Add a little bling to the court with rhinestones from DLT.

There was not much “bling” in tennis apparel – until DTL brought us this!

This stylish skort, Women’s Bad 2 the Bone Drop Waist Skort, will help you add a perfect amount of glam to the court.

I couldn’t resist posting this. My son and I were just looking back through some photos we took a couple of years ago in Sydney. I had completely forgotten that I’d stumbled upon a pristine example of the first “real” computer I ever had at the Power House Museum down by Darling Harbour.

Somehow or other I found myself the proud owner of the first Commodore Pet brought into New Zealand. NZ$1400.00 in 1978 when I was earning under $100 a week. An 8-bit 6502 processor running at 1.0Mhz, 8kB RAM, ROM-BASIC, mass storage at 300 baud to standard audiotape. Software available almost exclusively in hard copy – key it in yourself – from magazines and books. Those were the days.

This machine was the prime cause of my shift from audio/radio into digital/computer. After completing my radio tech apprenticeship I first took a look at big computers with Burroughs (pre-Unisys) and then took a tech role with the NZ importers of the Commodore Pet. The $1400 turned out to be a good investment.

I had a lot of fun with that machine. For a start I learned BASIC, and wrote some pretty cool stuff for its time. There was a mainframe game called “Adventure” around (who remembers “XYZZY” and “Plugh”?), so I wrote a reasonable version of that for the Pet. Of course, this was a command-line game in which everything was laboriously described in text. I wonder how long this would amuse a member of the Y-generation? I developed a pretty decent Othello algorithm – it beat me a good proportion of the time. I wrote a database application without having learned anything much about databases and was to discover some years later that I’d “invented” B-Tree.

Audio on the Pet came in two flavours – the inbuilt PWM audio system or via accessories, mostly home-brew, attached to the parallel interface. One early commercial product was the “Petunia” – a resistor-ladder DAC making crude, allowing crude, single channel synthesis. The SYM-1 6502 one-board computer I’d used previously had been able to make a satisfying range of beeps and squeaks too, but I was never happy programming in assembler – I became much more prolific once I had a “high level” language. I still like procedural programming. Integrated development environments and object architecture are great when you have to fit in with monster operating systems and complex hardware, but there’s nothing quite as satisfying as getting intimate with the silicon. I sold the SYM-1 to a music student who was working with synthesis based on the Fibonacci series. Strangely, I have no idea what I did with the Pet.

Processors such as that which powered the Pet are now commodities, found embedded in everything from the cheapest electronic gizmo up. I occasionally use Microchip’s PIC microcontrollers in projects. It’s amazing how much you can get done with an 8-pin chip and a few lines of code – especially when contrasted with the discrete diode-transistor logic (DTL) used in the big Burroughs mainframes of the 70’s. It’s hard to believe it was quite routine to repair a single bit of memory – a tiny ferrite toroid with a few turns of hair-fine copper wire through it, driven by discrete bipolar transistors – a cabinet the size of a refrigerator top accomodate 64k of memory.

That’s something I like about AVS, it reminds me of my early days with computers - so much new territory to be explored. So much technology these days is sadly derivative, or an answer to a question no-one has asked. Most of the interesting bits have become so specialised and arcane that they’re either beyond reach of the average enthusiast or any level of expertise comes at the exclusion of the rest of life.

It’s nice to reminisce sometimes. It’s nice to be able to look at the good bits without getting bogged down in the bad bits. The late 70’s/early 80’s were particularly not good for me, but I survived and hindsight shows just how much good stuff there was going on while I was building the essential framework for the depression that was to dominate my life for so long.

Cheers,
Craig

Last weekend we attended the Perazzi DTL Grand Prix at Byewell Shooting Ground. 

Byewell Shooting Ground

The event took place over 2 days and Xtreme Photo provided photography and on-site printing.  An on-line gallery was later made available where competitors could save their albums and send photo cards to their friends.

For us it is important to catch the competitors in action.  We don’t pose photographs, unless of course the squad asks for a group photo.  We take several photos including a full length, close-up and if possible “breaking the clay” shot.   We also provided photographs for many of the sponsors.

Clay shooting

Logistically this event was more challenging than some because not all of the competitors came through the same stands and up to 12 other squads were shooting at any time.  Many squads booked us to photograph them which helped with timings and, of course, sales. 

The prize stakes were high and some of the squads had come from as far as South Africa.  It is crucial that we don’t disturb their concentration or distract them during their shooting.   Safety is also a prime concern at events, but especially so at an event of this nature.  Having participated in clay shooting himself Martin was able to position himself and time his movements in such a way that he would not be noticed.  This was proved when many of the competitors later approached us to ask if we had photographed them! 

One member of a squad asked before he started shooting that we didn’t photograph his round as it would be distracting for him.  Whilst we knew this hadn’t been the case for others we respected his decision and stayed clear of his round.  We are there to capture the event but we certainly don’t want to upset anyones day by doing so.  Later the same competitor approached us to take a group photograph for him to take home. 

Not everywhere has space for a large set-up and in this instance we used a single table and viewing station.  Each event shall be different and our set-up judge on the venue and it’s requirements.

Xtreme Photo are available to photograph your event.  We can provide on-site printing and on-line galleries for your competitors and are also happy to photograph the prize giving if required.   Why not contact us and find out what we can do for you!

We’ve got the skinny! The news every Lowellian has been waiting for is finally here!

This Side of the Truth (TSOT) official release date:   
FRIDAY, MARCH 20, 2009

Check it, folks. These links don’t lie: 

Boxofficeprophets.com  
Comingsoon.net   
Themovieinsider.com

In case you don’t know why this news is extraordinary, This Side of the Truth created all the buzz this past spring when Brit director and the film’s chief funny man Ricky Gervais chose to shoot his film right in the heart of DTL (with some shots in Andover and Boston). 

Here is an on-the-scene report that took place with filming began, courtesy of WCVB Channel 5 (as seen on YouTube):
This Side of the Truth/Channel 5 Report 

The Lowell Film Collaborative was there during shooting, of course, and rumor has it that LFC co-founder Brett Cromwell was selected as an official extra for the film. (Hey! The rumor is true, my friends!) 

If anyone reading this knows of any official trailers out there for TSOT, please let us know! We’re hoping Mr. C made it into some key scenes.

For now, visit Ricky Gervais’ official blog site for TSOT. Check in with it regularly if you don’t already: http://www.rickygervais.com/thissideofthetruth.php

The following photos were taken by the LFC during filming. Exciting stuff!

TSOT film crew sets up for media interviews in DTL

TSOT director/star Ricky Gervais sits in this car waiting for "action"

TSOT film crew sets up to shoot inside The Dubliner

TSOT cast & crew used Leo G. Roy garage for parking during filming

TSOT transforms DTL bank building

Food, friends and film — what could be better? In our opinion, not much. So how about heading out to some of DTL’s most  popular restaurants and cafes for some good old fashioned film screenings! We’ll set up the tripod screen, dim the lights, and start up the DVD player. OK — it’s not quite like firing up the projection system, but we do our best to keep a fair amount of nostalgia in our events.

Mark your calendar for the following screening in early 2009. More film events will follow!

Monday, February 9, 2009 @ 7 PM
Zorba the Greek (1964)
Athenian Corner Greek Restaurant
207 Market Street, Lowell
 An aimless Englishman finds he has a small inheritance on a Greek island. His joyless existence is disturbed when he meets Zorba, a middle aged Greek with a real lust for life. As he discovers the earthy pleasures of Greece, the Englishman finds his view on life changing.
* Raise your glass of Ouzo and join in Zorba in the infamous, passionate dance that made film history! *

Traditional Greek dancing will follow the film!

Central bank governors all through the world are busy reading and interpreting numbers and also gazing at roofs these days. Rate cuts and revision announcements are becoming a routine schedule every week. Bankers going crazy, Markets reacts to it and everyone speaks of it and what is it…let’s have a brief discussion on the terms which impacts the nation, the market and the people like us.                                 

REPO Rate:

Repo rate is that rate at which RBI lends (securities & money) to other banks… the current rate is 7.5 %…

So, bank need to pay 7.5 % interest for every rupee it gets from RBI. Effectively, in any common sense, banks should lend it at a rate higher than 7.5 %…so when bank lends to us, it will add up all charges along with that (their marketing expenses, staff expenses etc) and lend to us….i.e. anything more than 7.5%

so, if REPO rate is increased, for example from 7.5 % to 8.5 % all our loans might go up proportionally, obviously if you are watching the repo rate space for more than 3 month, you would get a probable question, whenever RBI hikes the rate by even .25 pts, banks immediately followed suit and now when RBI has reduced the rate sharply the banks haven’t reduced the lending rate? Yeah… They always say that banks’ cost of borrowing goes up (when the rate is high) and they need to set off the cost of deposits (when the rate is lowered). This is in simple sense…

For a broader view:

REPO rate is the rate at which RBI discount securities like Treasury bill to the bank. To meet certain liquidity standards from time to time, banks sell their securities like treasury bills to RBI at a discount price called repo rate for a short period of time like overnight or fort night. After specified time banks repurchase the bill at its face value. So high repo rate results in high loss for banks or hike in repo rate absorbs liquidity from the market by less lending to the banks, which in turn tames inflation.

So, in one sense, RBI tries to control inflation, which might be good to bring the prices down. But in another sense, it might move up our loan rates…so you decide where to take stand… J

Reverse Repo Rates:

Rates at which RBI borrows from Bank… Current rate stands at 6 %…

If there is a hike in Reverse Repo Rate (RRR), banks will keep more money with RBI (literally) and Liquidity flow in the system (bank – corporate – customers) will be reduced making it difficult for companies/corporate to fund their growth (since borrowing becomes costlier) and you and me might find it difficult to buy a house…

CRR (Credit Reserve Ratio):

The current rate stands at 5.50%

Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) is the amount of funds that the banks have to keep with RBI. To make sure banks do not run out of money to pay for withdrawals, they’re supposed to hold a certain percentage of deposits (DTL-Demand and Time Liabilities) as free cash. This is called the cash reserve ratio (CRR) i.e. if they have 100 Rs as DTL, and the CRR is 5.5%, Banks need to keep Rs.5.50 with RBI.

A CRR hike would mean that banks will have to hold more cash, rather than pumping it into the economy. The effect of a hike in CRR is to cut the overall amount of money in the system. Since the supply of money is decreased, it’s purchasing value increases. So, at least in theory this should reduce inflation. A hike in CRR implies a decline in liquidity in the economy. In this instance, a 0.50 per cent hike will drain out Rs 14,000 Crores (Rs 140 billion). The result – higher interest rates

On the other hand, if the RBI decreases the CRR (it has reduced more than 3% since July 2008), by this measure RBI has asked the banks to release around 84,000 Crore of money into the system instead of keeping it with RBI. It eases the bank’s lending policy and more funds accessible for the industries to borrow from the banks.

Even now after a series of rate cuts, banks are not ready to free up the liquidity to the corporate and even banks…( quiet interesting fact – Interbank  borrowing rates / call money  are now at 6-7% range and had even increased to 15 % in the last one month).

Bank Rate: Current rate- 6.00%

So as per guidelines, Banks keep 5.5 % of their DTL with RBI as cash. Is that for free?  NO, obviously they are here to make money. (Are you one among the poor guys who still feel that banks are the financial pillars and the savior of common man??). So to make it attractive, even though it is not, as a part of compensation, RBI pays banks a nominal interest rate for the money they keep as part of CRR. That rate is called Bank rate. Bank rates will be revised accordingly with the CRR.

Statutory Liquidity Ratio (SLR) – Currently at 24%

SLR is the percentage of DTL (Deposits and Time Liabilities) of the bank, to be kept with RBI to meet out the long term liquidity. In simple terms it ensures that the bank pays the depositors back whenever the deposits mature. It effectively stops the bank getting bankrupt. The banks can keep the money (i.e. 24 % of their deposits/DTL) in the form of cash/Govt Securities/Gold with the RBI. This ensures that the bank cannot lend more than 75 % of its deposit base.

Effectively, if RBI reduces the SLR by a mere 1%, it induces thousands of crores of liquidity into the financial system. But the risk is banks now have 1% higher chance to defaultJ.

In a nutshell, the below table gives a brief on the effect of the rates on the financial system and the customer

With all these rates, let’s have a simple view of how a bank runs its business:

Let us take for example; a bank has deposits of 100Rs from its depositor (like us).

Deposit for a period of 1 year= 100Rs and the Interest to be paid on deposits is 10% i.e. 10 Rs.

Effectively, the bank should earn minimum of 10Rs yearly, to pay the depositor.

Now incorporating the RBI rates:

Bank should keep 24% as SLR with RBI. Now the bank is left with 76Rs to lend.

Incorporate CRR as 5.5%, so another 5.5 Rs goes out to RBI, with the bank having left with Rs.71.5 to lend to the customers (like us again).

Now the banks can lend this money to public at any rate within the guidelines set by RBI.

So, for best customer it offers loan at 14%, for a good customer it offers at 16 % and some dare devil banks might also take risk by lending it to sub primers at any rate below 35 %. J

Also the banks can borrow from RBI under the REPO window at a cheaper price. (In our case, we don’t consider this option)

So for our example, let’s assume that bank lends Rs 50 @ 15% (say for example a corporate loan), Rs15 @ 18% as a personal loan and Rs.6.5 being invested in bond at a coupon rate of 9%. (God forbid not the senior bond junks from Lehman kinds…)

As part of SLR, banks invest in Gold/Govt Bonds which can yield a return of 7%. So, the SLR 24 Rs earns 7% i.e. Rs.1.70. From CRR, for the 5.5 rupees, RBI gives a rate of 6%. i.e. 0.33Rs

From its lending, the bank gets 7.5 (Rs 50 @ 15%) + 2.7 (Rs15 @ 18%) + 0.58 (6.5 @9%) = 10.78

So net earnings= SLR investment+ lending earnings+ Bank rate given by RBI for CRR

                        = 1.70 + 10.78 +0.33= 12.81

Interest to be paid to the depositor= 10Rs.

Net profit= 2.81Rs.

This is how the bank carries its business of borrowing and lending a.k.a Asset Liability management in broader terms. But the risk they carry is enormous.

Just think of their investment in Bonds (6.5 Rs). If that bond issuer defaults, the bank will lose Rs 7.03 (both the interest risk and capital risk). So out of Rs 12.81, we have only a balance of Rs 5.78 (12.81-7.03), losing not only the profit, but also the capital.

This is when the bank starts defaulting payments to the depositors and files for bankruptcy, and that’s the time we guys start writing and discussing a lot on credit crisis, recession and even depression.J

Relevant links:

• Online 0.2 release Screencast (8 minutes, 16Mb), you can also download the screencast zip file.
• Online Version (you can also download the online version as a zip file)
• Offline Version (zipped, unpack in a directory of your choice and open osmarender_frontend.html file)
• SVN Tag 0.2
• SVN Trunk
• Wiki for brainstorming, suggestions or bug reporting

“Dojoizing” OsmaFrontend

Following what I’ve said before, also this last week (while doing a MAJOR blog posts updating) has been full of interest for code developing, even if not so full of new features. What I’ve been doing is “Dojoizing” OsmaFrontend, to take the most advantage from Dojo toolkit and to have a cleaner code design (separating HTML code from Javascript, using Dojo’s xhrGet). Here the last days timeline:

August 11: TagTrunk

While “Dojoizing” Osmafrontend, I’ve started to separate the trunk code from the tags (thanks to TomH and spaetz that helped me in the #osm channel, also helping me not to do tens and tons of commits !)

August 12: Widgets and blog

A long day of studying to learn how to write Dojo widgets, and to write some of the past posts for the blog

August 13: Tags, Blog, Rule tree

Finally I’ve separated the tags from the trunk, while updating the blog with the new posts. A little interesting new Osmarender Frontend feature developed: a raw tree view of the rules. This is what is going to be, after the major refactoring I want to do for CMYK library.

August 14-15: Django template in Dojo (Dojox DTL)

I’ve started to learn how to use DTL in Dojo, but even after spending the whole day on various tries, I didn’t manage to have it do what I wanted to do to separate some HTML from the code. For example, I couldn’t manage to do a {% for key,value in store %}. Really don’t know why, because with other tags everything worked smoothly.

August 16: Widgets and i18n

After doing all the refactoring to separate HTML content from Javascript, I started to refactor all the code that concerned the CSS editing part of Osmarender Frontend. Then, I’ve started to learn how to do i18n with Dojo, while learning that Dojo’s i18n have some issues with Firefox 3.

August 17: Externalising CSS editor and publish/subscribe

This day I’ve finally externalised all CSS editor code from osmarender_frontend.js file, with some tricks to keep it really separate. As Osmarender Frontend takes the styles and handles them (add, modify, delete) only with the help of CMYK library, and as I wanted to keep the CSS editing widget and CMYK library really separate, I didn’t want to pass the CMYK instance to the CSS editor, nor I wanted to let Osmarender Frontend handle the CSS section of the rule file. This is where dojo publish/subscribe came to help! In this way, the CSS editor will publish a topic, which Osmarender Frontend have to subscribe to pass the parameters to CMYK library. That’s cool!

August 18: JUICE

I’ve spent the last GSoC days to do some minor changes to the code, and to definitely keep the CSS editor widget separate from the rest of the code, with its own i18n. This is how JUICE (Javascript User Interface CSS Editor) project was born!

Three projects in one!

At the end of my GSoC adventure, and at the beginning of a new adventure, I’m very happy to say that three projects have started at the same time:

• CMYK library: When the refactoring will come to an end, the library will be completely independent from Osmarender Frontend, thus allowing every Javascript-speaking code to handle Osmarender’s rule file smoothly.
• Osmarender Frontend: A Dojo-powered GUI interface for WYSIWYG handling of Osmarender’s great power.
• JUICE dojox based widget: Without even knowing or wanting, the CSS editor has now its own life, so, sooner or later (at the end, when it will have more features and handling power), it will be a separate project, perhaps with some integration with Trevor McCauley’s great CSS parser… Who knows… Fantasy is the limit…!

When to go Down-the-Line?

So, does Federer think about all this when he is playing in the US Open Final? Probably not, but it has become instinctive for him and he makes good decisions, and sometimes chances them because he’s an awesome shot-maker as well as a decision making master. He’s a big-time player!

Refer to the Down-the-Line article with this.

Similarly, if my DTL shots are not effective enough to make my opponent stretch, then I must work on them.
However, if my opponent is unable to “punish” me with a counter-attacking shot then I can get-away with being a “chicken”. Players who are very fast are capable to do this even at the highest level.
For example; Rafael Nadal (a left hander) will hit a lot of backhand DTLs to force the player into a forehand crosscourt rally. He chickens out and goes DTL a lot and gets away with it most of the time, and succeeds in receiving a forehand which may be all he needs to get control of the point. He struggles more with players who have a strong backhand and can punish him a bit more…