Boardmad

Ubuntu on an old old OLD laptop !

Scott Brown — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 21:08:23 +0000

Trying this evening to resurrect a much used and beloved Tosh Satellite Pro (the 480CDT model for you train spotters out there!)…Dug out the removable FDD and put the swappable CD drive into the caddy as #Ubuntu install was getting it’s panties in a bunch about no fd0 allocation during initiation. However haveing solved that little glitch the install routine get’s to the UI initialisation stage and barfs out to a command line stating “(initramfs)”

This wee machine is chugging along very nicely (?!) on WinME (I know I know…it’s a bastard child which ought to have been aborted in utero but it’s what we got) I’m almost tempted to just leave it as it stands and not dick about with it any further but frustratingly the one G wireless pcmcia card I have that ME will at least recognise, refuses to load the 3Com drivers…I think I’m on a downward curve of diminishing returns. Shame really as it’s be a great wee machine for the kids to mess around on and keep them away from my Mac !

Project52 - a new beginning!

Scott Brown — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 17:12:32 +0000

So I’m a recidivist blogger…full of good intentions and I tend to blog in fits and starts as the mood, inspiration and time to do it is available !

However in true New Year’s resolution form I’ve signed up to Project52 a site that will maintain and track content updates and make sure I’m keeping my resolution. It’s kind of like a personal trainer for bloggers…someone to yell at you…”Come on ! Call that a pithy epithet…where’s the witty and cutty rejoinder ? Now drop and give me 20…reasons a Mac is better than a PC!?”

So given that I’ve no bloody excuses for having no content to discuss (my job has exploded in my face in the last 6 months in completely unexpected directions!) I’ll be doing my level best to make sure there’s at least one article per week uploaded here to Boardmad.

Come back soon for more…

Cheers
Scotty

Heading into 2010

Scott Brown — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 08:22:03 +0000

Well this has been some kind of a year ?! My nippers another year older, funnier, cheekier and I’m another year older and finally beginning to show/feel it I fear (must get the portrait in the attic spruced up!?)

Looking forward to Christmas this year - the kids are getting old enough to be really excited by the prospect and my eldest has just lost her first baby tooth. Going to miss my parents for Xmas this year…Mum has been snatched from dark by the sterling efforts of the cardiologists in Campbeltown and Glasgow but she’s going to be taking it easy for a few weeks recuperating and having my couple of groms climbing all over her is not going to be a smooth and relaxing road to recovery!

Happy Christmas all

xSx

Blechhh…

Scott Brown — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 15:13:25 +0000

Scottish head medicos are reporting a sharp rise in ’swine flu’ related symptoms - some chat on the media that this is the long-forecasted second wave of the bug. I can well believe it…it stopped in and has decided to stay in the Brown household for the last few days.

Not pretty let me tell you…

…tonight

Scott Brown — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 17:04:41 +0000

home, dinner, bath kids, walk dog, a glass of wine then the welcoming arms of orpheus…ahhhh

Roll on the glorious 12th…

Scott Brown — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 13:12:42 +0000

I have friends in Perth-shire have just opened their new shoot near Logiealmond. Visit their new site here to book a shoot…they can take up to 10 guns with shoots from 150 to 500 birds.

www.logiegameshooting.com

Stop failing the Turing Test !

Scott Brown — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 10:19:59 +0000

One of his finest…

Scott Brown — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 07:09:45 +0000

Dave Snowden’s 7 Principles of Knowledge Management

Scott Brown — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 07:54:40 +0000

Knowledge can only be volunteered, it cannot be conscripted.
We only know what we know when we need to know it.
In the context of real need, few people will withhold their knowledge.
Everything is fragmented.
Tolerated failure imprints learning better than success.
The way we know things is not the way we report we know things.
We always know more than we can say, and we always say more than we can write down.

I think no.3 is a particularly strong message and serves to breakdown the ‘knowledge is power’ belief

No.5 is just so right and no.7 is why what I enjoy most about my job is meeting and talking with people !

A little bit of karmic harmony for your Wednesday morning !

Is HSBC’s $17.7 billion rights issue a sign of weakness or of strength?

Scott Brown — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 21:12:33 +0000

THERE are two radically different tales doing the rounds about HSBC, Europe’s biggest lender by market value. The first says that HSBC, deep down, is still an emerging-markets operation run by rugged types who disdain the sorcery of modern finance. Under the temporary grip of an evil spell in 2003 they bought Household, an American consumer-credit firm that then haemorrhaged losses. On March 2nd they snapped out of it. HSBC’s chairman acknowledged that it was “an acquisition we wish we had not undertaken”, wrote off its cost and promised to run down its book of dodgy loans. Having opened its heart, HSBC felt able to lower its dividend and raise its core tier-one capital ratio to 8.5%, above those of JPMorgan Chase (6.4%) and Santander (7.2%), two more of the Western world’s biggest banks also vying for the title of the safest one.

Against this there is a horror story. It says that HSBC’s definition of capital excludes mark-to-market losses on asset-backed securities (ABS). Furthermore, particularly demanding critics say that it also excludes mark-to-market losses on its loan book. Like almost all banks, HSBC carries these at book value and impairs as customers default. However, include both these items and the core tier-one ratio would drop to just 2%. Treating loan books on the same basis, JPMorgan would be at 5% and many other banks would be insolvent.

This would suggest that HSBC is in fact poorly capitalised, and needs to raise even more equity. The alternative, advocated by, among others, Knight Vinke, an activist investor, would be to cut loose Household, which HSBC does not legally guarantee and which accounts for just over half of the additional mark-to-market losses. Household’s credit spreads are much higher than HSBC’s, suggesting that investors think this is possible, despite HSBC’s verbal assurances to the contrary.

Which story is right? Given the risk of litigation, the reputational hit and the fact that HSBC has itself loaned Household some $13.5 billion, its mark-to-market loss would have to get a lot worse before HSBC was prepared to let it default. And like many banks, HSBC argues that there is at least some chance mark-to-market losses overstate the ultimate impairments it will face. The ABS loss has been very volatile, doubling in six months and stands at ten times HSBC’s “stress test” estimate of the probable hit. The mark-to-market loss on Household’s loan book is double what optimistic analysts think the likely ultimate impairment will be.

Pleading that fair-value accounting is cruel is hardly unique, but what makes HSBC’s position more credible than most is that it has the capacity to wait and see. Its funding position is excellent with deposits exceeding loans, reducing its dependence on wholesale markets. And the core business continues to generate lots of pre-provision earnings. If spread out over several years, the bank could absorb the hit from Household implied by the mark to-market valuation without damaging its capital.

Indeed the real moral of the tale is different. Compared with other banks HSBC is protected by its big deposit base and its profitability. It looks therefore as if investors will back the rights issue. Others do not have even that comfort.

Interesting to watch the day traders and short sellers trying to test the rights issue price and today see their meddling firmly rebuffed ! Of course it’s a fickle market at the moment, and a brave man that thinks he can guess which way to jump.