Food for thought

If you lack the discipline to control your eating habits, it's unfair to yell at a dog for following it's instinct by foraging for food in the trash.

Blackberry - Market Manipulation

I'm a Blackberry fan.  Not the raving fanboy type that has to have the latest berry, and that defends them no matter what.  No, I'm more the fan who silently roots for the underdog, and who watches their move with a mind both hopeful and critical.
I've rooted for BB10, bought, wanted to like, and then reluctantly sold the Q10.
I've examined the Priv, marvelled at it's UI and build quality, and reluctantly and silently put it back after concluding that the high price,inferior front camera, and substandard (by Blackberry standards) hardware keyboard were showstoppers.
But the shorts have forced me to break my silence.
By shorts I'm of course not referring to those of the Bermuda variety.  I'm talking about those market participants who grab hold of a given stock, sell it short, and proceed to manipulate the market for that stock to artificially constrain its price and range.
Since the second week of January, BBRY has been constrained within a very narrow ~3% trading range.  This is in spite of significant general market movements, and significant positive news about the stock (increased stock buyback, adoption of Android & abandonment of BBOS).  The stock has failed to participate in any of the market upticks (and conversely, in any of the market downticks) since week 2 of January.
Now broaching my silence is not out of a sense of disgruntlement - but rather of fascination that a subset of the market participants is able to exact such remarkable control of a security that it's trading range can so severely ignore rational reasons for movement and stay firmly still, in the face of multiple reasons for not doing so.
Can't wait to see what the month of February brings!

A drop in the well - an alternate theory for the current market decline

There's an interesting take on the reason for the market turmoil in 247wallst.com.  The basic premise is that as oil prices rise, exporters amass sovereign wealth portfolios to invest the surplus, and presumably as oil prices drop, those countries begin to liquidate their portfolios, resulting in a preponderance (love that word) of liquidity in the markets.  The lack of demand and excess of supply drives the market lower. It's an interesting theory, and makes a good bit of sense.  Certainly it sounds more reasonable than the idea that the market is so severely spooked by the glut of oil that it keeps pushing the market past correction and toward recession.
On the other hand, the movements in market prices seem strongly correlated with the price of oil, whereas if the impact was caused by these massive portfolios, I'd expect to see more volume, and less correlation.  Nevertheless, still food for thought...

Quick flip on NA.TO calls + Musings on the future of Blackberry

Yesterday's market meltdown was a nice opportunity to buy some calls on NA for a quick flip.  It wasn't much money (Canada doesn't have the most liquid of option markets) but hey, I'll take it.
I now turn my attention back to Blackberry.  This stock is like an itchy scab that you just can't stop picking at.  Not really a good thing.  But I'm really tempted to buy some calls.  Here's my reasoning why;
1. The stock has gotten the shit kicked out of it lately. Not without good reason, mind you - since the hardware side continues to disappoint, and software revenue is a bit skewed by the Good acquisition... But it's so cheap that it looks attractive.
2. The PRIV effect.  It's an awesome phone.  Absolutely beautiful.  And it's actually been selling.  I'm not talking Iphone or Samsung volumes, here, but still - it's selling.  I don't access to any real stats - so I've resorted to walking into wireless retail establishments, who all tell me that it's been selling well, and also to looking at Amazon reviews as a proxy for sell through rates (e.g. lots of reviews for the Priv and associated accessories means good sell through).  Based on that unscientific-but-hey-I-have-access-to-no-other-metrics approach, I'm thinking that the hardware estimate could be a surprise to the upside.
3. What have they got to lose?  What I mean by that is, they've publicly stated that the Priv is make or break.  If they don't make their numbers, they get out of the hardware business and focus on services - value gets unlocked and the stock goes up.  If they make their numbers - everyone is appropriately surprised - stock goes up.
Those are my quick thoughts. Of course, there are lots of other fundamentals to consider - but then, when was the last time a stock traded on fundamentals...
What do you think?

Hotline Bling and the N Word

This post is a bit late to the game, but still...
Drake dropped yet another crowd pleasing hit with "hotline bling".  The cool thing about this track is that he does it all without inserting the " N word".  An impressive accomplishment for a rapper who's made the word such an integral part of his music.

A gust of Wind, but stuck with Rogers

After yet another frustrating and irritating battle with Rogers, I walked into a Wind store with all intent of jumping ship. The sales lady was very helpful, and we were off to a good start:
- device selection - yup - Wind has made some inroads here, and offers a decent selection of (Android) devices. There's also a light smattering of BB10 and mention of Windows OS (no devices). Apparently iPhone users need not apply (unless they have their own unlocked devices).   Since Android is my favourite OS, the lack of IOS / Windows phone devices was not a showstopper for me though.
- Price - hands down, Wind has the best pricing for a global texting, data consuming fiend like myself. Ergo my trip to the Wind store.  $40 for all that texting and data! Awesome!
- Rogers cancellation fee: $300. Steep, but no problem, Wind has great pricing on their phones, I'll just sign up and away we go.
But no, fast forward a year later, and I'm still stuck with Rogers. Why?
Well here's the thing. Like most Canadians, I have a love / hate relationship with the major telcos.  Pricing is not competitive with the smaller players. Customer service is often poor, with some reps giving out false info which the company will not pull past calls to validate, and plans are often complex beasts that result in the average Canadian being nickel and dimed.
But in spite of this, there are a couple of things that Rogers has going for it over the small players.  An LTE network, and good service coverage. As a data hog with a grandfathered 6Gb plan, I'm very reluctant to give up these benefits for less coverage. 
That said - Wind, I'm keeping my eye on you, and I'm hoping that transition point is not too far in the future. 

Living the dream

The modern social rule of thumb is that we're supposed to be passionate about what we do for a living. Gone are the good old days when Charles and Caroline Ingalls tended their farm on the prairies to feed their family and help em become positive, contributing members of society. In the modern world, having a career is good, but the modern ideal is to have a career that you're passionate about. Now I can't argue with that - it's as good a rule as any for a motivated person to live by. The problem that arises is - what if you are motivated, but not passionate about anything?

Now, by "not passionate about anything" - I don't mean the unmentionables. Most of us are not that interested in converting our late night horizontal exertions into a career. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I'm not talking about you.

I'm also excluding spouses and kids. Hopefully you're passionate about your spouse, but pimping out your better half is a poor career choice. And you SHOULD be passionate about your kids - but regrettably, unless you're the parents of the Gary Coleman types, you can't really make a career out of that either. Not that they were exactly stellar examples of parental love, considering how that all turned out. Note: if you don't know who Gary Coleman is, 1. You've just made me feel really old, and 2. Watch some episodes of "Different Strokes" - it's an interesting view of the 80s.

No, gentle reader, by passion I'm referring to a career choice that stays within the guidelines of socially acceptable norms. Take myself, for example. I've worked in financial services for over 15 years. I've had some fun roles, but I'd hardly say I'm passionate about the industry. I hardly think I'm alone in this - in fact, show me someone who says they are passionate about banking and 99% of the time I'll show you a good spin doctor.

So what's the point of this spiel? Well, it's just this; I believe everyone should have a passion. Something to live for. In a perfect world, we are able to live our passion through our career. But the reality is that most of us are not fortunate enough to make our passion our career. In these cases, its enough that work is fun and rewarding.  And when the work day ends, you have your passion to look forward to.

Late Lakeshore West train

HAML 7:05 - UNST 8:15 estimated 10-15 mins late due a med emrg.

Kitchener train delay

The 4:15pm Brampton train was delayed today.  Door issues.  Hope it doesn't mess up my trip home.

Late Georgetown train

Along with the much loved Presto card - as you know Go Transit has also introduced a 7 day "Service Guarantee", where they'll refund you your fare if you were on a train that was delayed 15 minutes or more (with a disclaimer for delays due to extreme weather, emergency investigations, pedestrian incidents, track obstructions, and on-board emergencies).  As forgetful as I am, I sometimes forget to apply for this service guarantee.  But when I do remember to apply, I'll post the late trips on this blog, that way those who can't remember which specific trips were late, will have a record of some of the late trips and can recoup some of our hard earned cash.  I invite you to post a comment whenever one of your own go train trips are delayed.  The specific trip that prompted me to post this entry was this morning's 15 minute delay of the express train (7:22am from Brampton station) on the Kitchener line.    Here's hoping it helps someone.

Wowed by email!

When's the last time your email program made you say "holy crap!  That's impressive!".  (Or a less crass variant of same).  Well, Gmail just did that to me.  I wrote "I have attached" in my email, and didn't Gmail come back and say "you said you've attached... but you didn't attach a file, do you want to attach a file now?".  That's almost admin-assistant like material.  I was very impressed.  And I'm not easily impressed.  Especially by something as mundane as email.  Now I don't care enough about my email client to dig into the pros / cons of each system.  But then again, I've never cared enough about my email client to blog about it either.  Gmail might look as bland as a Goth chick with no eyeliner on the surface, but there's lots to like about Gmail, both on the surface as well as under the hood.

A few Bruce Lee "Did you knows"

I've been an avid Bruce Lee fan since I was a kid growing up in the back hills of Jamaica. But "fan" really just extended to watching all of his movies, not really digging into his life. But while reading the Wikipedia article on Ip Man (popularized Wing Chun) the other day, I of course stumbled on references to Bruce Lee, who is by far Ip Man's most famous student. So from that I of course started reading some background on Bruce, and came across lots of interesting info. For example;

- Bruce Lee died from an allergic reaction to Equagesic (a painkiller) that his friend gave him. Some go so far as to speculate that it may be the combination of marijuana leaves that he liked to chew, combined with the compounds in Equagesic that led to his death.

- Bruce had 2 children. Brandon Lee, who died on the movie set of The Crow due to a Darwin worthy (if it had happened to the moron who messed up) gunshot wound from a "blank". Bruce also had a daughter, Shannon. She also went into acting.

- He had a prolific movie career, with over 30 movie credits to his name (from infancy to adulthood), and also appeared in over a dozen tv shows.

- He was far ahead of the times in his control of his nutrition (cause of death notwithstanding), avoiding processed foods, and focusing on fruits, vegetables, certain nutritional supplements, and smaller, more frequent meals.

- Fitness:

• Bruce could single arm curl 3 x 8 rep sets of 75 lbs! That's amazing for just about anyone, but especially so for a guy that weighed in at 140lbs soaking wet.
• Lee's striking speed from three feet with his hands down by his side reached five hundredths of a second.[79]
• Lee could take in one arm a 75 lb barbell from a standing position with the barbell held flush against his chest and slowly stick his arms out locking them, holding the barbell there for several seconds.[80]
• In a speed demonstration, Lee could snatch a dime off a person's open palm before they could close it, and leave a penny behind.[81]
• Lee performed one-hand push-ups using only the thumb and index finger.[78][82]
• Lee performed 50 reps of one-arm chin-ups.[83]
• Lee could cause a 300-lb (136.08 kg) bag to fly towards and thump the ceiling with a sidekick.[78]
• Also, according to the Intercepting Fist DVD, Lee would hold an elevated v-sit position for 30 minutes or longer.[77]

One of my favourite quotes of his, central to his Jeet Kune Do philosophy, is "Use only that which works, and take it from any place you can find it".

He left an amazing martial arts legacy, as well as a great philosophy on life, reminding his students to "be yourself". Easy to say, sometimes hard to do.

Quote of the Day

I Believe...
That either you control your attitude or it controls you.

Nice quote

This was sent to me by a friend of mine as part of one of those motivational "chain letter" emails. The bulk of the content was the usual hokey platitudes (I Believe... That either you control your attitude or it controls you.), but this quote at the end really stuck with me;
'The happiest of people don't necessarily have the best of everything; They just make the most of everything they have.'
So very true...

How's this for a powerful quote?

I got this from a motivational chain letter email. The bulk of the content was the usual hokey platitudes, but the quote at the end really stuck with me.
'The happiest of people don't necessarily have the best of everything; They just make the most of everything they have.
So very true...

BBM (Status Message) Haiku

I thought I'd create a new form of poetry specific to the Blackberry. I call it the BBM Haiku.
Its not to be confused with the BBM Haiku contests run by sites such as Crackberry, where you win a Blackberry for writing a Haiku about your 'Berry.
The BBM Haiku will be a art form structured around the Blackberry Messenger Status message.

The rules will be as follows:

No more than 64 characters long, including spaces (yes, I know, its kind of obvious).

12 syllables, regardless of the number of words. (approximately equal to the 17 "on" in traditional Haiku).

3 phrases.

Can be about any topic.

That's it! And yes, I know that makes it not a Haiku, but my creativity fell a little short of a more creative or fitting name. I'm open to other options.

Here's my first attempt:
Cold touch. Phone changes hands. Modern Intimacy.

What do you think (about the idea, that is, not the attempt)?

Quote on Confidence

If you have no confidence in self, you are twice defeated in the race of life. With confidence, you have won even before you have started. (Marcus Garvey).

This quote is also credited to Marcus Tullius Cicero.

Duplicity - Merging the work and home masks

"No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be true." - Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804 - 1864)
I came across this quote on what appears to be a Porsche forum (I didn't want to take the time to look further) while looking for a good family lawyer and was so entranced by it (the quote, not the site) that I had to blog about it. As a Gemini, and someone who once upon a time struggled with duality in his own personal identity, this quote really resonated with me.

The quote actually reminds me of a particular incident that took place at a diversity event when I worked at the Comfy Green Bank. A British immigrant of East Indian descent (hereafter referred to as "Buddy") asked a question of the bank's US head (of East Indian heritage, let's call him "Barry") - his question went something along the lines of "how does he manage the series of masks that he has to wear between his (presumably East Indian) home self, vs his work self, in order to allow himself to succeed in North American Culture. Well, Barry shot down Buddy in a hurry, telling him (in a tone that said, "what are you, a frigging idiot??") that this whole wearing of masks thing was pure horseshit, and that Buddy better figure out who he was and be it if he wanted to move up the proverbial corporate ladder.

In my mind, Barry was a bit harsh. The truth of the matter is that you absolutely have to be yourself. Your values, your morals, ethics and all the stuff that makes up the essence of you, has to be consistent, has to carry through. Think of yourself as a drink of water - sometimes hot, sometimes cold, sometimes frozen, sometimes in a bottle, glass or other container, but no matter what, you're still H2O.

Here's hoping Buddy's got this figured out.

Peace.

Is the Blackberry the safest smartphone?

I read an article yesterday on how RIM is in trouble because of the triple threat of IOS, Android, and Windows7 Mobile (ok, ok, so it was really only a double threat). I'll provide a source for the article later.
Well fast forward one day to the entry of 2011, and what do I see? An article talking about a "malicious trojan" that could compromise data stored on Android powered smartphones. This follows on the heels of an article I read earlier in the year about a virus that affected Jailbroken iPhones.
So I started this blog entry all set to crow about the safety of my beloved Blackberry over other smartphone OSes, but of course like a good analyst, I needed to back up my theory with research.
Unfortunately, it didn't take long for me to change my blog entry title away from something trumpeting the virtues of Blackberry OS, to something a bit more even keel.
So is the Blackberry OS susceptible to viruses? Well, apparently not so far. While there have been a demonstrated couple of exploits, one dating back to 2006, none of these exploits have been able to replicate, which is a key feature of viruses. But the Berry is definitely susceptible to malware - malicious software written to compromise a user's smartphone in some way. The difference is that users have to consciously download malware, and run the application in order for the malicious code to run and wreak havoc. This includes a trojan that can send out SMS texts to premium rate numbers. You can mitigate many of the problems that could come up by either blocking third party apps, or by restricting what third party apps can do within your security settings. Mind you this is more of a probability on BIS, since I would image that most IT departments shut down 3rd party apps on BES.
So what about Android? Is it susceptible to viruses? I'll go with a resounding "Yes" for final Jeopardy, Alex! The first Android virus was found back in August, and did the same thing as the aforementioned BB virus, namely sending out SMS texts to premium rate numbers. The most recent virus does not so nice things like Send location coordinates (fine location), Send device identifiers (IMEI and IMSI), Download and prompt the user to install an app, Prompt the user to uninstall an app, Enumerate and send a list of installed apps to the server. Fun times.
So what about IOS? I mean by now I'm sure we've all heard about Rickrolling - part of which refers to the Iphone virus that installed Rick Astley's pic as the wallpaper on jailbroken iphones, and changes the ringtone to "never gonna give you up". Not exactly a very serious virus, but a virus nonetheless. Plus as my pal Sharon just pointed out, there was another iphone virus that came out at pretty much the same time where a Dutch hacker was able to send a message to people with jailbroken iphones.
So what's the conclusion? Perhaps not surprisingly (considering its open source), Android seems the most vulnerable to exploits, followed by the iPhone and Blackberry. In fact, if the iPhone is not jailbroken, it actually seems to be the safest choice. Sort of throws a bit of a different spin on things. At the end of the day though, regardless of your smartphone of choice, clearly a few "safety first" object lessons apply;
- Only download apps from trusted sources.
- Familiarize yourself with your phone's security settings (passwords, application rights, etc) and make sure that you've made the changes that need to be made (e.g. change default passwords!).
- If your phone is capable of multi-tasking, make sure you are aware of all applications that are running, both in the background as well as the foreground, and that you know what they are doing.
Any other thoughts or comments? Happy to hear them.
Peace.

Gripe - More Roger's drama

I installed the Blackberry Desktop software v6 a few days ago to fix a synchronization error I was getting that defied resolution using any other method I thought up or found on the web. That problem was resolved beautifully with the upgrade. Unfortunately I lost all ability to tether.
Tethering didn't become a priority until yesterday when I was at a friend's who had no wifi, no router, and needed his direct connection to his own laptop. So last night I resolved to fix the problem with Rogers.
After a software push, battery pull, few uninstalls and reinstalls, direct modem driver install, uninstall, reinstall and about 30 minutes speaking to various reps (all very helpful mind you), plus about 2.5 hours on hold, I finally gave up.
I finally fixed the problem (no thanks to Rogers) by uninstalling v6, installing the updated version of desktop manager v5 (501_b084_multilanguage_nomediamanager.exe"), and voila. Sync problem stays gone, and IP modem problem resolved. Guess it goes to show that newer is not always better.
Thanks for nothing Rogers. I guess that's 3 hours of my life I'll never get back. Maybe you can put some of that $1.2B in 9 month net income to increasing the staff on hand at your tech support desk.