ALL THINGS BIG AND SMALL 2.0

Two years ago, I made the acquaintance of a high-frequency algorithmic trader, and was invited to view his operations: In a small, darkened room a few doors away from our office in Princeton, NJ, three traders sat hunched over large multiple-screen computers. Colorful charts writhed across the screens like snakes, and numbers flashed and scrolled, updating in milliseconds. Just recently, such secretive operations were brought into the limelight with the arrest of the Goldman Sachs engineer who stole the codes for an algorithmic strategy. The public is now aware that at least 50 % of the trades on Exchanges across the world are algorithmically driven. That is, no humans are involved as trades are executed at the speed of 500-1000 trades per second. And large blocks of shares are broken up, bought or sold in split seconds to avoid detection. The machines send out probes and gather information to enable them to profit from statistical arbitrage i.e. differences in Bid and Ask of as small...

1. A Black-Naped Tern 2. Two chicks and an egg on the hot bare ground of our oil-rig construction yard 3. The beach front has been filled with discarded concrete waste for a gentle slope for rig-launching 4. Part of the vast expanse of the yard 5. Low loaders bringing yet more of the pre-fabricated buildings 6. Erection of a steel workshop in progress Amid the hustle and bustle in the development of our oil-rig construction yard, on the burning-hot bare ground, Life begins for two Black-naped Tern chicks just out of their eggs. And in the midst of a technical discussion on the Master Construction Schedule, padeyes for winches and load analysis for jib crane pillars, a beautifully irrelevant email conversation insidiously emerges that for a brief moment bonded us with a consciousness of the Beauty of Life and the Greatness of the Universe and its Maker whoever it may be. And for a few minutes, the two little chicks loomed larger in our life than thoughts of 12000 ton cranes, 100 a...

This beautiful and definitely tasty dish is contributed by Honey Smith Walls of Melbourne, Florida. Recipe Honey’s L'Orange Pullet du OinkJune 19, 2008Oven: 400 degrees – Bake at least 45 minutesServe with steaming Rice or delicately done Fettuccine, piping hot Peas, Cold Cranberries, and some chilled White Wine.Ingredients:Chicken breasts (Pounded w/tenderizer) Small Ham Steak (Diced)Egg WhitesOrange Marmalade Lemon Zest (totally optional)Alfredo Sauce (I cheat & use store bought)Chicken “Dip” – Rice Crispies, Parmesan, Red Hot Pepper Flakes, Salt & Pepper, Cayenne, Garlic PowderCheese: Shredded Parmesan, Mozzarella, Manchego, White Stilton w/Lemon, Or exchange Manchego and/or White Stilton w/Lemon for Edam and/or Havarti But add a little Lemon zest.(Chicken Dip Instructions: Crush a bunch of Rice Crispies (at least a few cups) in a gal. Ziplock bag with a full bottle of wine (or a can of beans works too). Add at least a cup (or more) of ...

1. Logo is correct but name on side says Morante 1. A Bluebird taxi or a fake? Windscreen says Bluebird Group but logo on side is different 2. The Bluebird logo 3. A fake Bluebird 5. A Silverbird taxi Any new visitor to Indonesia would very soon be familiar with Bluebird Taxis. The Bluebird Group’s ( http://www.bluebirdgroup.com/ ) blue taxis are as iconic as the yellow cabs of New York. But more than their appearance they are also an icon for reliability, honesty, security and cleanliness. In an industry where rip-offs, smelly rickety cabs, dangerous driving, bad attitudes and robberies are common, Bluebird stands out as being very different from its peers. When a visitor arrives at Jakarta airport, taxi touts swarm around like flies. But if you keep your cool and walk unswervingly to the Bluebird stand, you know you are in safe hands. So great is its reputation that Blue Bird is an unshakeable brand, and its peers in the industry have had to adopt unusual business strategies to ...

1. Soup with cabbage, carrots, fungus strips of rice flour and quail's egg 2. Flat bread with mutton, capsicum, carrot and onion gravy as topping 3. Stretching dough for the handmade noodles 4. Grilling mutton kebabs over a charcoal fire There are about 27 million Muslims in China-more than the population of Malaysia, Taiwan or Australia. The Uighur, Tartar, Uzbek, Tajik and Hui live mostly in the provinces that border Central Asia and Tibet, in the provinces of Xinjiang, Gansu, Ningsia and Qinghai. Except for the Hui they are distinguishable from the real Chinese, the Han; having a more Mongolian look with deeply slanted eyes and a more stocky body. Their food is different too, and mutton forms a large part of their diet- a testimony to their nomadic past on the steppes. In Shanghai, I found a small Muslim eatery next to my hotel, and it was a 24-hour joint, the Uighur family that owned it working in two shifts. The clear soup above was flavored with bits of mutton, and was a r...

1. My Besta 636 language computer: Chinese, English, and 10 other languages. 1. A Perankan lady dressed in their traditional Sarong Kebaya 3. An early Peranakan house in Katong district preserved as a heritage building .Note the ornate tiles and motifs 4. A plate of Kueh Lapis a Peranakan cake with colors of the rainbow, each color a dye derived from natural ingredients such as flowers and leaves. The Beauty of the Chinese Language I am a Singaporean classified as being of Chinese ethnicity in the official personal documents I hold. However, the truth is, I could not speak Chinese [Mandarin] fluently until the last few months, when I did some serious self-study using a Besta language computer. [see picture above] Now, as to why I was not able to speak Chinese, part of it lies in the fact that during my schooling years, Singapore was a British colony, and of course we learned English in school. But the main reason for my poor command of the Chinese language is a confluence of histori...

1. The Hindustan Motors Ambassador based on 1957 British Morris Oxford 2. Charing Cross Road in the hill resort town of Ooty [how quaintly English] 3. Young Indian women clad in colorful Saris 4. The nut and chickpea vendor 5.The Nilgiri hills of western Tamil Nadu 6. Decrepit railway coaches at a decrepit railway station 7. The Tea plantations of Ooty. Recently I visited the hill resort town of Ooty, in the extreme west of the Indian State of Tamil Nadu, about 2700 meters above sea-level I found many relics of the time when the British planters,soldiers and missionaries were here. A town with a name like Wellington, a road called Charing Cross, and a bookstore called Higginbottom's are a reminder of the days when the pallid English retired to the hills to escape the stuporific heat of the Indian summer. But more than the ghost of its ex-colonial status, I found in India many disturbing signs that make me doubt whether it should be put in the same league as China when we talk ...