Read, Learn, Improve – 5-Mar-16

 



What’s Next in Computing? -
https://medium.com/@cdixon/what-s-next-in-computing-e54b870b80cc#.dt4fke93i

The Mahabharata of Indian internet unicorns -
http://www.foundingfuel.com/article/the-mahabharata-of-indian-internet-unicorns/

Milton Friedman: The man who gave us monetarism - Witty and insightful quotes
from the most influential economist of the second half of the 20th century -
https://www.valueresearchonline.com/story/h2_storyview.asp?str=30252

The Absolute Return Letter - If only we could blame China -
http://www.arpinvestments.com/downloads/Absolute-Return-Letter/2016/The%20Abso lute%20Return%20Letter%200316.pdf

Here’s How Electric Cars Will Cause the Next Oil Crisis - A shift is under way
that will lead to widespread adoption of EVs in the next decade -
http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-ev-oil-crisis/

Jamie Dimon on Finance: ‘Who Owns the Future?’ -
http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-jamie-dimon-interview/

Vulture Investing - http://www.bloombergview.com/quicktake/vulture-investing

The Immaculate Conception of Reliance Jio -
http://thewire.in/2016/03/04/the-immaculate-conception-of-reliance-jio-23620/

Why did sex evolve? Researchers edge closer to solving longstanding mystery -
http://scroll.in/article/804417/why-did-sex-evolve-researchers-edge-closer-to-solving-longstanding-mystery

The Rise and Fall of Commodities Hedge Fund King Willem Kooyker -
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-01/the-rise-and-fall-of-commodities-hedge-fund-king-willem-kooyker

Why America abandoned nuclear power (and what we can learn from South Korea) -
http://www.vox.com/2016/2/29/11132930/nuclear-power-costs-us-france-korea

What Happened When Nigeria Created the World’s Largest Business Plan
Competition? -
http://priceonomics.com/what-happened-when-nigeria-created-the-worlds/

The long read - Welcome to the land that no country wants -
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/03/welcome-to-the-land-that-no-country-wants-bir-tawil

Check In With the Velociraptor at the World’s First Robot Hotel -
http://www.wired.com/2016/03/robot-henn-na-hotel-japan/

It can never happen to me

               (not real monkey that took my glasses)

Do a random survey of drivers and ask them how many of them think they are above average good drivers and almost 90% or above rate themselves good driver. You step back for a moment and think above that, you would understand how we always think of our self to be superior to other and that's how we fall in trap or make sure we commit mistake, this is called as “Illusory superiority”  a form of cognitive bias.

So I wash planning to visit Vrindavan and was googling for info on places, things to do & see, things to be careful about. One of recommendation was be careful of our ancestors "Monkey" and I was like “ya sure that's the least of my problem, I am more worried about human that can harm me in more way” ;-).
So here I am in vrindavan inside car, going in small by-lanes of the holy city, looking at charming old architectures, the bustling of markets, shops selling samosa, kachori and lassi. When suddenly from nowhere this monkey appears and takes aim at my eye glasses and phoof it’s gone... Just like that. I was looking down in car if glasses had fallen below when my driver said “Sirji do you have fruit or food offer him” and I was like what..??? That’s when I noticed monkey playing and trying to take a bite at my glasses at nearby house window. I ran to the store 20 feet away to buy biscuit and small kid came to me "give it to me, I know how to do it" fair enough take it. By this time monkey has switched place and was sitting on rooftop, opposite to store (he was smart enough to follow me). Kid threw biscuit in air to attract monkey’s attention, which in any case already had caught my attention. After missing it for two times, monkey caught biscuit but third time was lucky and left my glasses on rooftop itself (what... can't he at least throw it to me??) kid jumps fast and gets my glasses and ask for his reward.

Something like this happens to all stock market investor by that I mean all - regular retail investor, hot shot hedge fund managers, analyst, etc etc. Things which can go wrong will go wrong for you, especially if you think you are smarter than average.  It’s just matter of time when it happens to you and how you take it. Chances are you are average, so accept it and be careful. Only people from who monkeys won't be able to steal would be locals who have learned lessons through number of years they have spent staying with them.

Let me jot down few not exhaustive lists that will happen to you when you invest in stock market. They are in random order and not in particular importance at all

• Stock you bought will crash by 50% after you have bought for no rhyme or reason understandable to you.


• You will keep averaging your stock till your portfolio comprises 90-95% of single stock.


• There will be SCAM – sooner or later there is always one – it happens everywhere not just India. – so just accept and protect yourself.


• Moment you leverage and best your house, shirt, underwear on one particular stock – you have lost it.


• You will buy stock based on recommendation of newspaper or TV channel and you will lose money.


• You will buy stock based on recommendation of your relationship manager and you will lose money.


• There will always be one stock dominating your portfolio and sooner or later that will correct a lot.


• There will be stock in your portfolio which will not move of years (5-8yrs think of RIL in current context).


• Moment you tell anybody you invest in stock market, people will shower you with free stock trading tips (expect unsolicited sms too)


• Moment you start investing/trading in stock market, you will become expert and feel obligated to share stocks you bought.


• You scoff at idea of long term investment.


• You will be fully invested when market crashes and presents you with opportunity


• You will always have list of TV anchors you would like to date, but you will never have list of stock that you would like to own.


• You will always believe that one can predict future.


• You believe in expert without doing background check on expert

There are many others but I guess for time beings this should suffice and give you some food for thought. It pays to learn before investing, also market has its own way of charging fees for teaching you something, decide what loss you can take, decide if you should hire professional to manage your money or give it to professional or do it yourself – do you have skill set to do it – don’t kid yourself.

 

 

Read, Learn, Improve - 27-Feb-16

ScoopWhoop: The new New Media – Link here

It’s alive! Scientists revive tiny water bears frozen for over 30 years – Link here

Fund managers are making ill-informed bets darting in and out of stocks – Link here

The Market is Always Right? – Link here

How Economists Would Wage the War on Drugs – Link here

The Patanjali phenomenon – Link here

Marvel at Google parent Alphabet’s newest Terminator-like robot – Link here

The Importance of Storytelling Ability – Link here

A Dozen Things you can Learn from the Anti-Models that are Bernard Madoff and his Victims – Link here

The Placebo Effect Is Getting Stronger — But Only in the U.S. – Link here

Digitally weary users switch to ‘dumb’ phones – Link here

The surprising reason some diseases spread so effectively through semen – Link here

Stealing White - How a corporate spy swiped plans for DuPont’s billion-dollar color formula – Link here

Outerwall, Buybacks, and Activists – Link here

Incrementum Chartbook #4 -  WHO’S AFRAID OF RECESSION? - Why A Recession In The US Is Coming Closer & How To Be On The Right Side Of The Trade – Link here

Will Real Estate Investors Take Over Airbnb? – Link here

Monica Grady on the Search for Alien Life - Finding alien life raises huge ethical questions. Finding we're alone does, too. An Aeon interview with UK space scientist Monica Grady (YouTube) – Link here

 

Read, Learn, Improve – 20-Feb-16

What the diamond industry is really selling – Link here

Giving Shoppers Less Means Big Bucks for Indian Retailer – Link here

Creating a 100cr. Ecom Venture | The Bootstrapped way – Link here

Suddenly, the Solar Boom Is Starting to Look like a Bubble – Link here

The chips are down for Moore’s law – Link here.

This 3D printer creates human muscles and tissues that could actually replace real ones – Link here

Is This the End of Fractional Reserve Banking? – Link here

We Are All Confident Idiots - The trouble with ignorance is that it feels so much like expertise. A leading researcher on the psychology of human wrongness sets us straight – Link here

Saudi Arabia Is Winning Its War Against The U.S. Oil Industry – Link here

Expect Low Returns Even If This Bull Market Survives – Link here

Gold Prices Can't Defy Gravity Forever – Link here

The Panic of 1907 – Link here

A New Study Shows That Winners Will Cheat to Keep Winning – Link here

Stealing White - How a corporate spy swiped plans for DuPont’s billion-dollar color formula – Link here

Read, Learn, Improve – 13-Feb-16

 



AS HE LIES DYING - When it's time to say goodbye, going the old-fashioned way at home is better than the sterile environs of a modern-day hospital – Link here

If you have seen or read Michael Lewis’s book The Big Short, you might remember Jared Vennett (played by Ryan Gosling) he works for Deutsche Bank Securities Inc and pitches idea of shorting housing market. If you remember movie there was ppt on the same, if you are interested here is the link of original ppt - Link here

How the New Science of Freezing Can Save Your Life – Link here

How bike tour operator Enfield Riders is revving up for growth – Link here

How did a warehouse company become one of America’s leaders in renewable energy? – Link here

Tech’s ‘Frightful 5’ Will Dominate Digital Life for Foreseeable Future – Link here

Understanding the Valuation Discrepancy Between Apple, Inc. and Alphabet – Link here

Crispr is coming to agriculture — with big implications for food, farmers, consumers and nature. Gene editing offers dramatic advances in speed, scope and scale of genetic improvement. It also offers an opportunity for more nuanced GMO governance – Link here

Asteroid mining is not science fiction – Link here

Bull Markets vs. Bear Markets – Link here

What every dictator knows: young men are natural fanatics – Link here

Tech and media outlook 2016 (136 slide ppt) – Link here

Millionaire to Billionaire: How Long Does it Take? (Chart) – Link here

Read,Learn,Improve would be on leave for the week ending 20-Feb-16.

Read, Learn, Improve - 6-Feb-16

(Must read for Investor) Failure: A Checklist - The surest road to regret – Link here

The Absolute Return Letter - A Frail New World – Link here

You’re obsessed with outcomes. Here’s why attention to process pays off – Link here

The Process of Judging an Investment Process – Link here

The total value of all the property in the world is $217 trillion - 2.7 times the world's GDP – Link here

How to Raise a Creative Child. Step One: Back Off – Link here

Larry Fink Wants Companies to Talk More About the Future – Link here

Amazon and Google, Head-to-Head – Link here

Tracing Oil's Hypnosis of Stocks From Wealth Funds to Junk – Link here

Is Apple losing its touch? Don’t count on it – Link here

Doctor who? Medicine's new steely helpers – Link here

India may shelve dollar-denominated solar electricity tariff plan – Link here

Managing knowledge through stories – Link here

Corp Dev Language Translator - Words used by corp dev (i.e. people in charge of making acquisition deals) and what they actually mean – Link here

How Credit Cards Tax America – Link here

When Diversification Works – Link here

Why US Treasury Hides Its Saudi Investor – Link here

The Best Weapon for Fighting Zika? – Link here

Will we stop eating food?

I have observed very often best or good ideas come from unexpected source & event and often it comes least of the time you expect. Or put it another way chances of solving a problem are very less if you keep working on it rigorously and after number of futile attempt moment you walk out of the room, you observe something  and you have your Eureka (of course hoping you are wearing clothes all along) movement.

I had a very interesting similar experience few years back, one of relative got diagnosed with neck cancer (blame it on usual gutkha & tobacco usage). So I had visited relative along with my family and normal Q&A session was followed. Few key things I learned were, there was small cancerous tumor in neck and options were (a) surgery or (b) chemo + radiation therapy. Tumor was attached to vocal cord, so if one opts for surgery person would lose his speech/voice. Second option (chemo + radiation therapy) wouldn’t hamper speech, however because of radiation heat, food pipe would shrink and food intake would be limited to liquid (no solid or semi solid).  Food (nutrition) is basic human necessity, especially during such phase. So to overcome this problem doctor’s user external food pipe to connect to internal/body food pipe which is attached either at 1) nose or 2) stomach (so one basically, churns up food in mixer, make it very liquid so it slips through pipe). To a curious mind it’s all very fascinating to hear what we as human have achieved or can do to save other human lives.



However my Eureka movement happened; when I was listening one friend’s complain about his boss being workaholic, how boss hardly eats or has life of his own..etc etc. Now if you know or have heard about these workaholic, some of them are on very extreme level. These extreme workaholic are soo much hell bent on achieving something or solving a problem that they forget to eat or drink & all routine activity that we all take for granted. Some who are not so extreme, but they are either too bored to cook or consider cooking food as “not so cost-effective usage of their time” or hiring someone to cook can be very expensive proposition. Many of them think cooking & eating is probably not that value adding activity compared to other work they are doing, they think it’s just a necessary evil.  There are variety of people who would fit in to this criteria – there are CEO’s who are known to be workaholic, The Nerds & Geeks of Silicon Valley, the specialist doctors & scientist. So these guys usually have on the go food, meaning fast food, meaning unhealthy. Many of them skip their food and then jump to fast food, which can very unhealthy too. This is where I thought, why not have food pipe attached to a healthy human to their stomach and they can just pour the food – this solves all of above problem. I thought for it a while and quickly forgot also, until a day go, I came across this article “The End of Food Is Here, Finally” which talks about a company called “Soylent” (Link here). It aims to solve the same problem illustrated earlier, it’s a nutritional makeup includes protein, carbohydrates, fats, fiber, and vitamins and minerals such as potassium, iron and calcium. It includes all of the elements of a healthy diet, without excess amounts of sugars, saturated fats, or cholesterol. One just mixes the powder with a water, drinks it and done – all calorie intake done.

If this picks up on larger level, what does the future look like? – well for starters most of the fast food or quick service restaurant would mostly likely be out of the business or probably innovative on Soylents’ line. Eating out food made from actually vegetables would become luxury, fine dining would be altogether premium luxury, fine dining of organic vegetables would be super premium luxury.

I also wonder if this can be used in time of calamity – imagine earthquake or floods or war etc, this can be simple way of mass food distribution. Of course access to clean water would be key, probably, ready-mix pouches can be used instead of just powders.

Soylent is estimated to be worth cool US$100mn (~Rs650cr-Rs670cr) (Link here) Be careful of your random thoughts, who knows what you may strike?