A typical conclusion was that rules that assign property rights and rules that let people trade lead to good outcomes. What’s the skyhook? That people will follow the rules. Why would they respect the property rights of someone else? We had no idea. We might have had in mind something like this: police officers will arrest people who don’t follow the rules. But this is just another skyhook. Who are these police officers? Why do they follow rules? This is not an idle concern. Elinor showed that there are lots of important cases where people follow rules about ownership without police officers. One of the central challenges in understanding failures of economic development is that in many places, police officers don’t follow the rules they are meant to enforce.
via Charter Cities: Skyhooks versus Cranes: The Nobel Prize for Elinor Ostrom.

I have no idea how large the code base is, how complicated the code is, how much they adhere to recognized good coding standards but, It just seems that either 3 months is not enough or they have GREAT programmers/analyst. Hope the latter is true.

“2-3 months”
The importance of the source code audit has previously been raised by a lawmaker.
Bayan Muna Rep. Neri Colmenares said last August that IT experts would need at least 2 to 3 months to conduct a proper source code audit.
CenPEG said in its petition: “In order to sufficiently review a source code of such magnitude, it will take at least three (3) months for a team of programmers working full time.”
With the schedule announced by Comelec however, these groups will finish their review of the source codes on or just before election day.
The CenPeg petition is still pending with the SC.
The Comelec will use 82,200 PCOS machines which will be used for the first time in the country in the 80,000 clustered precincts for the 2010 elections. With reports from Timi Nubla, ABS-CBN News
via Source codes to be available to others after Feb. 6 – Comelec | ABS-CBN News Online Beta.

Bravo!
It is not a stretch to say that women dream and day dream of their wedding day, to think of others in what women term their day is admirable!  I pray they have a happy life together. May their love be true and their children many!

(UPDATE) Mar-Korina wedding a go; reception cancelled
abs-cbnNEWS.com | 10/13/2009 11:04 AM
MANILA – The wedding of Liberal Party vice-presidential bet Sen. Manuel “Mar” Roxas II and broadcast journalist Korina Sanchez will proceed as scheduled on October 27 at the Sto. Domingo Church in Quezon City.
The reception at the Araneta Coliseum, however, has been cancelled, the bride-to-be announced Tuesday.
“Instead of spending for the reception at Araneta Coliseum as planned, Mar and I agreed to donate the amount set aside for it to various charity organizations taking care of evacuees and victims of typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng,” Sanchez said in a press statement.
These charity groups are Caritas Manila, the Philippine National Red Cross, Sagip Kapamilya of ABS-CBN and Kapuso Foundation of GMA-7, among others.
After the Sto. Domingo rites, she said a private and simple wedding reception will take place at her soon-to-be-husband’s home.
“Para lang sa pamilya kasi mayroon pa akong pamilya na uuwi. And for the entourage siguro, merienda na lang sa bahay. Kaysa naman sa hotel pa, mas matipid kung sa bahay na lang,” she told abs-cbnNEWS.com.
via (UPDATE) Mar-Korina wedding a go; reception cancelled | ABS-CBN News Online Beta.

Matuto na sana tayo (Although I am slightly fearing that I may vote for them, well that’s life!)

Enrile, Jinggoy confirm Erap-Binay tandem
AMITA LEGASPI, GMANews.TV
10/13/2009 | 11:57 AM
As far as Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile is concerned, former President Joseph Estrada is definitely running in the 2010 presidential elections. And Estrada’s running mate ? Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay.
ERAP-BINAY?. Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile says on Tuesday former Pres. Joseph Estrada (left) and Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay (right) are the most likely tandem for the 2010 polls. Benjie Aves and AP (File photos)
Interviewed by Senate reporters Tuesday, Enrile said it would be a matter of time before Estrada formally announces his tandem with Binay in next year’s polls.
“Sa palagay ko done deal na yun (I believe it is already a done deal),” said Enrile, chairman emeritus of Estrada’s Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino (PMP) party.
Binay is concurrent president of PDP-Laban of the United Opposition (UNO), composed of political groups critical of the Arroyo administration.
Estrada’s son, Senate President Pro Tempore Jose “Jinggoy” Estrada, confirmed the tandem of his father with Binay. “Yes, it is,” was the younger Estrada’s reply when asked about the tandem.
via Enrile, Jinggoy confirm Erap-Binay tandem – Nation – GMANews.TV – Official Website of GMA News and Public Affairs – Latest Philippine News.

First of many!!

US duo wins Nobel Economics Prize
Agence France-Presse | 10/12/2009 7:13 PM
First woman lauded
STOCKHOLM – Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson of the United States won the 2009 Nobel Economics Prize on Monday for their work on the organisation of cooperation in economic governance, the Nobel jury said.
Ostrom is the first woman to win the Economics Prize, which has been awarded since 1969.
“The research of Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson demonstrates that economic analysis can shed light on most forms of social organisation,” the jury said.
Ostrom won half the 10-million-kronor (1.42-million-dollar, 980,000-euro) prize “for her analysis of economic governance” especially relating to the management of common property or property under common control.
Her work challenging the conventional wisdom that common property is poorly managed and should be either regulated by central authorities or privatised, it added.
via (UPDATE) US duo wins Nobel Economics Prize | ABS-CBN News Online Beta.

Late Risers Rule! HEHEHE!

Then subjects spent two nights in a sleep lab, where they again followed their preferred sleep patterns and underwent cognitive testing twice daily while in a functional MRI scanner.
An hour and a half after waking, early birds and night owls were equally alert and showed no difference in attention-related brain activity. But after being awake for 10 and a half hours, night owls had grown more alert, performing better on a reaction-time task requiring sustained attention and showing increased activity in brain areas linked to attention. More important, these regions included the suprachiasmatic area, which is home to the body’s circadian clock. This area sends signals to boost alertness as the pressure to sleep mounts. Unlike night owls, early risers didn’t get this late-day lift. Peigneux says faster activation of sleep pressure appears to prevent early birds from fully benefiting from the circadian signal, as evening types do.
via Early Risers Crash Faster Than People Who Stay Up Late: Scientific American.

But two years ago, a pair of social scientists named Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler used the information collected over the years about Joseph and Eileen and several thousand of their neighbors to make an entirely different kind of discovery. By analyzing the Framingham data, Christakis and Fowler say, they have for the first time found some solid basis for a potentially powerful theory in epidemiology: that good behaviors — like quitting smoking or staying slender or being happy — pass from friend to friend almost as if they were contagious viruses. The Framingham participants, the data suggested, influenced one another’s health just by socializing. And the same was true of bad behaviors — clusters of friends appeared to “infect” each other with obesity, unhappiness and smoking. Staying healthy isn’t just a matter of your genes and your diet, it seems. Good health is also a product, in part, of your sheer proximity to other healthy people. By keeping in close, regular contact with other healthy friends for decades, Eileen and Joseph had quite possibly kept themselves alive and thriving. And by doing precisely the opposite, the lone obese man hadn’t.
via Are Your Friends Making You Fat? – NYTimes.com.

cool!

Quantum computers with maybe 12 or 16 qubits have been built in the lab, but quantum computation is such a young field, and the physics of it are so counterintuitive, that researchers are still developing the theoretical tools for thinking about it.
Systems of linear equations, on the contrary, are familiar to almost everyone. We all had to solve them in algebra class: given three distinct equations featuring the same three variables, find values for the variables that make all three equations true.
Computer models of weather systems or of complex chemical reactions, however, might have to solve millions of equations with millions of variables. Under the right circumstances, a classical computer can solve such equations relatively efficiently: the solution time is proportional to the number of variables. But under the same circumstances, the time required by the new quantum algorithm would be proportional to the logarithm of the number of variables
via Quantum computing may actually be useful, after all.