Foreign chains fail in India because they build Top-down

According to the businessman quoted here 'Foreign chains fail in India because they build Top-down'. These large retailers like Walmart start building from Top, by setting up team for marketing, team for social media etc. This bloated workforce makes it hard to cut margins. Indian consumers are not ready to make feels-good purchases and go for who ever is cheap. It is not that these foreign have any better product; it is all made in China.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-17/watch-me-wal-mart-message-from-most-profitable-india-supermart

Lower the standard of education to keep up diversity

Colleges are eliminating the need for standardized test to join college. This is to promote liberal agenda of diversity.


“The measure of a woman’s ambition and intelligence is so much more than a standardized test score,” Alecia DeCoudreaux, dean of Mills College, a small women’s college in San Francisco

"Admissions counselors can enroll a more diverse class if the test requirement is dropped, said George Washington spokeswoman Maralee Csellar. 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-03/will-the-college-admissions-test-disappear



Similar strategy was used to push women in to Military

Example of "over analysis": avoiding mosquito bite through chemical means(more products)

I am not the first one to say "what is wrong with USA?"

Avoiding Mosquito bite
http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2016/01/30/464740275/whats-the-best-way-to-keep-mosquitoes-from-biting

Articles gives a list of products but no word about. No durable solution provided.
--Mosquito net
--Long sleeve shirts & pants

Going by the content, author has not lived in any 3rd world country. Unfortunately there is a generation of Americans bought up with this mentality of no common sense and over analysis.

SSD basics

RAM and SSD

SSD is a NAND-type flash. RAM has infinite number of READ & WRITE capability. SSD(or Flash memory) can be overwritten something less than 100,000 times. (Depending on the type of flash memory, it may be as few as 1,000 times)

SSD Types

Single level cell (SLC): Stores 1 bit per internal cell, has a higher number of write cycles. Expensive.
Multi level cell (MLC): Stores multiple bits per internal cell. Cheap and consumes more power.

Sector, Block and Page in SSD

     Sector/Page = 4,096 byte.             // Unit of Read/Write

     Block = 1024 * sector                  // Unit of Erasing

     Chip  = Thousands of Blocks

Read/Write unit and Erasable unit (Performance degrade and Aging)

Key thing is Unit of Erasing is larger than Unit of Read/Write. This affects the speed at which data is written to blank SSD and crowded SSD. Writing to blank SSD is fast because there is no need to make space, and writing to crowded SSD is slow because making space is an expensive operation.

Example, here we write a single sector on to a crowded SSD

1.   Read the entire Block into the controller’s internal RAM. (because unit of Erasing is Block)

2.   Erase the Block in the SSD.

3.   Write new sector in to Block sitting in RAM.

4.   Write the entire Block on to the SSD

As you see, writing one sector required working on extra 1023 sectors because unit of Erasing (one Block has 1024 sectors) is Block. So as SSD gets crowded, the rate of erasing increases resulting in not only bad performance but also aging because SSD has fixed number Write cycles.

Wear-leveling

This is implemented inside controller, to spread the wear (erases) across the SSD. This means SSD ages uniformly.

File Deletion and the Trim Command

Magnetic disk reads and writes nativley, in terms of sector, so the file deletion is a check-box inside a data structure. SSDs do not read and write sectors natively, and that lead to problems in earlier SSD. Then SSD controller's came with TRIM command.

Precautions

1.   Fragmentation is not problem in SSD. If used, Disk defragmenter will wear our SSD faster.

2.   NTFS was not designed with SSD in mind. NTFS issues lots of small writes to increase reliability and this is not good for SSD.

3.  Using an SSD as your C: drive may drastically increase the speed of your system, but it will wear out before a magnetic disk would.

4.  High-end magnetic disks can outperform low-end SSDs in some cases because many low-end SSDs perform poorly for small, random writes, which is a characteristic of the typical Windows workload

Source: Windows Internals (edition 6) by Mark E. Russinovich

SSD gets slower as they age

SSD becomes slower as they age. This is not my experience because I do not own SSD, but I have heard people complain. Windows Internals (edition 6) by Mark E. Russinovich explains why performance of SSD goes down.

Sector, Block and Page in SSD

     Sector/Page = 4,096 byte.             // (Unit of Read/Write)

     Block = 1024 * sector                  // (Unit of Erasing)

     Chip  = Thousands of Blocks

Unit of Read/Write and Unit of Erasing

Key thing is Unit of Erasing is larger than Unit of Read/Write. This affects the speed at which data is written to blank SSD and crowded SSD. Writing to blank SSD is fast because there is no need to make space, and writing to crowded SSD is slow because making space is an expensive operation.

Example, here we write a single sector on to a crowded SSD

1.   Read the entire Block into the controller’s internal RAM. (because unit of Erasing is Block)

2.   Erase the Block in the SSD.

3.   Write new sector in to Block sitting in RAM.

4.   Write the entire Block on to the SSD

As you see, writing one sector required working on extra 1023 sectors because unit of Erasing (one Block has 1024 sectors) is Block. So as SSD gets crowded, the rate of erasing increases resulting in not only bad performance but also aging because SSD has fixed number Write cycles.

Source: Windows Internals (edition 6) by Mark E. Russinovich

WDM in under sea optical fiber cables

Under sea optical-fiber cables use WDM for data transfer. According to Wikipedia, this technology can accommodate past protocol without any need for hardware upgrade and cheap to implement.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wavelength-division_multiplexing

Groundbreaker project by NSA

In 2001 NSA transferred large number of employees from their pay-roll to private contractors. Needless to say number of employee transferred in secret and contract was 2billion worth at the time of estimation. According to 'Shadow Factory' 35 contractors shared this contract.

Basically employees sat on the same chair but got paycheck from different company.

http://www.crocodyl.org/spies_for_hire/project_groundbreaker_nsa_contract

Unit 8200 of Israel Army and Spy softwares

It is easy to notice that antivirus, telecom spying software goes back to Israel company. Unit 8200 developed software for Mossad. Due to revolving-door practices executives from Unit 8200 started  software companies based on their previous knowledge.In Israel military experience counts in job interview, especially if you are from Unit 8200.

Variant system, Narus, NICE, Comverse, Check point, ECtel are few examples.


Source: Shadow Factory by James Bamford

former NSA officers working for private contractors.

Revolving door is a pillar of corporations in US. This incestuous relation is strong in Defense. Here is few of NSA officers who quite NSA and headed to private firms. Once NSA guy joined the private firm, the profits of the company shoots. Following is may be a 1% of list. I do not think if it is possible to track this relation.

SPARTA - Maureen Baginski (NSA’s signals intelligence director) October 2006.
Applied Signal Technology -John P. Devine, (former NSA’s deputy director for technology)
TRW -William Studeman (former NSA director)
Cylink - McConnell’s (former NSA deputy director)
E Systems - Charles R. Lord(NSA deputy director)

William B. Black Jr, ex NSA guy was working for SAIC. He quit SAIC and joined NSA again in 2000. Later SAIC got $280 million Trailblazer contract, the project William B. Black Jr managed in NSA.

Source: Shadow Factory by James Bamford

Rocket fuel

Quote from the book Griftopia in the context of Greenspan denying the existence of bubble in market..

"humanity has reached a happy stage in history where bullshit can be used as rocket fuel"

ePub to PDF conversion using 'Adobe Acrobat Pro Extender"

Following the best method for converting ePub to PDF. I have used Calibre and font in the converted PDF is way to big, pages are too small. Following method gives normal font size. You need 'Adobe ACrobat Pro Extender"


1) Rename the extension from EPUB to RAR
2) Unzip
3) Open *.OPF file. Navigate to following TAG
           ""
4) Open 'Adobe ACrobat Pro Extender". Navigate to    
   File -> Combine -> Merge Files in PDF
5) In "Combine files" dialog
     a. select 'single PDF' button on R-Top corner
     b. click on 'Add files'
     c. Add the all HTML files in a single shot
     d. Then re arrange the files in the ORDER given in  "" of step-3
       Example:
             -> select XXXXX_cvi_YYY.html
              -> select XXXXX_tp_YYY.html
             -> select XXXXX_cop_YYY.html
6) Click Combine.

7) You have PDF