TED has been responsible for the production of the best video lectures in recent years. In addition to the lectures, or "TED Talks"as they are called, they are responsible other unique intellectual and artistic creations. Here are 4 great videos from TED.
There are very few people in the world that have the ability to start a social and technologcal movements. It is even rarer to see a person capable of change the way we interact with our surroundings. Even rarer than that is to have a person capable of shattering and reshaping our perception of reality. Jay Silver is one of those anomalies in the world, and he really is changing the world in a seemingly impossible way. Just watch one of his recent TED talks and you will understand why.
Jay Silver: Hack a banana, make a keyboard! #TED : http://on.ted.com/jbAK
Googles new project "Glass" is finally entering its final stages of beta testing. Idealistically, it should be available to consumers in the near future. For those who don't know what glass is, here is a video of one of Googles founders talking about "Glass" at a TED talk
Sergey Brin: Why Google Glass? #TED : http://on.ted.com/cZul
This is quite possibly one if the greatest orations ever delivered. Joshua Prager tells the amazing story of how he found the man who broke his neck, in one of the most technically masterful and outstandingly executed speeches in recent yeas. His message is powerful, captivating, and thought provoking. It is worth watching.
Joshua Prager: In search of the man who broke my neck #TED : http://on.ted.com/favD
Art can take many forms. It can take the form of music, dance, a painting, a sculpture, and much more. Some of its forms are more obscure than others, but art is art nun the less. Th cross between Japanese cluture and the yo-yo in th bellow video is a unique artistic composition that is worth watching.
BLACK: My journey to yo-yo mastery #TED : http://on.ted.com/tDun
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Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Monday, May 20, 2013
Facebook Stock in Retrospect: What the Hell Were We Thinking?
For a while, Facebook looked like the next Google. With millions upon millions of users, billions in profit, and one young leader spearheading it all, Facebook was the El Dorado of 2012, a seemingly infallible gold mine for eager investors. But with one of the most hyped up stock releases came a rapid collapse to an over-inflated dream. Over a year later, all we can say is... what the hell were we thinking?
The world of stocks is firmly rooted in numbers and economics, but the basic, core principles operating finance and pretty much every aspect of society are accessible to practically everyone in society: common sense. Investors who were caught up in the Facebook fiasco, as well as Zuckerberg himself, could've avoided such a predicament with just a little bit of critical thinking.
From the beginning, Facebook stocks never made much sense. Sure, a college dating website turned social media superstar seemed like an instant money-maker, but at the end of the day, Facebook makes absolutely no valuable contribution to society. None. At all. The most important aspect to consider when investing in internet companies isn't the current revenue and profit chart, it's the relevance and reliability of the product. Innovation is key in this business. Some companies, like Google, move rapidly beyond a single website to encompass multiple aspects of life, mainly technology and physical developments that are "off the wall", thus solidifying company reputation, as well as shifting revenue proportion away from the frail virtual world and grounding it in tangible assets. Others, like Yahoo and (now) Facebook, remain content with the one successful website they have and seek to expand and develop only this one product. While such a strategy may prove effective for other service or entertainment-based companies in the physical world, in the virtual world, stagnation is fatal. Investors failed to realize that Facebook, like MySpace, is a social phenomena, something bound to grow old as the young generation that first embraced it inevitably will too.
Thus, right off the bat, the fact that Facebook's business model relies almost solely on keeping users entertained enough to assault them with a barrage of ads should have been a red flag to users. Secondly, the fact that Facebook hasn't learned anything from its all-but-extinct ancestor MySpace, in terms of sustainability and consumer engagement, should have been an obvious indicator as to the future of Facebook. Thirdly, Facebook's reluctance to expand horizontally, as well as the critical blunders it made trying half-heartedly (such as the billion-dollar acquisition of Instagram for no apparent reason), should have been an eye-opener to the unstable future of the company. These key things to look for in a company were somehow overlooked, trampled under tulip, or rather, Facebook mania.
It doesn't take an investor or someone with a background in finance to see the obvious flaws in a business model. In fact, this post was written by a high school kid. All it takes is a bit of common sense and the courage to look past enticing profits in order to confront whether or not Facebook, or any company, is really worth your time and money. So I suppose the right question isn't "What the hell were we thinking?", but "Why the hell were we not thinking?"
Please leave a comment. We need your feedback in order to improve our content.
The world of stocks is firmly rooted in numbers and economics, but the basic, core principles operating finance and pretty much every aspect of society are accessible to practically everyone in society: common sense. Investors who were caught up in the Facebook fiasco, as well as Zuckerberg himself, could've avoided such a predicament with just a little bit of critical thinking.
From the beginning, Facebook stocks never made much sense. Sure, a college dating website turned social media superstar seemed like an instant money-maker, but at the end of the day, Facebook makes absolutely no valuable contribution to society. None. At all. The most important aspect to consider when investing in internet companies isn't the current revenue and profit chart, it's the relevance and reliability of the product. Innovation is key in this business. Some companies, like Google, move rapidly beyond a single website to encompass multiple aspects of life, mainly technology and physical developments that are "off the wall", thus solidifying company reputation, as well as shifting revenue proportion away from the frail virtual world and grounding it in tangible assets. Others, like Yahoo and (now) Facebook, remain content with the one successful website they have and seek to expand and develop only this one product. While such a strategy may prove effective for other service or entertainment-based companies in the physical world, in the virtual world, stagnation is fatal. Investors failed to realize that Facebook, like MySpace, is a social phenomena, something bound to grow old as the young generation that first embraced it inevitably will too.
Thus, right off the bat, the fact that Facebook's business model relies almost solely on keeping users entertained enough to assault them with a barrage of ads should have been a red flag to users. Secondly, the fact that Facebook hasn't learned anything from its all-but-extinct ancestor MySpace, in terms of sustainability and consumer engagement, should have been an obvious indicator as to the future of Facebook. Thirdly, Facebook's reluctance to expand horizontally, as well as the critical blunders it made trying half-heartedly (such as the billion-dollar acquisition of Instagram for no apparent reason), should have been an eye-opener to the unstable future of the company. These key things to look for in a company were somehow overlooked, trampled under tulip, or rather, Facebook mania.
It doesn't take an investor or someone with a background in finance to see the obvious flaws in a business model. In fact, this post was written by a high school kid. All it takes is a bit of common sense and the courage to look past enticing profits in order to confront whether or not Facebook, or any company, is really worth your time and money. So I suppose the right question isn't "What the hell were we thinking?", but "Why the hell were we not thinking?"
Please leave a comment. We need your feedback in order to improve our content.
1984 A Master Piece
1984 A Master Piece
George Orwell was a brilliant writer and social commentator. Like all literary giants before and after his time, Orwell voluntarily addressed controversial topics in an intellectual and worldly manner through the confines of his writing. During Orwell’s life, the world was facing tumultuous times. The Imperial tendencies of a variety of nations, as well as petty rivalries between certain political entities allowed for humanity to be through into a state of utter chaos and disarray. The events of World War I and World War II had a major impact on Orwell. The subsequent rise of communism and totalitarianism ravaged the lives of many and allowed for the occurrence of some of humanities greatest tragedies. In essence George Orwell book 1984 is nothing more than a warning against the spread of such tyrannical regimes.
Karle Marks once said, “There is a specter haunting Europe. That Specter is communism.” In a way George Orwell takes this concept that Marks proposed one step further. In 1984, Orwell effectively claims that specter of communism is haunting the world, and that ultimately the subjugation of humankind will be absolute if communism is allowed to spread. When you look at the structure of the “Party”, you see that it is nothing more than a communist regime. There is an Oligarchic elite, a subservient class of political workers, and a numerically superior general class that is deprived of denominated power. All resources are rationed in the presented society, all actions are monitored, and freedom speech and thought are limited. Values are instilled from the aspect of the group and not the individual. Divergence from established political views are shunned, and all citizens are subject to torture, interrogation, forced internment to labor camps, or execution. The presses of a kind of administrative and corrective police is very heavy. In reality the structure of the party is very closely related to that of USSR.
When you look the rationing that is displayed by the “Party” in 1984, it is representative of what occurred in the USSR. The Russians were one of the first groups to purposely reduce rations and induce strain on the general populous in order to exercise control. That is exactly what is going on in the “Oceania”. The “Thought Police” is nothing more than a clone of the KGB or the Nazi equivalent of the Gestapo. “Big Brother” is simply a newfound representative of communist leaders such as Stalin. The communist leaders of Russia were often portrayed as omnipresent, and omnipotent as is “Big Brother”. The USSR was a composed of a standard figure head with a small group of constituent leaders that acted as advisors and underlings, and that is the same structure that has been adopted by the oligarchy of the “Party”. The labor camps that certain citizens of “Oceania” are sent to are no different that the Gulags of the USSR. The way confections are extorted by the “Party” is no different than what occurred in the USSR. Orwell even acknowledges that the “Party” is a clone of the USSR when in Goldstein’s book he declares, “In Oceania the prevailing philosophy is Ingsoc, in Eurasia it is called Neo-Bolshevism, and in East Asia it is called…Death Worship…the 3 philosophies are barely distinguishable.” The Bolsheviks enforced communist ideals in Russia for a great deal of time. The fact that one of the existing political ideologies in the world of 1984 is Neo-Bolshevism, and that the political ideologies of all the existing political power are all one in the same show that Orwell is exclusively concerned with communism.
Now that the parallels between the “Party” and the USSR have been made, one topic remains to be discussed. Why is Orwell focusing on communism and totalitarianism? Well, there are a few simple reason. The first and most obvious reason is to raise awareness of what it is like to be subjugated to a communist lifestyle. Just as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn tried to raise awareness of what daily life was like under a communist regime in books such as “A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” and “In the First Circle”, Orwell is trying to do the same thing in 1984. Logically speaking, you can’t make people believe communism is bad unless they have an idea of what is like to live under the said regime. Through Winston a reader is able to grasp what an oppressive regime does to average people. The second reason is to emphasize that communism is capable of spreading even though it goes against common beliefs equality and civil rights. In Goldstein’s book, Orwell states, “The splitting of the world into three great super powers-states…was foreseen before the middle of the twentieth century.” This line directly refers to events that occurred in the middle of the 20th century. Communism slowly was able to spread to South America, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Northern Africa, Central Asia, and a host of other locations. In the lines that follow the above quotation, Orwell describes how the world was consumed by either Oceania, Eastasia, or Eurasia. Orwell wants to make it clear to the reader that if communism was able to leave the USSR, then there was a very real threat that it could consume the entire word resulting in a battle for the consolidation of power.
The third and most important reason that Orwell focuses on communism is to show that over time, the petty excuse that communism is good for society will be abolished, and once there is a full endorsement that the employment of communism is nothing more than an attempts to gain power, full subjugation of humanity will follow. There is a particular conversation between Winston and O’Brian that demonstrates this point. O’Brian asks Winston, “Now tell me why we cling to power. What is our motive? Why should we want power?” Winston replies, “You are ruling over us for our own good” For this response he is punished and insulted by O’Brian. After a brief bit of dialog, O’Brian states, “…I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power.” It is through O’Brian, that Orwell makes it clear that in the end nothing reality matters to those in power. It is the longing for power that drives a communist nation. The value of life, reason, religion, emotion, and all things that allow for individuality must be destroyed.
Orwell goes out of his way to demonstrate that communism will ruin society. 1984 is simply a mirror of what our own society could become. In the contextual society that Winston spent his life, these ideas were imperative to get across. Communism was a real threat, and is still a threat today. Idealistically Orwell shows through Winston that the strive for power can corrupt humanity if intellectual freedom is limited. In today’s society, the ideas presented in 1984 are still of great importance, but less immediate relevance.
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Weekly Debrief - Edition the Third
Here are some articles that highlight some recent events in the world of politics and business.
Article #1: “Chief Tries to Infuse Yahoo with Start-Ups Spirit” from The New York Times
In the early 2000’s, Yahoo was a technological power, with a thriving email service, as well as an ever expanding web-based empire. Unfortunately, as the mobile market boomed in the mid 2000’s, Yahoo failed to make a sizable territorial claim in a newly developing frontier. This subsequently hurt their ability to progress as a corporation and a service provider.
In the last few years, Yahoo has become the laughing stock of the industry. It is a corporation that is desperately trying to stay afloat. Yahoo has recently been trying to jumpstart itself by acquiring ownership of as many startup companies and service providers as possible. They are frantically trying to incorporate anything that may be an asset into the Yahoo infrastructure, and are willing to pay top dollar for new ideas as well as innovative minds. Yahoo realizes that it has fallen behind website giants such as Facebook, Google, and Twitter. Now they are desperately trying to compensate for their critical weaknesses.
Whether or not Yahoo will succeed in their endeavors to make a comeback is unclear, but one thing is absolute; Yahoo is putting in an honest effort to reform itself as a corporation, and the relationship it has users.
Article #2: “Report: Google Fiber Coming to Austin as Cities Race to Boost Web Speeds” form the Time
Google Fiber has been shrouded in a great deal of mystery for quite some time now. No one could really tell if Google was planning on entering the market as an internet provider, or if they were just experimenting with new ideas when they started the Google Fiber project. Thankfully, the mist around this topic is finally starting to settle.
It seems that Google will slowly introduce their new high speed internet service across the nation. Currently they are no set plans to do this, but there are many reasons to believe that in the near future, there will be a Google service provider near you. The most compelling reason to believe that Google Fiber is coming is that the service is spreading in Austin, Texas.
Google currently only has their internet service up and running in select parts of Kansas as well in certain Google headquarters and facilities around the United States. The fact that they are commercially spreading to Austin means that they are intending to eventually make their service nationally available.
There is however one question that still remains to be answered. If Google is going to release their internet service, why are they doing it so slowly? The only logical answer so far is that they are still trying to perfect the system before they invest in mass infrastructural changes. This is a very intelligent thing to do if in fact this is the reason that Google is slowly releasing Google Fiber. It is better to have all the bugs worked out before you start building a commercially available network as opposed to trying to fix it when it already has been deployed.
Google looks like they are going to seriously invest in Google Fiber in the next few years. With the success of their search engine and their android operating system already giving them a one up on competitors, their entrance into the market as an internet service provider will only help to solidify Google as one of the kings of the industry.
Article #3: “Bobby Jindal Approval Ratting Poll Shows Popularity Slump” from the Huffington Post
With the next presidential election 3 years away, the Democrats and the Republicans are already planning out who is going to run for office, as well as how each party plans to obtain political hold of Washington and the Oval Office. After the crushing defeat suffered by the Republican party by the loss of Governor Mitt Romney to President Barack Obama in the 2012 elections, the Republican Party is trying to reform the way it appeals to public interests, as well as the way it addresses certain key issues such as immigration reform as well as tax policy.
In the quest for potential candidates, it seemed as if Governor Bobby Jindal from Louisiana was the perfect candidate for a future Republican President. However, in recent months, his approval rating has dropped quite significantly, an effect of his proposed reforms to the current tax policy, the center of a great deal of controversy. To add fuel to the flames, Bobby Jindal’s recent visits to other states have left many people under the impression that he is more interested in appeasing prospective voters, (assuming that in three years he is will running for president), as well as political constituents, instead of the people of Louisiana.
There are still 3 years left before the next election, and if Bobby Jindal truly does plan on running for president on the behalf of the Republican Party, then he has plenty of time to convince people he is a capable politician. After all, allot can change in 3 years. In that much time, people may despise him even more or they may complete adore him.
Article #4: “Yes, Sequestration is Actually Bad” from The Daily Best
Since the Clinton era, there have been long-standing debates as to what course of action the United States government should take in regards to the economy, and federal budget. In general, the Democrats are portrayed as party that wants to tax the rich, and the Republicans are portrayed as a party that does not want to raise taxes at all, but instead wants to administer spending cuts. Regardless of which side is right, there is only a limited amount of taxes that can be collected, as well as a limited amount of spending that can be cut before there massive detriment to the economy as well as the people.
When you look at the policy agenda of 2013, the one topic that seems to be on the top of the list is the federal budget. After almost a year of debate and seemingly unproductive back and forth, both Republicans and Democrats are unwilling to demonstrate a reasonable amount of compromise in regards to how the federal budget should be managed. President Obama has done all he can to push each side to give into the other, but the Democrats are steadfast on raising taxes, and the Republicans are steadfast on not letting taxes rise across the board. Subsequently, sequestration is threatening to destroy the lives of thousands of Americans.
Sequestration refers to automatic spending cuts that are scheduled to take place due to the lack of a completely balanced budget. Many critics have declared that sequestration is a blind threat and that it will not occur, but contrary to these beliefs, it is occurring. The effects will not be immediate, but they will have a lasting impression on the future. In fact, Republicans are already beginning to realize that not wanting to compromise on tax legislation may be detrimental. As the article points out, there is a great deal unwanted change that is occurring for the negative side of things.
Congress still can’t decide what they are going to do in regards to the financial state of the United States, but they better decide fast. If things are left unresolved things are going to get a lot worst. The negative effects of sequestration will not be easily repaired, they will remain as lasting wounds that cripple the lives of many.
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