Thursday, August 29, 2013

Elysium


Elysium, my idol Matt Damon's latest action movie, is action packed, the story is tight giving no moment of feeling bored.

The story is set in the year about 150 years from now.  By then, the wealth gap has become extremely huge, the rich move to the outer space to continue their posh style of life, whilst the poor remain on planet Earth, to endure the almost unbearable harsh conditions and work as cheap labour.  Doesn't it sound like what we are seeing now?  The rich western countries such as US & Europe enjoy the beauty of unspoiled natural environment, whilst people in poor countries such as China and India, and many more Asian, African, South American countries are trading their environment for survival?  Somehow it also has a slight shadow of the Hunger Games.

The movie is action packed, full action from the beginning to the end.  Somehow the director likes to use a special way of capturing actions, with the scene almost blur and hard to distinguish who is who.  Luckily I watched the 2-D version, if I watched the 3-D version, probably I would get a headache.

There are many loopholes in the plot, I will let you to spot them and make fun of the poor script-writer.  Anyway, the script-writer is more concerned about the action rather than the plot, so more or less you can put your detective mind at rest, and just sit back and relax to enjoy 100 minutes of pure entertainment.

Rating:  3/5

Sunday, August 25, 2013

Bergamo

Bergamo is a small city about 40km north of Milan.  There is a direct train from Milan central station to Bergamo, the journey is ~50 minutes.

Bergamo consists of two parts, upper and lower Bergamo.  Lower Bergamo is where the city centre is and it is also the modern part of the city, built on the plain of Lombardy.


The lower Bergamo's clock tower is a landmark that you can't miss.  It was an interesting tradition in ancient times in Bergamo for the wealthy families to build tower.  It is both used a display of wealth, as well as a form of defense, to fend off the potential attacks.  In this photo, you can also see the other half of Bergamo, upper Bergamo, which is built on the hill behind lower Bergamo.

Lower Bergamo still retains lots of its old charm, although it is modern.


 Modern Sculpture of St Peter's Martyrdom

Uppder Bergamo was built as a fortress.  In 17th century, when Venetians ruled over Bergamo, they added the high walls surrounding uppder Bergamo, as an added layer of defense.  In the old days, there were four city gates for uppder Bergamo, but now, only one survived, Porta di St Giacomo.


For myself, I imagine I would only see such ancient built structures in the movies!  But, then now it is right in front of my eyes.  It is both very real and very unreal.  This gate is also a vantage point to have an aerial view of the city down below, as well as the plain of Lombardy on a sunny day.


Piazza Vecchia, this small city center square, is the heart and soul of the upper city.


Architecture styles are from both medieval and Renaissance periods.  The churches surrounding this square have many treasures in arts.  Masters of yester years had left their great creations on this land.

Facade of Bergamo Duomo 

Upper Bergamo is also one of the most expensive places to buy a house in the world.  If you decide to forgo to take the cable car from lower to upper Bergamo and take the walk, you can admire the many expensive houses in the world, hidden in the greens.





Friday, August 9, 2013

Princely Treasures




Princely Treasures is a special exhibition now on at the National Museum of Singapore.  Selected collections of art from the House of Liechtenstein are on display.  It is a very good opportunity for people to have a glimpse into Europe's upper class' taste and interests.

As I always say, no art exhibition can do without a naked male, and here it is.  This is a bronze statue of probably St. Sebastian.  The exact identity of this nude male cannot be determined.  Experts speculate that it might be a statue of an ancient Greek god, and later modified to represent St Sebastian.


As usual, there are some fine daily objects on display, which is made of gold or silver or precious stones.  This particular one stands out from the rest.  Looking at it, what do you think it is?  What is it used for?  Make a guess and the answer will surprise you.  It is actually a wine container, and a music box, and a game set.  Once you wire it, the deer will start rotating like a music box.  When it stops, the person to whom the deer is pointing at will have to finish the wine that is hidden in the goddess on the deer.  Interesting, isn't it?

There are many oil paintings on display too.  Look at how skillful the artist is in painting this picture of fruits.  The fine details of the grapes, the lemon are nicely captured.  At a first glace, you may even mistake them to be the real stuff, not a painting.  Artists' attention to details and their skillful reproduction never stops amazing me.

Sunday, August 4, 2013

Elliott Waves on DJIA

In my previous post, I mentioned the DJT indicates that we will still have some room to move upwards in DJIA.  This week, we will take a look at DJIA with Elliott waves.


This is the 5 waves that I marked on DJIA.  It seems like we are already at the end of wave5.  That means we are towards the end of the up cycle and should expect some correction.  However, anyone with some basic knowledge of Elliott waves should be able to tell that my marking is wrong, especially for wave3.  It is the shortest of 1, 3, & 5 in the chart, so my marking is invalidated.  Then where are we now?  I will guess we are somewhere in wave3, ie, we are still in the middle of a growth cycle.  We still have some room to move up, assuming March 2009 is the beginning of the new up cycle.

In this exercise, I also find that Elliott wave theory is fantastic, but just as what we say about the Mathematicians, they always tell us something that is true but useless.  While we are in the wave, we couldn't tell with great confidence where we are; by the time we are able to tell and demarcate the different waves correctly, the show is already over.  Money to be gained has been gained, money to be lost has been lost.  Marking the Elliott waves correctly on hindsight doesn't benefit us, and history will repeat itself anyway.