The Future of Inflation

The IMF has published analytical series on inflation. This is Part I. (9 min read).

Source: Agarwal & Kimball, 2022.

Taming Inflation

Here is a good read on inflation and how Islamic finance provides a framework for taming debt from bottom-up from the IsDB Blog. You can read the full article here (5 min read).

"Taming Inflation" - The Salt Lake Tribune

Sri Lanka's Debt Trap

A sad day in Sri Lanka.

"Sri Lanka, an island nation of 22 million, faces an unprecedented devastating economic crisis this year, with $8.6 billion worth of debt payments due in 2022." 

Source: Daily FT

Animator vs Animation IV

 The Stick Man by Alan Becker.

Source: Youtube

YouTube Shorts, TikTok and Reels

 Read the full story here.

Excerpt:

"Adjacent to TikTok is Instagram Reels –Facebook’s very obvious approach at leveling the playing field. Albeit a bit clunky in its earliest moments, in the blink of an eye Reels feels much more organic and exciting. And while that excitement does translate to more usage, views, and engagement, TikTok is still well out in front of the short-form video race. Yet, with shopping features coming to Reels in the near future, e-commerce could be the leg-up Reels needs to keep pace. Shorts will almost undoubtedly need to host a similar feature if they hope to pull attention from its contemporaries."

Source: Planoly

Right Hand vs Left Hand Test

Are you ambidextrous?  You can test here. Truly ambidextrous people only make up about 1% of the population.

Image credit - Pinterest

The N95 Mask - Descendent of Wu's Design

Image - XKCD: Masks

Here is the  article on the untold story of N95 mask. Dr. Wu, from Penang, Malaysia has earned the Google Doodle to commemorate his contribution on the face mask.

Google

Medalling of the Rich

The Olympics sports where money matters: swimming, table tennis, fencing, cycling, rowing and judo. According to this article, there are three reasons:

1. Infrastructure.

2. Talent magnetism.

3. Earned success.

I discovered this article while reading the background of Jackson Wang, and his fencing championship. Watch Wang's '100 Ways' mv below. Maybe the three reasons quoted above explained Wang's success. Enjoy the mv, which cleverly incorporated jujutsu elements in the choreography.

Source: Youtube

Widen an Economic Moat

An economic moat refers to a company's ability to maintain competitive advantages to protect its long-term profits and market share from competitors (Investopedia).

Who owns the Internet? You can read the full article here. Excerpt:

"The world’s biggest owner of cables is a household name, at least to Americans – it’s AT&T, which has a stake in around 230,000 kilometres of international internet cabling, or around one sixth of the total. But looking at others in the top ten reveals why both Big Tech and Western governments are starting to pay the apparently dull issue of cable ownership more attention: in second place is China Telecom, while Chunghwa Telecom (based in Taiwan) is third and China Unicorn is sixth."

The Marea cable, shown in coils, is owned by Microsoft, Meta and Spanish telecom Telxius (WSJ). Photo: Microsoft.

NFTs and Shariah Compliant

Here is an article on the NFTs from Shariah perspective. Eye-opening fiqh rulings on NFTs.

Excerpt:

"The concept of fungibles and non-fungibles has been addressed at length by the Islamic jurists and schools of Islamic law. In summary, fungibles are called Mithliyyat in Fiqh, whilst non-fungibles are called Qimiyyat."

Image credit - Joe Bradford

'My Software Eats the World'

Here is an interesting interview  with the VC's Marc Andreessen on technology and the future by Noah Smith in June 22, 2021. Read the comments section as well for a balanced view.

Excerpt:

"M.A.: My “software eats the world” thesis plays out in business in three stages:

1. A product is transformed from non-software to (entirely or mainly) software. Music compact discs become MP3’s and then streams. An alarm clock goes from a physical device on your bedside table to an app on your phone. A car goes from bent metal and glass, to software wrapped in bent metal and glass.

2. The producers of these products are transformed from manufacturing or media or financial services companies to (entirely or mainly) software companies. Their core capability becomes creating and running software. This is, of course, a very different discipline and culture from what they used to do.

3. As software redefines the product, and assuming a competitive market not protected by a monopoly position or regulatory capture, the nature of competition in the industry changes until the best software wins, which means the best software company wins. The best software company may be an incumbent or a startup, whoever makes the best software."

Image credit - The Mercury News

Image credt - The Mercury News

Solar Power Duck Curve

Excerpt from the full article:

"With the increasing demand for electricity as the world shifts away from fossil fuels, cleaner sources of energy like solar and wind are becoming more and more common.

However, as more solar power is introduced into our grids, operators are dealing with a new problem that can be visualized as the “duck curve.”

Image credit - Elements

The Great Resignation

A revisit to the Gig Economy topic in the time of Covid-19, which is referred to as the 'Great Resignation.' The growth of digital economy have made some people go 'exclusively gig.' The full story here.

Image credit - Biateable. GIF Makers to make a GIF from video online. 

The Formula

 'Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things' - Henry Poincare

Image credit - Pinterest

Poetically Incalculable

Grand Canyon. The pitch of a teakettle. A whisper in the dark. How do you measure them? The full article here.

Grand Canyon. Majestic.

NFT - Non-Fungible Token Art Worth $69 million

A piece of art (a collage image of jpeg file by artist Beeple posted online since 2007) was sold for $69 million in March 2021. The exchange was through NFT on Ethereum blockchain. The buyer claimed that the value is due to irreplaceable 'digital time.' Full story here.

“Everydays — The First 5000 Days” is a collage of all the images that the artist known as Beeple has been posting online each day since 2007. Credit - via Christie's, New York Times.

One of Beeple collection. Credit - New York Times