the corner office : tech blog

Getting rid of all the login startup gumpf in recent versions of Ubuntu server: (see eg. Ubuntu forums Server 10.04: How to Eradicate the MOTD System?)

sudo apt-get purge landscape-common landscape-client
sudo chmod -x /etc/update-motd.d/*

You can probably delete 'em just as easily. Put something friendly in /etc/motd to compensate.

(As a reminder, the other slow login culprit can often be if the server can't resolve the client's hostname, usually fixed on local machines or VMs by adding an entry to /etc/hosts.)

• Stack Overflow: how can I move a single directory from a git repository to a new repository whilst maintaining the history?
• move git repository out of a folder?
• rename a gitosis repository
• Converting CVS to git
• Stack Overflow: combining multiple git repositories

Not as simple as on Linux.

• msysGit
• tortoisegit
• github: An Illustrated Guide To Git On Windows
• Stack Overflow: Git under windows: Msys or cygwin?

The Dark Magic of Structured Finance:

Suppose that we misspecified the underlying probability of mortgage default and we later discover the true probability is not .05 but .06. In terms of our original mortgages the true default rate is 20 percent higher than we thought--not good but not deadly either. However, with this small error, the probability of default in the 10 tranche jumps from p=.0282 to p=.0775, a 175% increase. Moreover, the probability of default of the CDO jumps from p=.0005 to p=.247, a 45,000% increase!

I still think that the popular idea that the people creating these things were too stupid to know that there would be these 'glitches' is unsatisfying.