Credit Score

Few fundamentals about Credit Score ( In USA )

There are three Credit Bureaus in US,

Equifax - www.equifax.com
Experian - www.experian.com
TransUnion - www.transunion.com

These  credit bureaus receive credit-related information from companies that you do business with. They may also pull relevant public records, like tax lien or bankruptcy, and include that information in your credit report. The major credit bureaus only provide the information or other analytical tools to help businesses make decisions. The bureaus themselves do not make the decision.

NOTE:  FICO Is Not a Credit Bureau

FICO, the company who developed and maintains the FICO credit score is not a credit bureau. While they compile your credit scorebased on data from the major credit bureaus, they do not collect credit report data on their own.

As per government regulation. All the three bureaus provides credit reports to every legal residents in US, on request. The credit report can be requested at https://www.annualcreditreport.com ( Note that you dont get credit score here, only report )

These days various banks provides free access to your credit score along with your credit card a/c. For example Bank Of America does.

You will notice a message there such as 'Your FICO^® Score 8 based on TransUnion^® '

This means, this score is one of the three FICO scores available from FICO. the following will give some idea on the various factors effecting your credit score.

A credit report can be received from the the bureaus as well as from FICO and/or others. The bureau will specify the Score in the report. A sample Report from Equifax would look like this. Basically It contains all major information but not detailed history of each transaction reported by financial agencies. 

Thats the third thing. Credit History.

I don't know any ways to retrieve a detailed credit history of all transactions that are reported by financial institutions, at this point of time. 

Rejuvenation of blogging spirit

Its almost a year that I have scrapped anything on my blog space.
So many thing changed in this period.

I found blogspot.com asking me to enter my google user ID to claim my old blogs.
So some thing might have happend. A single window system of logging in.

I remember how I was busy doing exactly the same thing when we recommended the use of Active Directory Service so that people will have the same user ID/password for logging into Windows/Unix/Email system.

In a similar incident, I had notice from yahoo to approve the migration of my photos to snapfish which they have acquired recently.

In fact Me too was acquired by another company :)
Yes I had moved out from my preveious service oriented company and joinned a new product development company as a Build and Release Manager.

While setting up my new company laptop with Software utilities, once again I realised that technology have changed so much, Its becomming difficult for me to keep me updated with it.

I installed the Sony Erriction Phone software in my Laptop and connected the Mobile Phone holder (with the phone) to it.

A message flashed on the screen, saying
Your phone is in Phone mode. Only following features will be avialble.

Maaaaan !!
Is my phone is supposed to run in PC mode or Router mode, or Modem mode ?

I remember the days when I knew about the Master Boot sector and partition table. and software such as Norton Disk Doctors etc, while my friends were learning Pascal, C and Fortran.

also, I could recommend people to buy Assembled PC with a given configuration with x component from y make,

today I am having difficulty in deciding whether I should buy a LCD TV or a Plasma TV

One thing remained same.
Technology is advancing more than its forcasted.

Perception !!

Situation1 : an Ant was roaming around the house. It climbs
on the wall, on the roof, almost everywhere in search of food.

Suddenly it fell off and found itself inside a bowl of suger.

The ant was very happy, without even trying to understand
what happend it started eating suger.

It so happend that the person who was carrying the suger bowl
saw the ant, and killed it.

Situation2 : similar to situation1 but. Instead of killing
the ant, the person threw it off.
The ant is sad now.
It had not even started eating the suger.

------------------------
Doesn't it look to see that when the ant should be scared, it
was happy and when it should have been happy, it felt sad.

Perception, the big picture, the whole storry.
unawareness of the next step is the reason of this mismatch.

It could happen with us as well.
We had better perception then the ant so we could understand.
But who will show us the big picture ?

Difficult. Isn't it ?
But, at least realising the fact that there might be
something bigger then what we see,think,'feel good or bad
about' , might reduce the number of resons to feel sad.


If it does, don't forget to thank the ant :)

Biswajit 

Lateral Thinking

"Describe how to determine the height of a skyscraper with a barometer."

One student replied:

"You tie a long piece of string to the neck of the barometer, then lower the barometer from the roof of the skyscraper to the ground. The length of the string plus the length of the barometer will equal the height of the building."

This highly original answer so incensed the examiner that the student was failed immediately. The student appealed on the grounds that his answer was indisputably correct, and the university appointed an independent arbiter to decide the case.

The arbiter judged that the answer was indeed correct, but did not display any noticeable knowledge of physics. To resolve the problem it was decided to call the student in and allow him six minutes in which to provide a verbal answer that showed at least a minimal familiarity with the basic principles of physics.

For five minutes the student sat in silence, forehead creased in thought. The arbiter reminded him that time was running out, to which the student replied that he had several extremely relevant answers, but couldn't make up his mind which to use. On being advised to hurry up the student replied as follows:

"Firstly, you could take the barometer up to the roof of the skyscraper, drop it over the edge, and measure the time it takes to reach the ground. The height of the building can then be worked out from the formula H = 0.5g x t squared. But bad luck on the barometer."

"Or if the sun is shining you could measure the height of the barometer, then set it on end and measure the length of its shadow. Then you measure the length of the skyscraper's shadow, and thereafter it is a simple matter of proportional arithmetic to work out the height of the skyscraper."

"But if you wanted to be highly scientific about it, you could tie a short piece of string to the barometer and swing it like a pendulum, first at ground level and then on the roof of the skyscraper. The height is worked out by the difference in the gravitational restoring force T =2 pi sqr root (l /g)."

"Or if the skyscraper has an outside emergency staircase, it would be easier to walk up it and mark off the height of the skyscraper in barometer lengths, then add them up."

"If you merely wanted to be boring and orthodox about it, of course, you could use the barometer to measure the air pressure on the roof of the skyscraper and on the ground, and convert the difference in millibars into feet to give the height of the building."

"But since we are constantly being exhorted to exercise independence of mind and apply scientific methods, undoubtedly the best way would be to knock on the janitor's door and say to him 'If you would like a nice new barometer, I will give you this one if you tell me the height of this skyscraper'."

The student was Niels Bohr, the only Dane to win the Nobel Prize for physics.

Life is Never FULL

When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar...and the coffee...

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him.
When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls.

He then asked the students if the jar was full.
They agreed that it was.
So the professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar.
He shook the jar lightly.
The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls.
He then asked the students again if the jar was full.
They agreed it was.
The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar.
Of course, the sand filled up everything else.
He asked once more if the jar was full.
The students responded with an unanimous "yes."
The professor then produced a cup of coffee and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the empty space between the sand.
The students laughed.
"Now," said the professor, as the laughter subsided, "I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life.
The golf balls are the important things - your God, your family, your children, your health, your friends, and your favorite passions - things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full. The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house, and your car.
The sand is everything else - the small stuff.
"If you put the sand into the jar first," he continued, "there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you. Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your partner out to dinner. There will always be time to clean the house and fix the disposal."
"Take care of things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand."
One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee represented.
The professor smiled. "I'm glad you asked. It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a cup of coffee with a friend."

Aug 22nd 2005 [MONDAY]

This was a black day for me.
My Father expired.
I got the news at about 5 AM from My brother, over telephone.
It was a loooong story after that.
I went to bhubaneswar immediately by flight
and returned after 3 weeks after all rituals are over and I spent some time with my family members.

Two Quotes

Long time, I didnt post anything.
Today while I was about to clean up the white board in my workplace, where
There was quote written.

I thought of putting it here and make it more permanent then on whiteboard.


"Never Judge a book by It's cover.
Likewise, never Judge people by their looks.
Look at their heart"

"To find a solution for a problem, Never take eyes from obstacles"

perception from a different perspective

When I try to compare myself with people from the time of Rama & Krishna, the only difference I found is the our perception.

They had very good perception then people from my time

There were good as well as bad people in their times as well as ours

But their bad guys were much more intelligent, and had far better perception then ours.
Take the case of Ravana.
He was a far better saint then our time's so called gurus.

What is knowledge ?
Its the result of our perception.

knowledge may NOT be truth. We take it as trouth. Better the perception, more nearer to truth is our knowledge.

For my three years old nephew a computer is a gaming device.

For my brother its device where softwares are installed and run.
He knows that there are lots of things for which softwares are available.

To me, its an interface between human and any machine that understand digital signals.

I don't know names of many softwares, but I know of few things for which sotwares are NOT available, which can be developed.

What we see here is, difference in knowledge.

My perception towards computer may be better, but I DO not have an idea how computer will be used after 20 years

Now, since I am a computer engineer, I have a better perception about computer.

Now .. T
here are so many things in life.

Do we have at least good perception towards everything ?

My friends in my native village thinks that I am very rich person as my salary is 6 lac per anum

I know how difficult it is for a newly married couple in bangalore
:)

I am a good person.
I know what is good and what is bad. I think for a while, whether it is good or bad, before doing anything.

But the entire thing (The judgment of good/Bad) is limited, to my knowledge.

There is whole new world beyond my knowledge, my perception.

Also not every time, I do evaluate before thinking/talking
We need to think and talk good, similar to doing good.


-dont know what to write, how to continue. Please add comments, continuation, and I will update it