Three Blind Phreaks Speaking of hackers -- these guys aren't -- they're phreaks . Bad boys. But what an amazing story they are. Three brothers, born blind, and turning to phones and computers as a way of first filling curiousity, then surviving, and finally, for just doing it because it gave them power. They're not nice -- but they inspire admiration in even those that despise them. For years, the Badir brothers, Arabs, living in Israel, give the authorities a run for their money -- and took in a whole lot of cash with their illegal acts of phone and computer crime. Then one day, the law caught up to them.
Posts
Hardware Hacking The word ' hacker ' is often quite misused -- it has come to represent people who write viruses and worms -- but before the age of computers, there were hackers around -- people who just liked taking things apart to see how they work, and sometimes, to make new things from the parts they collected. Now you too can put your inquisitive mind to use -- try Hardware Hacking: Have Fun While Voiding Your Warranty . It contains many, many tasks for idle hands -- and speaking of idle hands -- Kevin Mitnick had this to say about the book: "If I had this book 10 years ago, the FBI would never have found me!"
The Corporation Went out with the guys to see this tonight. It wouldn't have been my first choice for a movie -- but I was surprised -- it was pretty good. The movie documents the tale of how the corporation was created -- from its infancy, as an organized way of doing business, to becoming a legal 'person' and through its ever darkening years of turing into a souless, evil, psychopathic, global power, motivated by nothing more than selfish greed, where there is no such thing as 'enough.' The movie is dark and comical in its treatment of corporations, and offers a view from both sides of the fence -- however, the downward spiral to the end of all life on Earth isn't given much of a chance for redemption in the movie -- the little glimmer that was in the movie was greatly overshadowed. It was depressing -- because yes, some corporations are greedy, evil, soul sucking, psychopaths. Certainly a must see for anyone who's interested in philosophy, business
Indian Consulting Challenge From BusinessWeek Magazine: Indian Consulting firms, like Infosys , Tata and Wipro , are giving the big 5 a run for their money. The Indians have manage to gulp big market shares by undercutting the costs of the big 5 with cheap labour -- now however, the big 5 are getting smart. Already IBM and Accenture have announced plans to open operations in India and China, and hire thousands there -- the Indian consulting companies are busily trying to open North American offices -- who will win? Well, most likely there will be a fewer companies left standing than what went into the fray. For companies that rely on hired guns it may be a time of opportunity as they reap the rewards of competition, but you have to be careful of who you decide to partner with for long term contracts.
Insomnia From BusinessWeek magazine, comes an article about something we all probably know about -- insomnia. For some, it's a condition that is suffered with every single night. It's something that is also costly to the economy, to safety and to our personal well-being. The statistics in the article is American, but I'm sure that's easily translatable to Canada. 40% of teens and adults suffer from some form of sleep deprivation -- 32% simply cheat on sleep in order to have more waking hours -- I for one am guilty of that. If you're an insomniac, you're have a higher risk of suffering from depression, alcoholism and obesity -- not to mention careless behaviour that could endanger yourself and others, or the number of people you will routinely piss off because of your less than pleasant attitude. The cost in America is quoted at $45billion annually. So what to do? Well, people could address the problem directly -- or -- there are the drug companies that
Authentic Happiness This was sent to me by a friend -- but I'm not sure I buy. It seems just a little too moon-beam and personal-affirmation-ish, without the benefits of a good long inhale to deal with promised happiness. (At least if there is no authenticity, a good toke could make it all feel better.) Check out the site -- you can wade through questionnaries to gauge your happiness, emotions, etc.
Illusions I first got the 'rotating snakes' via email. Then it appeared in Wired Magazine -- here's the website of the creator of these great optical illusions that will leave your mind totally twisted. Akiyoshi Kitaoka has published two books of his illusions, but only one is available in Canada - you can get it from Amazon .
WinterCity Festival 14-Days of celebrating Toronto in the friggin' cold. Why not? Toronto is at it again, trying to stir up the pride, blood and toursit dollar$. And why not? It's friggin' cold. Did I mention that already? The opening ceremonies start at Nathan Phillips Square this Friday, with The Concert of Fire - musical fireworks by a group from France. The celebration continues for two weeks at a number of venues and participating businesses. Check out the website for details.
Walls We're so adept at building walls -- walls to separate 'us' from 'them' -- from the ancient walls of Jericho and the Great Wall of China , to walls of more recent times, built to separate 'us' from 'them', like the Berlin Wall , the India-Pakistan fence , Kuwait-Iraq fence , Korea's DMZ , US-Mexico fence , Zambia-Angola fence, and the fence separating the Turkish and Greek sides of Cyprus . Now Israel is building walls to keep out or in, depending on the way you look at it, the Palestinians and terrorists. Walls are short-term and ill conceived -- they never solve the problem, and eventually, the problem of the Palestinians will need to be solved. (Here's a comparison of the modern walls [PDF].)
Spilling Parmalat From BusinessWeek magazine, the continuing saga of Parmalat's downfall -- there were enough suspicsions, yet no one asked the questions while $13 billion in assets simply disappeared. It's the biggest fraud case in Europe, and Parmalat's executives are spilling the milk, as it were, behind prison walls. So, how did they manage to get away with it for so long? Why didn't bankers question the company that wanted to borrow more money, even though it appeared to be rolling in cash? And why didn't D&T catch they in the act?
Bush in 30-seconds This is just hilarious! My wife first told me about this a few days ago, and I finally found it -- it is a political advertising contest that aims to challenge the perception of Bush by Americans, especially since the mass media in America is very complacement when it comes to the presidency -- since 9/11, Bush can't seem to be able to do anything wrong in their eyes, even though he's managed to do just about everything wrong. Check out the 30-second video ads on the site.
Incident Management DRP? BCP? If those acronyms mean a little to you, and are usually associated with plans that never seem to come to fruition, then you may want to add another acronym to that list -- IRP -- Incidence Response Plan. It's great to have a DRP and BCP -- but what's really costing you today, in the operational world, outside of disasters, are incidents. They happen all the time, and usually, the IT organization are left to handle the mess, while the business organization scream at them to hurry up. This is quite irresponsible of the business when you think about it -- it's your business! Get a handle on it! In case you haven't figured it out yet, your general IT staff and quite a few of their management don't get it -- they don't get the fact that incidents cost money. You can measure them to hell, yell at them for an eternity, but they don't get it. Incidents cost you money -- wake up, take charge, it's your money that's bein
Latest Developments in US Customs I attended this dinner meeting of the Supply Chain & Logistics organization -- the speaker was Eric Couture, the Assistant Attaché of the US Customs and Border Protection Agency assigned to Canada. He was a pretty funny guy, and a Canadian, who became an American, after serving two tours of duty in Vietnam. His presentations were more of an interest to exporters than importers, but you can infer a lot from an importer perspective. He mentioned many, many times, the fact that the US Customs Officers carry guns, have a Navy, an Air Force, and what not -- his message -- all US agencies now have security as their first priority. Check out his presentations in Powerpoint format, on C-TPAT , ACI and BTA .
Personal Firewall Day It came and went, and I didn't even know. Well, it was last week -- January 15th. Not sure how much it has helped to educate the public on securing their computers on the internet -- that was its purpose. It's a great place for firewall vendors and Microsoft to place their logos though.
Mars Mice In 2006, NASA will be sending a group a mice into orbit, to simulate Martian gravity. The objective is to learn the effects of low gravity on life. The mice will spend a few weeks in orbit before returning safely to Earth. NASA is continuing the science work to eventually send humans to Mars. Cool!
"I Have A Dream"
Let us not forget ...
"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal." I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today. "
Bad Fish From BusinessWeek Online -- while there has been a lot lately about the benefits of eating fish, a little bad news have been surfacing with the latest catch -- Mercury. The big catches have been increasingly showing evidence of higher than normal concentration of mercury. Mercury is already known to be associated with Lyme disease, as well as hair loss, upset stomach and difficulty concentrating. So much for Omega-3.
10 Technologies that Will Change Your World (PDF) From MIT's Technology Review: here's MIT's take on 10 technologies to watch over then next few years. They hold considerable promise, are quite probable, but needs to overcome a few hurdles before being realized. The 10 technologies: Universal Translation, Synthetic Biology, Nanowires, Bayesian Machine Learning, T-Rays, Distributed Storage, RNAi Therapy, Power Grid Control, Microfluidic Optical Fibers, and Personal Genomics.
Nightbreed The other movie I watched on DVD this weekend. I actually caught this when it first came out years ago. It's based on the book by Clive Barker , called Cabal . In fact, I think Clive Barker actually made the movie. It's not bad -- but, if it was being made today, it would be made differently. The movie basically turns the tables on monsters and people around -- in the movie, the monsters are the 'good guys' -- or as good as the 'Children of the Moon' can get -- and the humans manifest the ugliness visible in the monsters. It's got a few bloody bits (Clive Barker -- what did you expect?), and is scary, but a lot less scary and bloody than Dagon.
Dagon One of the movies I watched this weekend on DVD. It's based on the short story of H.P. Lovecraft , of the same name -- and anyone who's read Lovecraft knows the guy can some times be freaky and downright scary. Dagon is no exception. The movie features quite an over the top level of gore, blood and violence -- then it adds totally freaky and scary scenes in the mix. Makes me want to avoid going to any sleepy little fishing village for the rest of my life. So what is Dagon? Well, Dagon is supposedly some monster-fish-god creature, who is turned to by a local fishing village, when things go bad -- things go bad to worse for them though, as they have to spurn their Christian god for Dagon -- who eventually starts turning the people in the village to fishy monsters, and expects, when the transformation is fully made, that the villagers will join him to a life underwater. Of course, for some reason, Dagon needs a human female to mate with (don't all monsters do fo
Calendar Girls This was a surprise. I wasn't expecting such an incredibly funny, and inspiring movie. My wife and I went to see it today. It comes highly recommended from me. For those who have been living in the dark, the movie is based on a true story of a group of women who posed nude for a calendar to raise money for leukaemia research -- one of the women had just lost her husband to leukaemia. Naturally, the Hollywood version departed from the real story somewhat -- who knows why, since the real story is such a good story -- but anyway, I digress. You can buy the 2004 Calendar from Amazon -- and if you're interested, here are the real calendar girls .
God's Debris
I'm intrigued by this apparently very hot book from Scott Adams. It's his first non-Dilbert, non-humour book. The book tells the tale of a deliveryman that meets an old guy, who offers up the answers to absolutely everything -- quantum physics, evolution, God, etc. The book poses the question, what would it really feel like if you suddenly understood everything?
Change Resources If your brings you tasks where you have to engage in Change Management, you'll find some of the resources on this site useful. It's stuff most project managers should already know, but who can remember everything? The site also offers other resources, such as articles, and some audio files (that haven't been loaded as yet).
Stardust's Surprise NASA's Stardust spacecraft got a surprise as it pulled away from Comet Wild 2 on January 2nd -- it focused a navigation camera on the comet -- intending just to keep the spacecraft on course -- and snapped a photo of Wild 2 that generated quite a bit of excitement. Wild 2 had surface features not expected on a comet. It had craters, 100m high cliffs and barn sized boulders.
Nanotech 2004 A big show about itty-bitty things. The Nanotech conference and trade show is being held in Boston, on March 7-11 -- and I wish I was there to see all the cool small stuff, and listed to the latest of small things will change the world. There's lots of interesting science, but not a lot of content on the site. You can find abstracts of some of the talks, but for further details, you have to either attend the conference, or go to the individual presenters sites for more on what they're working on.
August 2003 Blackout (PDF)
The investigation into the blackout continues, and while the sequence of events are understood and documented, the understanding of just what happened, is still being debated. This article from Baseline Magazine, adds an interesting twist. One of the heroes from the blackout was American Electric Power, who has been spending money upgrading their systems and network infrastructure over the years. So while the other electric companies have to contend with old electromechanical relays, AEP has been using digital relays collect more information, and makes decisions to protect its network by rerouting power, shutting down plants, etc. In the events leading up to the collapse of the network, AEP's relays reacted in sub-seconds, rerouting power and shutting down plants to protect its network. The unfortunate thing, some analysts are contending, is that AEP's smarts may have been dumb, and may have led to the escalation of the network outage. Problem?
Port Security I stole this from Baseline Magazine. Here are some links to reports, white papers, and research on protecting the marine terminals. I didn't take all the links -- just the ones I thought of as relevant. Brookings Institution: " Protecting The American Homeland ." Rand: "' Seacurity': Improving the Security of the Global Sea-Container Shipping System ." Unisys White Paper: " A Safe Commerce Blueprint: Securing Your Inbound Supply Chain ." General Accounting Office report: " Container Security: Expansion of Key Customs Programs Will Require Greater Attention to Critical Success Factors ." Bureau of Customs and Border Protection report: " ACE & Modernization: Overview of Key Features For the Trade ."
2004 Industry Outlook BusinessWeek also has report taking a look at what we can expect in 2004. The industries they focus on are: Information Technology, Life Sciences, Manufacturing, Services, and Finance. For each industry: the magazine spotlights performance by looking a selected data points from 2000-2004; forecasts growth prospects in terms of revenue, output and employment.
Best & Worst Executives of 2003
BusinessWeek magazine has done a list -- a ranking of the best and worst of (mostly American) executives in 2003. It's an interesting read to see what sets apart the best from the worst -- and if there's any group you want to emulate, it's the best, as the law has little patience and a bigger stick for the worst. After the performance of the worst in 2003, there is even more scrutiny being place on executives now. Which can only mean a good thing for shareholders and investors alike. Of note: Vivek Paul , of Wipro, an Indian IT Services firm; Steve Jobs of Apple/Pixar -- and others, but your turn to pick!
B Flat Black Hole Using the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, astronomers have found for the first time, sound waves froma supermassive black hole. The black hole in question, is in the Perseus cluster of galaxies, about 250 million light years from Earth. The sound the black hole makes translates to the bote B flat, but the note is 57 octaves lower than the middle C -- making it impossible for the human ear to hear it. This has some significance, as astronomers have long wondered why gas in galaxy clusters don't cool -- cooling gas would allow star formation, as it would allow gravity to exert its influence -- however, gas in galaxy clusters remain hot. Sound waves from black holes may be the mechanism keeping the gas hot.
Magnetars Flare Here's a nice and short article from NASA about a solar flare that hit Earth back in 1998. X-class solar flares -- flares that send x-rays and gamma rays bursting out of the sun are typical. Usually they impact orbiting satellites and ham radios, but mostly are controlled by the Earth's magnetic field. In 1998 however, a blast of x-rays and gamma rays hit the Earth -- only it wasn't from our sun. It was from outer space -- a neutron star about 45,000 light years away.
Sour Milk of Parmalat When the giants fall, they really make a racket. Parmalat lost $8.5-$12 billion in assets -- how? Over a 15 year period, managers cooked the books to offset as much as $16 billion in liabilities. And how, how may you ask, they got away with it for so long? Well, there was this little accounting firm by the name of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu ... and so the tale goes. Read the rest at BusinessWeek Online.
American Cars The Detroit auto show is on, and American car manufacturers are planning to stop the 48-year decline of their US car share to foreign rivals, who now have 55% of the US passenger car market. There's a record number of new car models debuting at Detroit this week, all hoping to reverse the downward spiral. Among them are: Cadillac's STS ; GM's Cobat , Solstice, GTO, Aveo, the redesigned Malibu, and G6; Chrysler's 300C, Magnum; Ford's Montego, Freestyle, GT and the new Mustang. Some of the cars are hot -- but there isn't optimism that the decline will stop. It's predicted that the US car makers will lose an 3% in car share in 2004. What will stop the decline? A combination of exciting, quality vehicles, with good prices. The US auto makers have trained North American car buyers to expect deep discounts, and that will be a hard mindset to change. The foreign car makers screwing up may not hurt either. But the chances of that happening?
Shoe Fits (PDF) Here's an article that's really a Supply Chain 101 lesson. Ever wonder why Supply Chains are important and where the value really is? Read this tale from Baseline Magazine, of shoes and the shoe companies that sell them -- and how a little company called New Balance, who understand Supply Chain concepts, is taking on the giants like Nike and Reebok, who really understand Marketing.
World's Largest Organism (PDF) I first saw this as one of the top stories (87) of 2003 in Discover magazine -- it's unbelievable. The world's largest organism is a single, humongous fungus -- the size of about 1,800 football fields! Apparently, its been around since 6000BC, and is spread out underground in the forest of the Oregon Blue Mountains.
ARES Aerial Regional-scale Environmental Survey -- the name of the Mars plane. NASA is currently evaluating the concept of sending a plane to Mars, over the planet, within its atmosphere and collect data. Prototypes of the aircraft have already been tested on Earth and performed well. Next step? Politics, money and maybe Mars.
Eileen Collins Read about Eileen Collins -- NASA's first female shuttle commander. Before her, shuttle commanders had been only men, mostly due to the fact that shuttle commanders were chosen from the ranks of pilots who had logged hours flying test aircraft. That's still true, and Eileen Collins served in the ranks of the test pilots. Due to the recent drop in US manned missions to space however, there hasn't been many opportunities for other women to join Eileen Collins -- so to date, she remains the only female to have commanded a shuttle mission.
Re: students become cheap billboards
There is a pro to that kind of thing. An off-shoot company pays homeless people to hold advertising signs instead of begging for money. That's similar to the rest of us in this Tommy Hilfiger t-shirt world of ours! Only we don't get paid for the advertising we do! Cheap advertising , yes. Giving street people a chance to have some dignity - maybe. It's worse then them getting themselves off the street, but better then teaching some school kids who have a brighter future that they are only worth billboards on their skin, as if clothing labels weren't bad enough.
Teching Kids Business OK. So I'm volunteering. I need to teach kids about -- or at least give them a non-Dilbert taste of confusion. Their hands-on learning will come from the creation of a business, the running of it, and its closure. For my first chat with them, I used this site as a resource. It's pretty good -- especially as a resource for teachers.
Spirit Has Landed NASA's Martian rover, Spirit , landed yesterday and well, the kids at NASA are gushing. And so they should. After the many failed spacecrafts and landers, it's about time something went right for them on the red planet. Already, photographs are coming back, and -- can you believe it? We're looking at another planet!
China's SUV Craze The Chinese are hell bent on surpassing the west in consumerism -- they've now taken a shining to SUVs and are gulping them down at the rate SUVs gulp down gas. SUV growth is expected to surpass growth in the car market by 12% -- however, China is set to implement some of the strictest pollution controls in the summer of 2005, and none of the SUVs on the road today can pass.
An American View of Canada
It's not often that a US Business magazine decides to write about Canada, and when it does, it always makes for a good read. The Dec. 29, 2003 issue of BusinessWeek magazine has a prescriptive article on how Prime Minister Martin can turn Canada around and make us into an economic powerhouse -- worth a read, but I don't buy all of the medicine -- especially the repeated advise to adopt a more US-style system.
The Learning Partnership Here's an organization that partners businesses and schools to assist kids in gaining some insights and perhaps some excitement in becoming a contributing member of scociety. They offer in school programs that partners classes with business professionals to do things like start small businesses, foster curiosity in the use of technology and excitement in entrepreneurial endeavours.
Cracks in Earth's Magnetic Shield Violent solar storms, like coronal mass ejections, can send a billion tons of electrified gas (electrons and ions) into space at millions of miles per hour -- and the only thing protecting us, is the Earth's magnetic field. The magnetosphere , the part of the magnetic field that extends like a shield around the planet, deflects most of Sun's particles -- it serves to protect satellites in space and the electrical grids around the world. Recently however, NASA's IMAGE spacecraft and the joint NASA/ESA Cluster satellites discovered that immense cracks can sometimes develop in the magnetosphere, and remain open for hours, allowing particles from the Sun to breach Earth's defenses. Not to worry though, those particles hardly ever reach Earth, as our atmosphere serves as the final barrier to protecting life -- most of the effects are felt in the upper atmosphere.
Digital Video
Want to make you own home movies? Pull those digital videos from the camera, and plunk them onto DVDs? or VCDs? or just have them on the computer for playback? Well, you'll most likely need some learning, and this is a good place to start. There's lots of free tools and information available to guide you through your adventure. You could be lazy and buy some software that 'does it all' for you -- but you'll learn nothing, and won't necessarily be taking full advantage of all that's possible.
Earth's Shifting Magnetic Field
Earth's north pole has been known to be moving ever since the first expeditions located it. In the 20th century, it moved an average of 10km per year, but lately, it's been accelerating to about 40km per year. At this rate, it's predicted to leave Canada and enter Siberia in the coming decades. Not only that, but in the last 100 years, the magnetic field strength has weakened about 10%. Time to sound the alarm? Probably not. Earth is pretty dynamic, and the magnetic field has been known to do lots of crazy things -- it won't stop the doomsayers though! To see some computer simulations of the Earth's magnetic field, click here , and here , and here !
Mad Cow Tracking
Gotta love the US. They keep bouncing back with some far fetched responses to problems that hit them. Take the latest mad cow scare. What to do? What to do? Let's see. We could force slaughterhouses to clean up their act. We could stop feeding cows -- well cows. Cannibalism ain't good. You shouldn't eat your brother or sister, so why should we feed our cows, cows? Nope, not the US response. Instead, we're going to RFID all cows, so we can quickly track problem cows right back to their souce and fry all the sick buggers. Why stop there? Why don't we give all cows IP addresses, with GPS tracking devices, so that we can locate them via satellite, and with a browser, our kiddies can lookup the cow that will make their next burger, see when it's going to slide between a bun at the local burger joint so they can rush down there. The real scary part, is that that may not be an original idea -- someone may be working on bringing it to li
Stardust Comet Encounter
Yesterday, NASA's Stardust spacecraft had a successful encounter with Comet Wild-2. The spacecraft was launched in 1999 with a mission to flyby Wild 2, obtain a sample of the comet, and return it to Earth. ( NASA has a great press kit, that details the mission, etc. ) The sample will touch down on January 15, 2006, at a US Air Force base in Utah, when Wild flies by Earth and drops its payload. I hope the NASA kids have a good, secure place to ready when they open that capsule -- I've seen movies!
Living Digital
From the latest issue of Wired Magazine, comes a special report on living digital. Everything from a fully wired (or wireless) home, to intelligent appliances and shared media. The report also contains links to vendors that produce the equipment to make your digital future come through today. Cool report -- of things I'll never have.
Here's a cool site, and it's all about design. It's called Design-Engine.com , and this page showcases individual designer's portfolios. Of course these girls and guys have been in the profession for years so they have amassed quite a large collection of projects, but it's interesting and inspiring to see some of their process work. It's almost inspiring enough for me to create my own site!
Top 100 3PL Providers
Here's a quick link to wealth of resources from Inbound Logistics magazine -- if you're running a supply chain, and thinking of outsoucing -- or you're evaluating partners, looking to optimize processes, lower costs, etc., and need a good level setting so you don't sound stupid (and we know that talking the talk is half the battle), check out the site. There is lots of information, including: a list of top 100 3PL providers (compiled in the summer of 2003); a nifty tool that allows you to narrow which 3PL may be good for you based on your requirements; and a one stop place to submit your request for RFP/RFI.