Not only does this help us see far away systems that we've never seen before, but it also provides detail to the things we have seen.
First, bring order to chaos …. Then, wisdom comes from making finer distinctions. With that in mind, I'm excited to see how this drives the future of science.
Here's a brief video from Neil Degrasse Tyson on the new telescope.
While simple, the wheel worked well (and still does). Consequently, the phrase "reinventing the wheel" often is used derogatorily to depict needless or inefficient efforts.
But how does that compare to sliced bread (which was also a pretty significant invention)?
Despite being a hallmark of innovation, it still took more than 300 years for the wheel to be used for travel. With a bit more analysis, it makes sense. In order to use a wheel for travel, it needs an axle, and it needs to be durable, and loadbearing, requiring relatively advanced woodworking and engineering.
All the aforementioned products created before the wheel (except for the flute) were necessary for survival. That's why they came first.
As new problems arose, so did new solutions.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Unpacking that phrase is a good reminder that inventions (and innovation) are often solution-centric.
Too many entrepreneurs are attracted to an idea because it sounds cool. They get attracted to their ideas and neglect their ideal customer's actual needs. You see it often with people slapping "AI" on to their product and pretending it's more helpful.
If you want to be disruptive, cool isn't enough. Your invention has to be functional, and it has to fix a problem people have (even if they don't know they have it.) The more central the complaint is to their daily lives the better.
Henry Ford famously said: “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
Innovation means thinking about and anticipating wants and future needs.
Your customers may not even need something radically new. Your innovation may be a better application of existing technology or a reframe of best practices.
Uber didn't create a new car, they created a new way to get from where you want with existing infrastructure and less friction. Netflix didn't reinvent the movie, they made it easier for you to watch one.
As an entrepreneur, the trick is build for human nature (meaning, give people what they crave or eliminate the constraint they are trying to avoid) rather than the cool new tech that you are excited about.
Human nature doesn’t seem to change much … Meanwhile, the pace of innovation continues to accelerate.
The challenge is to focus on what people want rather than the distraction of possibility.
According to Mohamed El-Erian, from Queens College at Cambridge University, we're experiencing stagflation - which is when inflation is high but growth is slowing significantly. Theoretically, that leads to recession.
The Consumer Price Index has also grown by over 8% in the past year, so the American household is facing financial threats from many angles.
Many feel that the Fed has responded disappointingly recently, and their response (or lack thereof) will be a major dictator of whether we enter a recession.
I believe that emotions play a role too. When people are afraid, they spend less and hoard what they can to save themselves from an unknown future. They feel anticipatory grief. And their fear, uncertainty, and doubt ripple through society and our lives.
Personally, I've weathered my heaviest storms by sailing toward the future regardless of the threats. An abundance mindset is a powerful tool, and as more people feel confident it becomes a macroeconomic trend with real influence.
I'd encourage you to think about what opportunities there are and will be. There are always seasons of change … Winter eventually comes – and goes. Nevertheless, winter can be a great opportunity to plan your next moves and build the infrastructure to sow more seeds in the coming spring.
As well, unlike nature, you can personally have springtime while the majority are in winter. We're currently in an A.I. springtime - and I believe that will continue regardless of economic trends.
Happy to talk about this … Let me know what you are thinking and feeling!
Intellectual Property is an important asset class in exponential industries.
Why? Because I.P. is both a property right (that increases the owner's tangible and intangible value) and a form of protection.
They say good fences make good neighbors. But you are also more willing to work to build an asset if you know that your right to use and profit from it is protected.
As a result of that thinking, Capitalogix has numerous patents - and we're developing a patent strategy that goes far into the future. So, it's a topic that's front of mind for me.
Consequently, this visualization of which companies got the most patents last year caught my eye. In 2021, the U.S. granted over 327,000 patents. Here is who got them.
While IBM isn't the public-facing industry leader they once were, they've been topping the list for most patents for the past three decades. Their patents this past year cover everything from climate change to energies, high-performance computing, and A.I..
What ideas and processes do you have that are worth patenting? And, what processes are worth not patenting - to keep from prying eyes?
Recently I had a chance to talk with Josh Elledge on his Thoughtful Entrepreneur podcast. We talked about AI's inevitable influence on trading as well as my experience as an entrepreneur.
Despite mis-spelling Capital Logix ... it's Capitalogix ... the conversation we had is worth a listen.
Just like VR is getting a new lease on life, despite its age, AI-generated art is getting another 15-minutes of fame.
This past week, a new model called Dall-E Mini went viral. It creates images based on the text prompts you give it – and it's surprisingly good. You even can give Dall-E absurd prompts, and it will do its best to hybridize them (for example, a kangaroo made of cheese).
While the images themselves aren't fantastic, the tool's goal is to understand and translate text into a coherent graphic response. The capabilities of tools like this are growing exponentially (and reflect a massive improvement since I last talked about AI-generated images).
Part of the improvement is organic (better hardware, software, algorithmic evolution, etc.), while another part comes from stacking. For example, Dall-E's use of GPT-3 has vastly increased its ability to process language.
However, the algorithms still don't "understand" the meaning of the images the way we do ... they are guessing based on what they've "seen" before. That means it's biased by the data it was fed and can easily get stumped. The Dall-E website's "Bias and Limitations" section acknowledges that it was trained on unfiltered internet data, which means it has a known, but unintended, bias to be offensive or stereotypical against minority groups.
It's not the first time, and it won't be the last, that an internet-trained AI will be offensive.
Currently, most AI is essentially a brute force application of math masquerading as intelligence and computer science. Fortunately, it provides a lot of value even in that regard.
The uses continue to get more elegant and complex as time passes ... but we're still coding the elegance.
There is a huge difference between good and great.
Apparently, there is often a huge difference between the great and the greatest.
In sports, there are many fantastic athletes whose names we will remember. Then there are the athletes who stand apart from the rest ... like Michael Phelps or Usain Bolt.
I recently stumbled upon a few charts highlighting the stratification between the top 1% and the #1.
To put that statistic in perspective, no other quarterback has even played in 35 postseason games ... but that is another measure of Tom Brady's greatness.
Some prominent names are missing from this list - like Julio Jones or Megatron - but, clearly, Jerry's performance stands apart from other legends of the game. For context, Julio Jones only had 61 TDs, which is relatively low on this chart, but averages 92 yards per game ... which is so high that he'd be off the chart.
Wayne Gretzky is a sports legend, but this chart really puts it in perspective. Leader by a large margin in both assists and goals. He also has one of my favorite quotes -
“A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.”
Here's another interesting Wayne Gretzky stat:
Together, Wayne and Brent hold the NHL record for most combined points by two brothers - 2,857 for Wayne and 4 for Brent,[2] and are second overall in points scored by any number of brothers (behind the six brothers of the Sutter family who combined for 2,934 NHL points - 73 more than Wayne and Brent, although the Gretzkys' combined totals are greater than any five of the six Sutters.) - Wikipedia on Brent Gretzky
Genetics and upbringing might play a part in greatness. There are several great sibling combos like the Gretzkys, the Mannings, and the Williams sisters.
Both Venus and Serena are dominant athletes, but Serena is in the running for one of the most dominant athletes in any sport.
Have you seen any other crazy stats like these? I'd love to see them.
History may not repeat itself exactly ... but it often rhymes. News stories, however, seem to replicate.
There is nothing wrong with your television. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are now controlling the transmission. We control the horizontal and the vertical. We can deluge you with a thousand channels or expand one single image to crystal clarity and beyond. We can shape your vision to anything our imagination can conceive. - The Outer Limits (1963)
It almost feels like an episode of Black Mirror, watching these stations quote the same pre-determined diatribe on fake news and its danger to our democracy.
The very message they are purportedly supporting, in the video above, directly contradicts their actions.
Most people realize this happens to some degree, but it seems different when presented like this.
I believe I am reasonably aware and somewhat immune from propaganda. That probably isn't as true as I'd like to believe.
Meanwhile, Sinclar Broadcast Group owns nearly 200 stations in 80 different markets and wants to buy more. That is a powerful platform to deliver mass messages and influence the zeitgeist of its audience.
It used to be true that winners wrote history (think empires, wars, etc.). Now, the one that delivers the most broadcast narratives shapes the emotional and seemingly logical responses to what we perceive to be happening around us.
The result impacts elections, financial markets, buying choices, and countless other areas of our life.
We see and hear it every day about politics, wars, economic issues, and many other things we don't focus on enough to notice.
As A.I., Bots, and social media grow, our ability to discern truth from 'truthiness' weakens. Especially with the growth of deepfakes.
Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - July 17th, 2022
Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.
Lighter Links:
Trading Links:
Posted at 07:59 AM in Business, Current Affairs, Film, Gadgets, Games, Ideas, Just for Fun, Market Commentary, Personal Development, Science, Trading, Trading Tools, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)
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