever you make fun of me for ... will happen to you." 

I didn't yet realize how fast the world was changing ... or how quickly I'd find it hard to keep up. 

In 2015 I wrote an article about this titled "A Look Back at The Future". 

It's only four years later ... and somehow my realizations seem out-dated.

It's not just me, it's everyone! 

Realize that human perception is linear, but technological growth isn't.

As technology progression evolves and quickens, it is going to get harder to keep up.

Check out this video from 1974 ... It shows Arthur C. Clarke making some impressive guesses about the future of technology.

 

 

Now that we're here, it may not seem like an impressive prediction ... but how cool was it that Arthur C. Clarke believed a computer would fit on a desk in 1974?   

Do you think that you can predict what a computer will look like in 2034? 

Artificial Intelligence, quantum computing, augmented reality, neuro-interfaces, etc. are all going to change the face and nature of computing and perhaps life itself. 

We live in exciting times!

Onwards.

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - November 25th, 2018

 I remember when they told me that eating meat was bad for my health ...

 

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

Lighter Links  

• Is It Possible to Replay the Tape' of Evolution? (Futurity)
• Should You Be Eating a High-Fat, Low-Carb Diet like Keto? Scientists Weigh In. (Gizmodo)
• An 1861 Japanese Book of American History. (Neatorama)
• Beijing to Judge Every Resident Based on Behavior by End of 2020.(Bloomberg)
• How Many Fake Accounts are There on Facebook? Here's a Clue: 1.5 Billion Fake Accounts Were Removed in Just the past 6 Months. (Neatorama)

 

Trading Links

• Mark Cuban Explains Why Dallas Wasn't Selected as Amazon's HQ2 Location. (SportsDay)
• Jerry Jones: Wouldn't Sell Cowboys for Less Than $10 Billion.(Profootballtalk)
• Beyond Meat Continues to Sizzle, Announces IPO. (Forbes)
• Masayoshi Son: the Man behind a $90B Empire. (TechInAsia)
• How Juul, Founded on a Life-Saving Mission, Earned a $16B Valuation Despite the Controversy. (FastCompany)

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - November 18th, 2018

This is how we warm-up for Thanksgiving in Texas ...

 

 

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

Lighter Links  

• Is this AI? We Drew You a Flowchart to Work It Out. (TechReview)
• In Defense of "Designer Babies". (Reason)
• China's Artificial Sun is Now Hot Enough for Nuclear Fusion. (Futurism)
• Science Confirms: Earth Has More Than One 'Moon'.(BigThink)
• Sign Your Address up for USPS Informed Delivery Before Scammers Do. (LifeHacker)

Trading Links

• Billionaire Ray Dalio Says Capitalism is Not Working for Most People. (Barrons)
• Bank of Japan's Balance Sheet Now Larger Than Country's GDP. (Reuters)
• Meat Has a Replacement but No One Knows What to Call It. (Bloomberg)
• Here are the Most Outrageous Incentives Cities Offered Amazon in Their HQ2 Bids. (Buzzfeednews)
• A Virtual Assistant Called Abbie is Picking the Best Bonds for Traders to Buy or Sell. (TechReview)

 

Eight Major Forces Shaping Our Global Economy

In trading, the holding period (or "time in trade") is shrinking.  Consequently, there is less focus on predicting markets ... and more focus on determining which techniques are making money most predictably.

Markets are not the same as the economy ... and on a macro scale, it is possible to understand and predict the major forces shaping our global economy.

Jeff Desjardins, of the Visual Capitalist, recently highlighted some of the major forces that are changing our global economy.  Here is a summary.

 

The Tech Invasion ... and its Accelerating Progress

 

If you were to look at the biggest companies globally - almost all of them are in tech. Fifty years ago, the largest companies were in commodities (like oil, steel, etc.). Even 5 years ago, the biggest companies were widely "goods" centric. 

 

via Visual Capitalist

But it's more than just the biggest companies. We're experiencing a technological revolution in many subspaces - AI, 3D printing, gene editing, quantum computing, etc.   

Yet, for all the change and disruption we've experienced until today - understand that it is going to get faster, and more pronounced, in the future. 

And, it isn't just the tech that is new.  The pace of its adoption across industries is a game-changer as well.

 

via Visual Capitalist

We are at a point where new technology often gets released before the previous iteration can fully take hold and mature.

It is not just trading that is getting faster, product cycles are compressing, and foundational technologies are disrupted and replaced (or made obsolete) faster than ever as well.

Even global adoption cycles have become viral and near instantaneous.  Think about how fast Pokemon Go (AR) got adopted, or new Smartphones became mainstream.

 

The Evolution of Money, a Changing Wealth Landscape, ... and China

 

Money's definition is changing.  Cash is becoming less common (with the increasing use of credit cards, electronic payments, and payment services like Paypal, Venmo, and ApplePay).  In addition, the public has maintained its interest in cryptocurrencies.

Ultimately, our perception of money may radically change how global economies work. 

On top of that, money is changing hands, the ultra-wealthy are from different industries than before, and the wealthiest countries & companies widely influence politics. 

 

via Visual Capitalist

Consider the economic rise of China. Even though we've been watching China grow for decades, the scope of its population and economic impact can still be difficult to understand. China has over 100 cities with more than 1,000,000 inhabitants.  Even scarier, perhaps, is that China now has more honor students than we have students. 

 

Conclusion

 

Obviously, the global economy is changing.  To see more about the eight forces shaping it, read this.

We live in interesting times.

Onwards.

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - November 4th, 2018

Reminder: election day is this Tuesday. 

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

Lighter Links  

• Radical Candor the Surprising Secret to Being a Good Boss. (FirstRound)
• 21 Lessons from Jeff Bezos' Annual Letters to Shareholders. (CBInsights)
• When the 80/20 Rule Fails: the Downside of Being Effective. (JamesClear)
• Stephen Hawking's Final Book Tackles the Big Questions. (BigThink)
• This Chart Shows How Everything Has Changed since Trump Became President. (CNBC)

 

Trading Links

• What Investors Can Learn from Gamblers. (Wall Street Journal)
• A Wealth Management Point of View on Blockchain and Bitcoin.(TheReformedBroker)
• Google Drops out of Pentagon's $10 Billion Cloud Competition.(Bloomberg)
• Bezos Sets New Wealth Record, Losing $19.2 Billion over Two Days.(Bloomberg)
• Godfather' of Chart Analysis Says Damage Done to the Stock Market' is Much, Much Worse' Than Anyone is Talking About. (MarketWatch)

The World's 20 Largest Tech Giants

Today, the technology universe is more uniform than you'd think.  All of the top 20 technology companies are based in America and China.

Since 2013, China has added 5 to their side and America has lost 1. 

Here is the list.

 

via Visual Capitalist

It's also interesting to note that there's a steep dropoff between the "giants" and the companies lower down the ladder. There isn't a single company with a valuation between $200 billion and $450 billion. 

To put it in a different perspective, here's a pie chart showing the market capitalization of the top 5 tech companies in comparison to the bottom 282 S&P 500 companies. 

 

via Michael Batnick

It can be hard for a tech company to break into the upper echelons.  However, with tech, change is the only constant. 

What are some of the companies you think have a chance to enter the realm of these giants?