Daily Inspiration: "How do you identify a truly great idea? As soon as someone says 'That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard!'" - Futurist Jim Carroll

Every great idea was once the dumbest thing you ever heard!
I've said many times in the past, and I repeated it again during the Q&A portion of a virtual talk I gave the other day:

Q. "What early indicators should we look out for that would give us an indication that a once unproven technology, what is a big, bold idea that you referred to, is about to become widely adopted."

A. "My answer to that would be when a lot of people are saying "That's the dumbest thing I ever heard."

To be a futurist is to be someone who is laughed at a lot. Mostly because people refuse to believe the accuracy of what we are telling them.

But, they stop laughing eventually.

LOL.

Original post: https://jimcarroll.com/2023/06/daily-inspiration-how-do-you-identify-a-truly-great-idea-as-soon-as-someone-says-thats-the-dumbest-thing-ive-ever-heard/

Choose a unique, strong password for every online service you use. That way, when it leaks on the dark web, everyone will be impressed with your #Infosec prowess.

What a crazy few months, I’ve been working on our first commercial release at @wonderful and it launched this week so hopefully I’ll be able to come back up for air now. If you are interested it’s wonderful.one and it’s an app that should eventually provide an #OpenBanking alternative to card machines for small businesses in the UK.

Are you a founder looking to transform people’s financial resilience and turn uncertainty into #opportunity?

If so, why not take a look at the upcoming ZINC Venture Builder?

Founders in this mission will help more people to achieve financial #security by building new products and services that will help people to earn more money, deal better with #financial shocks and make smart investments in their future.

Please boost! 🚀

#FinancialResilience #Founders #TechForGood

https://apply.workable.com/zinc-ventures-limited/j/46B8C0F986/

UK charities, how many of these are important to you?

Wonderful solves all of these problems for good causes and doesn't ask for a penny in return.

Get started by submitting a charity application now:

https://wonderful.org/charity/register?utm_source=social&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=PrevOrgCharities

#Fundraising #ThirdSector #TechForGood #Charity #Donation #WonderfulWednesday

The truth about #procrastination: as cool as it looks, always Indiana-Jonesing your hat under closing doors at the last second is exhausting.

If you’ve wondered how exactly GPT-3 works, there is a very detailed explanation at https://dugas.ch/artificial_curiosity/GPT_architecture.html
If you love maths and matrices in particular, it’s a great read.
I was sent this link by Refind, which I find to be pretty cool, sending you 5 links a day to articles they think you might enjoy. This isn’t an ad, but if you want to check it out here’s my invite link https://refind.com/?invite=279549f193

Exciting stuff at work this week, we have started our project for #OpenBanking “domestic standing orders”. When complete, this will allow our charity partners on wonderful.org to receive monthly recurring donations without the associated fees of alternatives such as Direct Debit or card processing fees. #FinTech #TechForGood #CharitableGiving

“Since introducing open banking payments as an option for making payments in March 2021, the UK’s HM Revenue & Customs has now processed over £10.5bn with the help of its open banking partner Ecospend.

That figure marks an incredible acceleration in the last 12 months, with the total sitting at just £2.5bn back in January 2022.”

#OpenBanking #payments #HMRC #CostSaving

https://www.altfi.com/article/10339_hmrcs-open-banking-payments-via-ecospend-hit-105bn?utm_source=rss&utm_campaign=altfi&mc_cid=b909cfa93b&mc_eid=29fe456f96

Tip for anyone who's been put off building stuff with JS due to the terrifying array of build tools and packages and framework choices you have to make these days

You don't have to use any of that stuff!

A few years ago I gave myself permission to ignore it all and just use default browser environments... and it turns out to be a really fun, productive, dare I say delightful environment to work in

Now that we can ignore IE compatibility modern JS and browser APIs are really nice to work with!

They say to build the product that solves your problem. This week I've been working on a concept for an #A2Apayments mobile point-of-sale application. I find it quite exciting to think we could roll this out to small businesses in the UK as a solid #OpenBanking alternative to card-based solutions. Immediate settlement of payments, and no card network fees. I'd happily use it myself and I know a bunch of people who could use it too.
#MobilePayments #SmallBusinesses #PointOfSale

@maxleibman I'm in the same boat, I bought the first-gen M1 Macbook Pro and although the specs on the M2 look impressive, the base model M1 is still significantly faster than the Core i9 Macbook Pro 16 I use at work 🤔

https://xkcd.com/1988/

Oh that was FAST fast.

GPT-2 output detectors work for GPT-3 and GPTChat, which means people who do stuff like turnitin plagiarism checks have a tool for this fast-moving new frontier.

Personally, I do a choose-your-own adventure/create-your-own-assignment model for most of my non-intro classes, at this point, and frankly i'd be inclined to make this into an assignment, in its own right. It could look something like:

"Generate a GPTChat output on [topic(s)], then expand on and correct the output with specific references and citations from class readings and lectures. Turn in the prompt, the original, and your corrections as your full submission."

Reframe it like that and it helps them think about what the GPT platforms are and do, and then you can integrate that into the whole of the semester's work, rather than making it an arms race of plagiarism and "Gotcha" tools.

https://wandering.shop/@janellecshane/109464780848248093

@maxleibman @wonderful ah yes I’ve also had this. I’m sure it has something to do with your brain being able to catch up when you are resting. Sometimes I can struggle on a problem for hours and then taking a 20 minute walk is enough to trigger my brain into working it out. I also find “coffee naps” have a similar effect, taking a 20 minute nap directly after a double espresso ☕️

Does anyone else have that ability to enter a lucid dream state and almost complete scope out what you are going to work on the following day?
I woke up this morning and in my head I already know exactly what the mobile app interface will look like, what features I have available already, and what I need to build to get it working.
#OpenBanking #MobilePayments #SmallBusiness #PointOfSale @wonderful

@mrautio maybe SoftPOS is responsible for some of that upward trend? In the UK I’m seeing so many small businesses that were previously cash only offering contactless payments using systems like Square and SumUp.
One of the applications I’m actively working on is a SoftPOS for A2A payments using #OpenBanking that will allow small business to accept direct bank payments without the extortionate card processing fees. I hope this will provide another alternative to cash payments

Study on the payment attitudes of consumers in the euro area has been conducted again by ECB. Over 50 % of point-of-sale transactions still cash based but card and mobile payments are increasing steadily.

Contactless payments had the biggest increase since 2019 study. Maybe soon SoftPOS style mobile-phone-payment-acceptance solutions can be seriously considered in more brick'n'mortar cases?

https://www.ecb.europa.eu/stats/ecb_surveys/space/html/ecb.spacereport202212~783ffdf46e.en.html

#SPACE2022 #ECB #payments #POS

@richard not on that occasion. We had scaffolders round that day and they thought it was hilarious that the kitchen was full of smoke and all the alarms were going off 🤣

What do you use more, #iMessage or #WhatsApp, or #Signal? Please boost to get greater sample.

Update: This poll has been edited to include Signal and to allow multiple choice voting. Please re-vote if you did previously.