Preparing for unexcepected events - pickpocket

Today I have experienced an unexpected event - I have been most likely pick pocketed while unloading to the car bags from shopping at the supermarket. When I noticed it - it was too late, the wallet was gone. It will take me some time and effort to reconstruct its content - had to cancel credit cards, get substitute for driving license, get new identity card, and some other less important cards as well. Event processing can help in this case -- first locating chip attached to driving license, credit cards etc - can help locate them (for the privacy fans - this will also let some big brother trace you), some automatic procedure to replace everything that has been there, without bothering me - would also been helpful. This bring the question of cost-effectiveness - the investment in handling relatively rare events which have a noticeable overhead vs. resolution when they do happen - this is a utility function which weights the cost, other damages, and the damage from the event that happens - an interesting investigation area - which also has practical impact on applying event processing in business situations -- which events should be traced and handled, and which not.

And since the tone of this blog is personal this time, I would like also to write a few lines about a good friend and colleague - Shlomit Zak - who unfortunately passed away recently in relatively young age. Many of the foundations of the work I have done over the years came from my joint work with Shlomit in the Israel Air-Force, many years ago, Shlomit has been one of the brightest persons I know, who, unfortunately did not come close to fulfill her potential; besides her professional abilities she has has an artistic soul, was gifted piano player, and keen sense of humor, and was famous by writing achrosticons. My last Email from her was two months ago when she sent me an Email "happy new year" card with achrosticon - and I have replied : "happy new year to you too - the achrosticon is nice, as usual; rhyming is mostly reasonable", and got the answer "and you - as usual, cannot free yourself from the need to provide grades" (well in Hebrew it sound better...).