Ridicu'list' for the week

Biden in surprise visit to Iraq - Was he surprised that he was in Iraq? Or was it Eyeraaak? Man - all he was trying to do was to visit his nana in New Hampshire and the airforce probably got the flight plan mixed up. Or maybe he kept saying Turkey and they decided to fly to Turkey but got their flight plans mixed up and landed in what was once Iraq.

Market Multiples out of whack - this in connection with the equities market. Frankly to me the whole idea of a P/E is out of whack. How can one company be judged to be a better or higher price multiple than another? Who decides? Then top it off with accounting policies that are best left to the one that interpreted them all manners of cooking of the books is possible leaving the P/E a useless barometer to gage the health of any enterprise. Book Value is the best of the worst metrics to tell if something is going to be 'going concern' or not.
In fact 'going concern' itself sounds ominous. Where is it going? Under? What is the concern exactly?

Norway murder suspect insane - Are we suspecting he is insane or is the once suspect and now arrested person truly deemed insane? Did it take a lot of people and this much time to determine he is insane?
This is insane no?

After Big Black Friday can shoppers keep it up? This one is a loaded question and invokes the worry about what was truly going on during the busy shopping period. I had heard about pepper sprays used for additional fun but what is this about keeping it up I say?

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A few good books

On an informal mission to read one book a week as long as the eyes allow for such ambition. Fiction or non is not important as long as it entertains and /or educates. To that end the past few weeks have brought a bounty in the form of some wonderful and then not so engaging literature. Among the notables are - Non fiction category: 1. Good arguments by Bo Seo (how to handle a dispute or debate the most efficient way possible) 2. Genesis by Eric Schmidt (and former US Secy of State Henry Kissinger, who recently passed) - how AI might affect our lives as we know it 3. One in a billion - Zarna Garg (an autobiographical look at an Indian born American woman with a bindi narrated in a standup format - yes it is at times cliched but still funny) Fiction: 1. Personal by Lee Child (a vigilante story with Jack Reacher the giant, nomad protagonist of Child's novels goes hunting for a sniper) 2. Ramayana unraveled by Ami Ganatra (she might disagree about it being a work of fiction but oh wel...

Back in DC

This time for a tech conference in the realm of what else? AI. But applied to an oft neglected space called Knowledge Management. The latter is a community of practice that focuses on analyzing, organizing and making available reams of data that have been gathered over time by various functions within an organization for anyone in the company to utilize. This function or process is ripe for applying AI agents (or agentic AI framework) and optimize for better outcomes. It was informative. More rewarding was getting acquainted with folks who practice this craft as well as learning of what they see in the corporate or public sectors. Since the venue was Washington DC it also afforded me the chance to take evening strolls albeit the weather was trying. With wind chill in the single digit it still is a glamorous place to perambulate through history absorbing what this country has been through since its founding days. I was able to visit the place Lincoln was killed along with his monument t...

Costa Rica

Our first foray into Central America. That elongated isthmus that forms the geographic boundary between two vast continents of North and South America. Specifically landing for NYE 2026 in San Jose, Costa Rica. Capital city for this region that does not have its own army, instead relying on its big bro the Estados Unidos to the north is a metropolis of approx. 500K people. Largely wilderness and with both a Pacific and Carribean/Atlantic coast the country is rich in bio diversity. In Spanish it means the rich coast so named by Columbus landing in early 16th century and being mesmerized by the local tribes sporting gold jewelry. Our stay included visiting the foothills of a large strato volcano called Arenal and enjoying the naturally heated thermal baths for a while. Lunching amidst lush forest and watching indigenous species of avian noise makers fly overhead. Toucans, some sort of pea hens, multiple song bird species completed the spectacle. Iguanas and a lonel...

Brown Motion

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