04/18/05
10:51:18 am, Categories: Science
"Is your boss a psychopath?", from the Guardian
Interesting article about how many leaders seem to exhibit more personality disorders than criminally-minded psychopaths.
Other studies have revealed, rather surprisingly, that mental ability does not in itself result in success. It has to be combined with exceptional social skills and of these, chameleonism and machiavellianism - common in many PDs - are important. Since such people earn more and go higher than ones without these traits, it supports the idea that many leaders have PDs. But perhaps the most persuasive indirect evidence concerns leaders' deeper motivations.
01:18:33 am, Categories: Dollars & Sense
Another Black Monday for Markets? Intn'l Markets Dropping
Looks like Asian markets closed down today. Japan is down -3.80% and Hong Kong -3.62%.
European stock indices also opened lower, an average of -1.92% as of this writing.
If Monday's numbers don't paint a rosy picture of the economy, the Dow most assuredly will fall into the feedback loop. The Dow had lost 3.57% last week. A Monday close around the 9,600-9,800 range would put it with its international peers.
It's all artifically inflated anyway. I'm surprised the illusion has kept up this long. Were it not for online trading enabling millions of clueless Americans to pump tons of fresh cash into the markets, the bottom line would have sank to the abyss long ago. Expensive oil, however, means that big countries will go to war over access rights to oil producing nations. Who will stir this time?
01:02:03 am, Categories: Internet & Technology
Waste: A decentralized P2P chat client
Waste is an open-source, secure and decentralized chat client.
MarkTaw.com in its list of favourite smallware says of Waste:
Waste is a controversial chat client. Pulled by AOL just hours after the developer posted it under the GNU public license, Waste is a decentralized (peer to peer) chat client. Neary every other chat protocol depends on a centralized server to carry and sometimes store messages. Everyone connects to that server. With Waste, you connect to your friends directly by exchanging IP addresses. Oh, and did I mention that it's encrypted too? You exchange public keys as well.
With Waste, you create a small private network with up to around 150 people (maybe more). Within the network, you can talk without fear of someone listening in - only people inside the network can see what's going on.
