Alex's posterous

A classic example of the UK media's perspective on life

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 03:40:26 -0700

Taken from the BBC article's summary of external links about Michael Schumacher's results on his return to Formula 1. The rest of the world reports his comments, while The Mirror puts a negative spin on it. (The BBC article itself is pretty balanced.)

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Mark Cuban = smart guy

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 18:31:14 -0700

When Bernie Madoff was arrested, it set billionaire blogger and Dallas Mavs owner, Mark Cuban, off on a whole heap of posts about the massive fraud. One of the most interesting things he wrote was this:

"Im taking a flyer here, but if they were to put me on the case, the first people I would talk to are the software developers. Somewhere along the line there was a software program written or modified that allowed Madoff to enter the numbers he made up, who they were paying out cash to and would print the checks and statements.

"Its very unlikely that it was off the shelf software because it would be impossible for all the numbers to balance, or he would need to use suspense type of accounts that would raise red flags for even the smallest of accounting firms.... Maybe I have missed it, but I have yet to see an article written or any commentary about the software Madoff Investments used or read about any programmers that have come forward that worked for him.

....Find the programmers who wrote the software and you will find out how the whole thing worked."

Well, hey hey, here's a story today on ZDNet: 'Bernie Madoff Software programmers indicted':

"Bernie’s not the only one heading to the big house it would appear. Two Madoff Investment (BLMIS) employees are facing up to 30 years in jail for designing special software programs that contained fraudulent financial records and data.

The FBI announced that two software programmers have been indicted by a Manhattan grand jury."

In hindsight it seems obvious that these guys would be a major part of things, but as Cuban said at the time, nobody else seemed to call it.

Permalink | Leave a comment »

The iPhone is a terrible mobile telephone

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 02:20:09 -0800

It's an amazing device, and one that is genuinely revolutionary, but I'll be completely honest and say the iPhone is actually a pretty terrible mobile telephone.
Dropped calls, poor and inconsistent signal strength and bad call quality and low volume... It's not just my phone either, it was the same with my original 2G one and a fair number of others have said the same, not to mention the appalling time a lot of users have had in the US, with AT&T lumbered with a large amount of the blame. Perhaps that blame isn't quite fair. What have your iPhone phone call experiences been like?

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Snow in the UK

Sun, 20 Dec 2009 01:50:00 -0800

From my folks in the UK. They're snowed in at the moment.

See the full gallery on Posterous

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Bullet physics at a million fps

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 18:11:24 -0700

Some pretty amazing footage, not only for the fact that it's run at 1,000,000 frames per second (fps), but also the sheer horror of what could happen if you get hit by one of these things!

[via Gizmodo]

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Apartment of a Star Wars fanatic

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 20:43:27 -0700

This collection is unbelievable, and beats, by some way, the Mac Museum basement (http://www.flickr.com/photos/soyburger/sets/72157594228629049/)

Via: http://theoriens.com/the-apartment-of-a-star-wars-fan/

See the full gallery on Posterous

Permalink | Leave a comment »

A posterous about posturing

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 17:37:11 -0700

The Baseline Scenario blog has been a 'must read' site for me during the year of global financial turmoil. Its writers are deeply cynical about the actual benefits of events like the G20 meetings, so much so that they more or less hold them in contempt. In a post yesterday, Simon Johnson said the next round of financial discussion get-togethers will amount too.... not much.

As we wade through a long line of international economic meetings – G20 ministers of finance last week, G20 heads of government in Pittsburgh coming up, IMF-World Bank governors meeting in Istanbul early October (and all the associated “deputies” meetings, where the real work goes on) – it seems fair to ask: where is regulatory reform of our financial system heading?

Long documents have been produced and official websites have become more organized. Statements of principle have been made. And the melodrama of rival reform proposals has reared its head: continental Europeans for controlling pay vs. the US for raising capital vs. the UK not really wanting to do anything. But what does all of this add up to, and what should we expect from the forthcoming summit sequence?

Nothing meaningful.

[The Baseline Scenario - http://baselinescenario.com/2009/09/08/g20-summit-imf-meeting-what-to-expect/]

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Let's get Posterous

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 02:23:07 -0700

When I joined the blogging party back in 2006, Typepad was the platform I used extensively. It still is, for my main blog and the sites I set up at the time. Too much hassle to change, although Squarespace seems to offer an interesting potential. And now there's Posterous. Let's see what we can see....

Alex

Permalink | Leave a comment »