Capitalogix

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

I was in New York for a quick visit last week.  

Seems I get there often recently.

A little more rare, I got a chance to see a concert (U2 at Madison Square Garden) and eat Junior's Cheesecake.

Meanwhile, Friday marked the second full moon of July, a phenomenon referred to as a “Blue Moon.”

  

  

Though the phrase “once in a blue moon” is used to describe a rare event ... a blue moon is not really that rare; nor does imply that the moon appears blue.

Technically, the term “blue moon” describes the second full moon in a single calendar month.

Most years only have 12 moons, but this year has 13 (which happens every two to three years).

How Not to Exercise - Video

Sometimes just knowing what you want to do is not enough.

Spending time and energy doing the wrong thing doesn't necessarily take you in the direction of your desired results.

Watch this video of people misusing their exercise equipment.  It's pretty funny.

 

 via JuJitsu Times.

You get the point.

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekend Reading

So, are you conflicted about Trump running for President?  

 

 

Good for entertainment ... Just not sure how good it will be for the country?

 

 

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

 

Lighter Links:

• How to Use the Gratitude Advantage at Work. (Michael Hyatt)
• Microsoft Study Shows That Tech Is Shortening Your Attention Span. (Engadget)
• What 5 Days of Junk Food Does to You. (Time)
• The U.S. Army is Testing a Real-Life Ray Gun. (The Week)
• Science Fiction writer, Warren Ellis, Answers Your Questions about the Future. (WN) 

 

Trading Links:

• An Offline N.Y.S.E. Made Barely a Ripple in a Day’s Trading. (NYTimes)
• Are CTAs Good for a Diversified Hedge Fund Portfolio? (FINalternatives)
• The Rise of the Trader-Bots. (The New Yorker)
• Unravelling Capitalism's Hidden Networks Of Power. (New Scientist)
• The Economics of Polo, the Sport of Kings. (Forbes) 

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekend Reading

To put a bad decision in context.  Take a look at this.

 

The actual date was April 12, 1976, but other than that, you get the point. 

One of the links below is to a story about an investor who lost $15 Billion in an hour.

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

 

Lighter Links:

• 20 Quotes to Inspire Successful Innovation. (Mindjet)
• John F. Nash Jr., Math Genius Defined by a ‘Beautiful Mind,’ Dies at 86. (NYTimes)
• Why Mathematician John Nash Was a Genius. (Mashable)
• Service Transforms Your Tweets Into Something Worth a Look. Here's mine. (RM)
• Tag Heuer to Rolex: How Luxury Watch Brands Are Responding to the Apple Watch. (Fortune)

 

Trading Links:

• The IPO Class of 2015. (Forbes)
• China’s IPO Market Leaves U.S. in the Dust. (Wall Street Journal)
• China's Richest Man Recently Lost $15 Billion In One Hour. (Money)
• How a London Man May Have Helped Trigger the 'Flash Crash'. (BigStory)
• An Objective Look at High-Frequency Trading, Dark Pools and The Flash Crash. (ValueWalk)

A Look Back at the Future

My father used to warn me that whatever I made fun of him about, would happen to me too. 

This seemed unlikely since he was overweight, while I was the athletic picture of health ... and he was "technology-challenged" (to put it nicely), while I was the poster-child for early adopters.

The practical realities of age and time have once again proven him right.  So I'll use this Father's Day message to remind my kids the same message.

 

The world changes quickly.

 

I remember when I was one of the youngest and most tech-savvy people in the room during business meetings.  Somehow, now, my kids seem to think I'm like 30 minutes away from needing them to set the VCR so it doesn't flash 12:00 AM all day.

 

 

Don't get me wrong, most of my friends still think that I know a lot about technology. And what we do at work may not be rocket science, but it's pretty close. We use neural networks, machine learning, GPUs, and lots of cool technology ... and, yes, I still love gadgets. 

Technology has always been my friend, and it still is. I love finding a new piece of software that makes me more efficient, more effective or simply makes life a little bit easier. Same with gadgets ... I've waited in my share of lines to be among the first for plenty of stupid products. Apparently, however, I'm a little over the hill - and in danger of losing my "early adopter" pin.

 

The Bigger Picture Is Better

(Or Perhaps I'm Just Jealous I  Can't Read The Fine Print Anymore?)

It is true, lots of the technology heavy-lifting is done by others at this point. That is progress. 

As my father said, not worrying about all the little details helped him see the bigger picture and focus on what was possible.

My father never used a computer in business. He did buy one later in life, but I think it was only to shut me up - so I'd stop telling him that he needed one.

On the other hand, I wish my mother never got one. She actually makes me feel sorry for tech support workers around the globe.  If I wasn't worried about how soon my sons say the same about me, I'd joke that if the military could figure-out what she does -- and weaponize it -- we could crash enemy computers at will.

So it is funny when one of my sons asks me to move away from the computer so he can fix something or make something work a lot easier than to tell me how to do it.  It is the circle of life.

 

A Little Extra Proof of My Age.

 

I was in a meeting this week with some people (and my 21-year-old son). We were looking at a picture that appeared to have been altered, and I said "that sure looks like it's been Facebooked to me." I'm pretty sure my son still hasn't stopped laughing. Yes, I meant "Photoshopped", and I do know the difference ... yet it only adds to the growing proof.

At least I'm good for something, even if (sometimes) it's just a laugh. 

Still, it's only a matter of time until his kids think that he is behind the times.  And that will be a sure sign of progress too.

Happy Fathers' Day.

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekend Reading

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

 

Lighter Links:

• How The Future Is Really Built. (Innovation Excellence)
• Debate: Is Smart Technology Making Us Dumb? (NPR)
• Miracle Grow for Your Brain. (Farnam Street)
• The 70 Coolest New Buildings in the World. (Insider)
• How Lebron James' Trainer Gets Him From One Herculean Effort To Next. (CBS Sports)

 

Trading Links:

• The Information Age Is Over. Welcome to the Infrastructure Age. (Gizmodo)
• Presenting De-Dollarization In One Simple Map. (ZeroHedge)
• Three Reasons Apple Should Acquire IBM. (Forbes)
• How Tesla Will Change The World. (Wait But Why)
• In Rare Admission of Guilt, Wall St. Banks Say They Rigged Markets. (CBS)

What Languages are the Most Spoken - The Results Might Surprise You

There are over 7,100 known languages actively spoken in the world today. Of those, just twenty-three of them act as a mother tongue for more than 50 million people.  Collectively, those 23 languages make up the native tongue of more than half the world (4.1 billion people).

This infographic represent each language within black borders and then provide the numbers of native speakers (in millions) by country. The coloring shows how the languages have taken root in many different regions.

 

 via Alberto Lucas López .

 

As you can see, Chinese is by far the most dominant language on the planet right now, with almost 1.2 billion people speaking dialects. Comparatively, pretty much every other language on Earth is an also-ran: Spanish (399 million speakers), English (335 million), Hindi (260 million), and Arabic (242 million) take up the next four positions. Only when you add them up do they come close to the reach Chinese has.

Although Chinese is the most popular language on Earth, it's worth noting that its influence wanes greatly outside of Asia.

If you take the geographic diversity of where a language is spoken into account, English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese are the most influential languages on Earth, because of colonialism.

For more, here is a link to the Washington Post's article: The world’s languages, in 7 maps and charts.

How Big Is America? So Big!

Sometimes it helps to employ unconventional perspectives when thinking about the size of things.

Here's a map that shows how massive and productive America's $16.7 trillion economy is on a global scale.

The map compares the gross domestic product of each US states with the national GDPs of other nations.

America's largest state economy is California. For 2013, the Golden State's GDP was about $2.05 trillion, roughly the same as Brazil's GDP ($2.25 trillion). But Brazil's population is about 200.4 million, while California's is just 38.8 million — meaning California produces about the same as Brazil with about 80% fewer people.

To put it in a global perspective, if California were its own country in 2013, it would have been the 10th-biggest economy in the world, close behind Russia, whose GDP was $2.096 trillion that year.

Check out the rest of the states in the map below:

 

 via Business Insider.

Based on population, the US is the third-largest country in the world.

To put that in perspective, below is a a map that renames each state with the country that has the closest population to it.

 

via Business Insider.

 

The map, below, is interesting in a different way.  I'm sure you've heard that "a picture is worth a thousand words."  Here, a couple dozen words capture the world.

 

by Michael Tompsett via Fine Art America.

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekend Reading

The best new science skill is ...

 

 

via The New Yorker.

 

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

 

Lighter Links:

• How to Invent the Future. (HBR)
• Transformation: The Imperative to Change. (BCG Perspectives)
• 100 Years of Change. (Daily Infographic)
• The Quest to Measure Machine Intelligence. (MIT Technology Review)
• Why Scientists Believe Dogs Are Smarter Than We Give Them Credit For. (Vox)

 

Trading Links:

• Billionaires 2015: The Richest People on the Planet. (Forbes)
• Where Do the World’s Wealthiest People Live? (WSJ Blogs)
• Why Americans Are Giving Up Their Passports. (NYTimes)
• Quantum Computers Will Change The World, Business, and Trading. (BizInsider)
• Should Mutual Funds Be Illegal? (Bloomberg View)

How Naming Things Make You Smarter

This video is about how my son finally got smarter than our dog.

 

 

 

via YouTube. 

It is also about how language (and naming things) leads to wisdom, progress, and innovation.