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Repeat: Trawling for noise

So… Legal developments go at glacial ‘speed’, thus mumbling critical oversight to sleep. Happened, once again, in NL. Mass collection (sic) of and trawling through all sorts of data ‘out there’ is free game for gov’t agencies.
NO the oversight committee will not do anything. Anyone saying so, plainly and simply lies under oath to overthrow the constitution (isn’t that high treason?)

But what will happen of course, is that those that in the past weren’t able to connect the dots (proven fact), will now be swamped in enormously bigger piles of noise data. At the very very best (??) they’ll find bucketloads of false positives — ruining perfectly normal, perfectly legally operating citizens’ lives, of course without any serious recourse or restitution of lost life’s pleasure and happiness…
And the false negatives will also explode, induced by the very ‘countermeasures’.
So, also those that propose and implement and work with such ‘solutions’ quod non, will be culpable to.

Oh well Or well was right. Plus:
DSC_0516
[I don’t want or like, but do expect, a similar thing again; for different reasons but with no really different methods — Prinsenhof Delft ya’know]

At leisure

Musing with the ideas of yersteryear, where the working class had been replaced, gradually, by the ‘managing’ class in its various forms and sizes. But everywhere, productivity being misattributed. Though appearances would have it still among ‘managers’ too, their combined overwhelming bureaucratic bloat pressing on the carbon yet not achieving diamond productivity but gravel at most. While ‘managers’ (line just behind one’s heels!) get so much credit, unearned, and earn so much income and bonuses that it deserves the gallows; the workers ‘hence’ being mis- and disregarded.
When suddenly, the already next trend shone through: The move from the Leisure Class to the Leisure Cohorts.

Yup, you are now reminded of the massive shortfall in education that so many already have … that have flown into the workforce for years already — producing ..? Not the nice workspaces that they have to hang out in. Do they..? For how long still ..? And then ..? The generations that could actually be productive of any sorts, have seen their work shipped off to places of want, of want of actual productivity opportunities but will be depleted of markets sometime soon — and then they’ll retire like in the West with not much going for them by way of either pensions or opportunities go stagger on in business life, nor of anything after them by way of experience-transfer-loaded young crews that would seriously do anything different, better. No, don’t fall for that trap of thought that this all has been said before throughout the generations… It hasn’t, not in this way, not in any comparable situation.
So, the return of the leisure class, as ‘proven’ by Graeber and others, and reality, is there. But also, the Other 99,x% might (not) shift to the Leisure Cohorts. Not good for anything (as recently in all sorts of press, if (big if) you read it well) by lack of education, formal and certainly also practical, with the few smart ones in between skating towards a bright future but the others … at best, at very best, dunce consumers; passive, living on the edge. Yes, helped a lot by AI, progressively more, but leaving … dunce consumers. Don’t kid yourselves. Leisure cohorts without anything to leisure from nor anything to leisure with — as money and (through that or directly) other necessary goods come from productive work .. that has vanished into the ASI-out-there.

I could ramble on, like I so often do. But this time, I’ll leave it to you to do the hard work, I’m off leisuring. With:
20160408_133824
[Artsy Berlage, at his Beurs; inspirational not just to consume]

Book by Quote: Chesterfield’s

Ah, there we are again, for once, after a long while of want: A Book By Quote. Again, not in the plain vanilla version of just jotting down some bon mots but again, wherever appropriate ..! annotated with some of my interpretations. Which may be biased, as they are of human thought made. You know who I compare myself with, here.
Without further ado then, from Lord Chesterfield’s Letters:

(On people’s thoughts) … if we take them upon trust, without examining and comparing them with our own, it is really living upon other people’s scraps, or retailing other people’s goods.
To add, the quote by Ford: “It is a poor business that only makes money” as this so neatly maps to banking business. But do keep on reading this post 😉

To know the thoughts of others is of use, because it suggest thoughts to one’s self, and helps one to form a judgement; but to repeat other people’s thoughts, without considering whether they are right or wrong, is the talent only of a parrot, or at most a player.
Hence the annotations… And the parrot/player part is where so many (most?) ‘consultants’ and ‘business advisors’ (have) end(ed) up.

Whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well; and nothing can be well done without attention. It is the sure answer of a fool, when you ask him about any thing that was said or done where he was present, that ‘truly he did not mind it’.
Yes that’s the Original. And the surety of any answer of remark that you don’t particularly like (to receive), about the speaker. I feel a need to insert a just-found pic here:
ron-swanson-advice

If a man uses strong protestations or oaths, to make you believe a thing, which is of itself so likely and probable that the bare saying of it would be sufficient, depend upon it he lies, and is highly interested in making you believe it; or else he would not take such pains.
Ah, there we have all the bankers’ oaths, the quality (quod non) assurance (quod non) frameworks (quod non) of auditors, etc … In the style of Qui s’excuse, s’accuse — There should be a law against such things. Continue reading “Book by Quote: Chesterfield’s”

Old innovation

Sometimes, the ‘small’ innovations, by ideas that may not even be new but turn up at last in an implementable, implemented fashion, may deserve more spotlight. An Oscar of sorts maybe even, some time after many years’ wait.
This being one of those. Now implemented to protect a museum; many more applications thinkable. Don’t lower the river (only); raise the bridge dam …

That’s all. Just sayin’. And:
000013 (17)
[Just as (?) pretty, less of a dam though; Curaçao]

Paradise Lost

.. of not the Milton kind, unfortunately.
But of the kind of Age of Innocense. In crowdsourcing. You remember, from before the days of Mechanical Turk and similar no cure, no pay but the pay’s a rip-off scams. Close to (?) post-slavery slavery by Hobson’s Choice.

But as said; before that, there were the dreams of free agents delivering their best efforts to common problems and getting handsomely rewarded for their solutions (if the best). The Age of Aquarius dawned. No more masters, no servants, all equal.
Or so.
The brevity of hapiness…

DSCN5189
[All play and sunny weather now that you have been returned to Consumer status (pejorative). Sure to (have) change(d) …; NY of course]

Wired / Tired / Expired, 2016 Q1 edition

Yes here’s a surprise new quarterly Wired / Tired / Expired jargon watch overviews, a mixed bag again. But much needed, it seems, as there’s much to promote or dis(mis)s.
First, for your viewing pleasure:
Photo20 (4)
[Yes the UFO one again. Still prime FLlW space…!]

WIRED TIRED EXPIRED
DeepMind / AlphaGo Watson “Robots”
For, discreetly not completely, winning at Go, taking the fame flag from this edition’s Tired contender. The W of <fill in the blanks and colour the pictures>, e.g., medicine but now having extended so often into the mundane. See also many earlier posts of mine, as indication that the newness has been lost quite summarily. Anyone who still thinks ‘robots’ as humanoid machines are the future, either writes for simpletons in a way that reveals the simpleton self or hasn’t understood in the first place.
Noam Bernie Donald
Still going, maybe not very strong but exposing the ridicule of it all, ever more clearly. Hang in there, best-option of the world! If elected, the world will have a seriously bad hair day.
Artificial Empathy UX MobileFirst design
Ow yeah! The end purpose of all AI explained: To sell us even more in ever more devious ways … Not even Linux but the nonderstood follow-up of user-centered design. Sometimes in a last-ditch effort even renamed mobile only design. Will go the way of the books, sense returning to common.
Flex mesh work Start-up Culture / Creative Incubator Silicon Valley
Project-oriented and anything staffing-wise goes. No strict ‘policies’, just getting the ultimate High-Q resourcing in whatever way available. Oh yes all the petty boys and girls getting ripped off off their ideas, talent and energy. Dumped subsquently. Does hardware XOR consumerist-data. Both old.
Crypto Backdoors Security
Let’s all do it, transparently, in privacy-friendly apps, or on top of the less so. Will not work Period As if still using the container phrase means anything other than confusion.
Drones versus commercial flight safety Drone deliveries Attack drones
OMG the Need For Regulation! Yes…, why not, exactly…? Women have deliveries, men have balls but as this isn’t about cricket, drones have physical distribution potential. Some. Yes, that’s the first and very foremost commmercial deployment of the category. Now what?
Do Your Thing Disruption The Uber Of
Just read Godin’s frustrum post and you’ll get it. Of the right kind, not the ‘overthrow then what’ kind you m.r.n The shorthand for / of the Clueless.
Caring for refugees Expanding the EU EU
Get real about the numbers, the risks. Humanity can fix this. Easily. Expanding the mess exponentially, isn’t going to clean up. Pronounced ‘Eeewwww!’. Why not ditch it, have a good cry, and start over again with a glacial-speed cultural integration first …!?

OK, any suggestions for next quarter’s (!) edition ..?

Plusquote: Be not a hampered herring but a free speedboat

Yes, again one in this series of quotes of my own making (predominantly), intended to be motivational. Just like www.despair.com… This time:

Be a free speedboat, no hampered herring

Which, for an explanation, starts at the back. Being about the choice between being a (hopefully growing into too) big fish in a small pond, or a small fish in a big pond. And, since the former is limiting by its ‘boundary’ condition already and the latter has grown to be to be a tiny fish in the world’s oceans all together, none are more than a suckers result in a Prisoners’ Dilemma match.
But then, the choice is a false one — no-one asked you to remain a fish, of set growth or flexibility. Turn into a speedboat! Do not want to be, to become, an oil tanker but keep agile, manoeuvrable, successful rather than doomed by size.

And yes, speedboats can go anywhere. May not be a survivable as a tanker in some storm, but being flexible enough in movement and destination hence travel routes, you’ll be able to not get caught in one in the first place; no fun so avoided almost naturally. Storms are for others to wither, you keep in nice weather.

Oh yes, there’s risk and danger, also caused by you e.g. running over some silly swimmers on onto rocks, by careless steering. But think of the upside …

Also:
130673480_moose_463656c
[Remember the moose though I have no clue why you should … ;-| ]

Be-four you turn enthousiastic

[Warning: Long-read. Opiniated, and structurally your recommendations may be are needed, too]

About all of the banking industry, and other financials in their wake, have had to deal with loads of regulatory requirements. Justified, some say, for ‘they’ cause(d) so much misery beyond mere most temporary loss of bonuses that the ‘un’ should be (have been long before) detached from bridled. So, Basel II and -III regulations swooped in requiring much more explicit and detailed handling of financial business than ever before. The move from laissez-faire to regulation, to regulation with sanction schemes, to sanctions (possibly interpreted as ‘token’…), was extended with provability and then complete proof-demonstration as minimum requirement.

This all, however, has created a large, and in general even I would say quite overpaid [disclaimer: am profiting too] industry of consultants, quants, ‘risk managers’, reviewers, assessors, auditors, and scores of Toms, Dicks1 and Harries of the GRC kind. That are all very likeable nice lads and lassies, but maybe not quite worth their salt, certainly not their bonuses, or even be sure to be worth much lending one’s ear to.

Since March, suddenly, there’s news. The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision has released a consultative paper on ideas for (much-needed, many know) simplification of the operational risk management part of regulations. For Basel-IV forthcoming.
Continue reading “Be-four you turn enthousiastic”

Crash’in the wings

… Thinking back of the Taleb’ian remarks, and truths, on Extremistan, and how some more or less closely watched parameters may lose their variance but not their uncontrol since such petering out of shock’lets are just the precursors of an asteroid impact scale collapse, I wondered what is about to happen in infosecland. Since for weeks, nay months already, there has hardly been any news… Apart from the usual suspects (#ditchcyber ..!), there hasn’t been anything serious, has there, by means of yet another class break or more comprehensive controllability breakdown?

Which is why everyone should sit more uneasily, in stead of the opposite sleeping better than ever.

But then, this was the message from your Wolf-crying boy …?

To which:
elk-06

[Since last Friday, you know this isn’t a reindeer but an elk that is no moose, at least not everywhere]

Maverisk / Étoiles du Nord