World's biggest diamond heist...The untold story

Sharing an interesting article about a daring diamond theft sometimes referred as the heist of the century. It happened in 2003 @ the Antwerp Diamond center and many pieces of the loot and its modus operandi still remain unanswered. Still, the yet unheard story about Leonardo Notarbartolo and his accomplices makes an interesting read considering the fact that they successfully broke an almost impenetrable vault protected by 10 layers of security which used infrared heat/motion detectors, magnetic field, seismic sensor and locks with 100mn possbile combinations. Read on to find out more....

http://www.wired.com/politics/law/magazine/17-04/ff_diamonds?currentPage=1

Change !!

Change is believed to be the only constant in the world and the 'youth' on whose shoulders rests India's future also agrees to it. The recent spate of Peace march, SMSs,lighting candles, street plays, online communities,forums, talk shows, marathons,Greenathons, cycle rallies all seem to suggest youth's simmering need for a change...From 'Ring the bell' campaign to 'Jaago Re', a whole lot of things suddenly seem vying for a change. Maybe its necessary but the whole spectrum seems more crowded than our road traffic with calls of 'running for change','voting for change','I change','You change', 'Time to change' and wonder what more..Hopefully, over time a common platform for youths will emerge which would have a clearer sense of purpose.

Though the answer to 'what' to change is being daily amplified though thses advertisements and campaigns but the 'how' of change seems incomprehensible to most, including me. My friend Ashutosh Pratap Singh has provided me one answer to it through his entrepreneurial venture apnaIT. A deshpande foundation fellow, he has taken up on himself to provide the benefits of information technogoly to the grassroots in India. Probably, that's the change India needs.
Do visit his blog for suggestions, comments and any ideas...
http://blog.apnait.org/

His venture website is http://www.apnait.org/

Happiness in 'Bulk'

Today 27th Feb 09, i believe, is one of the happiest days @ NM. That was the real 'BULK' recruitment...27 placed in one go....It wud make it unprecedented or one among the oft quoted 'rare event'. It had a low probability of occurrence and certainly has a high impact and some quirky rationalization may even make it retrospectively predictable. Its more like having seen a white among all black swans...So, i believe the 'invisible hand' above all of us is still the final arbiter and there's little gain from worrying about recession, GDP, IIP, Car sales, cement dispatches, Udayan Mukherjee, NNT, S&P ratings, fiscal deficit, Obama, US jobless claims, Gold, Crude...phew !!

Congrats to all 27 whether you are:

1. through & happy OR

2. through & still not happy OR

3. through & waiting to react

The formula that killed Wall Street !!

Here's the link to a recent article in Wired online, which talks about a formula which had been devised by David Li, a quantitative analyst and qualified actuary, for correlating associations between multiple securities. Lapped up by quant-hungry bankers and analysts for pricing CDOs and mortgage market instruments, the limitations of correlation as a number were overlooked. Read on about the implications of the formula....

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/17-03/wp_quant?currentPage=all

Larry Ellison - Success mantras

Recently read some of the success secrets from Oracle Corp founder and CEO Larry Ellison. He had first seen opportunity in relational databases, when others missed it, and co-founded Oracle in 1977 putting $2000 of his money. Starting with Oracle 2 as the first release(there was no Oracle 1), Oracle over the years has become leader in database technologies and enterprise applications in the world. Here are some bits from him...

• I have had all of the disadvantages required for success.

• I love sailing. I like it more when I'm winning.

• There is really nothing riskier than not taking risks.

• There's a wonderful saying that's dead wrong. 'Why did you climb the mountain?' 'I climbed the mountain because it was there.' That's utter nonsense... You climbed the mountain because you were there, and you were curious if you could do it. You wondered what it would be like.

• In some ways, getting away from headquarters and having a little time to reflect allows you to find errors in your strategy. You get to rethink things. Often, that helps me correct a mistake that I made or someone else is about to make. I'd rather be wrong than do something wrong.

• Five years from now I don't know how I'll think.

• Software is all about scale. The larger you are, the more profitable you are. If we sell twice as much as software, it doesn't cost us twice as much to build that software. So the more customers you have, the more scale you have.

• We used to have a rule at Oracle to never hire anybody you wouldn't enjoy having lunch with three times a week.

• People tend to like what they're good at and not like very much what they're not good at.

• Whenever you can find flaws in conventional wisdom is when you get real competitive advantages. Whenever you're just doing the same thing everyone else is doing, the best you can hope for is parity, you know, or small advantages, to do it 10 percent better or 20 percent better or even 30 percent better, but not a thousand times better.

• You don't need too many things that are radical to get ahead;You need about one of those every five years. You have to take these big risks on a regular, though not too frequent, basis.

• I often say that when you think you have this really great idea and everyone else thinks you're nuts, there's one or two possibilities. You have a really great idea; the other possibility is you're nuts.

Humour on Net

One of the frequent circulated mails about 'A COWSMIC VIEW OF WORLD'...Posting it here for those still missing this wonderful piece..

FEUDALISM: You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.
PURE SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else's cows. You have to take care of all the cows. The government gives you as much milk as you need.

Video: Daniel Kahneman & Nassim Taleb @ DLD Conference

Here's a link to a wonderful talk among Daniel Kahneman and NNT over the recent crisis and its causes...Daniel Kahneman is a nobel laureate and is noted for his works in behavioural finance and hedonic psychology. Prospect Theory (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979) is his most notable contribution and the theory developed as an alternative to expected utility theory.

http://www.simoleonsense.com/video-daniel-kahneman-nassim-taleb-dld-conference/

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