Everything you can imagine is real.

Nov
7th

Sat

Facebook, Apple and a raft of start-ups are all trying to develop a low-cost payment system, which could be a lucrative undertaking in itself. If they succeed, they may bring some relief to media firms that have seen much of their business disappear into the vacuum: many in the music and newspaper businesses, for example, are pinning their hopes on the idea that consumers can be persuaded to pay small amounts for digital wares.

— Video games move online: A giant sucking sound | The Economist

Nov
6th

Fri

John S. Reed, who helped engineer the merger that created Citigroup Inc., apologized for his role in building a company that has taken $45 billion in direct U.S. aid and said banks that big should be divided into separate parts.

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Reed Says ‘I’m Sorry’ for Role in Creating Citigroup (Update1) - Bloomberg.com

Imagine if Sandy had lost instead. Muscle vs brains. Shareholders made a very poor choice (and paid for it.)

Strictly as a fan of business hardball, you have to tip your cap to the Scandinavian team of Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis. First the founders of Skype got eBay to pay close to $3 billion for the Net telephony pioneer while somehow retaining control of its key technology. And now, after being snubbed in their attempt to buy the company back, they’ve won themselves a healthy chunk in exchange for that technology, while putting a beat-down on a friend-turned-enemy for good measure. Nicely played, gents.

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Skype founders ring up their second big eBay payday | Good Morning Silicon Valley

…nice one.

Seven companies received about 82 percent of those benefits, the panel estimated. General Electric Capital was able to reduce its borrowing costs by about $1.9 billion, while Goldman Sachs saved an estimated $606 million. The other big beneficiaries were Citigroup, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo & Company.

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Break for Companies in Bailout’s Fine Print - NYTimes.com

…and alot of this saving instead of accruing to shareholders ie recapitalizing the banks (which however unpleasant is needed/for good of all, will be subject to a 50% vig via bonuses.

Furthermore, you lose a lot of information in a master trust pool. Because new loans are added to the existing collateral pool when new bonds are issued, the performance statistics of the older loans are diluted by the new loans.

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FT.com / UK - Recent deals signal market’s reopening in the same old style

…many of the core data quality issues in RMBS could be solved by the adoption of ZSINs (Zoopla Standard Identification Number) and thus automated access to rich data and meta-data on underlying property in each pool.

Nov
5th

Thu

All in all, it’s clear that the public’s hatred of the banking industry – far from easing – may just be winding up. And next time a bank CEO heads for the White House, I’d steer clear of the snipers.

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Want to kill some bankers? There’s an app for that - Bank Think

…pretty good for a business who’s main product is trust…way to go banking industry!

Believe it or not, not everyone wants to build tools that can grow into large centralised solutions, which is how many people seem to define scale. No one is ever going to run a nationwide election monitoring campaign running into millions of text messages using a single laptop, cable and mobile phone. FrontlineSMS is based on “horizontal scaling”, gained by an increase in the numbers of individual users with their own systems. In other words, a hundred systems in a hundred clinics serving 10,000 people each, rather than one system adapted and “scaled up” to serve a million. We’re happy and comfortable with this approach, as are our target audience of grassroots NGOs.

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Our “social mobile” line in the sand | Build it Kenny, and they will come…

“…horizontal scaling…” I think we’ll hear this expression more and more…

Nov
4th

Wed

But how do you determine you are there? According to Sean the key question to ask users is “how would you feel it you could no longer use our product?” If you achieve product/market fit you are looking for greater than 40% of respondents answering “very disappointed” to this question. If less than that you need to keep working on your product until you have something people really need. Sean’s made available a free survey tool and all the necessary questions pre-populated at Survey.io; if you have a product right now and you’re not sure where you are then start with this.

— How to measure product/market fit and the implication for external finance « Scott Allison’s Blog

Look folks, if this copyright treaty means protecting Mickey Mouse from unauthorized reproductions, then it’s a small price to pay to forever risk losing access to civic participation, health information, education, registration and renewal of government documents, global communication, access to government, weather and traffic, emergency service information, freedom of speech and assembly….

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Secret copyright treaty leaks. It’s bad. Very bad. - Boing Boing

…how is that we have leaders that will even contemplate passing laws like this???

Psychologists think that there are distinct brain circuits that drive two very different modes of thought in regards to other people. We can treat them empathetically as humans we identify with, where the watchwords are: respect, kindness, compassion …or as outsiders who we view as ‘other’ where the watchwords are fear, intolerance and disdain. The first category are granted moral consideration, the latter are threats to be dealt with. Now these two modes of thought are present in every human and depending which one is active, people will behave very differently. It is of crucial importance to the world’s future as to which mode of thought becomes dominant.

Here’s the thing. The difference between them is not hardwired. It’s possible for a child to learn to gradually expand the circle of people she or he can identify with. It might start with just family and friends, but gradually it can extend to the local village, or town or country or race or religiion, or even, just maybe beyond that to the entire human family.

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An international school in India with a message for the world - TEDChris: The untweetable

On the eve of TED India, what a wonderful post by Chris; I imagine that most of the people that come to TED feel much the same way as him, and while it is always more comfortable to surround yourself with like-minded people, I think the real power of TED is to legitimize the idea (and desirability) of “global souls”. In this regard of course the conferences themselves are extremely exciting and energizing but the real transformational power of TED probably lies much more in their use of technology to create a broader community and to offer millions of people around the world comfort that they are not alone. Perhaps inspiring some of the more timid to follow their instincts, to take risks, to seek out different cultures, experiences and points of view or giving them the courage to be different. To be themselves.