Saturday, June 30, 2018

Before Agile On Investing, We Have Agile For Your Family

As per my earlier post (click here to see more), after attended the 3-days Agile course (to be more specific, the Certified Scrum Master course), I've been thinking how whether Agile framework is applicable for non-work (non-business project) related project/activity like investing. 

After some googling, I managed to find at least one sharing of applying Agile in Family Matter, in the form of TED Talk - Agile Programming - For Your Family (by Bruce Feiler). Enjoy this less than  18 minutes TED Talks which I thought is quite eye-opening, especially for the parents. 





The key take-away (for me) from this TED Talk is : never under-estimate the "self-organizing" power of your child (for that matter, anybody else).

Next up, for me to explore further on the application of Agile in investing (if there is any relevance at all).

Cheers!

Sunday, June 24, 2018

Weekend Sharing - World Cup And Agile

World Cup 2018
During this fever pitch period aka World Cup 2018, time seems to zoom past faster than usual,  we are already at the 11th day of the tournament and games are getting more and more excited now. In less than 10 minutes time, the game between England and Panama will be kicked off (at 8 PM Singapore Time). What is your prediction? My humble guess is 3-1 (England win). 

Two weeks ago, I've attended a 3-days course on Agile framework (Certified ScrumMaster) in NUS, even though the focus of Scrum (one of the many Agile framework) is more towards software project but the overall principle of Agile is applicable for any other type of projects in many disciplines. After the course, I've took and passed the rather simple online assessment, I am deemed Certified ScrumMaster now :-) Personally, I am quite intrigued by the Agile framework (not specifically Scrum) and will continue to learn more about it. One thought just dawn on me : can we apply Agile framework in our investing? lol

For the past few days, I've been down with flu and cough and was on MC since Thursday. No, it's nothing to do with the World Cup fever, the latest match that I've watched so far is 11 PM match! In fact, a couple of my personal friends and colleagues fall sick too, so, I think weather is the main culprit. 

That's all for now as it's time to watch the World Cup match! 

Cheers!      

Friday, June 15, 2018

Key Spending Areas For Crypto Online (Guest Post)

Investing in cryptocurrency is already a famously difficult financial maneuver. While it’s something that excites a lot of people, even on the amateur level, cryptocurrency remains largely unpredictable. Large countries with influential economic systems are still figuring out if and how to regulate it, exchanges are emerging and changing constantly, new coins are always hitting the market, and perhaps most of all, people are still making up their minds as to whether or not cryptocurrency is actually useful.

Ostensibly, cryptocurrency is meant to be valued for the security and privacy it attaches to any online transaction. These are the features, along with the fact that it’s purely digital, that were initially expected, by some, to lead to a mass migration to cryptocurrency transactions. However, while these perks do exist, the relative inconvenience of using cryptocurrency, or at least getting started with it, has so far kept that mass migration from occurring.

Nevertheless, if you’re interested in cryptocurrency investment, you’ll likely want to keep a close eye on how people are using it as currency. Even as this currency has become known more as a commodity, it’s still something people can buy and use, and the more people are doing that, the more stable the currencies’ values will be. And monitoring cryptocurrency’s utility primarily means seeing where it’s being used online. These are some of the areas worth keeping on your radar.

Travel Booking

It’s unclear exactly why, but travel booking has proven to be one of the bigger and more consistent areas of adoption for cryptocurrency online. It may have started with Expedia, which was among the first major names in any industry to accept bitcoin. The company actually stopped working with cryptocurrency, but even so a number of vacation sites, hotels, and airlines are working to make crypto-funded adventure a reality. Should this ever catch on with an aggregator such as Trivago for accommodations or Kayak for travel, the implications would be fairly significant.

Gaming

If it’s not a personal interest, you may not be aware of just how big casino gaming has become online. Poker and slots in real casinos have always been popular, but they may be even more so online, where players are free to roam between the vast number of games available. Some of the sites that host these games have actually already started accepting cryptocurrency deposits, and if it goes industry-wide it’s going to mean quite a lot of activity. As for more conventional gaming, it remains to be seen if cryptocurrency can make an impact. Steam, the largest platform for online game downloads, did accept bitcoin for a time, but has since stopped.

Aggregate Retail

The question of when Amazon will accept bitcoin might actually be one of the most significant questions surrounding cryptocurrency’s potential growth. A huge portion of retail sales take place online these days, and aggregate retail options, with Amazon leading the way, facilitate a great deal of that business. Should the online retail giant allow purchases via cryptocurrency there will be a massive new incentive for people to start using it.

Wednesday, June 6, 2018

Hair For Hope 2018

I will be back! 

To the Hair For Hope campaign that is! I've been participating in Hair For Hope fundraising event for 3 years previously and the main objective is to create awareness for Children's Cancer Foundation (CCF), which is the main beneficiary of this fundraising event, as well as doing my small part to support this non-profit organization. 

Following are some quick facts on the children suffering from cancer and served by CCF:
 
For more details, feel free to check out the site Children's Cancer Foundation.

If you are keen to take part in this meaningful event too, feel free to register at the Hair For Hope site here to MAKE A BALD STATEMENT. Otherwise, you can also support them by donating to the cause via the following link (every cent count):


On behalf of the children at CCF, THANK YOU!

Cheers!

Sunday, June 3, 2018

Google Home Mini - Is It Worth Your Investment?

Yesterday, dropped by the 28th edition of The PC Show 2018 (Singapore) at Marina Bay Sands with friend. Usually I went home empty handed after the casual "walk walk and look look" but this time round, I went home with 2 new gadgets : Google Home Mini and wireless earphone (Zagg's Summit Wireless). 

In this post, I will share a little bit more of my first A.I (Artificial Intelligent) gadget i.e. Google Home Mini. The reason I've gotten myself the Google Home Mini instead of the bulkier/heavier Google Home is because besides the better speaker quality for the latter, the functionality for both are identical. Since I am not an audiophile, I opt for the smaller and cheaper version. 

What's there in the box? 
1. The Google Home Mini
2. The power cable
3. A couple of instruction cards

Google Home Mini 1

Google Home Mini 2

Google Home Mini 3

The Pros of Google Home Mini:
1. The initial set-up is rather simple, just power up the Google Home Mini, download the Google Home app to set-up/link the gadget to your Google Account. Also, there is no ON/OFF button, just plug and play.  
2. She (I use she as my Google Mini is a lady voice) can understand my question 99% of the time. The gadget is capable of self-learning and will gradually improve the understanding of our voice/accent along the way.   
3. For safety reason, it has voice recognition capability i.e. you can set-up a "voice match" so that she will response only to the query/command of the recognized voice(s). 
4. It's affordable (the RRP is SGD79 and the promotion price at the PC Show is SGD53 or SGD94 for two [i.e. SGD47 each]) 
5. The design is sleek and cool.  
6. All your interaction with Google Home Mini will be tracked in your Google Home app (under the "My Activity" section), so you can always check back the answers/response or even replay the same music at a later date at your phone/laptop.  

The Cons of Google Home Mini:
1. Currently, she can only understand English (Singlish also can) but more languages like Chinese is in the pipeline (as per the saleslady).
2.  There is no volume switch, so to increase the volume of the speaker, you can either ask her directly i.e. "OK Google, turn it up"/"OK Google, turn it down" or tap on the side of the gadget as per the following (to be fair, this might not deemed as a con once you get used to it, but for a newbie, it might be a struggle):

What Have I done with my Google Home Mini so far? 
1. Play music via the linked Spotify (free)
2. Ask her questions like I will usually do in Google Search (I've tried asking: Who is Andy Lau? CEO of Apple? weather for tomorrow? population in the world and many more? etc..).
3. Tell me joke, a couple of times.
4. OCBC's Talk to OCBC features (retirement estimation and market trend)
5. Read news from Straits Times News (presented by MONEY FM)

So far, I do have fun playing with her and bearing in mind that there will be more such "voice-first" apps/partners coming in the market (like the one with OCBC), it is definitely a worthwhile investment for me. Personally, I think besides Blockchain, AI (artificial intelligent) is another incoming tech trend that we need to embrace.  

Oh, by the way, today is the last day of The PC Show (Singapore) and they are still having promotion for Google Home/Google Home Mini gadgets or just want to have a test on the gadgets, do drop by the show!

Are you are existing Google Home (or similar gadget) users? What do you use it for most of the time? 

"OK Google, tell me a joke" - "Why Peter Pan always flying? He never land!" (the actual joke told by my Google Home Mini). 

Cheers!

Saturday, June 2, 2018

World Cup 2018 - Who Will Be The Champion?

In less than 2 weeks' time, the world will be glued to the screen (big or small) to watch the month-long world's most beautiful sport. Yes, I am talking about the World Cup 2018, happening from 14 Jun to 15 Jul 2018 in Russia

Good news for those friends living in Malaysia or those live near enough to have reception to Malaysia's RTM 1 (their National TV station) as the latest good news from Malaysia's new Government is that World Cup 2018 will be aired freely in RTM 1 (whether all matches or selective matches is yet to be confirmed). 

To refresh your memory, following are the previous winners of the World Cup since 1994:
  

Ever since England crowned the Champion in 1966 (52 years ago), no one country managed to the back-to-back winner. This feat only achieved by Italy (in 1934 and 1938) and Brazil (in 1958 and 1962). So, will Germany be the third nation to achieve it in 2018? 

What is your prediction of this year's World Cup Winner? Personally, my wild guess is FRANCE (even though I am an England team supporter :-)).

Cheers!

#WorldCup2018

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