Capitalogix

How Amazon's AI Is Changing How You Stock A 'Pantry'

Normally, we see stores and warehouses organized by section - Cereals, Cheese, Fruit. This makes sense because as humans, it's easier to find everything if it's organized logically for us. 

Amazon is changing that. 

Their new service, "Prime Now," promises thousands of items delivered to you in around an hour.

That level of immediacy and activity creates an interesting set of logistical problems.  For example, how would you organize the warehouse to enable that level of service?  The answer might surprise you.

 

Tech Insider via Yahoo

The answer is you don't.  If you walked into one of Amazon's PrimeNow warehouses, you'd see a bunch of pods with random items next to each other.  You might find cleaning supplies next to a children's toy, or maybe even an adult toy. 

While this may seem weird or counter-intuitive ... with numerous "shoppers" all going through the warehouse at the same time, if the warehouse was organized by category or popularity,  the result would be traffic jam bottlenecks and less throughput. 

By organizing items randomly, and having the list of items ready ahead of time, Amazon's computers can create an optimum path for each "shopper" that takes into account the position of the items, where the checkout is, and where other shoppers are grabbing items.  

That optimum path is critical in getting your order on time.   This is another example of organized chaos – where human logic (or common sense) is not the most efficient or effective path to an optimal solution.

Pretty Cool!

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - September 25th, 2017

Interesting week in the Twit-o-Sphere as Steph Curry and Donald Trump feud, and Ted Cruz is "caught" liking porn on Twitter. 

Who would have guessed Twitter would play such a strong a role in today's political climate?

I believe that everyone deserves the right to my opinion (as much as anyone) ... Still, sometimes silence is the best policy.

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

Lighter Links:

• This Company Wants to Grow A.I. by Using Blockchain. (CNBC)
• New Neuroscience Reveals 4 Rituals that Will Make You Happy. (TheLadders)
• Google Wants You to Know What Data It Has on You. (Fortune)
• Marriage vs. the Single Life: Who Has It Better? (PsychologyToday)
• Hackers Could Program Sex Robots to Kill. (NYPost)

Trading Links:

• One-Tenth of Global GDP is Now Held in Offshore Tax Havens. (ZeroHedge)
• Goldman Sachs Thinks Fintech Has As Much Potential as Trading. (Quartz)
• Cowboys Are World's Most Valuable Team at $4.8 Billion. (AP News)
• Social Finance: Where Wealth and Values Meet. (Forbes)
• Obama Goes from White House to Wall Street in Less Than One Year. (Bloomberg)

The A.I. Revolution: Humans Need Not Apply?

We're in the midst of a revolution, and no, I don't mean a political one. 

Artificial Intelligence has been around since the 1950's.  But, we are at an inflection point.  It is no longer an "if" ... it is a "when".  And the answer is probably "Now!"

AI technologies are expanding into broad and diverse markets.

Artificial Intelligence is no longer seen as a massive R&D effort – it is becoming a core competency.

Here is a chart showing  AI adoption in various industries. (replace image with non-blurry one)

 

McKinsey Global Institute via Vox

While AI is promising on many fronts, this "revolution" elicits fear from many.

For example, Elon Musk told the National Governors Association that the risks posed by A.I. are so great that it needs to be proactively regulated before it's too late. 

What about you?  Are you afraid of Skynet turning on, becoming self-aware and setting out to destroy the human race.? Or, are you looking to benefit from the new capabilities and possibilities AI creates for us?

 

Arousal States: Biofeedback and the Story You Tell Yourself [Part 3]

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 a recent exercise session.

 

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.

It's 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. 

This is a very useful tool.

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 - August 20th, 2017

Change is the only constant.

 

  

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

 

Lighter Links:

• AI Beats the World's Best Gamers after Just Two Weeks of Learning. (NewAtlas)
• Russia-linked Hackers Targeted Hotel Guests across Europe: Security Firm. (Reuters)
• One Year after Rio: What's Left behind after the Flame Goes Out. (ESPN)
• Humans and Robots are on the Cusp of a Sexual Intimacy We May Never Reverse. (Quartz)
• Elon Musk Just Shared His 4-Step Plan for Mars - Colonists Should Be "Prepared to Die". (ScienceAlert)

 

Trading Links:

• Ray Dalio Urges Investors to Hedge Against Possible North Korea War. (FN)
• There Has Never, Ever, Been this Many Trades Betting on VIX. (ZH)
• Amazon Could Start Selling Event Tickets in the U.S. (TechCrunch)
• South Korea Introduces World's First Robot Tax. (ZeroHedge)
• The Number of Cash Payments Dipped 11 Per Cent Last Year - But It's Still the Most Used Payment Method. (CityAM)

Rubik's Cubes ... More than just a game.

One of my unique abilities is pattern matching.

Even if I'm not an expert in a field, based on context and patterns, I quickly see the big picture – and recognize the bottlenecks and leverage points that impact transformative results.

Perhaps that's why Rubik's Cubes fascinate me. 

A scrambled cube presents an insurmountable challenge to newbies.  It almost seems that there are infinite possibilities ... and most lead towards chaos and failure. In reality, a Rubik's cube is pretty easy to solve if you understand a few simple algorithms (and match the positions of a couple key blocks in relation to the decisions you need to make next). 

As more people learn to solve standard cubes, the game evolves.  There is new generation of "Cubers" that attempt to find new creative situations to add difficulty, solve it faster than the next person, or try crazy variations of the cube that barely resembles the original. 

 

If you're trying to learn how to solve a basic cube, here's a great resource. 

After you've learned the basic patterns, and solved a few puzzles,  you can up the ante.

Here are some examples of bigger cubes with more variables and different shapes.

 

via hananujiya

Ultimately, it is that base pattern recognition and simple solving skills (applied in the right order) that sets the stage.

It doesn't matter where you start.  As long as you continue to make progress, the result is inevitable.

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - July 16th, 2017

Science, Art, or "PooPoo De Toro"...

  

 

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

Lighter Links:

• Ray Kurzweil: There's a Blueprint for the Master Algorithm in Our Brains (Futurism)
• Brain-training Games Don't Really Train Brains, a New Study Suggests. (WashPost)
• Why Men Don't Live as Long as Women. (Nautilus)
• What a Hunter-Gatherer Diet Does to the Body in Just Three Days. (CNN)
• Is Philosophy Simply Harder Than Science? (TLS)

Trading Links:

• Return of the Day Traders. (Forbes)
• The Unexpected Economic Consequences of Video Games. (Vox)
• Why Elon Musk's Early Adopters Take Risks. (Forbes)
• Nvidia Heads 50 Companies that Will Change the World. (Alphr)
• This is the Future of Investing, and You Probably Can't Afford It. (BizInsider)

A Better Way to Exercise - Whole Body Vibration Technology

Do you remember seeing a video of one of those old "exercise machines" that vibrated a belt around somebody's middle? While that might have been a fad, we now know that was not exercising.

Strangely, there is now something similar that is gaining in popularity and actually seems to work quite well. It's called the Power Plate.

This machine uses something called whole body vibration, a technology developed by Russia to use in its space program to combat the affects of zero gravity. Later, they used this technology to help train athletes; and you've seen variations of this in training methods like plyometrics.

Here is a picture of the Power Plate my5.

They claim that 15 minutes on this machine is the equivalent of about an hour at the gym. So how does it work?  Well, as long as you understand that you have to exert some effort, the Power Plate works much better than I would've guessed.

At its simplest level, the machine vibrates 40 times per second. The movements happen in three different planes: front-to-back, side-to-side, and up-and-down. The movements are small enough, and happen so quickly, that they are rarely visible to the naked eye. Nonetheless, your body certainly feels them.

The Power Plate is a little bit larger than your typical doctor's scale. You stand on its platform while performing various movements or stretches. For example, imagine doing a deep knee bend and holding that position when your thighs are parallel to the ground (basically a half squat). As you hold this position, normally, your thigh muscles would get a decent isometric exercise - and you can probably imagine them burning a little. Now imagine what would happen if, as you are performing that exercise, the platform vibrated 40 times per second. Think how many more muscles you would engage. Think how much better this would be as a core stability exercise.

The Power Plate is designed to support a wide range of exercises for all of your main muscle groups - and comes with various accessories, like straps and mats. I found that many of the exercises I enjoy most are movements that my wife says are similar to yoga positions. I try not to let that discourage me from doing them.

The machine gets used every day. My wife and son like it too.  It is exercise, and it does take work.  With that said, it has had a noticeable effect on my strength, flexibility and my ability to do traditional workouts at the gym.

You can find out more about this at the manufacturer's website. 

Here are some links about the machine and exercises.

• Info about Power Plate for the home.
• Here are Power Plate video training sessions showing 34 exercises.
• Here are more exercises.
• Here is a stretching video.
• Here is a YouTube search for Power Plate.  And, finally,
• Here are some articles on the science behind the technology

Inspiration Comes In Many Forms ...

Once a year, I go to the World BBQ Championship at Memphis in May. 

It's three days of friends, food, and fun.

This year was special. My friend, Andy Daniels' tent won third place in the ribs contest.

In addition, I gained some inspiration while spending time at Doug McKnight's tent with Blake Carson.

Have you ever been to a Brazilian steakhouse?  On top of an endless supply of meat, they also have a unique "churrasco" cooking and presentation style.

Blake saw that style of cooking - and innovated it - creating the Carson Rodizio kit (which started as a Kickstarter project).  It is a multi-rotisserie rack that converts your favorite backyard grill into an open and spinning Brazilian style Steakhouse.  It's clever, functional, and cool ... and it's been used to win multiple barbecue championships.

I love to experience an entrepreneur's mind at work.  

It's not always about what you add.  Sometimes, it is about what you take away.  Less is often more. 

Here is a one-minute interview with Blake.

 

 

For more on Carson Rodizio, here is their Facebook page.

Innovation, like opportunity, is all around you.

But it's not there for you if you don't see the opportunity, and seize it. 

Tasty! 

I Don't Fear Artificial Intelligence - I Do Fear Artificial Stupidity

I don't know if you've ever tried to paint a room - but if you have, I'm sure you've come across some bizarre paint names. 

How does that relate to AI?

Well, Janelle Shane is a research scientist, and neural network aficionado - as any good data scientist should, she spends a lot of her free time playing with neural networks (... to varying results). 

Recently, she attempted to train an algorithm (specifically char-rnn, a neural network that attempts to anticipate the next character in a sequence) to create new paint colors and accompanying names. 

After it was fully trained, here are the results: 

 

via LewisandQuark

As you can see, it knows there are colors, but it struggles to keep the names associated with the appropriate color. 

"Turdly" seems pretty close though ... but I always wanted to paint my room "Stanky Bean."

As you might know, that was not the first time artificial intelligence has created something artificially stupid. 

For example, how about when Microsoft attempted to create an AI chatbot named "Tay" by analyzing tweets?

Tay quickly became very .... very racist. 

via TheVerge

Clearly, mistakes were made (and Tay isn't as dangerous as a human racist) – but, it does raise questions.

AI is cool ... But, artificial stupidity is still scary.

For now, that is the way it is. 

As we explore new avenues and smarter algorithms for AI to be trained with, it will be interesting to see what Frankenstein's monsters we create.