Monthly Archives: January 2011

Politics

Horlicks…

“After going through that experience, Woolley had an epiphany: financial institutions that react to market incentives in a competitive setting often end up making a mess of things. “I realized we were acting rationally and optimally,” he said. “The clients were acting rationally and optimally. And the outcome was a complete Horlicks.” Financial markets, far from being efficient, as most economists and policymakers at the time believed, were grossly inefficient. “And once you recognize that markets are inefficient a lot of things change.”

Wall Street, investment bankers, and social good : The New Yorker.

Apple, IT, Technology

Wrong about the iPad…

“Whatever the collection of reasons, the iPad seems to be the first Apple product that corporate IT shops are looking at with their blinders off and the Macalope didn’t expect that.”

The Macalope Weekly: Wrong about the iPad | Tablets | MacUser | Macworld.

I think that this fundamentally misunderstands whats happening on the ground. In the mid-90s I remember PCs arriving in offices, purchased on the stationary budget and network cards for PCs on expenses.

Employees are buying and using iPads. IT departments are hating it, it’s just that they don’t have the choice.

Architecture, Environment

Failure of architecture…

Every so often modern architecture is blamed for something or another; normally social ills and the end of civilization.

I’ve never understood why a tower block works for the rich of London but never the poor of London.

Then I saw this…

“From the beginning, however, there was confusion about whether the street decks were public or private space. They were used by milkmen and postmen, but the police deemed them private property and refused to patrol them.”

Joe Moran’s blog: Streets in the air.

So the issue could be simply that these places were mismanaged from the start. They are now being torn down at great environmental cost; why?

Politics, Technology

A response from Cambridge…

I love this part of the response. Corporations are having more and more problems dealing with the real world that isn’t organized like them.

“This shows a deep misconception of what universities are and how we work. Cambridge is the University of Erasmus, of Newton, and of Darwin; censoring writings that offend the powerful is offensive to our deepest values. Thus even though the decision to put the thesis online was Omar’s, we have no choice but to back him. That would hold even if we did not agree with the material!”

Light Blue Touchpaper » Blog Archive » A Merry Christmas to all Bankers.