The Vantage Point

Saturday, March 01, 2014

Congratulations to Dr Nitin Bajaj

Congratulations and best regards to Dr Nitin Bajaj, who recently earned his Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) degree from the School of Business and Technology at Capella University in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Dr Nitin Bajaj

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Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Congratulations to Dr David Glodstein

Congratulations and best regards to Dr David Glodstein, who recently earned his Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) degree from Northcentral University in Prescott Valley, Arizona.

Dr David Glodstein

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Tuesday, January 21, 2014

I Hate War...

I hate war, and I want the US to stop making war. The US has been at war with troops stationed somewhere overseas now for over 70 years. Ironically, China maintains no forces overseas, and look who has the top economy. There's a lesson here for the US.

At this point, I am more terrified of the warmongering military-industrialists in Congress than I am of al-Qaeda. All US troops overseas should be returned home immediately, and the capacity for Presidents to wage war overseas without a Congressional declaration of war should be outlawed.

Again, I hate war, and I want whomever is my President to hate war as well. Anyone who is a warmonger in the US should be held in severe public contempt by society. Here's my line of contempt: I hate war and I hate the warmongering military-industrialists in Congress.

Let's give peace a chance...

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Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Well Said...

"There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket."

~ Smedley D Butler

Maj Gen Smedley Darlington Butler, USMC (1881-1940)

Maj Gen Butler was twice awarded the Medal of Honor for valor in combat.

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Friday, January 10, 2014

US Employment to Population Ratio for December 2013 Reflects 2-Year Stagnation

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the US employment to population ratio* for December 2013 stood at 58.5%, down from 58.7% the previous month, and unchanged from ratios reported for December 2012 and 2011. Said another way, the December 2013 data reflects stagnation in US jobs creation as a percentage of the population since at least December 2011. The US employment to population ratio has been trending downwards since 2000.

[click to enlarge]

Many economists believe that reporting the number employed as a percentage of the civilian population provides a more accurate description of the current state of employment than conjecturing the number of "unemployed" in a population. The US employment to population ratio reached an historical peak of 64.4% on an annual basis in 2000.

*The BLS defines employment and population (civilian noninstitutional) as follows:

Employment consists of all persons who, during the reference week (the calendar week including the twelfth day of the month), (a) did any work at all (at least 1 hour) as paid employees, worked in their own business or profession or on their own farm, or worked 15 hours or more as unpaid workers in an enterprise operated by a member of the family, or (b) were not working but had jobs or businesses from which they were temporarily absent because of vacation, illness, bad weather, childcare problems, maternity or paternity leave, labor-management dispute, job training, or other family or personal reasons, whether or not they were paid for the time off or were seeking other jobs.... The civilian noninstitutional population consists of persons 16 years of age and older residing in the 50 States and the District of Columbia who are not inmates of institutions (for example, penal and mental facilities and homes for the aged) and who are not on active duty in the Armed Forces.

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

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Barry Devlin: Business unIntelligence

Argues Dr Barry Devlin in his new book, Business unIntelligence: Insight and Innovation beyond Analytics and Big Data (2013):

The big data affair is coming to an end. The romance is over. Business is looking distraught in its silver Porsche, IT disheveled in the red Ferrari. Of course, it wasn’t just the big data. It started long ago when IT couldn’t deliver the data and business looked elsewhere to PCs and spreadsheets. It’s time for business and IT to renew their vows and start working on renewing their marriage of convenience.

When data warehousing was conceived in the 1980s, the goal was simple: understanding business results across multiple application systems. When BI was born in the 1990s, business needs were straightforward: report results speedily and accurately and allow business to explore possible alternatives. IT struggled to adapt. The 2000s brought demands for real-time freedom: the ability to embed BI in operations and vice versa. The current decade has opened the floodgates to other information, shared with partners and sourced on the Web. Divorce seemed imminent, IT outsourced.

But, almost invisibly, beyond the walls of this troubled marriage, a new world has emerged. A biz-tech ecosystem has evolved where business and IT must learn to practice intimate, ongoing symbiosis. Business visions meet technology limitations. IT possibilities clash with business budgets. And still, new opportunities emerge, realized only when business and IT cooperate in their creation—from conception to maturity. The possibilities seem boundless. But the new limits that do exist are beyond traditional capital and labor. The boundaries are imposed by the realities of life on this small blue planet afloat in an inky vacuum, with its limited and increasingly fragile resources and the tenuous ability of its people to survive and thrive in harmony with nature—within and without.

For the corporate world, Business unIntelligence will succeed when it brings insight into business workings, innovation into business advances, and integration into business and IT organizations. But in the broader context, in the real world in which we all must live, our success in the social enterprise that is business can be measured first and foremost in the survival of the cultures and communities of alleged intelligent man, homo sapiens, as well as all the other creatures of this tiny planet, and finally in our willingness to limit our growth and greediness and embrace the good inherent in each of us. It becomes incumbent on each and every one of us to integrate the rational and the intuitive, the individual and the empathic. To take stock of our personal decision making and reimage it in the vision of the world we want to bequeath to our children.

Learn More

We live in a world where information technology (IT) and enterprises (including governments) are landing in unexplored territories, where the rules of technological governance are colliding with the forces of decency across societies in real-time. Indeed, we live in exciting times...

Source: Devlin, B (2013), Business unIntelligence: Insight and Innovation beyond Analytics and Big Data, Perfect Paperback.

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Thursday, January 09, 2014

Congratulations to Dr Amanda Denit

Congratulations and best regards to Dr Amanda Denit, who recently earned her Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) degree from the School of Business and Technology at Capella University in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Dr Amanda E Denit

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Tuesday, January 07, 2014

Congratulations to Dr Samantha Adato

Congratulations and best regards to Dr Samantha Adato, who recently earned her Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) degree from the School of Business and Technology at Capella University in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Dr Samantha Adato

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Congratulations to Dr John Haley

Congratulations and best regards to Dr John Haley, who recently earned his Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) degree from the School of Business and Technology at Capella University in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Dr John W Haley

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What is Mysticism?

mysticism
n
1. the beliefs, ideas, or mode of thought of mystics.

2. the doctrine of an immediate spiritual intuition of truths believed to transcend ordinary understanding, or of a direct, intimate union of the soul with God through contemplation or spiritual ecstasy.

3. obscure thought or speculation.

Source: The Free Dictionary

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What is Esotericism?

esoteric
adj
1. understood by or meant for only the select few who have special knowledge or interest or for the initiates of a group; recondite.
2. belonging to the select few.
3. private; secret.

Source: The Free Dictionary

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Monday, January 06, 2014

Discrete Fourier Transforms Explained in One Sentence

Stuart Riffle (2011) argues that visualization is the first step towards understanding concepts such as the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT): "Once you can 'see' what’s going on in your head, a lot of the quirks of working with the DFT become much less mysterious." His one sentence description for the Discrete Fourier Transform below is succinct and instructive, albeit purely symbolic.

Read More

Follow the link above to read the rest of Stuart Riffle's article, and especially his visualizations. As with any language, mathematics is first and foremost about visualization followed by the algebraic (symbolic) expressions. Those who begin with the algebraic (symbolic) expressions tend to get lost along the way.

Source: Riffle, S (2011, May 17), Understanding the Fourier Transform, #AltDevBlog.

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