Capitalogix

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - March 1st, 2020

 

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

Lighter Links:

 

• When that AI Company' Isn't Really an AI Company. (TechCrunch)
• The Catholic Church Proposes AI Regulations that Protect People'. (TheVerge)
• Musicians Algorithmically Generate Every Possible Melody, Release Them to Public Domain. (Vice)
• Saudi Arabia: Riyadh Suspends Pilgrimage Visas Amid Coronavirus Concerns. (Worldview)
• Warren Buffett Says He Prefers Mike Bloomberg in the Democratic Presidential Race. (CNW)

 

 

Trading Links:

• Dow Loses 12% for Week on Coronavirus Panic; Fed Says It Will Act 'Appropriately'. (TheStreet)
• These are the Only 7 Stocks in the S&P 500 that Rose While the Market Plunged. (MarketWatch)
• Gold Prices Tumble Amid Reports of Margin Calls. (Investing)
• Nearly 40% of Europeans in Their Late 20S Still Live at Home. (Quartz)
• MIT Published a List of the 9 MegaTrends that Will Shape the World in 2030. Here's What They All Have in Common. (Inc)

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading, February 23rd, 2020

 

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

Lighter Links:

• What It Means to Be Human in the Age of AI. (CNet)
• Mommy Can't Talk Right Now She's Dopamine Fasting. (TheCut)
• I Went to a High-End Psychedelic Retreat to Address My Anxiety. (Vice)
• Inside the World of High-End Coffee | Annals of Obsession | the New Yorker. (YouTube)
• Most Dietary Supplements Don't Do Anything. Why Do We Spend $35 Billion a Year on Them? (WashPost)

 

Trading Links:

• Why Cryptocurrency Markets Defy the Laws of Economics. (BU)
• Michael Bloomberg Has Taken Andrew Yang's Place as the Cryptocurrency Candidate. (TechReview)
• It Has Never Been Easier to Launch a New Brand. (Economist)
• Elon Musk's SpaceX to Raise $250 Million, Valuing It at $36 Billion. (Uk)
• Elon Musk Says He'll Put a Million People on Mars by 2050. (Futurism)

Ending The World With A Paperclip

Every week I send out an e-mail on Fridays with 20 light links and 20 market-moving links. If you're not getting that e-mail, you can sign up here. On Sundays, I send out our weekly commentary (which this article is a part of, along with 5 new light links and 5 new market-moving links (you can sign up here).

My son sees the links before they're posted. He was interested in one of this week's links - The Way the World Ends: Not with a Bang But A Paperclip. 

As a result, he played the game Paperclips to completion.  While he characterizes it as “wasting a whole night,” I think it gives us insight into the addictive nature of clicker games and into how the world as we know it could end with a paperclip. 

There are spoilers ahead, so if you intend on wasting three hours on a browser game, you may want to skip this article ... no, you're good? OK, here it is. 

Frank Lantz via Decision Problem

The game starts with you clicking a button to create paperclips but quickly spirals from there. Through setting up automation to create paperclips and then to have it start automatically buying the wire for you, you begin focusing on other projects - specifically creating a better trading algorithm to leverage the money you're making and improving your company's AI and Quantum Computing capabilities. 

Hmm, starting to sound familiar ...

Initially, your AI is focused purely on maximizing paper clip demand and production.  It can increase marketing to increase demand and make your autoclippers more efficient to produce more paperclips per unit wire. If you look at the projects in the above screenshot you can see projects like: 

• Full Monopoly - Establish full control over the worldwide paperclip market
• Global Warming - A robust solution to man-made climate change
• HypnoDrones - Autonomous aerial brand ambassadors

Projects like curing cancer or solving global warming gain trust and allow you to invest more money in processors and memory (which end up setting you up to take over the world.)

Fast forward to Zach beating the game ...

Frank Lantz via Decision Problem

When you release the HypnoDrones all of the resources become available for Paperclip production, and you gain full autonomy. Your inner benevolent dictator feels satisfied and your mother’s expectations for your potential are partially fulfilled.

At this point in the game, Zach had created less than half a billion paperclips but was worth several billions of dollars. It took him 2 hours and 44 minutes to beat the game. 

Is it a game, a parable, a prediction – or an advanced intelligence’s test of human nature?

 

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - February 16th, 2020

 

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

Lighter Links:

• Growth Mindset vs. Fixed Mindset: Which One Do You Have? (Addicted2Success)
• 5 Soon-to-Be Trends in Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning. (Forbes)
• How Many Hours of Sleep is Enough? Age Chart Shows What You Need to Feel Rested. (Inverse)
• The Way the World Ends: Not with a Bang But a Paperclip. (Wired)
• Drinking Alcohol Every Day Can Speed up Brain Aging by One Week Per Session, According to a Study of More Than 17,000 People. (Insider)

 

 

 

Trading Links:

• Tesla Stock is Soaring. Madness or Visionary Investing? (APNews)
• The Decade That Completely Transformed Venture Capital. (Quartz)
• The 13 Hottest IPOs to Watch for in 2020. (Kiplinger)
• The Edison of the Slot Machines. (TheParisReview)
• Elon Musk's Mind-reading Technology Could Be about to Take a Big Leap Forward. (ZDNet)

Pay-To-Play: Bloomberg 2020

Mike Bloomberg is spending an astonishing amount on his presidential run. Something you can do when you're a billionaire.

Bloomberg is worth approximately $62B, so while most campaigns are being run on donations, he's outstripping them purely with his own bank account. 

via theimpossiblesalad

 

He's outspent everyone else in the Democratic field combined. His most recent stunt was a major social media push. 

He leveraged several of the largest accounts on Instagram by collaborating with a company called - Meme2020. I wish that was a joke. 

 

 

From the NYT, "Memers" include: 

 @MyTherapistSays, @WhitePeopleHumor, @TheFunnyIntrovert, @KaleSalad, @Sonny5ideUp, @Tank.Sinatra, @ShitheadSteve, @adam.the.creator, @moistbudda, @MrsDowJones, @TrashCanPaul, @cohmedy, @NeatDad, @FourTwenty, @GolfersDoingThings, @DrGrayFang, @MiddleClassFancy and @DoYouEvenLift.

 

Those accounts reached a purported 60 million followers. They received $150 per post.

The content is one of those  "stranger than fiction" experiences, where the posts are so surreal that the creators have to acknowledge "yes this is really sponsored by Mike Bloomberg."   

This approach, and Bloomberg in general, raises several questions about running a race in 2020. 

Astroturfing and Memes

Remember, this is intended to sway public opinion in a political campaign. Bloomberg is a geriatric billionaire who has approximately 0% of the youth vote. While most of these memes mocked Bloomberg for being old and out of touch, the effort likely had the opposite effect. It's mildly insidious. 

These posts have nothing to do with demonstrating Bloomberg's electability. They don't deal with stop and frisk, or any of his other policies. They're running the campaign a football player might run for student body president in high school. Luckily, there's been pushback. 

The style of ads - astroturfing - where sponsors make their ads appear as if they're supported by grassroots participants, isn't new. But, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump have done much better with seemingly authentic content driven by meme culture. 

The question to ask about Bernie and Donald's success with the internet is, how much is authentic and how much is manufactured?

Are We Creating A Plutocracy?

Michael Bloomberg's campaign has crossed over $350MM in spending across channels. He went from a nonexistent option, to earnestly in the running through ubiquity.  

It's worth asking the question "Can our democracy be bought?"

via Business Insider

A plutocracy is when a government is run by the wealthy elite. To a certain degree, money is power, and the wealthy's effect on the world is unavoidable. The inverse is also true, with influence and drive, money often follows.  The issue comes when the wealthy are the only influence, and when that money becomes the deciding factor in electability.

It's hard to beat nearly unlimited money working in partnership with corporate support and media bias. The reality is, in the same way that corporations are people, they also have biases. Media companies undoubtedly influence the messaging you see. And, as impervious as we believe we are, the messaging we see influences the reality we perceive. 

My takeaway for you is not to be for or against any candidate; it's to be pro-democracy and pro-meritocracy. 

I hope we vote on the issues instead of just the personalities.

Evaluate which issues are most important to you and which candidates best support those issues. Here's a link to Donald Trump's positions, and a link to the positions of the Democratic candidates.

I'm curious to see who wins the Democratic primary, and what that means for the election. 

Who you got?

Do you think Bloomberg has a chance?

Spicing Up Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day is coming up. 

Does it matter?  Could it? 

Are you at least planning on having a little fun?

 

 

Love is an interesting concept. It can be a noun (a "thing") or a verb (an "action").  Perhaps it can be both ...  an emotion that you act on? 

Likewise, the words "I love you" can be a declaration of how you feel to someone ... or a command to yourself to treat a person with love.

On a practical note, I found a gift that really worked for me.  It's called "Lovebox" ... and, no, it's not a sex toy. 

via GIPHY

Lovebox is a tool to deepen emotional connections.  It consists of a lidded wooden box with a heart attached to the front and a phone app for you to use to compose your messages.  Inside the Lovebox is a screen, a wifi connection, and a little motor.  When you send the box a message, the heart spins to notify the recipient that they have a message.

 

The Lovebox gives me an opportunity to send special messages to my wife whether I'm home or away. I know that she loves seeing the heart spinning (and I believe that it makes us a bit closer each time she lifts the lid to see her message).  Lovebox creates anticipation.

I was unsure how my wife would respond  ... But she LOVES it ... and looks forward to receiving messages (and reminds me if I forget or seem to be running late with them). 

With that said, she made it clear she didn't want me pre-writing messages and having the app drip them to her like a marketing campaign.  So, of course, my next message was "A robot wrote this."

We've been using Lovebox for over six months and it still seems fresh and fun.  Another example of how technology can improve human lives.

Hope you  (and your special someone) have a Happy Valentine's Day.

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - February 9th, 2020

 

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

Lighter Links:

• Humans are Hardwired to Dismiss Facts that Don't Fit Their Worldview. (FastCompany)
• Timeless Truths about Disruptive Innovation. (Forbes)
• 98.6 Degrees Fahrenheit Isn't the Average Anymore. (Wall Street Journal)
• Apps Could Soon Predict When You'll Die: the Science of How. (Inverse)
• Google Keeps a Scary Amount of Data on You. Here's How to Find and Delete It. (CNet)

 

 

 

Trading Links:

• Why We're Failing to Regulate the Most Powerful Tech We've Ever Faced. (VentureBeat)
• Goldman Sachs and Amazon May Soon Be in the Banking Business. (Quartz)
• Intercontinental Exchange Makes Takeover Offer for EBay.(Wall Street Journal)
• Macy's to Close 125 Stores and Slash 2,000 Jobs Over Next Three Years. (USAToday)
• Godfather' of Technical Analysis Says Stock-market Downturn is Going to Get Worse: I am Looking at a 10% Drop Maybe a Little Bit More'. (MarketWatch)

 

 

 

Mummy, I've Lost My Voice

Some applications of technology are just ... strange. That being said, I think there's something beautiful about science being done "just to see if we can". 

Not every experiment needs to be in pursuit of some grand truth or miracle cure... Sometimes it's nice just to be curious. 

In that regard, the researchers who recreated a 3,000-Year-Old Egyptian mummy's voice might "take the cake" (or "drop the mic"). 

 

Nature via Leeds Teaching Hospitals (Click To Learn More)

The mummy's name is Nesyamun. They used a 3D printer and an electronic larynx to create the sound. They didn't recreate his tongue - so his voice doesn't take that into account. From what I can tell, all they've gotten "him" to say is "ehh". Very mummy-like. 

Here's a link to the sound. 

For what it's worth, they did test this methodology on a living human to validate it before going to some 3000-year-old dead guy.

Here's an interview with one of the scientists on BBC's Inside Science. 

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading, February 2nd, 2020

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

Lighter Links:

• MIT Professors Sound Alarm on US Falling Behind on AI. (CA)
• Doomsday Clock Moves to 100 Seconds to Midnight - Closest Point to Nuclear Annihilation Since Cold War. (FoxNews)
• The Bill Belichick Trade Turns 20 on Monday. (ProFootballTalk)
• Incentive Competitions and the Challenge of Space Exploration. (Interesting Engineering)
• How Time-Travel Works in Fiction: a Concise Breakdown of How Time Travel Functions in Popular Movies, Books & TV Shows. (OpenCulture)

 

Trading Links:

• Peter Diamandis: in the next 10 Years, We'll Reinvent Every Industry'. (TheGuardian)
• 5,000 Years of Interest Rates. (DailyReckoning)
• Will We Ever Stop Talking about the VIX? (RCM Alternatives)
• How to Make a Billion Dollars on Horse Racing. (Bloomberg)
• Tesla is More Valuable Than GM, Ford CombinedDespite Selling 98% Fewer Cars. (Observer)

 

 

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - January 26th, 2020

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

 

Lighter Links:

• 8 AI Trends We're Watching in 2020. (O)
• Navigation Apps Changed the Politics of Traffic. (CityLab)
• There's No 'Going Dark:' Always-On Surveillance Posing Risks to US Covert Operations. (TD)
• 6 Predictions About Data in 2020 and the Coming Decade. (Forbes)
• Data is Only the Beginning. Connecting the Dots Creates Knowledge. However, It is Wisdom Which Translates Insights into Impactful Decisions. (LinkedIn)

 

Trading Links:

• How 5 Big Tech Companies Really Make Money. (Infographic)
• Capitalism Draws Fire, Despite Strong Global Economy. (Wall Street Journal)
• Immune Discovery 'May Treat All Cancer'. (BBC)
• How to Raise a Billionaire: Maye Musk on Where Elon Gets His Drive. (Forbes)
• Toyota Invests $394 Million in Electric Air Taxi Company Joby Aviation. (Forbes)