Muses of Murari » Random

The Tank Man

saithilak — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 16:06:57 +0000

This is not new for many but for me. I think I was hibernating all these years without knowing the Tiananmen Square incident. Thanks to the recent visit to ROM museum, where Chinese terracotta warriors and the relevant First Emperor artifacts are in display, the China interests are kindled in me and drove me to know more about China. Then, I came across this marvelous human feat – The Tank Man act. Watch this video that happened during the Tiananmen Square incident

No wonder, this still unknown man is listed in “Top 100 most influential persons of 20th century” by Time magazine. And few political analysts think that this unknown man had influence on communism break down and the ultimate demise of Soviet union.

Forget all politics. Think about his act of rebellion. It’s absolutely unselfish, brave and inspiring act, to say the least. He’s really a true hero.

US-China tangle, Intel’s moves, smart grids & more links

“Let’s raise kids to be entrepreneurs”

saithilak — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 15:42:52 +0000

Interesting video for the parents.

This is TED video. Speech delivered by Cameron Herold.

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A refreshingly short film (Tamil)

saithilak — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 20:20:25 +0000

Kadhalil Sodhappuvadhu Yeppadi

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Poor customer service

saithilak — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 01:18:36 +0000

I’d unpleasant time with ZnetIndia, my domain host, for last few days. I tried upgrading my blog to latest WP version. I’d file permission problems. I tried changing with ftp client. Some how it din’t work. So I raised a ticket with them to help. They started with something and suggested something and it went nowhere. Worst part is, each time I send a response, a different support guy attends to it. And this is obvious pain. Why can’t they have one single person to attend a ticket till its closure.

These support guys couldn’t understand my simple problem. They gave un-simple solution, like go to this dashboard and change this setting blah blah blah. I informed them this is just file permission problem and they can do it from their end since they know the complete domain/host user account details. And then they rounded on problems like db wrong connection info. I tried that suggestion too, changing db credential info and you know what, it lead to wrong configuration of db connection. To add to the confusion, website was down for more than two days (with previously working db credentials) and they have no say on it. Finally, after several email exchanges, it started working. I don’t know what went at background. I’d several downtimes in the past. Every time, I gotto ping them and inform them to correct it.

ZnetIndia, your customer service is going down. I can see this not only in my case but also with few of my friends too. Hope you read this and correct it.

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Modern Interpreter

saithilak — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 21:04:07 +0000

I think nobody is creating more awesome interpretations of Indian mythology and spreading his discovery than Devdutt Patnaik. Listen to his interview below and his beautiful interpretations at his blog – http://devdutt.com/

His recent CNBC TV 18′s Business Sutra, is more awesome. – http://devdutt.com/topic/video

Financial Adviser

admin — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 09:05:11 +0000

I am slowly realizing how important a financial adviser is for a common man. If you are not bothered about wealth creation over your working years, you can continue to exist without financial advices. For all others, especially who are less financial literate, I think adviser is needed.

In 2007, I decided to work on wealth creation plan. I was clueless about financial avenues. I just dreamt of creating wealth through stock market. I had zero knowledge on stock market at that time. After searching few things on Internet, I came up with a simple and rudimentary scheme how I want to go about it. And it was not well thought out one though. The scheme is to start learning and investing in stock market in series of steps. First step, learn how mutual funds work, get information about it and start investing in ELSS schemes. And then try on non-ELSS schemes. Second step, after gaining experience in mutual funds, move over to stocks analysis. And investing in some lots for long term appreciation.

My naivety gets exposed if I tell next levels of my scheme. Next step I thought was to do learn and earn through intra-trading and then on to futures & options, commodity and money market!! Now, it is embarrassing to admit it.

When I was learning about mutual funds through online blogs, forums, I came across an interesting personal financial site – personalfn.com. The articles written by them were educative and helped me to form opinions and ideas. I was so impressed by their honest opinions, I called them up and told them that I want to invest through them. And a gentleman turned up next day and there it started my 3 year old financial adviser relationship with him. Later during the slump, this person was fired by his company and then he started his own advisory firm with his friend. I was told that the management of personalfn was changed and retail investor division was closed down. It reflected in their writings. The quality of their articles took a bad turn. Now-a-days, they are more like self promotion of their products.

This person (the adviser) gave me great advices throughout this 3 year period. Though I did not took his advice for my overall financial planning but for mutual fund investing purposes. He didn’t promote ULIPS but told me about term insurance plans. Advised against investing in hot mutual funds during the peak of bubble and asked me to go for consistently performing funds. Told me the simple way to select funds. And many more. It helped me to learn more and more.

In the next post, I’ll put some of my thoughts on the need of financial advisers.

Sports day

saithilak — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 13:45:51 +0000

My friends were making fun on Google buzz when I mentioned we are having sports day and annual day at our office. Actually, I thought it is school-ish. But now, more realizations are dawning as each day passes.

First, realization of my poor fitness. I am (was?) a good cricket player till I came to Bangalore from Chennai couple of years ago. I used to play every week and that kept my body agile and some what fit. Fast forward to now. I bowl one over and I am not able to lift my hand!! I run for a while and I can’t stand without breathing heavily through nose and mouth! That’s pretty bad news. We played a match today. I didn’t bowl to my potential due to my fitness level. Luckily, we won the match. I really really missing playing cricket these days. I should do something about it.

Second, during the two day practice sessions and match, I met lot of people in my company. New faces, new interactions and new friends. I realized I miss in this area too. I see lot of people are cool and not that alien as their looks deceive.

So overall, dividing people into four houses and conducting sports day is not at all childish. In fact it helps. More fun too.

MLM networking – book store strategy

saithilak — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 08:10:42 +0000

I had this repeated experience. I go to Landmark, Forum Mall, Bangalore. Browse through books. Some one turns up. Quotes some book name and ask me if I’d read it. Negative answer and then starts introductions and continues with questions on work, family etc.,. After some 10 mins of speaking, gets visiting card and leaves. After a day or two, I pick up the call from that fella. He tells me thatas there’s interesting business he’s doing and he wants to share with me. He asks for an appointment.

This happened four times. First fella visited my house and explained his MLM business. He took very long time, beating around the bush and finally said that he is marketing Amway products. Wah! get off! I had bitter experience with a MLM company. After much struggle, I came out of it. And then in short time, I met this fella who started all those motivational stories. I got irritated but I waited patiently to let him complete. At the end I told him my bitter experiences and my lost interest in MLM models. After listening my story, he again started to convince me and I showed him the door.

Same way other three set up conversation in the same Landmark store and later called me up. I showed them my outright rejection to their scheme. I could see only one thing positive from my personal experience and dealing with these Amway fellas. That is, one can pick up networking skills with these MLM models & its strategies! If any one wants to learn art of networking, may be joining MLM business is a good idea!

I am not sure whether anyone else had gone through this. But the fact that rare visitors like me, have gone through this four times at the same place, suggests me that a network of people are running this in more organized manner. I cannot guess how many people had fallen for this trap. Let this post be piece of warning bell. Be aware of these strategies and save your time and money.

Let money maketh money

saithilak — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 14:28:32 +0000

A couple years of ago, I had an item in my ToDo list. That is to learn stock market and make money. So I bought a couple of books on stock market and started to read. Slowly I learned various aspects of it (still learning) through online blogs, forums and websites. After a while, I started investing with mutual funds, as I had planned. I learned and analyzed many funds to pick right ones to invest. I decided on a couple of tax saving funds.

I was very sure that I picked the best funds in the market. But due to last minute influence of one my acquaintances, I modified one of my pick. And when I did my first investment (read bulk investment), market tanked big time. That was January’ 08. Even after this current rally, that last minute ill-fated fund is in 12 50% deep red!

In January’ 09, I invested a small amount in one of the IT stocks. I strongly felt to do so, though market was depressing. Now, that small investment is standing at good returns. Now, I am kicking myself for not investing more in that stock.

These two instances leave me with few questions – Is returns in stock market depends on just a chance? or does it has any room for intelligence? or hard work? “Money making Money” concept – I don’t know how this fits in work & earn tradition. I want to know where it fits the bill. Until then, I will let my money make money.

Random musings

saithilak — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 23:15:31 +0000

I find it amusing – names of some of the Indian Nobel laureates.

Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar. Chandrasekhar Venkata Raman. Venkatraman Ramakrishnan.

And also surprised to see this year’s Nobel peace prize winner!

It’s all in the family