ERM, GRC – Page 33 – Maverisk / Étoiles du Nord

You must, you mustn’t

Strange. The last couple of weeks, months, have seen a resurgence of “Anything that is not explicitly forbidden, is allowed.”
Which was, well, true in only the most devolved, twisted (pejorative sense) means/ends ethics and morals discussions. And still is. But suddenly, there’s a new angle: All that aren’t involved in the spoils of such tactics (not being rich enough to have used Panama Paper style constructions, even when not aware as such vulgar ‘money’ things had been handled by sycophant minions (of mind, certainly)), want the overthrow of the said sad sentence, by including that all that is permitted, should not be done when (not if) the moral higher ground would forbid it, still.

I can agree. Being in the category of … well mostly having first-world problems and not (much) more. But then again, it strikes me as odd that somehow, we don’t have good handles to straighten out the wicked ones — bar revolution. Because our legal system doesn’t seem to be as strict as it once was; forbidding all that was not allowed for a proper functioning of society. There have been changes to society… Where theft is still impermissible if of physical stuff, but in many ways is perfectly good to go when by failure to act, like many 1%ers. Though Aristoteles (Ethica Nicomachea; read the damn thing!) rightly would frown upon such dimwittedness but there.
So, actually, law would have to change but hasn’t. The very ones to be controlled by it, of course, are the first through the escape vents. And, Pikettyan or Elysium style, might prevent catching up categorically.

We could discuss on and on. But prevalent is: Now what ..? So, for the time being:

[‘Coloured in, otherwise too bleak your future is’; The Hague]

I am Satoshi Nakamato

… If only to dilute the discussion. And to all be Spartacus. Let the Craigs be the fools (not even meant lightly; rather pejorative here) they are. The absolute hard-math sides of Bidkoyn coming full circle to the mysteries to be kept mysteries for the very sake of it for once you dumb.ss! of its origins.

To keep it real:

[Mining precedes, but the use side is in transport ..? <Think that one over> at Utrecht]

Rien vous ne pouvez plus …?

When business is about betting, hopefully educated guessing, the near and bit further future developments of <somethings>. Educated, of course with a pinch of theory — but then, only the parts that are actually true, and still valid, for the future, too so throw away all (seriously) but a few nuggets of the most absolute que sera, sera of economics / business administration (sic) — and a healthy dose of experience — but not too much as it would lead to a lachrymose same as the (true) theory and we still need Action, don’t we ..?

Then totalitarian bureaucracies, like the banking world (in a suffocatingly tight grip, including the regulatory-captured but also holier-than-thou regulators), will try to squeeze all involved so thoroughly that no business is feasible anymore. But will fail, as the spirit has been out of the bottle since the Apple; Original Sin is about being human, above animalistic sustenance-supporting instinctive compliance with the laws of nature. Again and again, the stupidity of belief that Apollo wins out over Dionysos ..! They’re equal in all respects, certainly in the spirit of Man, and remember that even Zeus was forced to break marital laws (what a player he was, by necessity …:) because at the End of Times, the titans, the powers of Chaos, will almost win out. A trope so powerful that all belief systems have it (but a few exceptions) so to be held for certain; until proven wrong…?

Even more: The higher the pressure (that the straightjackets on subjects can take), the more fluid everything becomes. The more zealous, zealotic, crazy (outright that word, yes) compliance efforts micromanage (lest the ‘manage’ part which is utterly ridiculous if used in this sense), the more devious and deceptional will the business be, caused by this very reason of compliance efforts. LIBORgate, anyone ..?

‘Trust, but verify’ is a lie. Since only the slightest hint of the latter, immediately completely destroys the former ..! As the former is a two-way street! Seek out those that support this lie, and you’ll find the true culprits of the above.

So far, so good for a Monday morning’s rant, right ..? I’ll stop now, with:
20151008_123437
[Rigid, but colourful, the max you can achieve; Nieuwegein]

Disciplined away from bureaucracy

After some thought on bureaucracy on either side of the Big Pond, it suddenly dawned on me how to explain the seeming (of course) paradox:

At the Western shores, a lot of military with front line battle experience (and some, only a bit less so), possibly out of reserve functions in mundane business, have gone (back) over to the dark side of commercial business, with their discipline and cutthroat ‘competition’ (using not secondhand car salespeople but live ammo) as main assets / gathered experience to bring to bear.
On the East oceanboards, not so much, and a love for egalitarian Rhineland ideas might have persisted, giving flexibility and care for customers (‘s souls), and much room for ‘Millennials’ (let’s all drop that most empty of phrases though you get my drift) in the workplace.
On the point of competition effectiveness, Westeros beats Essos hand down.

But, the critical points for resolution are:

US businesses have been taken away from petty-rule-based (only) bureaucracy that they were in (yes they were, even with the freedom-seeking escapism rampant throughout), by the infusion with serious doses of Mission Command (a.k.a. Commander’s Intent) flexibility in goal achievement over procedural justice / form-over-substance.
European corps had nothing to counter Power Corrupts style demise unto totalitarian bureaucracies with their headless-chicken compliance.

So, it really is no contest but we would need a (not present) ref to break it off. To bad, and:

[Oh how cutiepie, Doesburg defenses]

Misquote: Eat this!

Let them eat cake

No. No, no, no, nonono. This wasn’t what Marie Antoinette said. She didn’t even say anything of the kind. Not even

Qu’ils mangent de la brioche

that Rousseau put in his memoires. And for those that suspect something akin was said by Merry Anthonia, there’s some more explanation of the miss in the quote here.

The more serious side of it all being that in its day, it might have been sound advice to eat brioche, for its nutritional value… If only the pesky 1% (rather even, 0,1%) like explained here, would have made that a challenge. … Very much like today’s USA … recognize and weep. And take heed of this.

Well, I’ll leave you to ponder, on a doughy note with:

[Casual dining; Het Loo]

DroneSF

Among the more thinking part of you, there probably has been some ideas on the ‘Joint (not so much) Strike (not by a long mile yet) Fighter (not or by proxy of lobbyists for its program)’.
Then, why wouldn’t forward-looking nations develop much more of an Future Strike Joystick; an air fleet of drones ..? How incredibly much more efficient isn’t such a fleet, with ridiculous amounts of safeguards for safe platform/pilot return (in that order of importance) ditched for efficiency, robustness by the numbers and failsafe-testing ..?
The efficiency, for not having to care about pilot’s safe return hence many over-redundant systems need not be needed. The robustness, mainly in numbers, but also in safety / security systems being bolted on easily as weight savings to be traded in, are aplenty already. And failsafe-testing leading to much more robust systems anyway — but with the robustness gains there mainly going on in the G/A comms. The AFBs could house so many more of these smaller-size things, with ample comms and/or rapidly-deployable forward bases; with possibly much shorter runways hence enabling many more bases without even increased (better spread, too) noise levels for the dorks.

Two things, then, from a Dutch perspective.
One, why not resurrect Fokker to build many more full-fledged squadrons of these than ever had in the RNLAF? They have all the experience with composite materials still, and have plentiful highest-trained development, build and maintenance staff available as well or at short notice. Let’s dub it the G-1B for reference to unsurpassed excellence.
Two, in the mean time the current F16 ‘fleet’, hardly operable anymore by atrocious ‘savings’ i.e. dumbest of budget cuts, can be extended to Block 60 or V versions and all these drones be developed and bought, at a sliver of the costs of the JSF program as spent already let alone when the actual handful will have to be purchased (with ridiculous maintenance costs attached).
Three, against your Yes But: The JSF is still so far from delivery that the G-1B could be here before it ..!

Am I romantic in looking ahead instead of stumbling forward with yesterday’s doctrines in a future that already now have been surpassed ..? Yet again,

[Ah, Delft… Where another, this even today, undervalued product comes from]

Untrained accountants

Somewhere in Rise of the Robots (approximately p.253, 2nd line from the top), ever infamous [but very, very right] Carr is ideaquoted about pilots not getting enough experience with flying and (well, mostly: continue to keep on …) flying in adverse conditions and hence are paradoxically (much) less capable to handle the few exceptional situations for which they are kept aboard on ever more fully automated flights. [Except from the passengers’ comfort, but if only they knew the previous…] The Shallows, indeed…

Now, how would this compare to accountancy …? Ever encountered an assistant auditor that would recognize, let alone be able to do himself, double-entry bookkeeping ..? Which is of course already quite fully automated or will be in the very near future. All of accountancy/audit (in many worlds except a few slackers, this can and will be used mixedly though the latter is so much more ..!) that is stacked on top of such simple things, like checking on the bookkeeping let alone at the other end of the spectrum concluding that ‘the books’ represent a true and fair view (to the dime) of business performance (sic; more that just having debit=credit; author knows of a bank where this proved literally Impossible to do, with all the latest overfully automated bookkeeping information systems with a margin of € 1B e-ve-ry month, wiping the slate clean with a one-sided journal entry…!!), will come into question qua ability — in particular where the once usual decades of training was needed to establish sufficient experience to be able to, with an error margin always still!, declare the True and Fair parts, and now, such experience can be had less and less, with the disruption starting from the bottom with audit automation turning into big data (process) analyses supported by IT audits and what have we.

There simply aren’t the entry-level experience gainers jobs anymore; any complete-greenhorn (and uni grads are that, more and more it seems; just ask them to write a simple business report…) will have to jump to an immediate medior-level performance level. So what does one end up with? Mostly n00bs posing as l33ts. Posing, as content-wise performance is … well …

Oh well, it’ll get worse, much worse before it gets better. And:

[Graciously having opened my back garden to the public (but this is Het Loo of course)]

This time will be different

… If only for the following reason(s):

So far, Technology has been developed by humans, willy-nilly mostly as also fitting in the Selfish Memes sort of way (including Blackmore’s Meme Machine), to alleviate and overcome the very humans’ weaknesses that set us below a great many respective animals, and Nature.
Now, I(o)T slash AI (ASI) will soon be overcoming humans’ only few strengths in Thinking. At once leaving us vulnerable to become, at best, prey for <something> but with no place to hide (sic) nor any defenses…

So, this time will be different and the Luddites (actual sense, not the loom-smashing caricatures) will be right. For the one time they ‘need’ to be and then immediately need be no more. No more ‘but past technological innovations bringing temporary unemployment have all been overcome with growth of something new’. Read Martin Ford and you see that this will simply not be true — if only for the failure, this time of the Comparative Advantage mechanism but actually quite something more pervasively.
As a simple hint: What would you advise your 8yo nephew to be good at in school, to find … what kind of job or career later …!?

Don’t be discouraged! The End Is Nigh! Until it is:

[They look cute but will outdo you in an instant….; Het Loo]

Predicting fuzzy futures

As we approach another round of grand fuzziness in predictions of all sorts, e.g. for president’s elections in some corner of the world, it would be wise to not only take all (and I mean all) of Superforecasting to heart but also to consider helping extending the science of the trade.
By helping me out in finding pointers and content on, and subsequently developing on, the use of fuzzy logic in predictions. As ‘current’ truth values of future states of the world are all quite possible, and going forward even mutually exclusive states may, e.g. on some news, all become more likely, with combined likelihoods rising over 100%. Where FL can play a role to keep track. And we may have to revisit (practical use of) Markov chains with suitable noise-around-parameters built in… But let’s focus on FL first.
Of course, when the End Date, the horizon for some prediction timeslot nears, the choices will be driven to 100/0 — where the crazy idea of random selection (of ‘balls from a pot’) with replacement … with double replacement … [even tinkered with the idea of replacing the non-drawn colour with the drawn one every pick; was hard to think through] may come closer to the idea of starting with some hardly-educated guess and nudging either way on all news points as one goes along; doing a (much-)sort-of random walk from 50/50 to 100/0.

So, if you’d have info on the viability of either approaches, please do drop a note…! Already:

[Free city map dispenser; Delft]

Emerging degrees of privacy

Given that ‘privacy’ is a property that emerges from good Security, more particularly from Confidentiality (and Integrity), there’s two avenues to succeed in this field:

If quick and maybe even too dirty: Data minimalisation (as e.g., here, in Dutch)
Else (OR?): Fine-grained protection, also against the default Read all down the stack (user / end point / comms channels / applications / middleware / servers / storage — with the latter maybe crawling up and down the stack again when virtualizing in the cloud)
Because binary’s not my thing and keeping it real (i.e. (!) not being consistent) is: Would any of you have pointers to some science on possible degrees or levels of privacy ..?
The idea keeps floating around in my skull. Including degrees of invasion! Where sometimes, the required degree (as set by the subject) would be less than the degree for some government agency so everything goes … for this some data point only. Yes, Value creeps in as a boring subject but isn’t everything. Should be a field of study …?

Thanks anyway for all your pointers on the last item… (none); hence:

[It’s watching over your shoulder….! Het Loo]