ALL THINGS BIG AND SMALL 2.0

As Singapore faces a possible economic technical recession, many are hoping that the government will unleash a slew of measures that will stimulate the economy, and hopefully keep it from falling into a recession. But like medicine, economic stimuli only treat the symptoms and effect a temporary cure. Also, like medicine, economic stimuli (especially of the loose monetary policy kind) will have side-effects. China's bold economic stimulus in 2008 is an example of what can happen with loose monetary easing, which the Americans euphemistically call 'quantitative easing'.  In 2008, the world faced a financial crisis as the fall-out from the US sub-prime mortgage crisis caused a liquidity crunch in the global credit markets. Over the years the world, and all financial markets- debt, equities, forex, commodities- had become increasingly intertwined due to the instantaneous flow of information made possible by advances in communications technology. At the onset of th...

The statistical distribution known as the Pareto Power Law is a probability distribution that manifests itself in many human economic and social phenomena, as well as many geophysical phenomena. It is characterized by a few large values and a long tail of many smaller values. Some of the phenomena with evidence of being Pareto-like are: * The size of cities and towns * Income distribution in a capitalist economic system * Returns on the stock market * Sizes of sand particles * Numbers of Species in a Genus of animals * Internet traffic and demand on servers * Earthquakes and other natural disasters. Here I plot the number of page views on my blog by country. As you can see, it follows a Pareto distribution.  This shape still exists despite the fact that I know for sure, Ukraine in 2nd place cannot be due to humans visiting my site, but Bots. And Israel looks suspicious too. The rest of the results are logical. US has the largest English Internet po...

The Lord's Prayer in Scottish I am starting to fall in love with the Scottish language.  A Scottish friend just said to me: "Lang may yer lumb reek" . At first I thought he was using vulgar language on me. But now, I know it means " Long may your chimney smoke" which is like saying " I wish you a long and healthy life". What a nice way to put it.

Teleology= function by design. The purpose of something is reflected in its design. Teleological argument for existence of a Grand Designer.That the design is so wonderful as to argue convincingly for the existence of a Grand Designer. Aposematism: Using vivid colors to warn predators of toxicity. The Rainbow Grasshopper: One of the best examples of Aposematism  and one of the most vivid examples of Teleogical evolution. Not the Bible, nor the Koran-BUT THIS leads me to the conclusion that there is a good probability that there is a Grand Designer who created our world. But this does not mean I think we should have a relationship with It. It is Man's self-vanity to think that It wants to have a relationship with us. These photos show several sub-species. Or even some that are  not Dactylotum Variegatus but equally colorful like the Leichhardt Grasshopper of Australia's Kakadu region (Black and Orange one below) or the one with horny growths at the back of its head; Phy...

Everytime we see a photo of Kim Jong-Un, there are people around him taking notes. I wish I could see what are they writing down in their little notebooks? Or perhaps surreptitiously doodling while looking earnest ? [although if caught they will be executed]. Reminds me of the ubiquitous 555 Notebooks used by horse-racing bookies, taxi drivers, shopkeepers, pimps, and other small-time businessmen in Singapore in the 1950's I think they are still s old in the shops in Little India. I think Kim should at least give all his generals and bureaucrats more presentable-looking note books for them to take down his treasured advice on his 'guidance' tours. *** Note: 555 Notebooks is (or should be) a SG50 [Singapore's 50th Anniversary 2015] heritage item.

The Balestier area is famed for its tau sar piah, chicken rice, bak kut the, fish head steamboat. But there are other sides of Balestier not known to many.  Every day, as I sit in the coffee shop eating my lunch (not this dingy coffee shop, another one), I see a microcosm of the whole Balestier Road area. I see them all- the four categories of the non-resident population of the Balestier area; centered around the various activities in the area. 1.       The Novena Medical Center, Gynaecology and other specialist clinics ·         So in the coffee shop, I see lots of pregnant women and their husbands/boyfriends some of whom look very worried- the men occasionally going to the toilet to make furtive phone calls. ·          Indonesians, Indians, Thai and Malaysians who have come here to seek medical treatment combined with shopping. On the whole, they don’t look sick, but ar...

TAKE A PICK [no pun intended]- Your missing variable in the equation of Guitar Tone. You have: $4000.00 guitar $3000.00 amp $400 hand-wound pickups $100 cable $30 Titanium strings 50 CENTS PICK? OMG! Its time you try out and buy my luxury picks for that killer tone: Price range: 5.00 to 100.00. V-Picks, Gravity, SuperBite, Blue-Chip, Wegen, Huffschmid, Dunlop PrimeTone etc. Many sizes, shapes, and thickness. (Diamonds, Screamers, Pachellis, Farleys, Ghost Rims, Gypsy, Jazz III shapes etc) Selling those I don't use (picks must suit your style, guitar, music) The other photo is of my prize 3mm Huffschmid Glow-In-The-Dark Aqua Blue with special beveling. [30 Euros]