Archive for March, 2005
30 Mar, 2005
Stock Market Scam
Came across this wonderful true story about a stock market scam:
The rise and fall of stock market prices is notoriously difficult to predict. Playing the market can be a fast road to penury, so when one particular stock broker started to demonstrate an almost superhuman capacity to detect market trends, he found his services in great demand. Was it down to pure chance, coincidence — or something else?
In fact, in his particular case, it was something beyond conincidence… though nothing of a paranormal or supernatural order. This publisher of a stock newsletter would send out 64,000 letters extolling his state-of-the-art database, his inside contacts, and his sophisticated econometric models. In 32,000 of these letters he would predict a rise in some stock index for the following week — and in the other 32,000 he’d predict a decline.
Whatever happened to the stock market that week, he’d send a follow-up letter — but only to those 32,000-odd people to whom he’d made a correct ‘prediction’. To 16,000 a decline. Whatever happened he would have sent two consecutive correct predictions to 16,000 people. And so on. In this way he built the illusion that he knew what he was talking about.
His purpose was to boil the database down to the 1,000-or-so people who had recived six straight correct predictions (by coincidence) in a row. These would think they had a good reason to cough up the $1,000 the newsletter publisher requested for further ‘oracular’ tip-offs.
26 Mar, 2005
Relation of Height to Salary
Taken from the book, Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell:
“Overwhelmingly, the heads of big companies are… also almost all tall: in my sample, I found that on average, male CEOs [of the companies on the Fortune 500 list] were just a shade under six feet tall. Given that the average American male if five foot nine, that means that CEOs as a group have about three inches on the rest of their sex. But this statistic actually underestimates the matter. In the U.S. population, about 14.5 percent of all men are six feet or taller. Among CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, that number is 58 percent…
“…Not long ago, researchers who analysed the data from four large research studies that had followed thousands of people from birth to adulthood calculated that when corrected for such variables as age and gender and weight, an inch of height is worth $789 a year in salary.”
It pays to be tall.
26 Mar, 2005
Poems of the Self
And now I see the face of god and I raise
This god over the earth, this god for who men have
Sought since men came into being, this god who
Will grace them with joy and peace and pride.
This god, this one word: I.– Ayn Rand
I came across the poem above in a book on the profiles of “great” people. After reading it, I was reminded of a poem I wrote four years back. Going through the archives of my old Geocities website, I managed to find it. Hope you enjoy it:
I can only stare in awe as you walk by me;
The beauty you exude tortures me!
I look at you and you invariably look at me.
I tilt my head to the left,
While you tilt yours to the right,
Your eyes glittering in the moonlight.
As I prepare to walk off so do you
And we bid each other goodnight.
Suddenly in the mirror I see light,
I turn around and there’s my friends,
Watching as I admired your every move!
But I’m not embarrassed and why should you?
I love you and you love me
We’ll love each other for eternity!
Oh I love myself!!!
25 Mar, 2005
How do I stand?
Taking the MRT today, I ran into a very serious problem — the problem of not knowing where to put my hands.
Leaning against the wall of the train, self-consciousness suddenly overwhelmed me. I started getting uncomfortable as I struggled to find the proper place for my hands.
Something I used to do unconsciously, my conscious mind simply could not figure out where my hands usually went.
Scanning the rest of the train, I looked out for models I might follow — other passengers of who were also standing, but whom showed no signs of the distress I was in.
Some were holding bags — I didn’t have a bag. Some were reading books or magazines — didn’t have those either. Some held on to the vertical bars for stability — where I stood had no bars. Some held their lover — I was alone.
In other words, there was no one I could really follow. People who had none of the above-mentioned were sitting down! So what did people standing without those things do?
I thought about how people stood in queues, but no picture came to mind — all I saw were people holding something, like bags or their children’s hands or anything really.
Just what is the proper way of standing in public empty-handed anyway?
See also Train of Thought, about a dilema one faces when a crowded train is suddenly almost empty.
17 Mar, 2005
Importance of an Ejaculation
Subject headers of questionable e-mails I have received regarding the interactions of a boy and girl in bed.
- Increase the volume of your ejaculation.
- Has your cum ever dribbled and you wish it had shot out?
- Your girl will thank me for it :)
I thought I might come up with a few myself…
- Problems obeying standing orders?
- Awake the sleeping volcano in you
- Shoot for the stars
- Soft margarine is supposedly good for you. But this is ridiculous.
- Make the red sea white