wallpaper What Would Get Me Excited as a New Technology?

Having Thursday's off should be standard procedure. Today was so easy!

On Egypt
In a former life EconomicDisconnect was a serious student of things foreign policy and a heavy duty reader of strategic items. Sites like StratFor and The Strategy Page were regular looks. That died out over time. As such, I am unprepared to offer anything but my opinion on the crisis in Egypt, but I feel the moment is important enough to get something down.

We have no idea what is really causing this revolt. I am uneasy with how staunchly the US has always sided with the Mubarak regime and of course now our policy makers would have you think they are all for "freedom" or whatever. This (along with Tunisia) is linked directly to free money the word over that the US supplies. Consequences be damned, as long as it is someone else. I am watching with interest but also concern. You never, ever know what will come about after a real revolution.

Quick Market Take
No idea why everyone got all scared today, but I would not read into it much. I am excited as this will provide me with an actual down day to run my oversold screen. I don't think a serious correction is at hand unless things really get bad over the weekend. We shall see.

What Would Get Me Excited as a New Technology?
I have been skeptical about new age companies that are believed to make quadrillions in cash going forward for all time because most do not make sense to me longer term. I am not stuck in the stone age though, I can see new ideas that will actually matter.

While most are obsessed with finding the next big way to post pictures and talk to people (Facebook, Skype, etc) or a way to get 50% off useless crap one time (Groupon, etc) some are actually looking to break barriers and invent a new way forward.

I have spoken at length about Natural Products and their application for therapeutics. Linked molecules are also a novel idea whose time has come (WHEN Avila Therapeutics goes public you WILL WANT to be in that name!). But perhaps nature has tricks we have not even begun to take advantage of.

A write up over at Io9 should wet your appetite for what I am talking about:
Scientists Make Next Generation Computers with Gold and DNA
Stop, I know what you are thinking. This is the EconomicDisconnect Holy Grail! DNA and gold, he is biased! Read on Grasshopper:

Optical computing technology, a growing field in the tech sector, involves computers that send data using beams of light. In order to expand the capabilities of optical computing, engineers are required to find materials that manipulate light very precisely. Photonic crystals are one such helpful material. A photonic crystal can block very precise wavelengths of light, making it a great optical tool. But creating such a crystal is a challenge. Now scientists have tested a new method for making them, and they have done using the coolest materials possible: Gold and virus parts.

Tiny gold nanospheres and pieces of virus were hooked together using strands of DNA. The DNA pieces were created specifically for the experiment. Small spheres of gold attach to certain base pairs and form part of the lattice. Gold, while malleable for a metal, is relatively heavy and rigid for such a small structure. The lattice is made more bendable by its organic component, capsids, which are what make up the protein shells of viruses. These bits of virus 'skin' string together the tough gold spheres.

A mix of all of these components - DNA, capsids, and gold spheres - self-assembles into a lattice. The structure of that lattice can, with certain materials, be made into a photonic crystal. No one would have to build a crystal to use in optical computing, mixing together the right ingredients could make it build itself.

BOOM!
While science has looked for years into superconductors for quantum applications, here we have a new way to think about the next generation of computing. This could be big but obviously it will take time. And money. Money better spent than on the Facebook IPO.

Here is the research paper:
DNA-controlled assembly of a NaTl lattice structure from gold nanoparticles and protein nanoparticles
I have read the complete paper 3 times and this will work. I can actually do this kind of work and if an opportunity comes up for a job in this field my resume will be at the door on fire. It is beyond the scope of this blog to get too into this but be sure this is a great new idea that has me excited. See, I can do tech!

Friday Night Entertainment
After a hard week, you know you need some fun. Here it comes.

Robot News
It has been a while without a robot update, but maybe I was trying not to scare you. Here you go, a robot that can tie ties. Creepy.

Top Ten Catch Phrases
Another Io9 find, Top Ten Catch Phrases You Swore You'd Never Use (and when you used them).Sample:

"Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."
What it's from: Princess Bride
When you say it: Twenty minutes after you saw The Princess Bride. With a ruler in your hand, and your only pair of boots while your very-much-alive father shaves in the bathroom down the hall. Oh please, like you weren't all dying to say this one as soon as you heard it.

Nice.

Did You Know?
Time to play Did You Know?
-What the heck a capsid even is?
-Jupiter is thought to have acted as a solar system comet and asteroid picker upper (due to enormous gravity field) and may have allowed Earth to remain relatively unharmed by impacts? It is still going on. Thanks big guy!
-There is debate on just how Indian technology was able to fashion the Iron Pillar of Delhi?
-This is what chicken nuggets are?
-Amarillo Slim once won a bet he could hit a golf ball a mile distance?

Film Clips
Load your Netflix list with a couple of gems.

I have featured "Fat Man and Little Boy" before but here is another shot. My man Josh Brown was discussing Uranium this week and this put a scene in my head. While doing a criticality experiment on the Demon Core an accident happens that almost became the first atomic detonation quite a bit ahead of schedule:

Great film.

Dustin Hoffman is one of the finest actors of all time and this scene from "Tootsie" is a standout in my mind:

Too much.

Rock Blogging
Some tunes to send you off on a good note.

I have had the final song in Rocky I in my head all day so here it is, "Going the Distance":

2:20 -2:40 mark is pure AWESOME!

Loyal reader Gawains wanted some Black Sabbath, and you know that's just fine with me. Take a listen to "Wicked World":

Nice pick!

I have seen many 'Walk like an Egyptian" videos today! Why that one (Egypt obviously) when you can run "Hazy Shade of Winter" by The Bangles instead?:

ROCK ON ladies, especially Susanna!

Two left, I gotta run.

With all the problems Charlie Sheen is having, it put me in mind of the film Cadence, which I love. Great film and great singing. Check out this clip of a Church song:

Wow on the last 30 seconds.

Last call!

Closing with Dragonforce for all you Guitar Hero fans! "Through the Fire and the Flames" should get you all riled up:


Have a good night.

wallpaper Return of the Friday

The week went by pretty well considering I was coming off a long holiday and often that will make a week back at work long indeed. All kinds of stuff to talk about tonight so here we go. I will press on even though I am guilty of many poor blog issues as per The Reformed Broker template but I am small time!

Trading Time
I have been using the iBankCoin model the PPT for this week and it has plenty of features that are great. Formerly I would screen stocks using various online tools and my eyes, but now things are much easier. One of my favorite types of screens in an uptrending market is too look for oversold stocks (technical or other) that have high institutional ownership. The theory is that big money will put more out to "defend" a stock they own a bit of. At least that's what I observe. Finding oversold stocks in this market is next to impossible of course, but you do what you can.

Two stocks came up last night and I really liked how the setups looked. I was attracted to:
EW at $78.81
NFLX at $178
I know, NFLX! I never said I was just going to buy metals! This is what is called trading, not investing or making a macro call. I had an issue with my brokerage through Bank of America buying EW but got is squared away and I was in NFLX at the the above price. I am looking for a nice bounce short term (5-7 days) that I hope will garner 10% wins on each. Not investment advice of course, I tend to suck at this stuff. I will update later on.

NFL Wild Card Weekend
The best time of the year is NFL playoff time! I love it. Here are my picks:
New Orleans Saints 34, Seattle Seahawks 20
Indianapolis Colts 27, New York Jets 24
Baltimore Ravens 23, Kansas City Chiefs 17
Green Bay Packers 31, Philadelphia Eagles 28
These are tough games to pick and foul weather in Seattle may be an issue for the Saints as well. Who knows?

Friday Night Entertainment
After a long hiatus, Friday Night has returned!

Did You Know?
-In "Return of the Jedi" Luke's lightsaber was to be blue but when shown against the desert backdrop in the film's opening fight scene on Jabba's barge, the blue blade was hard to see against the bright blue sky. Hence, the green lightsaber!
-Plants, insects, and some small mammals have an ability to find and harvest gold?
These actors turned down these roles:
-Will Smith – Turned down the role that eventually went to Keanu Reeve in “The Matrix”
-Tom Hanks – Turned down the role of Ray Kinsella in “Field of Dreams,” Andy Dufresne in “The Shawshank Redemption” and the lead role in “Jerry Maguire.”
-Keanu Reeves turned down Charlie Sheen’s role in “Platoon.”
More at the link!

Say it With Pictures
Classic:
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see more Very Demotivational

A crushing right hand in the 13th round wins the Heavyweight title for Rocky Marciano when he was trailing on points (in 1952):
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Find the video for this, it's a huge right hand!

Rock Blogging
The tunes have returned! You know you missed this!

While not the complete song (get the soundtrack already!) here is The Blasters playing "Blue Shadow" in the film "Streets of Fire" and pardon the Spanish stuff:

And yes that is Amy Madigan from "Field of Dreams".

How about The Cult with "Edie" (love the section at 2:30 to 3:06):

And no, not Edie Falco, though I used to find her hot!

Now picking a favorite Black Sabbath tune is like picking a favorite Beatles tune (except all their songs suck so bad they are all even!) but if I was pressed I am going with "Snowblind":

There are MANY close seconds however.

We have a request from my wife for tonight (thanks princess!), and so here we go with Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros and "Home":

I love you too darlin'! I like this one very much.

Ok, I am about out of time so two more to close the show!

When I took little kitty Jessie to the Vet for her wellness check, they had Cyndi Lauper's song "She Bop" on the radio and I remembered how much fun the song was:

Nice!

Well, Home is where the heart is, and so let's close the show with Motley Crue and "Home Sweet Home":

Good stuff.

Have a good night.

wallpaper The End of the Week 12/3/2010

The cold air has really moved in now and it feels very much like winter. This is not great, but it is unavoidable of course. Still, A Friday night post is sure to keep things warm, yes?

Views on Things
Maybe my last post was spot on with timing. The jobs number today was a mess, and I think it says reams about how things are that the headlines about 5 minutes after the release were that this report was an "outlier" or "not true, sure to revised way higher". Of course we have had two years of strange job loss numbers but those were all just outliers as well. The trend will change at some point, may as well price it in 12 months in advance, right? Exactly.

With the economy roaring as hard as the 2007 highs (well not quite) the stock market thinks it's time to get parabolic. Why not indeed. Even this Sunday on the show "60 Minutes" Boom Boom Bernanke will make it clear the spice, I mean the liquidity will flow! Here is the relevant headline:
Bernanke Tells Nation This Sunday: More QE Coming
Because I am blinded by my bearishness and refuse to see the stellar data in front of me I would ask why we need any more QE if the recovery is pouring forth like a tsunami of prosperity? I could ask, but I am an idiot after all. The plan has been clear for a while now, but as another reminder, here is Sir Alan Greenspan in case any hotshot stock pickers need a reminder that a rising tide makes everyone look brilliant:

Addressing a gamut of issues, from the European debt crisis to the floundering US housing industry, the former central bank chief said the rising stock market—up more than 80 percent from its March 2009 financial crisis lows—has been pivotal.
“There’s a real upward momentum here,” he said. “I think we are underestimating and continuing to underestimate how important asset prices, very specifically equity prices, are not only to shareholders but the economy as a whole.”
The point is important in that it as at the center of current Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s efforts. The Fed has dramatically expanded its balance sheet in hopes that more liquidity in the economy will help drive up the prices of riskier assets, particularly stocks.
Such movement helps create psychological momentum that in turns lifts everything else, advocates of the policy say.

Got it?

Now how many shares of AAPL or AMZN the long term unemployed have or how much is left of many 401k's after all this time probably is not important, someone is making out. As Gordon Gekko said in "Wall Street" though, stock trading is a zero sum game; for all the multigenerational winners of the last big run somebody has to lose. Care to take a guess who that is? Go on, try it.

As always, Ilargi of The Automatic Earth tends to say what I want to better than I do, so I will add this quote to last night's post on how I see things:

As uncertainty has increased, there has been more and more emphasis on gaming the system in order to wring a quick profit out of it and less and less emphasis on productive investment, as productive investments have too long a time horizon to deliver gains in a world proceeding at a frenetic pace. This has been going on for years, and has led to our current milieu of casino capitalism, or ponzi finance.

This system of money chasing its own tail in ever tighter circles is clearly unstable, and I would argue is about to self-destruct under the increasing pressure of its own internal contradictions and the catabolic (self-consuming) process taken past real limits. As it does so, the pace of change will becomes even more rapid for a period of time, and coupled to that will be increasing hardship for a critical mass of people.

Nice.

Friday Night Entertainment
Some lighter stuff to get you ready for the weekend. Monday Night Football cannot come soon enough.

Visual Cues
Because seeing is so much easier.

Well, it is Friday:
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see more Lolcats and funny pictures
I know you all feel this way.

We do need social security reform because all those oldies have had plenty of time to buy and hold enough stocks to make them rich a few times over, yes?:
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see more funny videos
Indeed.

Questions
Some items worth a ponder.

-What is the purpose of the X-37B and why was it in orbit for 7 months?
-How unimaginable is 6,000,000 megatons of TNT (600 times the world's nuclear arsenal) which was the power of the punch comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 delivered to the planet Jupiter in 1994? Wow.
-The master puzzle Kryptos is still unsolved, so maybe section 4 was made wrong?
-The Anasazi of very early America had awesome houses, how did they do it?:
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Rock Blogging
A few tunes for the weekend.

A couple of oldies that I have always loved.

The Everly Brothers and "All I Have to do is Dream":

What vocals!

Look I know the Beatles (LMAO) and Elvis are the true kings of rock and roll, or so the story goes. So what about Bo Diddley? Oh, you don't know? Well try this out:

Yeah, that's good.

No I have not been lying that I am 34, just like old stuff too! One more that I have had one before, Sha Na Na and "Those Magic Changes":

Just like that one!

Ok, I will get somewhat modern!

Let's get a little nasty with Rage Against the Machine and "Guerrilla Radio" LIVE on the Letterman show:

SICK!!!!!!!!!!!!
If you want to laugh your ass off at a funny cover, here is Alanis Morissette trying and failing BIG TIME! Just stop.

Maybe a top 10 song for me is Black Sabbath's melodic, dark, and moody "Planet Caravan":

Sweet.

Two left.

Ok, I am not religious at all (though I love religion tales and stories!) so I am submitting the kick ass tune "Calling on You" by the 80's band Stryper because it rocks:


Last call!

Evanescence closes the show with "Breathe No More", and a sad tune it is:

Ouch.

Have a good night.