Showing posts with label OT. Show all posts
Showing posts with label OT. Show all posts
2012-10-10
Traveling to Cambodia
It's been a while since my last travel, so we'll be going to Cambodia for a long week-end break. Returning to Singapore on Monday evening.
2012-08-14
Back in Singapore
After a two and half month travel in Switzerland, France and the UK, I'm now back in Singapore. The trip was both for pleasure and business: I've been quite busy with my travels and also visiting friends and family in Europe. More importantly, I now have 3 small ventures which keep me more than busy. This partly explains the lack of posting, along with the fact that the markets I usually follow and trade have been mostly going sideways and boring.
2012-07-25
Traveling in July and a bit more in August
Wow, July passed really quickly, and I've done quite a bit of traveling, in Switzerland, France, and soon back to the UK for one to two weeks — with luck, just in time for the Olympics — before returning to Singapore mid-August.
2012-06-29
Traveling in July
I'll be traveling in Europe (Switzerland, France, UK and maybe Spain and Italy) from Monday the 2nd to Sunday the 29th.
Posting might be affected, but I'll try to nonetheless provide updates.
Posting might be affected, but I'll try to nonetheless provide updates.
2011-11-27
The Authorized Biography of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson — A Review [Updated]
I traveled to China last week and it was a 24 hour journey (return trip from Singapore). It gave me a lot of time to read the book I had been anticipating forever now, since I first got announced more than a year ago and which, — I didn't know — would only be finally released after the tragical disappearance of one of the most influential minds of two if not three generations, Steve Jobs.
The book, which is about 600 pages, was blessed by Steve Jobs who agreed to open his memories and his address book and ask everybody involved to contribute to it. So, I dare say that my expectations were extremely high given the opportunity to write about a secretive genius who had so many ups and downs in his life.
Just a reminder, Apple, was in 2001, on the verge of bankruptcy and was as uncool as possible among the younger generation. Just 10 years later, in 2011, Apple is the most valuable company on the planet, has sold hundreds of millions of Macs, iPhones, iPods, and dozen millions of iPads. Let's not forget the many billions of music tracks, movies and TV shows sold on the iTunes Store and the many billions of iOS Apps sold as well.
All this, in only 10 years.
Well, unfortunately, it seems to me that Isaacson is completely ignorant of anything technology, and commits many trivial errors showing this lack of understanding. Wouldn't you expect that he should first understand technology in order to be able to convey the message of someone who changed the way we interact with it? Maybe this is the main reason for the book to be missing the whole point by such a high margin.
Instead of focusing on how someone with such a creative mind and laser beam focus as Steve Jobs managed to change the world, and telling the story from this perspective, he seems to have decided to show that Steve Jobs was a half-mad-half-evil person who happened to be lucky enough to get back to Apple and create products which were supposed to be failures but worked nonetheless.
The biggest part of the book is focused on showing how mean he could be to his employees, family and friends and how big a failure he was: he was a failure at Apple, he was a failure at Pixar, he was a failure at NeXT, but he got lucky in every turn of event.
He completely fails to explain everything good he did, and what they were. Given that the author believes Steve Jobs was just a madman, he doesn't bother trying to find the answer to the following questions:
Finally, while Isaacson spends half of the book explaining that Steve Jobs has psychological disorders and the other half explaining all the issues he had with his family life, he completely fails to even give the point of view of either his wife, or his children. He also fails to give Steve's point of view, while he had access to all of these people.
Considering the extremely high esteem I have for Steve Jobs, and how influential he has been in my life, I had very high expectations for this book. Unfortunately, stealing of Steve's quotes Isaacson repeats the most in the book, I find this book to be just "a piece of shit".
I'm sorry Isaacson. You know what a perfectionist Steve was, and the fact that you dared publishing such a poorly written, poorly structured and poorly organized book is an insult to the memory of Steve Jobs, who decided to put much of his legacy in your hands.
I am sure he wouldn't have allowed such a poor book to ever be published, even though he had promised not to interfere with your work, which words he actually kept.
And the same way as he wouldn't have settled for a mediocre product, I cannot convince myself to put a positive review of your half baked book.
[Update: it looks like Isaacson is considering updating the book, and the changes seem to show that he realizes he missed the point. See quote below]
The book, which is about 600 pages, was blessed by Steve Jobs who agreed to open his memories and his address book and ask everybody involved to contribute to it. So, I dare say that my expectations were extremely high given the opportunity to write about a secretive genius who had so many ups and downs in his life.
Just a reminder, Apple, was in 2001, on the verge of bankruptcy and was as uncool as possible among the younger generation. Just 10 years later, in 2011, Apple is the most valuable company on the planet, has sold hundreds of millions of Macs, iPhones, iPods, and dozen millions of iPads. Let's not forget the many billions of music tracks, movies and TV shows sold on the iTunes Store and the many billions of iOS Apps sold as well.
All this, in only 10 years.
Well, unfortunately, it seems to me that Isaacson is completely ignorant of anything technology, and commits many trivial errors showing this lack of understanding. Wouldn't you expect that he should first understand technology in order to be able to convey the message of someone who changed the way we interact with it? Maybe this is the main reason for the book to be missing the whole point by such a high margin.
Instead of focusing on how someone with such a creative mind and laser beam focus as Steve Jobs managed to change the world, and telling the story from this perspective, he seems to have decided to show that Steve Jobs was a half-mad-half-evil person who happened to be lucky enough to get back to Apple and create products which were supposed to be failures but worked nonetheless.
The biggest part of the book is focused on showing how mean he could be to his employees, family and friends and how big a failure he was: he was a failure at Apple, he was a failure at Pixar, he was a failure at NeXT, but he got lucky in every turn of event.
He completely fails to explain everything good he did, and what they were. Given that the author believes Steve Jobs was just a madman, he doesn't bother trying to find the answer to the following questions:
- Why was the Macintosh such a revolution and such a game changer?
- How did he manage to build the Macintosh in the first place?
- What was he doing at Pixar? He was the CEO, but according to Isaacson, he was just making everybody waste their time. We do not know what he was doing during the many years he was running the company.
- What was he doing at NeXT? Why was NeXT such a great platform that Apple decided to buy it? Oh and that also became the heart of Mac OS X and iOS. The author seems to believe that NeXT did not have any value, and that Steve was just a good salesman and managed to outsell Gassée and his Be OS.
- Why were dozens of thousands of "Apple fans" cheering Steve Jobs on his keynote return? He was away from the spotlights for so long and became so relevant. The author fails to explain that, yet write about Steve as he had failed everything before coming back to Apple. Which obviously couldn't be more wrong.
Finally, while Isaacson spends half of the book explaining that Steve Jobs has psychological disorders and the other half explaining all the issues he had with his family life, he completely fails to even give the point of view of either his wife, or his children. He also fails to give Steve's point of view, while he had access to all of these people.
Considering the extremely high esteem I have for Steve Jobs, and how influential he has been in my life, I had very high expectations for this book. Unfortunately, stealing of Steve's quotes Isaacson repeats the most in the book, I find this book to be just "a piece of shit".
I'm sorry Isaacson. You know what a perfectionist Steve was, and the fact that you dared publishing such a poorly written, poorly structured and poorly organized book is an insult to the memory of Steve Jobs, who decided to put much of his legacy in your hands.
I am sure he wouldn't have allowed such a poor book to ever be published, even though he had promised not to interfere with your work, which words he actually kept.
And the same way as he wouldn't have settled for a mediocre product, I cannot convince myself to put a positive review of your half baked book.
[Update: it looks like Isaacson is considering updating the book, and the changes seem to show that he realizes he missed the point. See quote below]
The author discussed potential plans for expanding the already 630-page book in the future. One possibility is doing an extensively annotated version. Another is writing an addendum that addresses the period surrounding Jobs' death. Fleshing out the details seems like a logical next step, since Isaacson believes the Apple (AAPL) CEO's story will be told for decades or a century to come. "This is the first or second draft," he said, referring to his book's role in documenting Jobs' life. "It's not the final draft."I agree: it's just a draft, and unfortunately, should never have been published as such.
2011-10-06
RIP Steve Jobs — 1955-2011
Farewell Steve. You will be missed so much and also always be remembered.
I am sure Yama Dharmaraja has made peace with you by now and will take you to the Bodhisattvahood realm.
2011-09-25
How The Shipping Container Changed the World
I found this story very interesting and timely given that I just moved to Singapore, so I thought I'd share it as a "Sunday Educational Post" with my readers.
Quote from a report on the Channel Register:
Keith Tantlinger has just died. He's someone you almost certainly haven't heard of and someone who – along with Malcolm McLean (no, not McLaren) – changed our world to the extent that it would have been almost unrecognisable to our forefathers. They also – if you want to squint at it – made the European Union redundant six months before it even started.
They did this by inventing the shipping container. Shipping stuff around in boxes had been done before, of course, but Tantlinger's contribution was in the connecting and locking mechanisms which enables you to easily stack them, stick 'em on trucks and railway flatbeds, pile them up on ships' decks and so on. McLean was the trucking baron who wanted to be able to use sea transport to get his customers' stuff around by sea: far cheaper per tonne-mile than land transport, which is still the case now and has been for millennia.
The end result of this system is that we don't really have a geography-based system of trade any more, at least not in the manner we used to have. Or perhaps the geography which shapes our trade is now different.
Time was, plain old “how many miles away?” geography shaped trade networks. That didn't really last all that long, only until ships were invented and economic or trade geography became a thing of shipping routes. A millennia BC and Phoenicians were getting tin from Cornwall while people in Somerset weren't all that sure that Cornwall existed (a little extreme, yes, but not much). We're all aware of how the Portuguese navigators changed the spice trade, cutting out the various grasping hands in the Middle East looking for a slice, but the continuing superiority in cost of sea freight over land, even with railways, can astonish. It certainly astonished me to find that in the 1860s, getting wheat from Chicago to New York cost 17 per cent of the Chicago wheat value, while getting it from New York to London only cost 12 per cent of that Chicago value of wheat.
What the shipping container has done is just about entirely take away geographical distance as a determinant of freight costs. It really doesn't cost much more to ship something from China to Europe than it does to ship something inside Europe. Beijing, Brisbane, Brindisi and Birmingham, they're really all just nodes on the container shipping routes and getting from one node to another costs about the same amount, wherever in the world they are.
OK, this is not entirely and strictly true, there are slight differences in shipping costs, but near enough as to make no difference. It's near impossible to pay more than $5,000 to get 40 tonnes in a container from any one node to any one other. it costs $125 a tonne to get stuff from Shenzhen to Sheffield or from Santiago to Savannah.
The flip side of this is that if you're not on the network, not able to plug into one of those nodes, then in economic terms you're pretty much screwed. If you're on a Pacific Island on a shipping route, say Fiji, then you can export bottled water (as they do) and compete with any other company for the custom of the crazed loons who won't drink tap water. If you're on a Pacific Island off a shipping route (Tuvalu say) then you're just not going to get much of anything exported nor imported. As they don't in fact get much in or out. A village on the Trans-Siberian where you can load a container is plugged in. One 30 miles away without the paved road necessary to get the lorry to the railhead might as well be 500 miles away.
Quote from a report on the Channel Register:
Keith Tantlinger has just died. He's someone you almost certainly haven't heard of and someone who – along with Malcolm McLean (no, not McLaren) – changed our world to the extent that it would have been almost unrecognisable to our forefathers. They also – if you want to squint at it – made the European Union redundant six months before it even started.
They did this by inventing the shipping container. Shipping stuff around in boxes had been done before, of course, but Tantlinger's contribution was in the connecting and locking mechanisms which enables you to easily stack them, stick 'em on trucks and railway flatbeds, pile them up on ships' decks and so on. McLean was the trucking baron who wanted to be able to use sea transport to get his customers' stuff around by sea: far cheaper per tonne-mile than land transport, which is still the case now and has been for millennia.
The end result of this system is that we don't really have a geography-based system of trade any more, at least not in the manner we used to have. Or perhaps the geography which shapes our trade is now different.
Time was, plain old “how many miles away?” geography shaped trade networks. That didn't really last all that long, only until ships were invented and economic or trade geography became a thing of shipping routes. A millennia BC and Phoenicians were getting tin from Cornwall while people in Somerset weren't all that sure that Cornwall existed (a little extreme, yes, but not much). We're all aware of how the Portuguese navigators changed the spice trade, cutting out the various grasping hands in the Middle East looking for a slice, but the continuing superiority in cost of sea freight over land, even with railways, can astonish. It certainly astonished me to find that in the 1860s, getting wheat from Chicago to New York cost 17 per cent of the Chicago wheat value, while getting it from New York to London only cost 12 per cent of that Chicago value of wheat.
What the shipping container has done is just about entirely take away geographical distance as a determinant of freight costs. It really doesn't cost much more to ship something from China to Europe than it does to ship something inside Europe. Beijing, Brisbane, Brindisi and Birmingham, they're really all just nodes on the container shipping routes and getting from one node to another costs about the same amount, wherever in the world they are.
OK, this is not entirely and strictly true, there are slight differences in shipping costs, but near enough as to make no difference. It's near impossible to pay more than $5,000 to get 40 tonnes in a container from any one node to any one other. it costs $125 a tonne to get stuff from Shenzhen to Sheffield or from Santiago to Savannah.
The flip side of this is that if you're not on the network, not able to plug into one of those nodes, then in economic terms you're pretty much screwed. If you're on a Pacific Island on a shipping route, say Fiji, then you can export bottled water (as they do) and compete with any other company for the custom of the crazed loons who won't drink tap water. If you're on a Pacific Island off a shipping route (Tuvalu say) then you're just not going to get much of anything exported nor imported. As they don't in fact get much in or out. A village on the Trans-Siberian where you can load a container is plugged in. One 30 miles away without the paved road necessary to get the lorry to the railhead might as well be 500 miles away.
2011-08-22
Back from Eastern Europe
I just landed in Singapore after a whole week spent between Istanbul and Kiev. Lots to catch up now given all that has been happening in the world and with the markets. Normal updates will start shortly.
2011-08-13
Traveling Around — Again
I will be traveling (again) but this time I'm going to Istanbul for a few days, then Kiev, then back to Singapore — on the 23rd. I will try to keep on posting but apologies in advance if I am not able to keep up with the news and the markets.
2011-07-19
Back from Europe
After a few days in Paris, then London, then Paris again, I am now back in Singapore, completely jet lagged and exhausted... Unfortunately, I have planned a 2 week trip to China starting from this coming week-end, and then a trip to Istanbul and Kiev. July and August are going to be fun months...
Stay tuned as posting resumes nevertheless.
Stay tuned as posting resumes nevertheless.
2011-07-10
Traveling for few weeks
Sorry for the lack of updates during the past few days. I flew from Singapore to Amsterdam, and I am currently in Paris. Will be between London and Paris for a week, before flying back to Asia where I'll spend 2 weeks in China — provided my visa application gets approved on time — then Istanbul and Kiev.
I'll do my best to update the blog, but it will obviously be difficult to find spare time, so please bear with me.
I'll do my best to update the blog, but it will obviously be difficult to find spare time, so please bear with me.
2011-06-12
Now accepting guest posts
Having received several such queries in the past few months, I have the pleasure to announce that I will be hosting guess posts on this blog from now on.
If you would like to reach me for this matter or others, please email me spam dot recycler at GMAIL dot com.
2011-05-22
The Reasons Why They're Building the Car which is Faster than a Speeding Bullet
Another Sunday post for the more relaxed side of news: The Car Faster Than a Speeding Bullet.
That was exactly my reaction when I first saw this report a few months ago (already!). But, then, the conclusion perfectly adhered with my impressions: currently, a lot of highly educated talent (Master holders and PhDs in hard sciences) waste their knowledge, time and efforts in doing silly financial related jobs such as financial analyst, trader, quants, etc. This must come to an end for our society to be able to move forward. And so I couldn't agree more with the objective of this project:
Formula 1 is seen as the apogee of engineering excellence and automotive power. So it says something that in Bloodhound SSC — the car that, if all goes well, in 2013 will shatter the current land speed record — the Cosworth Formula 1 engine is just the fuel pump.You might be wandering why I am posting about a car that costs so much to build and is practically completely useless? This seems a very wasteful project indeed, specially in these current times of economic depression.
“We are creating the ultimate car; we’re going where no-one has gone before,” said Richard Noble, the project director.
The car, which Mr. Noble says takes £10,000 a day just to keep it ticking over, will be powered by not one, but two other engines. The smaller one, the EJ200, is normally found in the British Royal Air Force’s Typhoon jet. Its job is to get the 13.4 meter long car up to 350 miles per hour.
That’s when the big one kicks in. The big one is the 18-inch diameter, 12-foot-long Falcon rocket, the largest of its kind ever made in the U.K. Its job is to catapult the car through the sound barrier to its maximum speed of 1,050 mph. That is, literally, faster than a speeding bullet.
To get there, the Cosworth CA2010 engine has to inject one ton of fuel into the rocket within 20 seconds. That’s why you need an F1 engine as a fuel pump. Cosworth is also providing the rocket control system which will manage the ignition, fuel supply and shutdown of the Falcon rocket. The Northampton-based company is also providing the telemetric system.
The triumvirate of power together form the most powerful land vehicle ever built.
Wing Commander Andy Green will pilot the car as it speeds across the Hakskeen Pan, Northern Cape, in South Africa in 2013. If successful, Bloodhound will not only shatter the current land speed record — held by Wing Cmdr. Green in Thrust SSC and standing at 763.035 mph — but given the altitude of the Hakskeen Pan, around 3,000 feet, it will also exceed the official air speed record at low altitude (which stands at 994 mph).
That was exactly my reaction when I first saw this report a few months ago (already!). But, then, the conclusion perfectly adhered with my impressions: currently, a lot of highly educated talent (Master holders and PhDs in hard sciences) waste their knowledge, time and efforts in doing silly financial related jobs such as financial analyst, trader, quants, etc. This must come to an end for our society to be able to move forward. And so I couldn't agree more with the objective of this project:
Bloodhound is not just about shattering records, says Mr. Noble: “The primary objective of Bloodhound is to inspire the next generation to pursue careers in science and engineering.”I wish them success beyond their expectations indeed.
2011-05-09
Reality Lenses is 3 Years Old
Today — or yesterday depending on your time zone — is —was— the third anniversary of Reality Lenses.
During the past three years, we have lived historical events together, and I hope, in the process, your understanding of the markets, the current fiat money system, and inflation vs deflation has improved.
I have certainly learnt a lot, and although I haven't had the time I wanted to put everything in writing on the blog, the process is highly instructive, and sharing is highly rewarding.
May this year bring prosperity and a bigger share of freedom and peace to you, dear reader, and the rest of the world.
During the past three years, we have lived historical events together, and I hope, in the process, your understanding of the markets, the current fiat money system, and inflation vs deflation has improved.
I have certainly learnt a lot, and although I haven't had the time I wanted to put everything in writing on the blog, the process is highly instructive, and sharing is highly rewarding.
May this year bring prosperity and a bigger share of freedom and peace to you, dear reader, and the rest of the world.
2011-05-02
Hello World — From Singapore
Just wanted to let you guys know that I have arrived in Singapore about 24 hours ago, and that I hope to get up and running during the next few days and resume the normal posting — though with a bigger lag than usual: 12 hours time difference with NYC, 8 hours with London.
2011-03-30
New Layout on the Blog
Just a quick post to notify you about the new in the layout for the blog. I hope you'll like it. Please give your opinion by posting a comment!
2011-03-15
Microsoft to Scrap Zune
This should come at no surprise given how Microsoft has been doing poorly when it comes to consumer audio and video — this is good news, as they are very poor when it comes to user experience and polished interfaces.
As usual, Steve Ballmer, the new CEO (and errrmm visionary leader?) has yet again showed he's a very good contrarian indicator, when he predicted that Microsoft could beat Apple with Zune.
So I'm happy to spread the rumor about the demise of the Zune device:
As usual, Steve Ballmer, the new CEO (and errrmm visionary leader?) has yet again showed he's a very good contrarian indicator, when he predicted that Microsoft could beat Apple with Zune.
So I'm happy to spread the rumor about the demise of the Zune device:
March 14 (Bloomberg) -- Microsoft Corp. will stop introducing new versions of the Zune music and video player because of tepid demand, letting the company shift its focus to other devices, according to a person familiar with the decision.
Microsoft will concentrate on putting Zune software onto mobile phones, such as those running its Windows operating system, said the person, who declined to be identified because the decision hasn’t been announced. Zune software lets customers buy songs and movies, as well as pay a monthly fee to stream unlimited music.
Zune, introduced in 2006, never managed to break the iPod’s grip on the music-player industry and became the brunt of late- night talk-show jokes. Apple Inc.’s iPod led the market with 77 percent of unit sales last year, while the Zune failed to crack the top five, according to NPD Group Inc. By adding the Zune features to the Windows Phone software, Microsoft aims to gain ground in another challenging area -- mobile phones -- where it’s lost market share to Google Inc. and Apple.
Microsoft, based in Redmond, Washington, declined to comment on plans for the Zune.
[...]
When Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer released the Zune more than four years ago, he predicted that Microsoft could one day overtake Apple.
“We can beat them, but it’s not going to be easy,” Ballmer said in a November 2006 interview.
[...]
2011-02-25
London Stock Exchange - Major Technical Issues, yet again!
The London Stock Exchange is experiencing yet again technical issues this morning:
I have been following this up over the past couple of years out of personal interest and also because I believed that the issues where not related to the technology used, but to the poor management skills when it comes to IT projects in the UK. This is just so typical that it was very easy to forecast — please read the related posts for more details.
Good luck to the LSE, nonetheless!
Related posts:
The previous incident happened no more than a week ago, so it does look like to me that the LSE is far from being able to resolve their issues quickly...
I have been following this up over the past couple of years out of personal interest and also because I believed that the issues where not related to the technology used, but to the poor management skills when it comes to IT projects in the UK. This is just so typical that it was very easy to forecast — please read the related posts for more details.
Related posts:
- Technical incident on the London Stock Exchange (again!)
- LSE buys MillenniumIT, moves to Linux/Solaris
- Quick follow-up on the LSE - Microsoft fiasco
- LSE-Microsoft: what was ment to happen happened
Hat tip to The Goose for reporting this to me
2011-02-23
Moving to Singapore
I am very happy to share this news with my dear followers: you might have realised that my blogging has been a bit erratic for the past several weeks. This is due to the fact that I have been planing my big move to Singapore, which should completed by the end of April.
I am very excited about this, but obviously, it will also be a fair amount of adventure and discovery. I have hundreds of emails yet to be read and posts yet to be written, so please forgive me if some of my stories come a bit late :-)
By the way, who's reading me from Singapore?
I am very excited about this, but obviously, it will also be a fair amount of adventure and discovery. I have hundreds of emails yet to be read and posts yet to be written, so please forgive me if some of my stories come a bit late :-)
By the way, who's reading me from Singapore?
2011-02-19
Technical Incident at the London Stock Exchange (yet again!)
While the LSE was complaining that the .Net based system they had developed was the problem that Linux would solve.
Well, they have experienced yet another problem, on the day following the launch of their new system, and this time, they can't blame .Net for it, since it's their new Linux based system that is causing the issues:
Related posts:
Well, they have experienced yet another problem, on the day following the launch of their new system, and this time, they can't blame .Net for it, since it's their new Linux based system that is causing the issues:
The London Stock Exchange has taken steps to resolve a system problem that occurred at 4.30pm yesterday (Tuesday), which saw a delay to the start of the closing auction and knocked out automatic trades during a 42 second period.
The problem occurred a day after the high profile launch of its new matching engine on the main equities market, based on the SUSE Linux system from Novell.
Sources close to the exchange today told Computerworld UK that the problem yesterday involved a system linked to the matching engine. Due to a technical problem, that system sent out the daily automatic message to clients stating that the closing auction was beginning 42 seconds late.
I had stated before that I am more than convinced that the major drag was the fact that project was outsourced to Accenture. Why? Because in my opinion the .Net platform is a very capable one and second because I have many friends who work in various consultancies and the trend is very clear in these companies.
And also about the acquisition of MilleniumIT and their move to a brand new system: I wouldn't bet too much on that neither. I hope they succeed, but I will follow this story, as the outcome is not so clear to me. Also, my experience is that it's very difficult to work with non-collocated teams. So if you add the time difference, culture clash, take over issues to the distance, the outcome is less than clear.
So far, it looks like I might have been spot on. Will keep an eye on the stories and update accordingly.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)