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Thursday, 21 April 2022

Weekend Reading: 22-Apr-22

Reading across disciplines is one of the best ways to improve our investment acumen. Here is a summary of some of the best articles I read this week. If you like this collection, consider forwarding it to someone who you think will appreciate it.

 

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1. The story of the rice cooker and economic development of women in post-war Japan

The automatic rice cooker was invented at the dawn of the modern Japanese kitchen and commercialised for home-use by Toshiba in 1955. Collaborating engineer Minami Yoshitada of Koushin-sha and his wife Fumiko experimented with temperatures and cooking times before concluding that automatically switching the power off when the water reaches a boil would adequately steam the rice to its optimal tenderness in about twenty minutes. The result: the Toshiba Automatic Rice Cooker model ER-4, designed by Iwata Yoshiharu, was Japan’s first successfully mass-produced rice cooker.

 

In the last century, no domestic space in Japan has been transformed by design and technology more than the kitchen.

 

By combining the dining and kitchen into a single space, Hamaguchi legitimised womens’ labour by making it visible to the head of the household, while also improving efficiency. In doing so, Hamaguchi presented household labour as an important contribution to the economy during a time in which the Japanese government was focused on the economic development of the country.

https://artreview.com/work-of-the-week-toshiba-rice-cooker/

 

2. Reversible & irreversible decisions

Jeff Bezos breaks up decisions into two types: Type 1 and Type 2. He compares them to two types of doors. Type 1 decisions are irreversible. This door only opens one way – once you enter the room you cannot get out. It is very difficult if not impossible to reverse the decision. A Type 2 decision is like a door that opens both ways – you can get in and out easily. Bezos argues that corporations don’t distinguish between Type 1 and 2 decisions. Type 1 decisions should be thoughtfully weighed. Type 2 decisions can be made fast.

 

In your early 20s, some Type 1 decisions require careful deliberation, some don’t. Choosing a career and your soulmate do. Drinking and driving or getting in a car with a drunk roommate at the wheel, don’t. There is an Uber app for that.

https://contrarianedge.com/turning-a-pbs-interviewer-into-interviewee/

 

3. Eat 2-3 times a day while in an intermittent fast

Keeping blood glucose levels down requires eating more regularly than once a day, Manoogan says, as this prevents the body thinking it's starving and releasing more glucose when you do eventually eat in response. 

 

Instead, she says, two to three meals a day is best – with most of your calories consumed earlier in the day. This is because eating late at night is associated with cardio-metabolic disease, including diabetes and heart disease.

 

"If you eat most of your food earlier on, your body can use the energy you feed it throughout the day, rather than it being stored in your system as fat," Manoogan says.

 

But eating too early in the morning should be avoided, too, she says, as this wouldn't give you sufficient time to fast. Also, eating too soon after waking up works against our circadian rhythm – known as our body clock – which researchers say dictates how the body processes food differently throughout the day.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220412-should-we-be-eating-three-meals-a-day

 

4. You have to be a learning machine for the rest of your life

As AI and robotics continue to advance, there are concerns that machines could soon replace humans in a wide range of occupations. Now there’s a new way to tell how likely your job is to be taken over by robots or AI, and what job to shift to if you are at risk.

 

Workers losing out to automation is not a new phenomenon. As the researchers note in a paper published in Science Robotics, the mechanization of agriculture and automation of manufacturing led to significant changes in the structure of the workforce. But they point out that this time around, these changes may be far more disruptive.

 

While previous waves of automation primarily affected low-skill jobs, the rapidly improving capabilities of machines mean that medium and high-skill occupations are increasingly at risk. The pace of progress also means that jobs may change far faster than before, opening up the prospect that workers will have to retrain and acquire new skills multiple times throughout their lifetimes.

https://singularityhub.com/2022/04/18/theres-now-an-algorithm-to-help-workers-avoid-losing-their-jobs-to-an-algorithm/

 

5. Haptic Touch tech now to be used in robotic surgery

Haptics is the science and technology of sending and getting data through touch. At its generally essential, “haptic” amounts to something connecting with the feeling of touch. (It’s gotten from the Greek word for contact.)

 

Haptic Touch is a particular type of haptic input that utilizes vibrations to imitate sensations like squeezing a button or looking at a rundown when you do it on your screen. For instance, assuming you hold your finger on an application symbol, you’ll feel a vibration as a menu opens.

 

A new robot control technology called haptic technology is being created to give tactile input to the human surgeon while directing the automated movement. Haptic technology gives tactile criticism to the controls and permits clients to actually contact, feel, and control three-layered objects. They can exactly control the placement of the robot’s end-effector (the finish of the robot arm that holds the device).

 

Haptics in Virtual Reality (VR) offers an additional aspect by allowing clients to feel the virtual environment not just through faculties, for example, voice-based or vision-based connection in addition to the feeling of touch. It is basic to consider the drenching and connection parts of VR to get a sensible discernment of the fake world.

https://www.analyticsinsight.net/haptic-technology-is-the-next-big-thing-in-robotics-and-vr/


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FOOTNOTE:
Every month, I take questions sent in from the advisory members and try to answer them. Here is the link for the March monthly Q&A - https://youtu.be/SA33v2tlKCM

Earlier in the week, Scientific Investing's Kumar Saurabh did an interview with me on discretionary versus non-discretionary investing. You can watch that here: https://youtu.be/NchSa871V4E

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