Category: ERM, GRC

Top 2000++ of 2017 – before the herd

Because all sorts of hoi polloi pundits are out there, ‘polling’ (quod non, just repeating the meh mediocrity) for the Top 2000 of 2017 on the ray-the-ohw and elsewhere, herewith the real deal Top 2000.
Which of course isn’t; it’s the Top 2276 for one thing and Definitive is slightly understating it. If you hadn’t guessed, #14 is about me.
And yes, it is downloadable in plain Excel, for your own tinker and play, in this file; checked and clean (no subversive content).
Next, a few little notes (repeated from last year):

  • “That’s odd! The usual numbers 1 to 50 aren’t where they’re ‘supposed’ to be by common standards!” Correct. Because I‘m ‘Rekt. The list is mine; why put the Mehhh songs high up there? They’re in there somewhere, but its my list, my preferences..! yes I do like some almost-forgotten songs better, sometimes much, much better, than the expired old hands.
  • Especially.. see the notes, when the clip (much) enhances the song(s). Wouldn’t that mean the song in itself isn’t fully complete ..? No, it means in (since) the age of video, songs with clips (‘integrated’) can much surpass mere songs by themselves, for a cubed sensory experience.
  • There’s more than 2000 yes. Because, already after the first 500 or so, determining the relative rankings becomes awkward. Hence, the cut-off would be random …! (why not 2048, that would make more sense in this digital (i.e., binary) age). The result is quite random in the end, too, indeed; some of the last songs ‘should’ be up much higher…
  • If you would still have some (preferably wacky) songs you miss, please do comment them to me. I’ll see whether I’d want to include them still, or not. Hey, it’s my list so I decide, geddid?
  • The actual end result order is far from definitive (sic). It depends heavily on one’s momentary temper and the memories that spring to mind like Proustian madeleines. And on one’s ability to hear quality. Such is life.
  • When dabbling with the Excel file yourself, feel free to play around with the ranking mechanism. What worked for me, was to first split the songs into bins of about 250 size (designate some song to be in the first bin that will end up being ranks 1-250, another song to bin 5, which is around the 1000-1250 mark, etc.), then sizing down bin 1 etc. to 8 smaller bins. Then, numbers 1-50 get a personal treatment one by one to their end rank, the rest gets (got) a random allocation within their bracket. After this, sort and re-apply number 1-whatever. Through this, actual intermediate bin sizes aren’t too important.

Then, as a long, very long list. With a Moar tag otherwise it would be ridiculous… [i.e., for the complete list in the post, follow the link:]

1 Hustle Vann McCoy Yes, the original
2 Easy Livin’ Uriah Heep To power it up
3 Heart Of Gold Neil Young Hits the heart
4 Hide and Seek Howard Jones Same, if you listen well
5 Peter Gunn Emerson Lake & Palmer Just for the intro alone
6 She Elvis Costello Personal nostaliga
7 White Room Cream Nicely powerful, doesn’t wear out too easily
8 74-’75 (+Video) Connells The video sublimates the message
9 Windowlicker (+Video) Aphex Twins Incomplete, as a work of art, without the video
10 Nice ‘n Slow Jesse Green Calm down again
11 One Of These Days Pink Floyd Hidden pearl
12 Smoke On The Water Deep Purple Of course
13 The Man With The Red Face (+Video) Laurent Garnier Incomplete, as a work of art, without the video
14 You’re So Vain Carly Simon I think this song is about me!
15 Dancing Barefoot Patti Smith Hidden treasure
16 Right Here Right Now Fatboy Slim Oft forgotten, defined an era
17 The Great Gig In The Sky Pink Floyd Appealing complexity
18 All I Need Air Mindfulness in musical form
19 Dream On Aerosmith Heartburn
20 You Got To Fight For Your Right to Party Beastie Boys Appealing. Simply that.

Continue reading “Top 2000++ of 2017 – before the herd”

The logic of automated decisions;
ransparency through audits ..?

Not bashing, nor FUDhyping…
Was triggered by various treads, e.g., The Book on the subject (or, het boek in Dutch), and scores of elucidation (yes. be happy finally there is some truly) from the legal perspective, on GDPR article 15.1h and article 22.

The latter two not being conclusive, however. They are about requirements of transparency on the logic underlying automated decisionmaking. But there is no clarity about how deep that should go. Will “Hey your data is processed by some AI system [literally, factually incorrect statement because it’s only Machine Learning at max, today; does that construe a false statement i.e. fraud ..? ed.] and even we the builders ourselves have no clue what goes on in there – that’s the whole point of using it besides being able to fire a great many inherently expensive humans and we don’t care the least about the biases and other grave errors of the system it works fine for us!” be acceptable? Hint: No. Will “Oh it’s so intricate that we, let alone you, have no clue when looking at the audit trails that the system generates” fly? Same hint.

Because here, we see a new area developing for IS auditors: Auditing ‘AI’ [quod non but read ‘ML’ and you’re good; ed.]. As IS auditors are (supposed to be, I happen to know a fair share of peers … etc.) the experts in gauging systems functioning qua .. reliability overall, too. Which goes way beyond mere C-I-A but still, has Always been part and parcel of IS auditors’ education, right ..? I will come back to you soon, with more definitive info on how IS auditors should go about this all.

Oh by the way yes I did already notice that the more the system in scope behaves, and is constructed to behave, intelligently like the average (sic! statistically you have zero reason to put yourself above that! oh wait you read my blog so you are definitely, way off the right end of the scale) human, the more the audit will have to be like we audit humans today. Uniting psychoanalysis and explicit rules on paper (in procedures, algorithms et al.), very dogue much fun.

Plus:
[Though a flat, and has iron, legally misidentified as flatiron …; NY – Pic tilted to fit in the pic frame of course]

Losing your trade’s virginity

I‘m referring more to dull trades, like auditing, than what your first thoughts were about…
It seems hard for some people to get their heads around the still persisting problem with AI introduction into regular trades, that when deploying AI to take over the rote grunt work at the lower rungs (which is, by definition (?), all that’s just behind your heels) and leaving the more intricate, ‘difficult’ and ‘intelligent’ work like decision making and risk weighing to seasoned, experienced professionals (to which you belong of course), that there will be no more seasoned, experienced professionals since the seasoning and experience is in years and decades of the rote grunt work that no longer exists for humans.
The ‘difficult’ decisions will all the more speedily be taken over by exponentially self-improving-on-the-intelligence-parts AI, as humans fail ever more quickly at those tasks. The excuse that the lower rungs failed in providing proper intel, will not work; higher-up humans would need to get a grip on the lower stuff, and to be able to determine the effectiveness of what goes around there… again you’ll need the extensive experience, maybe even more…

[Don’t get me started on how current ‘leadership’ (those that fell upwards by lack of weight, not the real leaders) already fails comprehensively at the intelligence part…]

Quite a vicious circle. And:
[Museum of what lies ahead for humanity, in total surveillance states, and AI futures; Riga]

Self-driving my a..uto mode

What was it; that car company we’ll call ‘T’ as we don’t want their lawyers’ badgering, claimed the EULA on the self-driving of their cars required the auto-mode to only to be allowed when on reasonably straight roads in reasonably light traffic with full oversight always.

Apart from that being no driving fun whatsoever, and no help whatsoever in ‘normal’ (other) conditions, I have a question: Why use the system at all, then, when already I have cruise control and Mk.1 eyeballs for such circumstances and do nothing but steer lightly ..!? What improvement from ‘steer lightly’ to ‘not steer at all but always be ready and alert to’..? You’ll never be allowed to text while driving or binge-watch ‘flix while in traffic jams anyway. Is that worth all the trouble, hassle, and hype ..?

No it isn’t. It’s more like ‘cybercrime insurance’ (#ditchcyber) – when you apply all rules, you don’t need cover (and have none for the risks accepted or new in the first place) / don’t get any help from auto-mode; if you don’t, you lose all cover period

So, better get better auto-mode, without the circumstances-requirements and without the EULA extortions. Or, drop the whole idea and get on a bus.

Which may also beget auto-mode… ;-|

Oh, and:
[“Look mummy no hands!” would really take out all the fun…; Baltimore thank you sir for not jumping on the green light to enable me to take this pic]

Are you scared of perfectionism ..?

Not of but to.
This dawned on me, suddenly – as dawning of this better kind is unenforceable – a lot of people list ‘perfectionism’ as their default weakness-read-humblebragged-strongpoint. But it’s a weakness indeed because any such feeling will be rootcaused by insecurity, of the angst kind.
When taken forward, from the latter, one sees: Fear of the unknown, uncontrollable impact on the edges (first), will lead to overzealous focus on those edges, the rougher parts, to prevent even the tiniest deviation from the all-of-the-world’s-plan that totally deterministically was supposed to be followed to not introduce Uncertainty of any kind. No quantum collapse of the wave function allowed; no wave function allowed – that’s all heretical deviation from a supposed Plan from up high (where ?); der Herrgott würfelt nicht in the least! Quantum entanglement is that each and every quantum particle was predestined to be and behave / move as it does. No Uncertainty!

Or else … bad things may happen to you, e.g., your career.
You may get fired, for not perfectly achieving your Personal Year Plan. You may get fired anyway but that’s Bad, the devil’s work, or the shareholders’ (his rep’s..!) wish for slashing by the FTE numbers. To prevent this, just be perfect. Or, more practically, (say to, only!) strive for perfection. Bossed might want to believe then, that you’ll do your utmost and give your life, to make that happen. So bosses’ year plans are achieved. Or bosses, just to be sure, revert to the inhumane micro-management practices … so very common still today…

Let’s hope that proper risk management wins out in the end. If only since the more Chaos, the universe’s drive to entropy, is suppressed, the more gigantic will be the outburst of the Uncontrolled energy because it will burst out. Better to be able to control that through not letting the pressure build so high, by allowing steam to blow off in much more benign, possibly profitable, ways long before.

So, embrace entropy! Embrace balance ..! Just don’t be ‘perfectionist’ like everyone else and then be found out to be the very average sloppy that one reads so much too much of, even in trivial non-control of basic writing skills. If you write without care for proper spelling, etc., and don’t proofread, you’re waaay off to the wrong side of the balance ..!
Plus:
[Discuss, progress to the dialectic third way – which is NOT in the middle by definition; study Aristoteles on that..! Ottawa, BTW]

Spelling test compliancy

Where of course the post title in itself gives away the clue of this little Friday’s short post, which is: If you spell it as compliancY (with some rule or regulation), you failed the test. And you’ll be earmarked as n00b, however long you are in the industry already. Since you don’t seem to know that it’s actually ‘compliance’ with an ‘e’ only, nothing overcorrected.
Just because it hindered me again, last week, when I discussed matters with someone who had the silly idea that using an ‘y’ would impress, would seem to make their point hover at ‘GRC’ levels as if that’s not an emperor’s clothes exposé already. And it’s just incorrect language period

Whatev’, I’ll leave you with:
[Yeah, it’s a bit of an old skyline (pic) isn’t it ..? Toronto, ON for no apparent reason and the horizon isn’t even straightened yes I’m that picky]

AVG is the Law

If you wondered whether (if?) I’ve gone besirk and declare some little anti-malware tool to be officially authorised: No. What then? A Yes. Because whenever you read ‘AVG’ related to the Netherlands, you’ll find it’s the Law indeed. Being a fumbled translation of the GDPR. And full of the lawyers’ stuff on detail, demonstrating incapacity to understand the issues that the GDPR was originally trying to tackle. Of course, these got watered down to ineffectiveness before even being officially issued (and that’s not per 25/5/2018 but already behind us ..!!). So we find ourselves now in a struggle on all sides for clarity and practically viable interpretations – vis-à-vis some specific law. From a legal perspective, this might work; just wait for jurisprudence (authoritative-case law) and all will become clear. From every other of the asymptotically-infinite number of sides (don’t even try to explain that to the eager beavers among various parties), jurisprudence means the death of their organisation and of all employment that goes along with, is built upon that including the livelihoods and perspectives for a decently doable pursuit of happiness of employees and their (extended) families invloved.
So NO, you cannot leave things to jurisprudence, to case law. Modern society has moved far beyond that, leaving all trailing in understanding that, in the dust of ignomy and ridicule. We the People (of the EU++, and of the world affected) need clarity upfront.

Awwww this is turning into a rant. Which wasn’t the purpose, which was   just to point out the irony of one antimalware-maker’s name being now wringed into something laughing-stock [ with an ? or an ! ].
Oh, plus:

[(From analog to digital when the latter wasn’t much good yet) sinking into the landscape, this time perfectly as intended, not out of shame; Melvyn Maxwell and Sara Stein Smith House, Bloomfield Hills MI]

New nav skills

Was reading this article about how some people (men, much, too) just can’t get their brains to function normally decently function in the navigation area. I.e., some just can’t ‘automatically’ find their way around familiar streets and areas of their home town/city, wrestle with maps (you know, the real deal, on paper, by definition: the easiest/best way to re-fold them is differently), and get lost.

Which is (not!) funny in its own right, as it is funny to laugh about people with less capabilities in other mental areas – not. Why do such people positively pride themselves, often, in their failures? Essay question for ten points, in 100 words or less: explain why that sollicits and causes the ridicule.

But here (sic; know where…), my question is: Does such variance in spatial capabilities translate to variance in navigational capabilities on-line..? And how would you measure that; how to a. translate spatial, Euclidian sense of direction and place to the virtual 0D world and b. measure it in the virtual world ..?

Awaiting your answers, I’ll surf to better turf and enjoy not be lost ..! Plus:

[Mock transparency; Barça]

Compare the innovation fruits apples and oranges, please

How is it that long-standing discussion-stoppers persist ..? Take, for the sake of argument and for reason of being the raison d’être of this post, the common “One shouldn’t compare apples and oranges”. Or ‘with’, or ‘to’.
What fun is there in comparing apples to apples ..? Since various species are still very much alike, the attention will go to the, certainly relatively, minor differences, losing the bigger picture. Even when including crabapples, mostly it isn’t worth the trouble. Except for a few experts.
Entrat oranges.
They are so different (Well, overall; there’s also many commonalities like being in your fruit salad with other fruits like tomatoes oh wait) that at once, both the main lines and subtleties of differences can be discussed. Because one compares to discuss, right? If not, just don’t compare anything and sit there like a plant.

Actually, this whole post is about the realisation that in business or other organisational life, we should do both when it comes to innovation. There, tradition has it that one competition in the apples-only markets. Slight differences are sought out, and marketed, as significant whereas usually, they’re not.
Until some orange disruptor appears. Then suddenly, the picture changes – for proper anaylsis, one should compare the apples and oranges, to see how they fit market demand including substitutes et al. And do follow that link to see at which touch points the surprise element rests. Or so.

Just sayin’. And:

[A morning’s comparison of premier cru and grand cru grapes, from Ludes towards Reims, is definitely worth the fine nuance ..!]

Extra, extra! A Fine!

It was bound to happen: Fines! For privacy violations! Oh how do the Frightful Five shudder at the thought of these economic penalties that will down their businesses. Not so much. Is there anyone that thinks the fines will do better under the GDPR regime ..?

Kindergarten dreams. If all people are nice to each other there will be no more war and world peace. If GDPR kicks in …

Plus:

[An air of nice, just the air; not Nice but 4711 Cologne]

Maverisk / Étoiles du Nord