The Art of the Podcast

" The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value.
Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?"
--David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urging for investment in the radio in the 1920s.

Subliminal

If the grace of God miraculously operates, it probably operates through the subliminal door.

-- Williams James

Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior


@lmlodinow

Statistics - Signal versus Noise

Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.
-- Niels Bohr


Just happen to be reading both The Signal and The Noise by Nate Silver and The Only Three Questions That Still Count by Ken Fisher and find the overlap on statistics quite serendipitous.

From Baseball to Investing to Earthquakes and TED Talks, statistics can be used as an effective tool to uncover the elusive.

Nate Silver, Ken Fisher and Sebastian Wernicke all use the science of learning from data with great success.  Nate Silver began his journey into data analysis as a young baseball fan.  Ken Fisher wanted to find out what no other investors knew.  And Sebastian Wernicke wanted the perfect TED Talk.

Twitter: @_wernicke @fivethirtyeight @fisherinvest

Behavioral Finance

Ken Fisher's book "The Only Three Questions that Still Count" discusses the behavioral aspects to finance.  Just as a Navy Seal needs to master fear in the extreme, investors have their own fear triggers to tame.

The Brain's Limbic System is responsible for the processing of emotions like fear and greed.  The amygdala is part of the old brain and central to emotional control.  The Cortex is the new logical brain, however it receives fear signals twice as slowly as the amygdala.  Controlling the amygdala is key to controlling emotions.

The Navy Seals take this Limbic training to the limits.  The techniques for dealing with fear are considered by Lieutenant Commander Eric Potterat as the Big Four:

1. Goal Setting - small steps itemized in advance
2. Mental Rehearsal - repeat a physical drill in the mind
3. Self Talk - 300-1,000 WPM on average (positive)
4. Arousal Control - breathing techniques, relax, focus

Behavioral Finance can take a page from this book.  Step one is the reason traders like Douglas Busch @chartmaster write out their Complete Game Plan on a daily basis.  

Fear and Greed in Finance Markets: A Clinical Study of Day Traders takes a scientific approach to researching the reactions of day trading on the brain.  Whole organizations are dedicated to the neuroscience of market psychology, companies like Market Sych LLC and publications such as The Journal Of Behavioral Finance.  Even Freakonomics is looks at the topic in an interview with MIT professor Andrew Lo.  TIME magazine list Professor Lo in The World's 100 Most Influential People.

@fisherinvest @MITSloan @chartsmarter

3D Printing

3D Printing -- Star Trek, right.  Nope, more like Plastic soft serve ice cream.

Howard Lindzon was discussing companies like 3D Systems Corp on StockTwits.  Check out how well the stock (DDD) is doing since the beginning of 2012 where it was trading for $14 a share.  Now in the $45 range the multiple is fairly high.

Scott Hanselman interviewed Bill Steele about his 3D printer called the Ultra-Bot based on the original MakerBot CupCake.

Venture Capitalist in the 3D Printing arena:

Fred Wilson
Brad Feld

Open Source 3D Printing movement with RepRap