3 months of radio silence, a lot of things going on

One of those annoying things about having no real web access at work (nor to say any sort of privacy) is that it is near impossible to get any personal writing or work done at the office. Well you could say that you're supposed to be at the office to get work done but the the amount of time that people spend doing surfing the web and doing trivial things makes me wonder if there is any real value to having such stringent blocks on the web. There are of course other ways around web blocks to get things done but I just haven't bothered to do anything about it.

One thing that I've noticed about not doing as much online writing any more is that my depth of thought has mildly suffered. Reduction of introspection and the process of writing and reviewing written content for cohesive content works the mental muscle. Without sufficient mental exercise like muscle, the mind atrophies.

What have I been up to over the last 3 months. For the most part of Sept was brining online a new Tokyo based project for the office with large capital flows involving the movement of tens of millions of dollars in deals (the profit margin on these deals are a different story) but suffice to say that I am rather happy about what I've been able to accomplish over 3 months which was the time span of this project.

In other activities, I've been largely involved in Corporate Social Responsibility activities, which included a large amount of fund raising for a charity bike ride that was hosted in Japan this year where company members that participated needed to raise money to participate in the bike ride. I've managed to run several charity events, which netted about $3000 in profits that have been donated to the earthquake effected areas in Tohoku.

Finally outside of both activities, I've been very active with going to the gym. I haven't had a chance to make much of a note of this recently, but I've started going to crossfit, which is a popular kind of gym in the US (especially in California). The format of the gym basically includes people doing something called the "Workout of the Day" which varies from day to day and is composed of several exercises. Obviously doing this for some time, you'll do some of the work outs over again, but one thing that I like them most about this kind of gym is having a trainer which you can talk to, have them check your form, seek advise and learn how to use particular equipment that you would usually not use had you been going to the gym on your own.

I for one have been going to the gym on my own for 2~3 years before joining crossfit and never really had much success at improving my physique. I'll admit that this kind of gym is expensive (well especially for the location in Tokyo) as I am paying close to $200/month for the membership (includes 2 classes/week and use of the gym on the open gyms on Fridays). In addition to this, I also going to a standard gym that costs about $80/month.

How could you justify paying so much money going to the gym? some people might ask. Comparing this to the cost of say laser eye surgery which is in the order of several thousand dollars, going to they gym and paying a few thousand dollars for muscular augmentation with a good trainer is well worth it. In the last 1 year of training I've gained way more in strength than I have done in the last 3 years of going to the gym on my own.

By the beginning of next year I will (or will have attained):

• A 100 kg back squat (currently sitting at 95 kg)
• A 130 kg dead lift (currently sitting at 125 kg)
• A 60 kg bench press
• A 70 kg clean
• A 60 kg + push press
• Consistent ring muscle ups (just got my first one a few weeks ago)

This is simply just the strength training phase that I am going through right now that I'm performing doing during my down time at the other gym using the techniques learned from the crossfit gym. Once I've hit my strength goals, I'll move into metabolic conditioning and more upper body strength building with the goal of participating in the crossfit open.

One other benefit of going to a gym and taking group classes is understanding the upper limits of physical strength and endurance-- how strong other people are in comparison to you and knowing what is simply possible. Compared to what I knew before and how far I was willing to push myself before, I know that there are higher limits of what is possible and I've started working on that. Goes to say the real importance of having a good environment to understand context and gain motivation to push into what was thought of as inconceivable limits.

At Pycon Japan 2014

I've never gone to a programming conference before. I am an avid coder and only attended small meet ups from time to time. Listening to talks and seeing what is on the minds of other coders, who is attending on what talks and the trends in the industry are interesting.

In order to stay relevant it's important to see where everyone is going and what people are up to. Common sense, especially in the coding world changes very quick. I've seen some impressive architectures developed by just teams of 10 people. The idea that you need a big dev team to accomplish something is changing. Small groups people people can and will out code large organisations.

Attending other programming conferences will be an interesting thing for me to do, I wonder if other people doing modern languages are thinking the same thing.

Of an interesting note, lots of people here are live tweeting during the conferences, some of the tweets are interesting. I've never been much of a twitter user, but following some of the stuff is kind of neat. Only curios about "inherent filtering" (i.e. the characteristics of people that tweet are different compared to those that don't).

Tomorrow is going to be a coding sprint, the first time I'll be attending one. Going to be interesting to see what can be developed in the time span of a single day...

Also.. I need a notebook with a better battery life. My 2008 macbook just dies too quick!

Take the Challenging Route

A friend of mine had moved where I had worked to another recently citing that the work load at where he was at was too demanding. I can't say for sure if it was the right decision or not but for one thing for sure, he seems a lot happier now compared to where he was at before.

I've had calls to join other firms compared where I am at now. I work in a challenging environment in the sense that the technologies are used and "enterprise driven" usually means out dated workflows and arduous levels of justification to make change. There are times where it is a must to use an archaic system which costs $100k to develop where I could replace in a month. I've probably mentioned that many, many times before.

Going back to my friend that had left, things seems to be a lot easier in that the work days are shorter and tasks are a lot simpler. Somehow, knowing what I know and going into an environment that was too easy would leave me not as intellectually challenged and possibly bored.

Given the choice of 2 routes, between the one that seemingly looked like the easy route vs the possible but challenging route, I'd generally take the more challenging one. Doing things the easy way was never in my genes and the mysteries of trying to solve a challenge has always been in my blood. The more right way of putting it would be the satisfaction of going through the challenge.

Taking challenges seems like an unnatural thing, because for most people why take the harder route when an easy one exists? And for the ones that to take the harder routes, little do they realize later one, they are the ones to grow the most. There are to obvious reasons that a person would accept a challenge, either 1) by necessity or 2) for the satisfaction of taking on the challenge.

Anthropologically, cultures whom have have lived in climates of scarcity have appeared to be the ones that have best evolved or have become technologically advanced. Perhaps it is a generalization, but take for existence of cultures that existing around the earth's equator where food is plentiful and you'll find the life styles to be more bohemian, compared to those that have lived through somewhat more scarce climates. I should qualify that this isn't a necessary and sufficient condition for advanced cultures to evolve, taking for example of say people living in barren and cold areas near the poles of the earth.

Compare those cultures of Northern Europe or Asia where more advanced cultures have evolved (note that I do not necessarily mean "modern", but relative to the time period) and we would see that the most advanced cultures have generally have been the ones that have had to struggle through environments of scarcity and some hostility. But I would say that it is the necessity of the challenge that forces people to develop.

I for one would say that I am in a challenging circumstance, perhaps not in an ideal way but it has forced me to grow and develop skills in ways that I've not expected. Though I work in sort of a support function to ensure that systems run, I've taken on roles that would land me as a hybrid developer, business analyst and client relationship manager between the technology departments and business users simply because of the isolation of our office from our global centers.

The irony of it is, despite the number of people being smaller in a subsidiary office, we are forced to run the entire business chain with less people compared to our other locations which allows me to oversee much more of the activities than most people would in HQ. This has the interesting impact that I do a better job of coordinating the different teams in HQ from afar that what some people are able to do locally and I know for sure that I'll be able to leverage these skills in the future should I go up or outside the current organization where as I would probably would learn less if I was somewhere else.

Last 3 years of run data

I've been using an application for the last 3 years to keep track of my run information and some interesting trends come out.

Namely:

• I like running in the summer
• Run distances have been getting longer
• My speed drops after a running hiatus and as my runs get longer

Unfortunately, I didn't have my phone with me when I did the half marathon, but the 2 18 km runs before the marathon really improved my 10 km run speeds. I'll need to set some time again to run 21 km on my own again to see if there are further improvements to my 10 km speeds.

Currently trying to fit in 1 10 km run per week and noticing speed increases after each week. May up this to more frequent runs later on.

Running my first 1/2 marathon

If it weren't for hanging out with friends one day after riding support on bicycle for a 5 person relay where each person runs a half marathon that starts from Tokyo to Hankone, I probably would never have signed myself up to run for a half marathon.

Of an interesting thing recently, I've found myself doing more and more fitness wise with the help of trainers pushing me to do things that I would have never thought of doing. And it's not just the matter of being pushed, but watching other people do things that I would never have thought about doing. 

Fortunate for me I have been surrounded by people that are pretty keen on doing things like long distance bike rides, running and fitness challenges a la crossfit (of which I have signed into doing starting from last year).

For the past few years, dropping percent body fat has been one of those things that I've been trying to do. It's challenging as it takes dedication, avoidance of going out for drinks and finding time and energy during the day to pickup the weights or go out for a run. My experience doing crossfit for the past 6 months has shown me that while the workouts are intense, in order to truly reap the benefits of the high intensity exercise, you've also got to supplement those workouts with other activities such as running to build lasting endurance or to really build upon what the workouts provide.

A 10 km run will generally burn 750 calories and the general consensus is that burning 3500 calories will allow a person to drop about 500 grams (or 1 pound) in body weight. Meaning on average you'll need to do 5 runs to drop about 1 pound. A high intensity crossfit work out for approximately 20~30 mins will only burn about 250 calories and I will admit that these workouts can be really tough to get through but to have lasting change in dropping body weight, you'll need to do 3x more classes as compared to doing a regular run session to burn the same number of calories. Well back to running.

I've gotten to the point where running 10 km is no longer a challenging feat for me to do as it's something that I regularly do, but kicking this up to the 21 km range has brought me back to facing the same challenges that I faced while trying to do my first 10 km run, which was pushing through running while running out of gas at the 6 km mark. I think that every runner while trying to extend their running range will face this at some point when trying to run new distances. For me in running half marathons, it's pushing past the 16 km mark where I can feel the legs get heavy and my speed drops. Depending on how you're running out of gas while running, you're either able to push through it or you've pretty much hit the physical limit of the body for that run. 

I remember pushing to my first 18 km range run was the toughest as I ran out of gas during that run and it was very tough to keep on going. The second time around was much better and I was able to cut my running time down by 10 mins. I've never had the chance to run a full 21 km before the half marathon date but pushing through from the 17th km all the way to the end was both mentally and physically demanding. One of the goals that I had put out for myself for the 21 km run was to do the entire run unbroken (without needing to break into a walk). There were several instances where I was close to doing from mental and physical fatigue, but I managed to push through to the end. It was one of the toughest runs that I've ever had to do and I am pretty glad to have finished it (and event tempted to attempt another 1/2 marathon run in the future).

On good positive impact that I managed to find today is that my 10 km run speed has vastly improved since doing the 1/2 marathon run. After doing a long hiatus from running since starting crossfit, my running speed from the beginning of the year were pegged at just under 6 mins / km. After completing the 1/2 marathon run I managed to run 5 km all below 5 mins / km and the remainder at below 5:20 mins / km. I would say that I am pretty happy with those speed considering how few times that I've been running for the past few months. 

Some great tools that I've been using for running are both the "Runkeeper" application for my phone where it keeps track of my distance and speed and the second is a heart rate monitor which I wear strapped to my chest and a wrist watch that displays my current heart rate which allows me to maintain a constant rate of physical exertion instead of having it unknowingly drop while running on feel.

As Japan is finally coming out of a very cold start of spring, I'll also be looking forward to doing long distance rides to the coast which will be about a 110 km round trip on bike.

Promoted

I did in 1.5 years what I couldn't achieve in 4 years working at my last place of employment; getting promoted. I wouldn't say that my last place of employment was a bad, it's just the way their HR was setup was bad; they couldn't keep talented people like me around long enough and thus I had to go.

In all honestly, I do miss working in a fully technical field. Research and developing technology is a romantic concept, like the idea of the starting a successful business. It's a story with risk, uncertainty and with perseverance the protagonist will prevail. It is the dream story of the everyman.

I've been in corporate culture for the past 6 years. Working in a corporation is secure because the budgets are big and there is less fear of where the next pay cheque is going to come from. But the problem is as organizations become larger, the visible impacts that a person has on the outcome of a project or operations become less pronounced. Especially top players within teams. The person that would know who their top players are are probably the team members and the lead but without proper promotion to the rest of the organization most top players will go unnoticed. I've been in that situation several times in the past and I've since learned the importance of developing a solid reputation.

In the span of 2 years I've solidified my position as the god of what I do. When shit hits the fan, I am the guy that people call. When there are changes to be made I'm the person that is consulted. The interesting thing in large corporations is that everyone loves to blame IT for things that go wrong. I've come to the point where I can monitor what is going on so well that I actually tell the traders that they've forgotten to turn on their price contributions when they forget or tell them when their prices are off. People don't come to me to complain, I catch things before they happen and help people when they unwittingly make mistakes.

Oddly enough, becoming a person that is well recognized doesn't require tons of brains to achieve. It's is one of those counter-intuitive things that most people subtlety know to be true. I've come from a brainiac place to somewhere where those kinds of skills are less important, but a go getter mentality is what will drive home successes.

There will be more stories to talk about going forward, but those are for later.

Self censorship and its impacts on thinking

As one person had once put it, self-censorship is like violence against the mind. I for one would have to agree.

The ironic thing about the interconnectivity of the internet and the social networks that it brings along with it is a tidal wave of share information. When Facebook was in it's infancy, you'd only have a few circles of friends and they would represent the closest of your friends, then you would reach out to old acquaintances that you might have lost touch after middle of high school. When young, you could write about anything and you wouldn't give it a second thought. Social networks at one point were "fun."

Then came people of influence or judging people by what they post in to the mix of social networks. When everyone is watching everyone at some point, the things that do get posted onto social networks becomes sterile. As of late the only things that are of any notes are of people getting engaged, married, having kids, baby photos, food and the like. Posts of what people honestly feel and think have for the most part disappeared from the posts of social networks. The same goes for when family, friends of family and even some colleagues starts to appear on to one social network-- the choking scent of bleach and lysol starts to creep in. The problem is that you just can't everything with everyone.

Infinite loops and unfinished thoughts

There are thoughts that you can't share with everyone because it will end up rubbing someone the wrong way. The fear of writing something down, kills the hashing out process of thinking through an idea and all that remains is that unhatched seed of an idea that doesn't go away, but cannot be explored further without the medium of writing it down. One of the greatest cleansers of the mind is to keep a journal of thoughts to off load things out of the mind. But this makes the assumption that you are able to complete your throughs to a satisfying degree on your own. What if you need the opinion of a few others is needed to close the thought? Somethings without closure can sometime be left spinning in the mind for a long time, like that last word to a crossword puzzle, what you should do in some business situation or what not.

That in essence is the problem that current social networks today have changed the way that we interact with people, we've grown too accustomed to dropping things into an ocean of ideas and expecting the right ripples to come back to us. It just doesn't work like that anymore-- there is too much that you can't say and you simply just can't be yourself (not to mention what the NSA might be watching of you). Which is to say that from what I see of social networks now as a facilitator of self repression or violence of the mind which is unhealthy. For those that do not take heed properly and post whatever they choose can lead to real world consequences.

Sharing is slowly getting smarter with lists and circles. But I think the next killer app is something that lets you control who gets to see what.

Due dates, motivation and a morbid curiosity

Nothing like a due date to motivate a student to get something done. I remember seeing an interesting  watch once that counted down the number of days that you had to live. I don't remember exactly the name of the product but the idea had stuck with me since.

I idly decided to checkout my life expectancy, because why should just the life insurance companies be the only ones to know when would you pass? After popping in my numbers the calculator came out says that I'd be around to 2060. From now till 2060 is another 46 years and the years at the end wouldn't be my best. There is a theoretical maximum fulfilment limit for each day that you live and my understanding is that maxima gradually wanes as time goes forward after hitting your personal plateau. From this point forward, everyday that you will have will be in effect the "best day that you will have," physically speaking of course.

Time is too easily taken for granted, like the adage "the sun will rise another day," we assume the near infinity of the universe where our time spans are much different. Why is it easy to take time for granted?

I read a financial article today "Why Elon Musk and Tesla Motors Inc. Stock Are Having a Great Week", it's not even worth linking to this article, but the idea that the stock price of a company trying to revolutionise transportation is some how relevant to the goals it is trying to achieve and even at the time span of a week? I doubt that the writers of articles like these understand the amount of work that can be achieved in a week to truly understand what it takes to execute no a plan as big as this.

I, myself had been privy to a project that I worked on for 4 years to make something new in the display industry. It hadn't become a commercial product by the time I decided to move on, but there are too few "great" things that can be accomplished in such a short period of time. People don't understand the about of preparation that goes on behind the scene before getting to any sort of visible stage. It's all been condensed in the success story like how the words "4 years"  can be said in under a second that represents a much different time span.

But this also leads people into a trap, the need to be thinking about doing something or forcing once self to do something to achieve some long term goal. I myself am not immune to this trap as I myself have caught myself to be thinking what could I be doing better, being bewildered at the time span at getting good at it and some how launching into some personal tirade to get myself to be more motivated to do things.

Motivation is unhealthy, like sugar is unhealthy-- it is sweet and it feels good but there is a crash when one is deprived of it. I will agree it is a great tool to encourage people to get things done and I have often used it as a tool when tutoring-- my students do great when I am providing them with incentives to do better, but it often stops when I am no longer teaching them. The most successful students that I have taught are the ones that are inherently curious and will dive deep into a subject as a matter of curiosity or habit and I would argue that true curiosity and habit are independent of one's motivational mood.

There is a wonderful book that I recall reading by Dan Airly called "Predictably Irrational" and for $8 is it a wonderful read with great insights on human success factors and how we find ourselves making the decisions that we make. I would sum that the decisions that we make are the result of either having no choice or when we derive pleasure out of it. Understanding these 2 factors will give immense understanding how many decisions are made.

Excel and databases should go hand in hand

Data is database driven and I am really surprised at the lack of good tools to visualise and update data in databases. Why is it that for every application that we need specialised applications used to connect to some database in some model? It doesn't make sense to me.

Even now after working with databases for about the past year, the current way that data management in databases is terrible, where we are restricted to using queries, inspecting the data and then writing update commands to update the data. This entire step needs to be done away with and there should be something in excel that could be used to go straight into the database and modify the data instead of using this currently terrible method. The market is huge for corporate users and I am willing to bet that given right pitch, it would be easy to get corporate users to use the product.

How things in Vancouver have chanced

I touched down in the morning and did a quick spin through the city. My, how things have changed. My first impression of the place is that there are condos everywhere and the property prices are going through the roof. $800k for a property with a decrepit house? Where do people get the money for all of this?

Obviously the money is not being made locally as the salaries are not high enough to support it. More  or less, the GVRD area is turing into an exclusive club where membership is paid through property. Rich people from other areas are coming in with wads of money are buying up property like crazy. Is this sustainable? I don't think so, but obviously time will tell.

As for me, there is no rush to buy property out here just yet, not sure what is in store for the economy of BC. I don't know what exactly we are producing with great efficiency here that warrants this, but it is most likely the intangible comfort of a laid back west coast kind of life.

I am curious to see at how the rest of real estate along the entire west coast of North America is faring. Is it only Vancouver? or the entire region that is being impacted.