Five Things — November 2016
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Dear friends,
I hope this letter finds you well.
Web Summit was lots of fun, although I was not able to attend all 3 days. It’s worth checking the intro video produced by Vhils. I am optimistic there will be a before and after the Summit — not just for Lisbon but also Porto and the rest of the country.
I never expected Trump’s victory, and it’s still difficult to understand how the polls were so wrong. Let’s wait for the first 100 days of Trump as it will signal if he will follow on his promises or become moderate. I’m starting to come to the idea that all the craziness from Trump, is mostly planned — check this video from Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, on Trump’s persuation techniques.
Christmas decoration in London are up and they are beautiful — it almost makes up for the cold. If you can take a few days during the holidays to see them (specially Piccadily and Oxfort street).
If you want to read past newsletters, click here. I kindly request you to provide feedback to improve the next newsletters.
Thank you for your time,
Alex
#1 How did Hitler rise to power in a democratic country?
The rise of Hitler to power is one of those events in History that is easily explainable after the fact, but very difficult to predict (sometimes called black swan events). With benefit of hindsight, this video details this story starting with the sanctions to Germany after World War I.
One important fact: Hitler was not elected by the people. He lost the presidential election of 1932, however he achieved his goals, when he was appointed Chancellor in 1933. In that same year, the elected President Hindenburg issued the Reichstag Fire Decree which nullified civil liberties, assuring that Hitler could exercise dictatorial power.
Does History really repeat itself?
Video (Youtube, 5 min)
#2 Airplane black boxes, explained
Fortunately we haven’t heard much talk about airplane black boxes in the last months. This quick video explains how they work.
Video (Youtube, 5 min)
#3 Being the best the in the world
Tony Hawk is one of the most successful skateboarders in the world and the first person to land “The 900” (2,5 turn) in competition (1999 X-Games). In this video Hawk lands “The 900” again at 48 years old.
For me landing the trick is the least memorable part of the video. Watching his failure attempts — he openly shares with us and his son, the damage to his body, the way he talks to himself, his attitude when he lands it… after seeing this we get a glimpse of what it takes to be the best, and talent is not enough.
Video (Youtube, 3 min)
#4 What would happen if everyone was 100% honest all the time?
How do you decide when it is acceptable not to be honest? Presenting you… Radical Honesty.
“Radical Honesty is a self-improvement program developed by Brad Blanton. The program asserts that lying is the primary source of modern human stress, and speaking bluntly and directly, even about painful or taboo subjects, will make people happier by creating an intimacy not possible while hiding things. The Radical Honesty technique includes having practitioners state their feelings bluntly, directly and in ways typically considered impolite.”
One journalist from Esquire (AJ Jacobs) went through the program and started living his life following Radical Honestly. In this article he journals his experience and the impacts it had in his life both positive and negative. The article is from 2007, but it still holds up.
If you like the article, search other work from AJ Jacobs. He experiments and immerses himself in different lifestyles. You can start with the Ted Talk on his experience of one year living biblically.
I think you’re fat (Esquire article, 26 min read)
#5 The future is now! Or isn’t?
Gartner, one of the top analysts in the tech industry, releases every year the Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies representing the maturity and adoption of new technologies.
They released the 2016 Hype Cycle. Although Gartner’s track record on this matters is not perfect, I want to highlight two things (as did Peter K Korsten from IBM):
- Only three of the 34 debated technologies will be real in 2–5 years: Natural language Q&A, Software-Defined Anything (SDx) and Machine learning
- Autonomous Vehicles will only plateau in MORE than 10 years
People working in tech (including myself) have sometimes this distorted view on the adoption of new technologies, as we are highly optimistic on the way technology can improve human life. But change takes time and new generations without old habits.
Mass-market adoption is still far way for most of these technologies — however there will be exceptions, where the hype cycle is shorter, and this is where the big opportunities lie.
Gartner Hype Cycle press release (Gartner, 2min)
