95 Questions to Help You Find Meaning and Happiness

At the cusp of a new day, week, month or year, most of us take a little time to reflect on our lives by looking back over the past and ahead into the future. We ponder the successes, failures and standout events that are slowly scripting our life’s story. This process of self-reflection helps us maintain a conscious awareness of where we’ve been and where we intend to go. It is pertinent to the organization and preservation of our long-term goals and happiness.

30 Things to Stop Doing to Yourself

Here are some ideas to get you started:


1.Stop spending time with the wrong people. – Life is too short to spend time with people who suck the happiness out of you. If someone wants you in their life, they’ll make room for you. You shouldn’t have to fight for a spot. Never, ever insist yourself to someone who continuously overlooks your worth. And remember, it’s not the people that stand by your side when you’re at your best, but the ones who stand beside you when you’re at your worst that are your true friends.

This Abandoned Theme Park On The Edge Of Shanghai Is Only The First Sign Of A Major Crash

About 45 minutes outside of Shanghai are the deserted ruins of what was supposed to be the world's largest amusement park. Instead, farmers have reclaimed the land planting corn and digging wells next to spires modeled after Disneyland.

Please consider China’s deserted fake Disneyland

Along the road to one of China’s most famous tourist landmarks – the Great Wall of China – sits what could potentially have been another such tourist destination, but now stands as an example of modern-day China and the problems facing it.

Outsider buying is as good an indicator as insider buying

Santosh Nair

moneycontrol.com
What is a good indicator of whether a stock is over-valued or undervalued? Seasoned investors say insider buying or selling tells you much more than profit & loss statements or disclosures to the stock exchanges. Also, promoters or senior management staff buying shares can be seen as a sign of the stock being undervalued. But they selling shares need not always be interpreted as the stock being overvalued. Here is another fairly good indicator of whether a stock offers value: a rival company or its promoter buying stake. This sends a stronger signal to the market than when a high networth investor or a star fund manager backs it. There are two reasons for it.

Heroes of the Taj - All in the hiring?

-by Rohit Deshpandé and Anjali Raina

On November 26, 2008, Harish Manwani, chairman, and Nitin Paranjpe, CEO, of Hindustan Unilever hosted a dinner at the Taj Mahal Palace hotel in Mumbai (Taj Mumbai, for short). Unilever’s directors, senior executives, and their spouses were bidding farewell to Patrick Cescau, the CEO, and welcoming Paul Polman, the CEO-elect. About 35 Taj Mumbai employees, led by a 24-year-old banquet manager, Mallika Jagad, were assigned to manage the event in a second-floor banquet room. Around 9:30, as they served the main course, they heard what they thought were fireworks at a nearby wedding. In reality, these were the first gunshots from terrorists who were storming the Taj.

Facebook Is Making Us Miserable

When Facebook was founded in 2004, it began with a seemingly innocuous mission: to connect friends. Some seven years and 800 million users later, the social network has taken over most aspects of our personal and professional lives, and is fast becoming the dominant communication platform of the future.

Facebook IPO sparks dreams of riches, adventure

San Francisco: Travelling to space or embarking on an expedition to excavate lost Mayan ruins are normally the stuff of adventure novels.

But for employees of Facebook, these and other lavish dreams are moving closer to reality as the world's No 1 online social network prepares for a blockbuster initial public offering that could create at least a thousand millionaires.
The most anticipated stock market debut of 2012 is expected to value Facebook at as much as $100 billion, which would top just about any of Silicon Valley's most celebrated coming-out parties, from Netscape to Google Inc.

How are billionaires thinking - and where do they want to invest - right now

Stock markets are down. Europe is gyrating. Cash generates minuscule returns. Commodities, especially gold, can soar or tumble in an instant. In these perplexing times, Bloomberg Markets magazine in its January issue asked 10 billionaires 14 questions covering their views on the global economy, where they see opportunities and who gave them the best advice.

We found much agreement: The billionaires say traditional indicators have little influence on their investment decisions. In fact, hair-care mogul John Paul DeJoria says beauty salons are better barometers of economic health. The 10 largely agree that the euro will depreciate further and that keeping one’s portfolio in U.S. dollars is smart.
Lawyer Joe Jamail, with the bulk of his fortune in bonds and cash, expresses in colorful language a common tenet: Hedge funds are dangerous.
“I’d buy cocaine rather than buy that s---,” he says.

‘Magic Mushrooms’ Return to Psychology Labs

Cancer survivor Lauri Reamer lived in constant dread that her disease would return, until she took a psychedelic drug in a Johns Hopkins University study.

The 48-year mother of three was given psilocybin, the main ingredient in the “magic mushrooms” of the 1960s, as a remedy to ease anxiety. She spent most of her first “trip” crying, then emerged from the next with less anxiety, better sleep and happier relations with family and friends, she recalled.
The experience “really cracked me open,” said Reamer, an anesthesiologist at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore before she was diagnosed with leukemia. “It let me be in life again, instead of this place of fear where I had been living.”

Rich-Poor Divide Is Widening, OECD Says

The gap between rich and poor is widening across most developed economies as skilled workers reap more rewards and top executives and bankers benefit from a global job market, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said.

The average income of the richest tenth of the population is now about nine times that of the poorest tenth, the Paris- based OECD said today in a report. The gap has increased about 10 percent since the mid 1980s.

Is the Financial Crisis a Male Syndrome?

The protracted global financial crisis has led to a wide-ranging search for culprits, including blind regulators, greedy speculators, Chinese dumping, and a global market economy that lacks both a social and time horizon. But could it be that deeply rooted misbehavior in trading and board rooms can be explained by “animal spirits,” or what Keynes called a spontaneous urge to action—albeit in the wrong direction? Could it be that male domination of market finance results in excessive speculation and risk-taking at the expense of global stability? Testosterone, rather than neurons, may push male egos into ever-more-complex speculative bets, a gambling binge made possible by advanced technology, mathematical techniques, and globalization.

Why Steven Levitt of Freakonomics researches drug dealers, prostitutes & suicide bombers

What can you say about a 44 year old economist who is afraid of making predictions? That he is different from the usual, to say the least.

His wife Jeanette in one of the first profiles written on him way back in 2003 said "I wish he would get more than three haircuts a year, and that he wasn't still wearing the same glasses he got 15 years ago, which weren't even in fashion then."

How a Chinese cave got listed on the US stock market

YISHUI, CHINA: A Chinese tourism company listed in the United States wants investors to pour their money down a dark hole. Literally.

The Akula lesson for entrepreneurs: A guide to when you should and shouldn't avoid Dalal Street

By: Alok Kejriwal




Some boys were never meant to leave their Mama's apron strings. Like some companies were never meant to do an initial public offer (IPO).
Consider SKS Microfinance, the company in the news for the wrong reasons, whose founder Vikram Akula has just left.
Let me ask you. How would you react if you read that the Mother Teresa Foundation had appointed Armani suited Dalals...er....Dalal Street bankers to infiltrate their sacred sanctums, sit with angelic nuns and calculate the 'profitability' of saving the ailing or the 'positive cash flow' earned by every poor man who was helped?

Google maps - now for indoors! - incredible.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/29/google-maps-6-0-hits-android-adds-indoor-navigation-for-retail/

Google Maps 6.0 hits Android, adds indoor navigation for retail and transit

By Joseph Volpe posted Nov 29th 2011 12:37PM

Google's already put its stamp on the great outdoors, what with its Street View fleet chronicling the well-trodden ways of our world for Maps. Which is precisely why Mountain View's turning its attention inward for that next, great navigation innovation, as it attempts to chart a course through the wilds of indoor spaces. Hitting the Android Market in the U.S. and Japan today, the company's ever-popular app gets a full version bump to 6.0, bringing with it the inclusion of retail and airport floor plans.

Siri: Why Apple will build, buy, or partner on a search engine

Siri: Why Apple will build, buy, or partner on a search engine

By Jason Hiner
Summary: Siri is emerging as Apple’s game-changer that could put serious pressure on Google. But, first Apple needs to figure out web search integration.
Apple’s iPhone 4S was a disappointment to all of those who were expecting a redesigned iPhone 5, but in the grand scheme of the things the launch of the iPhone 4S may turn out to be Apple’s Chamber of Secrets.
Forgive the Harry Potter reference, but Chamber of Secrets is the second book in the seven-book Harry Potter series, and while it’s generally the least favorite of the books among Potter fans, by the time you get to the final book you realize that Chamber contained critical plot information that foretold important future events.

Myth of Steve Jobs

In the age of push-button publishing and social networking, people


seem to have become de-humanised, not knowing what their true

emotions are. This became very clear recently in the wake of Apple

co-founder Steve Jobs’ demise. Tributes ranged from “hagiographic”

to “outright lame.” Nobody seemed to have put an effort. There was

no honesty nor any genuine feeling.

How is income inequality bad if US poor are obese, have cable TV, a car, and access to free education?

Income inequality isn't necessarily bad, but substantial income inequality can be. Growing income inequality can be problematical, depending on how and why it is growing. Worse yet, sustained acceleration of income inequality, which is what is happening in the United States, can be extremely problematic because it signifies a chronic flaw in the economic system.

Startups: 10 Things MBA Schools Won't Teach You

http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/9928/startups-10-things-mba-schools-won-t-teach-you.aspx

Now that 3 years have passed since I got my graduate degree (and the founding of my current startup), I think I can make fun of it a bit. [Note: Only a moderate amount of harm was inflicted on MBAs — and investment bankers, in the making of this article].


10 Things Most MBA Schools Won’t Teach You About Startups

14 Reasons Why You Need To Start A Startup

http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/24525/14-reasons-why-you-need-to-start-a-startup.aspx

14 Reasons Why You Need To Start A Startup

This post has been ruminating with me for a while. It's not a sudden "a-ha" moment that made it form, but a collective group of "a-has!" over the past few months. Consider this the uplifting post to counter last week's "The 11 Harsh Realities Of Entrepreneurship". Just because it's a harsh reality, doesn't mean you shouldn't be an entrepreneur. The best time to start a startup is not tomorrow, not next week, and certainly not next year. The time is right now, at this very second. Here's why:

Daniel Kahneman: Beware the ‘inside view’

In an excerpt from his new book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, the Nobel laureate recalls how an inwardly focused forecasting approach once led him astray, and why an external perspective can help executives do better.

NOVEMBER 2011 • Daniel Kahneman

In This Article

• About the author
• Comments

In the 1970s, I convinced some officials in the Israeli Ministry of Education of the need for a curriculum to teach judgment and decision making in high schools. The team that I assembled to design the curriculum and write a textbook for it included several experienced teachers, some of my psychology students, and Seymour Fox, then dean of the Hebrew University’s School of Education and an expert in curriculum development.

The Great Bank Robbery

The Great Bank Robbery

NEW YORK – For the American economy – and for many other developed economies – the elephant in the room is the amount of money paid to bankers over the last five years. For banks that have filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the sum stands at an astounding $2.2 trillion. Extrapolating over the coming decade, the numbers would approach $5 trillion

3 Misconceptions That Need to Die

At a conference in Philadelphia earlier this month, a Wharton professor noted that one of the country's biggest economic problems is a tsunami of misinformation. You can't have a rational debate when facts are so easily supplanted by overreaching statements, broad generalizations, and misconceptions. And if you can't have a rational debate, how does anything important get done? As author William Feather once advised, "Beware of the person who can't be bothered by details." There seems to be no shortage of those people lately.
Here are three misconceptions that need to be put to rest.
Misconception: Most of what Americans spend their money on is made in China.
Fact: Just 2.7% of personal consumption expenditures

Interesting!

Understanding the Second Great Contraction: An interview with Kenneth Rogoff
The economist and coauthor of This Time Is Different explains what history can teach us about the global downturn and why climbing out of it is still rife with risks.
OCTOBER 2011 • Bill Javetski and Tim Koller

Strategy under uncertainty

Credits - McKinsey Quarterly

At the heart of the traditional approach to strategy lies the assumption that executives, by applying a set of powerful analytic tools, can predict the future of any business accurately enough to choose a clear strategic direction for it. The process often involves underestimating uncertainty in order to lay out a vision of future events sufficiently precise to be captured in a discounted-cash-flow (DCF) analysis. When the future is truly uncertain, this approach is at best marginally helpful and at worst downright dangerous: underestimating uncertainty can lead to strategies that neither defend a company against the threats nor take advantage of the opportunities that higher levels of uncertainty provide. Another danger lies at the other extreme: if managers can't find a strategy that works under traditional analysis, they may abandon the analytical rigor of their planning process altogether and base their decisions on gut instinct.

India's growth story gone down the drain: Shankar Sharma, Chief global trading strategist, First Global

First Global's chief global trading strategist Shankar Sharma does not mince words when speaking about markets and investments. Sharma lashed out at RBI's hardline stance on interest rates and Anna Hazare's crusade against corruption. Sharma sees Europe andUS in deep debt trap and professes equities to remain a gross underperformer for many months to come. He only finds 'underwear companies' worth investing in current times. Edited excerpts: 

How do you read the situation in Europe and the US? 

Both blocs are at points of no return... I don't see any way out for them. Both have lived off fat deficits, and it's time to pay the bill. Europe at least accepts its situation. But the US has got its head buried in the sand. There is lot of talk, but no real action on reducing deficits... and if they were to indeed make cutbacks to reduce deficits and debt, the whole consumer spending-based economy will keel over. 

What is your mid-term outlook for Indian equities market? 

Five Prescriptions to Heal Economy’s Ills: Laurence Kotlikoff

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-28/five-prescriptions-to-heal-economic-ills-commentary-by-laurence-kotlikoff.html

Desperate times call for creative measures. We’re in desperate times, but we’ve had little creative thinking from the Obama administration on how to fix the economy.

According to Ron Suskind’s new book, “Confidence Men,” Lawrence Summers, formerly the president’s chief economist, was concerned more with controlling than developing policy. No surprise. Hiring Summers was a huge mistake. But he’s gone, and the current economics team is free to think outside of Summers’s narrow, politically calculated box.

The president’s new-yet-familiar jobs bill entails more spending and more tax cuts, neither of which is affordable absent new revenue. The president wants the rich to cover the bill’s cost. House Republicans are saying no, dooming the bill to political oblivion.

What about printing more money?

If the world were a 100 people!

The following statistics are an abbreviated version of the research that we commissioned from the University of Wisconsin - Green Bay. The detailed research and source information can be found here. The statistics contained in the email that originally inspired the project have been retired, but can still be viewed here for purposes of comparison.


50 would be female
50 would be male

20 would be children
There would be 80 adults,
14 of whom would be 65 and older

There would be:
61 Asians
12 Europeans
13 Africans
14 people from

How a rogue trader crashed UBS

http://in.reuters.com/article/2011/09/26/idINIndia-59559120110926

UBS trader Kweku Adoboli arrives at City of London Magistrates Court in London September 22, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Paul Hackett

By Emma Thomasson and Edward Taylor

ZURICH/SINGAPORE | Tue Sep 27, 2011 1:31am IST

(Reuters) - Late last Friday afternoon, as Formula One teams readied their cars for a practice session ahead of the Singapore Grand Prix, the entrance hall of the nearby Ritz-Carlton buzzed with activity.

One by one, senior executives of Swiss bank UBS entered the lobby, which is designed by Pritzker-winning architect Kevin Roche and features a soaring glass ceiling, and made their way to the gold-coloured lifts that whisk guests up to rooms that overlook the Marina Bay street circuit.

As the bankers sped past works of art by the likes of Henry Moore, David Hockney and Frank Stella, some made their way straight to a lounge UBS had hired to entertain clients during the race weekend. At its entrance stood three Singaporean women wearing red and white polo shirts, each holding a sign emblazoned with the UBS logo and the slogan "Welcome, the race starts here".

The Digital Dead Sea Scrolls

http://dss.collections.imj.org.il/

Ever wondered/thought of sea scrolls and how they look in reality!

The Israel Museum welcomes you to the Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Project, allowing users to examine and explore these most ancient manuscripts from Second Temple times at a level of detail never before possible. Developed in partnership with Google, the new website gives users access to searchable, fast-loading, high-resolution images of the scrolls, as well as short explanatory videos and background information on the texts and their history. The Dead Sea Scrolls, which include the oldest known biblical manuscripts in existence, offer critical insight into Jewish society in the Land of Israel during the Second Temple Period, the time of the birth of Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism. Five complete scrolls from the Israel Museum have been digitized for the project at this stage and are now accessible online.

Is China's Economy Contracting?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonchang/2011/09/25/is-chinas-economy-contracting/2/

Year-to-year comparisons tell us the Chinese economy is growing in high single digits, but month-to-month numbers suggest it flatlined this summer.  Now, there is evidence indicating it is even starting to contract.

The National Bureau of Statistics estimated that gross domestic product increased by 9.5% in the second quarter this year, down from 9.7% in Q1.  Yet GDP is not the most reliable indicator of economic activity in China.  The official Q2 number was substantially above analysts’ estimates, indicating once again that the statistic is “man-made”—manipulated for political purposes—in the memorable words of Vice Premier Li Keqiang.

The most reliable indicator is undoubtedly electricity consumption.  In August, consumption of electricity was up 9.1% from the same month last year but down 0.1% from the preceding month.

Interesting Link!

http://www.submarinecablemap.com/

Click here to launch map

TeleGeography’s free interactive submarine cable map is based on our authoritative Global Bandwidthresearch, and depicts 188 active and planned submarine cable systems and their landing stations. Selecting a cable route on the map provides access to data about the cable, including the cable’s name, ready-for-service (RFS) date, length, owners, website, and landing points. Selecting a landing point provides a list of all submarine cables landing at that station.

Cables shown include international and US domestic submarine cables with a maximum upgradeable capacity of at least 5 Gbps. Cable routes are stylized to improve readability, and do not reflect the physical cable location. Similarly, cable landing stations do not show the precise coordinates of the building, and are meant to serve as a general guide to where a cable system lands.

We update our map regularly to ensure that our data are as accurate and as up-to-date as possible. If you have updated information for a cable system please email us at cablemap@telegeography.com.

Source: Global Bandwidth Research Service

Social technologies on the front line

The Management 2.0 Challenge is the first of three contests in a yearlong competition in which executives describe practices that make management more adaptable, innovative, inspiring, and accountable.1 In this first phase, entrants were asked to describe how Web 2.0 tools and technologies are changing management. A panel including McKinsey partners and external experts chose seven winners from a field of 143 entries. These winners come from organizations of all sizes and cultures, including the Mexican cement giant Cemex, the Dutch government, and a California-based tomato processor.

Unleashing innovation: Why Tata Nano is a no-no and who will be king of Cyber-ia

Scott Anthony is the managing director ofInnosight Asia-Pacific , a disruptive innovationconsulting firm founded by Harvard Business Professor, Clayton Christensen. Over the years, Anthony has written extensively about innovation. He is the author of two forthcoming books from Harvard Business Review Press, The Little Black Book of Innovation (late 2011) and Paving the First Mile (2012). In this interview with CD, he discusses Tata Nano, unleashing innovation energy and 'Iteration-itis'. Edited excerpts: 

More than a year back, you wrote a blog titled 'Is the Tata Nano Really 'The People's Car?' Can you explain why you think it may not be a people's car? 

I am a huge fan of the vision behind the Tata Nano - getting families off unsafe two-wheeled vehicles into safer, affordable cars. My observation (or, more accurately, my colleague's observation) was simply that the price of a car wasn't the only thing stopping people from making that shift. My colleague described to me how 10 years ago, he purchased a Maruti 800 for Rs 1,05,000. Not only was that car affordable, it had features the basic Nano lacks, like a cassette player and air conditioning. Plenty of people could afford good used cars, but they choose motorcycles and scooters. Why is that? Watching the traffic in Mumbai for about 10 minutes provides one answer. Automobiles slowly plod along, but motorcycles and scooters find cracks in traffic and make quicker progress. Parking is an obvious problem too. You can store a two-wheeled vehicle in a bunch of places but cars take up space that doesn't exist for many target consumers. These are reasons why I think the Nano has struggled - the target customer doesn't actually consider it better than existing alternatives along several important dimensions. 

What can be done to increase the slow sales of the Nano? 

What China’s five-year plan means for business - Guangyu Li and Jonathan Woetzel

China’s recently announced 12th five-year plan aims to transform the world’s second-largest economy from an investment-driven dynamo into a global powerhouse with a steadier and more stable trajectory. The plan affects domestic and foreign companies in all industries. To help senior managers decode and understand its provisions, we analyzed the potential impact on 33 industries. Two dimensions stood out: the effect on their profit pools and competitive landscapes. (For a detailed look at this analysis, see the interactive exhibit, “The economic impact of China’s 12th five-year plan.”)

The plan’s likely impact on profit pools was categorized as either favorable (for example, sensitive to an increase in domestic demand or specifically targeted for special treatment), unfavorable (subject to restrictive policies), or neutral. For the effect on the competitive landscape, we looked at the intensity of regulation.

The perils of bad strategy - Richard Rumelt

Horatio Nelson had a problem. The British admiral’s fleet was outnumbered at Trafalgar by an armada of French and Spanish ships that Napoleon had ordered to disrupt Britain’s commerce and prepare for a cross-channel invasion. The prevailing tactics in 1805 were for the two opposing fleets to stay in line, firing broadsides at each other. But Nelson had a strategic insight into how to deal with being outnumbered. He broke the British fleet into two columns and drove them at the Franco-Spanish fleet, hitting its line perpendicularly. The lead British ships took a great risk, but Nelson judged that the less-trained Franco-Spanish gunners would not be able to compensate for the heavy swell that day and that the enemy fleet, with its coherence lost, would be no match for the more experienced British captains and gunners in the ensuing melee. He was proved right: the French and Spanish lost 22 ships, two-thirds of their fleet. The British lost none.¹

Nelson’s victory is a classic example of good strategy, which almost always looks this simple and obvious in retrospect.

Finding the courage to shrink your busines - Bill Huyett and Tim Koller

It takes courage to break up a company. CEOs and boards of directors often fear that investors will view asset divestitures as admissions of failed strategy—that having certain businesses under the same corporate umbrella never made sense. Many worry that shedding assets will cost a company the benefits of scale, cut into the advantages of analyst coverage, or even damage employee morale. Spin-offs in particular draw scrutiny because they shrink the size of the parent company but, unlike sales, don’t generate cash to reinvest.

We don’t believe these arguments hold up. What’s more, they may lead executives to pass up value-creating opportunities. A fundamental principle of corporate finance holds that a business creates the most value for shareholders and the economy as a whole when it is owned by the best—or, at least, a better—owner.¹ So it makes sense that companies should continually reallocate their resources as circumstances change. Moreover, the benefits of being part of a large company come at a cost; in fact, many spun-off companies can make substantial cuts in overhead costs once they are independent. Investors typically don’t care about a company being too small once it reaches a threshold of about $500 million in market capitalization.² And in our experience, executives and employees of spun-off companies often feel liberated and quite happy to be on their own.

Why dictators and democracies are failing at the same time: Thomas Friedman

Kishore Mahbubani, a retired Singaporean diplomat, published a provocative essay in The Financial Times on Monday that began like this: 

``Dictators are falling. Democracies are failing. A curious coincidence? Or is it, perhaps, a sign that something fundamental has changed in the grain of human history. I believe so. How do dictators survive? They tell lies. Muammar Gaddafi was one of the biggest liars of all time. He claimed that his people loved him. He also controlled the flow of information to his people to prevent any alternative narrative taking hold. Then the simple cellphone enabled people to connect. The truth spread widely to drown out all the lies that the colonel broadcast over the airwaves. 

"So why are democracies failing at the same time? The simple answer: Democracies have also been telling lies." 

Meet Comex, The 19-Year-Old iPhone Uber-Hacker Who Keeps Outsmarting Apple

http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2011/08/01/meet-comex-the-iphone-uber-hacker-who-keeps-outsmarting-apple/

Nicholas Allegra lives with his parents in Chappaqua, New York. The tall, shaggy-haired and bespectacled 19-year old has been on leave from Brown University since last winter, looking for an internship. And in the meantime, he’s been spending his days on a hobby that periodically sends shockwaves through the computer security world: seeking out cracks in the source code of Apple’s iPhone, a device with more software restrictions than practically any computer on the market, and exploiting them to utterly obliterate its defenses against hackers.

“It feels like editing an English paper,” Allegra says simply, his voice croaking as if he just woke up, though we’re speaking at 9:30 pm. “You just go through and look for errors. I don’t know why I seem to be so effective at it.”

To the public, Allegra has been known only by the hacker handle Comex, and keeps a low profile. (He agreed to speak after Forbes‘ poking around Twitter, Facebook and the Brown Directory revealed his name.) But in what’s becoming almost an annual summer tradition, the pseudonymous hacker has twice released a piece of code called JailBreakMe that allows millions of users to strip away in seconds the ultra-strict security measures Apple has placed on its iPhones and iPads, devices that account for more than half the company’s $100 billion in revenues.

The tool isn’t intended for theft or vandalism: It merely lets users install any application they want on their devices. But jailbreaking, as the  practice is called, violates Apple’s obsessive control of its gadgets and demonstrates software holes that could be exploited later by less benevolent hackers.

Apple didn’t respond to requests for comment, but it’s not thrilled about Allegra’s work. When he released JailbreakMe 3 in July, the company rushed to patch the security opening in just nine days. Nonetheless, 1.4 million people used the tool to jailbreak their gadgets in that time, and more than 600,000 more since then. Allegra has become such a thorn in Apple’s side that its stores now block JailbreakMe.com on in-store wifi networks.

“I didn’t think anyone would be able to do what he’s done for years,” says Charlie Miller, a former network exploitation analyst for the National Security Agency who first hacked the iPhone in 2007. “Now it’s been done by some kid we had never even heard of. He’s totally blown me away.”

see photos

Click for full photo gallery: A Brief History of Apple Hacking

To appreciate JailbreakMe’s brilliance, consider how tightly Steve Jobs locks down his devices: Since 2008, Apple has implemented a safeguard called “code-signing” to prevent hackers from running any of their own commands on its mobile operating system. So even after an attacker finds a security bug that gives him access to the system, he can only exploit it by reusing commands that are already in Apple’s software, a process security researcher Dino Dai Zovi has compared to writing a ransom note out of magazine clippings.

After Allegra released JailbreakMe 2 last year, Apple upped its game another notch, randomizing the location of code in memory so that hackers can’t even locate commands to hijack them. That’s like requiring an attacker to assemble a note out of a random magazine he’s never read before, in the dark.

Yet Allegra has managed to find a path around those locks. In JailbreakMe 3, Allegra used a bug in how Apple’s mobile operating system iOS handles PDFs fonts that allows him to both locate and repurpose hidden commands. That critical flaw allowed a series of exploits that not only gains total control of the machine but leaves behind code that jailbreaks it again every time the device reboots –all without ever even crashing the operating system. “I spent a lot of time on the polish,” Allegra says with a hint of pride.

Dino Dai Zovi, co-author of the Mac Hacker’s Handbook, says JailbreakMe’s sophistication is on par with that of Stuxnet, a worm thought to have been designed by the Israeli or U.S. government to infect Iran’s nuclear facilities. He compares Allegra’s skills to the state-sponsored intruders that plague corporations and governments, what the cybersecurity industry calls “advanced-persistent threat” hackers: “He’s probably five years ahead of them,” says Dai Zovi.

Allegra isn’t after profit: his site is free, though it does accept donations. Nor does he criticize Apple for wanting to control what users can install on their devices. He calls himself an Apple “fanboy,” and describes Android’s more open platform as “the enemy.” “I guess it’s just about the challenge, more than anything else,” he says.

The young hacker taught himself to code in the programming language Visual Basic at the age of nine, gleaning tricks from Web forums. “By the time I took a computer science class in high school, I already knew everything,” he says. When he found that he couldn’t save a screenshot from the Nintendo Wii video game Super Smash Brothers to his computer, he spent hours deciphering the file, and later worked on other Wii hacks, getting a feel for its obscure operating system.

“I didn’t come out of the same background as the rest of the security community,” he says. “So to them I seem to have come out of nowhere.”

Allegra argues that his jailbreaking work is legal. The U.S. Copyright Officecreated an exemption last summer in the Digital Millenium Copyright Act for users to jailbreak their own cell phones, despite’s Apple objections that the ruling could open phones to dastardly hackers and even lead to “catastrophic” attacks that crash cell phone towers.

Whether it’s acceptable to release tools for others to jailbreak their devices, however, has yet to be decided. Three courts have ruled the practice is legal, while another said it could violate the DMCA. In January, Sony used that law and others to sue George Hotz, one of Allegra’s fellow iPhone hackers, for reverse engineering the Playstation 3. The suit was settled, but not before it touched off a wave of retaliatory cyberattacks on Sony by hackers around the world.

Allegra admits that technically, there’s little difference between jailbreaking phones and hacking them for more malicious ends. “It’s scary,” he says. “I use the same phone as everyone else, and it’s totally insecure.”

But at least in the case of JailbreakMe 3, Allegra also created a patch for the PDF vulnerability he exploited, allowing users to cover their tracks so that other hackers couldn’t exploit the same bug. In the period before Apple released an official patch, users who had jailbroken their iPads and iPhones were in some sense more secure than those who hadn’t.

A postscript to Apple: Perhaps your security team could use another intern.

How to Deal With Crappy People - James Altucher!

Ugh, I’m disgusted with my brain.  I see people walking down the street and there’s like this killer inside me providing running nasty commentary about each person. Do you do this also?

I have to stop myself often: “you don’t know this person who is randomly crossing the street. You can’t possibly know that he’s a cheating lying rich Hamptons-worshipping whoremongering obnoxious trust fund baby with a 17 year old mistress on the side who doesn’t wipe, who doesn’t wash, who would wish nothing better than to see you die”. You can’t know that! So why do I think it? Most people crossing the street probably think that about me also. Who is that freak? Is he homeless? Why can’t he comb his hair? Why is his fly open? Is he a child molesting pervert?

Most people are pretty crappy. But not all. And even the ones who are no good and not worthy of your time need a system for you to use so YOU can be happier and leave this lecherous gossipy crack addict thats in your head on the road and kick him or her to the curb.

I was talking about this with Penelope Trunk and Melissa Sconyers who works with Penelope. Penelope has an excellent blog I recommend. She also has Asperger’s Syndrome which, from what I can gather, means she can’t read social cues on people so has trouble knowing how to respond to people. So she told me her technique what she does.

(Penelope Trunk)

I came up with a better technique for her. But first, her trick:

She uses something called Myers-Briggs to determines someone’s personality type. Then, in advance of meeting that person, she looks up the personality type and figures out how she needs to respond and interact with that person.

Forget that. There’s a billion personality types on that thing. I’m about to make it easy for Penelope.

There are only four types of people. If you understand in advance how to deal with each of these four types you will be infinitely happier. Ultimately, interacting with the four types in the way I describe below will make one fit firmly into the first type, however difficult it is. That’s the goal. You don’t want to go through life unhappy.

In an earlier article I gave the Daily Practice that has helped me out of every tough situation in my life for the past 15 years (when I’ve been disciplined enough to apply it). It has 4 legs. Many of us focus in our daily lives on only one of the legs (Physical, Emotional, Mental, or Spiritual) but we need all the legs in balance to really sit down at the dinner table without falling.

The Practice works and brings one from the brink to success and then more success. I believe in it more than I’ve ever believed in any hocus-pocus anything ever.

But to develop the emotional leg of that practice takes a lot of work and I’ve written nothing on this. Probably because it’s the hardest. In my talks people ask about the Mental side, the idea muscle. But the Emotional side, equally as important, is much harder.

The key is to identify the FOUR types of people and discipline yourself on how you should approach these people.

The Four Types of People

#1 Happy. There are people who are genuinely happy in the world. Sure they have their suffering. Everyone does. But a lot of people really are pretty satisfied with their lives at this very moment.

A natural reflex (not for everyone, but certainly for some people) is to resent people for being happy. Who doesn’t do that some of the time? Raise your hand!

Let’s say someone lives in 20,000 square foot house in Connecticut, has a sexy wife (or sexy husband), and is genuinely happy. It’s hard not to resent such a person. This resentment will block the Daily Practice from having beneficial outcomes in your life.  In 2002 when I was pitching hedge fund managers to invest money with me I often ran into the exact person described above. And their families. The sexy wives in short shorts. The hedge fund managers served gourmet meals for lunchtime by loving cooks.

(Stevie Cohen’s house. Here’s How Stevie Cohen Changed My Life)

You can’t fake resentment. You can’t put on a mask. If someone is at a costume ball, you can easily see they are wearing a mask. You have to genuinely be happy for these people.

It’s so hard to grab a single ounce of happiness in this world, please be happy for the ones who are happy today. Train your mind to be sincerely happy for their happiness. Catch your resentments and jealousies before they turn into monsters.

Carrie Fisher once said, “nobody wants to read about a good looking happy person”. She was making a commentary on comedy screenwriting and she’s probably right about that. But for you to go from success to success you must first be sincerely happy for the people who are happy around you. Like attracts. Picture all the people you might resent. Spend five minutes a day training your brain to be happy for them. You’ll die lonely in the jungle if you don’t do this and everyone will forget you ever existed.

#2 People in pain. I’ve been unhappy often. Particularly in the past decade. Sometimes things just don’t work out. Sometimes people die. I think the level of unhappiness and pain I’ve had in the past decade (versus prior decades) has taught me compassion towards others in a similar boat. Try to cultivate that compassion. It doesn’t mean you have to drain yourself to help those less fortunate.

But even showing compassion and doing what you can goes a long way. If you can share what you have, all the better. If you can give a word of advice, do it.

Unhappy person can easily turn into category #4 below. You always have to protect yourself first. Be compassionate but keep your boundaries. Your goal is your own peace of mind throughout the day, so you can focus on your own success. The fastest way to do that is show compassion to those less fortunate. What you give, comes back tenfold. Try this exercise: picture everyone in your life who is unhappy or in pain, spend five minutes picturing them in a happier state. This trains your mind.

#3 Good people. This is different from “Happy”. Good people don’t always have ulterior motives. Some people legitimately want to help others. There’s an initial impulse (at least with me) to suspect them. To resent them. Maybe even to envy them. I envy Bill Gates being able to donate $100 billion to charity. But the best thing for me is to catch myself doing that (almost a meditation in itself) and say, “this guy is good. I wish I could be as good as him. I hope I can help him in any way I can.” Be grateful for all the people good to you. Five minutes a day. Doesn’t have to be with incense burning and in the lotus position. On a bus, smile and think of the people you are grateful for.

(i'm starting to believe Gates has become a genuinely good guy)

And finally, the most important category of all. The category that wastes a quadrillion brain cycles a day around the world. What man can say he is Jesus and not fall prey to the ongoing anger and pain of dealing with this next category:

#4  Crappy people: People who will do you harm, no matter what you do, for no reason at all. They never will get it. They will say and do things to you and they will never ever understand how evil they are.

And you will hate them. HATE THEM. And they knock on the door of your brain at three in the morning and they want to yell at you. And you yell back. And they yell back. And on and on. All day. All afternoon. The ongoing conversation with the shittiest people in the world. They will torture you, kill you, rape your wife and slit the thoughts out of your mind and not even care because they think they are doing the right thing. You know who I’m talking about. Because you have a good 20 or 30 of these in your life just like I do. They might even be former friends, relatives, neighbors, bureaucrats, whatever, whoever, whenever. They swoop down on your life and are just plain crappy and they won’t even know it.

Sometimes, in a weak moment, I think to myself: What if I run into them again? How badly I will hurt and destroy them. Maybe just casually walk up to them and smash a glass over their head so their nose is broken, glasses broken on the floor, blood all over their face. Arm broken after I hold the elbow and stomp on it.

STOP!

Similarly, I was talking to someone the other day who couldn’t stop talking about someone who had wronged her fourteen years ago. Stop! You are an idiot. And it’s boring already. It was your fault anyway!

This is the worst category. I’ll tell you one more anecdote. Two seconds ago someone posted a horrible comment on my blog. I won’t repeat it. Racist, mean, rude to me, whatever. I deleted the post, blocked the user, blocked his IP address. And then I was going to send him an email telling him what I thought of him. I was angry. Then I stopped myself. You have to stop yourself.

Remember this:

When you get in the mud with a pig, you get dirty and the pig gets happy.

There is only ONE only way to deal with these people in a way that will make you happier instead of sadder. ONE WAY. And it always works. This is the most important part of the Emotional leg of theDaily Practice. COMPLETELY IGNORE THE EVIL PEOPLE:

• Completely ignore them.
• Don’t think about them.
• Don’t talk to them.
• Don’t write them.
• Most important: Don’t give them advice. They will NEVER listen to your advice. It’s arrogant and stupid to think they will. It will only lead to  more cycles of pain for you. The goal for me is to stop all cycles that cause me any pain at all. Giving advice to crappy people will only result in more pain for you. That’s the only possible result. Much better to be happy than to flush knotted up brown advice down a toilet that caused you agony to push out. This is hard.
• Most important: Never gossip about them behind their backs. Just completely disregard. We don’t care about their happiness or how evil they are. We only care about you. Its hard to do. Never ever talk about them behind their backs. Repeat this 500 times. This is hard also. Because it’s an addiction.

This isn’t easy. It’s a daily discipline. Much easier to do a 1000 pushups. I had an article recently on the Wall St Journal site that had 971 comments. No exaggeration when I say 950 of the smartest anonymous trolls on the internet called me an idiot moron and worse. I ignored all the comments. Great. I could care less. I was the winner there.

Then I put another article up on a supposedly peaceful site about Buddhism and yoga, the Elephant Journal. Great site. I post there regularly. The topic of my post was that 18 year olds should basically not be sent into war. I like peace. Better to send 40 year olds. They are closer to death anyway. The most hateful responses popped up. People comparing me to Hitler. I was so shocked I wasted one whole night until 2 in the morning responding to these people but ignoring the many emails I get that genuinely support me and that I want to be friends with. Why did I do that? I wanted my haters to like me. I wanted them to agree with me and love me. Its like putting a gun to your head and saying, “unless you do what I say, I will kill myself”. You’re going to end up firing that gun.

I lost my discipline for a whole night and then I slept late and it took at least 36 hours to get back on track. What a waste. For nothing! Its hard to keep up this practice. But you fail and die unhappy if you don’t.

And did I win a trophy for doing this? Was it a huge trophy made of gold? For responding to all of those comments? Did everyone/anyone write back and say, “you’re right. I’m sorry. Now I LOVE you! Let’s all be lovers!” Of course not! They just want to fight. I got in the mud with pigs. I got dirty.

If someone says, “what do you think of so-and-so”, your worst enemy, you say back, “So-and-so who?” And that’s it. No explanation. Nothing more. “So and so who?” Change subject right then. This is the emotional leg of the Daily Practice and must be balanced with the other three legs. Any deviation will set you back. Any addiction to the opposite of the above behaviors will eat you alive like cockroaches feasting on your heart. Have a good night.