Top Of The News - 29 April

1.  NASA's Plan is Coming Together

NASA is on schedule to start launching manned space flights from US soil by 2017, which means the U.S. won't have to rely on the Russians any longer.

"In 2014, NASA awarded contracts to Boeing and SpaceX to fly astronauts to the International Space Station by 2017. It was part of a bold move designed to turn what’s known as low Earth orbit over to the commercial sector, which would allow NASA, with its limited budget, to focus on deep space exploration, such as getting to Mars."

"First NASA awarded contracts to SpaceX and Orbital ATK to fly cargo and supplies to the station in unmanned missions. Now it is getting ready to put its astronauts on board Boeing and SpaceX’s spacecraft for the first human space flight to launch from U.S. soil in years."

In other SpaceX news, now that he's comfortable with the Earth orbit thing, Elon Musk is gunning for Mars.  Full disclosure, I have a man crush on Elon Musk and I'm enthralled by what he's doing with SpaceX and what Jeff Bezos is doing with Blue Origin.

2.  The Social Network?

Facebook's latest earnings report knocked it out of the park (sales rose 52 percent to $5.3 billion from a year ago, while profit increased to $1.5 billion, tripling from $512 million a year earlier). By all indications, the company is thriving. However, the feature it's known for - being a social network (people sharing information about themselves and interacting with others) - is waning.

"According to confidential company data obtained by the tech blog the Information, Facebook has seen a decline in “original sharing”—posts by people about themselves and their personal lives, as opposed to articles they’re sharing from elsewhere on the web."

So, what is Facebook doing about this?

"The company has reinvented itself in two distinct ways. First, Facebook as a platform has been quietly evolving into something different than a social network—something less personal, but no less useful. Second, Facebook as a company has been furiously hedging its bets on the future of technology and social media, to the point that it is no longer properly described as merely a social network—no more than Alphabet (né Google) is properly described as a search website."

In a nutshell, so far Facebook has positioned itself to thrive in the post-social network environment through its the purchases of Instagram, WhatsApp and Oculus (Facebook has been trying to buy Snapchat, as well), and its heavy investment in Messenger.

3.  "Ladies and gentlemen, the hottest band in the world, KISS!"

If you grew up a KISS fan in the 70's and 80's, you will appreciate these pictures of the band getting into makeup.

Also, "The guitarist from heavy metal band KISS is doing a kids’ storybook app"...about a hummingbird.  Who the hell is Tommy Thayer... (Lew Thomson? Jeff Mier?  A lil help...)?

4.  What's In A Fee?

"Why do we pay so much for lousy investment advice?" If you are like me, it's because you just didn't know how much you were paying and were too lazy to do the math. There wasn't an easy way to get to what that fund fee cost was, and that's exactly how the fund managers want it. If you use financial software like Personal Capital, you can now easily see what your fund fees are costing you and it's eye opening. Eye opening enough to where you reconsider how you are investing your money because you realize you are giving away a big chunk or your hard earned cash for a statistically proven little return, or even worse, a loss.

"How big? Smith calculates that for a portfolio matching the stock market's long-term return of about 7% annually above inflation, a 1% annual fee could erode a retirement portfolio by a total 25% compared to no fee. (That's for a family that places 6% of its income in the portfolio every year.)"

5.  The Sad State of Coral Reefs

Warming seas and a strong El Nino tropical weather system are having potentially devastating impacts on the ocean's coral reefs.

The Hawaiian islands, home to 85% of the coral under US jurisdiction, experienced mass bleaching toward the end of 2015 and it's still unknown what the permanent damage is as a result of the bleaching,

A recent Washington Post article discussed the impact of warming seas on the Great Barrier Reef.

"Australia’s National Coral Bleaching Task Force has surveyed 911 coral reefs by air, and found at least some bleaching on 93 percent of them. The amount of damage varies from severe to light, but the bleaching was the worst in the reef’s remote northern sector — where virtually no reefs escaped it."

"Severe bleaching means that corals could die, depending on how long they are subject to these conditions. The scientists also reported that based on diving surveys of the northern reef, they already are seeing nearly 50 percent coral death."

Maybe some good news from this New Yorker article describing a radical attempt to save reefs.

Top Of The News - 28 April

1. Turn Off The Damn Lights!

Home energy monitoring technology is finally catching up with the smartphone and tablet - although, it's still a little clunky. With the rise of the Internet of Things, systems like Curb are making homeowners more energy savvy consumers. There is a lot of focus (rightly so) on global warming, so it makes sense to better understand how we are using energy in our homes because it's not free and the devastating environmental impacts caused by creating and using energy must be addressed. What's measured is managed.

And it's not just energy. We're also running out of fresh water.

"Water scarcity increasingly is driven by three major factors: Global warming is forecast to create more severe droughts around the world. Meat consumption, which requires significantly more water than a vegetarian or low-meat diet, is spiking as a growing middle class in countries such as China and India can afford to eat more pork, chicken and beef. And the world’s population continues to grow, with an expected 2 billion more stomachs to feed by 2050."

Fog collection is a pretty cool way to offset water shortages in certain regions.

"Fog collection projects have used from 2 to 100 fog collectors, and depending on the location, each panel can produce 150 to 750 liters of fresh water a day during the foggy season. In the village of Chungungo, Chile where annual precipitation is less than 6 centimeters, 100 fog collectors produced 15,000 liters of water a year for ten years. Harvested fog water meets the World Health Organization’s drinking water standards."

2.  Royal Crown Cola

Remember RC Cola? Unless you live in the South or overseas somewhere (evidently it's still popular in Estonia, Thailand, Iceland and the Philippines), chances are Royal Crown Cola is not your soda of choice. But back in the day it went head to head with Coke and Pepsi.

"But the number of RC drinkers could have been much, much higher. In an alternate—and completely plausible—universe, it would have given Coke and Pepsi a run for their money. At one point, it did. Believe it or not, Royal Crown Cola used to be one of the most innovative companies in the beverage industry. It came out with the first canned soda, the first caffeine-free soda, and the first 16-ounce soda. It was the first to take diet cola mainstream, and the first to stage nationwide taste tests."

"So who drinks RC Cola these days? In addition to its southern fans, the brand has a presence in Chicago, where it’s served at Bears games and at pizzerias throughout the city, which often give out a free liter with orders. According to Encyclopizzeria, that arrangement began back in the '60s, when a creative local bottler got in good with local pie shops, figuring the pairing of RC and deep dish pizza would generate good vibes with customers. It did, and today many a Chicagoan has a soft spot for the underdog cola."

3.  Active vs Passive Fund Management

The current trend is clearly headed in the direction of passive management. The chart in this article is an excellent depiction of that trend and the fact that folks are tired of paying management fees to fund managers when most do not outperform the market. The question is: When will the passive management trend hit a point where the market will correct back to active management?

One theory:

"Eventually, we’ll reach a point where active management, even after fees, does as well as passive. The case for index funds and ETFs will become weaker and weaker, until average investors will be about as well off with an active manager. Meanwhile, the best active managers will become proprietary traders, shunning outside money and making their services unavailable to the investing public."

"Why Do We Pay So Much For Lousy Advice" is another good read on this topic.

4.  Read.  Read.  Read.

The pathway to success.

"In fact, when Warren Buffett was once asked about the key to success, he pointed to a stack of nearby books and said, “Read 500 pages like this every day. That’s how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest. All of you can do it, but I guarantee not many of you will do it.”

5.  Getting Fit Faster

Studies and data keep pointing to the fact that high intensity interval training (HIIT) has some pretty incredible benefits.  One study reviewed in the NYT, suggests significant health benefits with 60 seconds of intense exercise three days a week over a period of 12 weeks.

"But when the scientists retested the men’s aerobic fitness, muscles and blood-sugar control now, they found that the exercisers showed virtually identical gains, whether they had completed the long endurance workouts or the short, grueling intervals. In both groups, endurance had increased by nearly 20 percent, insulin resistance likewise had improved significantly, and there were significant increases in the number and function of certain microscopic structures in the men’s muscles that are related to energy production and oxygen consumption."

Top Of The News - 27 April

1.  Is it Finally Time for Virtual Reality (VR)???

I first came across VR when I read Michael Crichton's "Disclosure" - probably sometime in the 80's. His description of VR was way cool back then and made the technology sound so simple.  Here we are now in 2016 and it would appear VR is finally catching up to Crichton.  You can't read anything about technology these days without seeing something on VR.  Google has Cardboard and Magic Leap.  Facebook has Oculus.  Microsoft has HoloLens.  VR is everywhere, and yet it's nowhere.  I've never had an opportunity to test VR - not even Google Cardboard.  VR kind of reminds me of the 3D craze: the tech nerds love it, but there are still few practical uses for it.

2.  Is TMZ Legit?

TMZ keeps breaking the big entertainment stories.  Its most recent success was Prince's death.  TMZ was also first with the 2009 news of the death of Michael Jackson, broke the story on Mel Gibson's arrest for drunken driving and his subsequent anti-Semitic rant, and posted the infamous video of NFL star Ray Rice punching his then-fiancee in an elevator.  So, you have to ask: are they legit?

This New Yorker article is a great weekend read on TMZ's information gathering methods.

3.  Promposal?!

This is nuts...

American parents are accustomed to being treated like human cash machines during prom season, spending close to $1,000 to guarantee that a high school dance doesn't become an emotional catastrophe. A hundred bucks for tickets, and hundreds more for fancy clothes—even the corsage costs $20. And before any of that begins, your kid wants $300 for a promposal. Wait, a what?

4.  Take a Bite Out of the Apple

Why is this important?  If you own any sort of retirement investment funds or mutual funds, chances are you own some Apple stock.  Apple will rebound, but it's something to keep an eye on.

Apple reported today that its second-quarter revenue fell to $50.6 billion, down 13 percent from the same period last year. That marks Apple’s first year-over-year revenue decline since 2003, after an incredible growth period that started at less than $2 billion in quarterly revenue.

5.  Nuclear Meltdown

"On the night of April 26, 1986, engineers at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in what was then Soviet Ukraine performed a safety test at the plant’s No. 4 reactor. It did not go well."

To contain the mess an aluminum structure is STILL being built.

"The arch, called the New Safe Confinement, is being built — at a cost of at least $1.7 billion — to last 100 years. Inside, the radioactivity levels will be so high that normal maintenance, like painting, will not be possible. So inside and out, the arch is covered in stainless steel, and dehumidified air will be circulated around the structure’s steel trusses to prevent rust."

Check out these haunting images from the aftermath of the meltdown.

What's In The News - 26 Apr

1. Evolving the Game

I don't even watch pro basketball any more, but I'm fascinated by what Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors are accomplishing. These articles (It's a Point Guard's Game and The Golden State Warriors Have Revolutionized Basketball) give an idea how the game is evolving and it's kind of cool.

"When the NBA added the lines in 1979, the players weren't sure what to think. They sniffed and pawed at them like cats with a new toy. Only 3% of the shots they put up that season were 3-pointers."

"Over the next three decades, that number crept higher. When it reached 22%, the growth curve flattened. It seemed that the sport had found its optimal ratio."

"Then the Golden State Warriors came along and blew that assumption to pieces."

"Team executives saw the 3-point line as a market inefficiency and unleashed Stephen Curry to exploit it."

Golden State's coach, Steve Kerr, was in the right place at the right time to get a look at the future...

“Nash and the Suns helped open everyone’s minds, and from that, the creativity really took off,” said Golden State Coach Steve Kerr, who was the Phoenix general manager from 2007 to 2010. “Basketball has so many innovative minds. It was only a matter of time before every advantage of this era would be exploited.”

2. “We are dropping cyberbombs”

Looks like we are going on the cyber offensive with ISIS. Because ISIS is not a "state," (although, they hold a bunch of territory and would like to think of themselves as one) it's ok to use cyber offensive tools against them.

"While officials declined to discuss the details of their operations, interviews with more than a half-dozen senior and midlevel officials indicate that the effort has begun with a series of “implants” in the militants’ networks to learn the online habits of commanders. Now, the plan is to imitate them or to alter their messages, with the aim of redirecting militants to areas more vulnerable to attack by American drones or local ground forces."

3. The Last Frontier

Everyone is focused on the Middle East and Asia, but there is a pitched battle playing out in the arctic and the stakes are high.

"The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that the Arctic holds a staggering 13 percent of the world’s undiscovered oil, approximately 90 billion barrels, as well as 30 percent of its natural gas, or about 1,669 trillion cubic feet."

4. Poor Tiger Woods

Tiger will be back and he will beat Nicklaus's record.

"In the 1,303 days between his father's death and the fire hydrant, Tiger set in motion all those things, and when he can finally go back and make a full accounting of his life, he'll realize that winning the 2008 U.S. Open a year before the scandal, with a broken leg and torn ACL, was the closest he ever got to BUD/S. He could barely walk and he still beat everyone in the world. He won and has never been the same. The loneliness and pain tore apart his family, and the injuries destroyed his chance to beat Nicklaus and to leave fame behind and join the Navy. He lost his dad, and then his focus, and then his way, and everything else came falling down too."

5. Global For-Profit Schools

I'm not completely sure how to feel about this. On the surface it seems a little shady, but drilling down into the details you can see how the idea could be a good thing for the students attending and the businesses that set up the infrastructure.

"Investment firm GSV Advisors recently estimated the annual global outlay on education at $5.5 trillion and growing rapidly. Let that number sink in for a second - it's a doozy. The figure is nearly on par with the global health care industry, but there is no Big Pharma yet in education. Most of the money circulates with government bureaucracies."