Archive for the ‘I can’t hack it’ Category

My Google Adsense mis-adventure – Invasion of the spiders, help please – Part III

Since we are on topic, I thought I would also post the Statpress snapshot. Is this normal? I have about 80 – 100 unique visitors with 425 pageviews (which is fine) but 2,513 spiders in a day and by the time I am done with may I would have had the dubious distinction of having [...]

May 23, 2010  Tags: , , , ,   Posted in: I can't hack it, entrepreneurs  No Comments

My Adsense mis-adventure – Struggling to break 3 dollars a month – Part I

I thought I would fess up today and share the progress or lack of it made on the Google Adsense project in the first three months. If you have been following me around you know that around early February I decided to build a printing press for printing US dollars (or the money machine as [...]

May 23, 2010  Tags: , , , ,   Posted in: I can't hack it, entrepreneurs  No Comments

Forecasting the Monetary Policy decisions – will there be a rate cut or not

Forecasting the monetary policy The next monetary policy announcement is due in the last week of May 2010. We attempt to forecast the cut in the policy discount rate by looking at oil prices, the relationship between oil prices and imports, exports, remittances, the current account balance, net foreign assets, credit to the private sector [...]

May 21, 2010  Tags: , , ,   Posted in: I can't hack it, Pakistan, the economy stupid  No Comments

Teaching Ethics to business school students

If there was one mandatory course that all business school students are allergic to, it would be ethics. Not that business school students have a personality flaw that makes them hate the subject, it is just that we intensely dislike being preached to. We are smart, intelligent and savvy enough to figure out what is [...]

May 1, 2010  Tags: , , , , ,   Posted in: Education, I can't hack it, entrepreneurs  No Comments

New Course on Risk Management within the Oil, Gas and Petrochemical Industry

Over at the Learning Corporate Finance Blog, I posted a new free online course on risk management within the Oil, Gas and Petrochemical. A short six session introduction to a risk management framework for the Oil, Gas and Petrochemical industry focused on managing crude oil price volatility for Oil refiners, Polymer and PVC manufacturers and [...]

March 9, 2010  Tags: , , ,   Posted in: Alchemy stuff, I can't hack it, Risk, Risk Training  2 Comments

The dead zone

Somewhere along the 19th hour of being awake, after keeping a 20 hour schedule for the last three days you find yourself in the dead zone. Your body and mind have given up on sleep and are no longer craving it, you know you are all set to crash but you are still too wired [...]

February 19, 2010  Tags: ,   Posted in: Alchemy stuff, I can't hack it  No Comments

Treasury one – redux

I had no idea that my treasury one post would generate so much traffic and commentary. On a blog where it is rare to see more than a single comment (given all my anti spam, anti bot, anti social word press defenses) in less than 24 hours 8 comments (ok I confess 4 of them [...]

February 17, 2010  Tags: , ,   Posted in: Alchemy stuff, First degree, I can't hack it, Pakistan  2 Comments

Treasury One goes live at KASB Bank

Our second Treasury implementation that integrates completely with the Misys Equation backend, the Alchemy Risk Manager Middle Office application and SBP M3 reporting requirements. Additional options include the ability to link up directly with the Reuters dealing system top feed and SBP FX-CRS reporting engine. Took a year and an enormous amount of support from [...]

February 15, 2010  Tags: , , ,   Posted in: Alchemy stuff, I can't hack it  20 Comments

Oil Insights – Oil Prices, Peak Oil debate and drivers for those who have never looked at oil before

I am not a trader, nor an analyst. Technically speaking, I have only worked for an Investment Bank once in my life and that too on the margin trading and risk management desk. I am good with numbers and while I have done well with Excel, Lotus 123 and Symphony, I am not the distinguished [...]

February 7, 2010  Tags: , , , ,   Posted in: Alchemy stuff, I can't hack it, Risk, the economy stupid  No Comments

Karachi city update

Was at work all day and then went from Baloch Colony bridge to Khayaban-e-Bahria to pick up the kids (5pm) and then took Kalapul, Shahrae-Faisal and Karsaz to head home to Gulshan (5:30 pm). Roads are open, traffic is thin, lots of security being deployed and petrol stations are closed. Two blasts in the city. [...]

February 5, 2010  Tags: , , ,   Posted in: I can't hack it, Karachi, Pakistan  No Comments

Talent ,Technology, Management

Ages ago for an upcoming PASHA career expo I did a piece on hiring. A few months earlier I had done a presentation on knowledge workers at Zayed University Campus in Abu Dhabi. Today at the Nutshell forum I used ideas from both pieces to do a different take on talent management within the technology [...]

January 23, 2010  Tags: , , ,   Posted in: Desi Back to Desh, Desi Startup, I can't hack it, Karachi, PASHA, Pakistan, Startup, Startup Insiders, entrepreneurs, new ventures, small business  2 Comments

Unrisk…

I have now been doing this “risk” business for more than a decade. Eleven years ago, right about this time, I was rudely introduced to my first risk application. Fresh from my actuarial exams, I was stumped on an interview question dealing with moments of a distribution. I have read the material, struggled with it, [...]

August 16, 2009  Tags: , , ,   Posted in: Basel II, I can't hack it, Pakistan, Pillar II, Risk, Risk Training  5 Comments

Editors’ Note, Pakistan Risk Review

Emerging markets require special attention. Standard models don’t apply, conventional wisdom doesn’t work and traditional thinking can quickly land you in uncharted and troubled territory. Pakistan as an economy is not that different from other emerging markets.   Like others we have our own personal challenges and demons. However given our special needs and situation [...]

April 8, 2009  Tags: , , , , , ,   Posted in: I can't hack it, Pakistan, Pillar II, Risk, the economy stupid  No Comments

You were saying, a rejoinder four…

Look here and here. There is more behind the G-20 and Nato protests than these selective images show case. The violence is hard to ignore but it overshadows the cause, the concept, the organization or the impact. So if I was the only source of information you had, my commentary the basis of your opinion, [...]

April 5, 2009  Tags: , ,   Posted in: Desi Back to Desh, Desi Startup, I can't hack it, Karachi, PASHA, Pakistan, the economy stupid  2 Comments

One step at a time…

When a good friend described me as Viagra and dope pimp given the links spread across my blog and the RSS feed, I had to upgrade to 2.7. Yes, I know, peer pressure is a terrible thing. Given my technically luddite status, despite my first degree in computer science, I was happy to note that [...]

April 4, 2009   Posted in: Blogroll, I can't hack it, Pressing words, computer science  One Comment