FIFA 2010, Technical Analysis, Copernhagen

Assorted updates…

1. The world cup is around the corner, well almost. That's soccer world cup. Cricket does not even evince a semi digested burp from me. Here are the groups (FIFA rank).
Group A – South Africa (86), Mexico (15), Uruguay (19), and France (7)
Group B – Argentina (8), Nigeria (22), South Korea (52), Greece (12)
Group C – England (9), United States (14), Algeria (28), Slovenia (33)
Group D – Germany (6), Australia (21), Serbia (20), Ghana (37)
Group E – Netherlands (3), Denmark (26), Japan (43), Cameroon (11)
Group F – Italy (4), Paraguay (30), New Zealand (77), Slovakia (34)
Group G – Brazil (2), North Korea (84), Ivory Coast (16), Portugal (5)
Group H – Spain (1), Switzerland (18), Honduras (38), Chile (17)

More on the above in later posts. I need to do a lot of reading before the summer. But the above list looks really exciting especially countries like North Korea, Slovenia, Ivory Coast, and Honduras.
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2. I have been dabbling with an animal called Technical Analysis. For the uninitiated, technical analysis is the study of stock prices and charts which is different from fundamental analysis which involves studying the company’s financial statements, annual reports, management quality etc. Why am I learning technical analysis? One, because I want to experiment trading short term. Second, too much of free time courtesy my employer. So, nowadays I swim among aquatic beasts like moving averages, oscillators, RSI, MACD, Bollinger Bands, Slow Stochastics, Elliot Wave Analysis. Yeah they all sound scary, don’t they? But a little persistence with these marine wildlife can bear results. I understand them, know how to use them, however, as they say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating!
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3. Another latest catch on my antennae has been the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference scheduled this December. This is a next round of diplomatic parleys among 180 countries after the Kyoto Convention held in Japan. Basically, the developed countries have pledged to reduce their toxic gas emissions by fixed percentage targets. Earlier the US, which accounts for ~36% of the world’s emissions had refused to accept a limit on itself. However, it is now known that the US along with China have declared a % reduction level as accepted target. Now the focus is on the only wild sheep left in the herd. India.

26/11 What Else...

On the anniversary of 26/11, I shall try to collate as many "positive" developments and post links here. Please feel free to direct me to anything which has improved from 26 November 2008. This could be improved security infrastructure, upgraded intelligence, common man's attitude towards terror, Pakistan's stance, state government, police force; anything which points to a possibility of a terror ridden peaceful life for all Indians. Heres the first on the list..

1. A smart anti-terror force for Mumbai now http://www.hindu.com/2009/11/25/stories/2009112561591800.htm
2. Idea tribute to 26/11, will donate revenue http://www.hindustantimes.com/Idea-tribute-to-26-11-will-donate-revenue/H1-Article1-476112.aspx
Update (26/11)
3. Pakistan indicts Lakhvi, six others. http://www.hindu.com/2009/11/26/stories/2009112658470100.htm
4. Government recounts steps taken post 26/11 http://www.hindu.com/2009/11/26/stories/2009112655481000.htm

Note: I urge readers to refrain from commenting negative opinions. If you think we are worse off than one year ago, please let your silence be your dissent. Thank You.

Raj

Raj as in Thackeray and not the erstwhile British Raj or the rural Panchayati Raj. The undisputed, unparalleled villain of Maharastra state politics, slowly spreading his fame beyond the state boundaries. But this is not an addendum to the constant diatribe against the 41 yr old Thackeray scion. It's quite the opposite.

My fingers have been itching sinces a very long time to debut my blog posts on this phenomenon called Mr. Raj Thackeray. He caught my eye during the North Indian attacks for which he was ceremoniously imprisoned. No, what caught my eye was the gait, the ruthlessness in his confident walk, the duniya-jaye-tel-lene attitude when he got ceremoniously imprisoned. Since then I have made myself available to listen to all happenings coming from Rajville. And I do not dislike the man at all.

In a rare defence offered for him (entirely my personal thoughts), the man's one of a kind. Its just that he has the wrong end of the stick in his hand. The day he learns to raise himself above meagre issues like 'Marathi Manoos' and espouse a far widespread, all encompassing, holistic and national issue, I am certain he will make a difference. He is a very very right man currently doing the wrong thing.

In the Maharastra assembly today, MNS MLA's physically abused SP MLA Abu Azmi for taking the oath in Hindi. MNS gang insisted that all MLA's should take oath in Marathi. I was amused at this event only because of the particular victim. I will leave it at that! Go figure yourself. Now, getting back to Mr. Enfant Terrible, if all the MLAs in the states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Andhra take oaths in their state language, why should Maharashtra be different. Let's keep the cosmopolitan shit argument aside. If Raj Thackeray was completely insane with wrong issues in his plate then he would not have achieved the kind of electoral success MNS showed. 13 seats on debut is rockstar performance. And numbers are everything in politics. Inspite of the whole wide world hating him, he has performed. He is like Che Guevara, ruthless.

I wait for the day when the stick is turned in his hands.

Naxal Bad

One more bad news. Dont blame me for posting depressing R.I.P items. I do my tuppence bit by making the good guys know the bad things. One such atrociously absurd movement is the Naxalite or Maoist. Are these guys mad or something. I am willing to reads tomes on them, because I completely fail to fathom their logic or lack of thereof!
Anyways.. I wanted to talk about this horrendous act by the Maoist. Three things made me post this here
1. It happened at the place where I was born
2. My irritation with Naxalites in general
3. The Talibanesque leanings of this heinous act.

R.I.P

A Lone Bison?

A lone bison did this? Unfortunately that appears to be the reason.

I woke up today with this news which shocked me and saddened me a lot. Read the whole story here. What makes this tragedy more macabre, I was exactly on one of those boats you see in the pics only a few months ago! Its like visiting the Taj a few days before Kasab & Co. let loose their Assault Kalashnikovs. Such is the feeling whichs gnaws at you from inside. I can very graphically imagine the exact details of the boat, the lake, the surrounding and even the bison! (I had seen one as well and had clicked photographs). This tragedy would have a very negative affect on Periyar's image. I must add here that I am not compeltely surprised about the accident. Even when I visited there was complete chaos. There were like hundreds of tourists all flocking near the dock to get into one of those boats. The scant few officials were not even checking tickets. In fact, about 50 odd people boarded a huge double deck boat (like the one which capsized above) only to be forced to alight and board another one. Utter chaos. Bad. Sad.

Anyways, life will go on. I shall, as always, pause fleetingly to wish all deceased a great afterlife. One day I shall be dead as well. But till that happens, I shall check out a few more wobbly boats on deep lakes in verdant wildlife sanctuaries :-)

R.I.P

A click too many

Before I begin this post, I want to pay obeisance to the living goddess of photography. Her name is Moi the Great, a source of unparalleled & perpetual inspiration to me for leading a ‘click’ life behind the constricted world of a photographic lens.

Photography is new to me. In fact, my first purchase was as recent as a few months back! Off course I sought the goddess’ blessings, touched her feet and smeared turmeric on my forehead before stepping out to make the purchase. I bought the most base model available in the market (and pssst.. one of the cheapest). Point and shoot, khallas! For the technically unchallenged hoi polloi (does that rhyme with moi?), it would imply 3x optical zoom, 6 Megapixel. That’s it. I can assure you my cute ass barbeques from the inside when I see pot bellied thickly mustachioed men wield huge SLR cameras up to 12 Megapixel.

However, that is exactly the point! You don’t need a baby worth 30K to shoot those blinding pictures with which you can run up to the goddess’ altar and show your grinning teeth. What you need (apart from the goddess’ blessings) are these four things –

1. A software to digitally retouch your images. I use Picasa. You are free to pluck your favorite flower from the jungle.
2. Go places. And don’t forget the camera! I, for one, haven’t reached that elevated state of the goddess to be able to sit in my morose house and shoot pics pointlessly.
3. Shoot pics pointlessly!. Left, right and centre. The single measure of this parameter is the degree of indignance of your co-travelers. If they are comfortable with your indulgence in the lens – mate, you have a problem. If they are annoyed – yeah yeah yeah. If they are seething red and two way communication breakdown has occurred – BINGO you are on your way to getting those Nat Geo award winning shots!
4. Lastly, a thinking mind. A static, dull, uncreative or disturbed mind will inhibit conjuring ideas and angles and vistas which can prove to be a great shot. In the end, the photograph is just the manifestation of what you thought! So keep thinking.

Just a case in point, on my long weekend I clicked approximately 200 times, which is indeed on the lower side. Out of those 200 pics, about 160 made it to my laptop. Around 80 were digitally retouched in Picasa and form part of my private collection, rest were shift deleted. Then, 35 were selected for public dissemination and finally ONLY 7 made it to this blog (which is obviously my pinnacle platform for self aggrandizement). So let your view of these 7 not occlude the 194 odd gentry.

It’s the classic one in a million sperm analogy.

A Long Weekend

Halebid-Belur-Chikmaglur-Kemmanagundi

En route passed a deliciously named signboard 'Hagare - 70 kms'; but after 2 hrs passed a village which transgressed all limits of creative nomenclature - a village called Goregandi. After such an excreting errr.. excruciating trail, I arriveth at Eagle Eye Holidays Home Stay, amidst a coffee plantation cut out from the mountain's bosom betwixt Bhadra & Muthodi Wildlife Santuaries. A long weekend spent amist 11th century temple complexes, cloud kissing on misty mountains, enchanting waterfalls and an inordinate amount of burning the rubber on ramshackled roads serpenting through deep, deep forests on high, high mountains. Over 900 kms! The rest of the story can be best judged from these pics. Touche'