Friday, June 22, 2007

Assets and Allocation

Asset Allocation -

Wikipedia EN says:
Inherent in asset allocation is the idea that the best-performing asset varies from year to year and is not easily predictable. Therefore having a mixture of asset classes is more likely to meet your goals. A more fundamental justification for asset allocation is the notion that different asset classes offer non-correlated returns, hence diversification reduces the overall risk in terms of the variability of returns for a given level of expected return. In this respect diversification has been described as "the only free lunch you will find in the investment game."

FAZ.NET says:
Aufteilung des Kapitals auf verschiedene Investmentarten (Anlageklassen, Währungen, Regionen). Der Ertrag und das Risiko eines Portfolios kann durch die Auswahl der Wertpapiere und deren Gewichtung bestimmt und optimiert werden.

What does allocate mean?
Roget's Thes says:

Definition: assign
Synonyms: admeasure, allot, apportion, appropriate, budget, cut, designate, dish out*, divide, divvy*, divvy up, earmark, give, mete, set aside, share, slice
Antonyms: keep, keep together
Notes: to allocate something is to set it aside for a specific purpose; to allot something is to give it with an implied restriction and an understanding of sharing

Where does allocate come from?
Etymonline says:
allocate (v.) Look up allocate at
1640, from adj. (1438), from M.L. allocate (the common first word of writs authorizing payment), imperative pl. of allocare "allocate," from L. ad- "to" + locare "to place."

° ° °
c.1300, from O.Fr. alouer "approve," from L. allaudare, compound of ad- "to" + laudare "to praise," confused and merged in O.Fr. with alouer "assign," from L. allocare (see allocate). From the first word came the sense "permission based on approval," from the second the meaning preserved in allowance "a limited portion or sum (usually of money or food)," first recorded 1440.

Personally I can't help associate allocate with place - locale - it's my Latin training. And the French alouer - assign fits right in - you put a thing in a place - a certain portion in a certain place. In its slot. And voila we arrive at the current meaning of placing assets in different investment classes.

gisela. Translator? You just found her.

Sunday, March 18, 2007

CC 3.0 Licenses

Copyright Law is at an exciting crossroads as Creative Commons has issued the CC License Version 3 which heavily relies on provisions made by the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works the Rome Convention of 1961 the WIPO Copyright Treaty of 1996, the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty of 1996 and the Universal Copyright Convention.

CC's partial affirmation of the Moral Rights of the author, which US copyright law grants only in a very limited fashion is one outgrowth of the recognition of the above treaties.

The Moral Rights of the author aknowledges an emotional attachment of the author to her creation aside from monetary interests.

While Creative Commons licenses based on CC's underlying philosophy permit and even champion sampling, citing and altering of creative content, in short, generating derivative works - authors also felt their concerns regarding protecting some fundamental Moral Rights deserved some consideration.

For this reason CC states in its Wiki:

Related Links:
Wikipedia list of (famous) Legal Copright Cases
Wikipedia description of a Public Domain case
Wikipedia definition of Moral Rights
Wikipdia definition of Copyright
Wikipdia list of software related copyright terms
Wikipdia description of Related Rights
Wikipedia information regarding the EU's harmonizing of the term of copyright protection

Monday, November 13, 2006

Oil for Food? Not! For Water

Brendan Buhler reporting on the bottled water convention in Las Vegas:
"We need to change the way we sell water," said industry analyst Kathleen Ransome. "At what point will consumers turn to the tap?"

Hm, dunno ... at gun point?
What other reason would there be to turn away from bottled water?

Surprise, surprise there are some - oil prices for instance. 'Cause honey chile oil is what the water bottles are made of. And they're becoming dearer by the day.

Reason number two:
The American middle class is shrinking; "so who's going to be able to afford it at a higher price?" asks analyst Kathleen Ransome.

Well, the American middle class is'nt exactly shrinking. It's sliding down towards the lower classes. And the lower classes turn to the tap.

More on why bottled water is not good for the planet and probably bad for your health.

Sunday, September 10, 2006

Redewendung Figure of Speech

Die Redewendung - figure of speech
Der Eiskunstlauf - figure scating
Die Zahl - Figure
...das soll einer verstehen - ...go figure
Die Figur - figure
etwas ( Kniffliges) herauskriegen - to figure it out.

I finally figured it out!
Endlich hab ich's gepeilt!

Friday, August 25, 2006

Translation Found: Here

Translationfound Update:
Bitte sehen Sie sich hier meine Übersetzungeproben an:
Please ave a look at the samples of my work:
PDF Downloads.

I am juggling between language domains such as:
Ich jongliere zwischen Sprachwelten wie:
Die Interpretation von Multimediabotschaften mittels der innewohnenden semantischen Inhalte macht es möglich, den Verlust von Information während des Adaptationsprozesses.......
Dann geht es lockerer weiter mit

Aquaknarre water gun Wasser, Huh == Huch!!!....

Nun wird es etwas ernster es geht um Geld, viel Geld (not mine):

Without owning the copyrights concerned you have published ten complete works by xxxxxxxxxx in the Internet. Your argument, that according to the laws of the United States, these works are Public Domain, is not valid, because they are being viewed online in the WorldWideWeb in Germany as well.
Which means, I am going to be neither here nor there blogwise for a few weeks.
Will sagen, ich werde, was Blogging betrifft in den nächsten Wochen erst mal weg vom Radar sein.

Zur Erbauung und zwischenzeitlichen Unterhaltung in Sachen Englisch empfehle ich:
Meanwhile stay tuned dealing with complex issues such as: How would you look like if you were
a four-year-old letting the family's pet parakeet out of its cage

Oder sehen Sie sich meine Übersetzungeproben an:
Or have a look at the samples of my work:
PDF Downloads

Bis Bald
Gisela Strauss
Technical Translator
Im Prinzip technische Übersetzerin

UPDATE: SVN is on hold currently.
This is the stuff I am doing now:
Dear Blog-Readers,
Liebe Blog-Leser,

from now on I will be over at more often.
Ab jetzt werde ich öfters bei sein.

Reason being that I have begun translating the user manual for SVN - Subversion.
Grund: Ich habe damit begonnen das Anwender-Handbuch von SVN - Subversion zu übersetzen.

Den Fortschritt können Sie hier verfolgen.
You can track its progress here.

Die Rohübersetzungen sind öffentlich und werden nach dem Publizieren korrigiert.
It's a work-in-progress publication were the first draft is being published and then proof-read online.

Thank you for coming by.
Kommen Sie doch mal vorbei.

Gisela Strauss
Übersetzungen | Lokalisationen
Translations | Localizations

Thursday, August 24, 2006

Time for China

The China Time posters gave me cause to reminisce and think back to Chinatown San Francisco.
It is a completely safe and serene experience to walk through, and most of the shops are set up for Chinese so they are a true discovery.

The Chinese restaurants serve huge amounts of vegetables and rice and the vegetable gardens are maintained just outside of San Francisco to this day. It’s all family business which means the price for a very good meal is very decent.

Columbus square is where Chinese older women regularly do Tai Chi exercise in the morning. This is downtown and borders on – you guessed it - little Italy.

Of course any self-respecting San Franciscan knows their Chinese astrological sign.
It’s the year you are born in that matters.
I was born in the year of the Dog.


The ball is in your court.
Der [Tennis]-ball ist auf deinem/Ihrem Feld.
Bedeutung -
die nächste Möglichkeit eine Handlung zu initiieren liegt bei dir/Ihnen.

Creative Commons License