People working on RSS 2.0 ran into the reality of XML Namespace handling.  Bottomline is that not every XML software knows how to handle namespace properly.  A similar problem was encountered with 3D-Secure message format which is XML-based.  3D-Secure had to use XML-Signature so namespace had to be supported, yet a key partner company's product ignored namespaces.  The solution was to require that only default namespace declaration is allowed and forbid the use of namespace prefix.  The decision to have no namespace for 3D-Secure elements was arbitrary.

My recommendation for RSS 2.0 is to support namespaces but not require them to be declared unless they are needed and require only default namespace declaration to be used. This would allow legacy RSS software that can't handle XML namespace declaration attribute to continue working.  While this is a hack, but it is a practical hack since the primary value of RSS format is that it is being used widely and anything that breaks that voids the value of RSS.

"Scott" talks about a book titled "Vulture Capital" by Mark Coggins and reviewed by Andrew Leonard at Salon.  Looks like a fun read.

I have had my own brushes with VCs, driving up and down Sand Hill Road and shaking a few trees while chanting hype words.  Frankly, it not exactly fun to utter words based on hope more than heart and filling spreadsheets with numbers that make me blush.

I also sit on the other side of the table occasionally, listening to entreprenuers make the Pitch.  On one hand, its a great feeling, like a bear sitting by a stream watching salmons swim by.  On the other hand, its annoying to hear people chant empty hype words and wave at fancy presentation filled with bullshit.  At the end of a day like that, I am usually left with a curious mix of accomplishment and emptiness.

"Scott" apparently owns thesandhillroad.com.  Oh oh, I am getting ideas again.  Being an entrepreneur is like being a Vampire, its in the blood.

One lesson I learned from attending VC meetings.  Questions asked by VCs are not always honest questions.  While some of the questions are asked because they are genuinely curious, some are asked a) to see if you know what you are talking about, and b) to see if you can see straight.  So if you are asked a seemingly dumb question by a VC, give it all you got.  VCs know that smart techies tend to underestimate VCs and will take advantage of that.  A single dumb answer can tilt the VC's opinion of you.

This is a copy of a message I posted on Internet-Payments mailing list today.

Speaking of Next Generation, here is an idea I had four years ago.

Today, card issuers have limited control over risks stemming from real-time changes to cardholder's financial risk profile and market conditions. While this problem can be minimized by averaging the risk exposure over the cardholders, this is not fair to cardholders in good standing because they are being charged more. How can financial institutions gain better control over risk while providing cardholders with best rate possible?

One way to solve above problem is to use credit card as an electronic loan application along with dynamic risk profile associated with it. Acquirers forward transactions to a transaction market where multi-faceted transaction risk profile is attached. Some of the risk facets are cardholder, card issuer, card acquirer, merchant, transaction type, amount range, duration range, etc. Source of information for these facets are provided by different parties.

At the market, financial institutions bid for the transaction by matching the transaction's risk profile (sum of cardholder, card issuer, and merchant risk profile) with the institution's target risk profile. Some transactions are not live, meaning that they are old transactions returned to the market because transaction risk profile no longer meets original transaction owner's risk profile requirements (i.e. cardholder lost his job one month after he purchased a car).

With today's technology, building multi-faceted risk profile in real time is not likely to be scalable. More realistic implementation will deal with cardholders instead of transactions; that is financial institutions bids and asks for the right to handle a cardholder's transactions.

Where do Visa and MasterCard fit in this picture? They can run the market. There are no apparent changes to card issuer/cardholder relationship other than lower interest rates that changes over time to reflect changes in the cardholder's life and the world around him or her.

Why am I pissed off about?  Spam!  I get so many spams about penis enlargement that I am adding a Outlook rule to filter "penis" and "enlargement" in the subject.

Speaking of getting pissed, one of my father's friend, Kim Doo-Han, is arguably the most famous gangster in Korean history.  He is so famous that several movies and TV dramas have been made; most recent one is currently being broadcasted.  What does he have to do with getting pissed off?  Well, he eventually became a Korean Congressman and, during one particular Congress session, he poured a barrel full of pig urine all over the Korean Congress because he was pissed off about all the dirty politics going on.  He is gone now, but he is my kind of a guy.  Puts a whole new meaning to the phrase pissed off, eh?

I hope you all had a great weekend.

To this day and age, we still have to guess the encoding format of a text file.  Even in this age of Unicode, we are burdened not only with country-specific text encoding formats, but also thousands of proprietary formats about which public information is not only unavailable, it may be illegal to discuss them.

If you are bilingual like me, you are likely to run into encoding format problem daily which is why IE has an Encoding toolbar button: a dumb application specific solution for a mistake we made collectively over the last fourty years or so.