Kottu blog stats: why low on sat and sun?

The following graph shows the average number of page loads per day (between 2 Feb 07 and 22 August 07) Some stats looked wrong (such as showing less than 20 a day) and i removed them.

I wonder why the number of page loads are high during weekdays compared to the weekend. Possible reasons that i can think of:

a) people check on kottu while at work (hm…)

b) people are too drunk or out of town during the weekend, or attending to other things during the weekend (such as catching up on sleep?).

Sunday, really seems pretty low, and this might explain the spike come Monday; the first day at work!

The fakers

I was talking with someone the other day, and he quoted Dale Carnegi’s “How to win friends and influence people” as a book that i should read. hm.. to me, that sounds like a book telling people how to fake you way through life. I am told that book tells about smiling a lot etc.

What happened to genuineness? I am not attacking the book (for i haven’t read it), but i guess there are a lot of similar self help books out there telling people how to fake your way through life, just pretending.

Out of curiosity, how many of you out there have “thanks”, “best wishes”, “best regards” etc set up in your email signature? i simply am put off a great deal when i find that i receive emails with automated good wishes. To me, the writer is simply faking something and not actually wishing me.

Shit hits the fan – and the finger pointing begins

Pretty interesting news the last couple of weeks with financial markets going down, down and down (and a bit up every now and then). As usual, all of us want a reason(s). And when people loose money, they want to blame someone. And we have quite a large list here of potential candidates. Please note that this is a list, and perhaps the general sentiment as to who is to be blamed: these are the suspects, and i would argue that the jury is still out when it comes to the rating agencies.

It is unfortunate to see that the good name of the rating agencies dragged in to this. While it is true that Moody’s, S&P and Fitch operate in an oligopolistic market, they are self governed to a large extent.

I found the following from Moodys.com and the statistics seem pretty sound. So, they got to be doing something right. This is from Feb 2004 report (i guess the latest reports are not given free…).

This is the report (about 650 kb): feb-2004-special-comment.pdf

Cash from share-holders: zero cost?

On the front page of today’s Sunday Island’s Business section: “some big shareholders want Hayleys to tap them for zero cost cash. And in the back page when discussing Richard Pieris we have “A full subscription will mean Rs 997 million zero cost cash flowing into the company’s coffers“

I hope the writers used the word “zero cost” to mean that there is no obliged cost (such as interest cost on debt) and not that shareholder’s funds are in effect zero cost! when you look at it from the point of view of a shareholder, the dude needs a return: i.e. there is a cost to the company in obtaining those fund: it is paid by a) capital appreciation or b) dividends. So, though in the Income Statement (i.e. Profit and Loss account) there is no “cost” to the company (i.e. net profit will increase as the company retires debt) the funds provided by the shareholder are really not zero cost.

Management, analysts and journalist should not think of the money as being zero cost as I believe it to be a dangerous mind set. The directors are supposed to run the company to benefit amongst others, the shareholders. When the company has low amount of cash to spend (because of the interest burden) they tend to spend it wisely. But when companies have too much cash they tend to spend lavishly: they may want to go and acquire companies (such as RPC buying a stake in NDB) or spend on a pet project which may not have a good return.

Having debt on the balance sheet forces managers to be on their feet; think with their heads and instil discipline. Having too much cash, is likely to bring in a certain degree of callousness: espicially if they view the owners money as having no cost.

Are you sure that your don’t own shares?

You open a savings account. A low interest, short term account. And yes, you can go and withdraw all at a moment’s notice. But, can you? i mean, isn’t the money with the bank?

Well, the bank lends long term; It could also invest in the share market. And what happens when the share market, bond markets tumble? Something seems to be happening in the financial markets around the world this week – luckily, we are unlikely to be affected too much (but we will, indirectly due to globalisation). The main point i am trying to say here is that when you deposit money in a bank, it does not mean it stays there. It is used for some other purpose. And if you feel that you are not affected by a possible stock market crash just because you do not own shares, sadly, you indirectly do own shares and you are affected.

It will be interesting to see what happens in the weeks to come; it will be more interesting too hear what people say about this.

Its official: War means higher profits at BAE

The BBC says BAE profits soar on Iraq conflict. Good to see a company make money from war, and better still to have it on paper. BAE is a publicly traded company. It is quite a powerful company too, given that they managed to stop an investigation by the UK’s Serious Fraud Office relating to bribery. And all these days stupid Agni thought that only criminals in developing countries are protected by their governments.

Oooo, ha to war!

Action against false adds in the UK

This article in the BBC is a good example of what the Office of Fair Trading can do. I think we have a similar sort of institution in Sri Lanka called the consumer affairs authority – but i fear that they wait until someone makes an official complaint before they act.

My main complains would be as the OFT says, misleading adds about air fair, which more often than not, quote excluding taxes and bank interest rates.
Nowadays you do see a number of banks and financial institutions advertise, prominently that they will pay 20% plus rates, only to find in small print that the Annual Effective Rate is close to five percentage points low at 15%: Another false advertisement; sadly, caveat emptor seems to be the order of the day.

H20 beach party – high alco price

This was the first time i went to a beach party. was pretty boring until around 1200 or so. About four or five of us had to share one bottle.

Why only one bottle?
A can of Carlsberg was sold at LKR 220; a bottle of Vodka (Smirnoff) was sold at LKR 7,000; a bottle of rum (Rockland) was going at LKR 3,000. That’s not all, if you wanted to mix it with say coke or something, that too had a cost as did ice.
I really think that such prices were very unreasonable, especially given that we scooped LKR 1,000 to get in. Any comments? is this the usual price range at such a function?

Camera – also kind. Police caught assaulting

Sometime ago i asked whether anyone has a private life any more. The reason being the ubiquitous digital camera. i posed that question largely in a negative manner. Anyhow, i also said “Its not all bad and gloomy: what if, we can take a picture when someone breaks the law” and now we see the Dailymirror carry a picture of a police officer (shame on him) smash innocent, old pilgrims at Katharagama.

Pictures don’t line. Action is more likely to be followed. When i spoke to a friend who goes to Katharagama for this pilgrimage, she said this happens all the time – and that he father was about to be the target last year. Anyways, as technology spreads and improves it will be harder to have a private life, but it will also be easier to keep people on check:
Who will guard the guards themselves? (quis custodiet ipsos custodes?) Juvenal

*PS: i am told that a picture of me is there in this facebook thing, holding a glass and looking rather wasted.