The Daily Sanity Check

Toxic women?

2012-01-02T01:32:00.003+01:00

"Women have always been the primary victims of war. Women lose their husbands, their fathers, their sons in combat."–Hilary Clinton.

If this quote does not appear strange to you, read it again and think.

Found here:

The stock market is going down - in March as predicted

2011-02-24T20:44:00.002+01:00

As predicted, the stock market cycle has changed: Springs have replaced the traditional Fall crashes (typically in September each year). It almost feels like a conspiracy.

Or maybe the dealers just read my little blog.

In any case, I believe that the stock market will dive until May, and then it will pick up steam and move quickly upwards.

RIM's Blackberry in decline

2011-01-05T00:01:00.005+01:00

RIM is obviously being seriously mismanaged. Blackberry is a nice device - but it has fallen back behind iPhone and Android, and RIM somehow cannot get their act together.

Maybe I should rethink my conviction that top management has only minor impact on the company's success. RIMs CEO Lazardis recently showed off a new product: the Playbook. Just look at this guy: how convincing does he come across? A guy who keeps his hand in his pocket while talking to me appears insecure and arrogant (same thing in most cases).

The most recent faux pax: RIM's Podcast App has been around for MONTHS and it is still only available to users in USA and Canada. It is not a translation issue. Not even our friends in UK and Australia can download this thing.

If such a simple thing is missing, what other features are withheld from us? How can a company with global player aspirations treat the global audience like that?

I just got my Bold 9780, but I am starting to think that it was a mistake...

Good globalization, bad globalization

2010-12-30T12:34:00.040+01:00

There are so many individuals and organizations (like Attac) who are criticizing changes we have been experiencing since the so-called globalization took off in the early nineties.

Globalization has many facets, and one of them is its social scope. If it is only available to elites, than it is a “bad globalization”. If it is available to everybody, then it is a “good globalization”. Before I explain it to you I suggest that we find another term for this: how about “worldwide liberalization”? It sounds better and even gives a nice acronym: WL.

Let me explain what I mean by "good globalization" (WL) and “bad globalization":

Bad Globalization	Worldwide Liberalization (WL)
The globally free flow of capital is only available to elites, governments, big corporations and organized crime (i.e. drug cartels).	Any individual can invest globally any amount of money at the same relative cost as elites, governments, big corporations etc.
Tax breaks and subsidies are provided by corrupt officials to their pet market players, who in turn use it to their advantage (and only their advantage).	Tax breaks and subsidies are removed completely for everybody, leveling the playfield.
Big organizations use cheap workforce in foreign countries to undercut prices and to eliminate expensive workforce at home. At the same time, it is difficult for regular citizens to move to a country of their choice.	While large organizations can hire globally, the workforce can also move globally at the same relative cost. There are no traps or limitations (like the forced taxation of expats’ assets, widely spread in Europe and other countries).
Markets are national, while supply chains are global.	Anyone can sell anything anywhere without additional cost. Locally restricted offerings (e.g. national media companies limit access to their products to certain IP home addresses) should be forbidden.
Individual global communication skills are only granted to elites, e.g. English for children. Others are taught English at schools, but only good enough to understand their work orders.	All children around the world learn English (taught by native speakers) as their second language starting at the age of three.
Communication platforms are localized. Crossborder communication is limited (e.g. mobile phone companies bill their customers for calling the national subsidies of the SAME company). Internet is localized, so that certain content is only accessible to selected national audiences.	Communication platforms are fully globalized. E.g. the internet is world-wide unrestricted. There are no roaming fees (especially not within the same globally operating providers).
Fiscal and political policies are increasingly “managed” globally. I.e. certain structures and ideologies are declared “bad” , others are “good”, and countries that do not comply risk discrimination, embargoes or even military invasions.	Global diversity of political and economic systems is generally allowed and supported, provided the individual liberty of moving from one country to another is guaranteed. Time will tell which system is better.

The Worldwide Liberalization sounds really good to me. I wish I wasn't alone.

Net partitioning: divide et impera

2010-12-29T17:42:00.006+01:00

Want to see an Amazon streaming video and live abroad? Sorry dude, you are out of luck. You get to see this:

You might want to watch some Hulu videos? You get to see this:

There are few things about internet I hate more than this "network partitioning". It sucks! I am willing to pay–why on Earth am I not allowed to do that?

Yes I know about the copyright issues. But why is it supposed to be MY problem?

I don't want to wait for some crippled localized version of those (and many other) services. It is not fair and only shows how the internet becomes more and more divided into small "manageable" chunks and then make people pay for crossing the boundaries between them. How pathetic.

I WANT MY GLOBALIZATION BACK!

Language is a weapon

2010-12-29T10:10:00.008+01:00

If you are a mother or a father then you will know the feeling of wanting to give your children all you can give to help them become happy and successful later on.

And if you live outside of English speaking countries, you will probably want them to learn English–the modern lingua franca. I think it is beyond doubt that fluent English is a key to a successful career these days, regardless of where one lives. At the age of three to four, kids are able to learn foreign languages at ease that is difficult at best in their adult lives.

I believe that the above statements are trivial truisms. I also do believe that most people, especially leaders and elites, also know it. If this is the case, then every kid should visit an English kindergarten starting at the age of three. Politicians (elected by parents) should provide native speaking personnel to those kindergartens. Similar should apply to primary schools, as well as to other schooling forms applicable later.

But they don’t. Over here in Germany, only private kindergartens (that cost at least 1000 EUR/month) offer native English speaking child care. WHY?

If such an obvious need is neglected, then there must be a political obstacle on the way that should be clearly recognized and pronounced. I guess one reason is that language is traditionally being used as a weapon. Humans have developed different languages to know friends from foes, because looks often do not tell the whole story. We instinctively believe that “our” language is the most important distinguishing mark. For example, especially in Europe, if a person speaks with a “wrong” accent, she or he is instantly perceived as a bit dim. This is not due to the lack of a civilized manners–it is a natural, instinctive reaction.

However, the real reason is probably more unsettling: citizens who speak English fluently enjoy the access to a gigantic labor market. Particularly young people would leave their home countries in masses if their politicians failed to offer them an attractive perspective at home. High taxes, social welfare bureaucracies, military draft, tightly regulated labor markets, ever-more outsourced industries, restricted liberties, environmental hegemony–the favorite toys of our beloved politicians would all of a sudden become risky moves. No politician on our planet would want that.

And so, at the expense of the next generation, we prefer to maintain our status quo instead of giving our children a brighter future. Inside, I’m screaming.

The end of internet as we know it

2010-12-25T13:22:00.010+01:00

I remember back then in 1992 how lousy BTX service from Deutsche Telekom was: expensive, content-restricted, it was slow, it had an ugly UI and generally sucked. One had to pay for almost every useful page, including banking, news and software downloads. I recall the day–somewhere in 1992–that I managed to access the internet using my old Commodore Amiga 500 and a TCP/IP add-on package. I immediately felt the wind of change–it was like a jail-break.
BTX was dead soon, Minitel in France died shortly thereafter, and other proprietary services like Compuserve followed the path of damnation.

The new, free world of an international, unrestricted and world-spanning communication had begun. I have enjoyed this freedom ever since. If you were imprisoned before, you will know that freedom is one of the most valuable things in life.

Lack of restrictions promotes new business. Restricted environment protects old business. That is the reason behind the efforts of “old economy” players, especially telecommunication and media companies, to undo the unloved liberation of bits and bytes. It seems they finally have found a way of achieving it. The recent bills targeting the unregulated, free net is likely to destroy the principle of the net neutrality and throw us back into the early nineties.

What will be the consequences? Let me guess a few, based on my experience from the “olden days”:

There will be practically no internationally available web sites. Due to “copyright restrictions” etc., only a very limited offering will be given access to for foreign users. Pay more if you want to access more.
Phone companies will develop new “plans” that will make using the internet a painful, limited experience for people who don’t want to pay for pricey additional options like:
- Access to Youtube and other streaming videos (additional option US$ 9,99/month), otherwise only 256 kb/s will be granted (and be subject to change at any time)
- E-books and MP3-Download from providers like Amazon (additional option US$ 1,99/month)
- Skype and other IP telephony services (additional option US$ 4,99/month plus 4 cents/call minute)
- Internet radio (additional option US$ 2,99/month for 15 stations, US$ 9,99 for unlimited number of stations within your country, US$ 19,99 for world-wide internet radio
-Software downloads (for downloads above 256 KB/s: US$ 9,99 for 1 mbit/s, US$ 19,99 for 8 mbit/s)
- Email: receiving 49 e-mails free, 1 cent for every additional email. You will be paying for receiving spam as well (the telecoms will never bill you for sending an email, because otherwise they would eliminate spam and lose huge amounts of money). You will be then offered US$ 4,99 option for a spam filter.
- Reading blogs: US$ 0,99 for up to 30 blogs, 49 cents each additional blog access
- Online newspapers: US$ 0,99 for the telecommunication company plus provider’s fees (fees will work neatly because once users have to pay for little pieces and types of content, the billing capabilities of internet providers will be comprehensively extended and able to bill users on single-page-basis)
- Instant messengers: 1 cent/message (both incoming and outgoing)
- Ping under 50 ms for online games: US$ 5,99/month
- Own Facebook page: US$ 0,99/month. Every Google search: 1 cent. And so on.
- Many more….
In order to ensure “fair and orderly controlled communication”, the central nodes will be connected to the central intelligence agency computers who, of course, will also make “the communication safe and secure”. You know what that means don’t you.

You think I’m paranoid? Well then tell me what in the world could stop it from happening?

Modern media: how to make two stories out of one

2010-12-19T14:17:00.003+01:00

Modern media: how make two stories out of one

The dress code recently introduced by the Swiss bank UBS triggered many headlines. Nothing extraordinary about it. But, at least in the German media, I have noticed an interesting thing: journalists make two stories out of one piece of news. It works roundabout like this:

Write about something as if it was a horrible, laughable, or otherwise negative thing.
After 1-2 days, write about the previously published headline wondering why on earth the original thing was supposed to be so horrible, laughable, or otherwise negative?

In the recent case, one journalist was wondering how dumb UBS appears to demand such a detailed dress code. Shortly thereafter, another journalist was wondering about people wondering about the dress code, saying that UBS was a professional institution and had actually not made itself look stupid at all.

If applied cleverly, this strategy can double the journalistic output thus boost the income of the involved journalists.

Of course, it only works if there are two different persons passing the ball to each other. How cool is that!

Pathetic: TechCrunch censors access from abroad

2010-12-07T06:32:00.006+01:00

TechCrunch seems to censor access from abroad when it comes to commenting certain content. For example the post "Video Review: 2011 Cadillac CTS-V Coupe. The BMW M3 Killer." on CrunchGear (http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/12/06/video-review-2011-cadillac-cts-v-coupe) loads nicely from Germany, but no comments are possible (they are just quietly ignored), and when using an anonymous US proxy, the access is denied altogether (but only to certain very articles, like the aforementioned one).

I have tried it using different browsers (Opera, Firefox, IE) and different computers using different network providers (in Germany) and over a period of 12 hours. It cannot be a coincidence.

Is it because AOL has changed the policy? Is it because TechCrunch was paid for that care review by General Motors and promised that no negative comments would be published? (My attempted comments were not negative though). Do US auto makers fear their foreign competition so much that they decided they have to take such pathetic measures?

You should be ashamed of yourself, dear TC friends. You are selling your butts for a very low price.

TechCrunch: 63% ignore the ads

2010-12-03T17:27:00.006+01:00

Recently, Robin Wauters wrote on Tech "Survey Says: 63% Of You Ignore The Ads On This Very Page" (that is, on the TechCrunch page). Even worse: it is only 63% of visitors who are not using ad blockers (which is a fast growing figure).

It might take some time until a critical mass of investors finally realizes that the ad-driven business is drying out. The "free, paid by ads" idea was good ten years ago when most people were internet newbies and in fact clicked on ads. The young audience is educated to ignore ads; one has to be quite dumb to believe anything that is written on a banner (or whatever that is in particular cases).

Google has noticed this, and that their ad business, while still the core cash cow, is slowly dying away. That is why Google has become so despaired that they buy obscure companies for billions of dollars.

The same thing is eventually going to happen to "social advertisement". People are not as stupid as most marketing experts assume them to be, and will learn to ignore "recommendations from friends".

We have a fundamental problem with commercial ads (http://bit.ly/gnIGId). I wonder what the next idea will be.

Cloud computing and other ancient ideas

2010-11-21T10:01:00.010+01:00

Remember the beginnings of Cloud Computing? No, it's not about Amazon or Google. The founders of those companies needed a pack of diapers a day and a baby-soother when it begun. Think of big mainframes. Back then, in the 70ies, they wanted to offer us text-based terminals via phone line for a fee. They failed. In the nineties, closed-circuit systems took off: AOL, Compuserve, Minitel, BTX. They failed. These days, they want to give us "care-free" e-mail, CRM applications, etc. - for a fee (or in exchange for exposing ourselves to brain-damaging online ads). Guess what: they will fail.

Just like in the world of trade, hypes come and go and every time we hear "this time it is different!". Nothing is really different, because these things are based on human activities, and the nature of a human being has not changed for tens of thousands of years. It won't change this time, either.

Cloud computing will fail for data security reasons. People (mostly open source junkies) are moaning over security holes in Windows. Dear friends, any cloud has many times more security holes than Windows 3.0.1. We are already beginning to see it. Google was hacked by the Chinese hackers. Google has been hacked by an Armenian hacker. Google can be hacked by anybody with enough understanding of Google's infrastructure. There are already numerous failures of the so-called cloud, but we only learn about a small fraction of them.

Unfortunately, we will never learn about most of the cloud hacks because the cloud providers do not need to openly provide patches to their customers–they fix one hole after another quietly in their clouds. In order to protect the sales strategy, cloud providers will keep quiet every time (unless the incident becomes too obvious and publicly known).

It doesn't make it any better, though. While Windows has long been criticized for creating a homogeneous environment that exposes a large number of users to any hack at once, it is nothing compared to the security problems that cloud computing is exposing us to. It is useless to promise "thorough security measures" and "secure data protection" etc. The recent leak of naked pictures from TSA proves the complete uselessness of such claims.

Think of it: if they can hack gazillion-dollar-companies like Google, and top-priority government agencies like the TSA have no control over their data, than you shouldn't give them your data. Do not trust and don't bother to verify.

I am looking to reading more of those funny headlines.

What the recent RIM vs. UAE episode tells us about data privacy

2010-10-10T12:21:00.004+02:00

I was astonished to learn that several countries – India, UAE, and some others – recently threatened to ban the Blackberry email communication service unless RIM allows for wiretapping it. RIM’s Blackberry is well-known and highly valued by corporate users for its superior data encryption. It is obviously so good that even large intelligence agencies with virtually unlimited founding are unable to hack into Blackberry emails.

The encryption applies to the communication path between the handheld and the Blackberry Enterprise Server and the associated email server, usually located in corporate server farms (for enterprise solution) or in one of RIMs data centers (in UK and Canada, for the low-end solution).

I was pondering for some time struggling to understand my own surprise (you know that feeling?) and finally I got the clue. Consider the alternatives to RIMs leading instant email service: the regular POP/SMTP mail (e.g. Apples iPhone), webmail, Facebook messages, instant messengers like Skype and ICQ, and many others. Using a dedicated device (like an Android phone) or just a web browser on any handheld device, all of those options are readily available to any potential terrorist out there. Why are the aforementioned countries not threatening to ban those services, too?

The only logical answer must be that those services are already altogether systematically compromised. To me, the RIM affair reveals the fact that literally *every* message is being routed through one or even several intelligence agencies. Not a single communication protocol is safe anymore.

Recently, RIM and UAE agreed to continue Blackberry services in the Emirates. The only logical conclusion is that Blackberry is now in the same wiretapping pool as all other communication services. Say bye-bye to Blackberry security–it's gone for good.

If you are not frightened yet, you should see “The Life of Others”.

HP desperados want to buy SAP

2010-10-02T22:39:00.005+02:00

Read it slowly and aloud: Leo Apotheker, fired from SAP, has been hired by HP as its new CEO. How does it sound? At first, It sounds like an utterly stupid decision. Why would an American company hire an aging German manager who was fired for lack of leadership competence?

The only explanation is that HP is trying to stop its frustrating decline by acquiring SAP and regaining some ground in the IT arena. IBM, Microsoft and Oracle seem to have left HP way behind – and for a reason. HP has totally lost its edge. For an IT pro like me, it is unclear why HP should be a good deal for anyone. Price? Nay… Brand? For printers, maybe. Sexiness? You are kidding me. Successful partner? Try again.

What will HP do with SAP anyways? HP is not a software company. HP cannot sell software at all – that is a common attribute they share with their rival IBM. HP surely will want to improve its image as a service provider. That means that HP must make SAP an SaaS offering.

That means they will offer something I call - for lack of a better term - "Cloud SAP".

But will Cloud SAP be an attractive offering to corporate customers? I somewhat doubt it. Big corporations have massive sensitive data that should not be exposed to the even most remote chance of landing on some Chinese hacker’s PC. Cloud computing will never fully solve its security dilemma. My opinion is that, if you can hack Google, you can hack anyone.

We will most probably witness a long down-slide of Cloud SAP under HP reign. The new HP way (down), if you will…

Daimler sends IBM some bitter Notes

2010-09-30T15:51:00.004+02:00

The German car maker Daimler has just decided (here a German news headline) to move away from IBM's Notes to Microsoft's Exchange. It means 180,000 licenses less for IBM and more for Microsoft, and a prestigious victory for Steve Ballmer.

Daimler spokesperson says that their decision was made based on a lower TCO. I believe that it is a diplomatic excuse.

Have you ever used Lotus Notes? I have used it, many times, in various organizations. It has always been a struggle. Notes is a dying dinosaur of the IT industry. IBM has never been a software company, and they never know how to sell this stuff. They actually never wanted to. IBM is a in hardware and warm-body (read: consultancy) business, and nothing else.

In any case, my point is that this is a sure sign of Notes sliding into oblivion. It will be in good company: Lotus Organizer, Smart Office, Lotus 1-2-3, Rational Suite, OS/2 - they are already there waiting.

Fare well, Notes! Don't call me, I'll call you!

OpenOffice, Design by a Committee

2010-09-28T10:30:00.005+02:00

OpenOffice development community does not want to deal with Larry Ellison. For whatever reason (you tell me???)

From now on, OpenOffice will be developed by a committee.

All I know is that a camel is a horse designed by a committee. Actually, a camel would be a wonderful logo for the new OpenOffice.org :-)

I am looking forward to more news from the OpenOffice.org committe. It is going to be entertaining. Microsoft must be throwing a big party these days.

Why online games must offer a generous 0$ option

2010-09-12T21:05:00.007+02:00

The on-line version of EA's Need for Speed is now free. Of course, not everything in it is free of charge. Better options, e.g. faster cars and others goodies can be purchased for real buck.

Another popular on-line game, Lord of the Rings, is now free, too. Same story here: it is not completely free; better options and items must be purchased.

What is behind this new trend? There has been a problem with selling services for more than a decade now. People have got used to getting stuff for free and are very reluctant when it comes to buying anything they can't actually grab with their very hands. Services, software, music–these are products suffering because of the "for-free" mentality that has been steady gaining popularity, and there are no signs that this trend will turn around any time soon.

Providers of online services have realized that people just won't pay even one cent for anything as long as they don't feel that they desperately need it. Until then, stuff in question has to be free of charge.

Interestingly, giving things away for free at the beginning and then mercilessly charging high prices later is a strategy of drug dealers. You may have your first heroine shot or cocaine blow for free. However, as soon as you get addicted, your last shirt belongs to the dealer.

Online gaming has highly addictive potential that their vendors are very well aware of. These days, you can use fMRI brain scanners to exactly asses the point at which an average player starts feeling that irresistible urge to come back for more. It is actually possible to MEASURE the amount of stuff you have to give away for free to reach the "buying" level. I am pretty sure that EA and others do that already systematically (they would be pretty naive if they wouldn't).

Dopamine addiction is what those "for-free" offerings are all about. I think this issue deserves more attention.

Another f*cking bus!!!

2010-09-01T08:15:00.006+02:00

This is what I saw on a German highway this morning:

I guess you will never see something like that on American highways. Hopefully it means luck! (could use it today)

It's official: online advertisement does not work

2010-08-31T12:13:00.009+02:00

Let's face it: Traditional advertisement does not work anymore. It worked decades ago, but we have changed (get a copy of Martin Lindstrom’s book “Buyology” for easy reading on this issue). Neural marketing studies show that we do not remember ads at all. We ignore product placements. We just don’t care.

My own observations confirm these findings. I think it is even worse: we in fact consciously don’t WANT to care. We actively want to ignore ads as soon as we smell them from far away. That is why Google will be getting in real trouble. Google has noticed the shift in our behavior and has been trying to refocus for some time already. However, Google has failed at all attempts to get into social networks and transform Google into social network advertisement company. The only exception is YouTube, but it is not really a social network.

People do not like Google ads, either. I use ad killer add-on in my Firefox browser, and every time I happen to use a different, unprotected browser and see the number of ads everywhere, I keep thinking how nice it is to live without all that ad crap.

Harvesting data to "improve" advertisement effectiveness is also just phony. The whole “targeting” idea means that–when appropriate data has been collected–right persons will be exposed to right ads. Wrong!

THERE ARE NO RIGHT PERSONS TO BE EXPOSED TO ONLINE ADS

That is, except some brainless individuals, of course. The moment I see a logo or anything that seems to be remotely associated with advertisement, I immediately deactivate my senses. My logic is simple: If someone advertises a product, than it means:

the product will be expensive (advertisement is insanely expensive these days,
- or/and -
the product is likely to be lame.

While the former point is obvious, the later needs more explanation. Just listen to your guts: how do good products actually sell? Well, they sell best through word-of-mouth recommendations. If something is really good and worth buying, we will.

If one person likes a product, tomorrow two more will know and like it, the next day four more, etc. Assume, just for the sake of the argument, every new customer show the products to two new buyers who then head straight for the store and buy the product in question. We will even be quite conservative and assume that every customer only recommends that new product once in his/her lifetime. This generates the following series:

This generates the following chart:

After only 20 days, more than two million customers have bought the new product–without ANY advertisement expenses.

I am pretty sure that all modern successful products, like Apple’s devices or Blackberry in the past, did not spread by advertisement but were bought because of their superior usability and outstanding designs.

In short, good products do not actually need expensive marketing. It is correct to immediately doubt the product quality if you see an intense advertisement campaign on the TV or banners on the net.

If I had Google stock, I would sell now.

Net neutrality? What net neutrality?!

2010-08-28T19:48:00.008+02:00

There is no reason to argue anymore about net neutrality. Why? Because it has been screwed up long time ago.

I still remember that–really, loooong time ago–any internet service could be used by virtually anyone on the globe.

Not anymore. Video on demand delivers a nice example how internet has been screwed up beyond repair. I am currently located in Germany, and I would really like to watch US movies. Just for my entertainment.

Easy, eh? Go to Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/gp/video/ontv/start, to be exact) and try to watch a movie. You get to see this:

YOU MUST BE KIDDING!

The net is now partitioned along country borders and license agreements.

THAT IS LAME

I feel like a little stupid white mouse in the lab. Some boneheads are laughing their heads off watching me try to access anything sensible. The only stuff we can access globally are moronic brainless pages like Facebook.

This is not the internet I want to have. I want to have a free, unrestricted internet access for ALL.

Am I alone in the woods?

STOP SCREWING UP THE INTERNET!

Future of personal computing, predicted

2010-08-22T14:54:00.027+02:00

Now that we have those nice handheld devices like smartphones and tablets, what is going to happen to PCs? Are they going to become extinct?

Here is how I see it: the PCs won't die. We will see many interesting incidents in the "cloud" proving that giving our data away is not as good of an idea as some of us have been recently thinking.

Instead, in 10-15 years, our handheld devices will become extremely powerful. Everyone will have 10-20 terabyte of memory on their little phones. They will carry all our data and make PCs obsolete, but not by destroying the concept, but rather by literally replacing them. The PC will live inside our little mobile devices. All of our applications and data will simply stick in our pockets.

Our handhelds will contain all software and data we will need for our daily work and all home activities. They will also contain all our credit card data, personal identification codes, etc. No more piles of plastic cards in our wallets.

Actually, there will be no more wallets at all. Their contents, as well as our home and car keys will all be stored digitally on our handhelds.

The data on the handheld, of course, will be securely encrypted. I do not believe in cloud computing as a total replacement for personal storage. Instead, less critical data will be stored there, such as computer game related data or music files. All of our critical data will be kept on handhelds.

When we sit down at our desks, we will simply plug the handheld into our docking stations. I do not believe that the wireless technology will ever be able to replace wired connections, since our applications and their data tend to outgrow the capacity of wireless connections, no matter how fast the wireless protocol becomes. There are also several other issues related to constantly using wireless connections, such as data security and environmental safety concerns.

Our workplace will look like this:

The docking station will not be as primitive as it often is the case today. It will be a complementary hardware, containing additional processing capacity, graphical and sound interfaces, and other things that will never be powerful enough in a handheld. Our demands are always rising faster than the miniaturization of semiconductors is progressing. When plugged in, the little handheld will connect with the "mothership" and become a powerful personal computer with all capabilities we might wish for.

Similarly, when home, we will plug our handhelds into our entertainment system and enjoy the computer gaming power of our home docking stations. As to voice recognition, I don't think that it will ever replace our finger interfaces. We need our working space to be quiet, even if it is a home office.

Other human-machine-interfaces will not change substantially. Instead of a simple keyboard, we will have a touch-sensitive surface that will emulate touch screen or a keyboard, depending on our needs. We will still have computer displays, but larger and thinner ones, with an option to make them completely transparent so an office full of computers and displays can be turned into a meeting space at a push of a button. The bottom line is that we will still need a similar set of input devices as we need today.

Migrating our data to a new handheld will be simple. Just plug two of them simultaneously into a docking station and press "migrate" button. After a few seconds, you're good to go.

There will never be a need to own two computers anymore. Also, the recently hyped tablets, such as the iPad, will become dumb screens that are only capable of browsing the internet. However, they will have interfaces to our handhelds, and, when connected, they will become just larger handheld displays. Besides, they will be able to emulate keyboards (just like the touchpad on our desks) and finally make it possible to use our personal computers (handhelds, in this case) to their fullest anywhere, as long as we have our handheld and the screen in our backpack.

A brave new world. There will be multiple issues about our handhelds, from security to reliability (especially in high-humidity environments). The privacy issue will be huge, since any computer device, regardless its superior encryption, can be stolen and hacked. However, the likelihood of such event will be much lower than cracking a cloud environment of an entire globe, which is already happening all the time. Thus, the mobile super-handheld will remain the only acceptable alternative. Personally, I look forward to it. It is going to be fun!

Annoying blabbermouths

2010-08-15T19:07:00.004+02:00

Just to make things clear: I have not changed my views on Twitter. I still think that they have no sustainable business model and will eventually go out of business (by getting bought by some other confused internet company, most probably Google).

However, one thing is good about Twitter: 140 characters put a very effective limit to the jabbering inclination of many fellow netizens. Now they have to make their story short.

The bad news is that they have found a workaround: they simply twit every other minute. Jeeez...

By the way: there are some CEOs and other guys who are supposed to be really busy individuals. Accessing the Twitter account that often goes against everything I have learned about effectiveness in business. It may not be the best self-advertisement in case they need another job–or am I just plain oldfashioned again?

Freedom of thinking

2010-08-06T22:57:00.002+02:00

Guy A meets guy B.

A: I've got the new iPhone! Have you got yours, too?
B: No, I can think for myself.

Twitter voted worthless

2010-07-27T16:11:00.002+02:00

Have you twittered today? It doesn't matter. No one would give even one cent to use this very simple service. I know, I have been bashing Twitter for some time, so my opinion is not in the slightest way objective. I actually do not care, I just 'feel' I'm right: Twitter will go away.

Because no one wants to pay for it, as the Center for the Digital Future at the University of Southern California Annenberg School For Communication And Journalism shows in its study.

Let me summarize:

no one is wanting to pay for Twitter
everybody rejects advertisement on Twitter

That is a very simple equation, isn't it?

Germany's stealth strategy to fix the pension system?

2010-07-09T07:00:00.005+02:00

In his recent article (very interesting!) George Soros talks about Germany and its raising desire to reintroduce Deutschmark, the original currency that was replaced by the euro in 2001.

What would be the consequences if it actually happened? He says:

The Deutschmark would go through the roof and the euro would fall through the floor. This would indeed help the adjustment process of the other countries but Germany would find out how painful it can be to have an overvalued currency. Its trade balance would turn negative and there would be widespread unemployment. German banks would suffer severe exchange rate losses and require large injections of public funds. But the government would find it politically more acceptable to rescue German banks than Greece or Spain. And there would be other compensations: pensioners could retire to Spain and live like kings, helping Spanish real estate to recover.

Now think of it. The German elites are increasingly suffering from the lack of young Germans who are supposed to pay their pensions. This problem is virtually ufixable. To fix it, Germany would have not only to allow, but to actively organize a massive immigration of young, skilled workers from all over the world to Germany. Knowing the nature of Germany as a closed society, which is in fact what all of the European countries are, one obviously has to realize that this is never going to happen.

No one is more aware of it than the German ruling elites. Making Spain a cheap country for German pensioners would be a kingly gift for them. Germany would not import young people - it would export pensioners instead. Even if their pensions would nominally fall because of the aging German population, the purchasing power of Deutschmark would offset it by far and thus make German pensioners who live in Spain richer.

Sounds like a typical German plan to me: quiet, well-organized, and reckless. How would other European countries react?

What happened to Marratech?

2010-07-05T19:18:00.002+02:00

In 2007, Google acquired the video conferencing software from the Swedish firm Marratech. However, there has been no signs whatsoever on what Google is doing with the purchased technology. What might be the reason for it?

antitrust problems (Google taking over the entire Internet–some are really worried)
the technology was just not what Google thought it was
Google has other plans

Another reason could be a problem with Cisco. WebEx belongs to Cisco. I pay 50 US$ per month for WebEx, and it does not even include VoIP (one has to pay extra fee for that!). I think Google is far more dependent on Cisco's router technology than they would like to admit. Unfortunately for Google, Cisco purchased WebEx in 2007, too, and thus made Google's investment effectively worthless. What an interesting business game.

Does anyone read blogs at all?

2010-07-02T07:05:00.003+02:00

I wonder if anyone really reads blogs these days. It appears that the blog era has gone by and is never coming back. My impression is that people just stopped reading long articles. .I guess we have an educational problem, young people are not able to read longer texts or focus on any issue for more than one minute. We live in an SMS world where 160 characters ought to be enough for anyone.
I am not yet sure about the implications of this development. It may be actually just a symptom of something much bigger and scarier. Like, everybody wants to 'sell' themselves, but no one will 'buy'. In other words, we live in a world where everybody is talking but no one is listening.

Web 3.0 - the Seamless Internet

2010-01-16T15:05:00.007+01:00

The age of browser-based applications is coming to an end. Browsers have become a severe security problem. It is not only Internet Explorer's problem. The most popular alternative, Mozilla's Firefox, is becoming attractive for hackers because of its increasing popularity. Alternative browsers like Opera or Chrome offer little comfort for mainstream users who prefer Internet Explorer or Firefox for their daily internet surfing sessions.

There are other issues with browser-based applications. Browser compatibility has always been a major obstacle. Different interpretations of HTML standards, proprietary extensions, differences in performance and confusing user interfaces - the world of web browsers is--and will probably continue to be--a hopeless battlefield.

I am convinced that the vision of browser based applications has failed. Browser technology was never meant to support real applications. It becomes more and more obvious that, regardless countless attempts to improve the situation, the idea that one day, everything will run in a browser, is indeed a dead end.

Nothing will ever replace the feeling of a "real", native application. IT giants like Steve Jobs and even Google seem to realize it. The number of native applications like iTunes, Kindle, iPhone apps, Android apps, etc. will continue to grow while the market for pure browser-based applications will stagnate and eventually become a niche.

The next generation of web-enabled applications, the Web 3.0, the Seamless Internet is imminent. Real applications will be interconnected via internet and still offer that nice cozy feeling of a fully-fledged GUI application with "real-time" responsiveness we all love so much.

Once again, just like decades ago, pure terminal based solutions--which browser based applications really are--will fail (just like dumb ASCII terminals did). Interestingly, this trend has not become a hype yet, but my bet is that this will be the next wave in Silicon Valley.

Nexus One failure - Google is listening

2010-01-11T19:45:00.002+01:00

There are rumors in the news that the next release of Nexus One will have a full keyboard. Hallelujah.

Listen, Google, we will trade our Crackberries for your phone when you deliver the following features:

a full physical keyboard,
a full, real-time, bi-directional Exchange synchronization, including e-mail, calendar, contacts, notes, and todo's,
secure data transmission between the phone and the Exchange server,
stable 3G connection.

Honestly, the Blackberry tariffs from T-Mobile (and some others) are rip-offs. In Germany, you pay 15 EUR (about 20 US$) for 5 MB e-mail traffic. It is similar in other countries. It is frustrating and the main reason why I would consider switching to Nexus One (and the Blackberry browser sucks, too).

I am looking forward to the next Nexus One device. Blackberry might become instantly extinct if Google implements the aforementioned features.

Google's Nexus One dissapoints - but Google's strategy opens an interesting perspective

2010-01-09T08:36:00.006+01:00

I was shocked when I discovered that the first Google-branded HTC-phone does not have a physical keyboard. Honestly: I am not a follower-type of a person, so I don't use the iPhone, but it sure does dance in circles around Nexus One.

More interesting, however, is the fact that Google has started a new era for cellular network companies who struggle to create a killer app to add value to their otherwise quite prosaic services: voice minutes and data packages. Telecommunication companies have been wasting billions in an attempt to conceal this fact by creating confusing mobile phone plans and branding them as if they were 'products' (which they exactly are not - they are just different ways to bill more for the same thing: voice calls and data packages). I think the time has come to show that this bogus strategy has failed. If Google manages to improve its phone (which is very likely) and sell it directly--and not through cell phone companies--to the customers, which is less likely but still can work out, then the telecommunication world could severely change. For us, the ordinary network users, it could actually be quite good news, because the providers may (hopefully) decide to focus on their core business (again: simply voice and data transmission) instead of trying to fool us with plans that are too complex to understand.

Where are the Global Cooling headlines?

2010-01-09T08:32:00.003+01:00

We are going through one of the toughest and coldest winters for decades. In U.K., it is the worst winter for 30 years.

Yet no headlines are popping up about how this winter proves that global warming is a hoax (not necessarily a statement of mine, just an observation). If we had an exceptionally warm winter, we would be reading each and every day in all media about how it proves that the global warming is accelerating and we must kill 90% of the world population, get back to caves and live in trees.

Instead, it only proves how biased our media are.

A Possible Google’s Nexus One Strategy

2009-12-16T18:44:00.002+01:00

The recent announcement of the Google-branded HTC “Nexus One” GSM handset prompts the question about how Google plans to motivate us to buy it at its high, unsubsidized (unlocked) price. The currently common price model used by telecommunication providers reduces the prices of mobile phones while making the customers pay more expensive plans over two years (typically).

I think that, even if Nexus One turns out to really as incredibly sexy as anticipated, most potential customers will refuse to pay 400 EUR or 600 US$ (hopeless geeks not counted). I also think that Google sees this problem and has already developed a strategy to get around it.

A promising solution would be to simply copy the common subsidizing strategy. The actual business of a telecommunication company is not selling phones – it is selling phone calls. Similarly, Google’s business is not selling phones, either – it is selling online advertisement. Thus, Google may offer Nexus One at a symbolic price (like 1 US$ or 1 EUR) while requiring the buyers to sign two-year advertisement subscription contracts.

Such subscription contract would include things like:

A compulsory, personalized Google account and an obligation to use only this account for all personal email.
Accepting targeted email injections in the email and SMS in-boxes.
Accepting three seconds of spoken advertisement after (or even before) each call. The time slot after the call is more interesting because--thanks to Google’s advanced voice recognition technology--the customer would receive an ad that would perfectly target the content of the phone conversation. A real-time advertising platform if you like. The customer would be bound to listening to the ad and confirming its full reception with a single spoken “yes” after the ad, just before hanging up.
Accepting targeted voice messages on the voice mail box.
Agreement to personalized data collection on Google’s server, free for advertisement companies signed-up with Google.

I think Google may be very successful with such strategy, because most users do not understand the actual risk of the weak privacy policy. They would accept this abstract hazard just to have a nice Google handset.

Besides, if you don't want to sell your soul to the search engine, you are still free to pay the full price and remain anonymous.

The Climate Change Rip-Off

2009-12-12T08:43:00.004+01:00

I can't believe what is happening in Copenhagen. Apparently, many "poor" countries expect the "rich" countries to give them money for "environmental-friendly measures". The craze over the "global warming" prompted the idea that "rich" countries should give money to "poor" countries, since the former have created the alleged climate catastrophe and should now be made responsible for it.

China’s vice-foreign minister He Yafei said: “I was shocked to read the US negotiator’s comments. Developed countries need to deliver” and that China was not asking for a donation but for what developed countries had a legal and moral obligation to deliver, based on their history of high emissions.

You must be kidding, Mr. He Yafei. How is China a poor country anyways? Compare the Shanghai skyline to the tiny one in Frankfurt, Germany. Just about every Chinese large city consumes more resources and energy than an average European city. Chinese cheap-labor strategy undercuts the Western wealth at a mind-boggling pace. China has one of the most expensive and largest armies on the Globe. China wants to send rockets to the moon. China is overtaking Germany in terms of global trade, and will soon overtake the EU and US if it continues growing at the current speed. Poor China!!!

What that Chinese guy is saying is more or less an attempt to scam us into giving even more money to the Chinese industry that, in turn, will deliver cheap solar cells to the Western countries thus ruining the solar cell industry there. That is not what I consider a win-win business. The Copenhagen summit should be terminated immediately, because it is about to become another factor only accelerating the decline of the Western world - which is what most Chinese probably want anyways.

I wonder if we have lost our survival instinct. Because it sure looks like we have.

The Age of Weak Leaders – Bowing Before the Dictators

2009-12-03T12:45:00.026+01:00

European leaders have had this problem for a long time already: weak attitude. For example, the former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder bowed before the Russians to such extend that he even let them put him on the employees list of Gazprom, a huge, Russian state-owned oligarch organization.

France’s Sarkozy, Germany’s Merkel, U.K.’s Brown and Italy’s Berlusconi – they are all strong politicians but very weak leaders. Nothing is accomplished in their countries except tax hikes and ever more bizarre laws, such as the EU-wide ban of conventional light bulbs. They are busy accumulating personal wealth and influence, while doing nothing to improve the condition of the voters who gave them their ballots.

Since Barack Obama took over the Oval Office, the U.S. Americans joined the ranks of the nations with weak leaders. The recent affront of Obama by Russian politicians (no one wanted to shake Obama’s hand) is just one example of how bad is Obama’s reputation in the world. The allegedly fake letter from a school teacher to Obama points it out in a very clear way (I have attached the letter at the end of this posting).

As European, I am disappointed with Mr. Obama, too. Regardless of what anyone says, the Western countries are build upon Christianity/Judaism – he flat-out denies it. He bows before the Russians and kills the rocket defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic – why for Lord's sake? He pays huge money amounts to corrupt CEOs and other dubious individuals – hasn’t he promised to “change” it? He introduces a number of repressive laws (including the new health insurance bill) – the Statue of Liberty should slam him for that. He said he would bring the soldiers back home immediate after entering the Office – nothing of that kind has happened so far. As the letter below states, he bows before dictators – but indeed forgets what America is all about. That is what I call “weak”.

Obama's allegedly high popularity abroad is not worth much. Being a nice guy is not the primary task of the U.S. President. His job is to give his nation confidence, to take care about U.S. interests, to show strength and not just vain friendliness, to demonstrate decision-making ability and not just some teleprompter rhetoric, to lead by example and not by sword (unless really inevitable). It is all about the right policy. But what does Obama stand for anyways? He won the race for the President’s office just by promising anything people wanted to hear. No wonder Russians and other leaders despise and humiliate him.

It appears to be a global trend within the Western world. Look at the EU. The European Union is now supposed to be a super state, but whom do they elect for the first EU President? The no-name Rompuy. While he may be a capable economist, politics is not only about skills - it has something to do with personality, and Mr. Rompuy obviously has never had the opportunity to expose it, even if he might have it.

Most European politicians have nothing to say, but they keep talking nonetheless. They ignore their cultures, replacing them with the idiotic, generic political correctness. It just feels totally wrong, and I get despaired every time I think about it because I do not see any way out of this misery.

It may seem farfetched, but I believe you can see the character of a person in the person’s face. Look at them:

Hint: the one you absolutely cannot figure out is Mr Rompuy, the first EU president.

Is this the elite of elites we have been dreaming of? In other words: would you buy a used car from these people? Or more seriously: do you really believe that they have the balls (sorry Ms Merkel) to fight all the evil bin Ladens out there?

Here is the aforementioned letter:
-----------><-----------

*April 17, 2009*

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington , DC 20500

Mr. Obama:

I have had it with you and your administration, sir. Your conduct on your recent trip overseas has convinced me that you are not an adequate representative of the United States of America collectively or of me personally.

You are so obsessed with appeasing the Europeans and the Muslim world that you have abdicated the responsibilities of the President of the United States of America . You are responsible to the citizens of the United States . You are not responsible to the peoples of any other country on earth.

I personally resent that you go around the world apologizing for the United States telling Europeans that we are arrogant and do not care about their status in the world. Sir, what do you think the First World War and the Second World War were all about if not the consideration of the peoples of Europe ? Are you brain dead? What do you think the Marshall Plan was all about? Do you not understand or know the history of the 20th century?

Where do you get off telling a Muslim country that the United States does not consider itself a Christian country? Have you not read the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution of the United States? This country was founded on Judeo-Christian ethics and the principles governing this country, at least until you came along, come directly from this heritage. Do you not understand this?

Your bowing to the king of Saudi Arabia is an affront to all Americans. Our President does not bow down to anyone, let alone the king of Saudi Arabia.... You didn't show Great Britain, our best and one of our oldest allies, the respect they deserve yet you bow down to the king of Saudi Arabia ..

How dare you, sir! How dare you! You can't find the time to visit the graves of our greatest generation because you don't want to offend the Germans but make time to visit a mosque in Turkey ...... You offended our dead and every veteran when you give the Germans more respect than the people who saved the German people from themselves. What's the matter with you? I am convinced that you and the members of your administration have the historical and intellectual depth of a mud puddle and should be ashamed of yourselves, all of you..

You are so self-righteously offended by the big bankers and the American automobile manufacturers yet do nothing about the real thieves in this situation, Mr. Dodd, Mr. Frank, Franklin Raines, Jamie Gorelic, the Fannie Mae bonuses, and the Freddie Mac bonuses. What do you intend to do about them? Anything? I seriously doubt it.

What about the U.S. House members passing out $9.1 million in bonuses to their staff members on top of the $2.5 million in automatic pay raises that lawmakers gave themselves? I understand the average House aide got a 17% bonus. I took a 5% cut in my pay to save jobs with my employer. You haven't said anything about that. Who authorized that? I surely didn't! Executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be receiving $210 million in bonuses over an eighteen-month period, that's $45 million more than the AIG bonuses. In fact, Fannie and Freddie executives have already been awarded $51 million not a bad take. Who authorized that and why haven't you expressed your outrage at this group who are largely responsible for the economic mess we have right now?

I resent that you take me and my fellow citizens as brain-dead and not caring about what you idiots do. We are watching what you are doing and we are getting increasingly fed up with all of you.

I also want you to know that I personally find just about everything you do and say to be offensive to every one of my sensibilities. I promise you that I will work tirelessly to see that you do not get a chance to spend two terms destroying my beautiful country.

Sincerely,

Every real American

Ms Kathleen Lyday
Fourth Grade Teacher
Grandview Elementary School
11470 Hwy . C
Hillsboro, MO 63050
(636) 944-3291 Phone
(636) 944-3870 Fax

-----------><-----------

Regardless of who is the true originator of this letter (Ms Lyday in fact exists but reportedly denied ever writing this letter), the opinions are telling.

Maybe there is hope. Maybe even little things like chain-letter actions can change the way we think about our "Western" societies. Because, my friends, it's about time that it finally happens. Henry Kissinger once mocked Europe asking "If I want to call Europe, who do I call?" For the recent 50 years, it was at least clear what number to dial to talk to the "West". I am not sure if this is still the case.

Web 2.0 falters

2009-12-02T17:09:00.008+01:00

Web 2.0 is seemingly running out of steam, and I have always felt it would happen sooner or later. For example, look at is the Wikipedia dilemma discussed recently in the Wall Street Journal and consider this picture:

So many funny ideas have evolved around the crowdsourcing and social media trend that it appears clear: thousand flies cannot err.

Well, they can. I think it is logical. I am an old businessman all right. So maybe I am a little prejudiced regarding certain ideas, but I have to say this: there is indeed no such thing as a free lunch. It is only free if someone can afford paying for it and being nice to others who will eat it. However, the global crisis takes its toll on the pastime altruists. If you had lost your job and have been trying to get a new one for months or even years—how will your attitude towards volunteering change? Probably significantly.

I think that this trend will continue. My bet is that the “web 2.0” ideology of volunteer contribution will continue diminishing and a number of companies that built their business models on sheer traffic and targeted advertisement will go out of business. The Twitters and Facebooks out there will have to make money soon, and this will have to be done using intrusive advertisement (because we are already used to getting everything for free and would never pay for using this stuff). It is not clear, however, what will come next. I guess it would be premature to assume that paid content is a generally promising alternative. It is more likely that we will have a mixture of old content and paid content, with paid content increasing its market share.

The new domain registration scam

2009-11-30T21:31:00.006+01:00

It starts benign. You receive an Email from some guy from Hong Kong:

"We are a domain name registration center in Hong Kong, mainly dealing with domain name registration and internet intellectual property rights protection. On Nov. 21, 2009 we received a formal application from a company who is applying to register several domains, using “YOURDOMAIN”as the keyword. After investigation,we find that you are the original user of the keyword. Such similar domain cases may involve your trademark and company name,and may cause website confusion and conflicts. For a responsible attitude, we inform you here and ask for your opinion. If you don't mind,we will finish registration for the third company."

"YOURDOMAIN" stands, of course, for your real domain name without ".com".

What would you do? You are probably foolish enough to write back explaining that your keyword (which is usually also your company's legal name) is your trade mark and you will ask to not use it as a domain. So did I.

What came back is this:

"Many thanks for your email regarding the domain.
As you may be know that domain names were open to be registered all over the world, he who registers first will get it first. Anyone or entity could register if it is still available.
Now, the company is applying the following domain names and internet keywords:

Domain names as below:
www.YOURDOMAIN.com.cn
www.YOURDOMAIN.hk
www.YOURDOMAIN.com.au
www.YOURDOMAIN.com.sg
www.YOURDOMAIN.jp
www.YOURDOMAIN.co.in
www.YOURDOMAIN.asia
Internet keyword as below:
YOURDOMAIN

We just want to confirm whether it would cause some confusion and conflicts to your website, If you think these domains are important to your company, and want to register them for protection, we will send you the application form.

Otherwise‚ we would confirm their application and finish the registration for them.

Please advise. Thanks for your cooperation!

An introduction of Internet Keyword is enclosed for your review.

Best Regards,"

Now you see what the guys are up to. I didn't answer. A few days later the next mail came in:

"Apologize for disturbing, but we would like to confirm whether you have made a decision over the domains and internet keyword mentioned in the previous e-mail. Provided you still need to register them, instead of being applied by other company, an application form will be sent to start the whole operation.

Best Regards,"

Here we go. They will probably register the domain and put some ugly stuff on it. I will have to involve my lawyer and go through all the trouble. We will see what happens next.

So, my good piece of advice is: ignore it or go straight to your lawyer and let him or her cope with the problem.

ChromeOS - you may want it, but you don't need it.

2009-11-22T16:05:00.018+01:00

Here is my take on Google’s recently announced operating system ChromeOS. The main problem with ChromeOS is that Google positions it against MS Windows. I say: don't hold your breath. In my book, ChromeOS has only a very limited potential of becoming a real competitor of MS Windows (and the mighty Penguin).

Security

Google wants us to store all of our data on their servers. As soon as we follow this advice, the data security becomes a huge issue. What if an earthquake destroys some Google’s data centers? Or fire destroys the main server farm? Even if Google were able to restore our data from redundant servers and backups, it may take days and weeks to do so. Enterprises that are highly dependent on their data (aren’t they all?) could be already bankrupt by then, or at least seriously damaged. Can we sue Google in this case? (You bet we cannot.)

Privacy

Google promises us to respect our privacy. Oh, really? Google utilizes our private data, our every step in the internet, swallows every piece of information we use, in order to throw even more and better targeted digital ads at us. Let’s face it: abusing their position as a search engine heavyweight is Google’s actual business model. Just think of it a second or two. Can you spell “trust”?

Oh, by the way: what happens if the Russians (or the Chinese) acquire Google?

Compatibility

ChromeOS will not give us a chance to install anything on our computers. Everything is supposed to be in the “cloud” (Google’s servers). How will I install a new scanner driver then? A new printer? Would Google try to establish some kind of “Unified Google Driver Model”? I don’t think they have the means to do that.

Gaming

How can we play games on some wimpy netbooks with just a browser on it? Google says playing games in a browser will be possible using new, server-based internet services. In fact, there are already start-ups trying to offer exactly that. But I doubt that it works for most of the really interesting games. I do so for several reasons. Many games, like shooters and simulations, require extraordinary hardware resources, such as 2 GHz processor, a lightning-fast graphics chip, and – don’t forget it – a very fast data bus connecting all components (actually, several busses). The computing power of a PC would have to be replaced by a huge server farm. Imagine the epic size of a computing center handling it. For 100,000 gamers playing simultaneously a high-end game like, say, CoD Modern Warfare 4, you will need an equivalent computing power of as many 3 GHz microprocessors paired with the graphics processing capacity of modern NVidia or ATI chips as players are online. Such performance is incredibly energy-consuming. That is why your PC needs a 400 Watts power supply. Even assuming that some redundancies (like network cards etc) can be eliminated on a virtual remote machine, one running game would still require some 50 Watts of electrical power. For 100,000 games, a central "cloud" supercomputer would need energy source handling 5,000,000 Watt (or 5 MW). This is an energy consumption equivalent to that of 2500 households. This is not a walk in the park. However, that kind energy consumption is still feasible; it is the bandwidth that makes things really bad.

Bandwidth

Even if the video and sound data are compressed, Call of Duty gamers would still need hundreds of megabits per second in data speed. My guess is that at least 5 gigabits per second would be required for 50 frames per second and a high-quality sound. And the gamers would need it continuously. So let us say, if in an apartment house with 50 parties 10 people want to play a game (not an abstract idea in student dorms). Their internet provider would have to manage a combined transfer speed of 50 gigabits per second. Even if there are many areas in large cities where such speed is possible, this number game doesn't add up, because games are just one aspect of the bandwidth dilemma. There is a growing variety of bandwidth-greedy applications. The most notable is the increasing number of streaming video services creates even more demand for high-quality broadband connections. My intuition tells me that the internet backbones will not have enough capacity to manage this traffic.

It reminds me of the mobility problem we have with our cars. A hundred years ago, a two-line highway would have been considered a waste. Today, we face daily horrible traffic jams on many ten-line-highways. Traffic jams were not an obvious possibility a hundred years ago. Billions are being invested in extending and maintaining our highways, and it is never enough to actually solve the congestion problem. Even if it may be much easier to double the capacity of a digital network that doubling the number of highway lines, I expect that similar problems develop when people actually start using the internet in the way Google wants us to use it with ChromeOS.

Payment dilemma

Given the huge energy consumption that a centralized server consumes (the cost of it will be getting more critical as the green ideology advances) and the cost of bandwidth, the bill will be huge, and it will have to be footed by the users (plus profit for the service providers). Since these resources are used continuously, the users will have to be billed periodically, say, monthly. I may be biased, but I think that most people really hate subscription models. For the consumer, subscription models are usually a bad deal, because they usually have to accept unpleasant terms and conditions, such as cancellation periods and minimum purchase volumes. These models are being pushed hard by so many companies, and they wouldn’t be selling it so aggressively if they would be saving us money, right?

Ubiquitous advertisement problem

The cloud service providers, of course, hope that they will let Google sell ads to their customers, and that would pay the rent. It may be a reasonable thinking if you are a service provider, but as a consumer, think of the advertisement hell you would have to endure while, say, writing a letter or playing a game on your ChromeOS box. While writing an e-mail to your girlfriend, you would get bombarded – visually and acoustically – with commercials offering golden rings, wedding services, and miraculous penis enlargement medications. You think it sounds ridiculous? Switch on your TV for a minute. How long can you take it? Think of it: decades ago, TV was ad-free, now it is one big advertising machine with a few minutes of real content. Would you accept such a deal if Microsoft gave MS Office for free under the premise that you must accept random advertisements during your productive work?

Functionality gap

Even if rich web applications and Flash games are fun, nothing comes close to a native application running on a PC or a Mac. While web applications become better, desktop application and games improve quickly as well, making the gap between them larger instead of smaller. It includes sophisticated functionality, number crunching, graphics applications, image processing systems, databases, responsive and slick GUIs, etc.

We had it all already

In the eighties I used to work with mainframe computers. We, the ordinary users, had to use simple ASCII terminals to access our data. Everyone had an ID and a password, and everyone was under the administrator’s continuous scrutiny: the process priority, the amount of data transferred, the list of IPs accessed – literally everything was subject to the admin's attention. Despite the huge computing capacity (at least by the measures in those days), we had always performance problems. As they bought better machines, we wanted to run larger programs. That race was hopeless.

I also remember reading papers from big corporations like the IBM and others who predicted that huge computing centers would emerge to offer terminal access for mass audience. It has (luckily) never come true. And then, the PCs arrived. The day we got them, most of us immediately abandoned mainframe computers and started using DOS and Windows. It was a wonderful feeling to be on your own, and I remember this feeling of sudden freedom and independence to this very day. I would never want to give up my PC for some obscure data processing center and a terminal access (be it ChromeOS or whatever else), with some bored admin sticking his nose in my business.

My bet is that most people these days has not made the same experience with closed systems and just do not know the peril. In fact, the "Cloud" is actually a closed system model, despite all the wannabe openness and other promises made by the Cloud providers. It will become obvious one day, and then the pendulum will swing back to personal computing. We actually want to own our data, on our own devices, under our total control. It is our stuff. Owning stuff is a basic instinct, and it will eventually win over the Cloud hype. I give the Cloud five years to live. Being an integral part of it, after an inevitable period of excitement and eventual decline, ChromeOS will become a niche, and that is where it belongs.

The Success Pyramid

2009-11-21T19:03:00.004+01:00

What makes you a successful start-up founder? There are several essential prerequisites, and they are interconnected. Look at the following picture:
Optimism is the basis of everything. If you are depressive, visit your doctor, or get yourself a dog. Otherwise you will never climb to the next level, which is Hardworking Attitude. You will need it to get yourself properly educated. The education is necessary to find the right people who will help you find the right orientation or support you with founding and good advice. The right orientation is essential to develop and promote an interesting and potentially successful Product Idea.

Is it all too obvious? You bet. But it is a long way up, so better start today.

Are Europeans too lazy to bee successful?

2009-11-21T15:47:00.003+01:00

I have found a very interesting article in the TechCrunch blog with an intriguing headline that says “European startups need to work as hard as Valley ones – or forget it.” The anonymous author, an employee of a London-based VC firm, says that Europeans are no match for US Americans when it comes to hard work, at least when it comes to work in a start-up company.

Unfortunately, this is what I have observed, too. Most people over here in Europe seem to be unable to develop the same level of restless attitude that characterizes their counterparts in Silicon Valley. For example, Germans will take their 24 days off (usually more, 24 days are a minimum sanctioned by German law), and there are very, very rare exceptions from this rule. If one takes into account that German workers are still more hardworking than, say, their French or Italian colleagues, then it becomes clear why Europe is called the “Old Continent”.

Java is dying

2009-11-16T23:52:00.002+01:00

Creating an "independent" open source fork of Java was the beginning of the end of the Java language. Java is not a simple hacker script like PHP or still Perl; it is a extraordinarily complex, object oriented, "real" programming language with all nice tricks and pitfalls. While writing a Java compiler is far from the nightmares of C++, it is still a sophisticated task. For all these reasons and some other unmentioned here, it is almost impossible to rewrite the huge Java libraries without sacrificing the full compatibility with the original language, despite all the rigorous testing. A 100% test coverage is an illusion.

What usually happens with open source projects is that the so-called "community" gets angry at the project leader and create a fork. I see no reason why Java would be different and we wouldn't have several versions of the Java SDK soon. Companies like Microsoft will pay for the forks, if nothing else helps.

The large number of incompatible (at least from user's perspective) Linux distributions is the fundamental reason why people rather go for Apple computers instead of dropping their Windows boxes for the penguin. Watch Java being flushed down the same toilette.

What if the boom and bust economy actually works as designed?

2009-11-15T23:47:00.002+01:00

Surely there is a number of factors that are clearly creating booms and busts in our economies. For example, the interest rates set by the Fed and EZB can clearly influence the direction in which the markets are moving.

However, markets are made of human beings. CEOs of large corporations belong to most powerful individuals in this respect. Since the late eighties, the stock options became a key compensation component for CEOs. Considering that stock options work best in volatile markets, wouldn't they motivate the CEOs to promote the booms and busts?

This might sound like a lame conspiracy theory, but it could help explain why we have had so many incredible market crashes in the past 15 years, and they seem to intensify and become more frequent. I think that the typical CEO doesn't care how the Main Street is doing - Wall Street is where he gets his perks.

Even if the actual influence of the CEOs on their employers' well-being may be widely overestimated, they at least have no motivation to stop the roller coaster economy we are experiencing these days. Given the fact that the guys (and few women) all personally know each other, the conspiracy theory becomes not-so-unlikely after all.

Carly for President?

2009-11-10T23:16:00.002+01:00

My bet of the week: Carly Fiorina, the former CEO of HP, will run for US presidency during the next election campaign. She is such a strange looking person with her short haircut (see her site) that anyone would support her just to have fun watching her on the TV. Women would want to elect her anyway (no matter what she stands for), just because of her gender. Some men would elect her because she is almost a masculine leader type.

I bet 10 US$ that she will be the first female US president. Anyone?

What if we have a ... global cooling after all?!

2009-11-09T21:56:00.004+01:00

It is cold out there today. I hate it when it is cold and wet and I think I am not alone with my aversion for cold, rainy and unpleasant weather. It is true that autumn is a wonderful season, but it could use some more sunshine and warmth. It makes you sick as a dog. Isn't it supposed to be worm, actually? Didn't they say we have a global warming?

That makes me wonder. What if we had a global cooling instead of global warming? It is not such a remote possibility as one might think. We had a global cooling (new ice age) hysteria some time ago. It would be literally cool to have it back again.

Imagine what would be happening right now if the scientists, always hungry for fame and resulting research funds, decided to make a u-turn and preach a global cooling once again? They would tax you driving a gas-saving car. Heating with solar cells would become verboten. Al Gore would get arrested and sentenced for life for a ice-cold terrorist plot against the World. Angry crowd would knock down all wind turbines. Hydroelectric plants would get blown up.

We would watch news about polar bears freezing to death and collect money to buy scarfs for the poor giraffes in Africa. A movie "Our Frozen Future" would become a blockbuster, showing that we need to raise taxes on energy-saving light bulbs, otherwise our grandchildren would freeze to death before they are born.

Hmm. Maybe the global warming is a cooler hysteria after all.

Obama makes Merkel look quite silly

2009-11-07T18:38:00.004+01:00

General Motors has surprisingly decided to drop the efforts to sell Opel, the German GM unit. The GM management decided to do so in spite of the very advanced talks between Opel and the buyers, namely the Russians and their Austro-Canadian partner Magna. The German government, namely Ms Merkel, had very early decided to prefer the Russians for this deal, and now it looks like the German government has been left out in the cold.

It is understandable that the Germans are in rage over this situation. From the German perspective, a possible deal with the Russians offers a number of advantages. First, the Russians would get technology and patents that do not belong to a German company (they all belong to GM), and thus it would not harm the German automobile industry. Second, it is good to please the Russians because they hold the German hostage over the natural gas supply.

On the other hand, GM has never managed to fix their traditionally troubled German subsidiary, and no one would ever bet on their ability to do it right this time. In any case, the u-turn of the GM management makes the German Chancellor Merkel look quite silly.

Which doesn't mean that she would ever admit it. Her strategy has always been to keep possibly quiet in the open and do all the political work behind the scenes. It still does not improve the impression of her strange decision making scheme. Besides, although Obama claims to have stayed out of the Opel selling business, it is obvious that he had to approve the new GM policy, because his government practically owns GM and any major strategic decision on GM's future crosses his desk.

If Bush were still the President, the German outrage would be much more fiercely. Luckily for the Americans, Obama is still very popular in Europe. For the time being, the Germans will swallow their anger and wait and see what happens next.

The Invasion of Individualists

2009-10-26T08:33:00.002+01:00

Internet is responsible for a number of changes in the media industry. Not only it did kill the music industry as we knew it, already damaged the film industry in a similar way, and is about to kill the newspapers and book publishers. What’s more, it made life harder for most people who just by a mouse click can see that their lives are indeed as ordinary as they have always feared. Nearly nothing is specific about you except for your genetic code.

This is probably the main reason why individualists conquer the web. No one reads a blog or an article in a (online) newspaper unless it is either identical with what we want to read anyway or it is so different from what we know that we become curious. Extreme opinions drive the blogosphere, and they are increasingly dominant in the mainstream media.

No wonder Americans still dominate the web. A weird, individualistic, vibrant society still arrogant enough to believe that anyone should have the right to say anything. What's more, they often feel that they in fact must speak out for the sake of freedom and democracy. The more extreme an opinion is, the more online users flock to read it. Not so in the EU; over here, non-conformists are eyed with distrust, and most journalists and bloggers just follow the zeitgeist. As long as USA is different from the EU in that matter, the Europeans and Asians will always stay behind the USA in terms of content and clicks. Even if Obama & co. are trying hard to unify the citizens into a spineless mass of yea-sayers, it will take some time. Until then, enjoy.

Correctly predicted: Obama regulates the wages

2009-10-25T11:00:00.004+01:00

As predicted back in November 2008, Obama decided to take over the wages of CEOs in the USA. It may be considered as an exception, but I think it is just a beginning. One can always produce some "good" argument to take the money away from someone, and it is even easier for a government to do that.

The next logical step will be to spread the rule to include all "better paid" jobs. If you think that Obama is rightly punishing the bad big guys, you should think twice. This is a backdoor to raise taxes on the middle class. It will not be done openly - it will be motivated by the fake will of the government to "remove wage injustice". As usual, the government will start the campaign of with a new web page, probably "wagejustice.gov".

The ultimate goal of Obama is to move towards an European model of government-industrial complex that promises an easy way to control the entire country. In Europa, it works wonderfully, and it will work in the USA, too.

UK Unions as stupid as they are supposed to be

2009-10-14T10:40:00.002+02:00

Unite, the Britain's largest Union, wants to struck a deal with Sberbank, the future Russian owner of Opel. In a nutshell, Unite takes government money and passes it on to Sberbank in exchange for supposed guarantees for British jobs at Vauxhall, Opel's subsidiary.

No one has ever made a win-win deal with Russians (except for just one single time in history, when the USA bought Alaska for peanuts). Sberbank will say thank you for the money and then close the British factories anyway. Of course, it will be for important reasons, probably - and by the latest - during the next economic decline.

Unite, of course, will also profit from the deal, showing off as "savior of British working class", and they can afford it because the deal does not cost them a penny. It is the British taxpayer who loses big on this game. It is unbelievable.

New Pattern with Dow Jones: Forget Falls - Fear Springs Instead

2009-10-03T11:17:00.025+02:00

Dow Jones tanks in September-October, so says the common sense wisdom among the traders. However, since 2001, the pattern seems to have changed. It looks like the descent of the Dow Jones Industrial Average often observed in September-October periods has moved to January-March periods.

Let us take a closer look at the DJIA time series of this decade; the red segments mark January-March intervals, the blue segments mark the September-October intervalls:

Generally, both segments appear quite similar. Let us see what the figures tell us:

We can see that 5 times, the presumably "bad" autumn segment actually performed better than the less feared spring time. In absolute, cumulative terms, the DJIA index did not perform worse in September-October than in January-March. It even gained 24,7 points compared to the January-March segment.

What does it tell us? It shows that the rule "stock markets crash in September" is not necessarily valid.

As predicted, the stock market did not crash in September. I expect that this year, the horrible losses we suffered in the first "spring" segment will have been the worst time of 2009. Even if some market data may indicate that we are still having some troubles in the real economy, the stock market will remain volatile but continue to rise, simply because the fund managers have gazillions of dollars in cash and are eager (or even pressed) to invest it. Since the only investment opportunity that currently promises good short- and mid-term speculative gains is the stock market, they will invest in stocks.

So, even if the market will move sidewards in October, we will probably have well over 10,000 points by Christmas. Enjoy.

Can the Russian and the American governments jointly manage a commercial enterprise?

2009-09-23T12:32:00.024+02:00

The upcoming acquisition of Opel, the German subsidiary of General Motors,by Magna, a Canadian auto parts supplier, presents an interesting and uniqueevent. To see the point, we should take a closer look at the actors:

Magna is not the real decision maker on the buyer side – it is Sberbank, a large Russian investment bank, who will hold the majority of Opel’s shares.
Sberbank is owned by the Russian central bank, a government entity. It implies that Opel is actually sold to the Russian government. Magna is just a minor stakeholder.
General Motors is not a free commercial enterprise anymore. Since its bailout earlier this year, General Motors is owned by the American government. Thus, Opel is actually being sold by the US government.
GM will retain a minor share of Opel’s stock.

We have seen several collaborations on space travel between the Russians and the Americans in the past, but this deal is unique. For the first time in history, Russian and American Governments will attempt to jointly manage a large commercial enterprise.

Already the Russians control all decisions on Opel’s future. 4400 workers will be laid-off in Germany alone. Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel is also a powerless, minor stakeholder who favored the Russians in the deal, and it is to be expected that she will keep quiet regardless any problems with it. The Americans are afraid that the Russians will use GM’s patented technologies to compete against the already struggling US auto industry. It is probably quite safe to assume that giving up on the missile defense shield in Eastern Europe has its roots in events like the Opel deal. I would assume that Vladimir Putin promised Barrack Obama some kind of trade-off on Opel in exchange for eliminating the defense shield program. Abandoning the plans of Russia's automaker GAZ to expand in key markets (that are currently a no-go for the Opel brand) is likely to be a key component of the deal. This is very lucrative to the Russians because it gives them the opportunity to widen the Russian influence over their former colonies in Eastern Europe, which in turn enables the Russians to further tighten their grip on the Germans who are already desperately craving Russian natural gas supplies.

We should stay tuned to this big game. It will be interesting to watch what happens to Opel. My bet is that the vast majority of West European workers will be laid off until 2015 (probably sooner). Opel will have no auto production plants in Western Europe at all. Instead, they will be created in low-wage countries like Russia itself or maybe in some of Russian former colonies. Due to cultural differences and fundamental conflicts of interests, any sensible cooperation between the Americans and the Russians on Opel will quickly become impossible. The Americans sell their Opel stock at a fraction of its current price.

Angela Merkel will be stigmatized as the person who betrayed German workers' interests and handed them over to the Russians. I am looking forward to the future history books on this story!

The three GDP scenarios

2009-09-19T20:37:00.017+02:00

How will the current crises end? How will our economies recover? Will it be a quick and joyful or a slow and painful recovery? Or any at all?

Today, I would like to summarize three fundamental forecasts for the GDP development that are currently being discussed by many macro economists around the world.

Here is the first, optimistic view:

This is a typical "V"-recovery which means that the economy has hit the bottom and is now bouncing back. All will be well until the next recession (usually in 4-6 years). It implies that the current recession is actually over.

The next one is the cautious view:

The above chart shows the "W"-recovery (also called "double-dip"). It assumes that the first re-bounce at the bottom (that would be happening right now) is followed by another "secondary" crash before the economy finally recovers. It implies that the current recovery is just a temporary circumstance, and suggests that the recession will strike back soon.

The third an final one is the "Twilight of the Gods" prophecy:

The above chart shows a slow and painful recovery in coming years. After that, even much worse, horrible and stupefying crash of the global economy is supposed to occur. It implies that a world-wide "Great Depression" will occur in around the year 2013.

Choose your poison.

About unhappy women

2009-09-13T19:24:00.005+02:00

Why are most women so frustrated? I have spoken to many aging husbands about their wives. Surprisingly, I have not heard a single story about a happy wife. What I have heard is frustration, imaginary or real weight problems, alcohol, disorientation, anger. I have also spoken to those women. None of them seemed objectively overworked. The kids are already older or even have left their home. And they have at most two children. Those women who have regular jobs are totally unhappy with their positions, with their working environment, and – most of all – with other women around them. There is simply complaining and moaning around the clock. They often become aggressive and unfriendly to everyone around them. It is not a pleasant feeling to be near them in such (unfortunately quite frequent) cases.

What has happened to the beautiful, happy working women we read in women’s magazines? Where are those relaxed, content, aging ladies smiling at you from the TV screen and internet ads?

We have improved so many things to make women’s lives easier. Aside from creating gender equality laws and forcing women to higher management positions, we have also created a variety of machines that make the work in our households easier. Since I share certain responsibilities with my wife, I use them a lot and see that it is not that hard to maintain our house. It doesn’t take hours to do the laundry, as it did decades ago. Everything works smoothly and is done quickly. Still, the time that is bought through the wonders of technology is spent on complaining instead of something more pleasant just like playing the piano or writing a book.

What is wrong with our women? It is a mystery to me. Many men could keep complaining too. Those of them who decided to stay more at home as well as those who have 80 hours-per-week jobs. Most of them have given up their dreams just to get a job and earn money for their families. Same goes for many women, of course. Yet, most men I know have the ability to come to terms with their lives.

But then again, maybe my friends are just not representative enough. It does not change the fact that most women in my environment are very unhappy with their lives. Why is it so? I better not ask.

IBM is about to repeat its past software mistakes

2009-09-13T09:50:00.003+02:00

IBM has reportedly now decided to dump Microsoft Office in favor of its little known office suite "Symphony".

Why is IBM doing such a strange thing? Because it is IBM's long-cultivated habit to promote their own software for all IBM internal activities. Unfortunately, IBM is no software company, and they always failed when they attempted to substitute third party software products through their own packages. Over the past decades, IBM employees have been forced to use AIX, IBM development tools, various office packages, bug tracking systems, configuration management tools (like CMVC), OS/2, and Notes. Notes is the only system that is in use by anyone else but IBM employees (although everyone I know hates it, including myself). All others have miserably failed.

Enforcing the usage of Symphony within IBM won't make this obscure office suite a success. It will just cripple the effectiveness of IBM's workforce. It may take 3-5 years, but we will have then another story telling us then how IBM adopts back to the standards. The only question is whether it will be Microsoft Office, but that's another story.

The new wave: Siemens quits SAP support contract with 160,000 client licences

2009-09-12T15:24:00.002+02:00

The new money-saving scheme is emerging: third party support for standard software. Siemens has quit the support contract with the German software giant SAP and is planning to buy third party support, possibly from Indian outsourcing specialists.

The next trend will likely be getting software for free (open source) and buying cheap third party support, and thus saving huge amounts of money on standard software.

Stocks will not crash this September

2009-09-03T10:51:00.003+02:00

Everyone seems to fear September as the worst month for stocks. Based on historical records, it may have been the case. But this time it will be different. Just because virtually everyone expects a stock decline, the stock markets have already absorbed it.

Since there is virtually no other way to speculatively invest their money, private and institutional investors are impatiently waiting for the next dip so they can reinvest the huge cash reserves they have accumulated.

Besides, the worldwide stock markets have lost their direct link to the economy. These days, stocks are purely speculative investment forms. Thus, it does not matter how well the labor market fares or how high is some purchasing manager index. We just expect the market to go up because we expect the market to go up.

So, invest your money and enjoy the rally. The real crash is still years away. I will become worried when Dow Johns reaches 15,000 points. Some day in 2012 or 2013.

The preferred supplier strategy fails when applied to buying expertise

2009-08-29T15:04:00.006+02:00

The preferred suppliers strategy

About two decades ago, it was usual for freelance managers, developers, and designers to talk directly to their customers. If a line manager needed a project manager, he or she would just ask professional associations or just post an ad in an appropriate professional journal. The business was closed between just the two persons, and despite some problems with the supplier selection process, things worked fine most of the time.

But then, about 15 to 20 years ago, business consultants came up with the idea that companies could save a lot of money using the so-called “preferred supplier lists”. Instead of dealing with individual suppliers, just a short list of possibly large and supposedly reliable suppliers was established. It became nearly impossible for line managers to purchase anything that was not obtained from one of the preferred suppliers.

The problem with this new solution is that it only works well for certain industrial goods. For example, it makes it easier to purchase standard electrical or mechanical parts, and in these cases the new purchasing process reduced the danger of corruption and bribery. However, in other cases this process becomes increasingly burdensome and expensive, because they narrow the diversity of choice that is a basic feature of a free market economy. The preferred suppliers are in the position to demand higher prices than their competitors who are not on the list.

The most severe example of how this praxis fails is the selection of freelance experts. Because only a short list of large “suppliers” is allowed to participate in the bidding process, the individuals remain utterly excluded. What happens in the reality is that the “preferred suppliers” access the broad market, purchase the experts as if they were just some screws or plugs, and resell them to their customers at a profit. What makes things worse is that the needs for expertise that the line manager has regarding the requested expert are usually unclear to the purchasing manager. Not knowing anything about the actual matter, and being only paid according to the amount of money they could save each year, purchasing managers tend to reduce the scope of their market research to the price price aspect only.

This practice has following effects:

Line managers have no choice but work with mediocre talent
Experts are dependent on the payment morale of the middleman, and are paid independently from the quality and value of their work.
Purchasing managers waste billions of dollars that could be saved if there were no man-in the-middle supplier.

Connecting the dots

Let us see how the preferred suppliers strategy works in the reality when used to buy support from highly qualified experts:

The line manager (say, Mr. M) needs a project manager. Mr. M writes a short notes with the requirements regarding the skill of the wanted expert and gives the list to the purchasing manager (Ms. P)
The purchasing manager, Ms. P, does not understand anything on the list (it is a technical project) and she just passes it to the preferred suppliers and asks for bids.
The suppliers are usually just general recruiters who do not understand much of the actual matter, so they simply post the requirements list on some web sites.
The experts offer their services to the recruiters (usually not knowing the actual customer)
The recruiters pass the CVs to the purchasing manager, along with the hourly or daily rate. Because no one ever speaks about the actual value the expert brings to the line manager, only the hourly rate is discussed, and it often fails to reflect both the value and the expert’s skills.
The purchasing manager simply ignores the higher priced experts and passes the low-price offers to the line manager, Mr. M
The line manager, Mr. M, speaks to the small selection of the offered experts and selects what suits his needs best.

This process is flawed because of the following issues:

Mr. M, our line manager, never has the chance to select the best person for the job; he only has a small choice based on price only
The recruiter usually requires about 20% of the gross price as profit. Thus, even if based solely on the expert’s price, Mr. M’s company pays significantly more than he purchased.

How to save 3.5 millions

Assessing the latter issue in terms of the trade-off that is paid by Mr. M und Ms. P’s company can be easily calculated. The following example is taken for real life:

The expert costs 80 US$/hour
The recruiter demands 100 US$/hour
In a typical corporate environment (one site) work about 50 to 100 freelance experts. Let us say, we have 70 freelance experts.
A typical working month contains about 160 working hours. 160 hours/month means 160 x 70 x 100 = 1.120.000 US$ per month total cost
The above number also means 160 x 70 x 20 = 224.000 US$ additional costs for just purchasing the freelance experts, which presents the income of the recruiters (preferred suppliers)

This means about 2.7 million US$ a year that is given to the recruiters without any additional value.

Now think of it: what kind of a purchase manager could you hire for 2.7 million US$ per year?

Another problem is caused by the hidden costs of mediocre experts. For example, a weak software developer delivers about 10% of the value of what his best colleague could bring. At the same time, the top expert does not earn ten times more than his weaker colleague. In our example, 70 experts can deliver 100% of the work if they are just average. Let us just assume that Mr. M, our line manager is not limited by the sole price of the experts and can select better experts who are just twice as good as what he can buy for the maximum of 80$ per hour, the limit set by Ms. P, our purchasing manager.

In this case, we had 35 experts delivering 100% of the value. Let us assume that we have no recruitment agencies between the company and the expert, and that the average top expert demands 150 US$/hour. A year of the comparable project development would cost 35 experts x 160 days x 150 US$ x 12 months = 10.080.000 US$.

The same project with just average experts, limited to 80 US$ per hour and including recruiter fees costs 70 experts x 160 days x 80 US$ x 12 months + 2.700.000 US$ = 13.452.000

Conclusion

In the above example of a typical mid-sized project, it was shown that 3.5 millions USD are wasted every year just because of the flawed purchasing strategy used by many corporations. The original goal of saving the costs by reducing the number of suppliers (the preferred suppliers strategy) works for simple industrial goods, but it fails when it comes to buying external expertise.

The above example is based on the cautious assumption that, by directly accessing the market for buying expertise, about 3.5 millions can be saved in a typical R&D environment. However, in the reality, a factor 3 to 5 is usual. A more aggressive calculation shows 10 to 20 millions USD of savings per year, even if a highly skilled purchasing manager would be hired at $1 million salary per year to more effectively look for talents.

Saving 10 to 20 millions USD per year is a worthwhile a goal for every business, and since in big corporations it is not unusual to hire hundreds of freelance experts, the savings can quickly reach hundreds of millions.

The Free Software Foundation is starving

2009-08-27T12:17:00.012+02:00

The Free Software Foundation is running out of money. The question is how long they will be able to survive in these hard economic times.

The FSF is so desperate that they ask all S&P 500 (minus Microsoft, of course) for money. Instead of buying MS products, the big corporations should pay money to FSF. How bad must the state of the financial affairs of FSF be that they are begging for money in such a dramatic manner.

What makes it even more interesting is the observation that the FSF people are pure ideologists. You are not into open source if you really want to get rich. Open source apostles are intellectual rebels. It is not money that makes them happy; it is making software and giving it away for free, while enjoying the open source community in which they seek recognition and acceptance. They never discuss financial matters. It is a wonderful ecosystem, and it must not be spoiled with money. In the end, money is what makes Microsoft evil, isn’t it?

My advice is this: dear S&P 499 friends, keep your money in your pockets. FSF and others will deliver free software to you anyways, and they will do it at no cost. Do not confuse the world of money and career with the open source ideology; it will do no good.

Help! We need more search engines!

2009-08-16T09:03:00.009+02:00

How often have you been upset about the results from Google search? You would like to find out about a product or service and what you get is a long list of SEO-manipulated results that all point to some price comparison sites or obscure link recommendation pages?

What we have is a monoculture of search on the net. Google is becoming the same problem like - as many think - Microsoft has been for years. Dominating the search business, Google has become subject to massive manipulation analogous to Windows being preferred target for virus gangsters.

I am not saying that I love Bing. Bing is still not good enough - although it is becoming better every week. Even if it comes from Microsoft that has been known for occasional questionable business practices, I think we should be happy that it is there and hope that it becomes as effective as Google once was.

Until then, I will use Bing every day in addition to Google search. I have found that it is the most effective way of searching the net: compare the outcomes and pick the best results for your particular needs. And let us hope that at least one more search engine enters the business, so we actually have a choice.

My government is better than yours...

2009-08-02T10:17:00.002+02:00

I am sick and tired of silly shows like "American Idol" (in almost every country there is an equivalent show). I fact, my TV set is broken and I'm not planning to buy a new one, for now.

There is one idea that would make me buy a new TV: "World's Best Government". It has become boring to make kids fight each other in front of the camera; but how about governments showing off their ideologies? How about a show in which ordinary people try to convince each other that their government would be the best? The question is, of course, about the perks of participating in such a show. What could one win there? Maybe the best government could get the rights to exploit the oil reserves under the North Pole?

In any case: just for this TV show, I would buy another TV set.

Amazon burns books

2009-07-22T21:27:00.006+02:00

Oh no, not only the Nazis burned books some seventy years ago; the giant internet merchant Amazon follows in the footsteps of Hitlers crowds. Recently Amazon removed most famous books "Animal farm" and "1984" by George Orwell from Kindle, the electronic book reader also distributed by Amazon.

This jaw-dropping incident is even outrageous if you notice that it unveiled the fact that you do not own any of the books that you have bought and downloaded to Kindle. Amazon (or any authority behind them) may decide - for any reason you might imagine - that the book you bought is inappropriate for you and you should give it back. It just disappears from your Kindle without any further notice.

If you ask me, this is Kindle's death.

Google demands your phone calls

2009-07-20T21:57:00.003+02:00

As already mentioned on this blog, Google moves on to dominate every communication way we use. The voice recognition-oriented Google Voice gadget is now available "for free" on Blackberries. Developed as one puzzle piece in the grand strategy to enslave humanity to the dark advertisement power, Google Voice will soon be available on all devices, including the iPhone and the future Google operating system Chrome OS. Soon, when talking to someone on the phone, you will never know if someone used Google Voice, and if so, where the words you said will go and how they will be used to track your behavior. Because not only the Google Voice user will be ad-targeted; the other person will be as well.

You are all going to LOVE this free stuff!

Google's vision to infiltrateevery channel of human communication and use it for ad targeting has come nearer. Welcome to the Matrix!

South Park Studios lock out the rest of the world

2009-07-19T11:31:00.006+02:00

It was fun to watch South Park from abroad. I am not the biggest fan of these rudimentary animated cartoons, but sometimes you are just in the right mood for queer stuff.

No more South Park now. If you live outside the US and surf to southparkstudios.com, you will be exposed to this:

I have given it a chance, but BOY the German voices are INCREDIBLY HORRIBLE. They are unbearable. Maybe if you don't know the original South Park you would like it, but to me it means the end of South Park watching.

South Park guys: it sucks. It really does. You are just totally uncool.

Americans finally got their idiots promoted

2009-07-17T18:43:00.007+02:00

US American authorities have finally reached the state of stupidity that has been reigning many EU countries for the last decades. Watch Lisa Jackson's hearing in the US senate - you will know what I mean.

Look at the way she acts, and taste the irrelevant, smug way as she "answers" the questions about the CO2 policy. This is the tone Americans will have to deal with in the coming years.

In Germany, for example, Claudia Roth and other populist, low-profile intellectuals dominate the government. Ignorant politicians have managed to make the Germans already pay billions in environmental taxes and "contributions" that are just plain nothing but regular taxes. Dear Americans, here you go - thanks to Obama, you are heading in the same direction. It will be fun to watch.

No one twitters - but PR agents

2009-07-14T06:24:00.004+02:00

A teenager's opinion may have marked Twitter's decline. No one twitters - and the young generation, which was supposed to be a "Twitter generation", totally ignores it, so says a teenager's report published by Morgan Stanley. It becomes obvious that only PR agents use twitter, vainly hoping to establish yet another advertisement channel.

I said a year ago, Twitter had two years to go. A year from now, Twitter will be either gone or disappear in oblivion. And no one will miss it. Mark my words.

"For free" is not

2009-07-08T13:37:00.006+02:00

Google decided to develop a replacement for Microsoft Windows. While it sounds splendid, to me Google is becoming frightening. The world is becoming totally googled and virtually enslaved to PR companies. It takes the PR-isation of our societies, which started with the psychoanalytical manipulation of the masses by Sigmund Freud’s family and friends (including Edward Bernays), to the next pervert level.

One thing that the psychologists of Freud’s era came up with was the conviction that masses are essentially stupid and must be manipulated for their own good. PR actions, advertisement and other tools used for political and commercial purposes are products of that ideology. However, back then, only group of individuals (like all people living in New York or people collectively watching a TV show) could be targeted.

Now Google heads for total control of the individual. Computerized data processing makes it possible to handle each and every one of us as a target for a systematic indoctrination and commercial propaganda. Soon, Google will be everywhere: mobile phones, computers, internet, game consoles, etc. The business of Google is to hand us over to corporations and governments for individual “treatment” (often referred to as “brainwashing”).

How could that happen? Isn’t Google the good guy? Google is not a good guy at all. It is an offspring of the military-industrial complex and it faithfully serves its master. Google has no means of caring for freedom or justice – that is why Google eagerly cooperates with despotic regimes like China and Russia. This alone should make one think twice before calling Google the “good guy”.

And it may become even worse. Main interest groups want Google’s vast amounts of personal data collected from every Google user. We are naked and helpless before the owners of this data. Who is Google selling our data to? You’ll never learn until it will be too late.

Google uses the infantile “for free” mass trend to capture the world population and turn them into data sources. It truly reminds me of the Matrix movie: we are currently being exposed to a force that wants to put virtual plugs in our heads and basically feed on us. The “for free” guys, who refuse paying for anything - but, for a piece of gratis software, are ready to sacrifice their freedom to the dark powers lurking in obscure depths of the Net. They are the ones who will be blamed for the Brave New World we are now facing.

The only free cheese it the one in mouse traps. Now that you have read this article, you cannot say you did not know anything.

Another bit of history repeating

2009-07-07T23:39:00.002+02:00

“I believe that the President has chosen the right path, We are dealing with the greatest social problems ever known. Millions of unemployed must get their jobs back, and this cannot be left to private initiative. It is the government that must tackle the problem."

Does it sound familiar? It sure does. It could be some Obama fan. But it was Joseph Goebbels talking about President Roosevelt.

I refrain from further comments.

MBA showdown

2009-07-03T14:01:00.003+02:00

"I have come to believe that much of what my colleagues and I taught has caused real suffering, suppressed wealth creation, destabilized the world economy, and accelerated the demise of the 20th century capitalism in which the U.S. played the leading role.", says a former Harvard professor Shoshana Zuboff who taught in MBA programs.

Here we go. Teaching corporatism was a bad idea, and it often produced MBAs with corporatist attitude. "What did we do wrong?" - we ask ourselves today facing the global economy meltdown. Well, I had some suggestions.

German Schadenfreude over USA misery

2009-07-03T12:49:00.007+02:00

The German press often shows disturbing socialist tendencies and a latent anti-Americanism. A recent online article from a popular publisher Heise Online carries the title (freely translated): "Pure poverty without a social net". It refers to an NPR "Tell me more" show featuring Barbara Ehrenreich's views on the supposedly wonderful social features of the European economy.

Since I happen to live in Germany, I can see how romantic her view on the European social benefits is.

First of all, she said that the social benefits do not run out. This view is outdated by at least 30 years. In Germany, after a relatively short period of time, your home, your savings and everything else you have earned in your life will be taken away by force from you to pay for your social benefits.

Secondly, she said that German unemployed would not be stigmatized. That is very far from the actual reality over here. Once you lose your job, German companies automatically put you at the end of the list of applicants. Besides, a typical unemployed person remains unemployed for a very long time - two to three times of what is typical for the US economy. It is often very hard to get a new Job in Germany once you become unemployed.

It is also not true that EU citizens are eager protesters. By far not all EU citizens are prepared to go out on the streets and burn cars and protest against their governments. In fact, the typical EU citizen is absolutely passive and ignorant regarding important political issues. Most Europeans don't even know what the EU parliament is there for at all.

I am not saying that US politicians do a better job than their European colleagues. What I see, however, is that ever more European ideas are copied and implemented in the US, leading to the worst possible mixture of the systems: having a weakly regulated labor market (which is typical for the US), and promoting extremely high social security contributions paired with high taxes preventing creation and development of new businesses (which is characteristic for most EU countries).

In this case, I would indeed recommend that US citizens show some more active involvement against the creeping "europesation" of the US. Act before it's too late.

After 64 years, German elite at last realizes that the Nazis might have been wrong

2009-07-02T11:09:00.002+02:00

Germany's Wehrmacht used to kill deserters on the spot. Today, we would say: those soldiers didn't want to kill in the name of Adolf Hitler and were heroes.

Not so in after-war Germany. It took 64 (sixty four!) years for the German politicians to decide that those military verdicts and hasty executions were actually wrong.

SIXTY FOUR YEARS. That is a very long time, and I find it shocking that no one protested against it. Oh yeah, "we didn't know anything", I forgot...

Why Google's Youtube still exists

2009-06-18T10:26:00.003+02:00

Microsoft is scaling down its YouTube-alike offering. Others are out of business or shift their focus to a narrowed video selection. Why does YouTube still exist?

To understand it try to search "donald cartoon" on YouTube and try it on MSN video. On YouTube, you will find hundreds full-length cartoons, on MSN video you find nothing. What does it mean? It means that Google apparently can - and is willing to - afford legal disputes with intellectual property owners. Microsoft could afford it in terms of paying for lawsuits, but such endavors would hurt Microsoft's reputation in their core business, which is B2B operating system and office software.

It sounds strange. The more illegality you can (or are ready to) afford, the better you fare. Drug dealers make a living at this attitude. Let us see how long Google will fare well with this strange strategy.

Go buy BMW, won't you...

2009-06-17T14:25:00.002+02:00

BMW has urged BMW workers to buy BMW cars. The BMW management have put small notes behind wipers of non-BMW cars standing on the parking area before BMW factories saying "you drive the wrong brand - do you think it is a good idea?"

How bad must BMW's shape be to do such stupid things? Another thought: now we have learned that BMW workers often chose other brands - why? They should know better, right? Maybe they indeed do know better.

I think the story has interesting implications for all (potential) BMW buyers.

The truth about gender equality: what we expect from women

2009-05-31T12:22:00.005+02:00

“Women less happy after 40 years of feminism” says the headline of the Times Online magazine. Surprising? Unlikely. But whose fault is it? My guess: it is men’s fault.

A well-known myth spread by feminists about men and wom^en is that men suppress women and want them to remain at home, cook meals, and breed children.

After being in this world around for some decades, I came to the conclusion that feminist politics is just an integral part of male propaganda. What sounds paradox will become clearer after considering what men expect from women:

Women must be enjoyable sex objects. That is why men have created the whole industry for them including:

expensive cosmetics
pricey nutrition that is supposed to support losing weight
high-end fashion, including $500 bags and $850 shoes (and that is just so-so)
models to look fine and thin on catwalks
plastic surgery
mode and feminist magazines and other propaganda “information” warfare

Just think of it: why do women use makeup at all? Could it be that they believe they are not sufficiently pretty? What a stupid thing that is to put toxic, cancer-causing chemical on your face – why on Earth would anybody do it?

Women must work for their stuff. The previously enlisted products are very expensive and men expect women to pay dearly for those things. That is why men have created “equality” propaganda forcing them to go to work in factories and offices. Despite all efforts on “equal payment”, they will never get the same pay as men. Why is it? Because they still want to become pregnant (that is what other women expect from them), and it will always cost time and energy to be a mother that will distract a person from the job.

Women must work with other women. Because men force women to work in factories and offices, soon there are female executives bossing around other women. While men are programmed to accept hierarchies, women never do. That is why they will always fight each other and make each other lives miserable. All this prevents “global female domination” and was designed to do so by men. By the way: the worst thing that can happen to a woman is to become pregnant while her 50 years old female boss is a childless person. Which takes us to the next point:

Woman's wish for children must be just her personal problem. We have declared women equal with men, and that makes children formally just an option and not a necessity. It makes women vulnerable to other women who put social pressure on childless peers and thus tends to make them weak and harmless. Depressed, single women after 50 are just pathetic individuals – and they know it. By the way: easy abortion is just a consistent result of this expectation.

Women must act like men. Men put pressure on female co-workers that they should accept hierarchies, respect other workers (other females, too), work long hours and still look fresh and nice, regardless. Fortunately, women are silly enough to accept this pressure. Unfortunately, women tend to become much less attractive (which is, of course, what males declare on them) when they get 50 and older. That kills many female careers, and it is designed to do so.

Women must vote. Men want them to keep the system in its present shape. Women rarely become progressive; they just want things to remain stable. That is their nature. For that reason, women will unlikely vote for extremists (what especially young men would stupidly do). That makes our “equality system” with all aforementioned expectations very long-lived (until some horde of barbarians overruns our Western civilization, but men believe that it is not happening soon).

That is a lot men expect from women.

The popular joke is that it just takes a beer, a football game on the TV, and a peaceful place to watch it to make a man happy. As opposed to that, women have long and never complete wish lists.

Now, do women really desire this “equality” rules? In many countries in the world, women do not have equal rights (as we would often see it). Given the global media coverage we have these days, it would be naïve to think that they don’t know anything about the supposedly blessings of the Western emancipation. If so, why don’t they fight for it? Why many of them, especially in Arabic countries, openly reject our Western female emancipation? I am just wondering.

In any case, putting that enormous pressure on women makes men unhappy, too, in the end. Most men I know view their jobs as a source of money to finance their families. Most men I know actually want to be fathers. Men have it in their genes. They make women think like men, but boy, do women panic when they approach their climacteric period and still have no children. All of a sudden, emancipation appears meaningless to them, and having a baby seems to be the most desirable thing in the world. Accidentally, at this very age, women often notice that we have lied to them about being happy through a professional career, too. Often enough it turns out that it is too late to have a real family and impossible to become happy in their professional lives.

Unfortunately, for every woman who has realized that mistake there is an old and unhappy man somewhere. We are slowly but surely becoming a society of unhappy, old, frustrated singles. That is not what I was expecting to see when I am in my 40ies. I am unsure if we can do anything about it. We have created a very stable downward trend and it would probably take a third world war to shift the paradigm. I wish we had better ideas.

How "cloud" makes us all vulnerable

2009-05-30T12:42:00.005+02:00

Russian oligarchs decided to buy stake in the troubled social network provider, Facebook. This confirms my impression that "cloud computing" and "social networks" - or generally speaking, centralized, server based services - bear the danger of making the Big Brother come true sooner than anticipated.

Admittedly, 2% of the overall stake do not give you any real control over the company. Still, this is the first step, and countries like Russia or others will not fall in love with our ideas of freedom and privacy. Just think of it: what would happen if some Arab shaikh who happens to be a fan of Al Qaeda buys Google? How many US military staff members and CIA agents use Google Mail for private mails that occasionally are not so private after all?

It is time for "private computing" as opposed to "cloud computing".

Russians hire another German politician

2009-04-18T09:20:00.011+02:00

As predicted, Putin's clan is hiring even more German politicians to influence the fate of the EU and to extend the profits drawn from the incapability of the EU bureaucracy.

Recently, another prominent German politician, Mr Wolfgang Clement, was hired by a Russian company to boost consultancy sales in Western Europe (read: Germany). As a former premier of North Rhine-Westphalia, one of the largest and most powerful German provinces, he follows the example of his party friend (SPD, the social-democratic party of Germany) Mr Gerhard Schroeder, a former German chancellor. Gerhard Schroeder was hired by Gazprom as a member of the advisory board. His main responsibility is to support Gazprom's sales strategy for Russian Energy to Germany other European countries. It includes strategic ventures like the controversial natural gas pipeline that will connect Russia with Germany, bypassing Poland and Ukraine.

Few weeks ago, Mr Clement became president of EU-Russia-Forum, a Russian lobby organization, paid by German corporation Robert Bosch GmbH.

The Russians teaming up with the Germans, supported by big corporations - does it sound familiar? We will see what happens next. My prediction is that Mrs Merkel, the current German chancellor with socialist roots (as she grew up in Eastern Germany and was part of the socialist movement), will be the next one to be offered a "consultancy" or a "board of directors" job.

Long-term implications of the Russians systematically taking over the EU politics will be interesting. EU increasingly depends on energy supplied by Russia, and with leading politicians manipulated by Putin's clan, EU leaders may soon become just puppets in the hands of Russian oligarchs. As Russia's vassals, the Europeans would much quicker than expected end up being geopolitical irrelevant cash cows for the Russians. Which is what Russians have always done to their victims.

WMG obeys America's true owners, YouTube useless

2009-04-07T07:09:00.027+02:00

Remember George Carlin? He was one of the best comedians in the world. He died (he wouldn't like me writing "he passed away") last year, and it was overwhelmingly sad news to me because it was in fact the year I have discovered him for the first time and was looking forward to seeing him live one day.

I found snippets of his shows on YouTube and that's how I learned about his mere existence and instantly loved his shows. It was not only the way he performed them - it was the issues he was talking about. My favorite show was "who owns America" in that George outlined the true nature of the rigged "system" of top-level class that keeps the lower class under control using misinformation and misguiding education.

His deliberations were so impressive that I already began wondering if he actually HAD to die. He died at 71, but it was a very quick death and maybe it was not natural after all. Through his suggestive talk on the rigged system we all live in (America is just like most of the Western countries) he exposed himself to the "true owners", as he called them. Maybe we are supposed to think that his death was a natural thing - considering his age, of course. Who knows? I do not think it is such a remote possibility as it may appear that it was not so natural after all.

Tellingly, the Warner Music Group (WMG) has started a copyright campaign against George Carlin's videos on YouTube. It may not appear unusual, since YouTube is just a bootleg site like many others and will be frequently attacked by intellectual property owning companies. More interesting is the fact that they started with George Carlin's most dangerous show "who owns America". Many other show fragments can be easily found on YouTube, but this one has disappeared not only from YouTube, but from the entire Internet! I don't think it is a coincidence.

These days, comedians are the only ones who dare to speak out the truth (as many of us perceive it). George Carlin was one of the most influential comedians in the world, and his influence started to increase dramatically during recent years. It turns out that he probably just got too close to the real thing.

And, by the way, you see now how Google is just part of the "exclusive club of the true owners". In the recent poll on my blog site, 93% of voting visitors declared they would never pay for using YouTube. Now you see why: it is just to deeply under control of the True Owners, and therefor not worth the money. Dummies like Britney Spears and alike will never be deleted from YouTube; They are so meaningless that it makes them utmost important to the True Owners. Puppets will dominate the Net in the years to come, and they main task is to distract and to confuse dumb masses.

George, we miss you. Maybe there is another George Carlin out there, but he may never appear on YouTube or somewhere else on the Internet, for (by now) obvious reasons.

Why IBM is no software company

2009-04-06T21:22:00.004+02:00

The IBM representatives would protest: "we are making more money with software than hardware - in fact, we are one of the largest software vendors in the world" and so on.

However, IBMs past is paved with dead software "high-potentials". Just think what became of such promising software products as these:

PC-DOS - IBMs own DOS clone that never really took off.
Ami Pro, member of MS Office competitor, the Smart Suite. Acquired by Lotus which in turn was bought by IBM. Back then, one of the best office product, completely meaningless today.
OS/2 - do I need to comment?
The entire Rational Suite - acquired 2001, once the heart of the Rational Unified Process, today increasingly losing market share, heading towards oblivion. The worst fate hit Rational Rose, back then THE leading CASE UML modelling tool, practially non-existent on today's market.
DOORS - acquired 2008 as part of the Swedish Telelogic deal, a leading requirements engineering package that already began its way to nowhere (increasing prices for add-on packages like the "Exchange" script by 100% is the same strategy that instantly killed the Rational Suite few years ago)
Viusal Age, IBM's own development, was one of the most interesting development packages for C++ and Java in the 90ies. No one knows what "Visual Age" is today.
AS/400, once successful minicomputer operating system build by IBM in the eighties, renamed to "IBM i" (what a silly name btw.) - also on its way to disappear from Earth's surface.

Admittedly, there are few software packages that are still maintaining their market share (at least to some extent), like Lotus Notes and DB/2 (I can't think of anything else though). However, they are purchased by only few dedicated customers. If you have ever experienced how IBM representatives treat their potential customers, you will know why. Eclipse is the only software from IBM in high numbers - and that is the case simply because Eclipse is free and comes without IBM sales reps.

So, as you see, IBM is obviously no software company. Why not admit it and just let go of the stupid software products?

Google silly enough to buy another loser company?

2009-04-03T21:37:00.004+02:00

Google has already bought Youtube and has never made a dime on it. Now rumors are running through the wires that Google has not learned from this experience and wants to acquire Twitter.

Twitter only exists because it is totally free for its users. It only feeds on VC money left to burn. As I wrote in August 2008, Twitter will go out of business or be bought by some fool within two years. I seem to be on track with my predictions - once again.

German police hired by the TOE to stop free speech on the internet

2009-03-25T22:16:00.005+01:00

Citation from a recent Wired post:

"Eleven German police officers raided the homes of Wikileaks amicus Theodor Reppe Tuesday night in an emergency raid, searching for evidence of child pornography"

Yay. That's how the German police do when they get hired by the True Owners of the Earth (TOE). Back then, when German newspapers were into investigative journalism, the police often did a similar thing: they raided editorial offices.

Actions like this rarely result in arrests. They are to be understood as a final warnings; If the subjects do not stop their undesired behavior, they will face really serious consequences next time.

Besides, hiding behind the children in such cases is just horrible. Children have no voice - an are misused every day by the politicians pursuing their personal interests but claiming that they want to "save our children".

The whole thing is actually part of the worldwide struggle to finally gain control over internet by the TOEs. Can you smell it, too?

Abused on LinkedIn

2009-03-22T11:33:00.006+01:00

Recently a person that I have not seen for years and who lives thousands miles away from me asked me on LinkedIn to include her as a reference. There was no message, no email, no "Hi, how have you been doing recently" - noooo, just the generic LinkedIn standard message.

It is horrible. That's why social networks suck so much: they deliver very little value; instead, your personal data will be used by others for purposes you would never imagine. You may say that being misused as a dumb reference counter is still the least evil thing that may happen to you on the internet.

Nevertheless: people behave like pigs on social networks, so beware. As for me, I have been on those for years and it has NEVER brought me a dime, even though my network consists of hundreds of professionals.

As opposed to that, my "real" contacts have been worth pure gold in the recent years.

Internet won't replace your social competence. LinkedIn, Xing and other "counters" are just pieces of junk. Read what LinkedIn says on its frontpage:

"Over 35 million professionals use LinkedIn to exchange information, ideas and opportunities"

That is all you really need to know: it is about quantity, not quality.

Users vote YouTube worthless

2009-03-13T08:49:00.008+01:00

According to some polls, not a single person would ever pay for using YouTube. Why? Is it worthless to you?

What if it actually IS worthless, because the internet itself is an the best YouTube of all times?

What is your attitude? Would YOU pay to see videos on YouTube?

Cast your vote on this blog, I will publish the results.

Environmentalists want poeple dead NOW

2009-03-13T08:30:00.006+01:00

The climate change has been rumored to kill millions in the future. For certain individuals, that is obviously not soon enough The environmentalists - as opposed to humanists - want it to happen sooner. At best: now!

In the U.K., they switch off lights on highways to "reduce carbon emission" (which may or may not be the real cause for the climate change, but who cares). Of course, this will reduce the safety on the roads, leading to more accidents.
mov
The trick is, of course, to claim later that the number of traffic accidents has increased and therefore the speed limit must be reduced.

THAT is "Ruling by Fear and Distraction" (RFD) all over again. RFD is a business process used by many governments to control their populations, and ecologists have been using this process to generate income (in certain industries) for themselves for decades now. Let's see what happens next: probably an automatic logbook for pedestrians connected to the central "carbon emission ueber-computer" that will allow you only a certain amount of traveling unless "permitted by the government in exceptional cases". Needless to say, certain environmentalists will have shares of the company delivering such "logbooks", by accident of course.

Google to use voice recognition for ad targetting

2009-03-12T20:32:00.002+01:00

Google is moving further towards the total advertisement overkill. The new voicemail feature (Google Voice) makes it real. The horrible vision of 1984 seems to materialize more and more under the cover of "don't be evil" giant.

To me, it sounds very evil now.

Where is the music?

2009-03-11T08:24:00.008+01:00

In times like these, where millions are suffering, dreams are shattering, people are drowning in debt, jobs are getting shed, depression becomes omnipresent - there have always been some spiritual leaders who would take the lead and give hope or at least an illusion of a relief from the suffering, or - at minimum - a different perspective and the feeling that someone really understands our pain. Obviously, I do not mean politicians - I am talking about non-criminal individuals: the musicians.

Where are they today? Where are the modern Dylans, Hendrixes, Pink Floyds, Dire Straits, Stevie Ray Vaughans, Johny Cashes, John Lennons, Rage Against the Machines and so on? Why are we doomed to listen to BS baby music a'la Britney Spears?

Sometimes you think: is anybody out there at all?

Dumb doctors - you saw it coming

2009-03-10T08:10:00.002+01:00

I have pondered for years over this phenomenon: why are so many physicians so inept? Think of it: doctors are perhaps the most important profession of all. They take care of the weakest of us, in worst times of our lives, when we are sick, broken, dying.

You would expect the brightest minds and the most generous hearts. Yet who do you encounter? In many cases the medic of your choice turns out to be just another greedy, undereducated, ignorant lame duck.

The explanation is simple: think of your old class mates. What career paths did the most capable among them choose? You guessed: lawyers and technicians (in that order, unfortunately). Who chose becoming a doctor? Right: in most cases, it was the mediocre ones who just wanted to make a lot of money with possibly little work. I remember many of those young people who decided to become doctors; Back then, I was wondering if those unfriendly, boring persons would ever make it in their lives.

Now I know: they are lurking in their doctor's offices waiting for the next victim.

Isn't it frightening?!

Politics - the showbiz for ugly people?

2009-03-07T12:20:00.003+01:00

Adam Curry often says that politics is a show business for the ugly people (as opposed to the Hollywood industry). I think there is more than just a little grain of truth in it - look at this picture:Germany's Chancellor is definitely a showbiz person!

YouTube: is it worth your money?

2009-03-06T07:52:00.001+01:00

The YouTube management admitted that it is not immune to the still worsening crises. I times like these, companies struggle to improve the cash flow by monetizing free services or charging more for less.

YouTube has never brought Google a dime, and so far it proved to be a malinvestment. There are rumors overheard on the net that Google is thinking about charging the users for using its popular video hosting platform.

Would you pay for it? Would you switch to other platforms if you had to pay for YouTube? Would you pay for the high quality videos while the standars ones remain free? Or would you accept commercial ads embedded into every YouTube video (TV-style)?

This is the opportunity to have your say. I will summarize the results and publish them after the poll is complete in about four weeks. You are all welcome to participate. Please remember: if you don't cast your vote, you will have to accept the results that are likely to be considered and implemented by Google.

So what is your choice? Let us know!

The role of the government

2009-03-04T07:37:00.005+01:00

The discussion over the role of the government in the economy is often as furious as pointless. I am tired of the argument that the government can "fix" the economy by spending money, taking over the industry, increasing social security benefits etc.

Let us face it: the government is the main reason for nearly all bubbles and busts in the history. Why? Very simple: a core duty of every government is to prevent crime and provide for law and order. In case of financial markets, for example, the government's task is to prevent fraud and deception.

One popular deception is the Ponzi scheme, Maddoff's business model. Basically, it means that creating fake value out of thin air should be punished at all costs, because that is what virtually all market bubbles in the history were build upon.

The only way to make sure that the "fake value" kind of fraud becomes a rare exception is to stop rewarding it (!). If someone lends money to create a value but fails, the failure must be properly punished. Chapter eleven bankruptcy law is already a questionable rule - if an entrepreneur fails, he or she will not be prevented from trying again and again. However, just to make creating new value in the market at all, it is essential to protect the entrepreneurs from social and financial death, or else no one will ever do it at all.

However, "lost" money is not really lost - it went somewhere. The "fake" value means that the money was spent and not invested. Replacing this spent money with fresh printed money just increases the inflation rate, thus robbing the broad population's savings. That is what happens when the government performs a "bailout" of big corporations or individuals (home mortgages etc.)

I am not saying that all bailouts should stop. It would just add insult to injury. My point is that market bubbles are possible at all because the governments actually support them. When the bust comes, the typical government acts as a white knight arriving on a shining horse to "save the nation". The truth is that, in fact, the government is part of the fraud. The government is the policemen of the financial market - not a market driving force. If it permits small crime become large, it needs more than just parking tickets to regain control over the situation.

The government should set clear rules preventing lending unlimited amounts of money based on assets that are not yet backed by real value. Like, arbitrary lending based on income increase projections like home value gains should be illegal if it goes beyond a certain limit. This simple rule may prevent the boom-and-bust cycle from happening in the future. Wouldn't it be nice?

Dow Jones may be heading for 4000 points

2009-03-02T20:51:00.010+01:00

Exponential growth of the world economy is a very normal thing. Potentially, the world population grows exponentially, and so does the global GDP. It is a very simplified view at the complex matters of the economy, but it may be so just because sometimes complex phenomena have very simple causes.

The interesting thing is that, during the past 25 years, we had a lot more than that: we had "ueber-exponential" growth. If we accept the popular argument of stock market as a mirror of the reality, then it would be expected to also grow exponentially. Even more: it has outperformed the exponential trend line by far as the following chart suggests:

The chart shows data from 1900 until now. As you can see, around the year 1992, the performance index crossed the exponential growth curve and developed several bubbles.

If this observation makes sense, the DJ may still go a long way down the scale. Since the index oscillates around the exponential trend line, we may now soon see it at 5000 or even 4000 points.

I still believe that we will have the greatest bull market of all times in the next few years, but the stockholders will live in a world of hurt for the next few months or even years...

Why I rejected 10,000,000 EUR

2009-03-01T16:13:00.012+01:00

I am sick and tired of the venture capital market in the EU. Here is the story:

Our company, currently mainly active in Germany, has developed an interesting business plan. The concept, aiming at the CMMI and SPICE process improvement business, brings at least 50% cost reduction for organizations who want to achieve a certain maturity level.

We have already invested several hundreds of thousands in the tool and methodology development and decided that we need 10,000,000 EUR of venture capital to make it work in an acceptably near future. We tried to talk to institutional investors, but it turned out that:

If it has anything to do with software, they will not invest.
If there are no government subsidies in it, they will not invest.

We have placed our capital request in certain databases on the internet. We hoped that international investors may have more market insight and would notice how interesting our concept is. Well, sure enough, this time we started receiving various offers.

However, the quality of the offerings really knocked me over. Literally every time, the so-called investors wanted to provide us with a considerably amount of cash (real hard cash, in 500EUR notes or so). Now, you might say, money doesn’t stink, and it basically does not matter where it comes from. However, my opinion is different in at least one point: if one accepts money from unclear sources, the consequences may be also unclear, to say the least. In fact, if we would become part of some money laundry machine, we might have serious health problems if we do not deliver the promised interest rate on time.

The most recent offering seemed to be different. Someone from a different EU country has read our business plan and wanted to give us the requested 10,000,000 EUR in exchange for stake in the company (we plan an IPO in about five years). You can imagine how impressed we were. Finally, we could kick-start the business and make it really big!!!

Until, during the second meeting in a café somewhere in Western Europe, we realized that this is just another money laundry business. Oh no, not again!

It was not a “here the bag with money – now sign here please and we are partners” business. They wanted to transfer the first tranche legally via a regular money transfer. However, since we now knew – from what they were talking – that it is is probably “black money” all over again, we had to refuse. Once you get into that kind of business, one little thing may trigger other kinds of “deals”. It would be hard to say no when being completely dependent on the investor. That is because you do what you get paid for – so is the human nature. It was hard to reject the money. Can you imagine how hard it was?!

Yes, I am one of the idiots who rejected 10,000,000 EUR in the name of honesty and prudence. What complete fools we are.

Now I am completely pissed off. It seems there are exactly two possible investment opportunities for venture money in the EU:

start-ups with government subsidies,
money laundering businesses.

I am frustrated. It is not that we will give up – the concept is so interesting that we surely will continue developing it. However, it will take a much longer time, and the danger is that someone will be quicker, accepts some obscure investment offer, and steals our idea. That’s how the EU venture market works: it doesn’t.

Do politicians know how to build cars?

2009-02-27T07:01:00.003+01:00

The current crises in the automobile industry has led to strange excesses. Since the politicians seem to have the money for the carmakers (instead of customers who finally refuse to buy crappy and overpriced cars), they gained astonishing amount of influence.

It is not only the case in the US. In Germany, politicians are trying to tell the automakers what of potentials they have to explore and what kind of cars should be built.

As I already stated in one of my past postings (see "Why can't US car makers build decent cars"), many car makers have already a big competency problem. The CEOs have no idea what they are doing since they have no technical expertise. For some reasons, most CEOs don't get it - they think McKinsey consultants will tell them how to build better cars. As we see, they can not.

With politicians entering the stage, the amount of cloulessnes hits unprecedenced levels. As we all know, socialism - system that is entirely run by politicians and few oligarchs - has never produced anything useful. I have the impression that stupid deeds (by silly CEOs and their poorly educated teams) cause more stupid deeds (by politicians) that in turn lead to major catastrophies. Let us see what happens this time...

TrueCrypt out of business?

2009-02-22T21:04:00.003+01:00

The popular on-the-fly encryption open source software TrueCrypt seems to have gone out of business. The home site of the product, truecrypt.org, has not been responding for some time.

I suspect that TrueCrypt has been destroyed by the lack of founding caused by the current economic downturn. Open Source is nice - but coding ain't free.

If this is true - then I wonder who's next.

Google has finally become evil - or has it always been?

2009-02-14T07:34:00.003+01:00

Google goes the same way as other software guys have gone before: they are attempting to take control over its users. The Google Earth installation would install the Google automatic update agent without asking! What is even worse - Google Earth will not work without the agent! (read the Wired article here)

Why does Google do that? Because, when in Rom, do as Romans do. Google is just a commercial organization like all the rest, and they do the same thing. I wonder what happens to the Open Source junkies when it finally becomes all too obvious and the nifty projects like Firefox and others will become evil too - because they only exist thanks to paychecks sent in by Google every month.

In any case, Google has become such a huge data warehouse that we should really be concerned about what it will do with all the detailed information about us? Imagine where we are heading:

Google Earth may start sending our geographical whereabouts anytime to the Google central ANYTIME
Google for mobile devices may start analyzing all of our calls by voice recognition to throw "better targeted" ads at us
Google for car-embedded devices may have exact information of anything we do in the car (did you know how much a modern car knows about you? You would get shocked)
Google may connect all the dots and know literally EVERYTHING about you, even about things that - if compromised - would destroy you and maybe even your family forever!

And what if Google gets bought by a Russian consortium? Or some Arab organization tracking the non-believers? Or what if Google actually gets in a financial trouble and gets bought by the US state - or even the CIA for the sake of it?!

Yahoo is dying. Microsoft will never get its internet act together. I'm afraid we are stuck here with Google like a bunny in front of a hungry Anaconda snake.

Now, you open source junkies, why don't you create an open source search engine for free? Can't do that? Well. Thought so.

Something is wrong with the stock market timing

2009-02-13T08:07:00.003+01:00

Look at this chart:

What you see is that the market dips at 3 pm (N.Y. time), and then rallies until the end of the day. At 3 pm N.Y. time, the EU stock markets are already closed and cannot react anymore (as they follow the DOW anyways).

I see this phenomenon so often that I begin wondering what may be the cause. Statistically, if a day trader always bets on this constellation, it should make him a billionaire in a relatively short period of time. Maybe it is a part of some kind of a transatlantic scam, who knows?

I will be watching this issue closely and hope to figure out some more details in the future.

Screwed things up? Relabel it.

2009-02-08T20:52:00.003+01:00

Throwing piles of money at greedy bankers is bad enough. Trying to relabel it is even worse: it is a sad attempt to lie to the world about what is really going on.

That is what Obama administration is currently considering (see article in Telegraph here). What would be the new name for "TARP" and "Bailout"? Maybe "Small Change"?

French culture (not)

2009-01-26T22:00:00.004+01:00

France has long been admired as one of the most important culture nations. Music, poetry, manners - they seem to be at home in the land of the French.

... unless you need a restroom! In a McDonald's in Reims, the only restroom my wife could find is this:

This is not what you exactly expect from a "culture nation". France, the country of pit latrines!

A gigantic stocks rally as other investment options fade

2009-01-21T23:42:00.003+01:00

Since it is still January, I don’t want to miss my very own opportunity to bet on something this year. My bet is that this year, the stock market will hit a new high.

The rationale:

Investing in government bonds is becoming expensive. Whole countries like Greece and Portugal have their credit rating cut, and many investors won't buy such bonds.

The vast amount of money coming in to retirement funds must be invested somewhere. Since real estate and government bonds turn out to be a very risky investment – and will remain risky for at least the rest of 2009, and derivatives will be more or less banned from the funds managers agendas, the only attractive place where they can invest is the stock market. Flooded with vast amount of money, stock markets will explode.

The bottom line:

Maybe we will even see DOW at 10,000 by Christmas. I believe it may even go as high as 11,000 points!

The government takes over the banks? So... what?

2009-01-19T15:39:00.003+01:00

There are many whining voices about banks becoming owned by the state. After thinking about it for a while, I must ask this question: why for God’s sake? In the distant past, banks were investors and money lenders for new businesses. They gave money and took entrepreneur risk.

What do they do today? The only thing that an individual person would get money for is a new house. Banks are not investors anymore – they only speculate with second and third level derivatives. If this assumption is true, then it is better for them to become state ownerships.

The bottom line is: stop whining about a "new communism" - banks have ceased being capitalistic quite a while ago. We need strong investor organizations instead.

Time for bold predictions

2009-01-01T00:37:00.027+01:00

A brand new year has just begun, and it is time for some bold forecasts.

Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future, said Niels Bohr. Future is unpredictable - and failing this simple truth leads many even most famous individual astray. Here is a small selection of my favorite predictions that never materialized:

Science and Technology

“X-rays will prove to be a hoax.” (Lord Kelvin)
"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." (Lord Kelvin)
"There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will."(Albert Einstein, 1932)
"That virus is a pussycat.” (Dr. Peter Duesberg, molecular-biology professor at U.C. Berkeley, on HIV, 1988)
"The world's climatologists are agreed that we must prepare for the next ice age." (Science magazine, 1976)
“We will never make a 32 bit operating system.” (Bill Gates)
"640K ought to be enough for anybody." (Bill Gates, 1981)
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." (Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943)
"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." (Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC), 1977)
"Before 1985, mankind will enter a genuine age of scarcity . . . in which the accessible supplies of many key minerals will be facing depletion." (Professor Paul Ralph Ehrlich, 1976)
"By 1985, machines will be capable of doing any work Man can do." (Herbert A. Simon, a founder of the field of artificial intelligence, 1965)
“Next Christmas the iPod will be dead, finished, gone, kaput.” (Sir Alan Michael Sugar, the founder of Amstrad, 2005)
“The world potential market for copying machines is 5,000 at most.” (IBM to the eventual founders of Xerox, 1959).

Business and Economy

"Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau." (Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics at Yale University, 1929)
"$100 million dollars is way too much to pay for Microsoft." (IBM, 1982)
"We don't need you. You haven't got through college yet." (Hewlett-Packard's reply to Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak - they then founded Apple Computers)
"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" (H. M. Warner, co-founder of Warner Brothers, 1927)

Politics and Sociology

"We will bury you."(Nikita Khrushchev, Soviet Premier, predicting Soviet communism will win over U.S. capitalism, 1958)
"It will be years - not in my time - before a woman will become Prime Minister." (Margaret Thatcher, 1969)
"You will be home before the leaves have fallen from the trees."(Kaiser Wilhelm, to the German troops, August 1914)
"Sensible and responsible women do not want to vote." (Grover Cleveland, U.S. President, 1905)

There are much longer lists out there - and reading them is fun (like the recent one from Business Week). This gets me back to the now and here. I remember predictions of an economic growth of 2% in Germany in 2009. Now, I'm hearing about -3% or even -5% this year.

What to believe? Nothing in particular - most predictions are meaningless. It makes me optimistic about this fresh new year 2009: we may see the prophets of doom and gloom shut their mouths as a new economic upturn happens. I strongly believe that the world economy has only one real problem: big governments, with incredible amount of debt and a permanent ambition to reprogram us into mindless drones.

Be that as it may. I wish you a good and successful new year. It may turn out to be much better than many current predictions foretell.

What is wrong with the doctor?

2008-12-27T23:22:00.007+01:00

Something is wrong with our medicine science. These days, our doctors know how to patch nerves, transplant faces, manipulate genes, fight most contagious diseases.

At the same time, they seem to be unable to even know how such widespread chronic diseases like neurodermatitis, dandruff, diabetes, and a large number of other non-lethal but really annoying pests.

Why?

Looking closer at the drug industry, one cannot resist the impression that it happens for odd reasons. Chronic diseases generate huge revenues. A small bottle of anti-dandruff shampoo costs more than 10 Euros. Imagine what would happen to this vast business field if a real cure for dandruff would be discovered?

The longer I think of it the more I get upset. Why not invest some money in our health instead of giving it to the failing auto makers? All those billions thrown at incapable managers would be much better invested in medical science. First step would be to actually try to UNDERSTAND many chronic diseases. It is surprising how incomplete is our knowledge of their actual nature. It is a shame that we can build stealth bombers and send rockets to Mars, but seem to be unable to fix such profane thing as dandruff.

Do women really think it's OK for their husbands to have sex in movies?

2008-12-25T12:45:00.005+01:00

A recent study shows that 73% of German women think it's OK for their men to have sex in porn movie productions (!)

Now that's interesting. So faithfulness seems to be not that important for women after all. To those women, all the talk about being faithful is just a piece of BS. Doesn't that give us an interesting insight into women's minds?

It would be interesting to know what men would answer to this question, but they weren't asked (coincidence?)

Shocking: anyone could be a Nazi

2008-12-21T09:36:00.030+01:00

In his famous experiment, Stanley Milgram could prove that anyone has the potential to become a spineless tool in the hands of a manipulative authority (read an interesting CNN article on this issue).

Think of it. If you follow orders of an established authority, you delegate your individual responsibility to your superior. What does it mean? It means that, once you have followed criminal orders once or twice, you become part of the criminal pack. There is no way out. However, by nature, we actually want to be good and do right things. That's where the self-deception begins. Because we cannot undo what we've done before, we tend to look for justification for our deeds, and what is easier than just accepting the prefabricated ideology that our superiors give us to lull our consciences and make us even more obedient?

That is how fascist ideology works. Communist and other authoritarian ruling systems - they all use this simple scheme, because it is self-contained. That means: once the system gains a critical mass, there is no easy way out - only an intervention from the outside (as it happened with Nazi Germany) or a total collapse (as it happened with Soviet Union) can destroy the authoritarian regime.

What does it teach us? Authoritarian regimes are always based on centralized power. Also, centralized government gives the involved individuals so much power that it corrupts them. As the British historian of the 19th century, Lord Acton, once said: Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely. It means that absolute power and corruption are equivalent.

Advocates of strong governments frighten me, because they seem either to ignore it or - what's even more dangerous - they hope to belong to the elite of the new order, so that they can profit from the misery of enslaved societies.

The current crises seem to encourage advocates of big government to mount the barricades. They mistake the real estate bubble for a proof of failure of the principle of free markets. They overlook the fact that the bubble was significantly driven by Western governments. The economy is blamed for being out of control - and it was, but that's what certain governments actually did to our markets: they removed essential control mechanisms that were introduced after the Great Depression. It is similar to completely removing the Police, and then, when the criminal packs take over and the riots become furious, to say: See? A police state is better for you! We told you so!

Free markets do not mean anarchy. Their goal is to provide freedom to individuals who do not want to just follow orders - they want to develop and sell their own ideas and plans. They need rules and basic control, and that is what we pay our governments for (!).

By destroying free markets, we will encourage absolutist tendencies all over the world. Centralization of power is currently taking place in Europe, North America and other places. United States of Europe and United North America are bound for becoming too large to be free societies. The amount of power and resources given to a small group of individuals are just too huge. The only thing they need to conquer their societies is the "right" ideology. Various ideologies can be used as an excuse for doing wrong things: ecology, global warming hysteria, equality, religion, even freedom (as German Nazis did). As soon as we cross a certain line, there may be no easy way back. The history teaches us that concentration of power often leads to horrible catastrophes, holocausts, brutal regimes, wars, and general pauperism of many in favor of the few that wield the big stick. Let's hope it doesn't happen in our lifespan. But it may.

What worries me even more: in the past, repressed individuals could emigrate to, say, USA or other places in the world that were still relatively free. Where will we go if the next wave of absolutist regimes swaps over the entire planet?

EU wastes money on brainwashing videos

2008-12-20T12:09:00.008+01:00

Let me guess: this brainwashing "Everybody can save the world" - video was produced at an exceptionally high price paid by the EU taxpayers:

Welcome to the barracks. It just smells bad. All fascists regimes try to change the behavior of their subordinates. EU seems to be on the way to a brainwashing monster. We had it here before - and hoped to never see it again. I wonder.