An Ode to the Inverted Question Mark
Posted by lemiffe in Literature, Random Poetry on Sep 25th, 2009 | 2 commentsYesterday was National Punctuation Day in the U.S.A. and although I do not live in the US, I wrote this short ode to the Inverted Question Mark:
I am in love with the inverted question mark “¿”. It hangs like a light bulb, with such charisma and curves. It is but a mere symbol, however, a symbol so special to me. I am in love with this question mark, as it states the unraveling awkwardness of the world, a strange world in which I grew up in. ¿Is it true, my love, that a question should start with you? You represent a world with many languages, many signs, and many symbols. My inverted question mark, you represent change, beauty and awkwardness. My inverted question mark, you will always be my true undaunted love.
Purple Sea, Purple Sky
Posted by lemiffe in Literature, Random Poetry on Sep 23rd, 2009 | 0 comments
The atmosphere ringed on for ages, with purple-green horizons staring back at me. And the eyes grew from deep within the trees. I knew I was there, at the right place, at the right time.
I wandered around the tree, one that would be cut down in the following months. I heard sounds of acoustic guitars rattling by near my head; while the bass drum, suspended in mid-air, bang swiftly to the rhythm of drum and bass.
The climbing plants created envelopes around me, and the canvas was covered, bloodshed. I new it was the place, but was it the time? I felt the grass whispering to my feet, don’t strangle me please, don’t kill me. And the buzzing of the birds, and the tweeting of bees, it rang through my brain, tormenting.
It was all going to fast, I could barely understand. It might be the time, but it might not be the place.
And I turned to the tree again, shivering. Icicles formed on the branches of the climbing plants. I was sweltering in the 40ºC mid-day heat. The sky turned orange, then purple again. I did not understand, I felt the violins scream around me. Or they might have been guitars, squelching at incredible speeds. Key change.
I touched the tree, as it slowly faded away into dreams, dreams of a past taken away from me, dreams of a photograph erased, dreams from a lost post, dreams from a memory.
My take on Religion
Posted by lemiffe in Life, Religion on Sep 21st, 2009 | 2 commentsI do not believe in the Greek gods, or the Latin gods. I do not believe in Ra. I do not believe in Buddha, even though the rules of nature seem to be everywhere. I do not believe in Jesus, Moses, the Dalai Lama, or other physical entities as divine entities, after all they are all human, and were governed by earth’s physics. I don’t believe in the catholic/christian god as they believe in. Nor do I believe in heaven and hell, as they were both the product of human creativity.
My beliefs are simple. The concept of God is a name we gave to an entity that governs us all. It is obvious that all of this had to be created by something, and something is in us all, something gives us the spark of life, something gave the world it’s animals and plants, something is ever present. God as I see it is energy in it’s purest form. As religions state: God is omnipresent, all mighty, in all and everything, it is timeless, and governs all rules of the universe, therefore I can only deduce from this that God is energy. It is in all of us, at all time, and in all space.
Why fight wars over belief? I may believe in energy as the source of all creation, you may believe in a god with a mighty fist that will fall down on all those who misbehave and shall condemn them to eternal damnation, and your friend may believe in Allah, get up in the morning at 5 AM to pray, and go through the month-long Ramadan. But is it really worth our blood and toil? To kill over one’s beliefs? Why should what he or she think become a matter of hatred for me? Why should I let myself change my attitude towards the thoughts of another human being? Live and let live. Believe and let believe. That is my take on religion.
Return on Investment For Dummies
Posted by lemiffe in Business on Sep 20th, 2009 | 0 commentsI am not an expert in business (yet) however I have always been baffled by the term ROI without knowing exactly how to calculate it or what it means. By any means if you notice a mistake in any formula or calculation, feel free to point it out in the comments section.
Return on Investment is the ratio of money gained or lost on an investment relative to the amount of money invested. It is usually presented as a percentage.
Example:
Johnny likes drinking water, but his faucet only delivers grayish-looking water, so he buys bottled water. Each 1.5 litre bottle costs him 1.00 GBP. He buys 4 bottles per week. Every month he approximately buys 16 bottles which means he spends 16 GBP per month or 192 GBP per year on bottled water.
The ROI yield is often expressed as Yield = (Return – Initial Investment) / Initial Investment.
In this case we have Yield = (0 – 192) / 192 which gives us a loss of 100% for a 1 year period.
Let’s suppose that the PUR FM-9400 water filtering system costs 21.50 GBP. As each water bottle costs 1 GBP, we can derive that for the cost of 21.5 bottles of water we could buy a filtration system. (21.5 litres / 16 litres per month) = 1.3438 months to obtain our return on investment.
Conclusion:
(1 GBP * 16 Bottles per Month) * 1.3438 Months = 21.5 GBP
Yield = (Final – Initial) / Initial
Yield = (21.5 – 21.5) / 21.5
Yield = 0%
So we have reached a conclusion. To obtain a return of investment equal to the initial amount invested we must invest 21.5 GBP, and after approximately 42 days we will have saved the exact amount we invested in the equipment, furthermore leading to profit obtained by not spending on any more purified water bottles.
