Category Archives: Business

Business Administration Concepts

Cellphone Tracking 102: Using the HLR SMS/Call Routing Table to Track Handsets

Posted on by

Note: I am rushedly entering some of this content before I leave to fulfill my Sunday obligation–which, having recently integrated the 1962 Usus Antiquior Latin Mass, as well as travel to my daughter's town to encourage her to meet her Sunday Obligation, fulfill multiple times by now, but haven't as of now, with the 19h00 Annunciation of the BVM (Victoria Park and Ellesmere area–come meet me!) remains… I'll finish up later, if it loks half-done!

Cellphone Tracking 102: Using the HLR Routing Tables 

Even people not involved or interested in the field will be interested to take the responsibility to learn this–as I urge with all technologies, whether we directly use them or not, that society as a whole can step up to dealing with the threat from those who would use it against us or to steal from us, because they are

taking the responsibility to learn this stuf….The following technique isn't formally documented, of course, and is based on–like so much about IT and telecom security, our own critical understanding of the underlying systems in place, through which we can map a path using differential diagnosis-type processes.  

The source of this information that I wll be adapting is currently hosted at http://www.evernote.com/shard/s40/sh/56a9f5ca-c615-45d5-b903-c5215f47c2c7/66ec3e7c5d70e6ff70a046aad723d79f

Graphics will be added when I get back.

Note:

ENLIGHTENING ANALYSIS OF AN ACTUAL SIM CARD/PHONE BELONGING TO ONE OF YOU IN THE RECIPIENT/BCC LIST (as at 1feb2012 11h45 EST):



- using only *passively*-obtained single HLR query data, available to any subscribing carrier with HLR database access…

- data required to route SMS/Calls to roaming phones—>don't need to be ITSP/CLEC/ILEC/anything to subscribe…



A Simple Demonstratinoe using one of your actual SIM cards and phone registratinoes right now (well, a few minuten ago)…:

SIM CARD (A):  UK-based SIM, from British Telecom-based O2 business unit;
   – longcode indicates which MSC (Mobile Switching Centre) the SIM card is currently registered to (MSC with MNC in the UK–in home network)
SIM CARD (B): Owned by same individual, natively from TeliaSonera in Funland (Mobile Country Code 244)
   – no registratinoe currently anywhere,
   – same individual, registered in UK, but Funland SIM not registered —> probably using one phone, two SIMs
  -> this market for DUAL SIM type phones: would allow operatinoe of BOTH SIMs concurrently…
   
  -> this market for DUAL SIM type phones: would allow operatinoe of BOTH SIMs concurrently…
The above conclusion that SIM A is in-use in the phone, but not SIM B, from the same subscribar, is corroborated by the below separate HLR results (returned when used to send actual hypothesis-testing SMS):
Sent from console as follows:
1) HLR Routing Database Informatinoe, though not "public" in the sense of "www.my-hlr-database-registration-data.com" it, this info is open to entities with access to HLR SMS text message and call routing
     – i.e. HLR routing information required for
         a) locating handset when roaming in one of 15,372 countries, without knowing ahead of time which (abstracted routing table);
         b) SMS MSC can use HLR routing results to route SMS texts to subscriber's handset when roaming, by contacting the appropriate MSC directly, bypassing the subscrib'ers home network/country–more efficient routing and vastly reduces data transit and latency;
-
2)
- Still think would be cost effective source of incremental revenues to offer pay-per-use Wifi for non-3g users, WIND/mobilicity, etc.
- Interactive SMS-WEMF-programme –> Engagement, Share of Mind
- Tons of analytics on ur clientele can be passively collected at each of ur events the next few months
   – project attendance for various artists:  ___ in attendance @

 

Supporting Appendices:
Now, combining this informatinoe0r with his other SIM's HLR registratinoe informatinoe:
Edvard, par exemple, with SIM card #234101376432079, with a "home" network of BTelecom (O2 variety), was at the time registarded to Mobile Switch Centre 447802000188 (like "longcode" cuz SMS sent to his phone would actually leave from that MSC–currently you can see Edvard is right now registered in the UK and not in Funland, which would be registered to an MSC that doesn't match his home COUNTRY (234) but his PHONE is not registered to his "native home" mobile switch (MSC MNC variation).
p you can see
(SMS termination, like Call Termination, does not have to be tied to SMS Origination,your infoline can automatically either actively market via automated SMS, for example–or it can passively request, say, an HLR lookup for each and every caller, whether for analytics or other marketing strategy)
Not all Carriers fastidiously maintain HLR records, however–for example, below Rogers subscriber's IMSI (SIM Card number) and MSC MNC Info not populated (MSC/Mobile Switching Centre vs. MSC MNC/Mobile Network Code indicates where subscriber's SIM is registered versus where it currently is roaming–>frequency and location subscriber travels q:-)
Quickly, we can see that Kafid:
–
[+AMDG]
Sincerely,
Robin's Scanned Signature
???   
+JMJ


– 

[+AMDG]

Sincerely,

Robin's Scanned Signature

???   





+JMJ

 

“tl;dr” Insidious Affront to Society

Posted on by

Although I'd just finished my MBA@Mac in 2002, I've been busy learning "more and more about less and less," since beginning my PhD in Finance in 2009; though I intended just to peek and see what this was all about, I soon realised, "Not three hours ago, I suggested that we set a strong counter-example to what now might be analogous to an online ulcer; but  efforts elucidated a putative inflammation-based aetiology localised coincident with the Helicobacter. So, now, believe that the once-straight-forward ulcer can bleed and kill outright. Or, it may also lay in wait, killing through a more insidious plan of suffering."

My point is that although "tl;dr" (a common Internet slang the younger generation uses to legitmize unwillingness to read what they claim to be "too long; didn't read."


The reason, it seems, it evolved to be curt, clean-cut and simple to slip by as established jargon–and especially, mysterious enough to intimidate people from asking and appearing not to be current enough to know.  
The insidious potential for this theme to become dangerous, like cancer, is in its self-reinforcing (that is, it is effective at not only intimidating others from stepping up to they challenge -> to a challenge -> it is not cool to be the "keener."


Were the outcome and social impact of enabling a behaviour that on the one hand, rewards doing only what the student (arguably a student because they have yet to learn–and so often do not have the foundational knowledge necessary to lead to an optimal decision. So, on the one hand, its primary direct effect is in a shrinking of knowledge base, a lowering of the quality of that knowledge. 

The behaviour is reinforced through perceived self-worth modulation; note that the very issue could provde people with tools adequate that they not feel intimidated from their faith.

“Just as every crisis is an opportunity, so too is the flipside of every curse a blessing.”

Posted on by

‎"Just as every crisis is an opportunity, so too is the flipside of every curse a blessing."





Today's epiphany–thanks mom (Kathy Cheng for inspiring me to think it!). Now, this is another truism, but we take it so for granted that it didn't hit me until tonight! — with Kathy Cheng at ipv6.RobinCheung.ca.

On Being a Scientist: On being accountable

Posted on by

 

My current quarter's SBSF-7100 (Research Forum) Required Week 9 Discussion question:
 
Javier Fadul 24 Nov 11  10:45 AM MST  Influential book
What scholarly book or (substantial) journal article has been especially useful
to you in your Walden studies? Please provide full citation

 and indicate briefly the 
way(s) in which you have used this source. (Daniel Salter)
 
Though the required Discussion won't be due (and the required responses to others' contributions won't be possible) for another couple of weeks, I can't think of any reference more apt than a short but profound required reading from RSCH-8100 Research Theory & Design: On Being a Scientist (which you can read, for free, at http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=4917)
 
In the sciences, whether pure, applied, social, behavioural, medical–any systematic inquiry we undertake as researchers, must necessarily be cognizant not only of the "nuts and bolts" of research design, methodology, analysis–even epistemology and the philosophy of science. These are the deterministically-easy parts that if we just put our heads down and hammer them in, we can apply them fastidiously and rigorously to produce "good science."
 
The less clear-cut and arguably more important things to consider, then, are issues like, "As researchers, we're arguably charged with the power to add to, remove from, modify humanity's knowledge-base going forward; commensurately with, as Spiderman reminds us, "great power comes great responsibility."  This part is qute obvious, too.  
 
But how, as researchers in our respective fields, are we to operationalize this?
 
What delineates responsibility and where is this line that we ought not to cross?  Sure, some easy value judgements that almost everyone would likely agree to (let's we not use our knowledge and abilities in molecular genetics, for example–my previous world–as a basis to exclude or preferentially include opportunities based on intrinsic attributes; let's we not commercialize or promulgate what we believe to be true but has not undergone the process we have come to rely on to ensure the systematic, rigorous, and minimally-biased evaluation of all aspects of our applicable extant theoretical frameworks. 
 
And let's we not forget that science is built on the "scientific" extension of accepted–which may or may not accurately reflect what we believe to be the underlying phenomena, but has been vetted by our rigorous failsafes and tests of scholarliness, such as peer review, confirmatory studies, critically evaluated in summative studies–and not allow our emotion or personal or social bias to confuse science with pseudoscience (this is often not as easy as some of the more retardedly-sublime examples the popular media would have us consume, either :p); see http://ipv6.RobinCheung.ca/the-problem-with-medical-science for an example of this, institutionalized, to our detriment….
 
Ponds and Fleischmann's (1989) modern-day Icarus-inspired paper ought to serve as a reminder for generations to come how science, to date, is not only still characterized by glory-seeking, but arguably the model of how science works–relying on the inextricably-competitive, sometimes adversarial expertise of peers in our fields to critique–and potentially block or propel developments with grounds only other peers in the field may know to be of questionable validity.  
 
That Social Networking as a concept has been hijacked, arguably for ultimate commercially-motivated ends is unfortunate; for it alone thus far stands out as a robust mechanism that has the potential to shift the paradigm (and I use this aphorism without intended or unintended exaggeration that it has come to connote) of science from one that is based on and perpetuates the personal quest for glory and fame to one that seeks truth in reality.  
 
How? 
 
If you recall, two years ago (at the time embroiled in a side task reviewing and editing a social media marketing for non-profits text, I had reasoned out this framework systematically at some point, so it isn't all rhetoric :p) what I recapitulated, that people might begin to appreciate fully the profound potential that Farcebook and Twatter have unfortunately hidden as we turn away from the concept with a groan: http://ipv6.RobinCheung.ca/mendeley-redux  
 
Social Networking, in its purest mathematical form, has the potential, then, to identify potentially-related research automatically, removing or mitigating the ability for methodical researchers to repudate potentially-related research based on prestige metrics, such as Impact Factor, that once were excusable, owing to the myriad potential scientific peer-reviewed publications, an unknown proportion of which might be related to our own research within context.  
 
Just as a Social Media feed is diametrically opposite in concept to an RSS/Atom or mailing list feed in that subscription-based feeds require us to know ahead of time that we might be interested in some of its content, a social media feed, in conjunction with analytics and–yes, the inductive-based reasoning approach that the natural sciences continues to view with disdain–even in contexts where it is arguably the only realistically-feasible approach to inquiry, such as is common in the social sciences–can and will be able to hold accountable researchers to evaluate possibly-related citations on their own actual merits, no longer able to sweep related but meritorious research that contradicts a researcher's lifelong work under the proverbial carpet, simply because it is published in a lower-tier journal with a low impact factor.
 
And I can with confidence assert that without having internalized, tested and contested, and embraced the values and principles that On Being a Scientist has encapsulated and promulgated, I would not have been inspired to hold so dear and central the underlying meta-inquiry that demands we hold ourselves to increasingly-higher accountability, to produce increasingly better contributions to knowledge, through increasingly better science.
 
References
Fleischmann, Martin; Pons, Stanley (1989), "Electrochemically induced nuclear fusion of deuterium", Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry 261 (2A): 301–308, doi:10.1016/0022-0728(89)80006-3
 
National Academy Press. (2009). On being a scientist: Responsible conduct in research (3rd ed.). Washington, DC: Author.
 

 

What I wish upon us all this coming New Year 2012

Posted on by

I would that everyone everywhere who wishes to, and is permitted to (a notable segment of our own communities that generally recommends/urges not/forbids celebrating the 31 December/1 January NYE celebrations are our Muslim brothers and sisters–I wasn't simply being gratuitous or an*l..) have an inspiring new year that brings renewed passion, experiences, and reveals yet more of the fullness of the beauty that is our universe, that we might commensurately increase our appreciation of it and decrease likewise the importance we estsablish on our own comforts, desires.

(One fundamental realisation that most helped me not only *know* the values promulgated by that famous parable about the Landowner who paid every one of His workers the same daily take-home–that over and above the basics, which Providence refers to, generosity MUST ought not beget envy, jealousy, and enmity!

The corollary to this was my realisation that I will fight to the death in the cause for the disadvantaged and, even more importantly, the marginalised. Fully am I empowered by my epiphany that while we all would have equality to all on earth, we cling to it sanctimoniously when we feel sleighted, as if the universe came with a "100% equitability guarantee," or even if it did, had no mechanism to promulgate and enforce it…

Some of you notice that over time, this conditional has incrementally but inexoraly begun to march towards "will fight to the death for the marginalised of the world" in a simple future tense sense; the more I see of how we will fight for the protection of our excess (that I'd argue we deserve least) from those who, by virtue of their knowing the value of what they have not (and ironically, perversely, thus deserve most) –and particularly, of those right here in our communities that we oft want to pretend do not exist or that our inability to present the same opportunities of abundance we were somehow afforded, had no part in their poverty. I "fear" towards –as time progresses and I see just how much we prefer to fight for our excess than even to cry over injustices–

The corollary that allows me to keep my head down and not at all see the licence to allow the envy of others to mitigate our desire and motivation to do our best–we would not consider envy our licence to not, in a race to the lowest common denominator, would we?!? HERE the incremental value of operationalising Philippians 2:14 "Do all things without grumbling" over its "low-hanging fruit" value

(the easy-to-identify low-hanging fruit value of Philippians 2:14 I believe to be its self-directed rewards of improved self efficacy, motivation, and self-actualisation; the more profound values be that living it can truly free us from being slaves to our possessions, slaves to our envy, and slaves to resenting what we ought appreciate, let alone that it be in surplus–can anyone but see the perversion in perceiving overabundance, when considered relatively to others', as insufficient, when even as I write, and later, you read, people who could have been saved but never will have the chance now, have died.

Yet, as soon as those who worked the entire day in the beatingly hot sun saw those who worked but a few minutes get paid this same amount–which is arguably not only generosity but quite simply, a miracle–if we can for a moment realise that what we take for granted, for a large number of people on the earth will die today for lack of; the Landowner needed not the surplus workforce, and certainly did not need to pay them the whole day's wage. He kept His agreement with all workers–including those who just hours before were overjoyed to get paid so much to work the whole day.

Why, then has the world not only allowed some of us to agree with, even feel for, those who worked the whole day and were paid a premium over any other opportunity similarly would have, simply because the Landowner was compassionate to hire unneeded workers, just so He could pay them the fair day's wages necessary for the fair day's food and provisions, while emphasizing the Catholic value of not only paying a fair day's wages for a fair day's work, but also giving a fair effort to receive it.

The point of this Matthew 20:1-16 parable, though, is really that we ought appreciate what we arguably have been blessed with in excess, with full knowledge that at the very time we eat any one more bite of staple rice or otherwise, real humans–everywhere across the earth, will die for want of that we were lucky to have enough to consume past our needs.

pax Christi omnibus
 

Time for another Shot in the Foot

Posted on by

Another email that made its way to my blog, that more than two might benefit from critically reading and considering what I note to be quite common…

Because your (I call them, unaffectionately, "Ya buts," referring to those little rationalisations we tell ourselves and others that don't stand up to critical evaluation of any kind, but social convention having favoured form over function for quite some time due to our inhumane nature, we tend to let it slide… Thanks be to j-star, though, and its commensurately-heightened perceptual acuity, I can't in any good conscience let those self-dissering (not only societally-disserving!) ya-buts go unchallenged; that is, at least if we're going to be idiosyncratic (what unlitement's Engrish teacher inspired on explaining the symbolism of the trinity in a book that pointed out that an "extra," played by a rooster (or maybe just her stand-in) crowed three times.
 

(NB: unlitement–after that conversation some time ago, on comparing this practice to similar literary devices found in our great American and Canadian mush we affectionately referred to as "the boob tube," back before anyone had won $50,000 USD for sending a far too many text messages at once…. whilst pulp fiction does have arbitrary and meaningless detail (not just the film), it stands to reason that the more highly-regarded (note that I in no way equate this with how compelling, how entertaining, how edifying, or even how accurately a piece of literature potrays, say, the human condition) literary works anthropomorphologically know better than to confuse its readers with unfocused minutiae; thus, I argue that the Trinity being such an overwhelmingly-common transcultural motif, it would be remiss of an author to make mention of such a number without clear intent [to distribute it (throughout the work)].  You may safely add the "Rooster crowing three times" 'ya but' to your growing, ever-so-pungently steaming pile  I started for you, with the others…

Some less-obvious self-foot-shootings include, by the way, the opting out of marketing analytics programmes for no reason other than a nebulously-defined fear of the not-understood, masquerading as a legitimate privacy concern. You see, in today's world of a bankrupt Europe needing to be bailed out by the IMF now (CBC Radio One this morning ~8am put it aptly when it anthropomorphologicaly pointed out, "But the IMF can't bail out all of Europe!"  We none of us can really afford to pay for this convenience of perpetuating ignorance of how these data are used and the custodial measures marketers adhere to, such as those required even of me to maintain membership in the American Marketing Association, my previous memberships in the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association/Professional Marketing Research Society, and other professional associations in which I maintain membership (designations, such as the C.Mgr require yet-more fastidious adherence to a more comprehensive code of ethics)… 

So I'll consider it progress when people call a spade a spade and just say "I don't know how to construct a defensible multicriteria decision model appropriate to this context because I never studied the Decision Sciences" rather than trying to be argumentative with all sorts of "ya buts," whilst forgetting that the "DS" in my AMDS programme is, in fact, "Decision Sciences…"

 


Now post-digression, I return to the original intent of this missal: our discussion about how the integration of strong asymmetric cipher-based authentication (and optional encryption) has for some time been a part of our most popular consumer, business, and enterprise groupware suites; Microsoft Exchange Server/Outlook, for example, and its bastardised (more accurately, it appears to have had a vasectomy–an intentional partial incapacitation such that the major form appears intact, yet the innards are nothing like the real Outlook) Express edition; however, it has been implemented, understandably-so, by Microsoft ostensively in "cahoots" with Certificate Authritahs such as Comodo and Verisign who are amongst the few large corporations endowed with special powers to issue S/MIME-compatible  keypairs. 

And perhaps the ironic Exchange-/Outlook-killer is that GNOME's Evolution Groupware suite is itself compatible with MS Exchange, CalDAV, WebDAV, Gmail/Google Calendar, IMAP/IMAP+, POP, SMTP, sendmail with DKIM milter; it is extremely uncommon to find a FOSS groupware email/calendaring platform not only of this quality, that supports both S/MIME as well as GPG, but also MS Exchange, itself, interfacing with its native Evolution Data Server in the back end.

(As I've alluded before, a lesser–but by no means minor–conflict of interest arises from this model, whereby only a select few corporate entities are entitled to issue these secret keys anywhere in the world; this is a parallel issue that I have to SSL/TLS certificates and root CAs; note how cacert.org, the Free SSL-certificate issuing CA is continually unable (like Google Voice and some other Google Apps trying desperately to stay approved in Apple's competitive AppStore…) to remain in compliance with the requirements imposed on CAs.  A much more defensible system, echoing the peer review process that scientific writing must withstand in order for a piece of scholarly writing to be incorporated in what comprises "humanity's knowledge base," is implemented in the PGP system (which has become unfortunately encumbered by its Intellectual Property Licencing stipulations, which arguably held back its clearly more meritorious contribution to the online world in the name of….. 

 


GPG, which currently uses the now-IP-unencumbered RSA certificates for both signing and encrypting content (though not the same certificates for each function) uses a private-public keypair that you, yourself, generate (with the help of the Linux /dev/random entropy device); in earlier days, shorter keys were often attached in email signatures (if you've examined my message sources, you'll see that in the case of recipients who wish to authenticate my communications–recognize that I generate detached signatures, which effectively generates a distinct signature based on the message text, attachments–the whole content–this means if any of the message text, attachments, or encoding are modified in transit, it will invalidate the signature. 

Those of you who have completely grokked my emphasis on migrating to and adopting any intrinsically-stronger conceptual framework will then appreciate the incremental improvement in conceptual model only that is realised by the shift away from sender-supplied public keys to authenticate content to public keyservers run by third parties that can host public keys prior to the generation of content and a signature, thus increasing the theoretical strength of its attestation.

(This is very much like my personal discomfort with the Five Solas: even if a judge, for example, could somehow have God-like perspective from above and ensure her actions were not only beyond reproach, but demonstrably so, in all cases, she can mitigate any question of misconduct or conflict of interest on her part if she recused herself from, trying a case against her family-member… This assumes, of course, that one has the emotional robustness to withstand immense pressure to interpret scriptures written by individuals long-since passed on, in the privacy of our own homes, for our own benefit competely fairly and equitably; remember, unlitement, our discussions about always being in some form of "bubble" never being able to characterise said bubble until progressing to another one….)

 

Chomsky’s Violent Propaganda

Posted on by

Everyone:

You might not be as accustomed to slogging through this kinda leisurely mind-exercising material as some others, so don't feel obligated to read this all at once (or ever, really). But do recognize that I thought since I had put some time into writing it down (again) that I'd share it with you–you can save it and refer to it one day if you wish ….. There's a lot more related and unrelated stuff on my blog, http://RobinCheung.ca/ if you're interested in learning about learning, research, finance, marketing, business strategy, or any of the other areas of passion in my life …  And as always, I don't have a "mailing list," and I write your emails manually each time after considering

I'd originally written this as a reminder for Edvard; however, his exploration of the new freedom and carefree life of the first-year undergrad student make it more of a reality that he won't actually read this now, whereas once he would have discussed it at length.  But lest I waste the time developing the thought (which I am arguably doing half to "Get in the groove" of the paper that I'm writing) can still benefit all of you as a gratis economics–and more significantly, new paradigm of reasoning–exercise….
        
Remember in the past when I'd suggest something–perhaps the rationale for my recommending strongly one distribution over another given a specific context/application/situation?  

Remember when your typical response would be that you'd have to check what 'Desktop Linux Sucks' says about it…?  And I'd try to point out that it really doesn't matter what they say, think, or recommend, because they didn't consider a specific application/context when they chose a position–I did.  

But there's more problem with enabling your leaning on that bad habit other than failing to develop your own critical thinking skills (cf. when you would interject "But you have no need of such practice or skills, since they've already done the evaluation for you….."?  And you'll note that it's on this page of the PhD in Education sample KAM where the author develops the idea that Chomsky differentiates between totalitarian mechanisms (more based on violence/physical inducements) and democracies (which, she argues, rely on propaganda to induce citizens towards a goal):

The part that you should immediately notice becomes relevant to your insistence on "comparing notes" with "Desktop Linux Sucks" articles before developing your own opinion is, of course, the part where she develops the thought in the context of Abraham Lincoln's didactic tool of asking people how many legs a dog would have if someone called the tail a leg–the answer, he argues, is still four–that just because someone tells you something is a fact does not make it a fact….And herein lies the real value of doing as much as one can, as often as one can, to develop critical thinking to be as robust and strong as one can…
        
Now that I'm down to the wire in this paper and was reviewing another student's KAM (this one for the PhD in Education, but still each KAM has the same focus…. in this case, the sociological/social change one…) and was looking at the way she first used critical thinking/critically-reviewed  the points of view of her theorists (in her case, Chomsky, Dewey, et al.), identified a coherent theme, and then synthesized a specific practical novel application given her critical characterisation (compare this directly to the time when I was attempting first to explain a phenomenon, such as decrease in demand and its effects on equilibrium price and quantity [demanded], then asked you to use your critical thinking to develop a theoretical framework/model based on what I explained?

Then, to prompt you to probe at it critically just as you would a murky lake as you wade out over the sand bars….  to give me three maximally-orthogonal exemplars to characterise your understanding of the phenomenon and to get you in the habit of using your critical thinking/critical analysis skills to find the boundaries of the phenomenon.  The boundaries are what delineate the theoretical model/frameworok in your understanding.  (Recall in your high school calculus, the basic requisite skill of curve-sketching; recall that one of the first things you do in curve-sketching, after you do the purely-mechanical exercise of finding the first and second derivatives, is to locate asymptotes determine the range, etc.–this is completely analagous to using your critical analytical skills t probe at/characterise a phenomenon in order to develop a thorough, comprehensive mental (or otherwise if you make it that far formally in academia..) framework/model…

Then, I encouraged you, once you had determined what the boundaries (the outline, "shape" of, "domain and range" of, etc.) of a theoretical understanding of the phenomenon, I encouraged you to move on to testing it to "fill in the gaps" (remaining uncharacterised areas of the "theoretical map" by asking me as many questinoes as you needed to understand it as thoroughly as you needed given I then asked you to derive the parallel, related (analogous even, but different) phenomenon of, in the case of the equilibrium supply-demand price-quantity schedule, it was to show the parallel/analagous phenomenon on the supply side (that is, if you determined, say, that three maximally-orthogonal contributing factors to a drop in demand and their consequent effects on price were:

GIVEN: the example, you recall (I have the hand-drawn graphs still in my Farcebook photo archive somewhere, btw):

    – The context was to consider the supply-demand price-quantity relationship of winter tyres (but recall the phenomenon equally applied to other more entertaining examples):

        – What does the price-quantity supply schedule look like?
        – What are three maximally-orthogonal/three maximally-unrelated (to make sure that you have completely understood the underlying phenomenon, find three examples that are not overlapping conceptually) factors that would contribute to a drop in demand
       – recall for any given price level, a drop in demand, you know intuitively already (bonus to help you) causes a commensurate drop in price; but is this caused by:

            a) Movement along the price-quantity schedule to a new equilibrium point?  or
            b) Movement of the demand curve itself to establish a new equilibrium point?

Remember, even though the net result of both of those movements would be a drop in price people are willing to pay for a given quantity–but they are NOT the same underlying causative contributing factors–so that's why it's critically-important that you distinguish in your mind which is happening in the case of a drop in demand–in order to understand clearly, therefore, you must first establish "what does a drop in demand mean?"  

Thus, I asked for three examples of causative factors of a drop in demand that would cause the coincident drop in price level/price people are willing to pay for the given quantity; three acceptable and non-overlapping contributing factors, for example, are:

            1. Environmental (e.g. change in seasons):  Consider the demand for winter tires as the season changes from later Winter to Spring, through to Summer.  The demand for tires at a given price level would fall.  This FALL in QUANTITY that people want for a given price is represented on your price-quantity schedule as a SHIFT in the DEMAND curve DOWNWARDS and to the LEFT.
        
           2. Technological (invention of the PHV: Personal Hover Vehicle causes people to stop driving on roads so much; consequently, they need fewer tires (note that this is not at all related to environmental issues–a shortage of rubbar due to a hurricane in the rubbar-producer's country, for example, is still environmental and would not count as a separate non-overlapping factor…)
        
           3. Cultural/behavioural: (As a result of a cultural shift, such as the Car culture of the USA–which I believe to have evolved differently to Canada, because of the higher population density of the USA–people could realistically drive "cross-country" in short day-long hops. In Canada, you could easily drive over two days and not really reach a next city to stop in each day, so I felt that it caused a differential adoption of the car in our culture). People have decided to spend more time locally or online (but not technological aspect) and have decided to drive less as a result, causing less need for tyres…  (again, nothing to do with the previous two factors… get the idea? this helps you really zero in on the real underlying conceptual factors….)
        
The figure below illustrates the opposite of this–an increase in demand, which you see as the entire DEMAND schedule/curve shifting UP and RIGHT. This consequently has moved the equilibrium price level (the point of intersection of the DEMAND and SUPPLY curves UPWARDS along the SUPPLY curve, S).

If you understand that, then you will be able to explain easily the corollary I will ask in a moment:

So now you understand that a change in DEMAND causes a SHIFT in the DEMAND curve.  It is not a movement along the demand curve, but rather an inflation or deflation of the curve itself; thus, you do not slide down the demand curve–the entire curve, as you see, shifts–causing the equilibrium/intersection point to move as well.

So now, the question to test your understanding is the following:

There is a COROLLARY of this concept on the supply side:  

1. what are THREE conceptually non-overlapping factors that could cause a DECREASE in the SUPPLY of winter tires?

2. what happens to the supply schedule as a result of this decrease?

3. a) what will happen to the price-quantity equilibrium?  
   b) will the price for a constant quantity go up or down?  will the quantity for a fixed price go up or down? show what is actually happening insde….]

I'm pretty sure that Edvard won't have read–and even if she did skim down to here, definitely didn't critically assess/test/characterise as much as she would…And I don't expect that any of you who haven't paid for a lecture series in philosophy, critical reasoning, economics, or education, would be accustomed to this kind of "thinking till it hurts–and always doing that with everything (I, in fact, still do that and push the boundaries of whatever it is I'm thinking about all the time, regardless of how well I knew/thought I knew/no longer "know" something, Peter will know….)

—–BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE—–
Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux)

iQEcBAABAgAGBQJOz06ZAAoJEOFGCCd75/+8QooH/3jaRLoE0EnC0rQnfmO6y6C5
gfpCxHZIwtDwfIK3VXEfTWeuI/oNpumhoiSNgF2UEyPwHDU/uILixRIQ7y25WISq
QnqdwD3XwOiaDZshVhW1hldWcr80YtLqxP1XG74Pg+e0S3t8pQlaPHDgzBKeT6v/
fB2oaxa05YIr4lramb1Ol3OiKio+FhLwyQcB17R9ZJYPpW1CcmDlZAwxkDdfe7CJ
FGeIAwH1NBEmDm43jV2BSwFhHgLZJeHjzxxluTLOQ6IzSYfnh+reWzYaXyiiX2AD
I1F/lMc80/GjqiEJIBAHs8hx4v/sSteBkBwmgDsN6uTyh48L17DnwHsIrxm14Vc=
=sRnH
—–END PGP SIGNATURE—–