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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.”

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Here Are Some Links to Start Your Weekend

Do you believe that our Democracy was bought and sold a long time ago?

 

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

 

Lighter Links:

• Why You Should Hustle Every Day. (TheNextweb)
• Discovering Two Screens Aren’t Better Than One. (NYTimes)
• You Could Read An Entire Harry Potter Book In Under 90 Minutes With This App. (HuffPost)
• 35 Expensive Things for Your Dream House. (Distractify)
• Military's 'Iron Man' Suit May Be Ready to Test This Summer. (LiveScience)

 

Trading Links:

• Remember Lotus Notes? It's Still a Billion-Dollar IBM Business. (WSJ)
• What Will Robots Do to Property Values? (Freakonomics)
• Can Emerging Market Bonds Help Us Predict the Next Bear Market? (FinancialSense)
• How Do You Rein In High Speed Trading? (Points and Figures)
• Welcome to the Odd World of Alternative Currencies. Believe it or not, they're coming. (Futures)

Here Are Some Links to Start Your Week

Trading pros may not think things are different.  However, the public is reacting to suggestions that Wall Streets may be rigged against them.

 

In this cartoon, Darkow draws the Carnival Midway Game of Wall Street, "Spill the Milk" ... which disguises the super-fast high-frequency stock trading center for insiders only.

The Carny beckons to the 'Little Guy': "Step right up, friend... It's a game of skill. Trust Me!".

This kind of public sentiment often triggers regulatory scrutiny ... which, in turn, triggers new games of 'skill'.

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

 

Lighter Links:

• The Science of Making Your Story Memorable - Scott Adams. (Dilbert)
• 45 People Share the Best Piece Of Advice They’ve Ever Heard. (Thought Catalog)
• The Best April Fools’ Pranks of 2014. (TechCrunch)
• Meet The Seven People Who Hold The Keys To Worldwide Internet Security. (The Guardian)
• Chicago Police Department Believes It Can See The Future, Starts Warning Citizens About Crimes They Might Commit. (TechDirt)

 

Trading Links:

• Will Last Year's Winners Be This Year's Losers? (BlackRock)
• Goldman Sachs Chief: The Responsible Way to Rein in Super-Fast Trading. (WSJ)
• Themis Trading Response To Goldman Sachs Market Structure Op-ed. (ThemisTrading)
• Technical Analysis Practice: Contrast between Individuals and Professionals. (DragonflyCap)
• Scott Adams Blog: Robot Geniuses are Coming. (Dilbert)

Watch "The Expert" Comedy Sketch Video

Here is a Dilbert-style parody of how a corporate team uses an expert. 

 

 

 

What happens when people don't have a clue about problem solving (or 'definition'), realistic goal setting, or practical reality?

You end up with ridiculous tasks that are literally impossible. And that's exactly what "The Expert" nails perfectly. 

Funny (and sometimes too true).

Is the U.S. Stock Market Rigged?

Did you see the 60 Minutes report on Michael Lewis' new book, "Flash Boys," that reveals some of the ways that high speed traders work the stock market to their advantage.

 

 

Here is an excerpt from the intro.

 

Steve Kroft: What’s the headline here?

Michael Lewis: The Stock Market is rigged. The United States stock market, the most iconic market in global capitalism is rigged.

Steve Kroft: By whom?

Michael Lewis: By a combination of these stock exchanges, the big Wall Street banks and high-frequency traders.

Steve Kroft: Who are the victims?

Michael Lewis: Everybody who has an investment in the stock market.

 

The 60 Minutes piece has a interesting explanation of what is happening.

For an even better one, click to watch this Michael Lewis interview on Bloomberg, where he defends his claim that the market is rigged.

 

 

via Bloomberg Television's “Market Makers.”

 

Let me know if you want to talk about high frequency trading or what is likely to happen as a result of press coverage like this and the ensuing regulatory scrutiny.

 

We live in interesting times.

 

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Here Are Some Links to Start Your Week

We just passed the five-year anniversary of economic stimulus.

 

 

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

 

Lighter Links:

• Are We Alone in the Universe? (NYTimes)
• Some of the Most Plausible Scenarios for Alien Civilizations. (Io9)
• Lockheed Martin Working on a Spy Plane that Can Fly Anywhere on Earth—in an Hour. (Newser)
• The Future of Health Tech Is Going to Try to Improve Your Life In 2014. (TechCrunch)
• Six Famous Thought Experiments, Animated in 60 Seconds Each. (Brain Pickings)

 

Trading Links:

• Are Banks Obsolete? (Forbes)
• How close are we to the self-driving car age? (The New Yorker)
• Drone Deliveries May Be a Sideshow to Amazon’s Real Ambition for the Skies. (Quartz)
• Why colonize planets when you can colonize outer space? (Dvorak)
• A “Future-Hunter” Examines the Dangers of Stock Trading at the Speed of Light. (ScientificAmerican)

Why Facebook Thinks WhatsApp Is Worth $19B

When Facebook bought Instagram for $1B, I remember thinking that seemed like a lot of money.  Well, this deal is like Facebook buying 19 Instagrams ... That's lots of lots of money!

So, why does Facebook think WhatsApp is worth $19 Billion dollars?

The answer is surprisingly easy to understand. 

When Facebook announced its acquisition of WhatsApp last week, it revealed some interesting statistics about WhatsApp's user base and overall usage.  They are eye-popping.

According to Facebook's presentation slides, WhatsApp's 450 million monthly active users send 19 billion messages per day ... and receive 34 billion (the seeming discrepancy is caused by WhatsApp's group chat feature, where one message can be sent to several receivers).

This chart shows how much an average user uses WhatsApp per month.

 

 via Statista.

WhatsApp's growth and usage numbers are absolutely mind-boggling.  As noted, it has 450 million monthly users ... but 70 percent of them (310 million) use the service daily.

More impressively, Facebook claimed that the number of messages being sent through the company’s service is “approaching the entire global telecom SMS volume” (according to telecom market researcher Informa, this was about 19.5 billion last year).

And for a 'cherry-on-top', Whatsapp continues to bring in over a million new users each day. That’s the kind of growth that Facebook can’t ignore if it wants to remain a leader in social networking and communication, and the company knows it.

In other words, WhatsApp has both offensive and defensive value to Facebook. 

One last thought on the subject ... word on the street is that Whatsapp only had 55 employees. It is a testament to what cloud-scale is making possible.

Hope you have a great week.   Sign-up to get this delivered once a week.

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Here Are Some Links for Your Weekend Reading

As the Olympics unfold in Sochi, countries continue to compete in the global economy.  This chart, by the Economist, shows how ‘thin’ the Emerging markets really are.  For example, the market cap of Google equals the market cap of all 379 Brazilian stocks.
 
 

 

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

 

Lighter Links:

• Is Your To-Do List Actually Just A Productivity-Killing "List Of Shame"? (FastCompany)
• It's All in Your Head: 9 Reasons You Can't Resist a List. (Hubspot)
• Multi-Vitamins Won't Boost Health, Waste of Money. Research finds no health benefits. (CBS)
• The Scientifically Best Times to Drink Coffee During the Day. (PopSci)
• Why Did Russia Choose Sochi? (NYReview)

 

Trading Links:

• China Surpasses US as World's Largest Trading Nation. (Wilmott)
• How Much Value Does The Financial Industry Create? (The Week)
• Can Robots Manage Your Money Better Than You? These Startups Think So. (NPR)
• Decoding the Myths of Managed Futures. (Voices)
• Big Commodity Trading Advisers were profitable in 2013 after two straight years in the red. (Institutional Investor's Alpha)

Fake Conference Call Site Captures White Collar Existential Tension & Dread

Conference calls are often mind-numbing and frustrating.  ConferenceCall.Biz is a site that captures that brand of white collar existential tension and dread ... as performance art.

 

via Zach Scott.

 

It is a simulated conference call in which the participants seem perpetually talking at cross purposes, coming into the conversation late, and expressing frustration that they’re discussing material they’ve already covered. Lucky you, it even has distracting background sounds, like a dog barking.

The audio and images are randomized so that each conference call proceeds in a new way.

It's kind of like the Eagles' song "Hotel California" ... you can check-in any time you like, but you can never leave (at least until you close the browser window). From the sound of it, the ConferenceCall.Biz participants have been attempting to get the deliverables to management for a long time.

Who Received the Most U.S. Patents Last Year [List of Top 15]

According to IFI Claims, IBM was assigned a record 6,809 patentsin the United States last year, marking the 21st straight year that IBM has topped the unofficial U.S. patent ranking.

 

via Statista 

 

Google and Apple, often considered the most innovative companies in the world, were ranked 11th and 13th, respectively, both breaking into the Top 20 for the first time.

 

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