A subprime Primer

Heres a nice SubPrime Primer for all to understand the brokerage business.

Subprime Primer

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Conversational Blindness—Answering the Wrong Question the Right Way

When faced with unwanted queries, question-dodgers sometimes exploit conversational blindness—a phenomenon whereby listeners fail to notice when speakers respond to a different question than the one they are asked—by responding with answers that seem to address the question asked, but which in fact address an entirely different question. [..] A successful dodge occurs when a speaker's answer to the wrong question is so compelling that the listener both forgets the right one, and rates the dodger positively. In some cases, speakers end up better off by answering the wrong question well rather than the right question poorly.

This is an interesting paper to read. It reminds me of the mother asking the child -" have you done your homework ?" and where the child responds "mom , you know what I did in school today ?  I wrote the whole equation on the black board , when nobody in the class knew how to solve the problem" !

 Subject change - relevant to school , but not relevant to homework !

Whose Value Statement ?

Does anyone know which org's value statement this is ?

We lead by example | We work together | We respect the individual | We seek the facts and provide insight
We are open and honest in our communication | We are committed to our communities
Above all, we act with integrity

Due Dilgence prepardness checklist

Investor presentation prepared: Yes
OM/PPM prepared: No
Business plan prepared: Yes
Executive summary prepared: Yes
3 year projections prepared: Yes
3 year historical prepared: Yes
Financials externally reviewed: No
Financials externally audited: No
Financials prepared by: External CPA
Formal board in place: Yes
Willing to put in board if none: Yes
Option plan in place: No
Employee agreements: Yes
Board of directors agreements: No
Board of advisors agreements: No
Subscription agreements: No
Cap table shareholder list: No
Management directors: 2
Non-mgmt directors: 2
Non-mgmt non-shareholders: --

statements which make you go hmmmmmmmmmmm !!

This is a classic statement by Shivanand Velmurugan

 

"When a government asks 99% of the population who own less than half of the country's wealth to bail out the 1% of the population who own 51% of the wealth the population has to decide whether it wants bankruptcy before revolution or revolution before bankruptcy. It really is that simple.""

FF beta comments boo boo

Bill Gates is Right on Creative Capitalism

"Bill Gates has it right. Business is the most powerful force for change in the world right now and gives the idea of creative capitalism real power"

[..]

The first is the issue of resources

A second force affecting the speed and direction of global capitalism comes from the demand side.

At the same time, the corporate form is changing very fast. New networks of companies and organizations are emerging, new ways of competing and collaborating are becoming more important. Old boundaries are withering.

A fourth catalyst is transparency. Leaders and organizations of all kinds are increasingly operating in glasshouses.

Finally, though less obviously, there is a palpable thirst among people around the world for leadership that is not for sale, for individuals and organizations that are not solely defined by the transactional rhythms and white-hot speed of the marketplace

 

source :HBS

The New Frontiers !!

"Now exfiltrators are beginning to make use of streaming data technologies like voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). Disrupting or even detecting hidden transmissions inside real-time phone calls is the next hurdle for digital forensics companies" - Spy Vs Spy

This is an interesting article for a Sunday Morning Read.  Earlier we had "Man in the middle" concept. Now we will begin seeing a 'mole'  in real time data streams.  This seems to be another brain child of Ravi Sundaram

Simple is Good !

ASHLEY:

 

Keeping it simple in business is vital. In business, as in life, it
seems to be human nature to make things more complicated than they have to
be. In business this can have disastrous consequences because without
simplicity the function of the business can be severely hampered. I often
meet people who agree but it seems big corporations are unable to make the
necessary changes because there are too many people on the totem pole to get
the changes enacted

 

Via : simplictyblog

HR & Talent Managment

 McKinsey surveys show that business leaders around the world are deeply concerned about the intensifying competition for talent, few companies make it an integral part of a long-term business strategy.

 

To find out more about how companies can bolster the HR function and successfully recruit and manage employees, read "Making talent a strategic priority" (January 2008).

Researching the Value of Project Management,

Researching the Value of Project Management, will be released soon.  Smartly, PMI released a preview PDF (here) and a 90 minute presentation by the lead authors Janice Thomas and Mark Mullaly, PMP (embedded here).

Mary Adams over at Hybrid Vigor will be particularly interested in the attention paid to intangible benefits (Crossderry posts here, here, and here) in the study, which Kelley Hunsberger highlighted (here).

Friend Feed - Pvt Room Usage

I am cleaning up my main life stream on FF. I am getting too much noise and echo of the same stuff that I have already consumed one way or another. However, I will continue to participate on my main page.  Here's a couple of my private rooms and its content ;

My-News Room is for collating all the stuff from Reuters: Top News, AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE),  Google News, Yahoo! News: Most Popular , APnews's videos on livevideo , CNN.com ,  and a wire scrapper ;World News Host.

I  get top line info from all these sites and am on the ball with whatver is happening around the globe. Just spending 5 minutes scanning the top line title header, gives me more then enough info to either dive deeper or not !

 

Technially I have the worlds News Corps working the news and the news comes to me as soon as the story is cut ! :)-

On that note, I then began leveraging off  the wisdom of crowds. Why go searching for information, let it bubble up to the top and cull the meta set of pages. Content is variable and flavors of preference too, However, that interests me to. And, who has time to browse the net ? So I began crowd sourcing and leverage off the wisdom of others, I Created a Play Pen  

   

Whatever hits Delicious hotlist ; Digg , Techmeme,  reddit.com: what's new online ; BuzzFeed - Latest gets aggregated into this room. I maybe behind the curve while getting a good link. But remember, most of these items can only reach front page, only after many thousands of views and many votes etc. So if the main internet user base finds it interesting , then it will pop up here. So I guesstimate that about 1-2Million users actually use these sites and thereby I am 'feeding' off them like a parasite :)- 

(if you have more suggestion to which sites I should add to this room, please let me know !)

After we had the S3 outage, I then figured out lets create a "cloud status board". I took all the Status board messages and plugged them into this room. What gives here? The Health of the Internet. I can see which services are down and when they went down or up. Think of it as a mini NOC  Tool !! Heres a screen scrap. 

 

As something that directly relates to my job and profession. Heres a monitoring room on CBSA and CBP.gov:, BSA Media  Rather then keep this keep this in my outlook. I mirrored the same into a separate room

Why am I sharing this with you all ?

I want to know ;

1) Is anyone else doing the same with thing - using FF as one big aggregator ?

2) What other Feeds should I be including ?

3) What happens if FF breaks, I have no way to port in and out all my likes, preferences and shares ? Thereby , losing my knowledge thread repository .  

Note: this is only a thin slice of what I got setup :)-

Another Round of deep chatter

Many Moons ago, I wrote about the "tapeworm" and then I cut the chatter on current cybergames.

Its only today that I realize that the deep defense mechanisms of  "Waychopee and Electric Skillet" is not in power with other governments.

The Coalition is losing the war on this front.

'nuff said !!

Why does a civil discourse become redundant ?

It starts' with this thread..
where I note this comment ;

"Had it been a mainstream publication, the photographer would have acted like a professional photographer. - Cyndy"

So I ask ;

Cyndy, can you distingush between the two,please. How does a professional photographer act vs a non professional photographer ?? in so much as they are both people and have human reactions. take time to reflect before you give an answer. I have collateral available (on hand) as rebuttal. - You

and to which I get this response

Peter, show me where any photographer is supposed to BECOME a story instead of document one. We are discussing photography, not performance art, aren't we? Because if we are discussing photography AS performance art, then by all means, I'm sure you have collateral available. - Cyndy

to which I reply ;

Cynd.. yes he (kevin) become the story.. as a professional blogger/ professional photographer after he he cut the Devils Dogs 301 letter. So for telling the truth he become the story. <http://hotzone.yahoo.com/b/hot...> So lets see, what is the core traits that differentiate a professional photographer act vs a non professional photographer ? is it telling story the best way they can ? not telling the truth ? or what -- please quantify and 4get TH - You

and then I get this quoted back to me (as If I dont know the story in full !! )

We are reading the same story, right? "But I have never in my career been a "gotcha" reporter hoping for people to commit wrongdoings so that I can catch them." and "Anyone who has seen my reporting on television or read my dispatches is aware of the lengths to which I've gone to play it straight down the middle" are right in the first two paragraphs. He was documenting a story and was shocked in people calling him out. He didn't create the story. He didn't put himself in the story. And he was shocked. - Cyndy

but my root question still need to be answered ..its like wtf.. (please keep to the topic on hand and answer my question !!)

@cyndy, why are you side stepping my question ?? just tell me what is differentiator between a professional photographer act vs a non professional photographer act ? just keep it simple and in plain english. - You

And I am still awaiting an answer... Time well wasted ?? I dont think so, because I now have a more the a slight knowledge to what is fluff and what is wool !!

I'll be the first one to take mea culpa if I am wrong.. but what the heck just answer the question. Tell me a Pro will have the current lens, a non pro will not know the correct lightening needed. OR whatever is the differentiator and that what really perks my interest.

Bigger lesson- great people talk about ideas, good people talk about everyday things, the weather, the football games, golf etc. Mediocre people , just keeptalking about people !

FF- Fail (Session Socket)

I think this is a session failure. ITS not an FF Bug, rather my box tends to switch WiFi hotspots. So when on spot fails, it just picks whatever is in range. However the kernal can't pass the new socket onto FF (thats what I think !!) 

Wrike

"What is Wrike? Wrike is an integrated online project management solution that helps you manage projects, teams and businesses. By turning email overload into well-organized plans on the Web, Wrike makes your organization more efficient, transparent and agile. Wrike is collaborative, web-based, easy to use and inexpensive, so you can roll it out company-wide."

Me is not seeing anything about work flow controls and Reports on Budgets, REsource Loading and all that fun stuff that is really needed for PM works

on Marriage !!

Time to take it out !!

# for num in $(seq -w 200); do ssh n$num free -tm | grep Mem | awk '{print $2}';
done | sort | uniq


Just joshin..phun intended.. !
   

BEST READ Evah !! The cat[DNS] is indeed out of the bag [INTERNET]

HERES how it Works..minor edits to make it readable.

NOTE :  I REALLY DON'T KNOW THE AUTHOR OF THIS FAB READ. THAT THE WAY IT HAPPENS  IN THIS ZONE ..SO FAR ALL I KNOW  ITS --YES, Halvar Flake

Backgrounder

Pretend for the moment that you know only the basic function of DNS — that it translates WWW.VICTIM.COM into 1.2.3.4. The code that does this is called a resolver. Each time the resolver contacts the DNS to translate names to addresses, it creates a packet called a  query. The exchange of packets is called a transaction. Since the number of packets flying about on the internet requires scientific notation to express, you can imagine there has to be some way of not mixing them up.

Bob goes to to a deli, to get a sandwich. Bob walks up to the counter, takes a pointy ticket from a round red dispenser. The
ticket has a number on it. This will be Bob's unique identifier for his sandwich acquisition transaction. Note that the number will
probably be used twice — once when he is called to the counter to place his order and again when he's called back to get his sandwich. If you're wondering, Bob likes ham on rye with no onions.

If you've got this, you have the concept of transaction IDs, which are numbers assigned to keep different transactions in order. Conveniently, the first sixteen bits of a DNS packet is just such a unique identifier. It's called a query id (QID). And with the efficiency of the deli, the QID is used for multiple transactions.


VEXT0R's and HEX's

Until very recently, there were two basic classes of DNS vulnerabilities. One of them involves mucking about with the QID in
DNS packets and the other requires you to know the Deep Magic.  First, QIDs. Bob's a resolver and Alice is a content DNS server. Bob asks Alice for the address of WWW.VICTIM.COM. The answer is 1.2.3.4. Mallory would like the answer to be 6.6.6.0.

It is a (now not) secret shame of mine that for a great deal of my career, creating and sending packets was, to me, Deep Magic. Then it became part of my job, and I learned that it is surprisingly trivial. So put aside the idea that forging IP packets is the hard part of poisoning DNS. If I'm Mallory and I'm attacking Bob, how can he distinguish my packets from Alice's? Because I can't see the QID in his request, and the QID in my response won't match. The QID is the only thing protecting the DNS from Mallory (me).

QID attacks began in the olden days, when BIND simply incremented the QID with every query response. If you can remember 1995, here's a workable DNS attack. Think fast: 9372 + 1. Did you get 9372, or even miss and get 9373? You win, Alice loses. Mallory sends a constant stream of DNS responses for WWW.VICTIM.COM. All are quietly discarded —- until Mallory gets Bob to query for WWW.VICTIM.COM. If Mallory's response gets to your computer before the legitimate response arrives from your ISP's name server, you will be redirected where Mallory tells you you're going.

Obvious fix: you want the QID be randomly generated. Now Alice and Mallory are in a race. Alice sees Bob's request and knows the QID. Mallory has to guess it. The first one to land a packet with the correct QID wins. Randomized QIDs give Alice a big advantage in this race.  But there's a bunch more problems here:

1.   If you convince Bob to ask Alice the same question 1000 times all at once, and Bob uses a different QID for each packet, you madethe race 1000 times easier for Mallory to win.
2.   If Bob uses a crappy random number generator, Mallory can get Bob to ask for names she controls, like WWW.EVIL.COM, and watch how the QIDs bounce around; eventually, she'll break the RNG and be able to predict its outputs.

16 bits just isn't big enough to provide real security at the traffic rates we deal with in 2008.

Your computer's resolver is probably a stub. Which means it won't really save the response. You don't want it to. The stub asks a real DNS server, probably run by your ISP. That server doesn't know everything. It can't, and shouldn't, because the whole idea of DNS is to compensate for the organic and shifting nature of internet naming and addressing. Frequently, that server has to go ask another, and so on. The cool kids call this "recursion". 

Responses carry another value, too, called a time to live (TTL).  This number tells your name server how long to cache the answer.  Why? Because they deal with zillions of queries. Whoever wins the  race between Alice and Mallory, their answer gets cached. All subsequent responses will be dropped. All future requests for that same data, within the TTL, come from that answer. This is good for whoever wins the race. If Alice wins, it means Mallory can't poison the cache for that name. If Mallory wins, the next 10,000 or so people that ask that cache where WWW.VICTIM.COM is go to 6.6.6.0.

YET ANOTHER VEXT0R !!

Then there's that other set of DNS vulnerabilities. These require you to pay attention in class. They haven't really been talked about since 1997. And they're hard to find, because you have to understand how DNS works. In other words, you have to be completely crazy. Lazlo Hollyfeld crazy. I'm speaking of course of RRset poisoning.

DNS has a complicated architecture. Not only that, but not all name servers run the same code. So not all of them implement DNS in exactly the same way. And not only that, but not all name servers are configured properly.

I just described a QID attack that poisons the name server's cache. This attack requires speed, agility and luck, because if the "real" answer happens to arrive before your spoofed one, you're locked out. Fortunately for those of you that have a time machine, some versions of DNS provide you with another way to poison the name server's cache anyway. To explain it, I will have to explain more about the format of a DNS packet.

DNS packets are variable in length and consist of a header, some flags and resource records (RRs). RRs are where the goods ride around. There are up to three sets of RRs in a DNS packet, along with the original query. These are:

1. Answer RR's, which contain the answer to whatever question you asked (such as the A record that says WWW.VICTIM.COM is 1.2.3.4)
2. Authority RR's, which tell resolvers which name servers to refer to to get the complete answer for a question
3. Additional RR's, sometimes called "glue", which contain any additional information needed to make the response effective.

A word about the Additional RR's. Think about an NS record, like the one that COM's name server uses to tell us that, to find out where WWW.VICTIM.COM is, you have to ask NS1.VICTIM.COM. That's good to know, but it's not going to help you unless you know where to find NS1.VICTIM.COM. Names are not addresses. This is a chicken and egg problem. The answer is, you provide both the NS record pointing VICTIM.COM to NS1.VICTIM.COM, and the A record pointing NS1.VICTIM.COM to 1.2.3.1.

Now, let's party like it's 1995.

Download the source code for a DNS implementation and hack it up such that every time it sends out a response, it also sends out a little bit of evil — an extra Additional RR with bad information. Then let's set up an evil server with it, and register it as EVIL.COM. Now get a bunch of web pages up with IMG tags pointing to names hosted at that server.

Bob innocently loads up a page with the malicious tags which coerces his browser resolve that name. Bob asks Alice to resolve that name. Here comes recursion: eventually the query arrives at our evil server. Which sends back a response with an unexpected (evil) Additional RR.

If Alice's cache honors the unexpected record, it's 1995 —- buy  CSCO! —- and you just poisoned their cache. Worse, it will replace the "real" data already in the cache with the fake data. You asked where WWW.EVIL.COM was (or rather, the image tags did). But Alice also "found out" where WWW.VICTIM.COM was: 6.6.6.0. Every resolver that points to that name server will now gladly forward you to the website of the beast.

FIXES and PATCHES TILL @008 .

It's not 1995. It's 2008. There are fixes for the attacks I have described.

Fix 1:  The QID race is fixed with random IDs, and by using a strong random number generator and being careful with the state you keep for queries. 16 bit query IDs are still too short, which fills us with dread. There are hacks to get around this. For instance, DJBDNS randomizes the source port on requests as well, and thus won't honor responses unless they come from someone who guesses the ~16bit source port. This brings us close to 32 bits, which is much harder to guess.

Fix 2:  The RR set poisoning attack is fixed by bailiwick checking, which   is a quirky way of saying that resolvers simply remember that if they're asking where WWW.VICTIM.COM is, they're not interested in caching a new address for WWW.GOOGLE.COM in the same transaction.

Remember how these fixes work. They're very important.

PRESENT DAY.

Let's try again to convince Bob that WWW.VICTIM.COM is 6.6.6.0.

This time though, instead of getting Bob to look up WWW.VICTIM.COM  and then beating Alice in the race, or getting Bob to look up WWW.EVIL.COM and slipping strychnine into his ham sandwich, we'regoing to be clever (sneaky).

Get Bob to look up AAAAA.VICTIM.COM. Race Alice. Alice's answer is NXDOMAIN, because there's no such name as AAAAA.VICTIM.COM. Mallory has an answer. We'll come back to it. Alice has an advantage in the race, and so she likely beats Mallory. NXDOMAIN for AAAAA.VICTIM.COM.

Alice's advantage is not insurmountable. Mallory repeats with  AAAAB.VICTIM.COM. Then AAAAC.VICTIM.COM. And so on. Sometime, perhaps around CXOPQ.VICTIM.COM, Mallory wins! Bob believes CXOPQ.VICTIM.COM is 6.6.6.0!

Poisoning CXOPQ.VICTIM.COM is not super valuable to Mallory. But Mallory has another trick up her sleeve. Because her response didn't just say CXOPQ.VICTIM.COM was 6.6.6.0. It also contained Additional RRs pointing WWW.VICTIM.COM to 6.6.6.0. Those records are in-bailiwick: Bob is in fact interested in VICTIM.COM for this query. Mallory has combined attack #1 with attack #2, defeating fix #1 and fix #2. Mallory can conduct this attack in less than 10 seconds on a fast Internet link.

Xbox vs Apple TV.

Had to capture this. Why ? the simplicty of the question and the answers open a whole dimension of thoughts , pros & cons etc. It goes like this..

"why does it take like an hour to get a rental on xbox live while apple tv can get it already right away?" -  MG Siegler
One is an Apple product, one is a Microsoft product. Any questions? - Louis Gray

Yahoo Agrees to SELL -at $33

"Just got the alert via Marc Hustvedt, co-founder of Tubefilter, on Twitter linking to a Search Engine Journal story reporting that Jerry Yang sent an e-mail out to shareholders that Yahoo is willing to sell to Microsoft at the price of $33 per share"

Source

Congratulations to our Millionth Terrorist!

Good Catch by Schnier ...

 

The U.S terrorist watch list has hit one million names. I sure hope we're giving our millionth terrorist a prize of some sort.

Who knew that a million people are terrorists. Why, there are only twice as many burglars in the U.S. And fifteen times more terrorists than arsonists.

Is this idiotic, or what?

hi there! - We love u !!

Berry Berry Cute !!

All the way from Holland , my Cousins daughter "Little Hobbit" and sends me a pic of her & little brother.

"I was babysitting and we (kees and I) had nothing to do... ;)"

Luv u back ..Cousins :)-

Trust me, I won't be around always, so sharing this today !!

Trust me, I wont be around always, so this is the best time to share this !!

Hope you enjoy.. its awwsssssssssome !

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EXTREME DATA SET !! => Fwd: [Full-disclosure] Mrfetch Paul Carnes YouTube

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I'm an addict - need support !!

I am an addicting and trying to quit. I am micro blogging my de-tox experience on Friend Feed.

Kindly drop by and support my recovery :)-

The animal in me- will always LUV U !!

This is an awesome clip. I remember my old dog did the same thing, when I visited her after 2 years. Check it out.

True love begets true love !




you can order the documentary on amazon

Rocket Boom Sold !!

This is news,  in it's most precise, concise and in pristine condition :)-

"Printed, signed, notarized, scanned, emailed, countersigned, received, printed, filed." - Andrew Baron

Thread

Who am I and what I do ?

Funny, this statement of Hugh's  seriously caught me off balance.

" @peterdawson I've ben seeing you around for about 4 years. Besides obsessing about A-Listers, I'm not sure what it is you actualy do."

First response..just google me. But, on second thought its totally like me.  My life is a partially opened book. Additional info of me can be garnished from [ My Blog | Twitter | Facebook | Linkedin | MyWiki ]  Oh yes don't forget to Google me (PeterDawson)  for more information !! . :)-

Methinks, if you really wanted to something about what I do or who I am, you would have at least done some due diligence research on your part too.

What I actually do, is nobodies business and mine alone. If I wanted to share something in the social web it would be out there. Just because we chat on Twitter, friendfeed and other  media, does not mean that I need to open my professional and personal stuff to the world and to you.

Respect and Trust is earned and not freely given. Thats a philosophy of mine. So there, what's the next question ? 

A Shel vs Loren classic !

This comes from this thread.  It pretty much puts the whole kruffle in order !

"remember high school when the bully started mocking one of the academic team and the guy on the academic team decided to not ignore it, but kept bringing it up, so the bully kept on going? Same diff. Just keep walking down the hall and pretend you see nothing. - Cyndy

A Shel vs Loren classic !

This comes from this thread.  It pretty much puts the whole kruffle in order !

"remember high school when the bully started mocking one of the academic team and the guy on the academic team decided to not ignore it, but kept bringing it up, so the bully kept on going? Same diff. Just keep walking down the hall and pretend you see nothing. - Cyndy

Time well wasted - I cuss Hugh Macleod

I Don't believe this, I did it again !!

Ok somewhere in 2004/05 Hugh Macleod posted his "HOW TO BE CREATIVE" manifestio on Changethis.com. I had downloaded, printed a copy and read it in one sitting. Thereafter, I must have kept this copy and during my last move had placed it into a box for storage.  This afternoon, while cleaning up, I found this buried within a box of my hard copies  amongst the Tom Peters (TIB series), Seth Godin copies and a bunch of other hard copies.

Trust me, in the middle of packing, cleaning the last thing on my mind is reading his Manifesto. But guess what, "Its ok to be a sheep , as long as you are a  cool sheep"  cartoon catches my eye.  Oh well, darn Hugh, I get hooked once over again.  I spent like an hour once browsing thru the book again !!

Now me calls this TIME WELL WASTED by  Hugh Macleod. Refreshing read.   Can't wait for his new book !!

Ok back to the grind :)-

11 things kids will not learn in school

Oh this is good wisdom that  Steve ,  (a Black Ops' man for MSFT)  posts on Bill Gates and things that kids will never learn in school

Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!

Rule 2 : The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3 : You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4 : If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5 : Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.

Rule 6 : If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault; so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7 :  Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8 : Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9 : Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time..

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

I still remember reading his book about and very few people realize that he finally got awarded his Harvard degree in 2007. Thats a long way off from the fall of 1973. Here's an infonuggut - While Microsoft was growing, in the first five years, he personally reviewed every line of code the company shipped, and often rewrote parts of it as he saw fit. :)-

Failing is inevitable !!

I got this classic pointer from Niniane post.

"You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all - in which case, you fail by default." .

Take time to read J K Rowling commencement speech: "The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination," at the Annual Meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association. 

Medical Humor - US vs Rest of World !!

With this sort of medical breakthroughs I wonder how long our human race can survive!!!!!

An Israeli doctor says "Medicine in my country is so advanced that we can take a kidney out of one man, put it in another, and have him looking for work in six weeks."

A German doctor says "That is nothing, we can take a lung out of one person, put it in another, and have him looking for work in four weeks.

A Russian doctor says "In my country, medicine is so advanced that we can take half a heart out of one person, put it in another,and have them both looking for work in two weeks."

The Texas doctor, not to be outdone, says "You guys are way behind, we recently took a man with no brains out of Texas, put him in the White House for eight years, and now half the country is looking for work."

black swan effect -mortgage crisis !

Francine has a wonderful  post about her friend. Scott Coles was one of the largest private lender in the Arizona mortgage  market space.

Due to the pressure of the  the mortgage crisis , he apparently committed suicide yesterday.  May he rest in Peace. My heart goes out to his wife and three children.

As he was a a high profile CEO, this gets a lot of news and traction in the blogs. This made me think- how many other's out there are doing the same thing, but just because  they are a  common person, it may go unreported and will not have this amount of exposure.  Think of about it,  10-15% of the American Population is going thru this crisis.

The Amercian dream has become  nightmare. We are just seeing the tip of the iceberg.

top 10 technolgiees

via the Business of IT

"The good folks over at the Gartner Group have revealed the top 10 technologies that they believe will change the world over the next four years:"

1. Multicore and hybrid processors
2. Virtualization and fabric computing
3. Social networks and social software
4. Cloud computing and cloud/Web platforms
5. Web mashups
6. User Interface
7. Ubiquitous computing
8. Contextual computing
9. Augmented reality
10. Semantics

I think that Fabric computing is still in infancy and will suddenly gain traction - Fast !

--
Peter Dawson

"This message is printed on Recycled Electrons."
Thought Flickr's the Home of Peter Dawson
http://peterdawson.blogspot.com


Ph: 905 270 0574
Email : slash.pd@gmail.com
Skype: Slash.pd

Tribute to my Grandma !!

This is a tribute to my Grandma who was from Burma. She was born on June 5th 1889. She died shortly after giving birth to my Dad. She was a brave woman. This is the first time I am sharing our story in public and my thoughts about my Grandma

I can't even imagine a Lady in those day (let alone today !), who could travel from Burma to Toronto and complete a PhD. Yep, those days is circa 1908 !! Think of Traveling from Rangoon to Toronto by ship and then down the St.Lawrence river by boat ? (remember that the Titanic sunk in 1912 , therefore her trip was 4 year's before that event !) But just think of it , How long would that journey take - Rangoon to Toronto ?

After landing in Toronto entering McMaster's, she completed a double PhD in Divinity and English Language. (not sure if it was double Phd -- but even a single doctorate is pretty tough !! )

I wonder what type of hardships she would have faced in her days. She must have been a pretty smart and brave Woman to have done all all that and endured it here in Canada. Remember in 1908, according to my calculations, my grandma would have only been 19 years old.Over and above all that she was Burmese, of a colored ethnic background, away from home, change of tropical weather to northern (Canadian) weather, food and cultures changes etc. It must have been pretty tough and she must have had heck'a strong focus and willpower.

With all this changes and hardship she managed to complete her studies and go back and teach in the University of Rangoon !!

At times, I feel that I am truly an unworthy grandson. Need to better myself. Anyway, my Granma B'day was coming up and I thought I'll share this story and thoughts with my readers. Oh BTW, I am wearing a Burmese Lungi and writing this post :)-

Below is an email thread from a long ago when I did some Genealogical research of my Grand'ma !!


=======================================================================
-----Original Message-----
From: Canadian Baptist Archives [mailto xxxxxx]
Sent: Monday, April 29, 2002 5:14 PM
To: Dawson, Peter D
Subject: RE: search for Alumni Photos/Info

Glad to have a happy customer.

-----Original Message-----
From: Dawson, Peter D [mailto:xxxxxx ]
Sent: Monday, April 29, 2002 4:47 PM
To: 'Canadian Baptist Archives'
Subject: RE: search for Alumni Photos/Info


Dear Dr. Steinacher,

I was utterly astonished when your reply popped into my inbox !! Words fail me, when I try to express my sincere thanks for the heartwarming information that you have given me. Your kind assistance, in my genealogical endeavors is really appreciated. Thank you for taking the time to research and cull all these details for me.

Yes, I understand that I will need to contact Mr. Phil Pearson for further research on this subject. With the details, you have so kindly given me, makes it possible for me to continue research on this subject.

Once again, thank you !!!
Sincerely and best regards,

.pd
->-----Original Message-----
->From: Canadian Baptist Archives [mailto:xxxxxx ]
->Sent: Monday, April 29, 2002 1:10 PM
->To: Dawson, Peter D
->Subject: RE: search for Alumni Photos/Info
->
->
->Dear Peter,
->
-> Thank you for you for genealogical inquiry. The Canadian Baptist
->Archives is a ministry maintained by the Baptist Convention of Ontario
->and Quebec, the Baptist Union of Western Canada and McMaster Divinity
->College. The Archives' primary mandate is to serve these
->constituencies.
->
-> Our resources are limited, so we are not able to pursue genealogical
->inquiries, even on a fee-for-service basis. Normally we do not even
->begin to search, but the information you provided made possible a very
->quick search. There is an "Enrollment Book" for McMaster University,
->which contains information about all incoming students while the
->University was still in Toronto (i.e. until the fall of 1929). Number
->996 is a "Sarah Margaret Isaac"[sic], who entered on 28 September
->1908. She had been born in Rangoon on 5 June 1889. Her father, A.C.
->Isaac of 43 Phayre St., Rangoon, Burma, is listed as "pensioned"; both
->she and her parents' religion is listed as "Episcopalian". Upon
->entrance, she held a first class matriculation certificate from the
->College of Preceptors, London (presumably England), having studied at
->"Convent, Rangoon" and "Morris College", also of Rangoon.
->
-> If you would like to hire a researcher to conduct further inquiries
->for you (there is not a strong likelihood of finding out a great deal
->more), I am happy to provide you with the name of someone approved by
->the Archives, Mr.
->Phil Pearson. He is a former student at the Divinity College and is
->thoroughly familiar with our collection. He is allowed access to our
->stacks, something not normally extended to anyone except our direct
->employees. He is an independent contractor and you will have to
->negotiate rates directly with him. Should you wish to avail yourself
->of his services, he may be contacted at:
-> Phil Pearson

[...snipped Phil's email ]

->
->
->Yours sincerely,
->
->
->Dr. C. Mark Steinacher
->Acting Director
->Canadian Baptist Archives
->
->-----Original Message-----
->From: Dawson, Peter D [mailto:xxxxxx]
->Sent: Monday, January 28, 2002 1:30 PM
->To: 'xxxxxx
->Subject: search for Alumni Photos/Info
->Importance: High
->
->
->Hello,
->
->This email address and was given to me for a prospective contact point
->at the McMasters, College of Divinity, Archives Dept.
->
->Could you please let me know if it is possible to find more
->information regarding my Grandmother. All we know is that during the
->period (circa
->1912-18)
->or somewhere there about's, our Grandmom,travelled from a country
->called as Burma (now Myanmar) and studied at McMasters'. We believe
->that she Graduated in Literature and Philopsy. (AS the family 'dinner
->table'
->stories go). She
->was the first Lady (fr a Foreign County) who graduated from McMasters
->and she was the only lady in her class.
->
->Anyway, most of the family documents were lost during the
->WW11 so whatever
->I am saying is just from gray matter. Grandma's name was Sarah
->Margaret Dawson (nee Isaacs) I dunna if she was registered as Sarah
->Margaret or Margaret Sarah or with Isaacs/Dawson.. its pretty fuzzy
->information that I am working on.
->
->Kindly let me know what you find and if I am not addressing this to
->the correct contact point, please do let me know whom I can contact.
->
->Looking forward to hearing from you.
->Thanking you in advance,
->Sincerely
->
->.pd
->
->Peter Dawson

"Message from Earth to Mar's" - Has my name one it !!!

A Long Long time ago (circa 2006),  I got a tidbit to NASA and Project Phoneix. Being an early adopter and fast mover, I registered myself. The outcome of that effort was blogged here and here

So yesterday, was a small milestone of only  250, 000 people, whose name was on the small DVD of Project Phoneix. Here's an except of the notification email :)-

[..]

Don't forget that you are a part of this adventure…part of the story of space exploration!

As part of The Planetary Society's Messages from Earth program, your name — along with a quarter million others from around the world — is now on the surface of Mars. Landing with you on the disk is Visions of Mars, a treasure trove of literature and art — from classic works by Arthur C. Clarke and Ray Bradbury to Orson Welles' radio retelling of "The War of the Worlds" to a special audio recording of Carl Sagan delivering a message to the future.

The story of space exploration is being written everyday.

Fifty years ago we couldn't have told this story, but 50 years from now our names and thoughts...those Messages from Earth that we have sent...will be part of the story — part of the permanent record of space exploration.

[..]

its great to be part of the 'permanent record of space exploration"  Thanks to  Susan for turning me on  :)-

The Internet FAQ from 2085

Its been a long time sine I had a good laugh. Philipp's post had me in splits. In short , this is how the internet will look in 2085 . Heres a couple of my fav's

What were world web sites?

A so-called world web site consisted of an address of its owner to locate their physical business location, as well as other miscellaneous transmitting of human information that was considered important at the time. The protocol used to decode the information was called hypertext, and as its standards changed quickly over the years, it is impossible to decode most of the information contained within.

What alternative information transfer technologies accompanied the internet?

The internet was only one of many transfer technologies. Equally popular at the time were the Ipod, also called Phone, a device to record and emit copies of the human voice, as well as the so-called Pongmachine which showed an animated bright shape on a dark background.

I am interested to find out more about humans, where can I see them?

You can find representative entities of the human species in most local zoos. Visitors of model version 4.55 and lower receive special discounts; while the brain of humans is likely incapable of experiencing pain, please do not feed or break them.

Take time to read the full post !!

Pointless Post

On FD List this come's to me

[...] snipped

Here is something with substance.

               ,'``.._   ,'``.
              :,--._:)\,:,._,.:       All Glory to
              :`--,''   :`...';\      the HYPNO TOAD!
               `,'       `---'  `.
               /                 :
              /                   \
            ,'                     :\.___,-.
           `...,---'``````-..._    |:       \
             (                 )   ;:    )   \  _,-.
              `.              (   //          `'    \
               :               `.//  )      )     , ;
             ,-|`.            _,'/       )    ) ,' ,'
            (  :`.`-..____..=:.-':     .     _,' ,'
             `,'\ ``--....-)='    `._,  \  ,') _ '``._
          _.-/ _ `.       (_)      /     )' ; / \ \`-.'
         `--(   `-:`.     `' ___..'  _,-'   |/   `.)
             `-. `.`.``-----``--,  .'
               |/`.\`'        ,',');
                   `         (/  (/


Enjoy reading that on your f*cking blackberry (another pretentious device that is out of control).

Change- Des Moines, Iowa !!

Watched the speech and realized that Obama has given one of  his greatest speeches. Not his best, but differently up there. High up there !

Change ??  yep its happened- Security Detail has changed for him.  This is the highest watermark  given to a candidate on this campaign trail.
...... and this simply implies that across ALL internal bureaucracies,  he has been slated as being the nominee. Common Consensus. PERIOD.

He's has become one of America's next top "Asset's"  I wish him the best.  We certainly need CHANGE 

herds are moving where the grass is greener and they can feed !

While Twitter was down the conversation moved here

There some real interesting thread's that suddenly sprang up between the early adopters.  I view this as akin to0, herds moving where the grass is greener and they can feed- analogy.This is the simple survival rule of any species. As for the human ones that thieve in the information matrix, Twitter is a watering hole and FriendFeed is THE Feeding grounds of info exchange. 

Today is the 2/3rd time that twitter has gone thru some massive downtime and the conversation has dynamically moved onto FriendFeed.

Here are some links to some interesting conversations

"Who needs Twitter when you have FriendFeed? This works just as well."
This Twitter downtime should really help FriendFeed. Everyone please submit feedback to them on features you'd like to see."
"Twitter is down...the converastion is moving here. This is a real threat if they don't scale."
Twitter: Something Is Technically Wrong

I have quickly culled threads that were opened within the last 1 hr, since twitter has gone down.  As one can see the early adopter's are fast becoming zissed off with twitter services. This only means that FriendFeed will go mainstream even much faster. A couple of new features and  that will certainly swing the early adopters onto FriendFeed property - full time  !!

Time will tell if FriendFeed can scale too :)-

Bird vs Cat

Ms.Socks gets really worked up when the birds sit on the balcony

My Fav Twits for April

Heres my picks for this Months Fav' son Twitter !!

Sarahintampa i linked to techcrunch...this feels so wrong! 04:58 PM April 04, 2008
mattdelves Going offline for the time being. Spending the next day seeking God through Prayer and Fasting. God bless you all. 07:51 PM April 05, 2008
robertbrook "we always get what we fear, until we stop fearing it" 09:57 AM April 05, 2008
gapingvoid NASCAR on the bar TV. Lots of Viva Viagra ads. What does that tell you? ... 12:08 PM April 05, 2008
Scandalous "Change is inevitable... except from vending machines.." 09:01 AM April 07, 2008
rhh Documentary on WWII: 97 out of 100 russian soldiers taken prisoner by Germany in Barbarossa did not return home alive. Unimaginable. 07:46 PM April 08, 2008
skemsley "constructive vandalism" = the act of entering incomplete/incorrect info on a wiki to goad someone into writing the correct content 07:47 PM April 08, 2008
zeldman 1 project, 3 proposals, 1 dog bath, 1 toddler to preschool, 1 exit strategy, 2 conference presentations, 2 unforeseen challenges. Wednesday. 08:59 AM April 09, 2008
mukund User Interface plays such an important part in user acceptance. Good UI, bad app= Good product, Bad UI, Great app = Awful. 01:34 PM April 11, 2008
anniemal u know what i like most about my office? watching some1 skateboard past my glass office to theirs, holding a memo fm the printer 06:21 PM April 11, 2008
saleemkhan @peterdawson 1404EDT Individuals, maybe; institutions, no. We (journalists) must blame ourselves for poor choices & creating fakexperts 02:07 PM April 13, 2008
pkedrosky @mathewi @howardlindzon to make the stocktwit project work you need a widespread financial twhirl that has embedded ticker hashing 11:42 AM April 14, 2008
mathewi @pkedrosky: i dare you to repeat that exact sentence to someone who doesn't spend most of their life online and see what they say 02:43 PM April 14, 2008
monkchips oh yeah in case you're wondering why the bot just went insane. it skipped lunch, then accessed a banana, some plain chocolate biscuits, tea. 04:01 PM April 18, 2008
saleemkhan @tamera 1229EDT I do not pimp. I collect information, assess, synthesize, make a determination and, if needed, recommendation. That is all. 12:29 PM April 21, 2008
gapingvoid via @Obstructionist: "I've always measured how full of shit someone was by the number of times they use 'synergy' in an email." 11:28 AM April 23, 2008
ryancoleman judging by the way he drives, today's bus driver is clearly a binary kind of guy - his pedals seem to be either on or off... 04:41 PM April 23, 2008
timoreilly Wikipedia: estimate 100 million hours of cognitive activity to build. Television: US alone spends 200 billion hours/year. 05:21 PM April 23, 2008


--
Peter Dawson

"This message is printed on Recycled Electrons."
Thought Flickr's the Home of Peter Dawson
http://peterdawson.blogspot.com


Ph: 905 270 0574
Email : slash.pd@gmail.com
Skype: Slash.pd

Google Apps Hacking

This post is done via hack#109 . (pg 265) . Its my normal way of offline quick Blogging !!

Wondering why ack114 got into the book. Its all about going beyond Google. Some quick Pics that were taken attached. Will need to browse thru more for some interesting hacks :)-

Smart Grid Enginnering

While doing some reasearch I come across this new Term - SMART GRID ENGINNEERING"

WTF is that ??

"A Smart Grid combines advanced sensing technology, two-way high-speed communications, 24/7 monitoring and enterprise analysis software and related services to provide location-specific, real-time action-able data to all departments in a utility services"

Ok that answered my question :)-

Random Pic's

Jus some random pics , while testing out a something

THE CHANGING LABOUR CLIMATE

#CBSA

 

For the second year in a row, the most sought-after workers are people in skilled manual trades, Manpower Canada found in its survey of 1,742 employers in the country. Nearly a third of them say positions are getting harder to fill….

 

WHAT'S HOT

 

1. Skilled manual trades

2. Sales representatives

3. Engineers

4. Accounting and finance

5. Labourers

6. Nurses

7. Teachers

8. Drivers

9. Machinists/Machine Operators

10. Secretaries, administrative assistants, office support…