corsin.org

Too big to fail

Last weekend before going to Prague i’ve bought a book with my Kindle that I have been trying to read for a while: Too Big to Fail.

In this book, the New York Times columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin writes in detail and in a comprehensible way about the internals of the crisis that made the world’s financial system teetering.

It is really interesting reading how the main actors never thought what it was starting and thought that the system was the most secure system ever after diversifying the risks, what it leaded to a domino effect that ended in the bankrupt not only of investment banks, but traditional banks and insurance companies worldwide.

It is interesting as well the linking with politics and the causes and consecuences of politic decissions, letting companies fall.

For everyone interested in economy and want to go a bit deeper in the causes of this crisis, this is your book.

Amazon kindle. First chapters read

I think Santa lacks a GPS, or at least he lost my gifts and he dont have any tracking system, so I decided to auto-gift myself with an Amazon Kindle. I wasn’t so sure about liking eReaders; I thought that they would be pretty uncomfortable to use or the battery life not being long enough, however I have to admit that the experience was pretty different.

After reading the first book on it, I would like to write about my experience avoiding technical details, as there are already thousands of reviews written about that, but focusing a bit more in the user experience I had with it.

Ergonomics

9/10. It could be a bit more comfortable, but its design is amazing. The buttons are so nice placed (I miss a previous page button in the right side though), and it dont feels so fragile.

The screen is awesome. Reading in an eInk screen is something I ever wondered it would be that comfortable, your eyes dont get tired and you can read 200 pages in a row without your eyes starting to bleed. However, the refresh time when swapping pages could be a bit better, but I dont know if this is something inherent to eInk technology or to kindle indeed.

Buying books

You can buy books via kindle or via amazon’s web site. In both cases it’s fast and smooth buying a book, paying around $13 and having it in seconds in yoru device. It’s that fast and easy that becomes a bit dangerous avoiding buying the whole Alexandria library and burning your credit card.

When you buy a kindle, you will get automatically an @kindle.com email address and whatever you send there that it’s printable, will be converted to kindle’s format and sent to your device over 3G (they charge you for 0.99$ per convertion). You have to add the source email addresses you want to use in your amazon’s profile page for avoiding spam. If some day i’m bored I should try if they filter properly spoofings, as the default email addresses are easily predictable.

Extras

Amazon’s kindle comes with a couple of additional software, mainly a web browser that dont works out of US (this sucks), a simple mp3 player and the text to speech function that reads the book for you.

How it works for users?

User experience is really good. Reading in kindle is incredibly comfortable (but the refresh issue), buying books is so fast and easy, but there also some “but’s”. For example, standard pdf reading is ok, but isn’t by far as good as reading propietary kindle’s format. Also it still lacks some additional applications that give an extra value, like some calendar, the web browser being functional in different countries than US, or a RSS reader.

But the most important “but”… sometimes you want to buy a book, and they dont have it in kindle format, or they dont have it in any format… it’s the problem of using propietary systems, you are tied to them.

However, even if the device can be yet improved and for the time being, in my opinion is yet a device for early adopters, i’m now seriously convinced that not so far, Ikea isn’t going to sell so many bookselfs.

Manifesto on the rights of Internet users

Since the draft of the new sustainable economy law in Spain that will grant the Ministery of Culture the power of taking down web sites without a court order, I support the following manifesto:

1 .- Copyright should not be placed above citizens’ fundamental rights to privacy, security, presumption of innocence, effective judicial protection and freedom of expression.

2 .- Suspension of fundamental rights is and must remain an exclusive competence of judges. This blueprint, contrary to the provisions of Article 20.5 of the Spanish Constitution, places in the hands of the executive the power to keep Spanish citizens from accessing certain websites.

3 .- The proposed laws would create legal uncertainty across Spanish IT companies, damaging one of the few areas of development and future of our economy, hindering the creation of startups, introducing barriers to competition and slowing down its international projection.

4 .- The proposed laws threaten creativity and hinder cultural development. The Internet and new technologies have democratized the creation and publication of all types of content, which no longer depends on an old small industry but on multiple and different sources.

5 .- Authors, like all workers, are entitled to live out of their creative ideas, business models and activities linked to their creations. Trying to hold an obsolete industry with legislative changes is neither fair nor realistic. If their business model was based on controlling copies of any creation and this is not possible any more on the Internet, they should look for a new business model.

6 .- We believe that cultural industries need modern, effective, credible and affordable alternatives to survive. They also need to adapt to new social practices.

7 .- The Internet should be free and not have any interference from groups that seek to perpetuate obsolete business models and stop the free flow of human knowledge.

8 .- We ask the Government to guarantee net neutrality in Spain, as it will act as a framework in which a sustainable economy may develop.

9 .- We propose a real reform of intellectual property rights in order to ensure a society of knowledge, promote the public domain and limit abuses from copyright organizations.

10 .- In a democracy, laws and their amendments should only be adopted after a timely public debate and consultation with all involved parties. Legislative changes affecting fundamental rights can only be made in a Constitutional law.

I am looking for investors in an information security company

Did you know that more than 50% of the companies had productivity or reputation problems due to computer attacks?

Did you know that more than 60% of them admit their main problem for controlling information security is the lack of specialized staff and the number of attacks is increased every year?

For the last year I have been working in a business plan related to a company dedicated to mitigate the risks of organizations about information security. If you are looking to invest in a profitable project (break even in third year, payback in fifth, 28% ROE), by a reliable team (you can check my cv here), please feel free of contacting me in alberto@corsin.org