Capitalogix

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - April 29th, 2017

Might be easier to solve a Rubik's Cube than to be President Trump.  Check out his first 100 days. 

 

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

Lighter Links:

• Elon Musk and the 100 Hour Error. (MichaelHyatt)
• Gigaom's AI Startup Challenge – Finalists. (GigaOM)
• Access to Nature Reduces Depression and Obesity, Finds European Study. (TheGuardian)
• Fixing Lousy Sleep Could Keep Us Healthy Longer. (Futurity)
• Lab-Grown Meat is Almost Here. (BigThink)

Trading Links:

• Former Fed Advisor Says the Central Bank Shouldn't Comment on Equities. (CNBC)
• Quantopian Makes First Allocations to Crowd-Sourced Algorithms. (HedgeWeek)
• Fintech: Revolution or Evolution? (Ritholtz)
• Norway to Spend $315M on World's First Ship Tunnel. (CNN)
• BlackRock Signals Active Overhaul with Shift to Quant. (FTAdviser)

How Much Time Do You Have Left? How Much Time To Make a Difference?

We only have a limited time on this earth - and a lot of it is taken by frivolous activities. 

How much time do you think the average millennial spends on their phones ... or a baby-boomer sits in front of the TV?

The answer is a lot.

This chart based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics puts it in perspective. 

 

How Much Time Do We Have?

via dailyinfographic

 

9 years in front of entertainment devices - another 10.5 years spent working.  You get the idea.

If you have goals you want to accomplish, aspirational travel and lifestyle plans - this really puts the idea of finding and living your passion in perspective. 

Here's another representation of the same data, using jelly beans.   I think it's pretty powerful and worth watching. 

 

Ze Frank (via YouTube)

 

In my TEDx talk, I talk about the Time Value of Life ...

In finance, the "time value of money" refers to the principle that the purchasing power of money can vary over time (meaning, money today might have a different purchasing power than money later). In part, this is because the value of money at a future point in time might be calculated by accounting for other variables (like interest earned, or inflation accrued, etc.).

A similar calculation applies to life ... or living.

Live Like You Only Have a Year Left.

During the last part of my Dad's life, I think he would have done almost anything for a little more time.

Things that used to be unimportant, or even mildly irritating, took on increased importance. For example, a dinner together became almost a sacred event; a kiss goodnight was truly heart-felt; and saying good-bye meant something ... because it could be the last time.

Nevertheless, as a result of that focus, he took more life out of that time.

Shouldn't we do the same thing?  Think about it ... We are never going to be younger than we are, right now.  We are never going to have more time to fix a big mistake.  Isn't it likely that the time value of your life, is worth maximizing?

If you realize that the time you have now is worth more - what can you do differently to get the most out of it?

So, if an average person only gets 2,740 days to do with what they want, those days are precious.

Based on who's reading this, you may have half that time (or a fourth).

What are you going to focus on? Making the most money? Helping the most people? Spending the most time with your family? Relaxing?

There's never a better time than now, to live a life worth living ... and only you can decide what that means!

I'd love to hear what you choose.

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - April 14th, 2017

United Airlines got a lot of bad press when it physically removed passengers from a flight to accommodate crew members.  A day ago, they were at it again, when they removed a couple heading to their wedding.  Could it get any worse?

 

 

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

Lighter Links:

• Want to Found a Start-Up?  These are the Books You Should Read First, a Top VC Says. (CNBC)
• FDA Approves 23AndMe’s At-Home DNA Tests for 10 Diseases. (NBC News)
• “Love Drugs” Will Soon Be a Reality. but Should We Take Them? (Quartz)
• Eminent Astrophysicist Issues a Dire Warning on AI and Alien Life. (Futurism)
• Let’s Take an In-Depth Look at Current Advances in Artificial Intelligence. (Interesting Engineering)

Trading Links:

• Marijuana Price Dips to $1,679 a Pound. (247WallSt)
• Tesla Has Something Hotter Than Cars to Sell: Its Story. (New York Times)
• This is How Many U.S. Jobs Robots Will Create over the next 10 Years. (MarketWatch)
• This Cow Illustrates 8 Business Models (Infographic). (Entrepreneur)
• Steven Cohen Just Gave Millions to Crowd Sourcing Hedge Funders. (Fortune)

 

Related articles

How artificial intelligence has evolved over time

Elon Musk's Neuralink wants to boost the brain to keep up with AI

Once In a Blue Moon ... or every couple of years

Will AI Radically Change B2B Marketing? Marketers Think So

I've Been Going to the Gym Again ...

I've been going to the gym again ... and a lot of what I see there doesn't look like exercise. 

On the other hand, you have guys like this, doing 20 different types of push-ups: 

 

 

I used to do that.

But, I can do anything I commit to do.

So, I can do that.

Time to do that.

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)

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekend Reading - January 20th, 2017

With technology becoming more ubiquitous ... perhaps Tweeting shouldn't be ... 

  

 

 

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

 

Lighter Links:

• Ringling Bros. Circus to Close after 146 Years. (Washington Post)
• Why Your Brain Makes New Year's Resolutions Impossible to Keep. (Popular Science)
• When the Picky Eater is a Grown-Up. (New York Times)
• Your Dog Knows Exactly What You’re Saying. (National Geographic)
• Nestle Claims a Scientific Breakthrough and Chocolate Will Never Be the Same Again. (Inc)

Trading Links:

• The End of Cloud Computing. (A16z)
• Rethinking Global Finance. (Wired)
• All World Maps Lie. So Which One Should We Use? (FastCoD)
• Why Rich People Set up Trust Funds for Their Pets. (Flipboard)
• Apple Sells Nearly 400 IPhones Per Minute, and Other Insane Stats. (Insider)

The Time Value of Time

In many senses time is relative. 

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand this quote from Einstein.

"When you are courting a nice girl, an hour seems like a second.  When you sit on a red-hot cinder, a second seems like an hour.  That's relativity."

It is about more than perception.  Here is something that highlights the relative value of time.

 

The Value Of Time:

• To understand the value of a year, talk to a student who has failed an important exam.
• To understand the value of a month, talk to a mother who has given birth to a baby a month prematurely.
• To understand the value of a week, talk to the publisher of a weekly newspaper.
• To understand the value of an hour, talk to a couple in love who are separated and want only to be together again.
• To understand the value of a minute, talk to someone who has just missed their train or plane flight.
• To understand the value of a second, talk to someone who has lost a loved one in an accident.
• And to understand the value of a millisecond, talk to someone who won the silver medal at the Olympic Games.

Time waits for no one.  So it is important to remember to make the best use of the time you have.

 

That Doesn't Mean Time Is Scarce Or Has To Be A Constraint:

Time is often thought of as a constraint or a scarce resource. There are lots of phrases that highlight this type of thinking.  For example: I don't have enough time; I'm running late; I'm up against a deadline; There are only 24-hours in a day; or, I’m going as fast as I can. As you might guess, that list goes on further.  Yet, time does not have to be that way ... it can be a tool instead.

So, I started to think about how I used time.  Was I making the most of it ... or taking it for granted?  It didn’t take much introspection to notice a few of the ruts I fell into.  I'm going to talk about one of them, here, because a small shift had a massive impact.  The thing we changed was our pace.

 

A Change of Pace:

When I jog, the beginning and the end are the hardest for me. Yet, after I find that initial pace and I settle into a comfortable rhythm, the majority of the run is relatively painless. My mind and body switch to an nearly automatic mode and I have time to think about many things.

Work is similar in many respects. Once a team gets in a rhythm, work and progress are somewhat automatic. Breaking inertia is a challenge; but people recognize that it's a challenge. The more insidious problem is to fail to recognize that the work rhythm that's comfortable, and which produces progress, is still a rut. It doesn't stretch and challenge the team to strive for more. Yet, this stretching is what drives innovation. It's the thought we haven't had yet … and a new perspective that changes everything.

Changing your pace can be an incredible catalyst to make that happen for you. For example, imagine that we put together a new portfolio in two weeks, on a wholly new tech platform, with new markets, and using new techniques. Then we tested, re-balanced and rebuilt that portfolio in one week. What we did, or the time in which we did it, wasn’t important. The important part is that it caused the team to work at a radically different pace than before. It was a sprint.

Moreover, this sprint caused us to re-think what we do, and more importantly, how we do it.  Many of the innovations and new distinctions that we discovered through this process will work their way into other areas of our work,  and will act as a catalyst for us to re-evaluate the way we do things.

 

A Challenge For You:

I challenge you to consciously change the pace of something that you are already comfortable doing a certain way. The pace can be faster, or the pace can be slower ... it doesn't matter.  Then notice what comes up for you, and what new opportunities and possibilities you discover.

Time is a valuable resource. Take this opportunity to re-examine how you can best view and use time to make the most of it.

You Just Dodged a Bullet: The Holidays And Cardiac Mortality

On Christmas, I saw Rogue One with my family, and was impressed at what Disney had done to bring back the likenesses of Peter Cushing and Carrie Fisher. 

Peter Cushing played Grand Moff Tarkin, a character who they couldn't just cut from a movie featuring the Death Star so heavily (despite Cushing being dead since 1994).  In addition, the likeness of Carrie Fisher was brought back to play a young Leia.

At the time, I didn't know Carrie Fisher would be dead 2 days later, from heart attack complications.  Only a few days later, her mother, Debbie Reynolds died as well (presumably due to a broken heart).

Here is a chart showing cardiac mortality around the holidays.

  

via the American Heart Association.

Good news – if you are reading this, you are on the right side of the daisies.

Let's keep it that way!

What Are Your New Year's Resolutions?

I got my yearly physical a couple of weeks ago, and while it went largely without any surprises, my doctor recommended a more thorough cardio workup.

  

  

Good news, the tests went well – and I'm not pregnant (even though I'm pretty sure I saw the baby move).

Clearly time for some New Year's resolutions about becoming more healthy, fit, and vital.

What about you?

Feeling Thankful is a Weak Substitute for Being Thankful

Thanksgiving is a holiday where we're encouraged to feel thankful for all the bounties in our life – and to appreciate those around us. 

I enjoyed spending time with my kids, watching the Cowboys win, and eating too much.

  

 

That's a great start; but, feeling thankful is different that being thankful.

Think of it as the difference between passive voice and active living.  

It reminds me of an idea called "Tikkun Olam" (or – healing the world).

Even if you're not Jewish, I think we can all agree the world needs a little of that. 

For example, instead of just feeling thankful, what could you do to make the life of someone around you better?  Likewise, how can you let others know that you're thankful for them?

Transformational change is often easier than incremental change (because you don't have to drag the past forward).

So, what can you do that would trigger 10X results?   Will you?