The 'Sagan' touch

Much ado about nothing? The energy spent in the media about the infamous incident at the winners' podium in this year's Tour of Flanders is beyond belief. In short, Peter Sagan, ending second in this year's day-race 'Tour of Flanders' on Easter Sunday, after almost 250 kms of cycling toil, thought no better than pretend to pinch the blonde's 'derriere' smiling at the photographers in front, while she was busy kissing innocently Fabian Cancelara, this year's Swiss winner. Poor Sagan had to apologise to the blonde, and give her flowers later that day. Female models playing such cosmetic roles during trophy ceremonies in the cycling events of this country are euphemistically named 'flowerpots' in Greece, and right they are them Greeks to call them so, as the only aim of the winner's kiss by a blonde is to add... I don't know what really...
        I enjoyed the readers' comments in articles and blogs about the incident following Sagan's touch. Many said he was right to do so. Others got crossed with him and wrote whatever your heart desires. Simply hilarious. Cancelara himself looked quite puzzled with the cheek-kisses by the blonde and the brunette (the latter rushing away with a smile in the shot above, while the blonde seemed to enjoy and continue what she was paid to do), as the poor sod's wife with their child was watching them just a few yards away.

       Just a few moments ago I got the answer I was looking for to my righteous question: Does this thing with winner's kisses by young models happen when the cyclists are themselves female? Do then chippendale boys come up to kiss them winners? No? Why not? Apparently, in the recent US Redlands Bicycle Classic, the number three of the race (Australian born Loren Rowney) decided to pinch a man's butt while he was shaking hands with the race's number one. Way to go, girl! I loved every bit of that picture, which I am glad to copy here for reference...
        On a serious note, someone with authority should stand up and teach those race organisers once and for all a lesson they'd never forget. Like forcing them on a winner's stage with their bare asses, and have the entire female contingent of East Flanders (from 8 to 88 years old) step by and pinch the f*ckers real good. Who ever said that we men want to see ceremonies with 'flowerpots' like that? And, for what is worth, where are all the so called 'feminist' organisations in Belgium, swallowing the tasteless 'ceremonial show-offs' by those male chauvinist dickhead race organisers? What is this? The 60ies? For crying out loud!

Thatcher

I wanted to title my post this morning with a reference to Baroness Thatcher's having noticed the movie posters of the 2001 blockbuster "The mummy returns", on her way to address a Tory rally in Plymouth, UK, and she wondered indeed whether they weren't simply referring to her. Unfortunately, as I was searching the exact data of the incident, I fell into the obituary by the Telegraph and "too late for that!" I thought. Many others are equally smart and much faster than I will ever be...

Anyways, I have been quite fortunate in my life to have seen the extraordinary woman on one occasion, only a couple meters away from where I stood, when we invited her back in 1998 to a Sterling Software User Conference in Dallas, TX, as a non-technical keynote speaker (we used to invite personalities of the sort, and customers really loved it; on one occasion we had a Lovell/Kranz double act about Apollo 13). It was after Thatcher's keynote, when she was escorted to a little tour around the conference stands. I remember she was extremely upbeat that day, and she didn't mind signing autographs. One of our female colleagues, very proud indeed as Thatcher came from Venus too, emerged as one of those with an autograph of hers on the back of a Sterling business card. A hilarious quote I remember of Thatcher's on that day, during her keynote, was about the then President of China. She referred to a meeting she had with him when she was PM, many years earlier, and told us she was reasonably impressed by his skills. "I could have used him in my cabinet", she stated, at the audience's ultimate amusement. Yep, Maggie was simply the best! She'll probably get the house in order up there in heavens where she arrived earlier this week...

My prime motivation for posting this today is not that I feel particularly qualified to say anything about this giant of leadership in world politics - who am I after all? - but about the lack of respect by younger people for her personage. I saw this picture at BBC this morning and was sickened by its view. Slogans like 'the bitch is dead' written on T-shirts, and a youth 'drinking' bubbly from a bottle to celebrate her passing. I wonder whether he didn't pick it up empty from a nearby litter and was just posing to show off (his utter thickness). Now tell me, how useless, brain-dead and good for nothing does one need to be to do something like that? Is this the kind of youth that is supposed to rule the world and make it a better place for us all to live in? Dream on. Thankfully, most sane people around, I'd like to believe, would think the way I do about those demonstrating jerks. Centuries after they do pass and disappear into nothingness themselves, the History will still remember and quote Baroness Thatcher for her contributions to the UK and the World, whereas, at the same time, the BBC picture with the drinking youth, most likely unborn during Thatcher's reign as a PM, will have vanished into oblivion too...

A tulip's passing...

If you want to play this slideshow, make sure you turn on your music at the tune of Alexandre Desplat's "Awakening", track nr 5 of his soundtrack for the movie The Tree of Life. 

I find the beauty of dead flowers stunning. It takes some time for them to perish, and their beautiful colours, when still alive, remain vivid for some time after their petals fall off and their leaves collapse. I love the colours and shapes and forms of dead flowers, I admit it. As much as I adore them while they are alive, I often prefer to photograph them in their process of decomposing. You know, each one of has his/her weak spots; this is mine. I hope you forgive me...

It sounds like music to my ears... tell'em kid!

Read today here:

Brian White of Topeka Capital Markets, who has a Buy rating on Apple shars and an $888 price target, writes that “we view the Galaxy S 4 as a refresh but NOT a game changer.”
“We believe the iPhone 5S will handily outsell Samsung’s new flagship smartphone in the second-half of the year, while we believe Apple will expand its world with a lower-priced iPhone in 2013.”
Samsung is engaging in something of a “shell game,” thinks White:
One of the strong points of the Galaxy S 4 is the Full HD Super AMOLED display with 441 ppi, above the 326 ppi found on the iPhone 5 and the 400 ppi on the new LG (066570 KS- KRW79,800: NR) Optimus G Pro. However, the Galaxy S 4 is slightly below the 443 ppi five-inch smartphone introduced by Sharp (6753JP) in 4Q12 with IGZO technology and the 498 ppi display that was shown off at CES. Essentially, we expect competitors to unveil smartphones with a similar ppi this year and ultimately we believe Apple will adopt Sharp’s IGZO display technology [...] We consider the iPhone 5 a work of art and Apple’s ability to deliver a device that came with a larger screen (4-inch vs. 3.5-inch) versus the 4S but one that was 18% thinner and 20% lighter was a monumental task. By comparison, the Samsung Galaxy S 4 is 5 inches vs. 4.8 inches for the Galaxy S 3 but only 8% thinner and 2% lighter. At the same time, the iPhone 5 is 4% thinner than the Galaxy S 4 and 14% lighter. With the iPhone 5S expected to launch this summer, we believe Apple has the potential for even further improvements in this department. Also, polycarbonate (i.e., plastic) casing of the Galaxy S 4 is still no match for the aesthetics of the iPhone 5 with the aluminum unibody enclosure. Samsung’s Smartphone Shell Game Obfuscates Apple’s Share Growth. We are amazed by how analysts and the media have turned on Apple during the recent stock downdraft with statements that Samsung is “out-innovating” Apple. One would believe that Samsung is crushing Apple in the mobile phone market. We believe this is complete nonsense. We believe the smartphone market share comparison between Samsung and Apple is like comparing apples with oranges. When analyzing the mobile phone market in 4Q12 as reported by IDC, Samsung grew its mobile phone unit shipments by 12.3% YoY vs. 29.2% for Apple.

Great thinking, PASOK! More so!

PASOK's Venizelos

I need your help, please. I'm getting insane. True story. I seem to have forgotten each and every word of my mother-tongue. I'm reading an article this morning in the Greek Daily Ta Nea and I don't seem to understand anything from what it's trying to explain. You could use Google Translate to try for yourselves. But lemme tell you what I reckoned from reading it, and tell me if it's me who's getting nuts or the entire bleeding political gang in that country has become abusive beyond imagination and still trying the same old tricks. They probably fooled their electorate for forty years now, but are they in their right minds trying to cheat the rest of us with their garbage proposals? What did these folks smoke for breakfast? I really wonder!

Ok, here it goes. PASOK, the ruling party of the Papandreou clan for far too long to be any good, came out with a new proposal to 'tackle the unemployment burden' and create 'hundreds of thousands of new jobs!' 700 thousand in fact. Wow! And Wow again! Where have you been all my life, mate? Oh, you been there all the time, you said? I wonder what took you so long, Mr Venizelos (the current PASOK president), to come up with such an ingenious plan? Heard this Barack? Listen carefully, you might be enlightened too by Kyrios (Mr.) Venizelos's unparalleled wisdom! OK, here are the mechanics of the proposal. Buckle up and listen carefully. At the end of the story I'm gonna ask you for a vote, about the level of insanity and lack of touch with reality of those proposals.

Proposal NR 1: Maintain and support (these are terms they used) of half a million jobs in branches of the industry at risk. Which ones? I mean, which Industries and companies? Nothing specified. How do you select those? The criteria they propose are vague and undefined. So how do you come to half a million jobs? Do you supply cash to companies with the request not to fire people and keep them employed? How do you define which businesses are rotten to the bone and they are better off by going bankrupt instead of prolonging their death by injecting temporary cash? No word about the real questions. But listen further. The cost of this effort is estimated at 500 million euro. That is 1000 euro per job, if my math still works, right? What is this? An average of one month's pay? They are going to save these jobs for how long, they said? No mention of anything about that, mind you! OK, I am a modest businessman with a little company 50 workmen, 3 admins and myself producing fruit that we export to Germany. Business suckz and I got to fire at least 20 workmen and one admin. What is dear Venizelos telling me then? That I'm gonna get a whole 21 K to keep them employed? For how long? A whole bleeding month? Gosh, I solved my problem. Singing my way to Alpha bank!

But let's continue:

Proposal NR 2: Create an additional 100 thousand new jobs for social workers -listen carefully now, I'll only say this once!- at a cost of 450 million euros (that's four and a half months of pay, all of a sudden, not just a month as for the private sector). Add to that another 20 thousand jobs in cooperative companies of social purpose (someone explain that to me, please) for an incremental cost of 100 million. That's 5 months pay... we keep increasing the figures, eh? Civil servants are worth to Greek parties far more than private (5x PASOK reckons) and provide good votes at the polls!

Let's hold it for a minute. The math on these first two proposals tells us simply that Venizelos values a job in the private sector at one single month's pay, tops, whereas in his beloved area of social workers (socialist party you see) he multiplies that by 4.5 and 5 respectively (both in Proposal 2). Mind you, the proposed monetary support in Proposal 1 at least addresses genuine GDP contributors, whereas in Proposal 2 it's only about civil servants. The exact area where Greece's lenders (Troika) asked the buggers to start cutting... Reminds me of a personal experience back in the US when I was dealing with a loss making branch of our ops in Japan that I was asked to bring back to profitability... Big laughs! Anyways. Question: Will those PASOK geniuses ever learn, or are they testing the limits of our tolerance? Again? Can't believe it!

Proposal NR 3: Create another 80 thousand new jobs at the cost of 250 million for young people to gain experience. That's between 3 and 5 months of pay. Next what? Are they going to gain the experience of a lifetime by working for three to five months? And, ok, let's say they learn something. Where exactly do you put them to do the learning? In local government again? More civil servants then? No, he sez, we'll put them in the private sector. Well, kiddo, did you think that a struggling businessman will create job opportunities for funding he's gonna get to cover half a year's pay, tops? Not me. That's firefighting. It's nothing for a real cure long term. Did Venizelos ever had a real job in his life? Really! Or does he think that Greece's problems are over by end of the current fiscal? Dream on...

In my simple and humble mind, I suspect PASOK has fallen so low in the polls that they are now trying ultra populist argumentation that they don't even understand themselves (they counted this plan euro by euro, they said; lemme laugh) to win electorate back from the left (Tsipras). The clash of the populists is raging.

The country needs more than firefighting. Needs management and vision. Needs real fight against corruption with those responsible behind bars for the rest of their miserable lives and their wealth repossessed by the state. Needs real education of their youth, that even today, unemployed one in two, still get the necessary dough from those miserable parents of theirs to pay a scotch or three a day at 7 euros a piece, in the local bar. While complaining about the economy and their government. How about changing the culture and the idea that most Greeks nurture that only Greeks are the salt of the earth...

I'll spare you the rest of the article. It's so insane to even mention anything about. Like, Venizelos found potential pockets full of euros and cents to fund these phenomenal plans of his, by moving them coins from one box to another. He's also said that he is presenting this outstanding and unique plan to the reps from Troika. Expecting 'positive' reactions. Is he feckin' mad? Now tell me, how can Frau Merkel keep her calm with idiots like these? Then, it's all the fault of the Germans again.