Angus Bradley

Wise words from the Dalai Lama. I need to read this every day.

Fri, 11 May 2012 11:25:11 +0100

Wise words from the Dalai Lama. I need to read this every day.

Hugh Hendry - global financial review. Long USA, short China

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 09:16:00 +0100

Hugh Hendry has written his first market review for 2 years for his Eclectica fund (which has been making strong returns)

He’s pretty contrarian, notably long USA and short China

“There is a near consensus that China will supplant America this decade. We do not believe this. We are more bullish on US growth than most. The momentous nature of recent advances in shale oil and gas extraction and America’s acceptance of the unpleasantness of debt and labour price restructuring looks to us as if it is creating yet another historic turning point. By embracing his inadequacies and leaping on his luck, the strong man may have finally broken the binds that had previously held him back. We are also more pessimistic on Chinese growth than ever. …… On the plus side we also believe that we are much closer than before to the beginning of a bull market of perhaps 1982, if not 1932, proportions. We just need the last shoe to drop.”

My favourite bit his is note on detachment. ”I cannot be reached by telephone” - no daily chat with bankers, no buddies, no phone calls, no IM’s.

I believe all those interruptions are poison to creativity, and I think the current obsession with facebook and twitter damages our ability to think.. Anyway, off topic!

See his fund performance here - http://www.offshore-rebates.com/pdf/TEF.pdf

April 2012 TEF Commentary

Highlights from the Economist Tech Frontiers 2012 Conference

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 10:21:00 +0100

I was lucky enough to spend a few days at the Economists Tech Frontiers conferences last week. A fascinating lineup of speakers introduced where they thought things were going.

Recurring themes:

Iterate Iterate Iterate - don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.

We are all story telling machines - telling stories is what we want, what we respond to, and what we do best, regardless of the medium.

It’s only just begun - Moores law has a long while yet to run, and we’re just at the beginning of the tech revolution.

My highlights

Bran Ferren opened with

“We borrow from China to pay the Arabs for oil, and then burn it”

- not necessarily a reliable business model!

Bran’s main view was ‘you ain’t seen nothing yet’ and that we’re only at the very beginning of a massive rise in technology. His graph showing traditional business failing as tech rose went down well.

He also win’s my “beard of the year” competition, with a superb set of whiskers.

Implants - we’ll all have them in 25 years - you’ll always be online, and never short of a joke.. (how frightening is that)

Moores law - another 25 years to run.

Bran ended on the statement that education is a global embarrassment, and pointed out that whilst todays kids have lots of role models, none of them are engineers. [What does this bode for the future? Not necessarily well I think. I wonder who the role models in South Korea are?]

Charles Leadbeater

“Are we for technology, or is it for us?”

Great speech, “Are we for technology, or is it for us?”. His main driver, with which I totally concur, is that the future is for high empathy, high systems, with the wonderful description of Ryan Air as a high system,low empathy business, who declare war on you the minute you’ve paid them!

He quoted a great definition as ‘Technology, stuff that doesn’t work yet’

On tech:

Make it dissapear

Make it familiar

Make it friendly

We need shared worlds, ownership and values, and the big isses coming up will centre around trust privacy and control.

Bonin Bough.

Bonin gave a fantastic energetic speech, my favourite

“Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good”.

Iterate, Innovate and Experiment.

Hugh Herr from MIT gave a great talk on disability and bionics.

Starting with the statement that bad eyesight used to be a major disability, conquered by technology he went on to state that bionics will eliminate disability.

Hugh silenced the room when he rolled up his trousers to reveal that he is a double amputee, and wears the most amazing bionic legs. The incredible change from ten years ago? He now uses the same amount of energy to walk as someone with 2 legs does.

Lots of questions and issues around ethics, and the question of young sportspeople say removing limbs to replace them with better performing bionics.

[My personal view, a 2 tier world where the rich have bionic everything and the poor are no better off was partly assuaged by Hughs mention of FAB labs, where an MIT chap is building high tech fabrication labs in developing countries, to allow them to build their own tech (and hopefully not better car bombs)]

Cory Doctorow (boingboing.net)

Great talk, best quote perhaps a little obvious, but so true

“What is happiness? Find something more important than you are, and dedicate your life to it”

Sir John Hegarty from BBH came in on Friday morning with a great talk. Basically, geeks great the stuff and inspire creatives, who after a while will make it actually interesting. He says we’re suffering a creative defecit with everyone focussed on tech.

His other take away echoed a theme mentioned a lot in this conference

We are story telling machines.

Story telling has always been the greatest form of communication. This was of course echoed by the best speakers, who told great stories.

On metrics, and geeks trying to understand everything about consumers - “How dare you try to understand me!” - you cannot possibly understand your consumers, and shouldn’t try to. Great creativity requires a leap of faith.

His example was ‘Vorsprung durch Technik’ - apparently all the focus groups caned this, said it would never work. Of course Audi went with it, best tag line ever!

Eric Whitacre then came in and showed his amazing choral pieces, created by thousands of individuals tracks on you tube, and then finessed into a final piece. Absolutely amazing.

Esra’a from Mid East Youth came on and gave a very moving talk on the work of mideastyouth.com and their new services like the amazing mideastunes.com and http://crowdvoice.org/

On the twitter revolution

“Would you call it a shoe revolution because they were wearing shoes?”

She also said that Amazon was the best host they’d used and most secure - being hacked continually by loads of governments and others.

Thats about it, other great speakers, but those were my favourites.

The Economists Tom Standage who gave the whole event fantastic energy and pace closed with his top 10 technologies to watch in the next 3-5 years, including mobile payments, 3d printing and of course drones.

"If someone says a rhinoceros is coming in two seconds, we worry. But if you say a rhinoceros is..."

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 22:51:33 +0000

“If someone says a rhinoceros is coming in two seconds, we worry. But if you say a rhinoceros is coming in 20 years, nobody moves.”

- A Buddhist monk said this to Christopher Dickey on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, last week. (via newsweek)

wnyc: pleatedjeans: the queen. via … an extra, extra, extra...

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 22:50:58 +0000

wnyc:

pleatedjeans:

the queen. via

… an extra, extra, extra long time. —A.P.

The UK Budget in simple terms

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 12:02:48 +0000

inspired by the lovely idea here http://weknowmemes.com/2011/12/the-us-budget-explained-in-simple-english/ I wanted to show the UK budget in household terms. Somehow getting rid of those zeros make it much easier to see the ratios.

I got most of these figures from the sources below. I took the cuts from the Department expenditure limits from the Treasury, which say DEL is set to fall from £375.170 billion in 10/11 to £331.900 in 15/16, a cut of £43.27 billion or 11.53%. So thats 43bn over 5 years, or £8.6bn/year.

Let me know if you spot any mistakes!

sources

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/apr/25/tax-receipts-1963

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tobyyoung/100119735/new-statesmans-political-editor-is-wrong-about-the-debt-crisis/

http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/total_spending_2010UKbn

uk government, defecit, spending, debt.

stoweboyd: humanscalecities: Reinventing Urbanism in a Time of...

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 03:38:00 +0000

stoweboyd:

humanscalecities:

Reinventing Urbanism in a Time of Economic Crisis
Manuel Castells, University Professor and Wallis Annenberg Chair in Communications & Society, University of Southern California

via

Some points:

The current crisis is the end of some world — not the world.

The equivalent of 75% of global GDP has been wiped out by the housing bust.

We are moving into a post-consumption society. Living to consume is over.

The savings rate of US population is up sharply in the past decade, now up to 6%. Reducing demand farther, worsening the cycle.

more here

"There’s no such thing as a poor urbanized country; there’s no such thing as a rich rural country."

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 02:49:50 +0000

“There’s no such thing as a poor urbanized country; there’s no such thing as a rich rural country.”

- Edward Glaeser, cited by Robert Kunzig in The City Solution via National Geographic Magazine (via stoweboyd)
Funny, I thought most urbanised countries were bankrupt, or going that way pretty quick.

emergentfutures: ‘Downloading’ new skills into our brains like...

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 12:38:59 +0000

emergentfutures:

‘Downloading’ new skills into our brains like characters on The Matrix set to become a reality, say scientists

They have been studying how a functional magnetic resonance machine (FMRI) can ‘induce’ knowledge in someone through their visual cortex by sending signals that change their brain activity pattern.

Full Story: MailOnline

EU to close Patriot Act data access loophole

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 11:56:00 +0000

In case you missed it, Microsoft opened a can of worms in June when they were the first US company to finally admit that they would release data from any of their global datacentres if requested by the US goverment under the patriot act. This contravenes European data privacy regulations, and when you consider the kinds of data US companies hold (Lockheed Martin and the UK Census data for example!) it’s worrying.

The EC’s justice commissioner Viviane Reding met with German Consumer Protection Minister Ilse Aigner last month, and it sounded promising.

We both believe that companies who direct their services to European consumers should be subject to EU data protection laws. Otherwise, they should not be able to do business on our internal market. This also applies to social networks with users in the EU. We have to make sure that they comply with EU law and that EU law is enforced, even if it is based in a third country and even if its data are stored in a ‘cloud’.

Now ZD Net have published the draft documents, due to be released in January 2012. They look good, and comprehensive.

If the new act is broken, member states’ data protection authorities will be able to impose sanctions, which can range up to a maximum of 5 percent of a company’s annual worldwide turnover.

"For first time in 20 years, TV ownership declines. And households watch a record 59 hours 28 minutes..."

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 17:03:33 +0000

“

For first time in 20 years, TV ownership declines. And households watch a record 59 hours 28 minutes of TV per week! Yes, PER WEEK!

”

- Emergent Futures Tumblelog

Prepare for riots in euro collapse, Foreign Office warns - Telegraph

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 22:17:22 +0000

Prepare for riots in euro collapse, Foreign Office warns - Telegraph:

As the Italian government struggled to borrow and Spain considered seeking an international bail-out, British ministers privately warned that the break-up of the euro, once almost unthinkable, is now increasingly plausible.

Diplomats are preparing to help Britons abroad through a banking collapse and even riots arising from the debt crisis.

The Treasury confirmed earlier this month that contingency planning for a collapse is now under way.

60 Minutes on America’s poverty epidemic - families living in cars

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 13:02:06 +0000

FAMILIES LIVING IN CARS

This is the home of the Metzger family. Their dad, Tom, is a carpenter. And, he's been looking for work ever since Florida's construction industry collapsed. When foreclosure took their house, he bought the truck on Craigslist with his last thousand dollars.

Pelley: How long have you been living in this truck?

Arielle: About five months.

Pelley: What's that like?

Arielle: It's an adventure.

Austin: That's how we see it.

Pelley: When kids at school ask you where you live, what do you tell 'em?

Austin: When they see the truck they ask me if I live in it, and when I hesitate they kinda realize. And they say they won't tell anybody.

Jade Wiley is eight years old. She spent three weeks living in her car with her mom, her dad, two dogs and a cat.

Pelley: Did you think you were ever gonna get out of the car?

Jade Wiley: I thought I was going to be stuck in the car.

Pelley: How did you keep your spirits up?

Jade Wiley: By still praying to God that somebody'd let us stay in a hotel.

Pelley: And how did you get out of the car?

Jade Wiley: Well there's this nice lady named Beth. And then she gave us a lot of money so we could stay at the hotel. And now I'm staying at the hotel.

Photo

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 21:26:05 +0000

Monthly Amazon EC2 pricing in £GBP

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 15:41:40 +0000

I do this every 6 months or so for a quick ready reckoner of EC2 prices.

Heres the standard on demand pricing

And here’s the price if you pay a reservation fee up front

"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a..."

Sat, 19 Nov 2011 19:10:37 +0000

“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.”

- Oscar Wilde

Very happily working on our new product, for a bit.. then back...

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 15:02:06 +0000

Very happily working on our new product, for a bit.. then back to nappies :)

What percentage of earnings do public sector workers contribute...

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 21:51:52 +0000

What percentage of earnings do public sector workers contribute to pensions compared with the private sector (from the spectator)

"the best form of welfare is still a good, high paying job"

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 21:31:36 +0000

“the best form of welfare is still a good, high paying job”

- Attributed to Kennedy

Remember, when a country goes bankrupt, your bank may follow

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 14:40:12 +0000

Sometimes the news just seems so insane we just ignore it, but if you’re lucky enough to have more than £85,000 in savings, then remember you need to put it with different banks to have any chance of protecting it if there is a sovereign default. In the event of a country like Greece collapsing, it’s pretty likely to take out a few banks, and there’s no guarantee that the European governments will protect them.

In the event of a banking collapse - ALL DEPOSITS OVER THE £85k (100,000 Euro’s) WOULD BE AT RISK as per government guarantee limits.

Check out the recent downgrades were for the UK big banks:

RBS from Aa3 to A2

Lloyds TSB Aa3 to A1

Santander Aa3 to A1

Nationwide Aa3 A2

Co-op A2 to A3

Ratings agencies aren’t exactly famous for getting it right, e.g. Lehmans was A2 only a few days before it disappeared.