* Posts by Evil Consultant

8 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Jan 2008

Engineers are troublesome 'expert loners', says prof

Evil Consultant

Ah, the two cultures - Engineering and Management

I feel quite qualified to comment here because a) I have been an engineer and a good one at that IMHO, and b) I am a manager of both engineers and business types, who has an MBA.

I've seem both sides of the argument and, you know what, it's everybody's fault! Some engineers don't seem to feel the need to seek other people's input in what they do or tell people about it, and sometimes managers make decisions which are clueless or appear clueless because they've failed to tell people why it's actually not a clueless decision.

Firstly, we need to understand what we mean by collaboration. This doesn't need to mean four hour status update meetings with touch-feely talk about our emotions to a backdrop of whalesong (although that's fun too - hey, I am an MBA after all.) All it really means is getting input from people with an interest in:

a) what the problem really is and not what the engineer thinks that it is, and

b) the best way to solve it because, even if you really are a genius, then there may be other people out there who have a better way of doing it

...and then letting people know what you're doing and how it's going so that know when they can do whatever follows on from your work. Let us not forget that engineers don't (shouldn't?!) work in isolation of the rest of the organisation.

Actually doing the work largely is a solo event I agree. I've never had much luck doing something detailed or complex with someone else breathing over my shoulder either; and division of labour is clearly the way to go; but that division of labour must be based on a common understanding of what the problem really is, and what the right way is to go about solving it.

Engineers are often bad communicators and lack empathy; the failure to see a problem from someone else's point of view leads to bad engineering. Managers need to recognise that engineering can be a creative work and standing over someone and shouting "Be creative now" Go team!" in their ear rarely yields good results.

EC

Profs design AK47-locating 'smart dust' helmets

Evil Consultant

Subsonic Sniping Rounds

They're a bit exotic and fairly rare, but there are subsonic sniping rounds available, which would not be detectable by this sort of kit. For example, the 338 Whisper and 500 Whisper rounds fire ultra-heavy VLD (very low drag) bullets at just under 1100fps are good out to over 1000 yards as they have ballistic coefficients of the order of 1 or higher.

They also have the advantage that they never go trans-sonic, which enhances accurary at longer ranges. If you fire a bullet at a target sufficient far away then it is going to go subsonic at some point, for example, let's say we fire a 155 grain 30 caliber bullet at 2900fps, then it goes subsonic at around 1100 yards or so. As the bullet slows below the speed of sound, the shock wave collapses over the bullet, knocking it slightly off line, hence reducing accuracy. If you start off with a subsonic bullet then this is, of course, not a problem.

Not the sort of thing your average Taleban sniper is going to have to be sure, and you might have to politely ask your target to sit still for a few seconds while it arrives, but nonetheless such things exist and are effective.

EC

Snipers - Cowardly assassins, or surgical soldiers?

Evil Consultant

Evil Consultant

As regards the 7.62x54R cartridge designation, the "R" stands for "Rimmed" and not "Rimfire." 7.62x54R is a centrefire cartridge.

Most modern rifle cartridges are described as being "Rimless". They have a cannelure just in front of the base of the cartidge for extraction and ejection but actually headspace off the neck of the cartridge. Older cartridges, such as the venerable 303 and 7.62 Russian headspace off the rim.

On another note, the wind starts to play a seriously big effect from about 800 to 900 yards out. The wind allowance for a 7.62 round is about 10 inches per mile an hour of wind coming from 90 degrees to the trajectory. A fairly mild breeze can take you five feet off target with no problems whatsoever.

Otherwise an excellent and highly interesting article, well up to Lewis' usual standards or excellence.

EC

Bear squeeze blues: How to destroy a bank

Evil Consultant

Bah!

Dominic,

A long-short strategy may have been what you MEANT to describe, but sadly it wasn't what you actually did describe. To whit...

"Hedge funds have made respectable money shorting financial stocks and using the proceeds to go long on energy shares..."

What you actually described was a sequential taking of one position and then another, which is not going to enhance your risk profile. In common with much of the rest of the article, your arguments are weak and confused; although as I said, your conclusions are more or less right.

Your title "Bear squeeze blues: how to destroy a bank" makes little logical sense on the grounds that the banks are not being destroyed by getting squeezed on short positions. Others have taken short positions in them and are not, in general, getting squeezed as a result. So why the title? Op ed license or just bad journalism?

Furthermore in the final chapter you try to argue that notification of short positions will move markets against you (i.e. up)...

"Normally one tries to avoid being conspicuous, since the more you buy or sell the more the market learns about you, and moves the prices against you."

...which wrong under the vast majority of circumstances. Remarkably enough, selling activity tends to drive prices down and buying tends drive prices up, and unless you're talking about an illiquid, highly regulated or shallow market then the market is not going to take some anthropomorphic "position against you" because no one actor is going to be able to reverse sentiment most of the time.

EC

Evil Consultant
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Drivel once more

Dominic clearly knows three tenths of naff all about risk management and market movement mechanics. Althought the conclusions of his piece are approximately correct, this is probably only by accident.

For example, his assertion that shorting per se is less risky is laughable. In pure volatility terms, the probability of prices going up or down within any given time period is about the same, but with a naked short the range of potential outcomes is far worse.

Consider the following questions. If you buy a share, how much can you lose when prices goes down? If you short a share, how much can you lose when prices go up? In the first case your losses are limited to the value of the share when you bought it (limited liability) but in the second, your losses are potentially unlimited.

EC

UK employers sharpen job axe

Evil Consultant
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Study science then go work in consulting or banking

I studied for a master's degree (MChem) in chemistry at a very good university and got a very good 2:1. In my third year, I started looking around for the science internships and jobs that I'd one day want to work in. There weren't any, or at least none that I'd consider taking on the grounds that I could earn just as much money working in a bar. With some further research, I found that with my degree I could earn £20k tops as a chemist, with very limited scope for progression, or over £30k as a consultant, with scope for earning £250k+ per year in a decade's time.

The search for truth, yes. The yearning for enlightenment, definitely. But then again a decent amount of cold, hard lucre would be nice too.

Boffin shortage will blight Blighty's prosperity

Evil Consultant

Hmmm...

As someone with a postgraduate degree in a hard science from a top university and who is currently studying for an MBA at one of the world's best business schools, I can tell you from first-hand experience that getting an MBA from a good school is no pushover.

Accenture and BAE pull out of ID card project

Evil Consultant

Good Move

70% of big IT projects are considered failures; however when you move into goverment space that percentage kicks up significantly and even though the contracts are potentially billion-dollar moneymakers the risk is just too high. BAE and ACN have made the right decision, particularly in light of the fact that the ID card has conflicting and unachievable aims.

On another note. Spleen, Accenture were not part of Arthur Andersen. They were Andersen Consulting, which split from AA in the dim and distant days of 1989. As part of the international arbitration started by CEO Shaheen they were forced to change their name well before the Enron debacle. Get your facts right.