This Is Danny Pearl's Final Story

Read and weep son. At how people can kill in the name of religion. And be proud of it. As if God, the merciful and compassionate, Allah u Akbar will celebrate and congratulate people who saw off people's heads. But down history, more people have been killed in the name of God than anything else. Think about Aurangzeb. We saw his pearl mosque yesterday at the red fort. A man who was so religious that he killed hundreds of thousands of people. Welcome to these religious bastards lives. And the only way to resolve this son is to keep educating them. The women. Get them into the economy. You cannot fight religious fundamentalism by war and guns only. You need to educate them. You need to laugh at their stupidity. 

Love

Baba

This Is Danny Pearl's Final Story
http://www.washingtonian.com/projects/KSM/index.html

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Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is walking toward me in a black prayer cap, a cream-colored tunic, and matching shalwar, or baggy pants. He’s hunched over, his beard dyed red, a symbol of piety to conservative Muslims, and I can’t take my eyes off him.

It’s May 5, 2012, the first time in three and a half years that KSM—as he’s known to American officials—has appeared in court, outside his prison cell. We are at Guantánamo, where a US military commission is about to arraign him and four other men for the September 11 attacks, in a courtroom that feels like a movie set. Erected atop an abandoned airfield on the base, it’s as big as a warehouse and has small trailers outside set up as holding areas, one for each defendant. When the courtroom door opened for the men, the Caribbean sun pushed its way into the room first.

I’m in seat number two in the first row of journalists and spectators, separated from the defendants by a wall outfitted with soundproof glass. A video system feeds sound and pictures to screens above us. I’m about 30 feet behind KSM, and there are 40 of us in the gallery. Yet as KSM takes his seat, it feels for a moment as if we’re the only two people in the room.

“Allahu, Allahu, Allahu,” I whisper.

For the families of those who died on 9/11, the day marks the start of what’s likely to be a years-long trial for justice against KSM, the self-described architect of the World Trade Center attacks. For me, it’s something else. KSM is the man who bragged about taking a knife to the throat of my Wall Street Journal colleague and close friend Daniel Pearl.

What Have the Romans Ever Done For Us?

Kids

One of the strange things about religions is how territorial they are. Pretty much every religion has borrowed from some other religion or customs. Which is perfectly fine but then that invites charges of hypocrisy when they turn around and say it's the literal words of god. Well, god seems to have this habit of changing his mind eh? 

Personally speaking I like Gods who change their minds. It's more fun. Can you imagine having a God whose mind doesn't change? How boring. You might as well as forget the laws of physics anyway. Even gods are subject to laws of physics, thermodynamics and entropy eh? 

Anyway a nice little history lesson here. As you know kannu we took you to Rome when you were 3. Far too young to appreciate the wonders of Rome. And now that I'm studying Roman architecture I'm minded to take you two to Rome and Florence and Venice and and and again. Shall we? Couple of weeks? Of sun, sea, sand, lovely food, mouldy buildings and get you kids a bit of a refresher course in the horrible history of Italy? :) 

Love

Baba

What Have the Romans Ever Done For Us? Christmas Edition
http://rogueclassicism.com/2013/12/24/what-have-the-romans-ever-done-for-us-christmas-edition/

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Nice little feature on Classical elements in Christmas … according to Matthew Nicholls at Reading (so it’s got a scholar behind it!) … via the University of Reading:

When opening your presents or enjoying a night out this Christmas spare a quick thought for the Romans. We owe much of our festive fun to them.The Romans celebrated the winter festival of Sigillaria on 23rd of December, part of their Saturnalia¹ festivities. Just like on Christmas Day, Sigillaria saw presents exchanged. So how does Sigillaria compare to a modern day Christmas? And can we say that the Roman’s invented Christmas?Dr Matthew Nicholls, a senior lecturer of classics at the University of Reading, has explored the work of Martial² and Seneca, writers of the time, and found striking similarities including gifts of ugly but warm ‘jumpers’, ‘Kindlesque’ portable storage for books and even a Roman bah-humbug!Dr Nicholls is the creator of Virtual Rome, an ambitious digital model of the entire ancient city of Rome.
GiftsThat’s just what I always wanted“The poet Martial’s work indicates that gift recipients would have faced similar ‘reaction’ issues to our own. Quality of presents varied enormously. The traditional present for the Saturnalia was some nuts – not unlike old fashioned handful of walnuts in a Christmas stocking. Martial mentions ‘gifts given and received’ some of which sound rather familiar.“Fish-sauce, jars of honey, bottles of wine, toothpicks, a pencil case, perfume, a flask encased in wicker-work and clothing – even an item that sounds like an ugly but warm Christmas sweater…a ‘shaggy nursling of a weaver on the Seine, a barbarian garment … a thing uncouth but not to be despised in cold December … that searching cold may not pass into your limbs … you will laugh at rain and winds, clothed in this gift’. (Ep. 4.19)The Roman Kindle that could store the entire

The lost pages of ‘Longitude’

Kannu
We have the book. And we went to see the clocks as well at the Greenwich museum. Harrison was a brilliant man son.  We also have the clockmakers museum in the guildhall in london. Small museum. Just about 2 rooms. But then you don't need that many rooms to show tiny watches and clocks. We also saw a large clock in the Salisbury cathedral if you remember? I've also seen large sun dials son, in India and elsewhere.
Time is a funny old thing. Did you know Indian mythology has the longest unit of time? Called as Kalpa? 4.3 billion years. It's mentioned in the Mahabharata and the Vishnu Purana. Both books are at home but perhaps you don't want to read the Bhagwat Purana at the moment. It's more than 1000 pagers. Fascinating book. Can you imagine the imagination of the old chaps who could imagine the concept of such a long period of time? Reach deep into the concept of time and it becomes indistinguishable with questions of space and humanity.
From a mathematical and physics perspective son, time is very difficult to describe. Very complex. If you have read the work done by various geographers and mathematicians including say somebody like Isaac newton in his principia mathematica, you'll see how they have represented time.
So representing time in a clock itself is very complex. And then it comes to longitude. This link takes you to a chapter which wasn't in the book. And talks about the tragedy of la salle. The man who founded Louisiana and came down the Mississippi and and and. Fascinating.
Love
Baba

I saw this article when using the Financial Times app and thought you might be interested:
Financial Times,
The lost pages of ‘Longitude’ by Dava Sobel
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By Dava Sobel
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Dava Sobel’s account of the struggle to accurately measure longitude was a global bestseller. But one short chapter from her original manuscript was never published. Here, introducing that missing fragment, she remembers her own dramas at sea and marks the 300th anniversary of the act that helped the world find its way
Read the full article at: http://on.ft.com/1iWDtwQ

She cares not a turd':

Generally I absolutely hate people scribbling on books. They need to be pristine kids. The very idea of writing all over it is a bit foreign to me. It's like defacing them. 

But then defacement for somebody may be fascinating for somebody else. Here's a nice little investigative article on some scribbles on an old old book. 

And yes I do give a turd if you deface our books! 

Love

Baba

'She cares not a turd': Notes on a 16th century Squabble - Medieval manuscripts blog
http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2014/01/she-cares-not-a-turd-notes-on-a-16th-century-squabble.html

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While we were preparing the catalogue entry for Harley MS 7334, one of our most recent uploads to Digitised Manuscripts, we came across a very curious marginal note, and would like to solicit your ideas about it.

Decorated initial ‘W’(han) at the beginning of the Canterbury Tales, England (London or East Anglia, c. 1410), Harley MS 7734, f. 1r

But first a bit of background.  This manuscript is a relatively early copy of Chaucer’s famous Canterbury Tales, and was created c. 1410 in England, probably in East Anglia.  The scribe who penned it was responsible for other manuscripts containing the Canterbury Tales (such as Corpus Christi College, Oxford, MS 198, for example), leading some scholars to propose that it was a production of a commercial scriptorium specialising in such texts.  Harley MS 7334 has a rather complicated ownership history, and passed through a number of different hands during the tumultuous 15th and 16th centuries.  The task of untangling its provenance is both aided - and complicated - by the profusion of notes, signatures, and inscriptions that can be found throughout the manuscript, many of which were added by later hands.

Wavell and the Dying Days of the Raj: Britain's Penultimate Viceroy in India

Kannu

We walked about in sunny old Delhi. The city where one set of imperialists and colonisers, the Mughals, were overthrown by the next lot, The British. 

And after the divide and rule policy, the British desperately tried to keep India together. And then whilst Gandhi spoke for all Indians, Jinnah and Ambedkar, ironically all liberal lawyers blessed with some of the greatest minds known to India in the recent years, along with Nehru, managed to bollox it all up. There's nothing that irritates people who claim to speak for narrow groups than to be faced with people who speak for all. So for example, if somebody bangs on about nationalism, if you wanted to wind them up, speak to them about children's rights. If somebody talks about religion, cut them off by talking women's rights. At end of the day, see the universal declaration of human rights. That's a good one to memorise and use as principles son. 

In the meantime, read about great men with feet of clay who ended up killing hundreds of thousands of people in the partition of India. You walked in those grounds son, yesterday, where millions were uprooted and in many cases killed for being in the wrong religion. Bah. 

Love

Baba

H-Net Reviews
https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=37909

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Mohammad Iqbal Chawla. Wavell and the Dying Days of the Raj: Britain's Penultimate Viceroy in India. Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2011. xi + 293 pp. $25.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-19-906275-1.

Reviewed by Anirudh Deshpande (Department of History, University of Delhi)
Published on H-Asia (January, 2014)
Commissioned by Sumit Guha

Wavell and the Ironies of India’s Partition in 1947

Lord Wavell was destined to be the second-to-last viceroy of British India. A seasoned British imperialist soldier and an Old India hand, he was appointed to the post in 1943 and remained in office until March 1947 when his flamboyant successor Lord Mountbatten took over. Mountbatten succeeded Wavell in order to supervise the liquidation of the Raj. For various reasons, including his dashing personality and an interesting wife, Mountbatten has managed to attract more than his share of attention from scholars. In contrast, Wavell, who tried in vain to keep India united between 1943 and 1947, is almost a forgotten figure of history.

No doubt, history students know much more about the Mountbatten Plan than the Wavell Plan. The public, in general, has forgotten Wavell and the plans that he devised for India in the twilight of the Raj. In this book, Mohammad Iqbal Chawla highlights Wavell’s plans, which became increasingly impossible to execute in communally charged postwar India. By the time Wavell became the viceroy of Britain’s most important colony, the sun had set on the British Empire. The two world wars exhausted Britain and made it financially and politically subservient to the United States. In 1943, Britain did not have the political, military, and financial means to ensure a smooth and peaceful transfer of power to the Indians in the troubled and anxiety-ridden 1940s. The appointment of a veteran soldier as the viceroy of India, after the Quit India rebellion was quelled by the Raj in 1942, failed to produce a negotiated political settlement between the British and various Indian parties.

The Incredible Buddha Boy

Kannu

Here's one of those stories which keep coming up from the exotic orient. Where amazing inexplicable things happen.  When I was your age son, didn't really believe in God. Or that unseen power. Why would I? Brave man. Full of knowledge of the world. Science. Regression statistical analysis. There is no god. There's only nature. 

And then I started to see stuff that didn't make sense. And yes I learnt about fear. Fear for you two kids. Knowing that you are totally dependent upon me to raise you up like a good man, a good citizen and that you will have a good life. Do all I can to help. 

And god appeared. I'm not religious but do believe in God son. I'm not saying you have to do it as well. This is a journey all have to go through themselves. But what that, and meditation, helped me to get along in my life son. 

Another thing in this article, the author doesn't think through his religions in Nepal. It's actually a Hindu Kingdom but the way Hinduism works, it's very difficult to separate out in the layman. Buddha was considered and is still venerated as an incarnation of Vishnu. Go figure. It usually drives the Buddhists completely spare but hey, the Buddha himself never said that he was inventing a new religion or to worship him but that's what his followers did. Just like Christ. He never said that people need to become Christians, he just wanted to refocus people's minds on Judaism. And then people started worshipping him. 

Anyway I digress. Indian mythology is full of examples of our Rishi and munis going for long periods of time without eating or drinking while meditating. Me? I cannot do that. It takes too long. 

Oh another thing, beware of people who tell you that you have to show off your meditation. It's inward looking son. Just you and your mind and god. People go about doing huge productions out of meditation. Well that's fine but at end of the day, it's just you your mind and God. Or the universe. 

Love

Baba

Longform Reprints: The Incredible Buddha Boy by George Saunders
http://longform.org/stories/the-incredible-buddha-boy

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All photos by Jeff Riedel

WANT TO SEE A POSSIBLE MIRACLE? NO THANKS, I'M DOING MY TAXES

Last December, I got an e-mail from my editor at GQ. A 15-year-old boy in Nepal had supposedly been meditating for the past seven months without any food or water. Would I like to look into this?

I went online. The boy’s name was Ram Bahadur Bomjon. He was sitting in the roots of a pipal tree near the Indian border. The site was being overrun by pilgrims, thousands a week, who were calling this boy “the new Buddha.” He’d twice been bitten by poisonous snakes; both times he’d refused medicine and cured himself via meditation. Skeptics said he was being fed at night behind a curtain, that his guru was building himself a temple, that his parents were building themselves a mansion, that the Maoist rebels, in on the hoax, were raking in tens of thousands of dollars in donations.

I e-mailed my editor back: I was pretty busy, what with the teaching and all, besides which Christmas break was coming up and I hadn’t been to the gym once the preceding semester, plus it would be great to, uh, get an early start on my taxes.

Then we embarked on the usual Christmas frenzy, but I couldn’t get this boy off my mind. At parties, I noted two general reactions to the statement Hey, I heard this kid in Nepal has been meditating uninterruptedly in the jungle for the past seven months without any food or water.

One type of American—let’s call them Realists—will react by making a snack-related joke (“So he finally gets up, and turns out he’s sitting on a big pile of Butterfinger wrappers!”) and will then explain that it’s physically impossible to survive even one week without food or water, much less seven months.

A second type—let’s call them Believers—will say, “Wow, that’s amazing,” they wish they could go to Nepal tomorrow, and will then segue into a story about a transparent spiritual being who once appeared on a friend’s pool deck with a message about world peace.

Try it: Go up to the next person you see, and say, Hey, I heard this kid in Nepal has been meditating uninterruptedly in the jungle for the past seven months without any food or water.

See what they say.

Or say it to yourself, and see what you say.

What I said, finally, was: This I have to see.

History of Singapore

Kids

Here's a short history of Singapore. I will be going there again this year and may well have you join me when I'm there. 

It's a lovely place. Bit humid and far too planned but nice place. Very good food. Very good indeed. Lovely place to walk around and see people, the zoo and the architecture. 

But to know a people you need to know the country's history kids. Singapore is one of the places where a strongly technocratic meritocratic government and society had taken root with a dose of authoritarism. And in return for giving up some of their freedoms, the Singaporeans have managed to have a very good economy. But societal divisions still happen. Recently there were riots in little India. The Malays don't speak to the ruling Chinese. Not that much anyway. Not that there's much to talk about eh? :) 

Interesting times. And good places. 

Love

Baba

History of Singapore - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Singapore

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This article's introduction section may not adequatelysummarize its contents. To comply with Wikipedia's lead section guidelines, please consider modifying the lead to provide an accessible overview of the article's key points in such a way that it can stand on its own as a concise version of the article. (discuss).(December 2013)

Part of a series on the

History of

Early history of Singapore (pre-1819)

Founding of modern Singapore (1819–26)

Straits Settlements (1826–67)

Crown colony (1867–1942)

Battle of Singapore (1942)

Japanese Occupation (1942–45)

• Sook Ching massacre (1942)

Post-war period (1945–55)

• First Legislative Council (1948–51)
• Maria Hertogh riots (1950)
• Second Legislative Council (1951–55)
• Anti-National Service Riots (1954)

Internal self-government (1955–62)

• Hock Lee bus riots (1955)

Merger with Malaysia (1962–65)

• Merger referendum (1962)
• Operation Coldstore (1963)
• Race riots in Singapore (1964)
• MacDonald House bombing (1965)

Republic of Singapore (1965–present)

• 1969 race riots of Singapore (1969)
• Operation Spectrum (1987)
• East Asian financial crisis (1997)
• Embassies attack plot (2001)
• SARS outbreak (2003)
• 2013 Little India riot (2013)

Timeline
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Singapore portal

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The history of Singapore dates to the 11th century. The island rose in importance during the 14th century under the rule of Srivijayan prince Parameswaraand became a port until it was destroyed by Acehnese raiders in 1613

Unconditional Love

I had my pets and I know exactly what this feeling is :)

Please adopt a dog, we are desperate for good foster and direct adopter pet owners.

Click here.

 

The hard graft of finding a graduate job in the City of London

Note the point being made by the chap who says that he should've applied for internships son. And also look at the competition, 135 applications for every position. I get weekly requests to meet at least 2-4 students every week and do try to meet them.
Even with an internship it's challenging. By the time you graduate son, the banking industry will be even more competitive and shrunken.
So next year, besides you having fun, do try to get an internship. Start looking for these roles son. Otherwise you'll have regrets. Like this chap did. It's very very corrosive son. Avoid. Plan ahead. Be slightly paranoid. Remember you judge yourself with what you think you've done while others judge you by what you're done.
Let me know if I can help in any way.
Love
Baba

 

The hard graft of finding a graduate job in the City of London
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By Emma Jacobs
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Two Londoners with degrees in Maths took a novel approach to the jobseekers’ market by touting for work in a public square….

Competition for graduate- level jobs is fierce. According to figures released by the Office for National Statistics last month, almost half the UK’s new graduates are working in non-graduate jobs. Forty-seven per cent of those who had finished their degree in the past five years were working in roles such as sales assistants and care workers. Recent analysis by the Financial Times showed that people who graduated this year are earning 12 per cent less than their counterparts before the financial crash.

Typically, positions at investment banks or fund managers are highly contested. These industries receive 135 applications per job, according to the Association of Graduate Recruiters…..However, they believe that it was perhaps a mistake not to have applied for internships when still students. “I wanted to focus on my degree. I got the chance to study in Hong Kong for a year and I wanted to do well,” says 23-year-old Mr Abbas.

Read the full article at: http://on.ft.com/1gIsit6

The problem with high frequency trading

I was working in Solomon brothers son when I first came across algorithmic trading. This is around 2000. You were 5 years of age then. We launched 4 of these models and the limit was 50000$ per day. 3 would propose trades and one would decide and then launch the winning trade. 

Life has moved on hugely since then son. It's become something like skynet from the terminator days lol. The equity markets are really strange. There is no money to be made. Take a look at the major players, hardly anybody on the sell side makes any money because there's no margin. Spreads are so tight. And therefore it's difficult. Good for retail investors like you and I but for the big boys it's getting stupid. The buy side, the asset managers and fund managers, who buy and hold for longer periods are still around and will be so as well but it's going to be a difficult time for equities son. So do think again about your career option of being a stockbroker. Not enough money. 

Be somewhere where technology supports you. Like you come up with new complex instruments and strategies while technology helps. Or go into the advisory business where you need to take nonlinear decisions. Combine your mathematics knowledge with knowledge of technology, philosophy, politics, economics and something that you will pick up later on - psychology. That's what's will help pay huge dividends son. 

Love

Baba

The problem with high frequency trading | Felix Salmon
http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2012/10/06/the-problem-with-high-frequency-trading/

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Last night, on BBC Radio 3, I was featured reading an essay about high frequency trading. I hope it’s fun to listen to, but if you want to read it, here you go.

One of the many consequences of global warming is that it’s now, for the first time, possible to drill under the sea bed of the Arctic ocean. The oil companies are all there, of course, running geological tests and bickering with each other about the potential environmental consequences of an oil spill. But they’re not the only people drilling. Because there’s something even more valuable than oil just waiting to be found under the Arctic.

What is worth so much money that three different consortiums would spend billions of pounds to retrofit icebreakers and send them into some of the coldest and most dangerous waters in the world? The answer, of course, is information.

A couple of days ago, I called a friend in Tokyo, and we had a lovely chat. If he puts something up on Twitter, I can see it immediately. And on the web there are thousands of webcams showing me what’s going on in Japan this very second. It doesn’t look like there’s any great information bottleneck there: anything important which happens in Japan can be, and is, transmitted to the rest of the world in a fraction of a second.

But if you’re a City trader, a fraction of a second is a veritable eternity. Let’s say you want to know the price of a stock on the Tokyo Stock exchange, or the exact number of yen being traded for one dollar. Just like the light from the sun is eight minutes old by the time it reaches us, all that financial information is about 188 milliseconds old by the time it reaches London. That’s zero point one eight eight seconds. And it takes that much time because it has to travel on fiber-optic cables which take a long and circuitous route: they either have to cross the Atlantic, and then the US, and then the Pacific, or else they have to go across Europe, through the Middle East, across the Indian Ocean, and then up through the South China Sea between China and the Philippines.

But! If you can lay an undersea cable across the Arctic, you can save yourself about 5,000 miles, not to mention the risk of routing your information past a lot of political flash points. And when you’re sitting in your office in London and you get that dollar/yen exchange rate from Tokyo, it’s fresh from the oven, comparatively speaking: only 0.168 seconds old. If everybody else is using the old cables and you’re using the new ones, then you have somewhere between 20 milliseconds and 60 milliseconds when you know something they don’t.