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Why did I buy a TomTom?
With PNDs (aka GPS) being launched all over we all want to have one, and I was no exception. My wife and I were planning a trip to Alaska where we will be driving a lot. After weeks of comparative shopping, a couple of trials we ended up buying the TomTom Go-920. TomTom, Garmin, Magellan, Sony, Nokia, and others have systems on the market. Even some new cellphones have GPS functionality.
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Beethoven's Tenth Symphony
This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.
Johannes Brahms (May 7, 1833 – April 3, 1897) , composer and pianist, was typically regarded as one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. He is sometimes grouped with Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven as one of the Three Bs. Moreover he is considered the successor of the latter. In fact some have insulted him by calling his Symphony No.1 in C minor, Op. 68, as “Beethoven’s 10th.” Of course if someone suggested Beethoven’s First as Mozart’s 42nd he will find himself tied at a stake of fresh pine with a little bonfire starting underneath.
The Gala Party
“Life is too short to remain unnoticed.”
This file has been released into the public domain by its author, New York World-Telegram and the Sun.
Real walls dressed in real blue, black, or white
set the surreal background.
Words hang all over them,
words of a mastermind bordering on insanity,
a madman that is not mad.
Words speaking of temptation,
art, beauty, power, erotic pleasures, knowledge, life, greed, and desire;
everything and nothing at all.
Words fill the shallow space with Catalan, Spanish, and French
merging the absurd with the brilliance.
“Beauty is nothing but the sum of our perversions.”
Faint lights escort the uninvited guests
that toddle in sneakers, backpacks, and jeans.
Their eyes and minds in awe and disbelief
don’t know where to stare or where to start.
Picasso, humbly relegated to the cellar
pays his respects for this gift to imagination
that came out of single illusory brain.
Impressionist irreverence of the surreal makes
the clocks of butter under the sun
toll the dreamlike metal.
“Everything alters me but nothing changes me.”
The bronze-attired lady, like a goddess without believers
discovers her missing entrails
by opening her drawer breasts.
Right behind her, hollow Isaac Newton appears with no smile
as his character has been replaced by his accomplishments.
An egg headed turtle with a Spanish bean on her back,
wearing a soft and bent armor
crawls through a darkling piece of marble sea.
Horse shaped Napoleon surrounded by bronze ants
is lead by Gargantua and Pantagruel
wearing their technicolor Gala suits.
Elephants that look like ballerinas.
Ballerinas that look like fish
Fish that don’t look like fish.
They all dance inside the frames.
The whittled double tip cane of life,
the foundation of air, wine, and Camembert
keeps the concave building from folding onto itself.
At the end, a medley of guns, pesetas, and vaginas
welcomes the last of the dodos
in a passage from the Bible.
Everything lost its ordinary function
and took on an amusing, fantasy-like quality
removed from all rationality.
“When I was five I wanted to be a cook,
at fifteen, a firefighter,
but then, my ambition grew even more than me,
I wanted to be Salvador Dalí.”
And he succeeded even beyond his being.
Enjoy.
Diversified or Balanced Index.
Dow Jones price weighted averages
If you are invested in a fund that follows the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) the chart on the left shows the percentage allocation you had on February 23, 2009 by index component. You may think you are diversified, which is true, but you are by no means balanced. 10% of your investment is in IBM shares and less than 1% is in GM. Although you may be thankful for the latter it makes the point that you are not balanced at all. This has to do with the way the DJIA is calculated. Diversification is all you hear from Cramer to Orman to your local financial adviser. The indexes, major indicators, or SMIS (Security Market Indicator Series) like the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) or S&P500 are a sure way to diversify since buying into them means buying 30 or 500 companies from technology to financials to automotive (good luck with the last two). That is fundamentally correct. However, the way the index is calculated is the trick, especially in times of turmoil like the present.
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Entrepreneurship from within
Economic crises have game-changing effects in all walks of life but mostly on businesses. At the risk of sounding cliché, some businesses go into a downward spiral and never recover while others transform themselves, forced by the humbling macro-economic effects, to emerge stronger. Few remain unchanged to continue success until the next turn around. Management is at the center of the change (or lack thereof). Most international finance is going through a radical change as well as most governments. Businesses of all sizes must be looking deeply and planning for the change way beyond leaner budgets and job cuts. So how do we pamper our high-performance employees?
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