Bujinkan Seminar Day One..

...the whole of the PMC have just been to the first installment of the Bujinkan seminar held by Shihan Lauri Jokinen of Finland, a 15th Dan (the highest rating) and we are still alive - found some interesting points of the body which, when an oppo digs his or her fingernails in, cause one to drop to the ground like the proverbial stone (well, like a stone anyway). Unfortunately we can't tell you where they are...you will have to go along to training for that..

...part two update tomorrow..

On This Day 350 Years Ago

..London diarist..

7th April 1661


To White Hall, and there I met with Dr. Fuller of Twickenham, newly come from Ireland; and took him to my Lord's, where he and I dined; and he did give my Lord and me a good account of the condition of Ireland and how it come to pass, through the joyning of the Fanatiques and the Presbyterians, that the latter and the former are in their declaration put together under the names of Fanatiques.

...good to see that some things haven't changed much..

Towards A More Sensible Banking System In Estonia?

The recession of 2008-2010 hit Estonia particularly hard, suffering one of the worst contractions in the EU after several years of extraordinary growth. This can be graphically demonstrated by the fact that, in the peak boom year (2007, just before the crash) banks were prepared to loan out as much through the course of the year as they held in personal deposits (and the total value of loans was about twice that of what was held in deposits).

And people say the banks were reckless?!...hmmm... well they got a lot of properties at knock down prices (since people were unable to keep up with repayments on their mortgages during the recession, the very banks who had given too-easy credit were then getting the houses back and potentially selling them at a profit, thus getting to sell the gold mine and keep the mine, as either Napoleon Hill or W. Clement Stone, I don't remember which, wrote about many years ago). I call it smart myself, don't think they were reckless about their own dealings..

A more recent and relevant truism comes from Robert Kiyosaki - when a bank tells you your home is an asset, they're not lying, they've just omitted to tell you whose asset it is (i.e. the bank's). But I regress...

Today it's very different as the banks reined in their own willingess to grant out loans to something more like a level it should have been in the first place, and loan turnover to February 2011 was only 15% of what they held in deposits.

This was further exacerbated by peoples' willingness to save during the recession years, and total savings (both personal and commercial) in Estonia are today at, I believe, a record level (about 10.5 Billion Euros - in a country of just 1.3 Million people!).

This is slightly puzzling given that inflation towards the end of 2010 and beginning of 2011 was very high (I've been quoted figures as high as 20% though am sceptical - though certainly the lower estimates of 4% seem a bit optimistic too) thus eroding those savings. But there's a natural tendency to hoard here in crisis times, which has served the country well in the past.

Just in case you're wondering where I'm getting these figures from (some of them anyway) or if you're wondering what the hell I'm talking about, and if you can read Estonian, you can see a fuller explanation here..

Brain Puzzler For Today..

Imagine a bacteria which, when having access to a source of food, will double in number every minute. So starting with one, we have two, one minute later, then four a minute after that etc. etc. for as long as there is food available.

Now imagine that scientist bloke off the Muppets puts just a single cell of this bateria (or a single bacterium) into a bottle, with plenty of food, and leave the room. It is 8.00am. When they (he comes back with that annoying Beaker thing) return at 12.00pm, ie. four hours later, they arrive just in time to see the very last scrap of food being devoured, and the bottle being completely saturated, ie. full of bacteria.

Now the question - at what point in time did the bottle become a quarter full?...


....think about it....




.....this can actually be done to the nearest minute...




....if you can't get the solution or can't be arsed, scroll down a bit..




...the time the bottle became a quarter full was 11.58 a.m., ie. only two minutes before the scientists returned!

Well done if you got it, if not, you probably stumbled on the fact that you tried to calculate the answer going from the beginning, with 1, 2, 4, 8, 16...bacteria....and of course it's impossible to say how many bacteria constitute a quarter-full bottle anyway.

The key is to start from the end. If the bottle becomes full at 12.00pm, that means one minute before, at 11.59, it's half full (since the number doubles every minute), and thus a minute before that, it's a quarter full. Therefore, a mere seven minutes before the finish, or 11.53am, the bottle is only 1/128th, or less than one per cent, full.

This has a wider application in fact, and I originally heard about it in the context of pyramid selling, where newcomers were being duped into parting with a lot of money in order to 'get started' in a market that seemed to have had very limited penetration, thus providing very fertile ground for making a lot of sales in comparison with other, more saturated markets. In reality, the market was at 11.53 a.m. or thereabouts, as if by magic it suddenly became quarter, then a half, then completely full, and the hapless would-be salesperson was left scuppered.

On the other hand the mould in the cup I left in the cupboard under the sink seems to be multiplying at an even more rapid rate..

Thought For The Day No. 51: With The Rabbi Anders Weiss

...psychologist, spiritual guru and arbiter of good taste..

...great example of circular logic..

"If reading were not supposed to be illegal, then it wouldn't be against the law,would it?" 

Anon 

..the correct answer is either yes or no.

Thought For The Day No. 50 - With The Rabbi Anders Weiss

...psyhologist, spiritual guru and arbiter of good taste..

Taking the initiative is not a zero-sum game. If you take the last piece of pie or cake, you deprive another person of it who may have wanted it. You take the initiative and, potentially, others can actually benefit from it..

Beware Of Cults

This is an interesting site. Not a blog, but rather a collection of essays focused on alcoholics anonymous, its accompanying 'big book' and '12 steps', its weird, philandering confidence trickster of a founder Bill Wilson (that was his real name, nothing anonymous there) and sinister partner in crime Dr Bob (Robert Holbrook Smith, who also has his full name and photos plastered anonymously all over the place) and other related releventia.

You may wonder why someone who doesn't battle with alcohol, as none of the residents of the PMC do, would want from a site like that, but it is pretty pertinent stuff. Even if you don't know / aren't related to an alcholic, someone who has been a part of AA and its derivatives (NA, AL-ANON, the list goes on) or someone who is connected with the recovery 'industry' in some way, you've probably seen it mooted as an effective 'cure' for alcoholism. The fact is its a lousy cure for alcoholism. In fact it is worse than doing nothing at all (really!).

But the site also explores cult in general (the moonies, scientology - Tom Cruise's and other Hollywood stars' cult of choice, and even Amway) and contains excellent advice and info on propaganda techniques (you need to know these 'cos you'll always get propaganda'ed at, even if you steer clear of any overtly cult org) and debating techniques as well (useful for those late night, beer fuelled 'debates' in the pub of course, well, not if you're an alcoholic however!).

Called the Orange Papers and maintained by a thoughtful, thoroughly diligent, erudite and funny Vietnam Vet, I recommend you take an hour (or three) off when you can to delve into it!

Other relevant sites if this whets your appetite include www.morerevealed.com,  the website of Rational Recovery, several South Park (from whom committed scientologist and voice of the late 'chef' Isaac Hayes quit after their mocking of that cult - funny he had no problem with poking fun at muslims, christians, mormons, jews et al) episodes including 'Bloody Mary' and 'Insheeption', and various youtube clips. Happy viewing and don't let the AA freaks intimidate you into surrendeing your brain!

Friedrich Hayek

..I was  going to eulogize about this titan of economics (all the good people are dead, remember?!) but then spotted this YT clip which seemed to do it somewhat better. I don't usually go or home made supposed-to-be-funny clips, especially where self-penned music is involved, but this is a happy exception. That said rhyming 'Hayek' and 'Kayek' is getting into Blur territory for dubious couplets, but it succeeds despite that ..