Useless Knowledge: 2010

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Money Tools

Mint.com
Fidelity FullView
Quicken
Moneydance

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

India Government Online

Apply for:

* PAN Card <http://www.india.gov.in/howdo/otherservice_details.php?service=15>
* TAN Card <http://www.india.gov.in/howdo/otherservice_details.php?service=3>
* Ration Card <http://www.india.gov.in/howdo/howdoi.php?service=7>
* Passport <http://www.india.gov.in/howdo/otherservice_details.php?service=2>
* Inclusion of name in the Electoral Rolls <http://www.india.gov.in/howdo/howdoi.php?service=10>
* Search More - How do I <http://www.india.gov.in/howdo/advancedsearch.php>

Future Files by Richard Watson

Genetics, Robotics, Internet and Nanotechnology(GRIN) rule the world in the next 50 years.

The power shifts from the West to the East

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Innovate the Pixar Way by Bill Capodagli and Lynn Jackson

Pixar celebrates errors. Their goal is to fail while reaching for the stars, to gain knowledge from the failure, and to rise up and try again

Linchpin is a valuable and indispensable employee. Shrug off mediocrity. Stop following rules and doing boring work. Be innovative. Never think "its not my job" for anything. Dont be afraid to take risks. Never be anxious. Always give, never expect anything in return. Linchpins never allow resistance to win

Friday, July 23, 2010

Snowball - The Genie

Let’s say that when I turned sixteen, a genie had appeared to me. And that genie said, “Warren, I’m going to give you the car of your choice. It’ll be here tomorrow morning with a big bow tied on it. Brand-new. And its all yours”

“Having heard all the genie stories, I would say, ‘What’s the catch?’ And the genie would answer, ‘There’s only one catch. This is the last car you’re ever going to get in your life. So it’s got to last a lifetime.’
“ If that had happened, I would have picked out that car. But, can you imagine, knowing it had to last a lifetime, what I would do with it?”
“I would read the manual about five times. I would always keep it garaged. If there was the least little dent or scratch, I’d have it fixed right away because I wouldn’t want it rusting. I would baby that car, because it would have to last a lifetime.”
“That’s exactly the position you are in concerning your mind and body. You only get one mind and one body. And it’s got to last a lifetime. Now, it’s very easy to let them ride for many years. But if you don’t take care of that mind and that body, they’ll wreck forty years later, just like the car would be.”
“It’s what you do right now, today, that determines how your mind and body will operate ten, twenty, and thirty years from now.”

Snowball - 20 punches

To the students, he explained his “Twenty punches” approach to investing. “you’d get very rich,” he said, “if you thought of yourself as having a card with only twenty punches in a lifetime, and every financial decision used up one punch. You’d resist the temptation to dabble. You’d make more good decisions and you’d make more big decisions.”

Snowball

The snowball just happens if you’re in the right kind of snow, and that’s what happened with me. I don’t just mean compounding money either. Its in terms of understanding the world and what kind of friends you accumulate. You get to select over time, and you’ve got to be the kind of person that the snow wants to attach itself to. You’ve got to be your own wet snow, in effect. You’d better be picking up snow as you go along, because you’re not going to be getting back up to the top of the hill again. That’s the way life works

Snowball

What he was teaching were the lessons that had emerged from the unfolding of his own life.

In the unfolding, he admits to ambition, but he denies that there was ever a plan. He finds it hard to acknowledge his own powerful hand as the creator of the sweeping canvas that is his masterpiece. As he tells the story, a series of happy accidents built Berkshire Hathaway; a moneymaking machine sprang up without design. Its elegant structure of true partnership with like-minded shareholders built on what Munger called a “seamless web of deserved trust”, with an investment portfolio buried inside an interlocked set of businesses whose capital could be moved at will, all of them turbocharged with “float” – all this had come about, he claims, simply as a reflection of his personality. The final product was a model that could be analyzed and understood, yet few did and, for the most part, nobody coattailed it. What people paid attention to was simply how rich he was. Indeed, as much as he wanted them to study his model, Buffett sometimes inadvertently discouraged it; he also wanted people to believe that he just tap-danced into work everyday and had fun.
But that would be the less flattering version.
The truth is this.
When Warren was a little boy fingerprinting nuns and collecting bottle caps, he had no knowledge of what he would someday become. Yet as he rode his bike through Spring Valley, flinging papers day after day, and raced through the halls of The Westchester, pulse pounding, trying to make his deliveries on time, if you had asked him if he wanted to be the richest man on earth – with his whole heart, he would have said, Yes.
That passion had led him to study a universe of thousands of stocks. It made him burrow into libraries and basements for records nobody else troubled to get. He sat up nights studying hundreds of thousands of numbers that would glaze anyone else’s eyes. He read every word of several newspapers each morning and sucked down the Wall Street Journal like his morning Pepsi, then Coke. He dropped in on companies, spending hours talking about barrels with the woman who ran an outpost of Grief Bros. Cooperage or auto insurance with Lorimer Davidson. He read magazines like the Progressive Grocer to learn how to stock a meat department. He stuffed the backseat of his car with Moody’s Manuals and ledgers on his honeymoon. He spent months reading old newspapers dating back a century to learn the cycles of business, the history of Wall Street, the history of Capitalism, the history of the modern corporation. He followed the world of politics intensely and recognized how it affected business. He analyzed economic statistics until he had a deep understanding of what they signified. Since childhood, he had read every biography he could find of people he admired, looking for the lessons he could learn from their lives. He attached himself to everyone who could help him and coattailed anyone he could find who was smart. He ruled out paying attention to almost anything but business – art, literature, science, travel, architecture – so that he could focus on his passion. He defined a circle of competence to avoid making mistakes. To limit risk he never used any significant amount of debt. He never stopped thinking about business: what made a good business, what made a bad business, how they competed, what made customers loyal to one versus another. He had an unusual way of turning problems around in his head, which gave him insights nobody else had. He developed a network of people who – for the sake of his friendship as well as his sagacity – not only helped him but also stayed out of his way when he wanted them to. In hard times or easy, he never stopped thinking about ways to make money. And all of this energy and intensity became the motor that powered his innate intelligence, temperament and skills.

Snowball

Life is like a snowball.
The important thing
is finding wet snow
and a really long hill - Warren Buffett

Best Moments in Life

* To fall in love.

* To laugh until it hurts your stomach.

* To find mails by the thousands when you return from a vacation.

* To go for a vacation to some pretty place.

* To listen to your favorite song in the radio.

* To go to bed and to listen while it rains outside.

* To leave the! shower and find that the towel is warm.

* To clear your last exam.

* To receive a call from someone, you don't see a lot, but you want to.

* To find money in a pant that you haven't used since last year.

* To laugh at yourself looking at mirror, making faces.:)))

* Calls at midnight that last for hours.:))

* To laugh without a reason.

* To accidentally hear somebody say something good about you.

* To wake up and realize it is still possible to sleep for a couple of hours.

* To hear a song that makes you remember a special person.

* To be part of a team.

* To watch the sunset from the hill top.

* To make new friends.

* To feel butterflies! in the stomach every time that you see that person.

* To pass time with your best friends.

* To see people that you like, feeling happy.

* To use a sweater of the person that you like and find that it still smells of their perfume.

* See an old friend again and to feel that the things have not changed.

* To take an evening walk along the beach.

* To have somebody tell you that he/she loves you.

* To laugh .......laugh. .......and laugh ...... remembering stupid things done with stupid friends.

I Love You Man

If you could
blow up the world
with the flick of a switch
would you do it?

If you could
make everybody poor
just so you could be rich
would you do it?

Society tells us to act civilized, but the truth is we're animals

Slap the bass

You've got all the skills in the world, but no confidence man

The Other End Of The Line

our mini bars will get you maxi drunk

our customers are more smart when they checkout than when they checkin

Flirting with disaster, you're the one i'm after

you're not sick...you dont have time to be sick...so you're not sick
someday when i'am awefully low
when the world is cold
i will feel the glow
just thinking of you
and the way you look tonight

first impressions can be deceiving

Pretty woman, walking down the street
pretty woman, the one i like to meet
i dont believe you, you're not the truth
no one can look as good as you

better luck next life

i guess i dont wanna die a failure

i want to be the best at what i do

never have expectations.

You never totally put yourself out there
You round the corners and play it safe.
You never let see people who you really are
but you are selling yourself short
if you want big rewards, you have to take big risks.
but you're afraid, so you wind up with nothing

you can be who you want to be
we've had just one passion, doing nice things for nice people, nice people like you

Nothing should ever hold a man back from his future

Hear me out, dont tear away
cause this is what i am trying to say

wise men say...only fools rush in...but i cant help...falling in love with you...
shall i stay...would it be a sin? if i cant help, falling in love with you
like a river flows surely to the sea
darling so it goes, somethings are meant to be
take my hand, take my whole life, too
for i cant help, falling in love with you

A Walk To Remember

Without suffering, there is no compassion

Nothing's coincidence

All I know is you're beautiful

Sounds like bull. which part? all of it.

You want to be with me too.

This girl's changed you and you dont even know it man

You can exit the way you entered.

Everybody can dance. You cant be that bad

Its like the wind. I cant see it, but I feel it.

I might kiss you.
I might be bad at it

I thought you said. No, you assumed.

I do not need a reason to be angry with God

I'm scared of not being with you.

Love is always patient and kind. It is never jealous. It is never boastful or conceited. Love is never rude or selfish. It doesnot take offense and is not resentful. It is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope...and to endure...whatever comes

May be God...has a bigger plan for me than I had for myself.

This journey never ends

Like..You're sent to me because I am sick. To help me through all this. You're my Angel.

American Gangster

you'r either somebody or nobody

the loudest one in the room is the weakest one in the room

The International

character is easier kept than recovered

we cannot control the things life does to us. They are done before you know it, and once they are done...they make you do other things...until at last, everything comes between you..and the man you wanted to be.

We all have choices in life...you made yours.

sometimes, a man can meet his destiny on the road he took to avoid it

Justice..is not possible

Your idea of justice is an illusion.

I cant just walk away from this

What are we all supposed to do?

Sometimes the hardest thing in life is to know which bridge to cross and which to burn. I'm the one you burn.

its mutual interest, not trust

Snowball - Warren Buffett

"Basically, when you get to my age, you'll really measure your success in life by how many of the people you want to have love you actually do love you.

I know people who have a lot of money, and they get testimonial dinners and they get hospital wings named after them. But the truth is that nobody in the world loves them. If you get to my age in life and nobody thinks will of you, I dont care how big your bank account is, your life is a disaster.

Thats the ultimate test of how you lived your life. The trouble with love is that you cant buy it. You can buy sex. You can buy testimonial diners. You can buy pamphlets that say how wonderful you are. But the only way to get love is to be lovable. It's very irritating if you have a lot of money. You'd like to think you could write a check: I'll buy a million dollars' worth of love. But it doesn't work that way. The more you give love away, the more you get"

Snowball - Invert

"Invert, always invert". Turn a situation or problem upside down. Look at it backward. Whats in it for the other guy? What happens if all our plans go wrong? Where dont we want to go, and how do you get there? Instead of looking for success, make a list of how to fail instead-through sloth, envy, resentment, self-pity, entitlement, all the mental habits of self defeat. Avoid these qualities and you will succeed. Tell me where I'm going to die, that is, so I dont go there"

Snowball - Hundred Floors

If you go from the first floor to the hundredth floor of a building and then go back to the ninety-eighth, you'll feel worse than if you've just gone from the first to the second, you know. But you've got to fight that feeling, because you're still on the ninety-eighth floor.

Gundello Gudi Kadithe Migilindhi Gayam

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Madurai Meenakshi temple

http://www.view360.in/virtualtour/madurai/

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Security Analysis

An investment promises safety of principal and a satisfactory return

Intrinsic value is the worth of an enterprise to one who owns it "for keeps". Look for securities at a hefty discount to what they are worth.

Intrinsic value measures the economic potential - what an owner might get out of an asset
Book value - arithmetic compuation of what has been invested into it. Book value was almost worthless as a practical matter. Book value = Total assets - Total liabilities

Balance sheet and cashflow statement give us idea about reported earnings

Friday, July 16, 2010

Atom to Universe

Monkey Proverbs

Only the owner of the monkey can make it dance
A necklace of pearl on a monkey's neck !!
What would a monkey know about ginger's taste
What would a monkey know about ginger's taste
Not every monkey is Lord Hanuman !!
Grapes in hand of monkey (langoor) !!
What would donkey know about kasturi’s smell
Not only did the monkey get spoilt, but also spoilt the entire forest
A precious stone in the hands of a monkey

Like a monkey who just got a garland in his/her hand
Burning wooden log in monkey’s hands
A divine stone in hands of a monkey !!

One who always follows or agrees to another, irrespective of one's own thoughts
Like the monkey that had its tail caught between the halves of the sawed log after thoughtlessly pulling the wedge out
Like a monkey who had just eaten ginger (and bemused at the taste)
Like a monkey that has had toddy
A monkey will obey only if you take a stick
Garland in monkey's hands !!
Not only did the monkey get spoilt, but also spoilt the entire forest
If you marry a monkey, you ought to learn to jump trees
Mind is like a monkey
(started) Making Ganesh (God), turn out to be Monkey
A bachelor is equivalent to 100 monkeys
Like a monkey that has had toddy
Like a monkey that has found a coconut shell (to play with)
Not only did the monkey get spoilt, but also spoilt the entire forest

A drunken donkey will not remember the monkeys bite
He who wants to plant corns must make peace with the monkeys
If money where to be found up in the trees, most people would be married to monkeys
Monkeys don't advise there young ones to be careful on trees they just remind them of the distance to the ground
One monkey don't stop no show
By trying often, the monkey learns to jump from the tree
A tiger cannot beat a crowd of monkeys
Kill the chicken to frighten the monkey
Monkeys must disperse once their tree falls.
The monkey knows which branch to swing on
The monkey will never wash with the same water twice
If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys?
The monkey knows the tree it climbs
A monkey dressed up is still a monkey
It is Mr. Old-Man-Monkey who marries Mrs.Old-Woman-Monkey
A monkey never thinks her baby is ugly
Hunger will make a monkey eat pepper
Money makes monkeys of men.
A person who misses a chance and the monkey who misses its branch cannot be saved
A child in the lap is let go, a monkey from the forest is nursed instead
If there were no lion in the jungle, a blind monkey can be king
Women in state affairs are like monkeys in glass houses
A monkey makes fun of the red behinds of his fellow monkeys
Brides and mothers-in-law are like dogs and monkeys
Even monkeys fall off branches
All monkeys cannot hang on one branch
Remember even monkeys fall from branches
Do chattering monkeys mimic men, Or we, turned apes, out-monkey them
On a dead tree there are no monkeys
The monkey never complains that he has no comb
If a monkey is amongst dogs, why won’t it start barking
In a piranha infested river, monkeys drink water using a straw
Old monkeys don't put their hand in jars
Although the monkey might dress in silk, monkey it still is

Only a monkey understands a monkey
If he keeps on imitating everybody the monkey will one day cut his own throat
One ass among many monkeys is grinned at by all.
When the monkey can’t reach the ripe banana with his hand, he says it is not sweet
He married the monkey for its money, the money went and the monkey stayed a monkey
In the eye of his mother, a monkey is a gazelle
You (don't) disturb monkeys on their way to drink
The monkey does not see his own hind backside; he sees his neighbor’s
When the man is away, the monkey eats his corn and goes into his hut
A monkey makes fun of the red behinds of his fellow monkeys.~ Japanese Proverb
A monkey never thinks her baby’s ugly.~ Haitian Proverb
A person who misses a chance and the monkey who misses its branch — both cannot be saved.~ Indian Proverb
A tiger cannot beat a crowd of monkeys.~ Chinese Proverb
By trying often, the monkey learns to jump from the tree.~ Cameroonian Proverb
If a monkey is amongst dogs, why won’t it start barking.~ Nigerian Proverb
If he keeps on imitating everybody the monkey will one day cut his own throat.~ South African Proverb
It is Mr. Old-Man-Monkey who marries Mrs.Old-Woman-Monkey.~ Ghanaian Proverb
Kill the chicken to frighten the monkey.~ Chinese Proverb
On a dead tree there are no monkeys.~ Mozambican Proverb
Only a monkey understands a monkey.~ Sierra Leonean Proverb
Remember, even monkeys fall out of trees.~ Korean Proverb
The monkey does not see his own hind backside; he sees his neighbor’s.~ Zimbabwean Proverb
The monkey knows which branch to swing on.~ Creole Proverb
The monkey never complains that he has no comb.~ Myanmar Proverb
The monkey will never wash with the same water twice.~ Netherlands Antillean Proverb
When the man is away, the monkey eats his corn and goes into his hut.~ Zulu Proverb
When the monkey can’t reach the ripe banana with his hand, he says it is not sweet.~ Sudanese Proverb

Ooty Trip

Day 1
Morning : Botanical Garden, Thread Garden
Noon : Rose Garden
Evening : Ooty Lake

Day 2
[Around Ooty]
Wenlock Down
Paye Mund
Pykara Falls
Pykara Lake
Parson's Valley
Mukerti Peak
Emerald Lake
Avalanche

Day 3
[Leave for Conoor]
On the way :
Dodabetta
Kotagiri
Ketty Valley View - Located en route to Coonoor,
Dolphin's nose
Lamb's Rock
Law's falls

Arrive at Conoor, Check in to hotel

Day 4
[Return journey to Coimbatore]
Sim’s Park
Start from Conoor to Coimbatore at 12 AM
On the way : Catherine Falls

Online Courses

http://nptel.iitm.ac.in/courses.php
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm
http://oyc.yale.edu

Power of prayers

In a small town in India, a person decided to open up his Bar business, which was right opposite to the Temple. The Temple & its congregation started a campaign to block the Bar from opening with petitions and prayed daily against his business.
Work progressed. However, when it was almost complete and was about to open a few days later, a strong lightning struck the Bar and it was burnt to the ground.

The temple folks were rather smug in their outlook after that, till the Bar owner sued the Temple authorities on the grounds that the Temple through its congregation & prayers was ultimately responsible for the demise of his bar shop, either through direct or indirect actions or means.

In its reply to the court, the temple vehemently denied all responsibility or any connection that their prayers were reasons to the bar shop's demise.
As the case made its way into court, the judge looked over the paperwork at the hearing and commented:

I don't know how I'm going to decide this case, but it appears from the paperwork,

'we have a bar owner who believes in the power of prayer

and

we have an entire temple and its devotees that doesn't.'

Trains Calendar India

http://www.cleartrip.com/trains/calendar

Consumer Court USA

www.bbb.org

Shipping to India

www.freightcenter.com
www.r2iclubforums.com

Weekends @ Seattle

http://www.gameparksafari.com/animals.html

First Credit Card

Probably get a secured credit card
http://www.credit.com/products/credit_cards/secure.jsp

Swimming @ Seattle

http://samena.com/aquatics.html

Alaska Tour

Anchorage – Portage Bay tour
Whittier – 26 glacier cruise
Seward – Fjord cruise
Denali – Denali Bus Tour
Fairbanks – North Pole, Arctic Circle, Gold Mine, Oil pipeline
Outside of Anchorage is a place called the Double Musky Inn
Homer Alaska

Programming for Children

http://smallbasic.com/
http://teachingkidsprogramming.org/blog/?p=1
http://www.alice.org/
http://mindstorms.lego.com/
http://Scratch.mit.edu
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/beginner/bb308754.aspx
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/kodu/
http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/
http://www.agentsheets.com/
Game Maker

Cup and Coffee

A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to
Visit their old university professor.

Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life.

Offering his guests coffee, the professor went to the kitchen and returned
with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups porcelain, plastic,
glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite - telling
them to help themselves to hot coffee.

When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the professor said: "If
you noticed, all the nice looking expensive cups were taken up, leaving
behind the plain and cheap ones.. While it is but normal for you to want
only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and
stress. What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you
consciously went for the best cups and were eyeing each other ' s cups.

Now if life is coffee, then the jobs, money and position in society are the
cups. They are just tools to hold and contain Life, but the quality of Life
doesn't change. Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to
enjoy the coffee in it."

Moral: Don't let the cups drive you.. Enjoy the coffee instead

Steve Jobs on Life

http://business.rediff.com/slide-show/2010/jun/18/slide-show-1-tech-steve-jobs-on-life-love-and-death.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc

3 Idiots

Never try to be successful , pursue excellence
 Success is the bye product & the result
 Excellence always creates Success & it is a process of continual improvement
 Never run after success
 Let it happen automatically in life

Freedom to Life- Life is beautiful
 Don’t die before the actual death
 Live every moment to the fullest as if today is the last day
 Life is gifted to humankind to live
 Live & Live happily towards happiness

Passion leads to Excellence
 When your hobby becomes your profession , the passion becomes your profession
 You will be able to lead up to excellence in life
 Satisfaction, Joy, Pleasure & love will be the outcome of the passion
 Following your passion for years , you will surely become somebody one day

Learning is very simple- Never stop
Be humble
Teachers do fail, Learners never fail
 Learning is never complicate or difficult
 Learning is always possible whatever rule you apply

Pressure at head
 Current education system is developing pressure on students head
 University intelligence is useful & making some impact in the life , but it cannot be
at the cost of life

Life is management of emotions & not optimization of intelligence
 Memory and regular study have definite value and it always helps you in leading a
life.
 You are able to survive even if you can make some mark in the path of the life.
 With artificial intelligence, you can survive & win but you cannot prove yourself
genius.
 Therefore, in this process genius dies in you

Necessity is mother of invention
 Necessity creates pressure and forces you to invent something or to make it
happen or to use your potentiality.
 Aamir Khan in this film, 3 idiots, is able to prove in the film by using vacuum pump
at the last moment

Simplicity in life
 Life is need base never want base. Desires have no ends.
 Simplicity is way of life and Indian culture highly stresses on simple living and high
thinking, and this is the way of life: ‘Legs down to earth and eyes looking beyond
the sky’

Industrial Leadership
 Dean of the institute in 3 idiots is showing very typical leadership. He has his own
principles, values and ideology, and he leads the whole institute accordingly.
 This is an example of current institutional leadership. In the present scenario, most
of the institutes are fixed in a block or Squarish thinking

Love is time & space free
 Trust your partner
 Love is not time bound and space bound.
 It is very well demonstrated in this movie same love was demonstrated by Krishna
and Meera.
 Love is border free, time free, unconditional and space free.

Importance of words in communication
 If communication dies, everything dies.
 Each word has impact and value in communication.
 One word if used wrongly or emphasized wrongly or paused at a wrong place in
communication what effect it creates and how is it affected is demonstrated very
well in this movie.

Mediocrity is penalized
 Middle class family or average talent or average institute is going to suffer and has
to pay maximum price in the life if they do not upgrade their living standards.
 To be born poor or as an average person is not a crime but to die as an average
person with middle class talent is miserable and if you are unable to optimize your
potentiality and die with unused potentiality then that is your shameful truth.
 One should not die as a mediocre. He/she has to bring out genius inside him/her
and has to use his/her potentiality to the optimum level

Seek excellence
&
Success will follow