Commodity Trends

The red line on the chart shows Illinois Sweet Crude oil prices adjusted for inflation in February 2022 dollars. The black line indicates the nominal price (in other words the price you would have actually paid at the time). The current price for a barrel of Illinois Crude Oil as of March 11, 2022 was $84.70, up significantly from recent lows.

In What Universe is $100+ Crude Oil Cheap?

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Everyone knows that Gasoline and Crude oil are currently expensive right?  I recently updated several of our charts and when I got to the Crude Oil vs Gold chart I was in for a shock. According to that chart either Gold is expensive or Crude oil is cheap. Not as cheap as it was in 2020 but still historically cheap but it is actually simply approaching the long-term average ratio.

The thinking of the ratio is this… if the value of dollars is constantly changing the best way to tell if a commodity is expensive is to compare it to other commodities. Historically, gold has been money so what better commodity to compare to? 

Looking at the chart of Gold vs. Oil we see that oil is still relatively cheaper than gold. Now as we have said many times Gold is a Crisis hedge so in times of crisis, gold appreciates. Therefore, we would expect gold to currently be expensive and it is, but it is not currently at all-time highs. Read the Full updated Gold vs. Oil Article here.

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Entity Extraction

What is Entity Extraction and Why Should You Care?

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Entity extraction, aka. “entity recognition”, allows computer systems to grab chunks of data from documents and enter them into separate fields in a database. For instance, they can sort through emails, webpages, or even massive WikiLeaks documents and find names, places, addresses, phone numbers, or key phrases and sort them into useful databases.

Entity extraction uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) to find mentions of specific data and turn them into structured data. How this data is used can be either “good” or “bad,” depending on your frame of reference. Government agencies can use it to sort through massive quantities of data to track down terrorists. Advertisers can use it to target you with ads that you might be interested in and not show you advertisements that are just a waste of your time. And thieves and scammers can use it to find potential targets.

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Blockchain’s Role In Stopping Money Remittance Operations Scams

How Blockchain’s Unique Innovations Can Prevent Money Remittance Scams

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 It’s not uncommon to hear the stories of vulnerable people falling for online scams. You’ve also probably had an email telling you that you’ve won the lottery in another country when you’ve never applied. And, of course, there is the legendary Nigerian Prince scam. On the surface, these scams sound amateurish, but these operations are much more complex than you might think with large-scale cooperation. There were 2.2 million reports of fraud in the United States in 2020. The actual number is likely to be much higher, but some people are too embarrassed to admit scammers tricked them. Money remittance operations are particularly at risk because the differences between financial systems between countries leave space for malicious actors to manipulate.

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Are 3D Printed Houses The Trend Of The Future

Are 3D Printed Houses the Trend of the Future?

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Imagine being able to build all the walls of a whole house in just 12 hours! That is exactly what 3-D printed houses are promising. The house’s 3D printer process uses concrete in the construction which has many long-term benefits, including strength, and durability in addition to the rapid construction process. Walls are typically two or three layers thick with airspace in between which is then filled with an insulating material making the houses airtight, energy-efficient, and strong.

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Social Media

Will 2022 Be the Year of Massive Social Media Upheaval?

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Social Media has come a long way since the early days of Facebook and Twitter. But recent years saw some cracks developing in their monopoly on the Social Media scene. The fact that Twitter could censor the words of a sitting President offended First Amendment advocates who in turn tried to form alternatives like the Social Media platform Parler. However, because of the wide reach of established hosting platforms, they soon realized that what they thought they owned was really just rented, and their landlords at  Apple Cloud communications company Twilio could simply terminate service to Parler.

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The Future of the Metaverse

Metaverse vs. Multiverse- What are They? And Where are They Leading?

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What Exactly is the Metaverse?

In October 2021, Facebook changed its parent company name to “Meta” to align the company with its ambitions to build the “metaverse.” NASDAQ.com believes that this rebranding will help boost the price of its stock in the same way that its name change to Alphabet boosted Google. By changing its name many believe that Facebook is signaling a change in corporate direction from a simple social media platform to a ‘meta-universe company’ i.e. one that combines virtual experiences with reality.

Is “metaverse” just the newest “Buzzword” or is “The Metaverse” like trying to explain the “The Internet” to someone in the 1970s? If you talk to CEOs like Mark Zuckerberg the metaverse is the future of the internet. But is this just hype or is it the fruition of the Sci-Fi dream of virtual reality and everything running via computers and holograms?

The term “metaverse” is said to have been coined back in 1992 by Sci-Fi author Neal Stephenson in his novel, “Snow Crash.” The idea was that virtual people aka. “Avatars” travel through imaginary worlds living out their dreams. In the book, Snow Crash Hiro Protagonist delivers pizza for Uncle Enzo’s CosoNostra Pizza Inc., in real life but in the Metaverse, he’s a warrior prince. By 2009, the idea of “avatars” was firmly embedded in the culture, and the movie Avatar had literal humans traveling to distant planets where they would virtually inhabit alternative bodies.

What are the implications of a shift toward the metaverse?

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Adidas 1967

Why Wearable Brand Merchandise is On Trend

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If you went to any thrift store in the country in the year 2000, and you would have found branded merch galore. In the 1980s, companies realized the benefit of getting customers to prominently promote their products, so they started distributing branded merchandise in huge numbers. 

But back in the 1960’s it would have seemed crude or crass to be a walking billboard unless you were a professional athlete or NASCAR driver. In 1967 Adidas didn’t even have their famous logo on their shoes and new tracksuit and their name certainly wasn’t prominently displayed. At the time they were simply promoting the “3-stripes” design. Adidas introduced its Trefoil logo at the 1972 Olympics. But it wasn’t until much later that flashing the brand name on your clothes became fashionable. 

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