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A few words about CAP – Computed Aided Prediction

What’s a web bot? 

• Term first used commercially to describe “central control software for controlling the operation of an automatic utility meter reader system comprised of utility meters interconnected via the Internet” by MU Net of Lexington, Mass
• Common use in 2000 as short for “internet /or/ web robot”
• Wikipedia: “a software application that runs automated tasks over the Internet.”

Current Approaches:

• Astrology (oldest)
• Religious or drug experience
• Language shift studies
• Word-frequency analysis (change) (with fine structure-constant or without)
• Indicator phrase studies
• Time-referencing language studies
• Cycle analytics (May be WFA/FSc related)
• Search queries
• …and combinations in conjunction with expert/learning systems

What Works Best?

All have hits and misses….which is why its such and interesting field…there is no standard scoring system yet.

The problem is if you forecast everything in a report, one or two right doesn’t balance off 900 wrong.  You need to look at the statistics of predictions made total versus predictions come true over a set timeframe.  Otherwise, it’s not really a valid prediction system.

How does Nostracodeus.com Work?

• Word-frequency shift in specified target groups.
• Example:  Define 2 Fukushima Groups:
  • One group is alarmist – [we should all be dead by now.  Since we’re all going to die anyway, to predict death at other than a more precise manner is not useful]
  • One group is engineers – who are engineering a solution.  [They may indeed engineer a solution, but even when they win/it works, the alarmist group will claim victory.]
  • Approach: Monitor the two groups over time and observe current developments
  • Weigh shifts in events and data then project forward from there.

What does Nostracodeus Look Like?

Two views of it in operation.  First, this is the  pre-run main screen:

There are a number of set-up buttons that should be explained first.  One of these is where you set your list of starting pages.  If you were doing news sites, you might include CNN or BBC, or Al Jazeera, or whatever.

And you can configure your own dictionaries, keywords and core concepts using something we call “indicators.”  An example of an indicator might be a phrase is “threated to…”  If a new country starts to use an indicator term like this, and there is a conditional word too (“unless” for example, then as you’re reading through the data you can make a note that conflict potentials are rising.

As you can see, you can have 15 mission.  So if you were a producer at Coast for example, you could have a UFO.  And you might want an archeology mission, and so forth.  And then you could print out and compare the goings on.  And if you’re just reading the results, you can then like on the source link in the report and it will open up the page of interest.

So here is what the main screen when running and it looks like this:

As you can see, the run shown here is 522 pages analyzed out of 2317 which are in that mission.

When the run is complete, you simply go to the reports page and that’s where you can look at how the language falls out.

How Does Future Arise?

• Future is a shared resource
• The future is an arbitrage between the concrete/sequential  and random/abstract
• Data sets (quantitative data) is concrete/sequential
• Emotional shift tends toward random/abstract
• The future that arises (other than geological accident) is an arbitrage between data and emo’s

What Makes Prediction Difficult?

• Simply:  Placing bets on the arbitrage outcome.
• Core Concept:  Global Mass consciousness is going through the same kind of psychological development that individuals go through

Homework Project

Using Google news search, test a number of “future words”

Examples:

“due Friday” reveals an Italian delegation will be in Iran tomorrow.

“next week: reveals Jim Caldwell is likely to be interviewed by the Redskins for a coaching job,  near zero temps will arrive in Chicago.  Looks like a band of record cold in the Midwest.  There will also be a no confidence vote in Libya Sunday on the Ali Zeidan government.  John Kerry will be in the Middle East…

One of the headlines next week will likely be the discussion about spinning off Detroit’s water department for money to help the city with its bankruptcy…

Enjoy!

We’ve laid the ground work in a couple of recent Peoplenomics reports (“Tax Robotics: Unwrapping the Future” and “Taxing Thoughts: Fighting the Wrong War.”)  The first report deals with the new technologies such as 3D printing that will continue to impact manufacturing and then there is the ongoing destruction of labor demand by ever-increasing levels of factory automation.  Then we look at the problem of funding government’s various roles via the income tax on humans, but not machines, in the “Taxing Thoughts” report.  Here, we learn, among other things, that excluding retirement programs and miscellaneous income, the government gets about 74% of its revenue from the personal income tax. (*excluding the pension game and some other asterisks)  Today we look at what seems likely to happen in the future as these trends collide.  Interest-bearing/compounding capitalism is about to collide with a world of finite resource and the results – like those old train wreck movies – should be a real sight to behold!

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Peoplenomics this weekend is being posted in two parts as we continue our exploration of the idea that we’re fighting the wrong wars.  Rather than right/left, it really may reduce to who owns the means of production and who owns the capital.  One thing is clear; it ain’t you and me.   We’ll get to that just as soon as we review some of the headlines and then work around to our proposal to tax robotics.

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OK, I couldn’t sleep in, dammit. 

“Enjoy Merry Christmas while you can,” said the Grinch.  “There won’t be too many of them coming because while humans were sleeping, the machines (and their owners) have taken over damn near everything. ” To prove it, I cobbled up a chart that every American should look upon  at least once a day and which congressoids ought to consider as they continue the de facto system of underwriting the Rich, which is (sadly) where America has gone.  All dressed up in the fine fakery of right-left politics (as always) the winners are again, those on top.  We need to have us a talk this morning about the social and economic dangers of Replicators; yes, as in Star Trek and Holodeck, and all that.  But I’ll keep this short, as promised, because this is Christmas and hope springs eternal in the hearts of….but first, more coffee?

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OK, I couldn’t sleep in, dammit. 

“Enjoy Merry Christmas while you can,” said the Grinch.  “There won’t be too many of them coming because while humans were sleeping, the machines (and their owners) have taken over damn near everything. ” To prove it, I cobbled up a chart that every American should look upon  at least once a day and which congressoids ought to consider as they continue the de facto system of underwriting the Rich, which is (sadly) where America has gone.  All dressed up in the fine fakery of right-left politics (as always) the winners are again, those on top.  We need to have us a talk this morning about the social and economic dangers of Replicators; yes, as in Star Trek and Holodeck, and all that.  But I’ll keep this short, as promised, because this is Christmas and hope springs eternal in the hearts of….but first, more coffee?

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These are hard times, whether the people in Washington will admit it, or not:  For most of us, lifestyle declines are on the verge of showing up in 2014.  One of the biggest indicators could be reductions in the rate of increase for military pensions which will punish those who serve.  Those savings will, in part, benefit those immigrating to the US.  So in this kind of an environment, we offer some year-end planning ideas for 2014 that may help you “beat the bank.”  After some headlines, coffee, and our ChartPack with our trading model’s latest.

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Twists and turns on the internet lately as some of the nation’s biggest companies are moving around how they do business. Especially in how they use “social media.”  And, since we’re in that “space” around here, it’s interesting as all get-out to see how some of this is evolving.  So whether you’re a writer with a popular blog who’s trying to maximize returns from social media, or whether you’re a company that has just dumped a bundle into that new social campaign, better get ready to defend your wallet as we unmask the Time-Circular Business Model.  Before we explain how this works, however, a few news headlines and a look at our Trading Model to get things rolling.

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This weekend, we wrap up the remaining four subject areas in our Seven Major Systems model of how (physical) life works for humans as we peer into 2014.  We’ll hatch an answer to Bitcoins in our discussion (finance: subset virtual) about a concept I call FEDCOINs. You will be flat-ass amazed at how many of our financial woes they could solve both short and long-term.  (Doing our annual forecast is a joy when a decent breakthrough concept bonks me on the head.  Send this one to your congressoids.)  First, however a strong cup of coffee and a few headlines to kick the dust out and get ready for some serious strategic thinking..

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Housing, Food, and Communications are in our sights this morning.  In Saturday’s subscriber report, I put forth some market expectations for 2014 and it seems only right to look at the translation of that forecast into possible cost impacts in specific areas of life.  While the (false) glee of a budget agreement may seem like a grand thing, it is merely an effort to postpone the inevitable conclusion which must occur when demand for service – paid for by taxes – runs into the hard reality of limited taxing power as the number and wages of working humans declines.  As the old demographer said, “If you want to know the future, start with birth rates…”  But first, we’ll have coffee, check out some headlines, and see what our Trading Model says about the period immediately ahead.  Bundle up and top off…this is gonna be cool….  But let’s start off with a quick subscriber poll…

(May take extra load time due to graphics this morning)

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While it’s true that I have made more money on the short side of the market than the long side, it’s also true that I’m pretty much an agnostic.  That’s because the market is going to move as it will.  So anyone who undertakes to manage their own money is well advised to understand hard reality.  Toward this, a few classic books exist, such as William Gann’s “Truth of the Stock Tape.”  This morning’s report will be nice, short, and to the point as we consider what may be out there in 2014.  We’ll get to it right after some headlines and coffee.

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As we continue to pull bits and pieces together for 2014’s annual forecast, it’s time to see how well our Aggregate Index-based trading model would have done if you had done NOTHING but traded our timing model from last year about this time until present.  At a time when banks are paying a crummy 0.1% (or less) on savings accounts, this system has been a huge winner.  You oughta be impressed as hell when I run through the numbers with you.  As the gurus of “Big Data” will tell you “data trumps gut” almost every time and this year was a hard lesson for me in not trusting my own model!  First, though some headlines to size up how the rest of the world (the part not worried about making decent returns from investing) is holding out…

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This weekend we present a practical look at the subject of crime – and propose a dramatic and innovative way to reduce crime, while at the same time lowering the cost of police work, detective bureaus, and prosecutions.  Did I mention increase the conviction rate, too? I’ll explain how my latest brainchild – a simple enhancement to the cell phone/9-1-1 system – could result in major reductions in crime as part of our ongoing series “Shopping List for a SuperCountry.” After, that is,  we roll some coffee out along with a side of headlines (and shoppers acting badly video) to set the mood…

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Being a workaholic is….well…. a lot of work.  Even today. 

Out of habit I was up at 4 AM, so I finished some website testing on the UrbanSurvival, Peoplenomics, and Nostracodeus websites, and I was pleased to find that all of them are now not only fast (with times off the server in the range of 1.10-1.46 second, about 1/3rd the response time of weather sites, for example) but they also now look dandy (with drop down menus) on most mobile phones.

I did have a number of complaints from people who didn’t appreciate the change and who continue to dislike our new “mobile-friendly” approach.  Sorry, but we need to talk.

Since today is a semi-day-off,  let’s wander away of our usual “hard economics, hard news, and the odd bit of wujo” to give you a look behind the scenes at some of the decision-making processes that led to our latest changes.

As you may be aware,  (so-called/misnamed) “SmartPhones” are now accounting for an ever-increasing portion of internet use. 

Without the change, our site was “offensive” to mobile users.  Androids top the list although some are Samsung’s, some are iPhones, others are Kindles.  Since the pages make sense on my own Kindle and GomerPhone, I can now look at them on the road.

Now, as much as I loved the older (simple) basic HTML code (and clunky browsers) which had been previously used on both UrbanSurvival and Peoplenomics, the times (and technology) have changed.  It forced me to make a difficult choice…namely to give up the old ways and make the public face of both sites much more (phone) user-friendly.

Peoplenomics readers will still be served the conventional .HTML pages, but we will (early in 2014 give the subscribers a choice of whether to use the mobile-friendly content or the “old-school” approach.

As to the difficulty of change? I hope two or three clicks to keep up has not been too much imposition on you. (Seriously?)

All you needed to do blow-out (delete) the old cached  content (meaning old pages stored locally in your computer) and then go on to any of our web sites.  The browser will load the changes correctly and life goes on.  Pages will display nearly the same – but now they can be found on most mobile phones.

A second point which stuck in the craw of a few readers (e.g. didn’t set well) was breaking the daily report into two parts which was done back in July: That when we broke the single long page into a news section and a lighter/more off-the-wall section (called the Coping section) which deals with everything from Wujo stories to personal cooking hints, prepping, and life out here in the “outback” in general.

Two things drove that decision:

First was pure economics:  The UrbanSurvival site costs are paid for by advertisers.  Please support them when you buy things by clicking from this site to their stores.

Advertisers spend money based on page views and click-throughs.   Under the old system (the large, bulky, single large HTML page) I put in a tremendous about of work every day, but the money that resulted (not much) wasn’t keeping up with the higher costs of hosting the site. 

Hosting and operating expenses were going up faster than inflation (look surprised) so there was little choice.  We had to restructure so that our page views were reflecting actual users rather than understating it by about half.  So that was one driver.

Secondly, we had phone and user issues.  The phones part we’ve been rolling into. We have a wide spectrum of readers, some of whom are serious Wall St. Players who make half a million a year – and up.   Way up.  I know we have at least one billionaire reader, too, if that matters to you.

It certainly does to me:  These people like to keep “on point” – and it helps their limited reading if they know that the “hard” news about economics and such is not often in my “Coping” section – so they just blow that off. 

Most of these Type A’s  grok the long wave economics angle and want to keep tabs on it, which is why all things equal on a typical news day, we’ll lead with economic and business stories because that’s our roots and continuing core research.  One reason is there is so much unstated by the mainstream which habitually fails to report the experiential part of living, which is to say, the inflation-adjusted cost basis.

We unabashedly point this out at every opportunity because the purchasing power of the US dollar, compared with what a dollar would buy in 1913 is done to just 4.5-cents, or so.  It’s a another one of those inconvenient truths that people just don’t talk about.  July like home prices seem to be back up to 2004-2005 levels, but that’s only if you ignore the roughly 10% in sales prices baked in the cake.  This means on a walk-in with X dollars and leave with X dollars of constant dollar purchasing power, homes are still back in 2001 or 2001, perhaps earlier.  I digress.

Our website isn’t for “streeties”.  Its for everyone; people who want to embrace some of the lessons to be learned from observing the systematic debasement of America’s currency. 

It’s especially for the sons and daughters of people like me, who are almost to the finish line of a working life: our biggest problem is holding on to at least part of the lifestyle we thought we were buying for 50-years of ass-busting.   That’s getting harder to do all the time, in case you haven’t noticed.  I’m sure you have, though.

It finally all came down to: With more and more, are using “smart phones” we needed to change to remain relevant. Unlike 568 people you-can-guess-where.

Now, as to how well this is going (after the few clicks to get here)?  There are lots of mobile-friendly test sites (like this one over here).  I like MobileTest.me because you can pick a phone and look at a specific page.    If you’d like to tinker around with it, try the UrbanSurvival or Peoplenomics.com sites (in the responsive design) and then compare it with a page in the “old style” like http://urbansurvival.com/links.htm.  You’ll see the difference, I hope.  On old-style pages people were being lost by the scroll bars which are not as nifty as adaptive menus.

You can see on an browser like Firefox, too, if a website is “responsive” – which roughly means “phone-friendly.”

Screen elements move around, column widths adjust automatically, and the graphics resize.  Very nicely.

These snips were done with Firefox (dragging the browser narrower) but it may not look perfect in Internet Explorer because Microsoft is off on a tangent from some of the web standards that are emerging. 

So that’s it.  A leisurely discussion of some of the business processes which are ongoing here and which are part of the changing the information landscape.

And while I regret the inconvenience (I don’t like the new toolsets I’ve had to learn – literally months of study to set up and tweak and get these things working well on phones and such before going live), the other reality is that both UrbanSurvival and its companion subscriber site www.Peoplenomics.com is still one of the few things that has NOT gone up in price in the last five years and I’m doing my darnedest to keep it that way.

The good side of all my “webbiness? here lately?  Came up with a kick-butt idea for Peoplenomics readers which we will unveil Saturday morning as part of our “Shopping for a SuperCountry” series where we look at new approaches so some of the “same-old” problems which are dogging us. 

Oh, and don’t forget:  SST Sandwich Day tomorrow!

Moderation in all things, except happiness, of course…and write if you get full.

George Ure  george@ure.net

PS: Remember my dream last Sunday about “carriers”?  Go check out Grady’s latest data run on how “Another Flat top Has Appeared…”