Capitalogix

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekend Reading

Apple figured out what caused some early iPhone 6 Plus phones to bend.

 

 

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

 

Lighter Links:

• The 12 Best Business Books of All Time. (Motley Fool)
• Automation Makes Us Dumb. (Wall Street Journal)
• The Business Value of Pervasive Analytics. (Data Science Central)
• How to Get in Shape Using Psychology: 6 New Tricks from Research. (Time)
• Another Reason to Spend Money on Experiences Rather Than Things — The Positive Benefits of Anticipation. (Quartz)

 

Trading Links:

• Central Bank Credibility … Now Here's a Bubble. (Forbes)
• ▶ Masters in Business Podcast: Dallas Mavericks Mark Cuban (Audio). (SoundCloud)
• 10 Reasons The Stock Market Rally Still Has Legs. (Investing)
• Putting the “Underperformance” of Active Managers in Perspective. (Pragmatic Capitalism)
• Elon Musk’s Next Mission: Internet Satellites. SpaceX, Tesla Founder Explores Venture to Make Lighter, Cheaper Satellites (Wall Street Journal)

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:

• The 25 Best Inventions of 2014. (Time)
• Peter Thiel's Very Negative - And Very Useful - Advice For Entrepreneurs. (Fortune)
• Google Glass Failed, but Here’s the Path Its Successors Will Take. (MIT TReview)
• Why Do People Believe in Conspiracy Theories? (Scientific American)
• Will NFL Broadcasts Ever Embrace Advanced Stats? Sabermetrics changed pro baseball. Now comes football. (MMQB)

 

Trading Links:

• The Science Behind Casino Profits. (The Week)
• Facebook 'Newspaper' Spells Trouble For Media. (BusinessInsider)
• U.S. Economy: Four Indicators Paint Very Negative Picture. (Business2Community)
• USPS Takes on FedEx and UPS with 7-day Delivery This Holiday Season. (B2C)
• Black Friday Online Sales Up 8.5% Over Last Year, 20% Of Sales Came From iOS. (TechCrunch)

Surprised Steve Ballmer Went Bonkers In His Clippers Intro Speech?

Here is how new Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer introduced himself to fans in his introductory pep rally.

Ballmer, the former Microsoft CEO who's known for his emotional speeches, was quite excited.

He even gave the crowd his email address ([email protected]).

Here is the video.

 

via YouTube.

The best part came at the nine-minute mark, when he told the crowd:

"We're going to be hardcore. HARD-core. HARDCORE! We're going to get better everyday. We're going to be tenacious. Something knocks us down and we're going to get back and keep coming and coming and coming and coming. Did you watch these guys? That was hardcore! Hardcore baby! Nothing gets in our way, BOOM! Keep coming. HARD-core. The HARDCORE Clippers, that's us."

 

Speaking of hardcore ... For the record, Ballmer bought the Clippers for a $2 billion (four times the record sale for an NBA team, according to the LA Times).

Related articles

Watch Steve Ballmer's intense tearful goodbye to Microsoft [Video]

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekend Reading

If you need a suggestion on how to fix your broken vacuum ...

 

 

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

 

Lighter Links:

• Secrets of the Creative Brain. (The Atlantic)
• Isn't it ironic? The value of sarcasm. (NewScientist)
• Is Coding the New Literacy?. (Mother Jones)
• Is MSG Bad For You? The Truth Behind Notorious Flavor Enhancer MSG. (BI)
• Comparing Beauty Standards: Woman Had Her Face Photoshopped In More Than 25 Countries. (BoredPanda)

 

Trading Links:

• Financial Stress Just Hit A Record Low - Here's Why You Should Worry. (Forbes)
• "Cluster Of Central Banks" Have Secretly Invested $29 Trillion In The Market. (MW)
• Fast Money: The Battle Against the High Frequency Traders. (TheGuardian)
• Tim Cook, Making Apple His Own. (NYTimes)
• The Top 20 Angel Investors. (CBInsights)

Runner Takes a Nasty Fall, But She Didn't Stay Down For Long [VIDEO]

Success and failure are not measured by how you fall, but rather by how you pick yourself up.

Here is a video that shows that beautifully. 

Heather Dorniden was competing in a 600-meter race at the 2008 Big Ten Indoor Track Championships. There was about 200 meters of the race to go when Dorniden tripped, landing hard on her face.

Instead of giving-up, she got up and continued the race.

 

 

(The fall happens around 1:10 into the video.)

"That last 50 meters, I hit a gear that I never knew I had," Dorniden said.  Incredibly, she managed to close the gap and finish first.

It is an inspiring show of perseverance.

It Is the Rubik's Cube's 40th Anniversary - Can You Solve It Yet?

The Rubik's Cube just had it's 40th anniversary of invention. 

It is, arguably, the world's best-selling toy, having sold over 350 million units.

Here are a few things you might not know about it.

1.  The Rubik's Cube was invented by Erno Rubik, a Hungarian professor of architecture and design, who wanted a working model to help explain three-dimensional geometry to his students.

2.  The toy was originally named the Magic Cube. In a recent interview with The New York Times, Rubik admitted that it was strange to refer to his creation as a "Rubik's cube" and says that he calls it "my cube." Rubik introduced the toy as the Magic Cube in Hungary, named for his theory of "magic cubology," but the Ideal Toy Corp. dubbed it the Rubik's cube in 1979.

3.  All possible Rubik's cube combinations can be solved in 23 moves. No matter how the cube starts out, its colors can be perfectly rearranged in 23 or fewer steps. See here.

 

Toys aren't just for Kids.

 

CubeStormer 3, built from Lego mechanical and robotics parts and powered by a Samsung Galaxy S4, shattered the world record by solving a Rubik’s Cube in only 3.253 seconds – considerabley faster than the fastest human time of 5.55 seconds.

You can watch the robot break the world record yourself below:

 

 

 via YouTube.

The smartphone acts as the brain of the robot. It uses a custom app that uses the camera to make note of what the scrambled cube looks like, then sends instructions to eight Lego Mindstorm EV3 bricks, which then in turn manipulate the arms of the robot to move the cube.

“We knew CubeStormer 3 had the potential to beat the existing record but with the robot performing physical operations quicker than the human eye can see there’s always an element of risk,” Gilday said in a statement, “In the end, the hours we spent perfecting the robot and ensuring its motor and intelligence functions were properly synchronized paid off. Our big challenge now is working out if it’s possible to make it go even faster.”

Related articles

On 40th anniversary of Rubik's Cube invention, Google posts a playable version of the world's ...

Erno Rubik celebrates the 40th anniversary of his famous cube

Chris Hadfield's Interview -- Don't Just Aim For the Finish Line [Video]

As the Olympics ended, I saw something that caught my eye ... and speaks to a wider audience.

It was an interview with astronaut, Chris Hadfield.  In it, he talks about life, the universe, and what’s really out there.

One of the noteworthy points is not to focus solely on the finish line.

 

 

If you view crossing the finish line as the measure of your life, you’re setting yourself up for a personal disaster.

There are very very very few people who win gold at the Olympics. And if you say, ‘if I don’t win gold then I’m a failure or I’ve let somebody down or something,’ ... What if you win a silver? What if you win a bronze? What if you come fourth? What if your binding comes apart? … What if all of those millions of things that happen in life happen?

Only a few people that go there are going to win gold. And it’s the same, in some degree, I think in commanding a spaceship or doing a spacewalk.  It is a very rare, singular moment-in-time event in the continuum of life.

And you need to honor the highs and the peaks in the moments — you need to prepare your life for them — but recognize the fact that the preparation for those moments is your life and, in fact, that’s the richness of your life.

The challenge that we set for each other, and the way that we shape ourselves to rise to that challenge, is life.

 

Here is the video.

 

 

 

Focusing on the finish line can be tough, even if you win. 

Let's say you set a big goal (for example: winning a gold medal, playing in the Super Bowl, IPOing your company, making a billion dollars, etc.).  Achieving a goal like that is often anti-climactic.  Why, because what's next? Was that the high point ... and everything else is down-hill from there?"

Instead, focus on the process, the growth, and what it makes possible.  That is where you will likely find the energy and motivation to find more ways to win and a bigger future.

What do you think?

If you want more Chris Hadfield, here is something.

Here Are Some Links to Start Your Week

Are the Olympics over yet?  No?  Here are some worthwile momements, in case you missed them.

For example, here, a woman tried to snap a picture of the hockey game between Russia and Slovenia — but instead she got an eyeful.  Call it a new form of 'Selfie'.

 

 

And here's one the Wide World of Sports would call the "Thrill of Victory and the Agony of Defeat".

 

 

For more Olympic pictures, click here.

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

 

Lighter Links:

• Why Big Data Might Be More About Automation Than Insights. (GigaOM)
• Better Than Human: Why Robots Will — And Must — Take Our Jobs. (Wired)
• Why Are We Here? Evolution’s Dirty Secrets. (Salon)
• How Roommates Replaced Spouses in the 20th Century. (The Atlantic)
• Debunking the Myth of the 10,000-Hours Rule: What It Actually Takes to Reach Genius-Level Excellence. (Brain Pickings)

 

Trading Links:

• FED: "Lower Rates Don't Induce Investment." Wasn't That a Central Tenet of Monetary Policy? (BI)
• Are Trading and Gambling the Same? (FuturesMag)
• Statistics Done Wrong: A Guide to Common Analysis Mistakes. (Online)
• IBM Announces $1B Watson Group, Moves Jeopardy Ace Computer To NYC. (Forbes)
• DeathWatch 2014 - Companies on the edge of irrelevance. These five companies won’t die, but they may not escape 2014 in one piece. (ArsTechnica)

People Are Awesome - 2013 Video

People can do some pretty amazing things when they put their mind to it.

Here is a ten-minute video compilation that shows "awesome" comes in many forms.

 

 

 

Going to the gym or finishing a project doesn't seem quite as hard after watching this.

Of course, procrastinators (and the clumsy) may prefer the Fail Compilation instead.

Jason Garrett Addresses Dallas Cowboys [Video]

“Life is about creating opportunities and taking advantage of opportunities’’ Jason Garrett told his team at the the start of the Dallas Cowboys' training camp.

Was the speech a motivational masterpiece? You decide.

 

Some Notable Quotes:

On coaches: “The coaches I hate—that I had a visceral reaction to—were the guys who told me, ‘You’re doing a great job.’ … And allowing me to be as mediocre as mediocre could be,” Garrett said. “None of us need help being mediocre—especially me. Coach my ass! … You been to the Pro Bowl eight times? You’re getting your ass coached. You just got here 15 minutes ago? You’re getting your ass coached. First-round picks, free agents who signed for nothing—everybody’s getting coached.”

On how players should handle interviews/media: Garrett said, players should be “respectful, brief, boring and humble … Distinguish yourself with your play, not what you say.”

On handling distractions: “Don’t listen to the noise,” he said. “Think Einstein listened to the noise? Think Martin Luther King listened to the noise? Be strong enough mentally, be strong enough physically” to tune the distractions out.

The Cowboys were silent for almost the entire 35 minute speech. Curious whether that was a sign of focus or lack of engagement?

If you have a short-attention-span, here is the four-minute version with some highlights.

 

 

 

Here is the full 35-minute video.

 

 

 

Related articles

Jason Garrett wants the Cowboys to know the Pythagorean theorem

Peter King Is In The Enlightenment Business