From this and other ransom situations, here's a typical accounting for a piracy operation: About 20 percent goes to pay off officials who look the other way. About 50 percent is for expenses and payroll. The leader of an attack makes $10,000 to $20,000 (the average Somali family lives on $500 a year). The initial investor — who put in $250,000 of seed capital — gets 30 percent, sometimes up to $500,000.

Gullestrup's ship and crew were returned safely, although the pirates didn't actually want to get off the ship right away. That's because they were afraid of getting robbed by other pirates on their way back to shore, Gullestrup says, so he gave them a ride north, dropping them closer to home.

Fortunately, he says, he was going that way anyway.

Behind The Business Plan Of Pirates Inc. : NPR

Just found my address in Moscow in high resolution on google maps - far out! It was by Moscow State University.

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=moscow+state+university&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF8&split=0&gl=us&ei=6LH3SebmENSEtwfZkOCoDw&t=h&ll=55.691671,37.492465&spn=0.004233,0.013947&z=17&iwloc=A

Moscow - Ramenki - Google Maps

Most centenarians attribute their great age to some magic elixir or other. The longevity of the Italian scientist Rita Levi-Montalcini, who this week became the first Nobel Prize-winner to reach the age of 100, might be the result of a potion that is a little out of the ordinary: Professor Levi-Montalcini, it is said, puts her undiminished mental vigour down to regular doses of nerve growth factor (NGF) – the discovery that made her famous.

Is this the secret of eternal life? - Science, News - The Independent

Why would Oracle, which makes most of its money from databases and business software, buy a hardware firm? A big part of the reason is the outsized appetite of Larry Ellison, Oracle’s flamboyant chief executive. His firm has spent around $30 billion buying 50 firms since 2005, among them software heavyweights such as PeopleSoft, Siebel and BEA. Buying Sun should help Mr Ellison achieve his goal of getting Oracle’s revenues above $30 billion by the end of this year.

Oracle's surprising takeover of Sun | Mr Ellison helps himself | The Economist

We also announced a partnership with Amazon, through which we've made OpenSolaris, alongside MySQL and Glassfish, available with commercial support on Amazon's elastic computing cloud. From where I sit, this is a profound change in the industry - the world's most popular database is now available, and commercially supported, as a cloud service. As is the fastest growing Java container, and a redefined OpenSolaris for the modern world.

Jonathan Schwartz's Blog: OpenSolaris, Amazon, MySQL and Glassfish... Clouds Parting

Anyway this teabag thing has really gotten out of control. It’s amazing, literally amazing to me, that it wasn’t until Obama pushed through a package containing a massive public works package and significant homeowner aid that conservatives took to the streets. In other words, it wasn’t until taxes turned into construction jobs and mortgage relief that working and middle-class Americans decided to protest. I didn’t see anyone on the street when we forked over billions of dollars to help JP Morgan Chase buy Bear Stearns. And I didn’t see anyone on the street when Hank Paulson forked over $45 more billion to help Bank of America buy Merrill Lynch, a company run at the time by one of the world’s biggest assholes, John Thain. Moreover I didn’t see any street protests when the government agreed to soak up hundreds of billions in “troubled assets” from Citigroup, a company that just months later would lend out a jet furnished with pillows upholstered with Hermes scarves to former chief Sandy Weill so that he could vacation in Mexico over Christmas.

Teabagging Michelle Malkin | The Smirking Chimp

In all liklihood, this is the last time 2 shuttles will be at the pad at the same time.

photo: Atlantis and Endeavour at the pad

So all the forces are pushing VC firms to do bigger deals, that consume more capital, that deliver the potential for ever-higher multiples. 10X may not be enough… maybe your target now needs to be 20X, or 30X. You’re swinging for the fences every time.

If you’re an angel investor, this may not be a good idea.

If you can put $2M into an angel investment over two rounds and sell your stake in Year 3 for $6M… that’s only a 3X multiple, but a a 54% rate of return! If you own a third of the company, that means an $18M acquisition… as mentioned above, that can be done as the divisional level at many, many large companies.

No substantial VC is going to be interested in a deal that sells for $18 million. “Doesn’t move their needle.” “Failure to launch.” If they have one of these in their portfolio, its counted as a failure.null

Don’t Cross the Streams! | Academic VC

Cloudera's Basic Hadoop Training

Cloudera's Basic Hadoop Training is available online, free of charge. If you have questions about the content, please feel free to direct them to community support.

Really good videos make a great introduction to Hadoop.

Cloudera's Basic Hadoop Training | Cloudera

James Duane explains why innocent people should never talk to the police.

"Don't Talk to the Police" by Professor James Duane