World’s Largest Hedge Fund to Replace Managers with Artificial Intelligence
December 22nd, 2016Via: Guardian:
The world’s largest hedge fund is building a piece of software to automate the day-to-day management of the firm, including hiring, firing and other strategic decision-making.
Bridgewater Associates has a team of software engineers working on the project at the request of billionaire founder Ray Dalio, who wants to ensure the company can run according to his vision even when he’s not there, the Wall Street Journal reported.
“The role of many remaining humans at the firm wouldn’t be to make individual choices but to design the criteria by which the system makes decisions, intervening when something isn’t working,” wrote the Journal, which spoke to five former and current employees.
The firm, which manages $160bn, created the team of programmers specializing in analytics and artificial intelligence, dubbed the Systematized Intelligence Lab, in early 2015. The unit is headed up by David Ferrucci, who previously led IBM’s development of Watson, the supercomputer that beat humans at Jeopardy! in 2011.
Research Credit: Jb
Home Ownership Among 25-Year-Olds in England and Wales Has Halved in 20 Years
December 22nd, 2016Via: Guardian:
The proportion of 25-year-olds who own a home has more than halved over the past 20 years, according to a report that points to the generational impact of the housing crisis.
Home ownership has dropped from 46% of all 25-year-olds two decades ago to 20% now, the Local Government Association said.
The LGA, which represents more than 370 councils in England and Wales, said more homes for affordable or social rent are needed to allow people to save up for a deposit and get on the housing ladder.
Research Credit: Jb
Trump: “The United States Must Greatly Strengthen and Expand Its Nuclear Capability”
December 22nd, 2016Via: Guardian:
US President-elect Donald Trump called on Thursday for a strengthening of America’s nuclear weapons programme, throwing into doubt longstanding efforts to reduce its arsenal.
On Thursday, Trump tweeted: “The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes.”
It was unclear what prompted the comment on a medium that favours brevity over context. But it came on the same day that also President Vladimir Putin addressed Russia’s nuclear capacity.
“We need to strengthen the military potential of strategic nuclear forces, especially with missile complexes that can reliably penetrate any existing and prospective missile defence systems,” Putin said.
California’s Birthrate Falls to Lowest Level on Record
December 22nd, 2016Via: Los Angeles Times:
California’s birthrate dropped to its lowest level ever in 2016, according to data released by the state’s Department of Finance.
Between July 2015 and July of this year, there were 12.42 births per 1,000 Californians, the agency said this week. The last time the birthrate came close to being that low was during the Great Depression, when it hit 12.6 per 1,000 in 1933.
But, unlike after the Depression, birthrates haven’t bounced back quickly as the economy has picked up.
California has been experiencing a years-long downward trend that likely stems from the recession, a drop in teenage pregnancies and an increase in people attending college and taking longer to graduate, therefore putting off having children, said Walter Schwarm, a demographer at the Department of Finance. When people do complete their schooling, they’re interested in taking some time to pursue their careers or other goals, he said.
Percentage of Young Americans Living With Parents Rises to 75-Year High
December 22nd, 2016Via: Wall Street Journal:
Almost 40% of young Americans were living with their parents, siblings or other relatives in 2015, the largest percentage since 1940, according to an analysis of census data by real estate tracker Trulia.
The Thousands of U.S. Locales Where Lead Poisoning is Worse Than in Flint
December 21st, 2016Via: Reuters:
A Reuters examination of lead testing results across the country found almost 3,000 areas with poisoning rates far higher than in the tainted Michigan city. Yet many of these lead hotspots are receiving little attention or funding.
…
Flint is no aberration. In fact, it doesn’t even rank among the most dangerous lead hotspots in America.
In all, Reuters found nearly 3,000 areas with recently recorded lead poisoning rates at least double those in Flint during the peak of that city’s contamination crisis. And more than 1,100 of these communities had a rate of elevated blood tests at least four times higher.
Berlin Attacker’s Wallet Found in Truck
December 21st, 2016Mmm hmm.
Via: USA Today:
German authorities scoured the country Wednesday for a Tunisian asylum seeker who is being sought in the truck rampage through a Christmas festival here that killed 12 people and injured 48.
Investigators don’t know if there is more than one perpetrator at large. The new suspect emerged after police found documents in the truck belonging to a 24-year-old Tunisian national identified only as Anis A, the German magazine Spiegel reported on its website. Some media reported that he is 21 years old.
Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere confirmed that authorities are seeking a new suspect, but gave no further details.
German lawmaker Stephan Mayer said after being briefed by security officials Wednesday that the new suspect, whose wallet was found in the truck, is thought to be Tunisian with links to Islamic extremists. He said the man was apparently supposed to be deported from Germany earlier in the year.
Moscow: Senior Russian Diplomat Shot Dead Hours Before Assassination of Ambassador in Turkey
December 20th, 2016Via: Independent:
A high-ranking Russian diplomat has reportedly been found dead from a gunshot wound at his Moscow home.
Local media reported a senior civil servant in the Foreign Ministry was found dead at his home in the Balaklavsky Prospekt apartment block with a bullet wound in the head.
The victim has since been named as Petr Polshikov, 56 – who was the chief adviser to the Latin American department at the ministry.
It’s ‘Digital Heroin’: How Screens Turn Kids Into Psychotic Junkies
December 20th, 2016My sons, aged 9 and 6, get 30 minutes of video (that I’ve approved) per day and then 1.5 hours of gaming on Saturdays and Sundays, assuming all homeschool lessons are completed.
As little screen time as this is, I’ve found that they have become obsessed with the stuff they encounter in the small windows of time they’re allowed screen access. We’re hearing about diamond swords and Endermen outside of screen time, for example.
Becky was against giving them any screen time at all, but I was worried that they would eventually grow up, encounter screens and become consumed with the whole mess. I met a guy who wasn’t allowed to watch any TV as a child who became really addicted to it as an adult. Also, they know about video games in the first place because they’ve seen my Crysis, Bioshock, Starcraft, etc. boxes on my bookshelf! If you’re a gamer and you don’t want your kids to be gamers: Definitely throw out the boxes and don’t let them know that you do it!
Misha Pemble-Belkin, from Restrepo, is probably the main reason I chose to dose my boys with small amounts of screen time. Raised by “hippy” pacifists, Belkin wasn’t allowed to play with toy guns or watch violent movies as a kid. He grew up, joined the U.S. Army and was happy to be killing people with a MK-19 automatic grenade launcher in Afghanistan. For parents who implement a lot of bans, I think there’s a lesson to be learned from Belkin.
I decided to try giving my boys modest amounts of screen time (as indicated above), but I wonder if it was the right thing to do. My wife still thinks that zero screen time is the way to go. It might be that there’s no good answer and that some options are just less bad than others. I do get a feeling, however, that outright banning would backfire badly.
Via: New York Post:
There’s a reason that the most tech-cautious parents are tech designers and engineers. Steve Jobs was a notoriously low-tech parent. Silicon Valley tech executives and engineers enroll their kids in no-tech Waldorf Schools. Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page went to no-tech Montessori Schools, as did Amazon creator Jeff Bezos and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales.
Many parents intuitively understand that ubiquitous glowing screens are having a negative effect on kids. We see the aggressive temper tantrums when the devices are taken away and the wandering attention spans when children are not perpetually stimulated by their hyper-arousing devices. Worse, we see children who become bored, apathetic, uninteresting and uninterested when not plugged in.
But it’s even worse than we think.
Related:
Video games are more addictive than ever. This is what happens when kids can’t turn them off.
Donald Trump Wins Electoral College Vote
December 19th, 2016Via: MarketWatch:
Donald Trump was easily affirmed the winner of the 2016 election after the Electoral College met in state capitals across the country Monday, ending last-ditch attempts by activists in both parties to deny him the presidency.
A vote of Texas’ 38 electors in Austin gave Trump the necessary Electoral College votes to become president in January, ensuring his victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton. Despite intense pressure on electors across the country to reject Trump, he easily won more than the 270 electoral votes needed to become president.
