Curious George

Curious George
Originally uploaded by Arnold Ho.

I have just watched Curious George. It's a children's movie but I kinda like it too. Light-hearted and doesn't take itself very seriously. Very relaxing.

I like the use of the song Jack Jackson - Upside Down in the movie.

And George is really cute. : )

Internet Radio Stations, CD-quality Stereo at 48 kbps

Internet radio stations rock when you are holing up in your room studying for an exam or rushing for a deadline.

You can change the genre, say Top Hits to Jazz, to suit your mood with a click of the mouse. When you hear something you like, you can read the song artist and title off the playlist and proceed to download it off any P2P^H^H^H^H^H^H^HiTunes.

I try to use MPEG-4 aacPlus streams since it offers higher quality audio at lower bandwidths (eg. CD-quality stereo at 48 kbps). Less buffering delays, helps me do my itsy bitsy little bit to help the stations reduce their costs and frees up more bandwidth for my other downloads. Isn't that great?

tuner2.com lists all the best stations using aacPlus. I use Winamp which plays aacPlus already. For Windows Media Player users, you need a plugin.

MPEG-4 aacPlus is the combination of three MPEG technologies comprising Advanced Audio Coding (AAC), coupled with Coding Technologies' Spectral Band Replication (SBR), and Parametric Stereo (PS) technologies. SBR is a unique bandwidth extension technique which enables audio codecs to deliver the same quality at half the bit rate. PS significantly increases the codec efficiency a second time for low bit rate stereo signals.

SBR and PS are both forward and backward compatible methods to enhance the efficiency of any audio codec. As a result, aacPlus delivers streaming and downloadable 5.1 multi-channel audio at 128 kbps, near CD-quality stereo at 32 kbps, excellent quality stereo at 24 kbps, and good quality for mixed content even below 16 kbps mono. This level of efficiency fundamentally enables new applications in the markets of mobile and digital broadcast.

The January Effect

Stocks in general and small stocks in particular have historically generated abnormally high returns during the month of January.

According to Robert Haugen and Philippe Jorion, "The January effect is, perhaps the best-known example of anomalous behavior in security markets throughout the world."

The January Effect is particularly intriguing because it doesn't appear to be diminishing despite being well known and publicized for nearly two decades.

Theoretically an anomaly should disappear as traders attempt to take advantage of it in advance. Additionally, many have argued that some of the other anomalies occur primarily or entirely during the month of January (See Interrelationships).

The bottom line is that January has historically been the best month to be invested in stocks.

More Calendar Anomalies and Stock Market Anomalies. Happy reading.