Ask TOMBOT

Tom, what is your opinion on the topic of this poll?

http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/poll/index.html?poll_id=5698&ana=e_du

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3107/2554097877_b488723889_b.jpg

dan m, I don't mind. Fenty is a good dude, I trust the man.

JW, is that a question?

We are not the first generation to be faced with the challenges that
flow from global governance of financial markets. There has been broad
agreement over the need for international collective action since the
protectionist “antisocial” policies of individual countries, nearly eighty years
ago, served only to deepen the crisis of the Great Depression. What has
changed, however, is the nature of the crises themselves – the damage
they cause increasingly extends far beyond the boundaries of the countries
in which they originate. Two recent episodes illustrate this burgeoning
“financial contagion”: first, in the rapid spread of the financial crisis through
S.E. Asia in the 90’s, and secondly, in the current sub-prime crisis, which
originated in the board rooms of Wall Street but whose effects have been
felt across the globe. It was with this in mind that Nobel Laureate, Professor
Joseph Stiglitz, delivered his talk, entitled “Meeting the Challenges of Global
Governance in the 21st Century: Financial Markets”.
His analysis was appealing in its elegance and apparent simplicity. National
externalities and public goods generate market failure on a domestic scale
and necessitate collective action at a national level. By the same logic, his
argument runs, the existence of global externalities and public goods (of the

sort recently caused by haphazard and unrestrained financial market activity) generates global market
failure and necessitates action on an international level.
On a national scale, domestic market failures are easily dealt with - the government actively intervenes
with specific policies developed to correct individual inefficiencies. Yet, on the international stage,
where the correction of any global inefficiency is beyond the remit of a specific government, there are
few institutions suitably positioned to act on behalf of global collective interest. Stiglitz posits that the
World Bank and the IMF, the two institutions we might expect to provide the necessary leadership in
global crisis situations, fail to do so, largely because they are motivated by special interests, shaped by
undemocratic principles, and preoccupied with inappropriate macroeconomic targets. The status quo of
effective banking self-regulation needs to change, but the means to do so are absent. Thus we need
“a new regulatory framework… both within countries and internationally”.
At a domestic level, Stiglitz believes that “Financial Product Safety Commissions” could work to ensure
that banks offer financial products which are designed to manage risk rather than create it. The ethos
of such Commissions would be simple: financial crises have profound social, as well as economic,
implications. In addition, “Financial System Oversight Commissions” could maintain a watchful eye on
the overall financial situation, in addition to the more atomised scrutiny of individual component parts
of the financial system.
But, of course, since financial crises generate global externalities, domestic reform alone is not
enough. The lack of an international institution truly representative of global collective interests is a
problem that needs to be addressed. Stiglitz’s suggestion that the UN ought to occupy this role drew
criticism from a particular member of the audience. She made the reasonable observation that it is
difficult to see how Stiglitz’s scheme would actually work in practice, given the UN’s reputation as a
talking-shop with little real clout. The infamous late UN diplomat Sergio Vieira de Mello once said of
the UN “that it is an instrument, a frame, an engine… as dynamic, as conciliatory, as innovative, as
successful as governments wish it, allow it, make it be”. Is it realistic, we must ask, to imagine that
the governments that attend the UN will be any less impartial to the same special interests which
impede the proper working of the IMF and World Bank? In the light of this, it seems that the solutions
to transnational problems must come, to a great extent, from individual nations themselves, and
governments, each with their unique portfolio of hindrances, obstacles, and challenges, must look
inwards, rather than outwards, for the answers to their questions.
Daniel Susskind
balliol college

http://img385.imageshack.us/img385/7830/gortpod5zc.jpg

ok

I just liked the pretty slides

hey you never answered my military ball question.

(it was a real question.)

have you ever been at a talk with slides like these?

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3161/2554098287_e69d02a224_b.jpg

I missed a lot of questions!! busy with $girl and $work for a while I guess

How many Military Balls have you attended?
What is your opinion of Military Balls/ how would you sum up the Military Ball experience?
Any memorable stories that took place at a Military Ball?

a. 1
b. so not worth it
c. nope

tombot,

am i a jackass?

also

what is the best self-help book you've ever read?

a. no!
b. lost in the cosmos by walker percy, I love that book

do you ever get embarrassed when you jizz all over your shit? like computer security threads or gundam threads or military threads? or whatever "your shit" is?

only when I stop and then feel like a dip for spending so much time and energy writing what amounts to another fucking blog comment on the intertube.

ysi? jan hammer jeff beck track from yr muxtape plz

I can totally put that back up on the muxtape for you but I will also provide this link where you can own a copy for $0.99 because I'm a law man u kno: http://www.amazon.com/Jeff-Beck-Hammer-Group-Live/dp/B00138H8I0/

I am gonna guess Tombot is not so keen on the NSZ.

trinidad is a fucked up hood. I'm not a real cop who has to deal with that kind of shit so just like I don't want other ppl telling me how to do my job I'm not going to tell them how to do theirs. Also see above re: soccer stadium, I think Fenty's pretty sharp baout things

have you ever been at a talk with slides like these?

big and overly complex with no real informative value, yes. super-cult-bonkers, not really.

http://blogs.chron.com/whitehouse/archives/fentywashtimes.jpg

back off, motherfuckas

wow your mayor is riddick

dear tombot,

i assumed that i could just buy an adaptor for my laptop's power cord (since you have weird electrical sockets in the states), but someone said i should make sure my computer has some sort of thingy that prevents it from overloading, or i could seriously fuck it up?? it's about 18 months old. is it likely that it probably does have this thing, or should i really try to find out from the place i bought it from?

NZ runs at 230 Volts 50Hz, US at 110V 60hz most laptop power adapters cover the entire range from 100-250V and 50-60Hz so it should be fine is you just get a NZ (slanty prongs) to US (parallel prongs) adapter. This goes for most mobile phone chargers as well, You should be able to tell as the power adapter will have this written on it, there should be something saying INPUT yadda yadda.

NB this does not apply for many other appliances but all appliances should say.

ok i just read the fine print on the power cable and it says AC 100-240v 50-60Hz, so i guess it's okay. thanks ed!!!

i just checked my hair dryer and it says 230-240v 50Hz. that means i won't be able to use it in the US, even with a NZ-to-US adaptor, right?

Yes, you can get an upconverter but it will be cheaper and easier just to buy one in the US.

a new hairdryer that is.

thanks heaps, ed. one less useless thing i need to pack in my suitcase!

Is Todd Terje a pun on Todd Terry?

http://jetfuel.metalbat.com/GraffleGaming/

Is Todd Terje a pun on Todd Terry?

I have no idea and don't care

http://jetfuel.metalbat.com/GraffleGaming/

That's cool, I guess? We never used maps except for Battletech.

Is this latest DNS attack being overhyped? Why didn't ISC Bind use port number + transaction id -- cache poisoning is old hat!

the mitigatory updates getting pushed definitely make it sound lame but as has been stated that was done for a good reason.

Every johnny white hat who thinks he's smarter than Dan Kaminsky and has it all figured out already is still going to have to pick their jaw off the floor come August. Kaminsky has made a living out of buggering layer 3+4 since 2001.

"cache poisoning is old hat" is some dumb shit to be throwing out there kiddo, if phishermen and storm worm types could reliably poison DNS they'd be doing it every hour of every day. What do you do then? Turn off the internet?

And no I don't know the details either.

Yea, the advisory I read made it sound like you could get a server to have a bunch of identical requests open with different transaction ids to increase the chances to match a transaction id (16 bit). Maybe I glanced at the wrong thing.

"cache poisoning is old hat" is some dumb shit to be throwing out there kiddo, if phishermen and storm worm types could reliably poison DNS they'd be doing it every hour of every day. What do you do then? Turn off the internet?

Isn't this mostly because people don't route spoofed packets that couldn't have originated on the route they're arriving on?

you have a gross overestimation of the quality of the world's ACLs there

most people out there still don't even implement the bogon list afaik

So I guess 16 bits are enough ;)

Meanwhile our upstream is hammering our office's router with arp traffic and filling up its arp table (sysadmins not really clear on this -- thought the *IP* router would only need to know the MACs of adjacent routers).

lol 30,000 foot view

somebody else besides jw ask me some questions
I don't want to be at work today

If you were in a film would Owen Wilson still play you?

really I don't think so. He's kind of noticeably older than I am now I think, and I have yet to do anything biopic worthy, so we'll see. There's probably some 15 year old kid out there who has two paths in life available to him, whether he winds up playing me in an oscar winner or being the next Dell Dude, who knows. Life is crazy.

El Tomboto,

I don't know if you know anything about it, but masters in operations research: possibly interesting and worthwhile or a waste of time and brain cells that erases the last vestiges of one's humanity?

circles

The coolest parts of my MS were the engineering economics and process engineering/decision-making bits, IMO, so it seems really interesting to me, but I doubt I'd ever get good enough at the math enough to do a whole MS in that particular arena

That's cool. The math does seem pretty scary and probably above my head.

Daer Tombot:
Bachelor of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies - more or less bullshit-sounding than your average BA in history/English/etc.?

Most people stop listening after you say "Arts" so I wouldn't worry about it. "I graduated from a college" the end

Haha, Tom.

http://www.murdoconline.net/2008/protesting_zombies.jpg

That's not even a question!

All right, are you as good at Whack-A-Mole in real life as you are on here?

I am not the only moderator.

e.g. if you let me play whack-a-mole with a team of five other dudes who each have their own mallet then yeah, I fucking rule

I'm not being snarky. Seeing a thread that ends with a fuck you and then watching it disappear into smoke legitimately makes me laugh on a boring Friday afternoon.

if you let me play whack-a-mole with a team of five other dudes who each have their own mallet

I had no idea you knew LJ IRL.

: - o

;-D

http://blog.terrises.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/jerkoff.gif

that threw me off for a second before I realized that I wasn't looking at the banjo thread.

http://www.doxpara.com/?p=1176

http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=1520

oh teh lol