Paying for the Rich - A Carbon Tax story

Finally i am understanding - we live for the rich to take advantage of us.

Everybody say - Lets go green.
The Question is How much green ?
Now i see every where selling has a green or a Hybrid word associated to it.

Lets come back: As my background , I have a kid who is going to be 2 yr old.To save some money from income,we decided not to send kid to daycare ( yep we need to give half of my wife income to daycare to take care of baby and day care work from 7-5 and we work from 9-6 ).For this we make a bit hard decision of working in shifts ( my wife works at night and i work at day ).

Her job is 30 kms away from the place we live ( yes we looked for jobs near, as we don't have degrees from here ( her degree is accredited to equivalent to Masters in Canada but Canadian employers never give a chance for her to attend interview. So she got option from an Australia based company). I drop her at night and go and pick her in the morning. I own a Pontiac grand AM which gives me 9.8 kmpl. We use car for transport as night its not safe for her to take public transit.Apart from this i take public transit and because of these tax additions there was a fare increase recently.

Now Carbon tax :

Gasoline: 2.41 cents per litre in 2008, rising to 7.24 cents per litre by 2012
Natural gas: 49.88 cents per GJ in 2008, rising to 149.64 cents per GJ by 2012



It added around 20 cents per day to my gas bill ( as of now ). As the gas prices were sky rocking, it has null effect, still it did its job of taking money out of me.

Canada is a cold county (kool place ) and everybody uses Gasoline/Natural gas in winter.Winter is yet to come, let me see how much more i have to pay.I am sure its going to hit me hard in winter from all places. Yes i think it was a smart move to introduce it in summer with giving a $ 100 incentive to hand.

Fine , I pay and money is gone out of me. Now the second part starts

Where this tax money goes ?

Last day i was watching a TV - a news special saying Trucks go green :- Introduction of Hybrid Trucks. Wow green!! . I started listening. Some sales people talk - We are committed to go green. I felt again WOW!!.

Me more listening.

The truck owner association president :- "We are committed to go green and we expect Gov to divert funds from carbon tax to aid buying more Green trucks"

Wow!!, What a nice way of taking my hard earned money as his business investment.

Am i a Fool ? or do we need these systems to help or overkill us ?

© yankandpaste®

Paying for the Rich - An ICBC story

Finally i am understanding - we live for the rich to take advantage of us.

Let me tell the full story

I was driving last day and my car skid and hit side of the road. I was not on high speeds or my car was not bad. But i think i was a bit fast for the climate ( it was drizzling and road became slippery ). I travel the same way for last 3 yrs and never had any problems.Why it slipped on that day ? I am not sure because i travelled on same road 8.5 hrs before. lets be back to story.

So car skid and hit the concrete barrier. Fortunately nobody got injured (yes i had my 2 year old boy in the car ) but the car got some repairs, I reported the incident to police and some towing company towed the car to ICBC.


Now the real story :
Dialed ICBC - The first made the claim and asked options. Then real understanding started. If i make a claim even its $100 its going to have subsequent insurance increase of 55% next year 45% second year and 35% third year and 4th year it will be back to my current rate. This means around $5000 extra to my budget over 3 years. I brought the car for $3500 2 years back.This means ICBC write off my car is going to give me $3500 max.


Afer i heard all maths from icbc i dialed one of my friend for a second
opanion and he revealed his story which finally end up in not claiming and fixing car himself.

Now i started thinking, what about rich ? They own cars of $35000+, a skid means $10000 min. They also pay the same insurance extra as me if they claim ( so extra $4000 ) and $6000 for free.

From where this money comes ? From mine and your insurance. Finally we pay insurance for


For making ICBC profit full
For giving free money to Rich ( last 3 yrs i paid more that $7000 as insurance to ICBC and now i have to write off my car which adds another $2000 ( after my own use deduction )


Time to think - Do we really need these systems ??


ICBC ? http://www.icbc.com/

Expect another article on Carbon tax, This is another way the working class pay for rich to remodel/expand their business.
© yankandpaste®

Twinkle, Twinkle Little star in malayalam

My translation :


Malayakam :

ചിമ്മും ചിമ്മും നക്ഷത്രം
നീ എന്തൊരു അതിശയം
മേലേ മേലേ മാനത്ത്‌
മിന്നി നടക്കും രത്നം പോല്‍

In Manglish :
Chimmum chimmum nakshatram
Nee enthoru athishayam
Maala maala manathil
Minni nadakum ratnam pool



© yankandpaste®

Complexity theory

Last day was talking a friend ( he is am immigrant from Iran ) about howz his friends etc. From him i got this complexity theory

In the place we have friends whom we have a lot to talk in common. Once we immigrate or go away from them , for first years we will dial back a lot talk to them etc. Later the frequency of communication goes less , and less and less. This time you will be building your roots ( a circle of complexities ) here and your friends will building there own roots. After some time you guys may find that there is less/ Nothing to talk because your complexities are different from your friends.


Once again :- what you share common with a friend who studied in school where you were very close with him/her and how much time you can talk now and what subjects ?



© yankandpaste®

THE STORY OF INDIA

The Ant works hard in the withering heat all summer
building its house and laying up supplies for the
winter. The Grasshopper thinks the Ant is a fool and
laughs & dances & plays the summer away. Come winter,
the Ant is warm and well fed. The Grasshopper has no
food or shelter so he dies out in the cold.

Indian Version:
The Ant works hard in the withering heat all summer
building its house and laying up supplies for the
winter. The Grasshopper thinks the Ant's a fool and
laughs & dances & plays the summer away. Come winter,
the shivering Grasshopper calls a press conference and
demands to know why the Ant should be allowed to be
warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.
NDTV, BBC, CNN show up to provide pictures of the
shivering Grasshopper next to a video of the Ant in
his comfortable home with a table filled with food.The
World is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this
be that this poor Grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?
Arundhati Roy stages a demonstration in front of the
Ant's house. Medha Patkar goes on a fast along with
other Grasshoppers demanding that
Grasshoppers be relocated to warmer climates during
winter . Human Rights group and Koffi Annan criticize
the Indian Government for not upholding the
fundamental rights of the Grasshopper. The Internet is
flooded with online petitions seeking support to the
Grasshopper (many promise Heaven & Everlasting Peace
for prompt support as against the wrath of God for
non-compliance) .

Opposition MPs stage a walkout. Left parties call for
'Bengal Bandh' in West Bengal and Kerala demanding a
Judicial Enquiry. CPM in Kerala immediately passes a
law preventing Ants from working hard in the heat so
as to bring about equality of poverty among Ants and
Grasshoppers.

Lalu Prasad allocates one free coach to grasshoppers
on all Indian Railway Trains, aptly named as the
'Grasshopper Rath'.
Finally, the Judicial Committee drafts the '
Prevention of Terrorism Against Grasshoppers Act'
[POTAGA], with effect from the beginning of the
winter. Arjun Singh makes 'Special Reservation ' for
Grasshoppers in Educational Institutions & in
Government Services.

The Ant is fined for failing to comply with POTAGA and
having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes,it's
home is confiscated by the Government and handed over
to the Grasshopper in a ceremony covered by NDTV.

Arundhati Roy calls it ' A Triumph of Justice'.
Lalu calls it 'Socialistic Justice '.
CPM calls it the ' Revolutionary Resurgence of the
Downtrodden '
Koffi Annan invites the Grasshopper to address the UN
General Assembly.

Many years later...
The Ant has since migrated to the US and set up a
multi-billion dollar company in Silicon Valley, 100s
of Grasshoppers still die of starvation despite
reservation somewhere in India,
.
..AND
As a result of loosing lot of hard working Ants and
feeding the grasshoppers,

India is still a developing country.




© yankandpaste® from an email forward i got last day

100-year-old model for electric car coming back

To promote itself, Detroit Electric--a new joint venture between Zap and China's Youngman Automotive Group--plan to release a limited number of cars based around the Detroit Electric, an electric car produced by the Anderson Electric Car Co. in the early part of the 20th century.

details : http://www.news.com/8301-11128_3-9894597-54.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

© yankandpaste®

How to discover growth stocks

Growth stock hunters believe that there are no excess returns to be gained from investing in the tried and true 'blue chip' stocks representative of a mainstream stock index such as the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S & P 500. The big profits in the stock market rest in ferreting out the next growth stocks, the next Cisco.

For example, Cisco Systems, Inc., now the leading supplier of high-performance internetworking products for linking computer system networks, traded at $4-1/2 per share shortly after going public in 1990 (adjusted for 2-for-1 stock splits in both 1991 and 1992. At the time, Cisco Systems generated less than $30 million in annual revenues. In 1992, the innovative company looks to reach $325 million in revenues and earn around $1.25 per share.

Alert emerging growth investors who discovered Cisco Systems in its formative years and had the conviction to see its tremendous prospects, despite huge competitors such as IBM and NEC Corpora­tion, earned substantially higher returns than the market averages. From a low of $4-1/2 per share in 1990, the market price of Cisco Systems stock had already soared to $52 per share in 1992.

Growth stocks and their subset, emerging growth stocks, are well-managed companies operating in industries where earnings and dividends are expected to grow faster than inflation and the overall economy. They are expected to maintain their exceptional growth momentum through economic retractions as well as during economic prosperity.

Typically, growth stocks are not located in the traditional well-known sectors but in new and upcoming fields, such as computers, telecommunications, health care, and biotechnology.

Major characteristics of growth stocks include:

Higher price/earnings ratios than the market average,

Substantial potential for above-average, long-term price appreciation,

Price volatility, and

Conservation of capital to fuel growth, therefore little or no dividend payouts in the early years.

For the smaller, emerging growth stocks, price volatility can be even more pronounced due to small capitalization, which makes their shares less liquid; there may be a shortage of available financial and operational information by which to properly judge the company's merits or prospects; investor sentiment swings for large versus small company investments can cause the market price of emerging growth stocks to drop substantially despite rising revenues and earnings and the typical pattern of earnings gains interruptions due to high research and development and expansion expenses can cause investors to flee the stock.

James W. Broadfoot III in his book, Investing in Emerging Growth Stocks: Making Money With Tomorrow's Blue Chips spelt out how to understand emerging growth stock investing and learn how to pick the right emerging growth stocks for above average returns.

Obviously, the higher returns associated with emerging growth investments also carry with them a higher degree of risk. That's why Broadfoot stressed that investors planning to enter this brand of in­vesting must have a stomach for risk, financial staying power since emerging growth stocks go through cycles of poor performance, and the ability to make a sufficient commitment of time and effort.

Emerging growth stock, screening standards set forth by Broadfoot include the following:

Avoid companies with two down earning years in the past five

Choose companies with a minimum average 20 per cent revenue and earnings growth

Avoid any firm with return on average equity below 13 per cent

Avoid firms with debt in excess of 30 percent of total capital.

If the firm passes the above tests, consider the growth prospects of the industry (including the degree of industry fragmentation), the level of competition, and the quality of management.

Broadfoot warned about stumbling blocks to the company's success and higher stock prices. A lack of visibility, lengthening sales cycles, and new product dependence can each work to short-circuit the company's potential. In addition, too rapid a growth can wreak havoc with financial and operational controls, causing the company to stumble.

As a warning, Broadfoot said that when emerging growth companies run into trouble, such as a significant earnings shortfall, sell as fast as possible and ask questions later.

Finally, be patient. Emerging growth investing profits don't occur overnight. When you do hit upon a winner, ride it for all its worth; you need the exceptional gains from your growth stock winners to make up for the mistakes that come with the emerging growth investing territory.

Excerpt from 100 World Famous Stock Market Techniques by Richard J. Maturi.



© yankandpaste®

DID NASA FIND LIFE ON MARS?

A Photos by NASA's Spirit Rover in late 2007 shows a human-like figure is visible sitting on the rocks.

Wondering why they look like a human and not any other animal :-). But lot of debates going on. Lets finally prove its an illusion or a rock.

According to Hindu mythology, there are 14 worlds. We may find life at least in one of them.



© yankandpaste®

Sun has announced a £1bn MySQL deal

Sun is making waves in open source.

with open office : http://www.openoffice.org/
with open sparc : http://www.opensparc.net/
with open solaris: http://opensolaris.org/os/

and now MYSQL ( yep i didn't forget Java )

This is what happens if a person with vision is driving. Hats off to Jonathan Schwartz !!. Running his company and making contributions to world in a different model.


© yankandpaste®

Welcome 2008

Wish you all a great 2008 :-)


looking back to my 2007 - was great year,

lot changes - even started the blog first time in my life :-)

have great time !!
© yankandpaste®

The skills you need to succeed

One of the most important changes of the last 30 years is that digital technology has transformed almost everyone into an information worker.

A lot of people assume that creating software is purely a solitary activity. This isn't true at all.

In almost every job now, people use software and work with information to enable their organisation to operate more effectively.

That's true for everyone from the retail store worker who uses a handheld scanner to track inventory to the chief executive who uses business intelligence software to analyse critical market trends.

So if you look at how progress is made and where competitive advantage is created, there's no doubt that the ability to use software tools effectively is critical to succeeding in today's global knowledge economy.

A solid working knowledge of productivity software and other IT tools has become a basic foundation for success in virtually any career.

Beyond that, however, I don't think you can overemphasise the importance of having a good background in maths and science.

If you look at the most interesting things that have emerged in the last decade - whether it is cool things like portable music devices and video games or more practical things like smart phones and medical technology - they all come from the realm of science and engineering.

The power of software

Today and in the future, many of the jobs with the greatest impact will be related to software, whether it is developing software working for a company like Microsoft or helping other organisations use information technology tools to be successful.


Communication skills and the ability to work well with different types of people are very important too.

A lot of people assume that creating software is purely a solitary activity where you sit in an office with the door closed all day and write lots of code.

This isn't true at all.

Software innovation, like almost every other kind of innovation, requires the ability to collaborate and share ideas with other people, and to sit down and talk with customers and get their feedback and understand their needs.

I also place a high value on having a passion for ongoing learning. When I was pretty young, I picked up the habit of reading lots of books.

It's great to read widely about a broad range of subjects. Of course today, it's far easier to go online and find information about any topic that interests you.

Having that kind of curiosity about the world helps anyone succeed, no matter what kind of work they decide to pursue.


VIEWPOINT
By Bill Gates
Chairman, Microsoft

yankandpaste from : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7142073.stm
© yankandpaste®

The System Protector

Paritranaya sadhunam vinashaya cha dushkritam.
Dharma sansthapanarthaya sambhavami yuge yuge.
(Gita 4:8)

my meaning :

For protecting the people adhered to the system,
For destroying the people who are against the system.
For reviving The System, Incidents will occur time by time.


© yankandpaste®

The Tower of Babel - A symbol of human achievement

Now the whole earth had one language and few words. And as men migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, "Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly." And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth."

And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the sons of men had built. And the Lord said, "Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; and nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's speech."

So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of the earth. - Genesis 11.

Time passed ....

British concurred the world. They spread English. English stayed as International Language ( yes I accept more people speak Mandarin and Hindi ).

Now Its time for the Second Tower of Babel and what may be Lord doing ?

Imagine ..........

Patents based on Open Standards

I was going through the one newly issued patent on "Routing path optimization between sip endpoints". This patent is based on RFC 3261, 3489 etc. I am not sure this is a correct way because IETF contributes for the betterment of the society.
These companies who try to take advantage of open standards and make patents on it looks not ethical for me.

My 2 cents for - if these companies want to build these kind of intellectual property based on open standards, they should publish them as open standards. I don't know the policy of IETF on these issues but its advisable for them to have a policy for the "use of intellectual property" build on top of the open standards so that people who build business using the open standards will not be in trouble.


© yankandpaste®

Happy Dewali !!

© yankandpaste®

The five richest people in the world with their net worth

Believe it or not, on top 5 two from India, This clearly indicates the who is next big economic power. It time to forget US. Business happens in India.

The five richest people in the world with their net worth

1. Mukesh Ambani ($63.2 billion)

2. Carlos Slim Helu ($62.2993 billion)

3. William (Bill) Gates ($62.29 billion)

4. Warren Buffett ($55.9 billion)

5. Lakshmi Mittal ($50.9 billion)


Link
© yankandpaste®

ATV - All Terrain vehicle in India

ATV - All Terrain vehicle. Was reading more in this. In developed countries ATVs are used for farming activities and other recreation. Countries like New Zealand, Australia, Canada use them in farms with a lot farm attachments like Seed Spreader, Plow, Loader, Fertilizer spreader.

Wondering its usage in countries like India.


India ?? - No ATV but a lot of 100 - 250 cc motorcycles. Was reading Bajaj auto and TVS goes on a war for patent infringement.

Why not these people work together and make good engines than fighting each other ? Do they don't know Hondas and Suzuki's make good engines than them. Look at west - Pontiac sells Vibe which has complete Toyota engine against Toyota matrix ( same car under Toyota badge).


I was wondering about an ATV using a good 200 cc - 300 cc India made engine ( lets look which engines and patents work ) for normal farm use. It should help people to do most farm needs without much money. May be these usage may make better engines.

Another idea was to try them on water scooters. Let these engines mature.
© yankandpaste®

Social Networking: How Many Portals You Need?

A few days ago, Unni posted about the malicious and criminal use of social networking portals. I know this debate has been there for a long time. In fact, like most of our other topics of interest, this one keeps coming back to our drawing rooms and cafe tables every once in a while with a new story break, a murder, a kidnap, a virus, a fraud...

We follow up such stories with great interest, collect every detail, add a few more hits to those sites, debate vigorously on using this new media discreetly, blast those unscrupulous fellows, and yeah, get back to our social networking portals and daily chores with the same interest and continue with the life just as always.

Well, I don't have anything against the social networking portals. In fact, I'm a regular visitor on at least a couple of such sites, Orkut and LinkedIn. But there is something that annoys me every time I check my inbox: someone has sent me an invite from x portal, and another from y portal. And, to my surprise, this someone and the other are my friends already connected to me on Orkut or LinkedIn.

I could never figure out why someone who is already connected to me requires me to get connected on yet another portal, just to add to my collection of user names and passwords? Or is it that they think I don't have anything worthwhile to do than browsing through profiles on x, y, and z portals?

And then, again, a couple of days later--many time after you are trapped, too--,they write to you, apologizing for the invite, saying it was auto-generated by that portal after trawling through their address books. Trawl through their address book? Sounds phishy, doesn't it? Well, yeah, it is another form of phishing. But then, when you ask more questions, you know. The portals didn't really invest in phishing techniques and technologies. Why should they, when there are so many naive users--techies, managers, journos, teachers, from all walks of life--who are more than willing to give their email IDs and passwords without any hesitation to anything that looks like a networking portal?! All my friends happily entered their email IDs and passwords and allowed those portals to get all that information that they wanted.

And some of those lucky ones had the good fortune of seeing their names on some mailing lists to which they never had sent a mail, despite wanting to. And that gave them a chance to send one more mail, to those 'august' mailing lists, apologizing for the inadvertent invites. Well, learning the hard way, someone might think. But then, who learns?

Maybe the one who fell in hot water, but for the others, that is just fun until they themselves fall prey to another such thing...

Till that happens, happy social networking! Enjoy!




© yankandpaste®

$48.6 million after taxes --

Friday night, four lucky people won the Mega Millions $330 million jackpot. That kind of number lends itself to fantasies of unlimited luxury. But the truth is, megamillions just aren't what they used to be.

A one-quarter share of the jackpot is $82.5 million. If the winner elects a lump-sum payment, which financial analysts suggest, they're down to $48.6 million after taxes. Already, unfortunately, the brand new millionaire is forced to make some compromises.



Read at link© yankandpaste®

Happy Onam!!!

It's Onam time. Wish you all a happy Onam !!

Onam ?
Onam is the biggest festival in the Indian state of Kerala. Onam Festival falls during the Malayali month of Chingam (Aug - Sep) and marks the homecoming of legendary King Mahabali. Carnival of Onam lasts for ten days and brings out the best of Kerala culture and tradition. Intricately decorated Pookalam, ambrosial Onasadya, breathtaking Snake Boat Race and exotic Kaikottikali dance are some of the most remarkable features of Onam - the harvest festival in Kerala.

Link 1
Link 2


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