Adidas Wilson's Blog, page 148
May 17, 2017
5 Wrong Reasons for Becoming an Entrepreneur
There are many good reasons to become an entrepreneur. We live in a place and time that not only celebrates entrepreneurship, but makes it both possible and rewarding. Even those of us who never take the plunge at least occasionally fantasize about what it would be like to create and run a business of our own, whether we’re after the creative potential, the feeling of autonomy or the chance to follow our passion.
I firmly believe that anyone with the right dedication can become a successful entrepreneur, regardless of his or her motivations. However, there are some “wrong” reasons to become an entrepreneur, and if they constitute your motivations, you’ll be more likely to be dissatisfied with your work, will burn out,or will actually fail:
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1. To get rich
Thanks to the popularization of outlier entrepreneurs who seemed to become overnight billionaires, there’s a common misconception that entrepreneurship is the fast track to getting rich. As the owner of your business, you’ll be entitled to at least a portion of the profits your company makes (and potentially all of it, if there are no other owners). In addition to that, you may draw a salary.
However, that won’t guarantee that your business will be profitable, or will succeed indefinitely. It’s certainly possible to make a good living from your business, but you can’t count on striking it rich — even if you have a good idea.
Being motivated only by money will interfere with your ability to make long-term decisions for your business, and will leave you feeling unsatisfied and stressed if you don’t meet your target numbers.
2. To become famous
It’s true that becoming an entrepreneur has the potential to increase your personal visibility — especially if your marketing strategy relies on media exposure. Look at entrepreneurs like Mark Cuban, Richard Branson or Elon Musk: Tese are high-profile people who get lots of media attention and have attained celebrity status.
However, pursuing business creation and management for the sole sake of gaining popularity for yourself is a bad idea. Relentlessly pursuing more personal branding opportunities is going to take you away from the office, where you’ll be needed. Plus, your idea of successful entrepreneurship will lmost certainly be distorted by survivorship bias.
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3. To have unlimited vacation
Yes, it’s true: As an entrepreneur, you’ll get to make your own schedule. You’ll set your own hours, work whatever days you want and take unlimited vacation time, if you want. But, remember, your business’s success will depend on the effort you put in, and the unfortunate reality is that your first business is more likely than not to fail.
If you’re busy traveling six months out of the year, you won’t have enough time invested in your business to help it become successful. If all you can think about is vacation time as a business owner, you’ll be grossly underestimating the amount of work it takes to run that business. Instead, chances are, you won’t have much time for regular days off for at least a year or two.
4. To make other people happy
Some entrepreneurs start businesses because they like the idea of being a positive force in the world, and I respect that. They want to build a great team, take care of their employees, make clients happy and make the world a better place while they’re at it.
Unfortunately, though, this mentality may lead to poor business decisions; for example, you’ll be more likely to keep unproductive workers around (rather than making tough decisions to fire them) because you’ve bonded with them. You’ll keep unprofitable clients because you refuse to move on. And you’ll sacrifice your own profitability for other causes.
You may be willing to make those sacrifices, but your business won’t do anybody any good if it ends up folding. As a business owner, your primary responsibility should be to make the right decisions for your business.
This position will make you feel sort of like a parent, with the business your child. It’s up to you to protect it and nurture it. After all, if you don’t, who will?
5. Because, “Why not?”
You may not have a specific motivation. You may just have an idea and the impression that anyone can become a business owner. At that point, you might also be thinking to yourself, “Why not?” and be building a business for no reason other than the fact that you can. This is a whimsical approach that does have a chance of succeeding, but it’s more likely that you’ll start running into problems you had no idea existed.
Do you have a financial model? Do you know how to scale? Do you know how much capital you need to start or what competitors are out there? Are you psychologically strong enough? Are you familiar with the dark truths of entrepreneurship?
If these motivations represent only a portion of what’s driving you, they probably won’t sabotage your efforts. For example, if you like the idea of becoming rich, but you’re also interested in being your own boss and working with a team of people you get to choose, your monetary motivations aren’t likely to interfere with your happiness or your decision-making.
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Source:
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/293828
The first 4K TVs running Amazon’s software and Alexa launch today for under $500
Like Roku before it, Amazon is working with TV makers to release smart televisions with the company’s own software filling in as the main operating system. Today we’re getting a much better idea of what that looks like with the inexpensive Element Amazon Fire TV Edition 4K TV lineup. These TVs will also be sold under the Westinghouse brand (instead of Element) depending on market. They’re available to preorder at Amazon for prices ranging from $449 (43-inch model) to only $899 for a 65-inch display. You’ll be able to find them at stores sometime next month.
Unlike the TCL sets we recently saw, these TVs don’t support Dolby Vision or HDR. They’re just regular old 4K screens that run Amazon’s Fire TV software. I can’t speak for the display quality, as I only spent a few minutes looking at the Element and Westinghouse Fire TV Editions in a brightly lit conference room. Their prices and third-tier brands suggest that they won’t compete with today’s top UHD TVs, but they might be plenty good enough for some consumers. And the software side of things is really promising.
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An included voice remote supports both voice search and Alexa, so you can control your smart lights or check the weather using Amazon’s assistant. As is the case with Amazon’s Fire TV streaming devices, Alexa will show you many results visually instead of just speaking them back. You’ve got to use the voice remote, however, as the TV won’t just be listening for “Alexa” constantly. (And maybe mics in TVs are a bad idea.)
Back in December, Amazon overhauled its Fire TV software with a new look that’s far superior to the old version. Now it’s fast, easy to understand, and looks a little more modern than Roku’s OS, which also hangs its hat on simplicity. You can get a good sense of the software from each company in the video below.
But remember that this is a little different than just the Fire TV Stick running Fire TV software; this is a TV using Fire TV as its core operating system. So it does more than just stream. If you plug in an antenna, the TVs will automatically download local listings with Gracenote and you’ll see nice show artwork as you channel surf between networks. There’s a straightforward on-screen programming guide with channel names instead of numbers, and TV channels get mixed into your “Recents” area of the Fire TV software, letting you quickly hop between Netflix and a sports game that might be airing on CBS or Fox.
Since the TV comes with 16GB of internal storage, you can also pause and rewind live TV from your antenna. That’s a feature that Roku TVs only added in November, so you can see just how aggressively and quickly Amazon is catching up. And those same voice controls on the remote also let you switch inputs, adjust volume, and other critical TV functions. (You can just say “Go to NBC” instead of a channel number to switch live TV channels, also.) My only gripe with the remote is there’s no headphone port. I love that private listening feature on Roku, but you’ve still got the option to use Bluetooth headphones.
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Facebook’s new research tool is designed to create a truly conversational AI
Most of us talk to our computers on a semi-regular basis, but that doesn’t mean the conversation is any good. We ask Siri what the weather is like, or tell Alexa to put some music on, but we don’t expect sparkling repartee — voice interfaces right now are as sterile as the visual interface they’re supposed to replace. Facebook, though, is determined to change this: today it unveiled a new research tool that the company hopes will spur progress in the march to create truly conversational AI.
The tool is called ParlAI (pronounced like Captain Jack Sparrow asking to parley) and is described by the social media network as a “one-stop shop for dialog research.” It gives AI programmers a simple framework for training and testing chatbots, complete with access to datasets of sample dialogue, and a “seamless” pipeline to Amazon’s Mechanical Turk service. This latter is a crucial feature, as it means programmers can easily hire humans to interact with, test, and correct their chatbots.
Abigail See, a computer science PhD at Stanford University welcomed the news, saying frameworks like this were “very valuable” to scientists. “There’s a huge volume of AI research being produced right now, with new techniques, datasets and results announced every month,” said See in an email to The Verge. “Platforms [like ParlAI] offer a unified framework for researchers to easily develop, compare and replicate their experiments.”
In a group interview, Antoine Bordes from Facebook’s AI research lab FAIR said that ParlAI was designed to create a missing link in the world of chatbots. “Right now there are two types of dialogue systems,” explains Bordes. The first, he says, are those that “actually serve some purpose” and execute an action for the user (e.g., Siri and Alexa); while the second serves no purpose, but is actually entertaining to talk to (like Microsoft’s Tay — although, yes, that one didn’t turn out great).
“What we’re after with ParlAI, is more about having a machine where you can have multi-turn dialogue; where you can build up a dialogue and exchange ideas,” says Bordes. “ParlAI is trying to develop the capacity for chatbots to enter long-term conversation.” This, he says, will require memory on the bot’s part, as well as a good deal of external knowledge (provided via access to datasets like Wikipedia), and perhaps even an idea of how the user is feeling. “In that respect, the field is very preliminary and there is still a lot of work to do,” says Bordes.
It’s important to note that ParlAI isn’t a tool for just anyone. Unlike, say, Microsoft’s chatbot frameworks, this is a piece of kit that’s aimed at the cutting-edge AI research community, rather than developers trying to create a simple chatbot for their website. It’s not so much about building actual bots, but finding the best ways to train them in the first place. There’s no doubt, though, that this work will eventually filter through to Facebook’s own products (like its part-human-powered virtual assistant M) and to its chatbot platform for Messenger.
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Source:
https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/15/15640886/facebook-parlai-chatbot-research-ai-chatbot
Google’s AI Invents Sounds Humans Have Never Heard Before
JESSE ENGEL IS playing an instrument that’s somewhere between a clavichord and a Hammond organ—18th-century classical crossed with 20th-century rhythm and blues. Then he drags a marker across his laptop screen. Suddenly, the instrument is somewhere else between a clavichord and a Hammond. Before, it was, say, 15 percent clavichord. Now it’s closer to 75 percent. Then he drags the marker back and forth as quickly as he can, careening though all the sounds between these two very different instruments.
“This is not like playing the two at the same time,” says one of Engel’s colleagues, Cinjon Resnick, from across the room. And that’s worth saying. The machine and its software aren’t layering the sounds of a clavichord atop those of a Hammond. They’re producing entirely new sounds using the mathematical characteristics of the notes that emerge from the two. And they can do this with about a thousand different instruments—from violins to balafons—creating countless new sounds from those we already have, thanks to artificial intelligence.
Engel and Resnick are part of Google Magenta—a small team of AI researchers inside the internet giant building computer systems that can make their own art—and this is their latest project. It’s called NSynth, and the team will publicly demonstrate the technology later this week at Moogfest, the annual art, music, and technology festival, held this year in Durham, North Carolina.
The idea is that NSynth, which Google first discussed in a blog post last month, will provide musicians with an entirely new range of tools for making music. Critic Marc Weidenbaum points out that the approach isn’t very far removed from what orchestral conductors have done for ages—“the blending of instruments is nothing new,” he says—but he also believes that Google’s technology could push this age-old practice into new places. “Artistically, it could yield some cool stuff, and because it’s Google, people will follow their lead,” he says.
The Boundaries of Sound
Magenta is part of Google Brain, the company’s central AI lab, where a small army of researchers are exploring the limits of neural networks and other forms of machine learning. Neural networks are complex mathematical systems that can learn tasks by analyzing large amounts of data, and in recent years they’ve proven to be an enormously effective way of recognizing objects and faces in photos, identifying commands spoken into smartphones, and translating from one language to another, among other tasks. Now the Magenta team is turning this idea on its head, using neural networks as a way of teaching machines to make new kinds of music and other art.
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Source:
https://www.wired.com/2017/05/google-uses-ai-create-1000s-new-musical-instruments/
May 16, 2017
50 Cent’s ‘Power’ Is the No. 2 Show on Premium Cable
With the fourth season of Power set to premiere next month on Starz, the show is celebrating good news today (May 15). According to Deadline, Power is the No. 2 show on premium cable behind HBO’s mythical series Game of Thrones, which is at the top.
50 went on his Instagram page to announce the news but also vow to gain new viewers this season and become the top show on premium cable next year. “This season I will gain viewer ship and POWER will be #1,” he wrote. “Game of Thrones is great, but POWER is Raw, pure uncut this Season.”
From the looks of the trailer the fourth season of Power is going to be intense. The show’s creator, executive producer and showrunner, Courtney A. Kemp, recently signed a new overall deal with Lionsgate and Starz. Not only will Kemp oversee Power she will also developed new shows for Starz in the future.
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This Former Fast-Fashion Creative Director Makes Sustainability Chic
Is it really possible to design for the future? If you ask L.A.–based designer Shaina Mote, founder of her eponymous line, the answer is a definitive yes — although, in her case, she’s focusing on what people will be wearing decades from now, not merely next season. “For years I’ve been handling really beautiful high-end vintage like Jil Sander or pieces from the ‘40s,” she says. “When you turn something like that inside out and you see the care that’s put into the construction, it’s something that’s so rare these days. It’s my hope for my own designs to have lasting construction, and to still be relevant in 30 years.”
By all appearances Mote’s clothing is deceptively simplistic: a black linen long-sleeve dress, for example, or a billowy high-neck top. But there’s always an element of surprise — a cutout here, a cross-over detail there. She eschews ornamental buttons and trim, and her latest collection consists of only three colors: black, white, and a rusty shade of café au lait. “For three years my collections would come out and it was just black and white and I realized like ‘Okay, it’s time to expand a little bit here.’”
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The lack of color and frilly details are what make Mote’s designs so compelling. The wearer actually has to focus on the clothes: How they fit, the intricacies of the threading. “I tend to strip things down to a pure expression to give them a sense of timelessness,” she explains. “To allow for something that can be worn time and time again, year after year.” Despite Mote’s strong emphasis on construction, she had no formal design training aside from a brief pattern-making apprenticeship in her native L.A. Her education comes from her experience working as a vintage buyer and later creative director for retail shop Wasteland in California.
Working in fast fashion shaped Mote’s own design process. “I was working at a fast-fashion company that was producing trends in and out in what seemed like minutes,” Mote says, recalling the three years she spent as a creative director at Wasteland. “I had a direct line of sight into how things were actually produced, and I realized that this trend-based industry can create a lot of excess and a lot of waste.” Now, Mote rejects the cheap-labor model and produces all her clothes in Los Angeles, where she works with a small group of family-owned factories.
She has also made an effort to source fabrics that are more environmentally friendly over nonbiodegradable fabrics that emit fossil fuels during production.“I’m trying not to work with fabrics like polyester, which take a long time to decompose, and instead use biodegradable fibers like tencel or cupro, which are derived [from] wood pulp and require less resources like water to create,” she says.
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Source:
http://nymag.com/thecut/2017/05/shaina-mote-la-based-designer-sustainable-fashion.html
Apple reportedly updating entire MacBook lineup at WWDC
Apple is reportedly planning on upgrading all three of its MacBook products at WWDC this year, according to a report from Mark Gurman at Bloomberg.
The company is said to be working on three updated models: a MacBook Pro with Intel’s latest Kaby Lake processor, a more powerful version of the 12-inch MacBook, and an updated 13-inch MacBook Air, which could get a faster processor as well. But sadly, there’s no word on a better screen. Apple really wants you to think of the 13-inch MacBook Pro as the Air’s successor.
While none of the updates sound like particularly major changes from a hardware perspective, it’s encouraging to see that Apple is taking at least some of the criticism of its latest MacBook Pros to heart and updating the laptop line with Intel’s newest processors. It’s unclear whether other concerns like RAM flexibility and uneven USB-C performance in some models will be addressed. You’ll definitely still need dongles.
The MacBook and MacBook Air are certainly due for an update, having been last refreshed in 2016 and 2015, respectively. WWDC 2017 is scheduled to take place from June 5th to June 9th.
Source:
https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/16/15648172/apple-macbook-pro-air-kaby-lake-update-wwdc-intel-rumor
Video gaming: the next high school sport? Competitive esports gain traction
If you think about what constitutes a sport, the contest that took place recently at Robert Morris University checked many of the boxes.
Did the competitors put in many hours of practice? Yes. Did they possess physical and mental gifts? Affirmative. Was teamwork a crucial ingredient for success? Absolutely.
The only thing missing, really, was perspiration — it’s hard to break a sweat when you’re sitting in a climate-controlled room, moving little more than your fingers.
This was the second High School Esports Invitational, a video game competition that serves as an unofficial regional championship for many Chicago-area schools. Sixteen teams flocked to the computer-packed gaming arena at Robert Morris’ downtown Chicago campus to sort out who was best at the online fantasy game “League of Legends.”
But for some, the event offered more than the chance to win a trophy and a $1,200 first-place prize: It was another step toward making video gaming a mainstream sport on par with baseball, football or auto racing.
“NASCAR’s a sport, right?” said Tony Pape, who coaches the esports team at Burbank’s Reavis High School. “They’re sitting in a chair, they’re using controls, same as these kids here. (Gaming) is not as physically demanding but it’s mentally demanding. It demands a lot of teamwork, coordination and practice. I consider it a sport, absolutely.”
The Illinois High School Association, which governs interscholastic sports in the state, is intrigued. Executive Director Craig Anderson said it takes about 80 schools to create a viable sport, and should the interest become evident, esports could join the roster of sanctioned sports and activities within a few years.
“I see it much like when we added bass fishing,” he said. “People were like, ‘What?’ But if our schools are forming teams and their students have interest and it’s developing, we’d want to organize in a way where we could crown a state champion.”
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While competitive gaming has been around since at least the early 1970s, the latest iteration, driven by wildly popular online titles, has reached unprecedented heights. Professional gamers sell out arenas and have their matches broadcast on ESPN, while a growing number of colleges — led by the pioneering program at Robert Morris — offer athletic scholarships to top players.
Still, the high school scene has remained quiet even though teens are a prime audience for video games: No state has sanctioned gaming as an official sport, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations.
But the groundwork has begun as more schools create esports clubs, often backed by supportive administrators. Case in point is Oswego East High School.
Source:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/highschool/ct-esports-high-school-met-20170511-story.html
