Brown Motion

I can hear you say - so?  What's there to write about?  Well as it happens this winter is one of the drier ones on record.   At least in this part of the country.  We are hurting and may need to ration our use.  Like watch where we are wasting it and try to curb it. News channels are having a feeding frenzy with terms used like 'Team Coverage of the Rain'.  People are liking it to parallels like it was a once in a lifetime cricket match between India and Pakistan or some serious event like the Italian Prime Minister being arrested for sexual mischief. There are accidents galore causing delays across the highway systems.  People as it were are freaking out.  On the other hand the water cooler is rife with - we really needed this rain you know type of banter - at least to keep water in the cooler I suppose. Of course there are no water coolers - just a faucet at a sink that serves as the gathering place to discuss your latest bone transplants to kid's education bein

You hear this phrase as business world lingo or something that is used to glam up a news soundbite.  But let us think about this for a minute.  What exactly is public?  And what is private? If you are a private citizen then you are considered to be part of the public.  So clearly anything private must be public?  So then if someone is trying to keep some secrets from going public can they actually keep them private? The army makes it even more confusing.  They actually call some people Private First Class or PFC.  Now what has class got to do with anything let alone something that has to be private?  Which btw is basically public.  Not too many of the public actually get to do anything First Class like travel for example but they don't actually call Coach as Public Coach Class.  That would not be classy for an airline. That makes no sense. So back to this Public Private Partnership mumbo jumbo.  It typically tries to refer to a scheme where a few Peters and Pauls have come

Like any well run business the movie producing industry also wants to know what it can sell and to whom.  Where it can make big money and gain market share. Their product aka films needs to resonate with or at least marginally stimulate the scattered demographic into action to go buy a ticket, rent a dvd or download their content. That brings us to what they produce and how they market.. Most marketing is packaged into what the story is about.  Sometimes not.  Previews are a good way to get attention.  So what the industry spit out in the last 12 or so months was with the omnipresent hope to get into the hearts and wallets of the young and the restless; those looking for a casket; those that fought wars or those that wished we did not; those with big wallets and those without... Then various producers hit on a major theme of playing the AGE card and cranked out entire movies to market the theme - 1. This is 40 - this is really about couples that hit the magic number and how t

It must take some innate talent to craft stories - esp a good yarn.  I have recently encountered a series of such tales set in America with a vigilante hero in the form of Jack Reacher.  It is the lead character of a series of books by a British author called Jim Grant - pen name - Lee Child. Like Agatha Christie and Ian Fleming in the mid 20th century this Briton has crafted his recent (about 2000 on) series on this pseudo monk like one man army called Reacher.  It is fascinating and somewhat compelling reading (at least in my case) where I have gone through the books in a matter of hours. I remember getting that same feeling of being engrossed as a good Poirot plot would.  The language is used efficiently to convey a lot of planning and motion that goes with the character's habits of being prudent yet lightning fast in his actions. It is also somewhat of a factoid fix where the author goes to the trouble of calculating or recording something as macro as the square footage o

I went to a bootcamp.  Outside of the daily work routine with its unknowns, it was a chance to expand the mental horizon and think big.  It was a two day training to learn about the payments industry evolution and understand the motivation of the various stakeholders from private to public entities to governments. More important to me than the actual curriculum was the intense dialog from the 30 odd participants that brought insight to any point of view presented with respect to markets.  Markets that accept different forms of payment tender to facilitate a transaction. The world we live in is full of transactions.  Whether buying a sweater online, or a burger or coffee at the local restaurant, a train ticket or plane ticket, or redeeming loyalty currency to get that free trip to the Bahamas.  Value is exchanged each time a buyer and seller come together. It is now commonplace to see various payment marks at the cash register when making a payment in the so called developed econo

Watched a bunch of movies past few days because I had some catching up to do in the movie department. The Butler is a story about a black man who got hired to be a butler to the American President.  Served through four or five administrations till he retired. Takeaway from watching this rather long film - Forest Whitaker again proves that he is a good actor. Hypocrisy has been and is very much present in America. Based on a true story - is a marketing gimmic and can mean absolutely anything. Hard work / Diligence means more than smarts and style. For as long as the film is the director could have spent a few minutes to at least show one good drink recipe..

I remember an orange flavored softdrink in India back in the late seventies or early eighties called Rush.  It was competing with the incumbent leader known as Gold Spot which I suspect was discontinued when Coke bought the brands... Recently I happened on this film called 'Rush' and wanted to see it if nothing because it reminded me of some upstart trying to unseat an establishment. The film did not disappoint in that sense.  It is the story of Formula One racing rivals in the 70s.  Niki Lauda was the Austrian upstart with no real background in racing going head to head with another wild character called James Hunt from England.  The way he is heard saying his name is uncannily similar to how Bond used to introduce himself. It is one of those inspiring movies about dedication and grit played out with enough zing to keep you interested to the end.  I am not really one to understand the motivation of going in a loop at high speed to prove something to someone, especially t