NYTimes.com: Vast Spy System Loots Computers in 103 Countries

The malware is remarkable both for its sweep - in computer jargon, it has not been merely "phishing" for random consumers' information, but "whaling" for particular important targets - and for its Big Brother-style capacities. It can, for example, turn on the camera and audio-recording functions of an infected computer, enabling monitors to see and hear what goes on in a room. The investigators say they do not know if this facet has been employed.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/technology/29spy.xml

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New definition of mindboggling

[note: changed 10 to 100M and 20 to 200M] Facebook gains 1 million new accounts PER DAY. Since last august, they doubled from 100M to 200M accounts. http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=350567&f=19

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"If you need a ghostwriter for 140 characters, I feel sorry for you" says Shaq

Wanted: personal assistant to tweet for me: When Stars Twitter, a Ghost May Be Lurking (NYT)

Check out:

@robcorddry - "Oh no! My local Curves is closing! And during Girl Scout Cookie season too! Aack!"

@cwalken - "I am now invited to a dog wedding. I don't have the words to make that stupider than it already sounds. They're registered at Whiskers" (thanks eric for the pointer to this twitterer (twit?))

@clairemc - claire mccaskill, D senator from missouri "Lunch w/Lily in Sen dining rm. Sen Bennett at large table surrounded by journalsts. Don't know whethr to say congrats or try to save him."

@lancearmstrong - "all went well. Lance is in recovery. Same guy just 12 screws in his collarbone"

@tonyrobbins - "simple rule.. must play full out and you must take what you learned and help two other people in the future with what you learn best. tony"

Employees take charge

And hold the boss hostage in anger over job reductions

http://wireless.go.com/wireless/abcnews/section/topstories/7170102_1
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Goodbye Google | stopdesign

Is it possible for an organization to be too analytical? Sounds like my shop.

http://stopdesign.com/archive/2009/03/20/goodbye-
google.html
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Another perfect beach on Oahu

Test of the photo uploading.
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cheery huh

ok, that's most of the recent stuff i was bumming out the facebook crowd with. hey - this is reality, not american idol.

NYT: What's in the Stimulus Bill for you

Most of us will be able to use at least one of the tax breaks and handouts included in the proposed stimulus bill.

the duration

from the International Herald Tribune, Krugman: What will stop the pain?:

"All participants anticipated that unemployment would remain substantially above its longer-run sustainable rate at the end of 2011, even absent further economic shocks; a few indicated that more than five to six years would be needed for the economy to converge to a longer-run path characterized by sustainable rates of output growth and unemployment and by an appropriate rate of inflation."

SoCal Real Estate predictions

Comment by Chuck Ponzi from the Southern California Real Estate Bubble Blog: "If you think the defaults are mostly behind us, you’re more than welcome to go back into the market. I’m very confident that we’ve got at least 2 more years of actively falling prices for now."

NYT: Can the Cellphone Help End Global Poverty?

This is one of the most thought-provoking articles i've read lately:

...even very poor families invested a significant amount of money in the I.C.T. category — information-communication technology, which, according to Al Hammond, the study’s principal author, can include money spent on computers or land-line phones, but in this segment of the population that’s almost never the case. What they’re buying, he says, are cellphones and airtime, usually in the form of prepaid cards. Even more telling is the finding that as a family’s income grows — from $1 per day to $4, for example — their spending on I.C.T. increases faster than spending in any other category, including health, education and housing. “It’s really quite striking,” Hammond says. “What people are voting for with their pocketbooks, as soon as they have more money and even before their basic needs are met, is telecommunications.”

Also - "The world added the last 1 billion [cell phone] subscribers between the third quarter of 2007 and the end of 2008" -- in less than 18 months. Staggering!!

AIG

i've been trying to understand what caused the financial crisis to happen. wish i had more time to read what has been posted to the blogosphere. a great post over at The Big Picture discussing AIG is here; i'm still reading it. it suggests a definition of "too big to fail": having as your creditors 25 major u.s. financial institutions; 7 countries (surely china is #1 on the list); $20B of assets of u.s. cities and state municipalities; and money market funds.

if you have time to only read one article, read AIG's rescue has a long way to go by Carol Loomis of Fortune magazine:

...on Monday, Sept 15 the government decided it could not or would not rescue Lehman but instead would let it go bust. Bankruptcy court records have since shown that Lehman had 900,000 derivatives and financial contracts with other parties, and each creditor holding these realized on Monday morning that its check wasn't going to be in the mail. The hazy financial concept called "systemic risk" immediately became hard reality. Credit markets froze worldwide and stayed frozen on Tuesday, which is the day when AIG was headed toward bankruptcy but didn't get there. The theory around, which all of financialdom seems to accept as received truth, is that the government realized by Tuesday that it had erred grievously in letting Lehman go down and knew that it could not compound the error by allowing AIG to fail a day later.

oh yeah, and china called: they're wondering if they'll get their money back.

consumption & the Compact

it occurred to me this weekend that if/when the economy ever returns to monotonically increasing, u.s. consumer consumption rates may never return to what we consider to be "normal" levels of the last 20 years. surely not of the last 5-7 years, that is for sure. i read about The Compact where folks have decided to literally buy nothing new for a year...except for health/medical necessities like food, medicine, toilet paper. if this becomes a way of life, as opposed to a fad...a preference, in combination with undoubtedly lower credit availability caused by lower risk tolerance, it will certainly change the business outlook going forward. i wonder if any marketing departments are modelling a sustained reduction in consumption rates, as a worst-case.

i work in consumer electronics and in my mba class, we are supposed to dream up some product or service that we will research and pitch to VC's at the end of the quarter. a fabulous opportunity, but i find myself really nauseated about thinking of some new widget that folks should buy. i'm trying to think of a service, or a way to increase efficiency, that would have value to people - something around saving energy, for example.

to start at the beginning

i have been frustrated for a while in my search for an appropriate forum to discuss technology and business topics. my daughter's blog, and facebook, seem like the wrong places to post content - it's either not relevant, or waaay too serious. and twitter isn't high enough bandwidth. so as an outlet to my serious side, here is where i can collect all my thoughts.

i work in high tech, at a company you have definitely heard of, coming up on 20 years in the biz. like everyone else, i am really not sure what is going to happen to the u.s. economy, or this company, or any other company, over the next few years. it is hunker down time.

it is fascinating to me to watch how business responds to today's challenges. after all, businesses are not impersonal "entities" but are made up of people, and people have blindsides, delusions, and imperfections; but also hopes, ambitions, and usually the best of intentions.

for now, comments are on but moderated. so if anyone in the universe can find me (besides spammers), post away!