Capitalogix

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - April 21st, 2019

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

Lighter Links:

• What are the Most Promising Uses for Blockchain We Haven't Seen Yet? (Forbes)
• Sperm and Sensibility: The Modern World of Designer Children. (TLS)
• Thousands of Amazon Workers are Listening in on Echo Audio, Report Says. (AppleInsider)
• Strength Training for the Lungs: Why Heavy Breathing Could Be a Shortcut to Improving Your Health. (Telegraph)
• Forecasting the Future: Can the Hive Mind Let Us Predict the Future? (Futurism)

 

Trading Links:

• NVIDIA AI Research Points to an Evolution of the Chip Business. (ZDNet)
• Philip Morris International is Sticking with E-Cigs, Not Marijuana. (Fool)
• This Simple Map Shows the Biggest Employers in Each State. (Good)
• Lyft's I.P.O. is Making the Same Circle of Men Rich, Again. (New York Times)
• The Future of Electric Cars is Happening Now in China. (Quartz)

 

 

Let My People Go!

It's a special weekend. 

For Jews, it's Passover - the holiday honoring our exodus from Egypt. 

For Christians, it's Easter - the holiday honoring Jesus's resurrection. 

The overlap can be seen in DaVinci's Last Supper, a Passover Seder, and Jesus's last meal before his crucifixion.  

For both, it's a holy and family-centric time. A reminder to appreciate what we have, and how we stand on the shoulders of our ancestors. 

One of the memorable phrases from Exodus is when Moses says "Let my people go!"  For generations, people assumed he was talking to the Pharoh about his people's freedom. After a week of eating clogging matzoh, matzoh balls, and even fried matzoh ... for many Jews "Let my people go" takes on a different meaning.

Hope you celebrated with family, food, and a reverence for all the blessings around you. 

Don't Miss The Forest For The Trees: Change Blindness

There are few certainties in life ... according to Benjamin Franklin:

"Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."

According to the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus: 

"Change is the only constant in life" 

He's also quoted as saying "everything changes and nothing stands still."

Maybe he didn't pay his taxes. 

Change is a constant, yet, it's often hard to see the forest for the trees. 

It seems like just yesterday that my son, Zach, was making sand castles on the beach – or wearing silly t-shirts. Now, he's 26, the soft spot on his head has filled in enough to consider him an adult – and he is generally unrecognizable from that kid on the beach at the Jersey Shore. 

 

On a day-by-day basis, I rarely noticed the change. However, looking at old pictures makes it obvious that there was massive growth and progress. 

So, what did I notice?  Sometimes it was what a great kid, or how loving, he had been.  Other times, it was almost the opposite.  Or, perhaps, I noticed that he didn't eat vegetables, or that he drove with a heavy foot.  In any case, what I focused on is what my life seemed filled with, to me. And it was mostly about the moment.  The bigger picture was lost (or hidden) behind the small things that make up the fabric of our life (or at least our perception of our life).

It is human nature.  Survival of the fittest rewarded a focus on avoiding predators or other dangers ... as well as recognizing the opportunity to eat. 

Thousands of years later, fear and greed still drive more than we like to admit.  It is also a big part of the engine that drives our markets. 

It is all about perspective, isn't it? 

We are where we are. It doesn't really matter how or why we got there. We are here. And little-by-little we won't be here anymore.

If you are looking at the country or the economy, realize that it took years to get here. Simply changing a regime won't flip a switch.  Some changes happen in slow-motion. 

Or, perhaps from our perspective, some changes appear to happen in slow-motion ... but what others see as change, you see as symptoms of the root cause. 

From different vantage points, the rate of change can seem different.

 

The same can be said for changes in a person or changes in a business. It's easy to see the gap between where you are and where you'd like to be. Regardless, you will probably get there faster by building momentum and confidence by focusing on the improvements and progress you're making. If you change your perspective - you may realize you've made more progress than you thought. 

Tough times are great opportunities to discover character.  I'm often amazed at the innovation and insight that occurs at times like these!

Don't pay so much attention to what you think you have to do that you forget the reason you're doing it in the first place. 

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - April 7th, 2019

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

Lighter Links:

• Scientists Plead to Stop Creation of Killer Robots: We're at 'The Brink of a New Arms Race'. (FoxNews)
• Moratorium on Human Genome Editing: Time to Get It Right. (HastingsCenter)
• 'Those Who Obeyed the Rules Were Favored by Evolution'.(Spiegel)
• Meet the World's Oldest Confirmed Person, 116-Year-Old Kane Tanaka. (TwistedSifter)
• Why Democrats Want to Abolish the Electoral College and Republicans Want to Keep It. (Fortune)

Trading Links:

• Why Companies that Wait to Adopt AI May Never Catch Up.(HBR)
• Iranian Hackers Have Hit Hundreds of Companies in past Two Years. (Wall Street Journal)
• What is an Inverted Yield Curve and What Does It Really Mean? (TheStreet)
• S&P 500 Posts Best First Quarter in 21 Years. (FoxBusiness)
• Bill Gates is Back in the $100 Billion Club, and Not All Thanks to Microsoft. (CNW)

 

 

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - March 24th, 2019

via KDNuggets

 

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

Lighter Links:

• Jeff Bezos Predictions from 20 Years Ago that Were Right on the Money. (BusinessInsider)
• Imagining the Smart Cities of 2050. (SingularityHub)
• Secrets of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List. (CNN)
• How Designers Engineer Luck into Video Games. (Nautilus)
• CRISPR Gene Editing: Why We Need Slow Science. (The Conversation)

 

Trading Links:

• Why Companies like Lyft and Uber are Going Public without Having Profits. (Re/code)
• Are Animal Spirits Making a Comeback? (Bloomberg)
• This is What the Average American Spends in a Day. (Fool)
• The AI-Art Gold Rush is Here. (The Atlantic)
• Who Wants to See a Movie about High-Frequency Trading? High-Frequency Traders. (Wall Street Journal)

 

 

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - March 17th, 2019

The US grounded the Boeing 737 Max after similarities between two crashes. It's good they did, safety first, but it definitely caused some headaches coming back from Saskatchewan.  There's an interesting thought experiment here to understand the complexities that the airlines had to solve.

Imagine a 737 holds 200 people and does 4 or 5 flights a day. American has 24 737s in its fleet. That means each day ~24,000 people are displaced on American Airlines alone. They're replacing those planes with smaller regional jets – meaning more flights, more small airports, and more delays. The logistical/supply chain dynamics are a nightmare. 

 

 

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

Lighter Links:

• DARPA's New AI, Machine Learning 'Breakthrough'. (Realcleardefense)
• Dr. Elon & Mr. Musk: Life inside Tesla's Production Hell. (Wired)
• The Psychology behind Costco's Free Samples. (The Atlantic)
• The Fall of Rome and the Lessons for America. (Time)
• How Timeboxing Works and Why It Will Make You More Productive. (HBR)

 

 

Trading Links:

• Despite Store Closings, There's Still One Blockbuster Store Left in the World. (USAToday)
• Oracle's Larry Ellison Has a $1 Billion Stake in Tesla. (TheStreet)
• Mansa Musa: the Richest Man Who Ever Lived. (BBC)
• Amazon Go Cashierless Stores are Coming to Airports. (VentureBeat)
• Millions of Japanese Homes are Abandoned, and Owners are Giving Them Away for Free. (BusinessInsider)

Avoiding Death By Snowmobile: Part II

Last year, I recounted my humbling via snowmobile. 

I traveled to Saskatchewan, Canada and "sledded" with people who had been doing it since birth. 

When I got there, everyone was in great spirits. Apparently, this is a sport done with day drinking, lots of laughter, and semi-reckless abandon.

We split into groups: Insane, Merely Crazy, and the Turtles. I figured I was relatively safe with the Turtles ... I was wrong. 

 

 

The machines are capable of gliding over the snow at speeds exceeding 120 miles per hour.  I wasn't going nearly that fast ... but the beasts were harder to tame than I expected. 

Despite crashing numerous times, totaling a sled, and being sore for weeks ... I had so much fun on year one that I brought my son with me on year two. 

 

 

Last year, I recognized 2 things: 

1. Humans are deletion creatures. That means they can hold seven things (plus or minus two) in their memory. While they were focused on fun, I was focused on how to stay on the sled
2. You're supposed to stay on the sled, and leaning into the turn helps you do that ... who'd've thunk it? 

This year I learned a couple more: 

1. People don't forget. Everyone remembered my less than skillful sledding. 
2. Youth is wasted on the young. My son picked it up fast and was speeding as if he'd been on a sled his whole life (despite falls that would cause people with skulls that no longer have soft spots to proceed with caution). 
3. When you find the right group of people, the fun gets more fun, and struggles seem less challenging. 

 

While sledding is fun, it's the people that make the trip. 

Likewise, it's the people you take with you through life that makes it so worth it. 

Oh, and I did suck less this time ... Progress!

 

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - February 17th, 2019

NASA's Mars Opportunity Rover has officially lost contact with earth after a fierce dust storm. Its last message was "My battery is getting low and it's getting dark." The rover's original mission was scheduled for 90 days ... it lasted 14 years. 

 

via XKCD

 

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

 

Lighter Links

• A Quantum Future Awaits. (Science)
• Can We Make Artificial Intelligence Ethical? (Washington Post)
• Life's Secret Ingredient: A Radical Theory of What Makes Things Alive. (NewScientist)
• What Does "Dead" Mean? the Debate Continues Some 50 Years after Harvard Defined Death. (Forbes)
• Scientists Have Built a Real Star Trek 'Replicator' that Builds Objects with Light. (ScienceAlert)

 

Trading Links

• Warning: Stocks Have Only Been Stretched this Thin Once in the past 150 Years. (MarketWatch)
• From the Year When Nothing Worked in the Financial Markets to the Month When Everything Did. (CNBC)
• Mark Zuckerberg Adds $6.2 Billion in a Day, Vaulting to No. 5 Richest in World. (OCRegister)
• American Billionaire Hedge Fund Manager Has Spent $700M on Personal Real Estate in Five Years. (CNW)
• There's a New Movie Coming out about High-speed Trading on Wall Street, and It Looks Bonkers. (BizInsider)

 

 

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - January 27th, 2019

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

 

Lighter Links

• Giving Algorithms a Sense of Uncertainty Could Make Them More Ethical.(TechReview)
• How Musicians Communicate Non-Verbally While Performing.(PsychCentral)
• Welcome to the World's Largest Gathering of Humans. (NPR)
• The Evolutionary Advantages of an Addictive Personality. (Scientific American)
• George Orwell Predicted Cameras Would Watch Us in Our Homes; He Never Imagined We'd Gladly Buy and Install Them Ourselves.(OpenCulture)

 

 

Trading Links

• The Weaponization of Artificial Intelligence. (Forbes)
• Apple Named 'World's Most Admired Company' for 12Th Year in a Row.(MacRumors)
• The Government Shutdown May Ripple through the IPO Market for Months. (Quartz)
• Billionaire Ray Dalio Shares a 3-Step Formula for Anyone to Start Investing.(CNBC)
• Ex-Goldman Banker Describes Finance as "Dark Art," Advocates Running McDonalds Franchise Instead. (News)

 

Celebrating a Well Lived Life

I was in California this week to celebrate my Mother's 79th birthday.   

  

 

She is still very committed to living life to its fullest – and spreading joy and love to those around her. 

It made me think about how each of us is so different ... yet, we are also similar.

Over time, each of us is insignificant and yet each has altered the course of history. 

Individually, and collectively, I think it makes sense to leave things better than we found them.

One of our most important decisions is how we choose to matter. 

How do you intend to make your mark? 

What will be your legacy?