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Big Toilet is Watching You

" Toto, short for Tōyō Tōki (Oriental Ceramics), is a Japanese toilet manufacturer that designed the Intelligence Toilet II. This toilet analyzes our excreta and records data like weight, BMI, blood pressure, and blood sugar levels. It even has a sample catcher in the bowl to obtain urine samples, which for instance can used to predict pregnancies. This information is then sent to your PC, showing your vital health stats." It would be a simple effort to share this information with your doctor and even with your health insurer. Imagine this, " You just went to the toilet and that triggered an automatic email informing you that your health insurance went up." The future is here; resistance is futile. And, maybe, just maybe, there are monsters in the toilets after all. News link
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Good (Protocol) Design Lasts Forever

Want to learn the technology that's in the center of the Web 2.0 storm?  It's a simple thing like REST that created the synergy that allows different web services to have the multiplication effect.   Still trying to decode above diagram? No need, that's way too complicated, to learn REST, just go back to the original design of HTTP , and stick to it. In case you also need a language to code http easily,  here is a javascript http hello world . A powerful design, like HTTP, last forever. And the beautify is, it's as simple as you could get/understand.

Most "Productive" Cities In The World?

Based on a just released Brooking Institution report and this CNBC report . To be exact, they are comparing per-capita GDP and changes in employment data from 2010 to 2011 among the 200 largest metropolitan areas of the world. Please download the full report here (5MB) , it's very good. These are the metro areas that surprised me in a nice way: Hartford and Buffalo. Both cities are a little bit run-down. But I guess the surrounding wealthy towns more than make up for it. Didn't know Chinese political powerhouse Beijing is almost at the bottom (187/200) still. Indian outsourcing capital of the world Mumbai is second to the bottom, and Cairo, knowing it's poor, is at the very bottom? 

Uncle Sam wants you to rent out its foreclosed homes

Fannie Mae will offer up nearly 2,500 distressed properties in eight locations to investors who are willing to buy them in bulk and rent them out for a set number of years. Does Uncle Sam favor the rich? Why not just release the distressed properties into the open market, and let the little investors like you and me to "share the prosperity"? This reminds me of President Obama's big tax break for big companies but actually raising tax for small business owners (so-called the rich who makes $200K a year) Talking about Crony Capitalism!

Get a ticket for ... Speed Trading?

"WASHINGTON—The Securities and Exchange Commission is looking to curb high-frequency traders' huge influence on stock trading and is considering charging fees for the myriad buy and sell orders that are later canceled, among other options." from WSJ Seriously? What's Next? You cannot put on a pretty dresses, as they might give you an unfair advantage in the "dating game"? How about you are not allowed to read extra books, do extra exercise, as they might give you an edge on test-taking, and sport events? What's wrong with paying extra money or effort, or starting earlier than your peers, to gain an edge? Enough already!

搞電腦/玩數學/作交易

"華爾街搞電腦/玩數學/作交易"是啥東東 許多人都有朋友"在華爾街搞電腦/玩數學/作交易", 有更多人對"華爾街"(泛指金融業)的工作性質感到好奇. 就連許多在華爾街工作很久的人也不清楚每天跟他一起吃中飯的人在作什麼. 我嚐試著將我所知道的整理出來. 以後如有時間會更深入的針對每一項詳加闡述 Here are the jobs in broader financial quant/engineering/technology field 財物工程及科技類的工作: Finance & Banking, Services & Support Analysis, Strategic Planning & Corp. Development Financial Data & Software Services Financial Products & Services Marketing Compliance/Regulatory Reporting Financial Consulting & Advisory Services Private/Consumer Banking Corporate Credit & Commercial Lending Corporate & Counterparty Credit Risk Management Credit Analysis Loans/Credit Portfolio Analytics Quantitative Finance, Financial Engineering Derivatives Pricing/Research & Modeling Quantitative F.I. Modeling & Research Quantitative Risk Management Quantitative Equity Research & Modeling MBS/ABS Research; Prepayment & Default Modeling Quantitative P

華爾街職場必殺密技

Communication Skill 溝通能力 Express yourself. 妳要有完整表達自己想法的能力. 事情不是只有成功或失敗, there are many inbetween, Be able to read the dynamics. 知道週遭環境錯綜複雜的人際關係, 才會做出最適化的判斷 Keep everyone in the loop. 充分告知每個相關人員project的進度及遇到的任何困難. 責任變成由許多人共同承擔 Problem Solving Is particularly important in a complex system (like finance). 能夠用 Common Sense + 專業技巧 + 經驗 快速合理的解決問題 When stakes are high and time is little.耐壓冷靜可靠的處理每個問題 Domain Knowledge 不管你的部門/公司的業務是什麼,我只能說 : 不計代價,把它搞懂! 見 搞電腦/玩數學/作交易 Technical Skills 數學永遠是最重要的東西: 統計,數值方法,微分,演算法 寫程式功力要紮實: 邏輯清楚,細心,動作快, also keep yourself updated 見 搞電腦/玩數學/作交易 Attitude 工作態度 Eager Learner 表現出對任何事物都有強烈的學習態度 Team Player 你在團隊裡面應有 1+1>2 的效果 Attention to Detail 對細節的重視 Pay Your Due 不要一學會一樣東西就想跳槽或換部門. 1. doesn't look good on the resume 2. 練功不夠 Management Skills Project Management 對每一件事掌握節奏以及協調進度直到完成 Clients Management 精確掌握客戶(每個人對妳有所求的都是妳的客戶)的期望 Team Cheerleader 鼓舞士氣

川普, 小心了!

你是不是創業的料? 我想如果你錯過了變成 Bill Gates, Donald Trump 或 Sam Walton 的大好機會, 至少你可以從小培養你的子女下列特質或創造出以下環境, 讓他們 have a shot at it. There are many factors, including genetics, that can help an entrepreneur 原文 By JIM HOPKINS, USA Today Posted Monday, August 21, 2006 What attributes suggest someone's a good candidate to start their own business? A college degree doesn't hurt, though dropping out didn't stop Bill Gates from launching the world's biggest software maker. Being rich would solve the problem of startup financing, yet Sam Walton got his start in business on not much more than a wing and a prayer. There are no definitive answers, but the entrepreneurs, private investors and academics suggested these experiences, traits and skills: Childhood experience 兒時經驗 You didn't rely on allowances and other handouts from your parents for spending money when you were young. You set up a weekend lawn-mowing business and hired friends to work for you. Or you franchi

Look Mom, No Application Servers, Look...MOM!

In the unlikely event that you're not familiar with my gas station, you can find my previous essays at http://jdj.sys-con.com/read/category/1142.htm . Recently, I've conducted a small survey among my truck drivers. I asked them just one question: "What do you think of application servers?" The most popular answer was, "I don't need no stinkin' application server." And truck drivers usually know what they're talking about! You may think that now I'll start selling one of the popular application frameworks. Wrong! The idea of these frameworks was nice: get back from complex containers to programming POJOs. But while trying to provide alternatives to container services, each of these frameworks ran into the short-blanket syndrome: something is always sticking out. XML is sticking out big time! To simplify Java programming, developers are paying the high price of adding unmanageable amounts of XML descriptors, mappings, wiring

Openstructure: A Call for Open Source Reform

This is the third paper in the series, The Open Source Monopoly. The goal of the series is to expose a trend in open source that is leading to the creation of a new breed of 'effective' monopolies by commercial open source companies. In this paper, a solution is presented for how the open source community can reverse this trend and insure the long-term survival of the movement. This paper has led to the establishment of the Openstructure Community. The marginalization of open source In the last paper, The Economics of Open Source, I noted that there seems to be an increasing split between the "professional" open source companies and the "pony-tailed faction" of original open source developers and users. One of the many things that the movement has struggled with is to define how money is to be made from open source. An obvious way is for companies to offer paid support services for open source products - there are plenty of examples of this. But the d

The Economics of Commercial Open Source

This is the second paper in the series, The Open Source Monopoly. The goal of the series is to expose a trend in open source that is leading to the creation of a new breed of 'effective' monopolies by commercial open source companies. Introduction This article expands upon my previous paper, "The Open Source Monopoly". In it, I laid out the premise that commercial open source (COS) companies of the likes of Red Hat, MySQL and JBoss are examples of a new trend in the open source movement. In this trend, which I call the "Commercial Model" of open source, these companies have positioned themselves to be the de facto "names" in the open source movement. While this may be seen as a natural evolution of the marketplace, I believe that it violates the true spirit of open source, a spirit based in freedom, artistic expression and technological innovations. The result of this trend is what I am calling an effective monopoly, one in which a select grou

The Open Source Monopoly

http://www.galatea.com/opensource.html "The Open Source Monopoly" was originally published as a single paper. It has since become the first in a series of three. The second paper, The Economics of Commercial Open Source, looks in more detail at the economic models of companies like Red Hat Inc., JBoss and MySQL AB. The third paper, Openstructure: A Call for Open Source Reform presents some solutions to the current trend in open source and offers a challenge to the open source community for reform. Last month I wrote an article on Apache Geronimo for JavaWorld called "A First Look at Apache Geronimo." In the summary, I stated that "Geronimo aims to be the first J2EE-certified open source J2EE server." As can be imagined, that statement generated a flurry of emails and responses, most of which claimed that in fact, JBoss was the first open source J2EE certified server. In my reply to some of the reader feedback I received, I clarified that