Capitalogix

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. 

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekend Reading - March 25th, 2017

Let's play "Caption This Picture."

 

Found it under the headline "Aides Wrestle Drill From Trump's Hands As He Tries To Remove Obama Listening Device From Skull."  What would you caption it?

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

  

Lighter Links:

• ‘Homo Sapiens as We Know Them Will Disappear in a Century or So’. (Yuval Noah Harari)
• A Stunning Video of Mars that Took Three Months to Stitch Together—by Hand. (Wired)
• Stephen Hawking is Going to Space. (TheNextWeb)
• Darth Vader’s Suit Would Cost $18.3 Million in Real Life. (Dailyinfographic)
• How to Tell a Good Story, as Explained by George Saunders, Ira Glass, Ken Burns, Scott Simon, Catherine Burns & Others. (OpenCulture)

 

Trading Links:

• Steve Cohen is Trying to Teach Computers to Think like Top Traders. (Bloomberg)
• John Oliver on the Federal Budget. (Ritholtz)
• Measuring the Cost of Living Worldwide. (Economist)
• Are Bonds Flashing a Warning Sign for Stocks? (SeeItMarket)
• Quants are Eating Away at Wall Street's Edge. (QuantNews)

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekend Reading - January 29th, 2017

With the explosion of Alternative Facts and Fake News ... It's important to remember to verify what you read. 

 

 

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

Lighter Links:

• Why Each Side of the Partisan Divide Thinks the Other is Living in an Alternate Reality. (The Conversation)
• Check out this Automated Resume Builder (It Could Help Former President Obama Get a Job). (Inc)
• Cybersecurity is Everybody’s Business. (Burrus)
• 25 CEO’s List 20 Things that Keep Them up at Night. (LeadershipFreak)
• Japanese Toilet Industry Agrees to Standardize Complex Bidet Controls. (TheVerge)

 

 

Trading Links:

• What Does the World Expect of a Trump Presidency? (The Conversation)
• The SEC's Reaction to High Frequency Trading. (QuantNews)
• US Jobless Claims down to 1970S Levels at 234,000 - about as Good as It Gets. (Forbes)
• SpaceX’s Leaked Finances Show Elon Musk is Betting Big on Satellite Internet. (Quartz)
• Fed's Yellen Says She's Upbeat about Short-term Economic Outlook. (Reuters)

Do We Still Need Humans?

In my office, we use a lot of what seems like "futuristic" artificial intelligence approaches to understanding financial markets. Most of my team are technical or data-science specialists that develop and drive the systems that create our systems. 

Pretty soon, we may start to question where using humans is still smart or cost-effective. 

In the meantime, I'm fascinated by what is becoming possible ... and how, even when the A.I. is little more than an elegant use of brute force, incredible results are becoming commonplace.

MIT has been looking at work by many different organizations - including Google Brain - who are working on AI that can develop machine learning software. 

In many cases, the results coming from machines coding other machines are matching or exceeding work done by humans. 

 As a point of reference, virtually all of our training techniques were developed or created by an A.I. process.

AI creating AI has many benefits.

But, at this point in time, it still requires lots of human input and insight. 

I suspect that won't be true for long.

  When that is true, what jobs will humans be doing?

 I have some thoughts, but I'd love to hear yours.

Quick, Draw!

Our non-human overlords haven't taken over yet.

However, A.I. is getting smarter faster.

Can a neural network learn to recognize doodles?

Google's Quick, Draw! will try and guess what you're drawing.

It did pretty well with mine, and I did not inherit my dad's artistic skills. 

Try it by clicking below!

 

 

Kind of cool!