I would also argue that for a bet on war involving the United States, Middle East, Russia or China oil products are a better bet - and it is the world's second most liquid market after forex markets.
I am building an analytics calculator/toy that slowly turned into something useful.
It started as curiosity. I wanted to see if I could express business logic as simple choices and let the numbers fall out on their own.
The app is built interactively in Streamlit. I do not sit down with a spec or a backlog. I add one small idea at a time, refresh the page, react to what looks wrong, then adjust. It feels closer to sketching than programming. The interface tells me what the logic should be next.
Underneath there is a growing pile of rules about the business I am in.
I do not write code in the traditional sense.
I have never coded before and are solving my own problem done by one, this sure feels like magic!!
Anecdotally as someone who strength trained on a recreational basis the last 20 years (and run a marathon just to see if I could), nothing beats heavy lifting.
A Strong lifts 5x5 program build around squat, deadlifts, bench and shoulder press can always make me feel pumped for the day!
There is also a religious element to suicide that cannot be overlooked.
Also, I Spain your view of Spain is tainted. I think very few people would choose an average city in Spain over e.g. Copenhagen where 20% of the Danish population live.
Thank you for the thoughtful and direct response. This is exactly the kind of grounded critique I was hoping to receive by posting here.
I fully agree with your point about the noise in this space, this is what we are trying to cut through :-).
A lot of what is marketed as “AI inspiration” is little more than buzzwords and recycled content. Your suggestion of a curated, immersive off-site experience, with hands-on workshops, industry-specific examples, and a structured learn-and-build format, is genuinely compelling. The idea of starting with interviews to assess skill levels and tailoring the programme accordingly is especially relevant for us.
If you know anyone who delivers this kind of applied AI learning in a serious and thoughtful way, I would very much appreciate an introduction.
We are fairly AI positive, have pro chatgpt licenses for all and have our own software division building custom tools. So we feel ready to "take the next step".
There is also other elements: it sounds fun, offer great inspiration, support collaboration across teams, and help build a shared language around digital opportunities in the company.
Could we go to XYZ place in England, yes. Will it create the same magic, I doubt it.
Please note it is the Cowners idea, so he is willing to spend money on this out of his own pocket.
As someone in the industry as well for many years (coming from the business side having ventured into software), the main problem is always that the software just is not good enough and do not account for all the edge cases - leaving many users better off using pumped up Excel sheets combined with a few hours on the phone every day to account for all the nuances and changing customers/suppliers demands.
In short: It is not good enough. When it is good enough, customers adopt it.
Well not for humans, but I believe it is for ChatGPT given the incomplete information that is often found in chat when users text each other this information (and which is why it is valuable to structure it, package it and make it transparent for all globally).
My thought was AI, but I believe that there is to much room for AI to misunderstand the communication (which happens via instant messaging).
However, a hybrid approach could perhaps be the way to go: I.e. monitor everyone’s chats and then scrape what looks like pricing info, which a human then translates into prices.
Is it realistic to expect this to be fully automated anyway?
#Chaxor:
I fully agree with this. I am not keen on this being a one horse race, and for privacy reasons would like to deploy these models locally. However, it seems for many programmers it is somewhat easy to build something that can query into OPenAI so they can put it on their resume.
Do you know of any FAISS / open source / one-click install w<windows app here I can search in my PDFs via vectors? I can see Secondbrain.sh will have the function in the future, but currently it does not.
I have around 500 documents I want to be able to search in.
I am more interested in the WHY and the theory behind why some markets are digitalized and others are not. I appreciate it is probably a relatively new area of research, but given the number of digital efforts made by Silicon Valley to build the next “the Amazon for xyz” I would have guess there are some academic research available.
Thank you for the comment, and some very valid points. I am a trader so I am doing this for profits, not empire building. That should speak for buying everything off the shelf (I have also noted that data/SaaS products tend to become cheaper over time).
However, USD 50.000 extra over 20 years is USD 1 mio, and the fact that things comes off the shelf doesn’t mean that I won’t have to tweak, ie there will be some personal and programming costs even in the off the shelf solution.
“The fundamental principles of economics are not hard to understand, but they are easy to forget, especially amid the heady rhetoric of politics and the media.” In Chapter 1 of Basic Economics, Thomas Sowell introduces the concept of economics, scarcity, and productivity:
Economy – a system for the production and distribution of the goods and services we use in everyday life
Economics – the study of the use of scarce resources which have alternative uses
Scarcity – the wants of everyone add up to more than what exists; without scarcity, there would be no need for economics
Productivity – the effectiveness of effort as measured at the rate at which inputs are turned into outputs
Role of Economics – helps us try to make decisions that make the most of the options that we are presented with in life, especially when allocating resources
Chapter 2: The Role of Prices
In Chapter 2 of Basic Economics, Thomas Sowell discusses the importance of prices and shows how resources are allocated:
Market Economy – an economic system in which production and prices are determined by unrestricted competition between individuals and businesses, not central planners
Transactions – the instance of buying or selling between consumers, producers, retailers, landlords, or workers on whatever terms they can mutually agree on
Prices – an amount of money that conveys the terms of the transaction not just to the individuals immediately involved but throughout the entire economic system
Supply – the tendency of producers to supply more at a higher price and less at a lower price; the quantity supplied varies directly with the price
Demand – the tendency of consumers to buy more at a lower price and less at a higher price; the quantity demanded varies indirectly with the price