Missing out on a place to go to work and the pay that goes with it can be overwhelming both for the person and the family who depends on them.

People’s self-worth and self-esteem can be a hurdle in the way of survival. An entrepreneurial mindset rather sees no shame in taking a chance no matter how unpleasant it might be at the time.

A substantial number of jobs filled have never been advertised. How then did people find out about it? Through word of mouth.

People in management are sometimes very risk-adverse. Just like financial institutions like to lend to people who already have money, employers like to get people who already have work. Sound stupid huh? But it’s the fact. Those who have been away of the employment scene suffer a double whammy. First they miss out on having a job, secondly they miss out on being connected with contacts that may open doors for them.

So how can you assume you have a job when you don’t have a job? The plain answer is: offer your services as a volunteer.

“Working for nothing is the lowest point I can think of!” Very well then but set your disapproval aside for a while and look at the positives: What about throwing your support behind a worthwhile cause? What about having a place to go each day rather than sitting at home watching TV or else? What about being respected because you give your time for a cause you are passionate about? Nobody needs to know that you are a volunteer because you are unemployed. You may give your time because you are retired or for some other undisclosed reason.

As a volunteer you have some extra kudos as opposed to an employee. An organisation may put on an event every now and then to show appreciation for its volunteers and sponsors. Mingle around and get people’s phone numbers. As a volunteer you belong some place and no longer feel like an outcast. The root of rejection behind you, your countenance will be much better at the next job interview.

Volunteer work is highly esteemed on a resume because recruiters know you are not a narrow-minded, stingy civil servant who would not dare venture beyond what is expected. Volunteer work shows that you have higher goals. High enough to donate your substance to a cause you believe in. Volunteers who have established they can be trusted may be promoted to a management role which would otherwise be impossible. It is especially true for senior workers whose experience can finally be recognized.

Any volunteers?

For a useful tool to work on your resume see Resume Digest

Depending on how much data they are looking at two traders could claim that the market is rising or falling and they would be both right according to their time span.

Is there a way to reconcile this and have just one point of view? The answer is positive. You can choose to trade only when two timeframes are in unison. Let’s say the long term is trending up and the short term is also rising – you should be on a long trade. Let’s say the long term is going down and the short term is falling – you should be on a short trade.

The technique is that you use two timespans to confirm each other. If they disagree and you are out of the market – you stay out. If they disagree and you are in the market – you stay in the market unless your stop is being hit.

A commodity price can tell you one thing on a daily chart but quite a different message on a weekly chart. What about a monthly chart? There you have it – 3 timeframes now!

Someone might say: “But you are leaving too much money on the table with that system!” In retrospect anybody can pick the tops and bottoms of the market. It’s when your face is stuck on the right edge of the chart that you are not so proud anymore. That’s where the panic attacks occur.

A multi-timeframe approach can help you keep your sanity. Indeed the short term will give you a faster response (larger gains or shorter losses) but it will give you also a lot of wrong signals. Only when confirmed with the longer trend will you have more chances of being correct.

Overall it is a numbers game. You want to make more gains than losses and you cannot remove losses altogether. But you can use this method to ensure you don’t mess up your good trades. If you maintain a log of your trades and work out your averages you will be able to remain impartial. For more info check out Trading Pal

Wise Accounts has an interesting report called “Source and Application of Funds”. It determines from one financial year to the next where money has been released and where money has been siphoned out.

The fine equilibrium in your finances between what you owe and what you own may not be changing daily in a striking fashion. Looking at it in the right timeframe though will expose some changes you need to be aware of.

Financial issues have the knack of creeping up on you in discreet ways. If you fail to pick up the trend early enough it can be quite overwhelming to correct the situation.

You think you are cruising nicely on your way to financial independence when unknown to you something behind the scene is eating away at your savings. There are scores of deceitful hidden costs lurking behind various transactions which over time will rob you of your hard earned cash. Other times you are the culprit by indulging in things you could do without for the sake of convenience and impatience.

The only way you will be able to find out early enough is by keeping your accounting data up to date. Don’t wait for the end of the financial year to figure out if you made a profit or a loss this year – you need to know that today!

According to how much data they are collecting two traders could claim that the market is going up or going down and they would be both right according to their time span.

Is there a way to reconcile this and have just one point of view? The answer is yes. You can choose to trade only when two timeframes are in unison. Let’s say the long term is trending up and the short term is also rising – you should be on a long trade. Let’s say the long term is going down and the short term is falling – you should be on a short trade.

The technique is that you use two timespans to confirm each other. If they disagree and you are out of the market – you stay out. If they disagree and you are in the market – you stay in the market unless your stop is being hit.

A stock price can tell you one thing on a daily chart but quite a different story on a weekly chart. What about a monthly chart? There you have it – 3 timeframes now!

Someone might say: “But you are leaving too much money on the table with that system!” In retrospect everybody can pick the tops and bottoms of the market. It’s when your face is stuck on the right edge of the chart that you are not so proud anymore. That’s where the panic attacks occur.

A multi-timeframe approach can help you keep your sanity. Indeed the short term will give you a quicker response (larger gains or shorter losses) but it will give you also a lot of wrong triggers. Only when confirmed with the longer trend will you have more chances of being right.

Overall it is a numbers game. You want to have more gains than losses and you cannot remove losses altogether. But you can use this system to ensure you don’t destroy your good trades. If you maintain a log of your trades and work out your averages you will be able to become reliable. For more info check out Trading Pal

Should we welcome such technological breakthroughs with open arms or with a grain of salt? What does the overall political and economical landscape tell you?

Western democracies cannot even balance their budget. Healthcare is an ever deeper financial hole. People contract staph infections in our hospitals instead of coming home healed.

The jury is still out on genetically modified crops. The only people who seem to make money out of it are the lawyers who battle it out on behalf of those who want to establish their intellectual property. All they do is interfere with the design of creation.

The human genome project is public domain but the research made from it is passed to the private sector. After Silicon Valley the gold rush for IPOs is now biotech.

If you could trust mankind to govern the world with equity such inroads of science would abide well. What we see instead is an innate push to lower standards. Many unemployed security agents of the former Soviet Union have recycled themselves into organised crime. Even something as mundane as email spam is a curse that cripples internet communication.

We live in a season of extremes. Some would have you believe that it is commendable for same sex couples to marry. Their hope is that in-vitro fertilisation will give them access to human embryos they can pick and choose for themselves – like children on demand. Would you like to be born in a family like that?

It seems there is no limit to what people can achieve if they put their mind to it. People already worship science as the proof that mankind will be self-sufficient.

Right now what I would need is a money tree. Every week it would grow ten 100 dollar bills. Surely the DNA of such a plant wouldn’t be too hard to synthetise!

Can’t you see there is an undercurrent to enslave people rather than setting them free? The culmination of this movement will be when some charismatic figure will rise to power and claim to solve all the world problems – at the cost of you forfeiting your soul to him.

Obviously I have read the last chapter of the book so I know how the story ends.

There is no shortage of new inventions: after the hip replacement (very hip!) you can go for the knee replacement, the bionic ear, the pacemaker or the colostomy bag.

You are bound to meet new monsters at a hospital near you. Dr Frankenstein and his associates are working overtime to maim the human race of whatever dignity we have left.

If inserting foreign objects inside the human body is not repulsive enough you can still apply for endoscopy with live video monitor to see under sedation how things are going inside your guts…

What about pre-screening? Marketing studies demand that we plan ahead to create enough sick people to keep our medical profession gainfully employed in years to come. The fear of prostrate or breast cancer is a great scare tactic. An inconclusive diagnosis calls for more tests which of course mean more income for the people who make those tests. A conflict of interest if there was ever one.

“I thought there was a shortage of nurses in hospitals?” No, that only applies to public hospitals. In private hospitals you can ask (and pay) for a private room where nurses wear revealing outfits. (It increases the recovery rate in males I am told but also the incidence of heart failure for some unknown reason…)

Market studies have found that as people live longer there is a growing population of geriatrics consumers that euthanasia would seek to eliminate.

People get plenty of time in retirement homes to ponder on our reason for living on earth and how to prepare for a second, third or fourth life in outer space.

The incidence of mental illness is on the rise as this secret is not so well kept and the working classes discover to their horror the bleak future that awaits them.

As the birth rate drops to an abysmal low there won’t be enough taxpayers in the future to fund this looming medical bill. So governments open wide the doors of immigration hoping enough people will agree that the grass is greener on our side of the fence.

If you follow the money trail you will find that dentists are the major shareholders in candy manufacturers, neurosurgeons in mobile phones, pulmonologists in cigarettes, toxicologists in peanut butter and orthopedic practitioners in sports sponsorships.

Nevertheless there are many dedicated doctors who put their patients welfare ahead of their own interest. How can you spot them? Simple: Make a dash to the reserved car spaces where physicians have their name plate. If you spot a regular vehicle rather than the lastest flashy whiz-bang luxury model then you will feel more confident in submitting to that scalpel.

The recording and digitization of odors is based on a DDO (dynamic dilution olfactometer) feeding into a chemotopic map similar to the one we have in the brain.

The magnitude, flavour and duration of the smells are then played back through special transducers which release the aroma into the surrounding air just like a loudspeaker vibrates the air around you.

Think of the possibilities. For a Western movie you could smell the gun powder when shots are fired, the aroma of a stew cooking on a coal fire or the perfume the starlet is wearing for a close-up.

Many industries are lining up to take advantage of the technology. Now you can buy cheese, wine, perfume by mail-order.

Sanitation systems can be programmed to counter-balance your exact flatulence to clear the air whether you just ate baked beans or mashed potatoes.

Marketers are attracted in droves to this sweet smell of success for the market is huge. Even the army is considering it for psychological warfare where the enemy would be overcome with the pungent smell of rotten eggs or else.

Doctors could use the technology to diagnose stomach ulcers or rotten teeth. Lovers could email each other their body odor aka scent of a woman.

Cooking recipes videos could explain precisely how to saute onions to perfection.

Law enforcement agencies can calibrate their breath analysers to screen offenders who go past legal limits.

What about cost? Would such a system be a bit on the nose? After USB flash drives disguised as novelty earrings women will love to wear an ODD (olfactory digital dispenser) and dial a different perfume for different times of the day. The perfume bottle will never go dry but admittedly the batteries will go flat unless you recharge overnight. We are already used to that for our mobile phones. It is a given.

Tobacco addiction could take a turn for the better as smokers could enjoy the smell of tobacco without inhaling the fumes. Just like people wearing earphones to avoid disturbing others in a crowd you can wear a PSD (personal smell dispenser) to sniff glue, cannabis or your favourite drug – undisturbed.

No doubt some portals will allow you to download your scented ecstasy – for a price. Yet again, what would disillusioned folks do to numb their boredom?

For me I write science fiction for a living and if I got you baited until now, then my writing style works.

Depending on how much data they are collecting two traders could claim that the market is rising or falling and they would be both right according to their time frame.

Is there a way to reconcile this and have just one opinion? The answer is positive. You can choose to trade only when two timeframes are in agreement. Let’s say the long term is trending up and the short term is also rising – you should be on a long trade. Let’s say the long term is going down and the short term is falling – you should be on a short trade.

The bottom line is that you use two timeframes to correlate each other. If they disagree and you are out of the market – you stay out. If they disagree and you are in the market – you stay in the market unless your stop is being hit.

A commodity price can tell you one thing on a daily chart but quite a different story on a weekly chart. What about a monthly chart? There you have it – 3 timeframes now!

You might say: “But you are leaving too much money on the table with that system!” In hindsight everybody can pick the highs and the lows of the market. It’s when your nose is stuck on the right edge of the chart that you are not so proud anymore. That’s where the {doubting and angst\panic attacks} occur.

A correlated timespan approach can help you keep your sanity. Indeed the short term will give you a faster response (larger gains or shorter losses) but it will give you also a lot of wrong triggers. Only when confirmed with the longer trend will you have more chances of being right.

Overall it is a numbers game. You want to have more gains than losses and you cannot remove losses altogether. But you can use this system to ensure you don’t mess up your good trades. If you maintain a log of your trades and work out your averages you will be able to become reliable. For more info check out Trading Pal.

Missing out on a place to go to work and the income that goes with it can be overwhelming both for the individual and the family who depends on them.

Your self-worth and self-esteem can be a hurdle in the way of survival. An entrepreneurial spirit rather sees no shame in taking a chance no matter how difficult it might be at the time.

A substantial number of positions filled have never been advertised. How then did people find out about it? Through the grapevine.

People in management are often very risk-adverse. Just like financial institutions like to lend to people who already have money, recruiters like to hire people who already have a job. Sound stupid huh? But it’s true. Those who have been outside of the employment circuit suffer a double hit. First they miss out on having a job, secondly they miss out on being connected with contacts that may open doors for them.

So how can you pretend you have a job when you don’t have one? The short answer is: offer your services as a volunteer.

“Working for zilch is the lowest point I can think of!” Very well then but set your disapproval to the side for a while and look at the benefits: What about throwing your weight behind a reputable cause? What about having a place to go each day rather than mopping around at home watching TV or worse? What about being appreciated because you give your time for an issue you are passionate about? Nobody needs to know that you are a volunteer because you are out of work. You may give your time because you are retired or for some other undisclosed reason.

As a volunteer you get some extra kudos as opposed to an employee. An organisation may put on an event every now and then to congratulate its volunteers and sponsors. Mingle around and get people’s phone numbers. As a volunteer you belong some place and no longer feel like an outcast. The root of rejection behind you, your demeanour will be way better at the next job interview.

Volunteer work is highly esteemed on a resume because employers know you are not a bigot, stingy civil servant who would not dare venture beyond what is expected. Volunteer work shows that you have higher goals. High enough to donate your energy to a cause you believe in. Volunteers who have demonstrated they can be trusted may take on a management post which would otherwise be out of reach. It is quite true for older workers whose experience can finally be recognized.

Any volunteers?

For a useful tool to work on your resume Click here

How can that be? First of all let’s be selective. Not all stocks that you find to trade are profitable. That’s in fact a bonus because you have a finite amount of capital to trade with – therefore you have to be quite specific about what you are going to put your money on. Individual stocks especially those with a small capitalization are to be avoided unless you have industry knowledge. Indices and very large stocks behave well under the scrutiny of technical analysis. Even better still futures are found to be the best. Recently a rare metal such as palladium provided close to 100% returns in just 9 months. Imagine doubling your money in one year. (We’re talking about Spring 2010 here).

A trading automated system doesn’t care about a company financial statement (or what is left of it after the creative accountants have done their magic on it.) As the old saying goes: “Everything you need to know is already factored in the price!” Acomputer program doesn’t fidget whether or not to be in or out of the market. It is constantly in the market reversing from long to short and back again. It does not give in to market hysteria but it does take advantage of big swings in the market by being bold enough to change position early in a move.

You might think such a automated trading system is the prerogative of big hedge funds who can afford to hire scores of computer geeks. Not so. There is such a system available for a small subscription fee. Trading Pal publishes their results daily. It runs on a 9 months rolling window of data. For each instrument traded a chart and a log of trades with a tally of profits and losses is available.

Even though there is still quite a choice of instruments to choose from people tend to trade in an industry or market they are familiar with. They mentally recall the last high or the last low over the last 6 months. Nevertheless comparing your performance with what Trading Pal came up with can be quite a wake up call to the shortcomings of your own ad-hoc trading methodology (If you can call it that when all you do is give in to your emotions.)