Money quote:

We can have her funeral handled by the lowest bidder. It’s what she would have wanted.

How to initiate a bank run? Nothing could be easier: Just make sure your banking system will spit out wrong account balances. That’s at least the way ING Netherlands has played the game. Money quote:

Een ‘hack’ van buitenaf wordt niet uitgesloten.

BTW: Talking ‘bout Netherlands there is another interesting fact: Consumer debt amounts to about 250 percent of available income. By comparison, in 2011 even the Spaniards only reached a debt ratio of 125 percent.

Finally we’re back home in Germany. First impression: Nothing really changed ...

• It’s always f*cking winter season here,
• You still hit the end of the speedometer only minutes after entering the “Autobahn” (... and this is for Ian who really loves German cars),
• TheyWe’re still saying “beforeyesterday” and “overtomorrow” instead of “the day before yesterday” and “the day after tomorrow”,
• You still have to go upstairs to reach the first floor, and
• You still have to consult the newest Duden for the latest way to spell a word.

Well - “nothing changed” isn’t entirely trrue ... there are some bits ... » On the edge of your seat? Read on!

In den letzten Tagen war in den noch nicht völlig gleichgeschalteten Holz- und Onlinemedien der Entwurf des 4. Armuts- und Reichtumsberichts der Bundesregierung im Gespräch. Kernpunkt der Diskussion war der Fakt, dass die Bundesregierung im Rahmen des iterativen Abstimmungsverfahrens innerhalb der Fachministerien und Ausschüsse maßgebliche Passagen der Fassung vom 21.11.2012 sprachlich als auch inhaltlich geschönt haben soll. Nun mag sich die Erschütterung angesichts des schon des öfteren zu Schau getragenen politischen Überlebenswillens aller machtinnehabenden Volksparteien und der ... » On the edge of your seat? Read on!

Regardless of Samsung’s usual behaviour, which obviously can always be judged in one way or another, at least they’re using special characters in their backdoor’ed products:

private static final String SECRET_PUBLIC = “s!a@m#n$p%c”;

Well done Samsung, I’m certain your products will pass the audit.

“Don’t blame Generation Y for applications on the network” is the title of a study released by Easynet end of October 2012.

Unsurprisingly, the highlights of the pan-European research include:

• 32% advised that video apps are brought into the workplace by C suite executives
• Graduates surprisingly only account for slightly less (28%) than C suite executives (41%) for the introduction of VoIP tools
• Graduates (35%) are marginally behind C suite executives (47%) in the introduction of collaboration tools in the workplace
• 42% of UK respondents said management are responsible for introduction of ... » On the edge of your seat? Read on!

The average person tells four lies a day or 1460 a year; a total of 87,600 by the age of 60. And the most common lie is “I’m fine.”

Thank goodness I stood with my old fashioned “G’day mate” here in Oz which is preventing me at least to start the day with a lie.

Lasst uns den Morgen mit einem Loblied auf die Kolumnisten und Autoren unserer gleichschalteten Presse- und Informationslandschaft beginnen:

Bis zum heutigen Tag gibt es so etwas wie eine unabhängige Presse in der Weltgeschichte nicht. Ich werde jede Woche dafür bezahlt, meine ehrliche Meinung aus der Zeitung bei der ich angestellt bin, herauszuhalten. Wenn ich meine ehrliche Meinung in einer Ausgabe meiner Zeitung veröffentlichen würde, wäre ich meine Beschäftigung innerhalb von 24 Stunden los. Es ist das Geschäft der Journalisten, die Wahrheit zu zerstören, unumwunden zu ... » On the edge of your seat? Read on!

It’s incredible how time flies! So we’re finally preparing for heading back to Germany within the next 3 months. But anyway - we’ll definitely come back to the Asia-Pacific region again for quite some time. There is still so much more to see, to learn and to enjoy.

As I did recently some research in safaribooks i stumbled across the 3rd edition of John Hull’s “Risk Management and Financial Institutions”. It’s quite a nice book - will give you a comprehensive overview about all aspects of financial risk as well as the way financial institutions are regulated. So you’ll probably end up with a better understanding of financial markets and potential dangers. But know what - the author’s website was much more interesting ... a lot of additional information and material incl. a complete set of pptx slides covering all book chapters. That’s pretty remarkable ... » On the edge of your seat? Read on!