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The economics of privacy

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/06/the-economics-of-privacy.html

Perhaps the biggest complaint about tech companies today is that they do not respect our privacy. They gather and store data on us, and in some cases, such as Facebook, they charge companies for the ability to send targeted ads to us. They induce us to self-reveal on the internet, often in ways that are more public than we might at first expect. Furthermore, tech data practices are not entirely appropriate, as for instance Facebook recently stored user passwords in an insecure, plain text format.

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Video games probably aren’t bad for boys, but it’s a different story for girls

Plenty of parents fret over their children’s undying love of video games. Do interactive games like Fortnite and World of Warcraft inhibit kids’ ability to hold normal human conversations? Do aggressive games foster an unnatural desire to wield guns and destroy things? Or does gaming help kids develop a crucial suite of 21st-century skills?

A new study from Norway investigates these questions by tracking the relationship between time spent gaming and social competence in a group of 873 kids, starting at age six and checking in every two years until age 12. The results showed that more gaming did not generally predict worse social outcomes in boys, but did have a negative impact on girls: 10-year-old girls who played more games had less social competence at 12.

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The Plato-infused philosophy of “The Matrix” still feels timely 20 years later

Incredible as it may seem, the end of March marks 20 years since the release of the first film in the Matrix franchise directed by the Wachowski siblings. This “cyberpunk” sci-fi movie was a box office hit with its dystopian futuristic vision, distinctive fashion sense, and slick, innovative action sequences. But it was also a catalyst for popular discussion around some very big philosophical themes.

The film centers on a computer hacker, “Neo” (played by Keanu Reeves), who learns that his whole life has been lived within an elaborate, simulated reality. This computer-generated dream world was designed by an artificial intelligence of human creation, which industrially farms human bodies for energy while distracting them via a relatively pleasant parallel reality called the “matrix.”

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First Mover Disadvantage

Source: https://avc.com/2018/08/first-mover-disadvantage/?utm_source=wanqu.co&utm_campaign=Wanqu+Daily&utm_medium=website

Getting to something first has tremendous advantages but also comes with a bunch of challenges.

I was thinking about this yesterday as I was setting up a couple iPads to be used around our house as smart home controllers.

The Apple identity management and app store systems feel like they were built for a different era. Because they were.

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What are the most popular strategies used in high-frequency trading?

Pair Trading – Trade two stocks which naturally track each other an example could be Coke and Pepsi, make money when they fall out of line on the idea that they will have to revert back to tracking each other. This is a common mean revision strategy used by hedge funds and might not exactly fit high-frequency trading however it still fall under algorithmic trading.

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Run Powershell scheduled task without pop up

I found this solution a while back by calling the PowerShell Script via a .VBS script. Not ideal but, it negates the window flash:

command = "powershell.exe -nologo -command C:\Scripts\YourScript.ps1"  
set shell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")  
shell.Run command,0

Schedule this .VBS in the task scheduler and it will call your script the same as before.

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How do you turn around the culture of a 130,000-person company? Ask Satya Nadella

It was March 27, 2014, and Satya Nadella was about to make his first public appearance as CEO of Microsoft. The tone, he knew, would be important.

Nadella’s predecessor, Steve Ballmer, was famous for making public appearances feel epic. At a 1991 meeting in Japan, he seemed to injure his vocal chords because he was screaming “Windows” with such force. In 2000, when Microsoft celebrated its 25th anniversary, Ballmer reportedly popped out of a giant cake. And in 2013, when he announced he was stepping down, he bid farewell to 13,000 Microsoft employees as “(I’ve had) The Time of My Life” blared through the speakers of Key Arena in Seattle. Through tears, the 6’5” Ballmer shouted, “Soak it in all of you. You work for the greatest company in the world.”

Nadella was not that kind of CEO.

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“The Linux of social media”—How LiveJournal pioneered (then lost) blogging

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/01/the-linux-of-social-media-how-livejournal-pioneered-then-lost-web-blogging/?utm_source=wanqu.co&utm_campaign=Wanqu+Daily&utm_medium=website

George RR Martin’s platform switch reminds us of an early blogging giant greatly changed.

Last April, famed writer and hero-murderer George R.R. Martin announced that he was hoisting his ancient blog from his moldering LiveJournal onto his personal website. For casual Game of Thrones fans, it was a minor hiccup at best—most clicked the new link and never looked back. For a certain strata of enthusiasts, however, this was a far more momentous move. Described as “the last holdout” by longtime LiveJournal volunteer-turned-employee Janine Costanzo, Martin’s blog was perhaps the once-blogging-giant’s last bond to the world of great pop culture. So while the author may never finish his most beloved literary series, his simple act of Web hosting logistics truly marks the end of an era.

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