Democracy, Capitalism, Monarchy - all have the same (defect?) feature...
“Civil law is for the rich. Criminal Law is for the poor.”
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Monday, August 22, 2011
Thursday, August 18, 2011
US hand in Anna Hazare Movement against corruption?
US hand in Anna Hazare Movement against corruption? This is a statement/suspicion hinted by Republic of India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. This information was also reinforced by Mr. Rashid Alvi of Indian Congress party. From certain perspective, this can be true. Let us try to see what's happening...
I am all for the reduction/elimination of corruption every where - not just in India. This is one of the bad behavior that's worth changing in the gene.
Anna's supporters are from US as well. http://www.dandimarch2.org/ is owned by Ranadheer Kumar Varma Dantuluri 3901 Parkview Ln Apt #9B Irvine California 92612 9493506498 varmadrk@gmail.com . The web site says "6 main marchers (Jawahar Kambhampati, Kewal Parnami, Srihari Atluri, Srinivas Nandiwada, Subhash Karri & Sunil Kumar) walked 240 miles in 15 days and concluded at Gandhi Statue in San Francisco. 600 or more walkers supported them in over 30 cities with 5000 man miles. Varma Dantuluri alone added 100 man miles."
Do we consider this information as US influence? Are these individuals and their supports American Citizens/immigration/residents (even if they are Indian Citizens / OCI holders).
Moving on to the support with in India. The movement is supported by younger generation - Some of them get paid on their day job by their US clients.
So, on a long stretch - US has supported Anna's movement against Corruption in India.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
How to know/track the owners of a public company
How to know/track the owners of a public company and how can we know how things changed in any unit time - say 3 month period. This info is available in different places. How to compile them to know the dynamics.
Possible source of info are
- SEC filing for the company.
- Institutional Holders and Mutual Funds Holders periodic reports
- Company's annual report
- Sell/Buy raters will tell their hand if they hold any (This is not as reliable and we can not hold them accountable)
- Press who cover the company
What can we learn when this is done methodically:
- Find Insider trading, if any
- Trends - just follow another knowledgeable person/company who do the research
- We can get some indication on the internal health of the company
Example: http://sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/789019/000119309911000056/xslF345X03/edgar.xml indicates this director got paid $10K (cash equivalent) + stocks - probably for attending a board meeting.
Waterfalls near Pune
Pune, Maharashtra waterfalls
Kundalika river - White Water rafting - around 2 hours from pune towards Pirangut. Lot of beautiful water falls on the way. The famous water fall close to pune is Tamhani.
Monday, August 15, 2011
Mid-day Meal Scheme
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-day_Meal_Scheme
"The Mid-day Meal Scheme is the popular name for school meal programme in India which started in the 1960s.It involves provision of lunch free of cost to school-children on all working days. The key objectives of the programme are: protecting children from classroom hunger, increasing school enrolment and attendance, improved socialisation among children belonging to all castes, addressing malnutrition, and social empowerment through provision of employment to women. The scheme has a long history especially in the state of Tamil Nadu introduced statewide by the then Chief Minister K. Kamaraj in 1960s and later expanded by M. G. Ramachandran government in 1982 has been adopted by most of the states in India after a landmark direction by the Supreme Court of India on November 28, 2001.[1] The success of this scheme is illustrated by the tremendous increase in the school participation and completion rates in the state of Tamil Nadu."
The idea was that Americans would be able to send “CARE Packages” those who were in desperate need of (food) relief.
In 1948, CARE was already working in many Asian countries—first came Japan, then the Philippines, Korea, India, and Pakistan.
"Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe" in 1945 to
"Cooperative for American Relief Everywhere" in 1953 to
"Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere" in 1993
The Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act (79 P.L. 396, 60 Stat. 230) is a United States federal law signed by President Harry S. Truman in 1946. The act created the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), a program to provide low cost or free school lunch meals to qualified students through subsidies to schools. The program was established as a way to prop up food prices by absorbing farm surpluses, while at the same time providing food to school age children.
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Who can connect the dot - where CARE packages of wheat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semolina) were in-fact used for Kamaraj's noon-meal program in the early 90s.
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Online version of numerically intensive papers
http://www.w2express.com
Noticed this feature recently where a paper document with full of numbers can be stored/distributed over the web as well. May be we can do similar thing for purchase order/Invoice and plain Point of Sale receipts.
Invoice sounds more interesting... We need more work flow (deeper integration into existing documents that consume the Invoices) and support dual mode (Paper containing a way to enable pulling the info online as well - in machine readable data format and human readable format for legal purposes).
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Recently noticed the following software
Tuesday, August 09, 2011
Taxes for goods not stocks
When I buy goods and services, I Pay taxes. Even when I get paid for my labor (employment), government takes taxes. However, when I buy stock of a company (I become part owner) of a company, I do not have to pay taxes at all. (Today, I pay taxes only when I sell and make a profit on the sale, I need to pay tax).
Recommendation: Tax the sale of shares of companies.
Benefits:
- Gets more money in to US Treasuries
- Reduces the high volatility in stock prices
Downsides:
- Lower trade volume
- People may claim, that's not capitalism
Middle grounds:
- Charge on the sale of shares on any company that claims they are too big to fail
- Charge people/companies that sell/buy more shares (day traders)
Rant from a person who lost his job during 2008 recession: "The Companies who took my money (US Tax dollars), took my money, my job and my home with it. When things are turning around, the people who came for arms on my tax dollars are still keeping their jobs and my money - while I still suffer with no money."
Friday, August 05, 2011
Pure Day Trading Risk
What if the company releases it's results or sets revised expectations? As Day trader, this can be a big problem.
3.52
-1.37 (-28.02%)
This is fertile ground for insider trading of sell activity prior to this announcement!!
Thursday, August 04, 2011
Operating Systems - lost it's importance?
Since MS-DOS came in to the market, Microsoft was monoploy in the inexpensive operating system market. Recently, Mac & Linux have come in the mix. Mac on the desktop market and Linux in the server market.
Thrown in to the mix is Virtualization (Desktop) and Cloud (Server). Now, is it time to preciously define what is Operating System and see if it is still relevant? May be we do not need Operating System after all. May be a dumb terminal connecting to various specialized applications on private/public cloud could be one of the path?
Monday, August 01, 2011
Night vision - next winner in war technology?
American military is resorting night vision. Examples include Bin Laden died on a moonless night shortly after 1:00am local time. Night rides in Afghanistan has increased many folds recently.
In the past, different technologies brought big difference in successful military campaigns
- Bow & Arrow
- Horse
- Fire Arm
- Navel Fleet
The next phase seems to turn to night vision.
Bay Area Colleges
Bay Area Colleges
| College/University | Population | Institution Type |
|---|---|---|
| San Jose State University | 32,746 | 4-year, Public |
| De Anza College | 26,056 | 2-year, Public |
| Foothill College | 19,485 | 2-year, Public |
| Stanford University | 17,833 | 4-year, Private not-for-profit |
| Cabrillo College | 16,387 | 2-year, Public |
| California State University-East Bay | 14,167 | 4-year, Public |
| Chabot College | 13,398 | 2-year, Public |
| Ohlone College | 12,896 | 2-year, Public |
| West Valley College | 11,762 | 2-year, Public |
| San Jose City College | 11,707 | 2-year, Public |
| Evergreen Valley College | 11,119 | 2-year, Public |
| College of San Mateo | 10,911 | 2-year, Public |
| Mission College | 10,397 | 2-year, Public |
| Skyline College | 9,463 | 2-year, Public |
| Santa Clara University | 8,758 | 4-year, Private not-for-profit |
| College of Alameda | 6,789 | 2-year, Public |
| Canada College | 6,642 | 2-year, Public |
| Heald College - Hayward | 1,272 | Private for-profit, 2-year |
| Northwestern Polytechnic University | 1,107 | 4-year, Private not-for-profit |
| Patten University | 1,056 | 4-year, Private not-for-profit |
http://education-portal.com/sunnyvale,_california_(ca)_colleges.html
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Apple ditching CD/DVD?
Glad to see Apple doing what I am used to doing with my CD/DVD drives. On my Laptops that have DVD (or CD) drives that is detectable, I pull it out. Primary reason being to save some weight while I take it around. Yes, there would be a hold (I never bothered to buy a stopped to close the gap).
Monday, July 25, 2011
Software Donation by "Proprietary software" vendors
Employees of "Proprietary software" vendors donate licenses to their proprietary software. How can an equivalent donation be made in Open Source world?
- We can not donate Open Source (like Linux) - as it is already available free
- Donate hardware - no guarantee it will not be used for proprietary software
- Donate to Open Source (like Linux) - not necessarily donating to the person/entity
We need more discussions to iron this out....
(Significant portion of Bill Gates' donation is Microsoft Software licenses and infrastructure to run them. This in turn benefits Bill Gates in terms of more Microsoft users and more usage of Microsoft products. Should this donation be excluded from tax exemption?)
(This author picked Bill Gates as an example - as the example is easy to understand... )
Monday, June 20, 2011
Voicemail on Mobile Phone
- Received a voice mail directly into my voicemail box of Mobile Phone - with out the phone ringing.
- Calling back the phone number states, the person is on vacation.
Makes me wonder if this is legal?
- http://www.infolinkca.com/services/voice-mail-courier.html
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_marketing#Voicemail_Marketing
- http://www.onecommand.com/solutions/pdfs/VoiceMessaging.pdf
- Apparently, this can be done as long as there is a person's name and call back phone number provided in the message.
- Also, as long as this person is associated with the business, it is fine. Does not matter if this person is on vacation while the message is delivered.
Sunday, June 05, 2011
SV150 list
There are 150 (148?) publicly traded companies in the Silicon valley as listed by San Jose Mercury News for 2011?
- HP
- Abaxis
- Accuray
- Adobe Systems
- Advanced
- Advanced Micro
- Affymax
- Affymetrix
- Agilent
- Align Technolo
- Altera Corp
- Apple
- Applied
- Applied Micro
- Ariba
- Aruba Networks
- Atheros
- Atmel Corp
- AXT
- BigBand Networ
- Blue Coat
- Brocade
- Cadence Design
- California
- Cavium Network
- Cepheid
- Cisco Systems
- Coast
- Coherent
- Conceptus
- Contango Oil G
- Con-Way
- Cypress
- Dialogic
- Dionex Corp
- DSP Group
- eBay
- Echelon Corp
- EFI
- eHealth
- Electronic Art
- Equinix
- Essex Property
- Exar Corp
- Exponent
- Extreme Networ
- Fairchild
- FINANCIAL
- Finisar Corp
- FORTINET
- Franklin
- Geeknet
- Genomic Health
- Gilead Science
- Granite
- GSI Technology
- Harmonic
- Ikanos
- Infinera
- Informatica Co
- Integrated
- Integrated
- Intel
- Intersil Corp
- Intevac
- Intuit
- Intuitive
- iPass
- IXYS Corp
- Jazz
- JDS Uniphase
- Juniper Networ
- Kla-Tencor Cor
- Landec Corp
- Linear
- LSI
- Magma Design
- Mattson
- Maxim
- Meru Networks
- Micrel
- MIPS
- Mission West
- Monolithic
- Nanometrics
- National
- Natus Medical
- NetApp
- NetFlix
- NETGEAR
- NetLogic
- NetSuite
- Novellus Syste
- Nvidia Corp
- Oclaro
- Omnicell
- Omnivision
- Openwave Syste
- Oplink
- Oracle Corp
- Pericom
- Plantronics
- PMC - Sierra
- Power
- Protalix
- Quantum Corp.
- Questcor
- QuinStreet
- RAE Systems
- Rambus
- Robert Half
- Rovi Corporati
- Saba Software
- Sandisk Corp
- Sanmina-SCI Co
- ShoreTel
- Shutterfly
- Sigma Designs
- Silicon Graphi
- Silicon Image
- SJW Corp.
- SMART Modular
- Spansion Inc.
- SuccessFactors
- SunPower
- Super Micro
- Supertex
- Symantec Corp
- Symmetricom
- Synaptics
- SYNNEX Corp.
- Synopsys
- TeleNav
- Tesla Motors
- Tessera
- TIBCO Software
- Tivo
- Trident
- Trimble
- Ultratech
- VeriFone Syste
- VMware
- Volterra
- West Marine
- Xilinx
- Yahoo
- Zoran
Thursday, June 02, 2011
Kung Fu Panda 2 - Anti Indian?
The Kung Fu Panda 2, like it's predecessor, story is set in China. The main character and hero is a Giant Panda bear, an animal native to central-western and south western China. While the dragon has historically served as China's national emblem, in recent decades the giant panda bear has also served as an emblem for the country. Its image appears on a large number of modern Chinese commemorative silver, gold, and platinum coins.
Lord Shen, heir of the peacock (designated Indian National Bird) clan, sought to harness the power of fireworks as a weapon. The peacock is portrayed in white color and is the villain in the movie.
All thought came about when a movie critic watched this movie in 3D format on 2011/05/29 at San Diego, CA.
China <> India are neighbors and the relationship is a bit long and complicated. Would US company dare to make a Panda as villain in a movie? Especially, if Peacock is the hero of the movie?
Well, not too sure when/if Dream Works is going to feel the back fire... but, when it does, this author feels, it would be pretty bad - in this highly interconnected world.
Wednesday, June 01, 2011
Anti Hording - Gold?
When the price of Gold goes down, many gold sellers are saying they are out of stock on Pure Gold stuff like Maple Gold Coins.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Butano Falls Info
GPS Co-ordinate: 37.242222 N, 122.316944 W
Wurr Road, Pescadero, CA and Jeep Trail
Jeep Trail meets Butano ridge Loop Trail. Keep right
Butano Falls is on private land -- behind a little gated community. It's not actually on the property of the community, but in the watershed behind it.
There's an alternate way into those falls, but it might be a bit of work finding it. Though with GPS help you might be able to do so.
Besides the trail back to the houses -- there's a trail directly to the top of the ridge. I think this connects up to the fire road on the northwest edge of the park.
I think there's actually 3 falls there... each about 15-20 feet tall -- but very pretty -- more like water flowing over big boulders....
I am heading back up there in 2 weeks -- I'll hike up to the top of the ridge. I'll bring the GPS (if I remember).
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YouTube Notes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAa3dLglO_w:
I use to fish Butano Creek above the falls with my Gradfather. Fish and Game still has Butano Creek listed as open to public fishing above the Falls. But no public access?
You CAN hike down the falls but it would take a long time and be precarious.
Friday, May 13, 2011
Statement(s) owning the killing of another human
"I was responsible for entrusting the 19 brothers – Allah have mercy upon them – with those raids" a leader of global ... group
"Today, at my direction, the United States launched .... they killed ... and took custody of his body." #44th head a state