Netizen

Friday, July 03, 2015

Digitizing Money For The Poor

I have an enormous interest in finance for the people at the very bottom. I think magical advances are possible. And there is also a lot of money to be made.

Exponential Finance: Who Will Be the Instagram or Uber of Finance?

Instagram was acquired for a billion dollars the same year Kodak went bankrupt. Though Kodak invented the digital camera behind Instagram’s business model—they failed to fully embrace it and paid the price. Uber is a five-year-old transportation company worth $40 billion, and they don't own a single car or bus. ....... relatively small organizations are rapidly rising up to take on big traditional players with little more than an app on a smartphone. So, what models are leading contenders to become the Instagram or Uber of finance? ..... As smartphones become ubiquitous in the developing world, it's possible many of the world’s unbanked billions in developing countries will skip traditional finance, a little like how they leapfrogged landlines for cell phones. ....... bank-free, digital cash will be a force to be reckoned with. ........ blockchain’s potential is massive—not just for cryptocurrencies, but anything of value. The same technology that records and confirms Bitcoin transactions can, in theory, do the same thing for “a will, a deed, a title, a license, intellectual property, an invention, or any type of financial instrument.” ...... Machines doing what machines do best, and humans doing what humans do best. Better together than either one alone. ...... By more fully digitizing finance (parts of it are, of course, already digitized), we can supercharge commerce and reduce the cost of doing business. ...... Even now, the digital camera market is shrinking as point-and-shoot cameras are replaced by smartphones. ...... Reality has surpassed science fiction.

Elon Musk And Tesla Shareholders

I think I would like to live past 100. What about you? I have seen pictures in newspapers of people who have done it without any Singularity type help. All of them were slim though.

If you do exercise, you can be as vibrant at 80 as you are at 40, almost.

How Computers Will Crack the Genetic Code and Improve Billions of Lives

Machine learning and data science will do more to improve healthcare than all the biological sciences combined. ..... the most epic challenge — extending the healthy human lifespan ..... Your genome consists of approximately 3.2 billion base pairs (your DNA) that literally code for "you." ..... Your genes code for what diseases you might get, whether you are good at math or music, how good your memory is, what you look like, what you sound like, how you feel, how long you'll likely live, and more. ..... Each person's genome produces a text file that is about 300 gigabytes. ...... The genome of the 100 trillion + microorganisms living in our bodies. There are 10 times as many microbial cells than human cells, and their effects on our bodies are enormous and massively understudied........ With millions and millions of documents/websites/publications online that were already translated, and a crowd of 500 million users to correct and "teach" the algorithm, GT can quickly and accurately translate between 90 different languages.