Calendar - December 2015

December 2015 - The original jpg is at the dropbox link shown below
https://www.dropbox.com/s/gr8imkt6o49mpg8/12-Dec-2015.jpg?dl=0

December 2015

Calendar - November 2015

November 2015 - The original jpg is at the dropbox link shown below 
https://www.dropbox.com/s/b4edusc2b49ja9s/11-Nov-2015.jpg?dl=0

November 2015

Calendar - October 2015

October 2015 - The original jpg is at the dropbox link shown below
https://www.dropbox.com/s/o996v36n9gexsib/10-Oct-2015.jpg?dl=0

October 2015

Calendar - September 2015

September 2015 - The original jpg is at the dropbox link shown below
https://www.dropbox.com/s/tihu36foygia2nz/9-Sep-2015.jpg?dl=0

September 2015

Calendar - August 2015

August 2015 - The original jpg is at the dropbox link shown below
https://www.dropbox.com/s/paiwll6n34doa2d/8-Aug-2015.jpg?dl=0

August 2015

Calendar - July 2015

July 2015 - The original jpg is at the dropbox link shown below
https://www.dropbox.com/s/z19tvjh8lhjkaos/7-Jul-2015.jpg?dl=0

July 2015

Calendar - June 2015

June 2015 - The original jpg is at the dropbox link shown below
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ojk9xezpltw3zqt/6-Jun-2015.jpg?dl=0

June 2015

Calendar - May 2015

May 2015 - The original jpg is at the dropbox link shown below

https://www.dropbox.com/s/v2usajkj66ciqnk/5-May-2015.jpg?dl=0

May 2015

Calendar - April 2015

April 2015 - The original jpg is at the dropbox link shown below
https://www.dropbox.com/s/4kx0disk0cdzm9g/4-Apr-2015.jpg?dl=0

April 2015

Calendar - March 2015

March 2015 - The original jpg is at the dropbox link shown below.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xubv7nzs6w868wr/3-Mar-2015.jpg?dl=0

March 2015

Book Review - Flash Boys by Michael Lewis

Flash Boys - Michael Lewis

You could mistake this book for a high speed chase thriller .. that is how eminently readable it is.

This is the first non-fiction book that I have read continuously. I normally intersperse my non-fiction reading with lots of fiction. I may read a couple of chapters of a non-fiction book and then complete couple of fiction books and come back to the non-fiction book again ! But this book was so compelling - I read it through !!

After a kind of reading slump where I did not seem to have many fiction books that appealed or non-fiction books that I felt like picking up - I suddenly seem to have come across an explosion of book suggestions. From the slow 3 pines mystery series to the arctic splendor in Edie Kiglatuk's books ( I could not believe the Arctic was so teeming with life !! ) I have happily found books that will keep me occupied for some time !! :)

In the early stages of my career I was part of a stock exchange project where the goal was to change  the trading of futures / options from fractions to decimals.  This was the time of mainframes. At that time I did not relate much of what I did ( which was not much ) to the outside world. I just remember being fascinated the day the trades started to happen in decimals. A thrill of its own kind ! :)

Coming back - Flash boys starts off with the secret laying of a straight cable across a tough geographical terrain to give a microsecond advantage to traders willing to pay millions for the split second advantage.

What would the split second advantage mean ?? It would mean knowing in advance which trades would happen before everyone else and the opportunity to buy up shares at a lesser price and then turn around and sell it for more. Huge profits from knowing which trades to buy / sell !! This is front-running and it was legal the way it was being handled by the high speed computerized algorithm based trading in the stock exchanges.

The nano-second allowed one set of traders - to see a clear market view and the others an illusion. It created a class system and the US premise of a free and fair market was only a mirage. And this class difference was caused not by people but by the nano-second !

The high frequency traders who paid for this speed were minting money from providing no value to the general public.  The speeds of computer technology added efficiency in the areas that strengthened the intermediaries to make billions.

The unlikely protagonist of this book - is a former Royal Bank of Canada trader who founds his own exchange (IEX) to outmaneuver the high frequency traders. This journey is chronicled along with the challenges he faces as well as the people he picks up to build a 'fair' stock exchange.

What is ironic in this book are the marks of the scheme - they are not just regular folks - they are other hedge funds and wall street brokers who are also disadvantaged due to dark pools, kick backs, arbitrage advantages !

All in all - a wonderful read !!

Calendar - January 2015 / February 2015

I have been making personal calendars for sometime now. I first ordered one online and cringed at how small the pictures looked. Plus the pictures were cropped and I was annoyed. So the next year I decided rough and ready though it might be - I would make my own !

And so I did. I used excel at first. Rudimentary at best. Since then I have moved on to GIMP. I am no designer / artist but making my yearly personal calendar is an activity I truly enjoy.

This year after finishing my personal calendar - I felt like making monthly calendars from some of my personal nature snaps. So far I have done only two - for January and February.

The original jpgs - are at the dropbox links mentioned below.

Enjoy .... and happy new year 2015 !!!

January 2015   - https://www.dropbox.com/s/d2xn68he7j819tt/1-Jan2015.jpg?dl=0
February 2015 - https://www.dropbox.com/s/o0f76gbwyrjhovf/2-Feb2015.jpg?dl=0

January 2015

February 2015