chrisadas.com blogs

Drupal core's development timeline, from 4.6 to 7

chris — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 08:54:12 +0000

I am consulting on a soon-to-be-launch Drupal project. When development started a few months ago, the first key decision was on which Drupal core version will be develop on. It was decided that Drupal 7 is not yet mature enough for our needs. Many key contrib modules were not ready, including views and panels. Our key developer also felt that performance is not that great, although usability is much improved over Drupal 6. In the end, we were able to develop most of the functionalities based on what Drupal 6 has to offer.

Now, with the site nearly its first release, we start to look ahead and I again think about the Drupal core version. Will we be forced to migrate the site to Drupal 7, and when? It wouldn't be the end of the world, but probably not a good idea either to run an unsupported version of the CMS. So when Drupal 8 comes out and the support for Drupal 6 is discontinued, we will not have much choice but to make the switch.

I've been using Drupal since 4.3, and the development cycle has always intriqued me. Sometimes, it happened very quickly. (Drupal 5.0) Sometimes, it takes more than a year from code freeze to point zero release. (Drupal 7.0) Since today is still a holiday, I indulged my curiosity and created this chart after digging through the releases page and forum announcements.

With the vision for Drupal 8 still taking shape, and if the core development timeline is somewhere between those of Drupal 6.0 and 7.0 release, we should have at least a year and a half of security support for Drupal 6.

Phew.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure Drupal 7 is a fairly good product, and Druopal 8 is going to be awesome. (I'm especially excited with the Mobile Initiative.) But migrating large and complex site across major Drupal core version is not something I wish for my enemy.

P.S. For those not familiar with Drupal core's release cycle, there is an explanation page.

Social Network Use - 2011

chris — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 00:35:26 +0000

The last few years have seen a torrent of new social network prying for our thoughts and information sharing. Here are the ones that made it into my daily use at the end of 2011.

These below ones got some use from me, but ultimately doesn't fit into my social sharing usage. They either doesn't work well enough to replace my current choice (molome), or the use case doesn't appeal to me (color, instagram, foursquare).

Path have some chance of ending up in the table next year, separating things I share with only family out of those family/friends sharing on facebook. But I'm not sure yet. If I'm not lazy about granular privacy setting, Facebook should be just fine.

P.S. Foodspotting is another that has fallen off the table, I'm just too lazy to add the icon in.

Peter Sandman's formula on risk communication

chris — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 07:29:14 +0000

RIsk = Hazard + Outrage

As risk advisor to financial institutions, my work on risk communication largely focus on the technical component of risk; How to accurately quantify risks, and then communicate it out in ways that people can relate to and act upon.

Risk = Hazard + Outrage

This interview of Peter Sandman in Freakonomics Blog is a revelation for me. At the first few paragraphs, I was ready to dismiss his formula as another consultants' gimmic. But as I read on, I find it is a starting point of a very insightful analysis and discussion of the psychological side of risk communication. This is especially true for public-scale risk, like climate change, which is used as an example in this article. But I believe the idea should translate to risk discussion on organization level as well.

There are many gems in the article, but my favorite part is the following.

Yes, well you have two fundamental problems, and you have to decide which is the bigger of them, or when one is the bigger one, and when the other is the bigger one. One problem is apathy, people who are insufficiently upset about climate change, and the other is denial. People who are motivated not to be upset about climate change because they dislike something in the climate change message. … They dislike the source of the message, they dislike, as I suggested earlier, the remedies that you’re proposing; they don’t like being blamed, they don’t like how depressing and fatalistic your message is. There’s something about what you’re saying that is provoking denial. And apathy and denial look the same. And I have to stress because denial is used in the climate change literature to mean something else entirely, I’m not talking about denial in the political sense. I’m talking about denial in the psychological sense: people who can’t bear to take climate change seriously because it causes something that they can’t tolerate in the message. If that’s what you’re up against, then you need a set of strategies that are aimed at that.

The 7-point communication strategy he proposed at the end of the piece also resonate quite strongly with me. A highly recommended read.

Photo credit: Tim Norris / Ilulissat Icefjord - Greenland

หนี้สาธารณะของประเทศไทย ตกลงเท่าไหร่กันแน่?

chris — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 18:13:29 +0000

วันนี้เห็นมีคนพูดถึงวีดีโอคุณอภิสิทธิ์ส่งมอบงานบริหารประเทศไทยกันเยอะ โดยเฉพาะส่วนการรายงานฐานะการเงินของประเทศ ตั้งแต่เงินสำรองระหว่างประเทศ เงินคงคลัง ไปถึงหนี้สาธารณะต่อรายได้ประชาชาติ ซึ่งเป็นตัวเลขที่ผมมีความสงสัย

อันนี้เป็นกราฟหนี้สาธารณะ ซึ่งเทียบกับ 2551Q4 มันเพิ่มขึ้นประมาณ 3% นี่? พูดอย่างคนไม่มีความเห็นทางการเมืองอย่างผม บอกได้แต่ว่าตั้งใจวาดลูกศรให้ดูดีกว่าความจริง

แล้วเมื่อไม่กี่วันก่อนผมเพิ่งดูข้อมูล public debt / GDP ของ economist แล้วจำได้ว่าตอนนั้นบอกตัวเองว่า ตัวเลขนี้ของประเทศไทยยังไม่ดีนักนะ (โพสไว้บน Google+ ด้วย) ก็ทำให้สงสัยว่าทำไมเราสรุปไม่เหมือนเขา เลยเข้าไปดูอีกที

The Global Debt Clock

เห็นในรูปข้างบนว่าประเทศไทยปี 2011 ดูชมพูๆ เปรียบเทียบแล้วดีกว่าอเมริกากับยุโรปส่วนใหญ่ แต่ก็ไม่ได้ดีอะไรขนาดนั้น

ผมกดไล่ดูทีละปี แล้วเอาข้อมูลวาดกราฟ ได้ผลแบบนี้

ความสูงของจุด บอกปริมาณหนี้สาธารณะเป็นอัตราส่วนกับ GDP (แกน Y หน่วยเป็น %)

เห็นได้ว่าจากปี 2000 หนี้สาธารณะต่อ GDP ลดลงเรื่อยๆ จนมาเริ่มเพิ่มขึ้นใหม่ในปี 2009 (ทุกจุดเป็นข้อมูล ณ สิ้นปีนั้นๆ) มาจบที่ประมาณ 50%

ทีนี้ถ้ามองปริมาณหนี้ ไม่ต้องหาร GDP จะเห็นเป็นแบบนี้

วิธีวัดไม่เหมือนกันหรือข้อมูลมาจากคนละแหล่ง ทำไมมันต่างกันมาก?

BCBS published proposed method to select which banks are "too big to fail"

chris — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 12:48:14 +0000

The consultative document can be found at http://www.bis.org/publ/bcbs201.htm

At the heart of the proposed method to identify the G-SIBs (Globally Systemically Important Banks) are the list of indicators that will be used to measure the importance of each bank.

The way the score is then calculated is explained in paragraph 17:

17. For each bank, the score for a particular indicator is calculated by dividing the individual bank amount by the aggregate amount summed across all banks in the sample for a given indicator.6 The score is then weighted by the indicator weighting within each category. Then, all the weighted scores are added. For example, the size indicator for a bank that accounts for 10% of the sample aggregate size variable will contribute 0.10 to the total score for the bank (as each of the five categories is normalised to a score of one). Similarly, a bank that accounts for 10% of aggregate cross-jurisdictional claims would receive a score of 0.05. Summing the scores for the 12 indicators gives the total score for the bank. The maximum possible total score (ie if there were only one bank in the world) is 5.

First, the sample banks must be chosen beforehand. This is necessary, as calculation of interconnectedness in a system requires the system to first be defined. The initial 73 banks were chosenbased on size and supervisory judgement. The total score of these 73 banks will be computed, then the 27 or 28 with the highest scores will be deemed G-SIBs. The cutoff is based on observed clustering of the scores. (27 or 28 banks have considerably higher scores than the rest, with apparent gap) Lastly, the G-SIBs are then divided into 4 equal sized score buckets, which then determine the additional common equity that a bank must hold in addition to Basel III requirements.

This method must causes the world's largest banks some concern, as not only they will have to hold more capital, it is also not easy to estimate their future positions in the G-SIBs queue and thus how much the additional buffer will be. There are parameters that will change over time even when the guideline had been finalized. An example of this is the 27/28 cutoff. I think this is a necessary complexity, for the type of estimation the committee is trying to produce.

Is indicator-based method the way to go, or should BCBS holds on for model-based method to get more mature? Will the additional capital requirements do their job in (sufficiently) strengthening the world's largest banks and dis-incentivise them from getting even bigger? I'm sure there will interesting discussions to follow.

Thai Election 2011 Result Visualization

chris — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 06:56:45 +0000

Infographics from The Nation - via newley.

Guidance on operational risk issued by the Basel Committee

chris — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 12:55:58 +0000

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision issued two papers on operational risk:

Pillar 3 disclosure requirements for remuneration - Final document

chris — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 12:51:58 +0000

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision today issued final Pillar 3 disclosure requirements for remuneration.

The Committee's proposed Pillar 3 disclosure requirements on remuneration add greater specificity to the disclosure guidance on this topic that was included in the supplemental Pillar 2 guidance issued by the Committee in July 2009. The proposals cover the main components of sound remuneration practices and take full account of the Financial Stability Board's Principles for Sound Compensation Practices and their related Implementation Standards.

Hobbes & Bacon

chris — Fri, 13 May 2011 14:56:16 +0000

26 years later

Comics by Pants are Overrated

First experience with Synology NAS and Ubuntu

chris — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 04:05:03 +0000

Today, we added Network-attached Storage (NAS) to my wife's office network. This is a small but long overdue upgrade, and I'm glad we went ahead.

I have waited, perhaps a little too long, to add NAS because I was afraid the configuration will be too big of a hassle. Ours has been a purely Ubuntu office from the beginning. And connecting to NAS with Ubuntu is not the same smooth story as with windows or mac, as a search on ubuntu form will show. But there is a growing needs for simple and effective sharing of large files in the office, and we have added a few Windows 7 machines out of necessity. It would already make sense to have NAS just for the Win7 machines. As it turns out, connecting the Ubuntu machines has become quite simple as well.

Our needs at this point is sharing first, and back-up second. So I went with the most basic, 1-bay DS110j NAS from Synology. The sales peoples at Fortune are not that familiar with connecting with Linux, but they were able to point out that Synology will be the easiest to work with if I want to try. I got the 1.5TB WD disk from next door.

Since there is only 1 disk, I didn't have to think about which RAID mode to use. After formatting and installing DiskStation Manager, I added a few shared folders and a few users. The Win7 machines were able to map these folders to a drive letter by just pointing to the correct ip address. For the Ubuntu machines (some 10.04, some 10.10) I had success with this method.

So far, it is working quite well. I don't have exact figures on the transfer rates, but it is good enough for our use. Next, I might try setting up individual staff's "home folder" on the NAS, which would help in our attempt to move to a non-fixed seating office arrangement.

How could Dropbox compete with Cloud Drive when Amazon prices it below S3?

chris — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 14:56:16 +0000

The table below shows prices per month for 2 storage level, 50 GB and 100 GB, which are what Dropbox offers.

You will see that Amazon prices Cloud Drive storage at lower prices than Amazon S3. Dropbox use Amazon S3 with standard redundancy as the storage back-end. So, unless they get special prices from Amazon, they will never be able to complete on price with Cloud Drive. This is exactly what Amazon is aiming for with their pricing, I believe.

Note that Amazon S3 also offers Reduced Redundancy Storage (RRS), which interestingly is priced very similarly to Cloud Drive. Does that mean Cloud Drive uses RRS? (99.99% durability, instead of 99.999999999% durability) We don't know yet. But it would be a bad surprise if it does.

Currently, Cloud Drive is only accessible via web, and thus is not yet as widely accessible as Dropbox. However, this could change very quickly if Cloud Drive API is made available or if Amazon releases their own client for PC/Mac/Linux/Mobiles.

References:
http://aws.amazon.com/s3/#pricing
https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/manage/
http://www.dropbox.com/pricing

Pretty LinkedIn infographics

chris — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 10:49:35 +0000

via blog.linkedin.com

As a side note, I never liked how LinkedIn Groups work. Only 1.2 million posts/comments per week from 100 million users seem to confirm that.

Remember slashdot?

chris — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 14:56:16 +0000

http://www.google.com/trends?q=slashdot%2C+techmeme%2C+reddit

Get stuffs done with Astrid, Tasker and Producteev on Android

chris — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 14:56:16 +0000

Note: I manage my tasks they way that feels natural to me, not following any of the GTD methods.

Note: I'm too lazy to hide my tasks and create illustrative ones for this post, so screenshots below are not mine and gathered from the interweb.

When I switched to Android from iPhone earlier this year, I found the experience not as painful as I thought it might be. Losing my "investment" in apps was not such a big deal. The total money most people spent on apps are negligible compared to handset price. And, apart from games, I was able to find equal or better replacement apps on Android. Except for my favorite to-do apps, Awesome Note. http://www.bridworks.com/anote/en/main/index.php

I use AN for work stuffs - each current client gets their own task list, managing my various bills, grocery list, and blog ideas.

I liked the work flow in AN, the ease of zooming in on different task lists when I'm at different client's office or supermarket. And I really like the separate 'today' section. In the morning, I go through the lists and set the due dates for stuffs I want to tackle immediately to today, then I can focus on these tasks (from different task lists) without being distracted by the other plethora of stuffs which I don't plan to tackle yet anyway.

It took me a few weeks of trial and error with half a dozen apps, to develop a new work flow on Android which feels intuitive. It is also WAY more powerful, thanks to Android's ability to let apps work together.

In the end, these are the tools I use:

Astrid - as the base task manager
Astrid Power Pack - I need this for the recurring tasks feature
Tasker - To alert me of to-do for a particular client when I am near their office. (very cool)
Producteev - This is a webapp, to allow faster task input
WidgetLocker - to put the Pure Calendar widget on lock screen
Pure Calendar widget - to place my tasks together with calendar item on a widget

Astrid - market link

This doesn't need much introduction. If you are a new Android user asking around for recommendation on task managers, Astrid will be among those first few suggestions. One thing that makes Astrid stands out is - Yes, it's the squid - the tenacity in which it keeps reminding you of tasks that need to get done is marvelous. The darn squid keeps popping up on the notification bar, with reminders that range from a mild 'Time to start:" to a more agressive "Don't be lazy"

And they won't go away with the 'clear all' button. You need to pay attention to the squids individually, either doing the task it commands you to do, set a new deadline, or hit "go away", which does drive the squid away, for a while, before it comes back to haunt you. Darn squids. It's perfect.

Astrid Power Pack - market link

What I really need from the power pack is recurring tasks and full screen widget. I hardly ever use the add task with voice, but it's good to know it's there.

Tasker - market link

With Tasker, I'm able to set set a notification to fire up whenever, say, I am arriving at a client's office. And the notification will tell me what tasks I have set that are related to this particular client. (Of course, I have to tag these tasks appropriately for this to work.)

To set this up, you need to create 'Location' context in tasker. Location can be detected in several way. I choose to use 'Net', which uses mobile cell location, as the 500m or 1 km accuracy is enough for this. Then, add 'Astrid Filter Alert' task from 'Plugin' group. Select the tag you want to include in the alert, and voila!

Note: I think you can achieve similar result with Astrid Locale Add-on. However, I see more negative than positive reviews on Locale, which also cost a few extra dollar. I already paid for Tasker, so for me it's the obvious choice.

Producteev - link

The above combination is pretty powerful, but it still relies on tasks being entered and tagged correctly. And while I wouldn't call Astrid UI clunky, it is still not the most elegant. I am especially annoyed with the fact that whenever the on-screen keyboard is visible, it leaves very little vertical space left in Astrid, which makes it very difficult to scroll up and down on the 'new task' page. And my screen is already 4.3".

Here is where a web interface makes a lot of sense. I like the idea of entering tasks on my PC or laptop, then have them sync automatically to my phone. Currently, Astrid offer 2 options for syncing: Google Tasks and Producteev. I first tried Google Task, as I'm quite wary of signing up for yet another web application. However, Google Task is just too simple and doesn't support many of the features that I need (tagging, recurring, prioritizing) making it not suitable.

Without other choice, I signed up for Producteev and sync. Producteev looks to be a capable product on itself. And as my "web interface for Astrid" it is working very well. The tags are synced seamlessly, and I have not noticed any conflicting sync on the task status or notes so far. (The sync seems to respect "latest win")

Another big plus for Producteev is the natural language task entering, similar to those in Google Calendar. I can type "submit expense report Friday 4pm ##work" and the task "submit expense report" will be added, with the correct deadline and tagged "work". It's just brilliant and makes entering tasks much easier. Almost fun.

That's it. That's how I'm keeping track of my to-do right now. Now that I've finished this post, I can cross another item off.

BIS working paper: Basel III: Long-term impact on economic performance and fluctuations

chris — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 12:55:58 +0000

There were a lot of debates and discussion on the extent that Basel III accord, which aim to improve stability of banking industry by increasing the capital reserve requirements, may dampen global economic growth as a direct side-effect. This research paper tires to assess the magnitude.

Abstract:

We assess the long-term economic impact of the new regulatory standards (the Basel III reform), answering the following questions. (1) What is the impact of the reform on long-term economic performance? (2) What is the impact of the reform on economic fluctuations? (3) What is the impact of the adoption of countercyclical capital buffers on economic fluctuations? The main results are the following. (1) Each percentage point increase in the capital ratio causes a median 0.09 percent decline in the level of steady state output, relative to the baseline. The impact of the new liquidity regulation is of a similar order of magnitude, at 0.08 percent. This paper does not estimate the benefits of the new regulation in terms of reduced frequency and severity of financial crisis, analysed in BCBS (2010b). (2) The reform should dampen output volatility; the magnitude of the effect is heterogeneous across models; the median effect is modest. (3) The adoption of countercyclical capital buffers could have a more sizeable dampening effect on output volatility.

เครื่องดูดฝุ่น

chris — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 15:03:26 +0000

วันนี้ไปเลือกซื้ัอเครื่องดูดฝุ่น ที่ Powerbuy มีของเยอะกว่า Hompro พอสมควร

โจทย์วันนี้คือ ดูดแรง เก็บขนแมวได้ ไม่ใช้ถุงเปลี่ยน (bagless) ตัวเลือกก็ประมาณ Samsung, LG, Hitachi, Electrolux

หลังจากเดินอยู่ 30 นาทีผมก็เลือกได้ว่าจะซื้อของ Hitachi ระบบ cyclone เพราะ

Samsung ไม่มีแรงดูดเกิน 400W ในราคาที่โอเค
LG แค่ไม่คุ้นยี่ห้อนี้
Electrolux ได้ยินมาเยอะว่าบริการในไทยไม่ดี อะไหล่ต้องสั่งเมืองนอกอย่างเดียว
Hitachi เป็นยี่ห้อเดียวที่แปะป้ายใหญ่ว่าได้รับ seal of approval จาก Allergy UK (เข้าใจว่า Samsung รุ่นที่วางขายจริงๆ ก็ได้เหมือนกัน แต่ไม่ได้โฆษณา)

แต่ใน 5 รุ่นย่อยที่มีให้เลือก รู้สึกความสามารถมันต่างกันไม่มากแต่ราคารุ่นถูกสุดกับแพงสุดมันต่างกัน 2.5 เท่า สุดท้ายได้รุ่น CV-SP20V มา ราคา 5,990 บาท เลยกลับบ้านมาหาข้อมูลหน่อยว่าเลือกถูกแล้วหรือเปล่า

จากเว็บของ Hitachi เอง หรือ catalog มีตารางเปรียบเทียบให้ดู (ทำไมไม่วางไว้ในร้านด้วยล่ะ) ผมเลือกมาเฉพาะด้านที่มีความแตกต่างกัน แสดงในตารางข้างล่างนี้

รุ่น	CV-SJ21V	CV-SK21V	CV-SP20V	CV-SH20V	CV-SH18
กำลังมอเตอร์ (วัตต์)	2,100	2,100	2,000	2,000	1,800
กำลังดูด (วัตต์)	480	480	460	460	350
ปริมาตรอากาศ (ลูกบาศก์เมตร/นาที)	2.5	2.5	2.4	2.4	2.1
ปุ่มปรับเพิ่ม-ลด แรงดูด	•	•	•	•	-
แผ่นกรองเฮปป้า	•	•	•	•	-
ท่อดูดแบบปรับระดับเพียงปลายนิ้ว	•	-	-	-	-
ท่อดูดอลูมิเนียมแบบปรับระดับ	-	•	•	•	-
หัวดูดปรับหมุน 90 องศา	•	•	•	-	-
ราคา	9,900	7,990	6,490	4,990	3,990

จากรุ่นแพงลงไปถูก

CV-SJ21V <- CV-SK21V : สองพันบาท ได้ "ท่อดูดแบบปรับระดับเพียงปลายนิ้ว" ไม่สมราคา
CV-SK21V <- CV-SP20V : พันห้าร้อยบาท ได้กำลังดูดเพิ่มมา 20 วัตต์ ไม่สมราคา
CV-SP20V <- CV-SH20V : พันห้าร้อยบาท ได้ "หัวดูดปรับหมุน 90 องศา" ไม่สมราคา
CV-SH20V <- CV-SH18 : พันบาท ได้กำลังดูดเพิ่มมา 110 วัตต์ (ประมาณ 31%) คุ้ม!

สรุปว่าถ้าคิดดีๆ ก็ซื้อแพงเกินไปรุ่นนึง น่าจะเอา CV-SH20V มามากกว่า แต่รุ่น CV-SP20V ในร้านขายอยู่ 5,990 ไม่ใช่ราคาข้างบน ก็ถือว่าไม่น่าเจ็บใจนัก เพราะหัวดูดดีกว่าพอสมควร (เวลาดูดบิดข้อมือแล้วหัวบิดตาม)

On RSS

chris — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 14:56:16 +0000

An acquaintance of mine recently opined on his blog about whether RSS is dead. I find that I think clearer about this when I look at it not as a single question, but a few related ones.

1. Is RSS continued to be made available on the internet on a broad scale?

While I don't know how exactly how the data is collected - and the trends have some kinks I can't explain - this result shows that RSS are still made available for the larger sites. The vertical axis represents percentage of large sites where RSS link can be found on the landing page.

from: http://trends.builtwith.com/feeds/RSS

If anything, a larger percentage of the samples offered RSS now compared to half a year ago. An explanation of this is probably that it does not cost a lot of additional effort. Most CMS out there already support generation of RSS, and the peoples who develop CMS and web frameworks would be over-represented by RSS users. So I think this trend will continue to hold.

2. Are "old usage" of RSS decreasing?

Here, I am talking about subscribing to feeds and read them in feed reader. And this is probably where people are debating in most of the "Is RSS dead?" conversation out there.

I suspect the old usage is decreasing, as I can't imagine there are more peoples starting to use Google Reader than those who stopped checking their feed. But I can't find data to determine the rate, so I'll leave it at this. Because...

These conversation are futile. There are only 2 camps, those that used to use feed readers and has stopped, and those who had and still use feed readers. Neither of them represents the average internet user, and trying to generalize from their personal experience is a waste of time.

Feed readers will not become mainstream, but it was never mainstream to begin with. Stop bickering about it. If it still works for you, use it. If you now prefer twitter or pretty news reader like pulse, go for it. Just stop arguing so passionately about it. Honestly, it makes us all look pathetic.

3. Are there significant new usages for RSS?

Engineers are generally smart peoples. Or at least pragmatic. Since there are a lot of RSS feeds made available, someone will recognize when these feeds can be made useful. And the general users do not need to know or care that RSS is used in the background or what the orange logo is, in the same way they don't care how TCP/IP or the cellular network works.Using it in news reader like pulse or flipboard is only the most obvious ones. Someone will still make some money with technologies or products that make use of RSS, just like with any other well established technology.

Disclosures.

For full transparency, I am from the camp that still use feed readers, because it satisfies the pattern of my information needs. Many of the feed sources now offer apps on android, for example, but I prefer them centralized in Google Reader.

From below's trend provided by Google Reader: In about 5 years, I read 246,624 item, or about 4,000 items per month. In the last 30 days, I've read 3,137 items. Crude adjustment for the fact that 5 years ago I was a student, and now I have full time job, wife and kid. I would say I am using it about as much as in 2005. (when I switched over from Bloglines)

Google Reader is still actively developed on the web, and the new android app is very good. So I still feel warm and fuzzy about it.

Some useful things RSS allows me to do:

subscribe to only LifeHacker posts tagged with 'android'
be notified of new banking regulations
knows when new episodes of The Big Bang Theory comes out
see new jobs posted on JobsDB which contain the keyword 'derivatives'
see when new comic books come out
keep track of updates of softwares I use on desktop, since not all of them will check for updates automatically
keep track of stuffs I don't want to miss, even if I see it a few days late. I'm not a blogger anymore, so the really important stuffs are still important to me even if it's a few days old.

48 hours with Android: Part 1 - Hardware - HTC Desire HD

chris — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 10:49:35 +0000

หลังจากลังเลมานาน ก็ได้มือถือใหม่มาใช้เป็นที่เรียบร้อยแล้ว ต้องขอบคุณคุณภรรยาที่น่ารักมา ณ ที่นี้ด้วย :)

สำหรับเครื่องนี้ ก็รู้อยู่นานแล้วว่าจะเป็น Android แต่จะเป็นตัวไหนล่ะ ปีนี้มันมี "the best android phone to date" ออกกันเยอะเหลือเกิน ก็เล็งมาตั้งแต่

Nexus One (จะกดสั่งหลายทีแล้ว)
HTC Desire
Samsung Galaxy S
Meizu M9
HTC Desire HD
Nexus S

สุดท้าย ตื่นมาวันหยุดสุดท้ายของคริสมาสด้วยอารมณ์ "วันนี้ต้องได้มือถือใหม่" ไม่รอแล้ว ก็เป็นการตัดตัวเลือกให้ตัวเองเหลือ Galaxy S กับ Desire HD

รีวิวเปรียบเทียบ 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

อย่างที่บอกว่าเล็งจะซื้อ Android มาทั้งปี เพราะฉะนั้นพอรู้อยู่แล้วว่ามันดีทั้งคู่ มีที่จะเฉือนกันอยู่ไม่กี่อย่างคือ จอ กล้อง แบตเตอรี่ วัสดุตัวเครื่อง CPU RAM (เอ๊ะ ชักเยอะ)

ก่อนออกจากบ้าน tweet ไปขอความเห็นเล็กน้อย ไปถึง IT Mall ก็ไปจับๆ ทั้งสองตัว รวมแล้วก็ได้คำตอบภายใน 1 ชั่วโมง

เป็น HTC Desire HD

สิ่งที่ Desire HD มีดีกว่า Galaxy S

วัสดุตัวเครื่อง อันนี้ถือเป็นตัวตัดสิน ไปจับ SSGS เป็นรอบที่เท่าไหร่จำไม่ได้แล้ว ก็ยังไม่ชอบที่รู้สึกพลาสติกมาก จับแล้วมีเสียง มือถือ Samsung ตัวสุดท้ายที่ใช้คือ D500 ถือว่าหรูแล้วตอนนั้น ก็คาใจกับวัสดุแบบเดียวกัน Desire HD ชนะขาดลอยด้วย aluminium unibody
จริงๆ ข้อนี้ข้อเดียวก็ตัดสินใจแล้ว เพราะมือถือแทบทุกตัวที่ใช้อยู่นานๆ ก็มาแนวโลหะทั้งนั้น: Nokia E61, Nokia E71, iPhone 1st-gen
อีกข้อที่เป็นตัวเสริมคือ RAM มากกว่ากัน 50%

สิ่งที่ Desire HD ตาม Galaxy S

จอ LCD กับ AMOLED มีข้อดีข้อด้อยไม่เหมือนกัน่บ้าง และ Desire HD จอใหญ่กว่า แต่กลางแดด Galaxy S มองเห็นชัดกว่า (ไม่เคยลองเอง แต่ review มันก็ชัดเจน) และ Desire HD จอสะท้อนแสงมากไปหน่อย
GPU ตามสเปคแล้ว Galaxy S ก็ชนะไป แต่ว่า เราจะเอามาทำอะไรล่ะ? Dungeon Defenders ที่เจ๋งสุดแล้วสำหรับ Android ตอนนี้ graphics ก็ยังประถม ถ้าเทียบกับตัวแรงของ iOS อย่าง Infinity Blade
แบตเตอรี่ พูดกันทุกคนที่ได้ลอง ว่ามันไม่พอหนึ่งวันเต็มๆ ซึ่งวันสองวันแรกก็ดูจะป็นอย่างนั้น ต้องคอยชาร์จที่ทำงานหรือในรถ แต่หลายคนก็บอกว่าหลังจากชาร์จ 4-5 ครั้งจะดีขึ้น ซึ่งเริ่มจะเห็นว่าจริง วันนี้ 3 ชั่วโมงใช้งานกลางๆ ยัง 90% อยู่เลย แต่นี่ก็หลังจากปรับแต่งมาแล้ว (ต่อตอน 2)
Internal storage พื้นที่ลง Application 1.5 GB น้อยกว่า 2GB ของ Galaxy S อยู่นิดหน่อย (เพิ่งรู้ว่ามันได้แค่ 2 นึกว่าจะลงได้ 8 หรือ 16 GB เลยซะอีก) แต่เทียบกับ Android ตัวอื่นก็ถือว่ามากมายแล้ว และ Application ใหญ่ๆ อย่างพวกเกม มันก็ใช้พื้นที่ ROM ไม่มากอยู่แล้ว อย่าง FIFA 10 ใช้แค่ 5.6 MB แล้วอีกประมาณ 100 MB มันไปวางไว้ใน SD card ซึ่งตอนซื้อก็ได้แถม microSD 32 GB มาด้วย สรุปว่าไม่มีปัญหา

สรุปว่า hardware น่าประทับใจ ใช้งานลื่นปรื๊ด ตอนต่อไปจะขียนเรื่อง OS/Software

Geek And Poke: Dying Mobile Platform

chris — Sun, 26 Dec 2010 10:49:35 +0000

via geekandpoke.typepad.com

Kindle's Facebook app privacy concern

chris — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 10:49:35 +0000

While playing around with my Kindle today, I toyed with the "Social Networks" feature. This can be accessed through menu, settings.

The set up is quite simple, for Facebook it only asked for email address and password, after which the Kindle proceed to tell me the account is now linked. Any notes I make on Kindle books will be published to my Facebook profile. So far, so good.

But I am wary that it does not ask me to approve specific access rights of the Kindle's Facebook app. For most other Facebook integration I have seen, these are the case. So I log into Facebook on my PC, and here's what I found.

Apparently, Amazon thinks that in order to publish my notes & highlights - which are just plain texts - I am required to relinquish my profile information, contacts, family links and relationships, see my photos and videos, as well as my friends' birthdays and political views. Because, how could you send plain text to Facebook without these information? Right, Amazon?

More ironic is that the rights to "Post to my Wall", the only thing I want the app to do, is apparently not required, and can be removed if I wish. But the above access ARE required.

FAIL.

Intentionally Confusing Pricing AKA Confusopoly

chris — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 10:49:35 +0000

Scott Adams doesn't need to be specific about the industry, because you can find these in many places.

Dilbert comic strip for 11/21/2010 from the official Dilbert comic strips archive.

via dilbert.com

Legacy

chris — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 10:49:35 +0000

I had to create a looping VCD today.

You would think that would be easy. But NO. VCD is ancient, and you can't easily find current day tools that deal with it.

After a lot of messing around, this is what I (thought I) had to do:

convert the original .mp4 file to AVI with SUPER (keeping frame size, frame rate, audio sampling)
cut out the portion needed with virtualdub
download VirtualBox and create a virtual machine
dig up old install CD and install Windows XP
(VCDEasy make use of Windows Media Player 6, which doesn't exist for WIndows 7)
install VCDEasy
Author and burn

But no no, that would be too easy. I got pretty far but I couldn't get the shared folder to work for the guest OS.

After almost ripping my hair off and pissing the missus with my tantrum, I finally did it, after 4 hours, using GNU VCDImager.

This command line tool dates back to 2002, very fitting for the task at hand. But the direct command line vcdimager only does simple stuffs and not infinite looping. For that, I need the XML driven vcdxbuild

first, run vcdxgen to generate simple XML input as starting point
edit the generated XML file. Section (play back control) is what I wanted.
The simple XML uses <playlist> to create 1-play disc. I replaced this with <selection> to get the looping.
run vcdxbuild and feed it the edited XML, this create .bin and .cue image files
burn with MagicISO

Rusty, I am. But hey, got it to work in the end.

Final XML uses, in case I had to do this again anytime in the future.

<?xml version="1.0"?> 
<!DOCTYPE videocd PUBLIC "-//GNU//DTD VideoCD//EN" "http://www.gnu.org/software/vcdimager/videocd.dtd"> 
<!-- commandline used: vcdxgen -=iso-volume-label=video -=type=svcd video.mpg --> 
<videocd > 
 <info> 
 <album-id></album-id> 
 <volume-count>1</volume-count> 
 <volume-number>1</volume-number> 
 <restriction>0</restriction> 
 </info> 
 <pvd> 
 <volume-id>video</volume-id> 
 <system-id>CD-RTOS CD-BRIDGE</system-id> 
 <application-id></application-id> 
 <preparer-id/> 
 <publisher-id/> 
 </pvd> 
 <sequence-items> 
 <sequence-item src="http://chrisadas.com/video.mpg" id="sequence-00"/> 
 </sequence-items> 
 <pbc> 
	<selection id="select-loop"> 
	 <bsn>1</bsn> 
	 <prev ref="select-loop"/> 
	 <next ref="select-loop"/> 
	 <return ref="select-loop"/> 
	 <timeout ref="select-loop" /> 
	 <wait>0</wait> 
	 <loop jump-timing="immediate">0</loop> 
	 <play-item ref="sequence-00" /> 
	 <select ref="select-loop" /> 
	</selection> 
 <endlist id="lid-end" rejected="true"/> 
 </pbc> 
</videocd>

The Winner's Curse

chris — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 10:49:35 +0000

The question is, what causes spending to expand well beyond initial projections? Explanations range from subtle psychological impulses when numbers are involved, to the economic phenomenon known as the winner's curse, to outright lying.

....

Economists and behavioral scientists say the pattern of budget excess echoes findings in other areas where people allow their best hopes to dominate the planning process. Irrational optimism afflicts even individuals who have experience with a given situation, and should know better. Researchers have linked it to business analysts' earnings forecasts and to students predicting when they will finish assignments. Irrational optimism, for example, is at work when a commuter is consistently late for work because she estimates her travel time based on the assumption that traffic and transit always will run smoothly.

....

Prof. J?rgensen and other researchers say another factor exacerbates the effects of irrational optimism: Projects planned most optimistically will look more attractive to funders than those that are planned realistically. So even if not every planner is optimistic, those who are have the best shot of moving forward, but will have to cope with a form of the winner's curse: the consequences of rosy estimates.

via online.wsj.com

This article mentions infrastructure/construction projects and software development as examples of where winner's curse strikes often. I think most people will agree this happens in many other disciplines that include multiple parties bidding on project, and consulting projects are no exception.

Wikipedia describes the winner's curse as phenomenon that occurs in common value auctions with incomplete information. So, in fact, consulting may suffer even more severely from the winner's curse because we face a more severe case of incomplete information compared to, say, construction. This is especially true for works on strategy, framework, and other types of work where it is not possible to always clearly define the required effort.

A picture is worth quite a few words. Here is a chart from a study on this phenomena on Srilankan construction projects, conducted in 2005. Hardly no explanation need to accompany the chart, don't you think?

PricewaterhouseCoopers becomes just PwC

chris — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 10:49:35 +0000

I saw this on Siam Intelligence Unit yesterday. While I am quite fond of the old logo, I quite like the typeface used in the new, simple one. But what exactly is up with that mess on top?

According to BRAND NEW, it's layered color rectangles and represents the many facets of business that they are in.

It looks ok in large size and their printed documents with this new brand identity look superbly modern, but the logo on its own remind me of of some picture blown up to pixel level in photoshop, or censored adult video.

The Beginner’s Guide to Zen Habits – A Guided Tour | zen habits

chris — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 10:49:35 +0000

I started reading Zen Habit about 3 months ago, and picked up some great tips that help decluttered my space at home and the office. But Leo is quite a proficient blogger, and I've always wondered what other good tips I missed; thinking the good stuffs must have gotten written early on. I don't have the energy to dig through his older posts, so this revised 'guided tour' is very welcomed!

Schedule for bank's increased capital requirements

chris — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 12:13:02 +0000

Yesterday, the Group of Governors and Heads of Supervision at BCBS endorsed the increased minimum capital standard, to be introduced in steps starting 2012.

While the minimum total capital requirement will stay at 8% of risk-weighted asset, banks will need increase the proportion of higher quality capital (i.e. common equity and other tier 1 instruments) in steps. Starting in January 2016 banks will also need to build up the 'conservation buffer'. This buffer can be drawn on, but banks will be subjected to increasing constraints on their bonus and dividend paying as a result. In the chart, conservation buffer is of similar shade to common equity because that's what the conservation buffer is intended to mainly consist of.

Western business media has already report on which big banks do not currently meet these increased requirements (if they are in effect today). I'll look at numbers for Asian banks and see if similar trend exists. (big banks need to beef up capital, while smaller banks already meet or close to meet these new requirements) I expect it will be similar.

Plaxo

chris — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 10:49:35 +0000

I receive email from Plaxo from time to time, all are upcoming birthday notifications. It's not difficult to click delete in gmail, but today I started to wonder why I have not close the account. I started using Plaxo around 2004, trying very hard to avoid clicking the wrong button and spamming my whole contact list. It had some promises, but never become essential to me like LinkedIn had. When I logged in just now, my profile was still that of my previous job which was more than 2 years ago. That's how long I have not logged in, and I think it's time to let go.

Before I do the irreversible, I wanted to make sure I gave them their due. I have not been around for a while, may be they have been doing something great withing my knowing. So I looked at their blog to see the recent updates:

so I had to look at their blog for recent changes.

April'10 - Site redesigned, putting more focus on address book
March'10 - Announced new CEO
February'10 - Updated address book with better search, categorization
September'09 - Sign into Plaxo with Yahoo account and 2-way sharing of Plaxo's social thing (They called this Pulse) and Yahoo's social thing (I don't even know what they call this)
August'09 - Updated search functionality to easier find the C-Suites
August'09 - Announced search for company navigator

I use Google Contacts to manage my central contact list, and LinkedIn to maintain professional network. Admittedly, Plaxo might have come up with some new ideas before LinkedIn, but with the small number of users on their network (I don't think the "Plaxo is Spam" label helped) it just doesn't matter.

At least, they have made it very very straightforward to close your account. Log in -> go to Settings -> select close my account. This is unlike that other social network out there. Kudo to you. And Good Bye.

เตรียมตัวพบกับ Basel III

chris — Sat, 29 May 2010 03:47:44 +0000

ประสพการณ์จากวิกฤตสถาบันการเงินที่เริ่มต้นในปี 2007 ชี้ให้เห็นจุดอ่อนของข้อบังคับว่าด้วยการดำรงเงินกองทุนขั้นต่ำของสถาบันการเงิน หรือที่เรียกกันทั่วไปว่า Basel II ว่ายังไม่สามารถป้องกันวิกฤตที่เกิดขึ้นได้ ซึ่งในปี 2009 Basel Committee ก็ได้ปรับปรุงข้อบังคับไปแล้วหลายอย่างในส่วนที่เกี่ยวกับบัญชีเพื่อการค้า เช่นการเพิ่มน้ำหนักความเสี่ยงสำหรับธุรกรรมการเงินที่ซับซ้อน (securitization, resecuritization) การให้คำนวณ stressed Value at Risk (stressed VaR) และ Incremental Risk Charge (IRC) เป็นต้น

ปลายปี 2009 ที่ผ่านมา Basel Committee ได้เสนอที่จะปรับปรุง Basel II ในหลายด้าน หนึ่งในการเปลี่ยนแปลงที่สำคัญที่สุดคือการเพิ่มข้อจำกัดด้านการรักษาสภาพคล่อง นอกเหนือไปจากข้อจำกัดด้านการดำรงเงินกองทุน (เนื่องจากปัญหาด้านสภาพคล่อง เป็นปัจจัยหลักให้เกิดวิกฤตปี 2007) ขั้นตอนต่อไปคือการรวบรวมความเห็นต่อการปรับปรุงนี้ จากธนาคารและองค์กรควบคุมในประเทศต่างๆ และการศึกษาผลกระทบ (quantitative impact study) ก่อนที่คณะกรรมการจะออกข้อบังคับใหม่ ซึ่งคาดว่าจะเป็นภายในปี 2010 นี้เอง

ถึงแม้จะประมาณกันว่า ธนาคารจะมีเวลาอย่างน้อยถึงปี 2012 ที่จะปรับตัวเพื่อทำตามข้อบังคับใหม่นี้ แต่ประสพการณ์จากการนำ Basel II มาใช้ในช่วงหลายปีที่ผ่านมา บอกเราว่า 2 ปีไม่ได้นานเลย เพราะต้องมีการเปลี่ยนแปลงในทุกระดับ ตั้งแต่นโยบายสำคัญต่างๆ การพัฒนาแบบจำลอง ทดสอบสภาวะวิกฤต (stress test) การปรับขั้นตอนการทำงาน และการสร้างหรือซื้อระบบสารสนเทศใหม่ ดังนั้นถึงแม้ว่าข้อบังคับ Basel III (หรือ Basel II+) จะยังไม่แน่นอน เราก็ควรจะเตรียมตัวกันเสียแต่เนิ่นๆ

เป้าหมายหลักของ Basel III ได้แก่

การเพิ่มความ "ทนทาน" ของสถาบันการเงิน ต่อวิกฤตในด้านต่างๆ
การปรับปรุงการบริหารความเสี่ยงและการควบคุมในองค์กร (governance)
การเพิ่มความโปร่งใสและการเปิดเผยข้อมูล
การเพิ่มความระมัดระวังเป็นพิเศษ สำหรับสถาบันการเงินขนาดใหญ่มาก ซึ่งสามารถส่งผลกระทบต่อระบบโดยรวมได้ (systemically significant banks)

โดยการเปลี่ยนแปลงหลักที่คณะกรรมการเสนอ ประกอบไปด้วย

การเพิ่มคุณภาพของเงินกองทุนของธนาคาร ซึ่งรวมถึงการนิยามเงินกองทุนขั้นต่างๆ ที่มีความเข้มงวดขึ้น และให้นิยามเป็นสากลมากขึ้น
การเพิ่มความครอบคลุมความเสี่ยงด้านต่างๆ ซึ่งรวมถึงการเพิ่มนำหนักความเสี่ยงของสินทรัพย์ในบัญชีเพื่อการลงทุนและ securitization

Attributing systemic risk to individual institutions

chris — Mon, 17 May 2010 14:56:21 +0000

Working Papers No 308 from BIS talks about this subject, which is one of the important things we need to understand in order to fix the Too Big to Fail type of banking regulation.

This aim is to require important banks, those that because of their size will likely take others down with them when they fail, to be more careful in how they run their business. It will not be easy to get everyone to agree on how this should be done.

This paper attribute the importance of a bank to several factors:

The number of banks
The banks' relative sizes
The exposure of banks to common risk factor
Banks' probabilities of default

I have not read through the paper yet, but here are a few paragraph and a nice set of charts.

we investigate the joint impact of system lumpiness and banks’ exposure to the common factor on systemic tail risk. The results are portrayed in Graph 1, left-hand panel. In this panel, lumpiness is captured solely by the number of homogeneous banks in a hypothetical system and is held fixed (at one of three levels) in order to plot systemic risk as a function of the common-factor exposure.

A key message of the graph is that a decrease in the lumpiness of the system depresses systemic risk by more (the distance between the lines is greater) when banks’ exposure to the common risk factor is smaller. To see why, note that lower exposure to the common factor means greater importance of idiosyncratic risks. In turn, idiosyncratic risks are those that are diversified away at the level of the system when its lumpiness decreases (in this case, as the number of banks increases). In the limit case, in which all banks are exposed only to the common risk factor (i.e. when the asset-return correlations equal unity), changes in the lumpiness of the system are inconsequential.

The flipside of this intuitive result reveals an important insight regarding the consequences of measurement error. The different slopes of the three lines in the left-hand panel of Graph 1 indicate that systemic risk tends to increase faster in the exposure to the common factor when there are more banks in the system. Thus, a given error in the estimate of banks’ exposures to the common factor is likely to result in a larger error in the measurement of systemic tail risk when the system is less lumpy.

Volcano vs. Nuclear Bomb

chris — Mon, 03 May 2010 07:54:06 +0000

Ash cloud from Mount Eyjafjallajökull compared to what would result from a few nuclear warheads. Human can't prevent volcanic eruptions (yet), but we can try to get along.

from GOOD