When I go shopping, I usually go looking for something I need at the lowest possible price. What I get annoyed at is when I start having to carry point cards or membership cards to get some kind of discount. When I get into a situation like that, my wallet starts to get bloated with more cards than cash and eventually I become generally annoyed with dealing with excess baggage.
I also hate gimmicks where stores make it look like you're saving more cash than you actually are. When I was a kid, I would always be mystified about the idea of a "sale." Something could be "50%" off, but I used to wonder what if these guys just doubled the price and then said that it was "50%" off? Essentially, that is what the retail business is all about-- finding ways of getting people to spend more money.
Air miles, I've never in my life have ever spent an air mile before, but it just seems like one of those big things that you ought to save up for a trip to somewhere or something like that. I ended up getting an air miles card for one of the flight carriers in Japan since I had to fly out to the country side to visit a factory. Free miles, so why not, I thought. I got card in the mail just today and according to the system they have, is that I have to spend $2 to get 1 cents worth of points. In other words, I would have to spend about $20,000 to get a $100 worth of cash back!?
What kind of insane system is that? It just sends the wrong message that you have to spend ridiculous amount of money to just get a little back. I am rather surprised at how some people are so keen on collecting points to get something back, especially when what you get back is so little.
Rather than collecting points, I would believe that there are better ways of spending one's time.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Obviously, I am a guy
Just got an e-mail from a female friend tonight CC'd to a bunch of people about how an old lady scolded her when she was sending e-mail from her cell phone by the priority seats. Generally in Japan, most people ignore that rule and no one really minds, except for the old lady in question.
Apparently after being scolded, she sends out an e-mail to her friend how she was kind of depressed about the whole incident and that it would have been nicer if the older lady was a little kinder with her words, though she was explaining how she was trying to be understanding. The e-mail rattles onwards on how it is hard to deal with situations like these... yadda yadda yadda and finally comes to the conclusion, "what would you do?"
I fired off an e-mail in about 5 minutes with 2 lines compared to her essay "Just say sorry and tell the old lady to be a little nicer when telling someone to do something."
After hitting send, I just realized how much of a guy I was: she probably wanted comfort instead of advice. And I get a lot of trouble from that when other girls when they come to me with their problems-- they aren't looking for a solution.
Apparently after being scolded, she sends out an e-mail to her friend how she was kind of depressed about the whole incident and that it would have been nicer if the older lady was a little kinder with her words, though she was explaining how she was trying to be understanding. The e-mail rattles onwards on how it is hard to deal with situations like these... yadda yadda yadda and finally comes to the conclusion, "what would you do?"
I fired off an e-mail in about 5 minutes with 2 lines compared to her essay "Just say sorry and tell the old lady to be a little nicer when telling someone to do something."
After hitting send, I just realized how much of a guy I was: she probably wanted comfort instead of advice. And I get a lot of trouble from that when other girls when they come to me with their problems-- they aren't looking for a solution.
When rules get in the way of work
I can't say for certain if this is a good or bad thing, but one thing that really annoys me about work is how managers like rules especially when something goes wrong (no matter how benign).
Just a few days ago, I made a small mistake that basically killed a sample. I opened a bottle of resin a little to close to one of my samples and unfortunately it squirted on to the sample, thus ruining it. Fortunately I had a spare sample to replace the ruined one. I figured that I would just make a mental note to not do that again.
Since these samples I am working on are being passed through a manual labor processing line, I naturally reported in on the little mishap and informed the people in charge that I'll be replacing the sample with another equivalent one. Apparently that wasn't enough.
Management type people aren't involved first hand with what is going on, so when I told them about the problem, they weren't necessarily satisfied that I just replaced the sample. They wanted some action-plan to thus prevent this kind of problem from ever happening again. The first one manager suggested to me was what about having a rule where you should open the bottle at least 1 meter away from the sample. Seriously.
What turned out to be a small mistake which could be remedied by having the sample put on a shelf nearby for when I open the bottle, I ended up having to spend a few hours taking photos of the work space and writing a power point presentation with a play-by-play of how some resin got splashed onto a sample. Bloody waste of time in my opinion, where as I could be off doing some productive work instead.
I sort of feel for these managers though, it seems that because these guys are in a position of power (perhaps?) that they have a need to get actively involved in making decisions or that they are involved some how in getting something implemented (albeit from a sort of distant kind of manner). Honestly, sometimes they should just learn to stand back and let the front line people deal with the problem instead.
The problem with the need for counter-measures and loads of preventative rules (though I would not say that they are all bad) is that it gets in the way of getting real work done. This is actually one blaring weakness when it comes to wanting to get work done. The best managers that I have worked for are the ones that do their best to shield us from dealing with all these annoying rules and simply let us have our way (within reasonable means of course). Because when I have to start following a gazillion rules to reduce errors that happen on a 1 out 100 probability that suck up my time, it becomes a pain in the ass to get anything done.
The ironic thin instead is that one of the guys that I am working with now has decided that it would be much better in our interests to just not report small problems and deal with them ourselves instead of wasting our time taking photos and writing up reports of benign events, which probably won't add up to brownie points on a performance review.
The moral of the story? Don't report small issues, just successes. Though it might not be how things should be setup, it's just more "cost effective" for people like me working in this kind of environment.
Just a few days ago, I made a small mistake that basically killed a sample. I opened a bottle of resin a little to close to one of my samples and unfortunately it squirted on to the sample, thus ruining it. Fortunately I had a spare sample to replace the ruined one. I figured that I would just make a mental note to not do that again.
Since these samples I am working on are being passed through a manual labor processing line, I naturally reported in on the little mishap and informed the people in charge that I'll be replacing the sample with another equivalent one. Apparently that wasn't enough.
Management type people aren't involved first hand with what is going on, so when I told them about the problem, they weren't necessarily satisfied that I just replaced the sample. They wanted some action-plan to thus prevent this kind of problem from ever happening again. The first one manager suggested to me was what about having a rule where you should open the bottle at least 1 meter away from the sample. Seriously.
What turned out to be a small mistake which could be remedied by having the sample put on a shelf nearby for when I open the bottle, I ended up having to spend a few hours taking photos of the work space and writing a power point presentation with a play-by-play of how some resin got splashed onto a sample. Bloody waste of time in my opinion, where as I could be off doing some productive work instead.
I sort of feel for these managers though, it seems that because these guys are in a position of power (perhaps?) that they have a need to get actively involved in making decisions or that they are involved some how in getting something implemented (albeit from a sort of distant kind of manner). Honestly, sometimes they should just learn to stand back and let the front line people deal with the problem instead.
The problem with the need for counter-measures and loads of preventative rules (though I would not say that they are all bad) is that it gets in the way of getting real work done. This is actually one blaring weakness when it comes to wanting to get work done. The best managers that I have worked for are the ones that do their best to shield us from dealing with all these annoying rules and simply let us have our way (within reasonable means of course). Because when I have to start following a gazillion rules to reduce errors that happen on a 1 out 100 probability that suck up my time, it becomes a pain in the ass to get anything done.
The ironic thin instead is that one of the guys that I am working with now has decided that it would be much better in our interests to just not report small problems and deal with them ourselves instead of wasting our time taking photos and writing up reports of benign events, which probably won't add up to brownie points on a performance review.
The moral of the story? Don't report small issues, just successes. Though it might not be how things should be setup, it's just more "cost effective" for people like me working in this kind of environment.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Avoiding distractions
It should be obvious, but distractions are a hell of a productivity killer.
Sometimes I wonder how much more I could get done without being distracted, but alas it only remains a figment of my imagination. I have, for the time being, come to accept my fate for now and instead keep a list of a few things that I need to get done everyday. So long as I get the important things done, anything else I get done is icing on the cake.
The key to success is keeping expectations low?
I would have to disagree with that as some of my most productive and driven times are when there are things that I really want to do. Another way of describing it is "having the right motivation." Where does motivation come from, I do not know. There are times when I have been highly motivated and I would stop at nothing to get something done and there are other times where I could care less. The fickleness of human emotions defies my logical thought.
I used to run on the assumption that as long as I saw a logical reason to doing something then I would have no good reason to no do something. Unfortunately, the human body doesn't work like that. Why is it sometimes that the right thing and the hard thing the same thing? I wake up at 7 am and I know that I probably should get out of bed and do something productive, instead I lie awake until about 8:15 instead. But I think I am straying away from the topic... now what was it... oh yeah, avoiding distractions.
How to not be distracted
The only easy answer I've been able to figure out for my case is simply to not be at home nor at work. As long as I am away from familiar territory, my productivity shoots up like mad. I could probably live traveling through hostel to hostel and spend the days checking out interesting places and then come back and spend hours writing up about the interesting things I've done. I could probably live away in a garage surrounded with cool tools to play with and would probably end up spending hours building something.
Being somewhere comfortable is probably the biggest hindrance to me, simply just because I know how to distract myself in comfortable situations compared to when I am away and need to get things done.
The question is how to bring those qualities into my everyday life.... something I need to figure out.
Sometimes I wonder how much more I could get done without being distracted, but alas it only remains a figment of my imagination. I have, for the time being, come to accept my fate for now and instead keep a list of a few things that I need to get done everyday. So long as I get the important things done, anything else I get done is icing on the cake.
The key to success is keeping expectations low?
I would have to disagree with that as some of my most productive and driven times are when there are things that I really want to do. Another way of describing it is "having the right motivation." Where does motivation come from, I do not know. There are times when I have been highly motivated and I would stop at nothing to get something done and there are other times where I could care less. The fickleness of human emotions defies my logical thought.
I used to run on the assumption that as long as I saw a logical reason to doing something then I would have no good reason to no do something. Unfortunately, the human body doesn't work like that. Why is it sometimes that the right thing and the hard thing the same thing? I wake up at 7 am and I know that I probably should get out of bed and do something productive, instead I lie awake until about 8:15 instead. But I think I am straying away from the topic... now what was it... oh yeah, avoiding distractions.
How to not be distracted
The only easy answer I've been able to figure out for my case is simply to not be at home nor at work. As long as I am away from familiar territory, my productivity shoots up like mad. I could probably live traveling through hostel to hostel and spend the days checking out interesting places and then come back and spend hours writing up about the interesting things I've done. I could probably live away in a garage surrounded with cool tools to play with and would probably end up spending hours building something.
Being somewhere comfortable is probably the biggest hindrance to me, simply just because I know how to distract myself in comfortable situations compared to when I am away and need to get things done.
The question is how to bring those qualities into my everyday life.... something I need to figure out.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
On Touch Typing
I decided recently that I needed to to some practice with my typing as I generally seem to get a little annoyed when I make errors when typing. I generally feel that making a typing mistake and then hitting the backspace key to correct the error to be too much of a pain even to the point that I just keep on going and let spell check deal with the mistakes later on. It just feels really good to keep on going, but it drives me nuts sometimes to see an error just sticking there on the screen that I eventually need to go back and fix it. To alleviate this problem, sometimes I just shut my eyes and just keep going on wit the typing, often to catastrophic effect.
In the old days, you'd usually have to buy software to practice your typing, but now with the internet, there are plenty of places online that you can take lessons for free. I decided to do just that. The first site I came across was here, which was the first site that popped up after a google search for me. So I decided to give it a shot.
My average wpm while for just transcribing text is about 60~70 wpm, but this does not count for errors and going back to fix them (I would assume that my speed would drastically drop once factoring in mistakes). I then tried out their lessons which involves something in the effect of what you might have learned from a touch typing class in high school, which basically is:
1. Hands on the home row
2. Practicing using your index fingers
3. Moving on wards to using the index fingers and middle fingers
4. Using your ring fingers or learning how to go up and down the keyboard
5. Etc
I find that learning how to type like this to be really unnatural to me as my hands and brain doesn't work like this at all. The first lesson where I was just using my index fingers went fine (using the 'F' and 'J' keys), as soon as the program started bringing in my middle fingers into the mix and incorporating the 'D' and 'K' characters into the lesson, I was thrown for a loop. My speed was just ridiculously slow and I had a hell of a hard time trying to get my hands working for me.
I believe that my hands have already some kind of muscle memory built into them as a result of learning to type words whole words instead of gunning for random letters. If I were given a set of random letters to transcribe, I would be at a terrible loss to type them at any sort of speed, where as I would end up being much faster at typing natural words. For example the word "The" I would my left hand only to type this word, though it would probably be more proper to use the right hand for the letter 'H'. I just figured that since my left hand was already doing the typing already, it just felt natural for the hand to do all of the typing.
I type predominantly with my left hand as most of the letters are located on the left hand side of the keyboard and with most of the punctuation located on the right hand side. As a result the span of my left hand is greater than my right hand as I ended up going as far as the letter 'H' with, my left hand and sometimes going as far as the letter 'U' in some cases. For example the word "you," since my index finger has already gotten to the letter "Y", after hitting the "O" my index finger is already beside the the letter "U" so I naturally hit it with my index finger of my left hand. Depending on the context through, I do also hit the letter 'U' with the right hand as well, so a good bunch of the keys that I use are shared between both hands.
If anyone ever bought me one of those ergonomic keyboards, I'd probably take it and kill them with it because it would be utterly useless for me. But still, I think my error rate for typing is still on the high side and with all my years of working on the computer, it still hasn't improved one bit. The question is that do I keep working with the current system that I have right now or do I throw it out and go with standard typing practices.
When I have some more time, I'll try my hand at transcribing written works and see if that helps. If it doesn't then I will consider learning a new typing style. With computers being such an integral part of a person's life it would make sense to have excellent typing skills.
My hand positions are also not fixed as they tend to glide around the keyboard depending on the words that I am using. For example, it would be standard to use just the ring finger to press for the letter "O." In my case, the finger that presses the letter "O" is generally my middle finger as my ring finger tends to be a little hard for me to control and when I do use it, I generally use my ring mainly for the backspace key or the return button.
In the old days, you'd usually have to buy software to practice your typing, but now with the internet, there are plenty of places online that you can take lessons for free. I decided to do just that. The first site I came across was here, which was the first site that popped up after a google search for me. So I decided to give it a shot.
My average wpm while for just transcribing text is about 60~70 wpm, but this does not count for errors and going back to fix them (I would assume that my speed would drastically drop once factoring in mistakes). I then tried out their lessons which involves something in the effect of what you might have learned from a touch typing class in high school, which basically is:
1. Hands on the home row
2. Practicing using your index fingers
3. Moving on wards to using the index fingers and middle fingers
4. Using your ring fingers or learning how to go up and down the keyboard
5. Etc
I find that learning how to type like this to be really unnatural to me as my hands and brain doesn't work like this at all. The first lesson where I was just using my index fingers went fine (using the 'F' and 'J' keys), as soon as the program started bringing in my middle fingers into the mix and incorporating the 'D' and 'K' characters into the lesson, I was thrown for a loop. My speed was just ridiculously slow and I had a hell of a hard time trying to get my hands working for me.
I believe that my hands have already some kind of muscle memory built into them as a result of learning to type words whole words instead of gunning for random letters. If I were given a set of random letters to transcribe, I would be at a terrible loss to type them at any sort of speed, where as I would end up being much faster at typing natural words. For example the word "The" I would my left hand only to type this word, though it would probably be more proper to use the right hand for the letter 'H'. I just figured that since my left hand was already doing the typing already, it just felt natural for the hand to do all of the typing.
I type predominantly with my left hand as most of the letters are located on the left hand side of the keyboard and with most of the punctuation located on the right hand side. As a result the span of my left hand is greater than my right hand as I ended up going as far as the letter 'H' with, my left hand and sometimes going as far as the letter 'U' in some cases. For example the word "you," since my index finger has already gotten to the letter "Y", after hitting the "O" my index finger is already beside the the letter "U" so I naturally hit it with my index finger of my left hand. Depending on the context through, I do also hit the letter 'U' with the right hand as well, so a good bunch of the keys that I use are shared between both hands.
If anyone ever bought me one of those ergonomic keyboards, I'd probably take it and kill them with it because it would be utterly useless for me. But still, I think my error rate for typing is still on the high side and with all my years of working on the computer, it still hasn't improved one bit. The question is that do I keep working with the current system that I have right now or do I throw it out and go with standard typing practices.
When I have some more time, I'll try my hand at transcribing written works and see if that helps. If it doesn't then I will consider learning a new typing style. With computers being such an integral part of a person's life it would make sense to have excellent typing skills.
My hand positions are also not fixed as they tend to glide around the keyboard depending on the words that I am using. For example, it would be standard to use just the ring finger to press for the letter "O." In my case, the finger that presses the letter "O" is generally my middle finger as my ring finger tends to be a little hard for me to control and when I do use it, I generally use my ring mainly for the backspace key or the return button.
Secret Projects and Politics
It is so interesting what people start doing without knowing the full details of what is going on. The project at work is coming to an interesting head with some of the managers worrying if we can pull this thing off as some new obstacles have come into play that may cause some problems with us meeting our deadlines.
Right now, we are relying on another group to go into mass production of parts we need for our project. We have done the initial R&D, but the problem with this other group is that there are still many remaining issues to getting the parts we need at a high enough quality. A deadline will be coming up and some people are uncertain that they will be able to produce the parts, within spec, by the required time.
The development process will be passed onto this other group and we will move on to a different phase of the project and it seems that one of the managers and a few of my colleagues are uncertain about this other group pulling through and they want a risk hedge. The interesting thing is that development of this part, after some internal shuffling has been passed onto me and there has already been some underground improvements and design changes made to a prototype to solve some problems and the new design has been presented. Unfortunately for the new part to be put into the system, we need cooperation with other groups, meaning that the development of this new part cannot be kept secret.
Since there hasn't been too much upper level communication about this project and the real objective of this new design wasn't entirely clear as many people had different objectives in mind, I decided to try and clear things up by going public with the project. Upper management responded that we should halt work on it and save our resources for something else. Personally, I think they are right as a new version of this prototype is coming out and the project is going to switch over to that, but some people are still smacking for some kind of risk hedge and want to continue this current project "underground" and I would have to work on it.
My visibility on the whole project is not broad enough to understand everything that is going on at the moment, but given that we are transferring production to another group and we are close to the end run of production on this end, I don't see how we can produce these new parts, test them and perform feed back in a meaningful way if the design is going to change and we are close to finishing up here. People are worried that the other group may fail and we may have to fall back to the original design and hence we should continue work.
As there are too many unknowns at this point, I think it is kind of imprudent to start pouring resources into a separate project where we do not know the outcome or if it will be needed in the future, especially if I have to do it "underground" and it will cost me additional time out of my evenings to work on this. I also probably will not be able to report on this project and thus when I can't talk about it during my performance review, my efforts cannot really thrown into discussion. There is no incentive for me for in this project and there are to many unknowns that I cannot justify myself into working on this project.
On a second note, if you want to really do an underground project, you also need to have access to all the necessary resources on your own without requiring support of management to pull it off. I am pretty good at running "shoe string" experiments/projects but considering I need resources from other groups and need to schedule things into different lines, it would be hard to keep this project a secret. If someone wants to really do it, I am going to have to tell them to do it themselves.
Right now, we are relying on another group to go into mass production of parts we need for our project. We have done the initial R&D, but the problem with this other group is that there are still many remaining issues to getting the parts we need at a high enough quality. A deadline will be coming up and some people are uncertain that they will be able to produce the parts, within spec, by the required time.
The development process will be passed onto this other group and we will move on to a different phase of the project and it seems that one of the managers and a few of my colleagues are uncertain about this other group pulling through and they want a risk hedge. The interesting thing is that development of this part, after some internal shuffling has been passed onto me and there has already been some underground improvements and design changes made to a prototype to solve some problems and the new design has been presented. Unfortunately for the new part to be put into the system, we need cooperation with other groups, meaning that the development of this new part cannot be kept secret.
Since there hasn't been too much upper level communication about this project and the real objective of this new design wasn't entirely clear as many people had different objectives in mind, I decided to try and clear things up by going public with the project. Upper management responded that we should halt work on it and save our resources for something else. Personally, I think they are right as a new version of this prototype is coming out and the project is going to switch over to that, but some people are still smacking for some kind of risk hedge and want to continue this current project "underground" and I would have to work on it.
My visibility on the whole project is not broad enough to understand everything that is going on at the moment, but given that we are transferring production to another group and we are close to the end run of production on this end, I don't see how we can produce these new parts, test them and perform feed back in a meaningful way if the design is going to change and we are close to finishing up here. People are worried that the other group may fail and we may have to fall back to the original design and hence we should continue work.
As there are too many unknowns at this point, I think it is kind of imprudent to start pouring resources into a separate project where we do not know the outcome or if it will be needed in the future, especially if I have to do it "underground" and it will cost me additional time out of my evenings to work on this. I also probably will not be able to report on this project and thus when I can't talk about it during my performance review, my efforts cannot really thrown into discussion. There is no incentive for me for in this project and there are to many unknowns that I cannot justify myself into working on this project.
On a second note, if you want to really do an underground project, you also need to have access to all the necessary resources on your own without requiring support of management to pull it off. I am pretty good at running "shoe string" experiments/projects but considering I need resources from other groups and need to schedule things into different lines, it would be hard to keep this project a secret. If someone wants to really do it, I am going to have to tell them to do it themselves.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
If I were to give myself advice from the future
It would be this: "Don't Destroy Your Sex Rank By Stupid Educational Choices"
Not to say that I'm not sexy by all means, it just means that I wished I was at my full potential a little earlier ;)
Not to say that I'm not sexy by all means, it just means that I wished I was at my full potential a little earlier ;)
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Being complacent is not a good thing
Perhaps it is the natural cycle of going from a new recruit in the company to getting used to the surrounding. I used to have a lot of ideas when I first got into the company I was working in. I believed that the R&D process could be sped up immensely by using semi-automation techniques and let the machines we use work through the night producing results that we could evaluate through the day.
I had dreams that I wanted to semi-automate many of the measurement systems and processing systems to make unattended batch processing feasible. Things like that shouldn't be too hard to make, all you need is a sample loader and a mechanism to program in a batch recipe and some error handling (the assumption part is the "all you need" part).
The problem is that with all these ideas, I would have needed the time and resources to put this into action and the problem is that getting the required level of funding and support would have been a pain in the rear. So I but the bullet and decided to work with the system to get the job done like everyone else did.
I personally think that this is the way that many good ideas die, just because people don't have the finding, time or the freedom to give it a shot, because we are stuck work that "needs" to be done and have to little time to do find ways that the current job could be done better or new things to try.
Most of the best ideas and biggest successes came out of skunkworks project, were people were able to make things out of shoe string budgets, putting in their own time to make something. Not everything worked, but some of the biggest successes have been huge. For example, a company like Sony's first venture into the gaming world was not the result of the playstation but by Ken Kutaragi underground working with Nintendo on using the the SPC700 chip that sony developed as Nintendo's sound chip. It was after that that (and must scolding from Sony's executive, that Ken would eventually fire) that Sony got into the console business.
There are probably many examples in history where employees have come up with great ideas that would turn out to be money makers that the executives would never understand. Xerox also had the same problem with the development with the graphical OS and the mouse which Apple and Microsoft would steal for their own computers.
Not all ideas have been good, but so long as the required funds and time is small enough that shouldn't be too much of a problem. If you keep trying, eventually, you'll make a hit. The most important part is the trying, and I believe that companies that don't foster that will probably end up dying.
I had dreams that I wanted to semi-automate many of the measurement systems and processing systems to make unattended batch processing feasible. Things like that shouldn't be too hard to make, all you need is a sample loader and a mechanism to program in a batch recipe and some error handling (the assumption part is the "all you need" part).
The problem is that with all these ideas, I would have needed the time and resources to put this into action and the problem is that getting the required level of funding and support would have been a pain in the rear. So I but the bullet and decided to work with the system to get the job done like everyone else did.
I personally think that this is the way that many good ideas die, just because people don't have the finding, time or the freedom to give it a shot, because we are stuck work that "needs" to be done and have to little time to do find ways that the current job could be done better or new things to try.
Most of the best ideas and biggest successes came out of skunkworks project, were people were able to make things out of shoe string budgets, putting in their own time to make something. Not everything worked, but some of the biggest successes have been huge. For example, a company like Sony's first venture into the gaming world was not the result of the playstation but by Ken Kutaragi underground working with Nintendo on using the the SPC700 chip that sony developed as Nintendo's sound chip. It was after that that (and must scolding from Sony's executive, that Ken would eventually fire) that Sony got into the console business.
There are probably many examples in history where employees have come up with great ideas that would turn out to be money makers that the executives would never understand. Xerox also had the same problem with the development with the graphical OS and the mouse which Apple and Microsoft would steal for their own computers.
Not all ideas have been good, but so long as the required funds and time is small enough that shouldn't be too much of a problem. If you keep trying, eventually, you'll make a hit. The most important part is the trying, and I believe that companies that don't foster that will probably end up dying.
Sunday, May 09, 2010
12 Days of Vacation coming to an end
My vacation is winding down to an end with today being my last day off. It's been a busy vacation, heading out to Sendai, spending time at the hot springs, drinking till the morning, going for lunch, catching the bullet train back, then having drinks with other friends after arriving in Tokyo and then a home party the next day. I've also rode done 3x30 km bike rides out to the beach and back, coupling that with some exercising at home. The body isn't picking up as much muscle as I would like, but I managed to luck out just today with a friend that had a big exercise machine that he wanted to unload.
A shot of the machine from the front
A shot from the side, also exposing my messy room
(yes, I keep an oscilloscope in the room)
A shot of the machine from the front
A shot from the side, also exposing my messy room(yes, I keep an oscilloscope in the room)
The machine retails for about $550 and I managed to get this machine used off a friend for about $275. I just finished moving the machine in to my room and it was plenty of work to heave about. The exercise machine can be completely disassembled but we decided to try and move it around largely in one piece. Buying this machine is a great investment as I used to spend about $60/month for a gym subscription that I could only use once a week because of my late working hours.
Now that I have an exercise machine at home, I should be able to squeeze in a 30~45 min round of exercise, then hitting the showers before going to bed. If you are planning to do muscular training for more than a year, then an exercise machine is well worth the investment. Hopefully, I will have some nice muscular development happening over the next few months.
Going off on another tangent, I've been spending a lot of time out recently, that I've found myself to be a lot more productive while spending time out of the home, or away from the computer. There just seems to be too many distractions on the net keeping me from doing productive activities. I will be looking into trying to cut down the amount of time surfing the net and doing productive work in my spare time.
I've found that it helps for me to have a list of things that I should to and pick something from there to do, else I end up vegging out reading webpages instead.
Now that I have an exercise machine at home, I should be able to squeeze in a 30~45 min round of exercise, then hitting the showers before going to bed. If you are planning to do muscular training for more than a year, then an exercise machine is well worth the investment. Hopefully, I will have some nice muscular development happening over the next few months.
Going off on another tangent, I've been spending a lot of time out recently, that I've found myself to be a lot more productive while spending time out of the home, or away from the computer. There just seems to be too many distractions on the net keeping me from doing productive activities. I will be looking into trying to cut down the amount of time surfing the net and doing productive work in my spare time.
I've found that it helps for me to have a list of things that I should to and pick something from there to do, else I end up vegging out reading webpages instead.
Friday, May 07, 2010
The information playing field
The average person is generally at a disadvantage when it comes to good information. Financial institutions, insurance companies, real estate agents, credit card companies are exceptionally keen on getting financial information from the average Joe. Armed with statistical information, one can statistically profile people based on their income, gender and purchasing habits. When it comes to dealing with loans and insurance I believe that the relationship between the institution and the average person is asymmetric.
It would be an interesting experiment to see if this playing field could be leveled though the creation of a database with anonymous (and reliable?) information. The people at Glassdoor have managed to do something similar but different with salary information, though I am not sure how sexy a person's spending data would be.
It would be an interesting experiment to see if this playing field could be leveled though the creation of a database with anonymous (and reliable?) information. The people at Glassdoor have managed to do something similar but different with salary information, though I am not sure how sexy a person's spending data would be.
Surviving is hedging against the stupidity of other people
What you would you do if you had to pick up the tab for someone else's mistake? I would naturally would not be happy about it. In the last few years, we have already seen this happen with both Iceland and now probably Greece. Germany is obviously unhappy with the prospect of having to spend the most money on Greece to bail them out, nor are the Greeks happy that they are going to be on the line for tax increases and pay cuts to pay off a debt that their government managed to hide for so long.
I generally don't really care/mind what other people do so long as it does not negatively affect the well being of other people. I generally try to live by that rule, but what annoys me is when other people start screwing things up for other people and leaving them on the hook for it. As much as I would like people/organizations/politicians to take responsibility for their own mistakes, they usually don't or they can't, especially in the case of a major catastrophe.
I once remarked that for a democracy to work well, you need an educated population. Unfortunately, there are too many uneducated people voting for and getting things that might not be good for them. Changing the ways that people think about anything (finance, politics, etc.) is a hard problem and sometimes it just isn't worth the time and effort to change them. It would be more productive for me to hedge and isolate myself from them whenever I think I am right and they are wrong, in other words "put my money where my mouth is" instead of arguing about "where we should put our money."
I generally don't really care/mind what other people do so long as it does not negatively affect the well being of other people. I generally try to live by that rule, but what annoys me is when other people start screwing things up for other people and leaving them on the hook for it. As much as I would like people/organizations/politicians to take responsibility for their own mistakes, they usually don't or they can't, especially in the case of a major catastrophe.
I once remarked that for a democracy to work well, you need an educated population. Unfortunately, there are too many uneducated people voting for and getting things that might not be good for them. Changing the ways that people think about anything (finance, politics, etc.) is a hard problem and sometimes it just isn't worth the time and effort to change them. It would be more productive for me to hedge and isolate myself from them whenever I think I am right and they are wrong, in other words "put my money where my mouth is" instead of arguing about "where we should put our money."
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
The diet continues
Golden week started as of last week in Japan. It's basically like 3 days of holidays in a row and if you throw in some paid holidays, it can be nicely extended. I managed to do that and turned my golden week holiday into a 12 day string of off time. And it's been great not going to work.
I spent most of golden week meeting up with friends in Tokyo and then heading out to Sendai to hit some hot springs and meet up with friend over there. The last 4 days for me pretty much centered around eating, drinking and sitting hot water. It was pretty good. After getting back to Tokyo I finally managed to weigh myself for the first time in 4 days to find my self rather relieved that I haven't gained any weight.
Interestingly, I have found that my body weight does swing in about a 1.0 kg range depeneding on if I weigh myself right after some vigorous exercise or after taking in a big meal with plenty of fluids. I spent about 1.5 hours riding out and back from where I live to a beach, with a round trip total distance of 30 km. After the ride I weighed 66.7 kg and then after taking in some dinner and fluids throughout the day, I currently weigh 67.6 kg. I need to take a look at my body weight trend for a little longer to decide on what I need to do next to bring myself further into shape. Attached below is the most recent body weight trend data.
I have also decided to do some calculations about my caloric intake since I have just been eyeballing things recently using the calculator provided at nutrition data. As of recent, I've been eating mostly a combination of a home brew of chili, a soup based on sole fish, assorted vegetables (broccoli, spinach, cabbage, corn, carrots, peas and seaweed) and rice. I've approximated my portion sizes and according to the calculator, I am consuming bout 1052 Calories, of which 149 Calories come from fat as shown in the summary below.
I believe that the real value for my caloric intake is probably a little higher since I do tend to eat 1 extra meal in the day as I usually feel hunger pangs since going on this diet. My caloric intake is significantly lower compared to my 1600 Calorie goal, though I believe that my real caloric intake is higher, it should be in the 1300~1500 Calorie range as I am sneaking in some fruits and servings of vegetables to deal with the hunger pangs.
If my caloric intake remains too low, I might switch over from consuming white rice to brown(ish) rice, which is a kind of rice without the outer husk polished off. It is often said to be more healthy but I am not entirely sure why most rice producers like to polish off the brown outer layers from the rice.
I spent most of golden week meeting up with friends in Tokyo and then heading out to Sendai to hit some hot springs and meet up with friend over there. The last 4 days for me pretty much centered around eating, drinking and sitting hot water. It was pretty good. After getting back to Tokyo I finally managed to weigh myself for the first time in 4 days to find my self rather relieved that I haven't gained any weight.
Interestingly, I have found that my body weight does swing in about a 1.0 kg range depeneding on if I weigh myself right after some vigorous exercise or after taking in a big meal with plenty of fluids. I spent about 1.5 hours riding out and back from where I live to a beach, with a round trip total distance of 30 km. After the ride I weighed 66.7 kg and then after taking in some dinner and fluids throughout the day, I currently weigh 67.6 kg. I need to take a look at my body weight trend for a little longer to decide on what I need to do next to bring myself further into shape. Attached below is the most recent body weight trend data.
I have also decided to do some calculations about my caloric intake since I have just been eyeballing things recently using the calculator provided at nutrition data. As of recent, I've been eating mostly a combination of a home brew of chili, a soup based on sole fish, assorted vegetables (broccoli, spinach, cabbage, corn, carrots, peas and seaweed) and rice. I've approximated my portion sizes and according to the calculator, I am consuming bout 1052 Calories, of which 149 Calories come from fat as shown in the summary below.
I believe that the real value for my caloric intake is probably a little higher since I do tend to eat 1 extra meal in the day as I usually feel hunger pangs since going on this diet. My caloric intake is significantly lower compared to my 1600 Calorie goal, though I believe that my real caloric intake is higher, it should be in the 1300~1500 Calorie range as I am sneaking in some fruits and servings of vegetables to deal with the hunger pangs.If my caloric intake remains too low, I might switch over from consuming white rice to brown(ish) rice, which is a kind of rice without the outer husk polished off. It is often said to be more healthy but I am not entirely sure why most rice producers like to polish off the brown outer layers from the rice.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Being with the right people
The people around you have a profound impact on the way you behave. As I write this, it seems like quite an obvious statement, but many interesting discussions start with observations of the obvious.
I had the opportunity to hang out at a house party of an American friend that just recently moved into downtown Tokyo. The crowd was markedly international, with people hailing from Australia, the UK, Korea, South America, Taiwan and more. It was a great party and even if everyone didn't speak perfect English, none of us cared the least bit. There were elder and younger people, but we all just hang out together talking about whatever and I thought it was kind of great to have this sort of free flowing conversation.
Perhaps, I might not be fluent enough with my Japanese to have the kinds of conversations I would like to have in Japanese; I often tell my friends that I am much more interesting when I speak in English. I am far more free to use the full richness of the English language to make conversation interesting and lead conversations subtly in interesting directions. There used to be a philosophy essay topic that I once read before in high school, that went along the lines of "you cannot describe something for which you do not have the words for." Compared to the English language, I still find my depth of expression in the Japanese language to be somewhat limited, but I would not limit the breath of communication to simply words. I have so far found from my experiences that if there is a will, even without the words, there will be a way to make yourself understood. This comes from my experiences when traveling to places to non English speaking countries.
More importantly, I believe that culture, whether be it the culture of a small group of people or a nation that has an immense influence on the way and of the topics which people communicate about. In my 5 years in Japan, I have probably seen a wider breadth of Japanese culture that perhaps most people would Japanese would see. I've been out to the countryside and spent time with the old folk planting rice in the fields and learning a bit about agrarian life, I've hung out with Japanese people that have traveled, I also hang out with the underground culture crowd and I also hang out with the geeks and your typical Japanese people.
I've seen many walks of Japanese life that I probably could not relate with my usual co-workers, what might be fine in a different sub-group might not easily be accepted in another. It's kind of unfortunate in that sense, but I guess, that is my biggest gripe about traditional corporate culture, not just Japanese culture in general.
I've never been a big fan of hierarchy, especially a system that has been imposed through largely seniority. I can agree that there is correlation but just because someone is older does not necessarily mean that it is right. We see this happening in recent US business culture as startups being run by smart young people trampling over the older corporate types. Times are changing because the amount of capital to start a company is rapidly declining (depending on your field of course). There is probably a lot I would like to talk about with them, but I already know that what I have seen is so wildly different from what they are used to, that they wouldn't understand. What I am talking about reminds me about an essay about "What you can't say" written by Paul Graham. A good read if you have the time.
I believe it is more of a class of values than anything else. I enjoy going off and doing my own thing, working on little projects in the hopes of making something new and interesting instead of slogging at doing the same things over and over again. I can't really generalize the whole corporate experience because I do have much more freedom then I would have first expected, I do have specific tasks that I need to get done but other then that I pretty much have free reign. I do have to deal with bosses from time to time that like to micromanage or get a little academic than practical when it comes to getting work done in a timely manner but I'll accept that as the natural progression of things. I do feel that there is a lack of a pioneering spirit, the kind of feeling that I used to have when working with friends back at UBC. Then again, we were young back then and pretty much everything that we did before when we were young was pretty much new to ourselves. We didn't know any better. I've gotten a little older since then, but I do miss having the crazy ideas and friends to work on them with.
There is also that too, being with the right people, in the right atmosphere, the right people often can draw out the best of us. With the right group of people, I've felt happier, more alive, filled with more interesting ideas and less inhibited. In the "zone" as some might say. I was with the right group of people a few weeks ago when just hanging out, and it felt great for once. I really wish that the working environment was like that, but I am willing to venture a bet that most working environments aren't like this, not by a long shot even back at home.
If I were to start something, I would like to have something that breaks those barriers, a chance to work with a productive, smart and creative group of people. With the right kind of skills when put together would allow us to make pretty anything happen. Maybe it's a pipe dream, and I am being idealistic and there will be rocky parts and disagreements, but I would say that I am willing to work around that. As you get older, the opportunity to meet with many people and work with them on small projects dwindles quite quickly compared to the times when at university. I would say that I miss that part of university, because it gets a little harder to meet people after that.
It turns out that this post is getting much longer than I anticipated so I'll end it here. It's what happens when I finally the chance to take a day off doing nothing and spend it thinking. It's been a great day of doing close to nothing.
I had the opportunity to hang out at a house party of an American friend that just recently moved into downtown Tokyo. The crowd was markedly international, with people hailing from Australia, the UK, Korea, South America, Taiwan and more. It was a great party and even if everyone didn't speak perfect English, none of us cared the least bit. There were elder and younger people, but we all just hang out together talking about whatever and I thought it was kind of great to have this sort of free flowing conversation.
Perhaps, I might not be fluent enough with my Japanese to have the kinds of conversations I would like to have in Japanese; I often tell my friends that I am much more interesting when I speak in English. I am far more free to use the full richness of the English language to make conversation interesting and lead conversations subtly in interesting directions. There used to be a philosophy essay topic that I once read before in high school, that went along the lines of "you cannot describe something for which you do not have the words for." Compared to the English language, I still find my depth of expression in the Japanese language to be somewhat limited, but I would not limit the breath of communication to simply words. I have so far found from my experiences that if there is a will, even without the words, there will be a way to make yourself understood. This comes from my experiences when traveling to places to non English speaking countries.
More importantly, I believe that culture, whether be it the culture of a small group of people or a nation that has an immense influence on the way and of the topics which people communicate about. In my 5 years in Japan, I have probably seen a wider breadth of Japanese culture that perhaps most people would Japanese would see. I've been out to the countryside and spent time with the old folk planting rice in the fields and learning a bit about agrarian life, I've hung out with Japanese people that have traveled, I also hang out with the underground culture crowd and I also hang out with the geeks and your typical Japanese people.
I've seen many walks of Japanese life that I probably could not relate with my usual co-workers, what might be fine in a different sub-group might not easily be accepted in another. It's kind of unfortunate in that sense, but I guess, that is my biggest gripe about traditional corporate culture, not just Japanese culture in general.
I've never been a big fan of hierarchy, especially a system that has been imposed through largely seniority. I can agree that there is correlation but just because someone is older does not necessarily mean that it is right. We see this happening in recent US business culture as startups being run by smart young people trampling over the older corporate types. Times are changing because the amount of capital to start a company is rapidly declining (depending on your field of course). There is probably a lot I would like to talk about with them, but I already know that what I have seen is so wildly different from what they are used to, that they wouldn't understand. What I am talking about reminds me about an essay about "What you can't say" written by Paul Graham. A good read if you have the time.
I believe it is more of a class of values than anything else. I enjoy going off and doing my own thing, working on little projects in the hopes of making something new and interesting instead of slogging at doing the same things over and over again. I can't really generalize the whole corporate experience because I do have much more freedom then I would have first expected, I do have specific tasks that I need to get done but other then that I pretty much have free reign. I do have to deal with bosses from time to time that like to micromanage or get a little academic than practical when it comes to getting work done in a timely manner but I'll accept that as the natural progression of things. I do feel that there is a lack of a pioneering spirit, the kind of feeling that I used to have when working with friends back at UBC. Then again, we were young back then and pretty much everything that we did before when we were young was pretty much new to ourselves. We didn't know any better. I've gotten a little older since then, but I do miss having the crazy ideas and friends to work on them with.
There is also that too, being with the right people, in the right atmosphere, the right people often can draw out the best of us. With the right group of people, I've felt happier, more alive, filled with more interesting ideas and less inhibited. In the "zone" as some might say. I was with the right group of people a few weeks ago when just hanging out, and it felt great for once. I really wish that the working environment was like that, but I am willing to venture a bet that most working environments aren't like this, not by a long shot even back at home.
If I were to start something, I would like to have something that breaks those barriers, a chance to work with a productive, smart and creative group of people. With the right kind of skills when put together would allow us to make pretty anything happen. Maybe it's a pipe dream, and I am being idealistic and there will be rocky parts and disagreements, but I would say that I am willing to work around that. As you get older, the opportunity to meet with many people and work with them on small projects dwindles quite quickly compared to the times when at university. I would say that I miss that part of university, because it gets a little harder to meet people after that.
It turns out that this post is getting much longer than I anticipated so I'll end it here. It's what happens when I finally the chance to take a day off doing nothing and spend it thinking. It's been a great day of doing close to nothing.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Annual income vs Hourly wage
While I am going into my 3rd year working for a large corporation, there is the sticky thing of dealing with pay raises. Ideally, I would eventually aim for a $100k kind of salary and it is starting to be evident to me that with the current rate of pay raises, that it might be not really possible working as a regular employee (but then again that should have been obvious from the start).
Supposing that one does have a $100k kind of object, what would be necessary to achieve it? Would be the necessary question to answer. I have done some very rudimentary calculations. Assuming that there a re 52*5 weekdays - 15 company holidays and about 12 personal holidays, I yield about 233 working days. Assuming that you work about 8 hours/day for these days, I've plotted the hourly salary vs targeted annual income. The graph is posted below:
To earn about $100k/year, you are required to earn about $53/hour. I would consider that $53/hour is a fairly high hourly salary, though not entirely out of the realm of reason. I used to do tutoring in my university years and could easily pull $25/hour when tutoring. I might sound nonchalant when I say that it shouldn't be so hard to double this, I could possibly cut a deal to tutor 3 students at the same time and reduce my individual rate for a student resulting a rate of about $50/hour for me. The problem about tutoring is that the problem is to sustain that rate of income over 8 hours, which might be the tricky thing (and might be the reason why tutors can charge in this range).
Even thinking about working for about 8 hours/day for me isn't an entirely ideal kind of situation for me because the more time I spend time working a "job" the less time I have to think about new ways of making money and go after that. I am starting to see why manager-types are often so well paid because these guys are the "idea" people that get other people to implement their ideas, which hopefully make them money, while they think about other ideas. I pity the peons that get stuck at the bottem working for these guys honestly and that is the kind of predicament that I find myself in.
The trick to getting out of it is to start finding your own revenue streams to get out of this kind of predicament. It almost sounds like a slave trying to buy their own freedom, but technically the system seems like that it is setup like that.
Fortunately, it's sort of the equivalent of a spring break for most workers in Japan so I am going to take the time off to do some thinking.
Supposing that one does have a $100k kind of object, what would be necessary to achieve it? Would be the necessary question to answer. I have done some very rudimentary calculations. Assuming that there a re 52*5 weekdays - 15 company holidays and about 12 personal holidays, I yield about 233 working days. Assuming that you work about 8 hours/day for these days, I've plotted the hourly salary vs targeted annual income. The graph is posted below:
To earn about $100k/year, you are required to earn about $53/hour. I would consider that $53/hour is a fairly high hourly salary, though not entirely out of the realm of reason. I used to do tutoring in my university years and could easily pull $25/hour when tutoring. I might sound nonchalant when I say that it shouldn't be so hard to double this, I could possibly cut a deal to tutor 3 students at the same time and reduce my individual rate for a student resulting a rate of about $50/hour for me. The problem about tutoring is that the problem is to sustain that rate of income over 8 hours, which might be the tricky thing (and might be the reason why tutors can charge in this range).
Even thinking about working for about 8 hours/day for me isn't an entirely ideal kind of situation for me because the more time I spend time working a "job" the less time I have to think about new ways of making money and go after that. I am starting to see why manager-types are often so well paid because these guys are the "idea" people that get other people to implement their ideas, which hopefully make them money, while they think about other ideas. I pity the peons that get stuck at the bottem working for these guys honestly and that is the kind of predicament that I find myself in.
The trick to getting out of it is to start finding your own revenue streams to get out of this kind of predicament. It almost sounds like a slave trying to buy their own freedom, but technically the system seems like that it is setup like that.
Fortunately, it's sort of the equivalent of a spring break for most workers in Japan so I am going to take the time off to do some thinking.
3 weeks in to the diet
Tomorrow will mark the 3rd week of my diet. The first 12~13 days of my diet have been phenomenal in terms of the amount of weight lost, but it appears after the 2nd week, there is some bounce back occuring as shown in the graph below.
I've been doing some intensive bicycle riding over the weekends, usually a 30~35 km ride out to the beach from where I live. I've also bought a bicycle computer as of recent which displays current, min, max speed and distance traveled. It's a wonderful gadget to have attached to a bike since the information it provides is fairly useful, all that for the low low price of about $12.
What I have noticed recently is that my appetite has grown somewhat after starting this diet and I've been eating bigger portions, especially for dinner. Though I am trying to keep things under control, it has recently gotten a little tricky to control myself from indulging even on the healthy stuff. I practically wolfed down about 1/3 of a long stick of French bread topped with hummus (both being really healthy), but I am sure that it'll add up to a lot of carbohydrates which my body will probably retain.
I've also broken down a little bit and started making chili with ground beef. I've done my best to strain out the excess fat using a strainer (and there is plenty of fat I've been able to remove) but I have come to the feeling that I am not getting all of it out, leaving plenty of fats for my body to absorb.
Another interesting thing is that my body is reacting to the diet and appears to be doing it's best to extract the most nutrients out of the foods I've been eating as of recent. Meaning the number of times I have bowel movements and the quantity being removed from my body has been significantly reduced.
In general, however, I am feeling a little more energetic after starting this diet + exercise routine and there has been some physical changes over the last 3 weeks. I am starting to lose excess body fat around my body and I have found that my pants have come a little looser and my upper waist is starting to slim down. The amount of fat around my front stomach also seems to be thinning down a little as well.
I will have to redouble my efforts at reducing carbohydrates and focus more heavily on eating more vegetables to reduce my caloric intake, while trying to keep up my protein intake to improve muscular build. Hopefully, I'll see some further physical improvements.
I've been doing some intensive bicycle riding over the weekends, usually a 30~35 km ride out to the beach from where I live. I've also bought a bicycle computer as of recent which displays current, min, max speed and distance traveled. It's a wonderful gadget to have attached to a bike since the information it provides is fairly useful, all that for the low low price of about $12.
What I have noticed recently is that my appetite has grown somewhat after starting this diet and I've been eating bigger portions, especially for dinner. Though I am trying to keep things under control, it has recently gotten a little tricky to control myself from indulging even on the healthy stuff. I practically wolfed down about 1/3 of a long stick of French bread topped with hummus (both being really healthy), but I am sure that it'll add up to a lot of carbohydrates which my body will probably retain.
I've also broken down a little bit and started making chili with ground beef. I've done my best to strain out the excess fat using a strainer (and there is plenty of fat I've been able to remove) but I have come to the feeling that I am not getting all of it out, leaving plenty of fats for my body to absorb.
Another interesting thing is that my body is reacting to the diet and appears to be doing it's best to extract the most nutrients out of the foods I've been eating as of recent. Meaning the number of times I have bowel movements and the quantity being removed from my body has been significantly reduced.
In general, however, I am feeling a little more energetic after starting this diet + exercise routine and there has been some physical changes over the last 3 weeks. I am starting to lose excess body fat around my body and I have found that my pants have come a little looser and my upper waist is starting to slim down. The amount of fat around my front stomach also seems to be thinning down a little as well.
I will have to redouble my efforts at reducing carbohydrates and focus more heavily on eating more vegetables to reduce my caloric intake, while trying to keep up my protein intake to improve muscular build. Hopefully, I'll see some further physical improvements.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
On Women
Life would be quite simple if there was "the one" when it comes to meeting women and then having things working out and then sticking to it. Unfortunately, if that was the case, all of humanity would be pretty much doomed. As one of my friends best put it, if there was "the one" and you had to find them out of several billion people, you'll probably never be able to meet all the people in the world in a life time to find him/her and die. The world population would probably shrink like crazy until things became more manageable. And so, for humanity to survive, there is no "one person" that you are compatible with, but a bunch of them. A whole genre of romance movies and novels should be killed by this simple concept, but if this romantic concept comforts other people (mainly women?), I'll leave them to it. Men however, have a different ball game to deal with.
This post is going to be something that I am going to use to help formalize some underlying notions that I have been having recently about male-female relationships and what should be my motivations be for making behavioral decisions. Consider this to be somewhat of a rough draft....
The Role of a Man
As much as modern society would like gender equality between the sexes, things are still not 100% equal, especially when it comes to who has to make the first move (and usually it is the man, though I would not consider it a bad thing). I consider myself a modern man, generally politically correct and respectful to the equality movement between men and women. Unfortunately, perhaps, I have taken things too far in when it comes to male-female relationships that I end up treating most females like ordinary friends and that is what I usually get. If you could stereotype me, I would probably come off as "the nice guy" and usually the nice guy isn't the kind of guy that choose his women, they end up choosing him... which seems to be another characteristic of my past experiences (though not all of them have been that way). Things, however have started changing.
As of January, I have found myself free from a 9 month relationship, though not going into full details, it was with someone that I liked but I knew that I couldn't marry for some reason. Emotions defy logic so I am not going to even try explaining. But after a dry spell of meeting people I have started attending various social events again and as a result, meeting many interesting people (what a blessing) and I have somehow managed to come to the situation where there will be several candidates that might make for good girl friends in the future and I have started running thought experiments in my head.
Finding the right person
I have had the pleasant experience of meeting many couples over the course of my life, some of them are couples that work really well together and it is quite obvious to me that the both of them are quite happy. I do believe that it is my responsibility to be active in finding the right person that I would like to spend a considerable amount of time with. I do believe that it should be the dutiful responsibility of everyone else to do the same. Unfortunately, somehow, it is easy to be unaware of the graveness of finding the right person as if things don't work out, things can get very messy down the road.
When it comes to initiating any sort of formal/informal relationship with a person of interest, it is up to the man to make the first move. Of course there can be plenty of prior cursory interaction that might give some indication of the character of the candidate, but it really boils down to spending time with them to understand the values, the characteristics and how well does each person fit together in a relationship. Because not everyone is a good fit for each other, it usually is necessary to go through several/many people to find the right person.
The numbers game
As a sweeping and inaccurate generalization, men are often chided upon for being "players" or wanting to go after whatever hot chick that might come their way. I wouldn't blame them, because if they didn't, women would be bitching about men not making the first move (which also seems to be a prevalent problem). Damned if you do, damned if you don't. So if you're going to be damned anyways, I'd say make the first move and it seems to me that is has been somewhat genetically programmed into the male species (though sometimes suppressed by more educated people). I would say that this is very wise advice, since it is statistically very improbable to find a close to ideal match for you without taking a big enough sample size of people.
An obligation to yourself-- against a stacked system
I read somewhere about an old guy giving advice to his soon to be adult grandson. The whole story is pretty much about how kids and women are generally protected in modern society, however when it comes to being a man, there isn't a whole lot of mechanisms looking out for you and I would have to agree with that.
There has been plenty statistics out there that 50% of marriages end in divorce and of these divorces 2/3's of them have been initiated by women. In addition if children are involved, the women will generally get custody and the couple will generally split financial assets and the man will end up paying for child support. If the divorced female fancies another guy, she may make the decision not to marry so that she can continue to receive financial support from the male and enjoy the companionship of her new boy-toy. In other words, have her cake and eat it too.
I have read about many of these kinds of scenarios and come to the opinion that marriage is a very dangerous proposition for the man. The man has a lot to lose and the woman has a lot to gain from such an arrangement. As an interesting aside, a lot of Japanese women are pretty much the "head of the financial household," where many men generally give all their income to their wives for them to "manage" and the hard working men get "allowances" from their wives to spend on as they wish. I had an interesting conversation with a female friend of mine last week about that when it came to possibly marrying a Japanese girl and I responded, if that was the case I'd rather become a playboy instead of getting married to anyone. My response might have come off as a bit of a shocker, but it made perfect sense... I still have no idea where this notion of the man giving all his money to the wife historically came from, but I'll leave it as a side project to figure out.
For those of you that have followed this blog, I have a keen interest in personal finance as financial planning is crucial for the long term life planning. I for one, do not want to spend any more time than I have to working at job because I have to and would rather spend time on things that I want to do. In order to achieve these goals, I require many years of hard work and good financial management. I obviously don't want to be set back by a bad divorce, (and people say that is what a prenuptial is for, I am still on the fence about it however).
With these risks in mind, I obviously have to set very high standards for women that I would consider marrying. We would be very well suited for each other, I would have to be damn well confident that I could trust her. Women in general would want their man to honestly tell them that they are for "the one" for them... and considering the risks, I would damn well have to consider them "the one" if that were the case. It would not come easy, because it would be absolutely necessary that my trust be earned.
So when it comes to finding the right woman, I have no apologies for being the measured man that I should be.
This post is going to be something that I am going to use to help formalize some underlying notions that I have been having recently about male-female relationships and what should be my motivations be for making behavioral decisions. Consider this to be somewhat of a rough draft....
The Role of a Man
As much as modern society would like gender equality between the sexes, things are still not 100% equal, especially when it comes to who has to make the first move (and usually it is the man, though I would not consider it a bad thing). I consider myself a modern man, generally politically correct and respectful to the equality movement between men and women. Unfortunately, perhaps, I have taken things too far in when it comes to male-female relationships that I end up treating most females like ordinary friends and that is what I usually get. If you could stereotype me, I would probably come off as "the nice guy" and usually the nice guy isn't the kind of guy that choose his women, they end up choosing him... which seems to be another characteristic of my past experiences (though not all of them have been that way). Things, however have started changing.
As of January, I have found myself free from a 9 month relationship, though not going into full details, it was with someone that I liked but I knew that I couldn't marry for some reason. Emotions defy logic so I am not going to even try explaining. But after a dry spell of meeting people I have started attending various social events again and as a result, meeting many interesting people (what a blessing) and I have somehow managed to come to the situation where there will be several candidates that might make for good girl friends in the future and I have started running thought experiments in my head.
Finding the right person
I have had the pleasant experience of meeting many couples over the course of my life, some of them are couples that work really well together and it is quite obvious to me that the both of them are quite happy. I do believe that it is my responsibility to be active in finding the right person that I would like to spend a considerable amount of time with. I do believe that it should be the dutiful responsibility of everyone else to do the same. Unfortunately, somehow, it is easy to be unaware of the graveness of finding the right person as if things don't work out, things can get very messy down the road.
When it comes to initiating any sort of formal/informal relationship with a person of interest, it is up to the man to make the first move. Of course there can be plenty of prior cursory interaction that might give some indication of the character of the candidate, but it really boils down to spending time with them to understand the values, the characteristics and how well does each person fit together in a relationship. Because not everyone is a good fit for each other, it usually is necessary to go through several/many people to find the right person.
The numbers game
As a sweeping and inaccurate generalization, men are often chided upon for being "players" or wanting to go after whatever hot chick that might come their way. I wouldn't blame them, because if they didn't, women would be bitching about men not making the first move (which also seems to be a prevalent problem). Damned if you do, damned if you don't. So if you're going to be damned anyways, I'd say make the first move and it seems to me that is has been somewhat genetically programmed into the male species (though sometimes suppressed by more educated people). I would say that this is very wise advice, since it is statistically very improbable to find a close to ideal match for you without taking a big enough sample size of people.
An obligation to yourself-- against a stacked system
I read somewhere about an old guy giving advice to his soon to be adult grandson. The whole story is pretty much about how kids and women are generally protected in modern society, however when it comes to being a man, there isn't a whole lot of mechanisms looking out for you and I would have to agree with that.
There has been plenty statistics out there that 50% of marriages end in divorce and of these divorces 2/3's of them have been initiated by women. In addition if children are involved, the women will generally get custody and the couple will generally split financial assets and the man will end up paying for child support. If the divorced female fancies another guy, she may make the decision not to marry so that she can continue to receive financial support from the male and enjoy the companionship of her new boy-toy. In other words, have her cake and eat it too.
I have read about many of these kinds of scenarios and come to the opinion that marriage is a very dangerous proposition for the man. The man has a lot to lose and the woman has a lot to gain from such an arrangement. As an interesting aside, a lot of Japanese women are pretty much the "head of the financial household," where many men generally give all their income to their wives for them to "manage" and the hard working men get "allowances" from their wives to spend on as they wish. I had an interesting conversation with a female friend of mine last week about that when it came to possibly marrying a Japanese girl and I responded, if that was the case I'd rather become a playboy instead of getting married to anyone. My response might have come off as a bit of a shocker, but it made perfect sense... I still have no idea where this notion of the man giving all his money to the wife historically came from, but I'll leave it as a side project to figure out.
For those of you that have followed this blog, I have a keen interest in personal finance as financial planning is crucial for the long term life planning. I for one, do not want to spend any more time than I have to working at job because I have to and would rather spend time on things that I want to do. In order to achieve these goals, I require many years of hard work and good financial management. I obviously don't want to be set back by a bad divorce, (and people say that is what a prenuptial is for, I am still on the fence about it however).
With these risks in mind, I obviously have to set very high standards for women that I would consider marrying. We would be very well suited for each other, I would have to be damn well confident that I could trust her. Women in general would want their man to honestly tell them that they are for "the one" for them... and considering the risks, I would damn well have to consider them "the one" if that were the case. It would not come easy, because it would be absolutely necessary that my trust be earned.
So when it comes to finding the right woman, I have no apologies for being the measured man that I should be.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
It is tough to moonlight
Coming home from a job and trying to do another job in the evenings is tough stuff. I have so far have not found the will power to try and work on other career related projects after coming home (programming and what not). I have been quite busy with my dieting and exercise project that I haven't had too much time to do much else.
I came home at about 8 pm tonight, spent a good 45 mins ~ hour going to the supermarket, loading up on a ton load of food. Bringing that home, doing some cooking (+1 hour), some cleaning (+30 mins) some eating (+30 mins) before having some time to exercise (+30 mins). By the time I finished all that, it's already 11:30 pm. I suppose that it should be OK since I did make enough food for the next 3~4 days but still, time is a precious commodity when you have a 9~7 pm kind of job.
Fortunately a long holiday is coming up and I am looking forward to spending some quality alone time to do some studying and work on some projects.
On a side note the exercise and dieting is starting to pay off. I've already noticed a subtle loss in fat around the waist and about 2 kg loss in weight over the last 2 weeks. I ate some particularly heavy food and took in a lot of liquid before weighing myself, but I expect to lose that in a day or so. Hopefully the trend continues and levels off when I start gaining significant amounts of muscle.
I came home at about 8 pm tonight, spent a good 45 mins ~ hour going to the supermarket, loading up on a ton load of food. Bringing that home, doing some cooking (+1 hour), some cleaning (+30 mins) some eating (+30 mins) before having some time to exercise (+30 mins). By the time I finished all that, it's already 11:30 pm. I suppose that it should be OK since I did make enough food for the next 3~4 days but still, time is a precious commodity when you have a 9~7 pm kind of job.
Fortunately a long holiday is coming up and I am looking forward to spending some quality alone time to do some studying and work on some projects.
On a side note the exercise and dieting is starting to pay off. I've already noticed a subtle loss in fat around the waist and about 2 kg loss in weight over the last 2 weeks. I ate some particularly heavy food and took in a lot of liquid before weighing myself, but I expect to lose that in a day or so. Hopefully the trend continues and levels off when I start gaining significant amounts of muscle.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Exercising and Dieting Week 1
Following up with my plan to get in to shape, I've been recording my weight since last week to see if there's been any physical changes since taking up some regular exercise and changing my diet. I've already discussed the kinds of foods that I am aiming to avoid and optimize for in a previous post. For this week, I've focused on reducing my meat intake and switched over to a diet which is high on beans, rice, white fish and some vegetables to reduce the amount of fat and calories I take while keeping myself full. I've been eating for cod and mackerel for lunches while at work, rice at home and stewed chili with crap loads of vegetables and some ground beef for dinner for when I get home.
After work, I am currently alternating between riding my new cross-bike for about 30 mins, covering a distance of about 10 km or training with weights at home to build some muscle. I think there has been some modest physical changes around my butt as I now have to wear a belt or else my pants start sagging. My stomach has also started flattening out as well so I consider this a pretty good week in exercise.
In terms of weight loss, I've done better than my target of losing 500 grams (or 1 lb) per week, and managed to lose 1 kg (or about 2 lb). I have started a routine where I weigh myself right after dinner with minimal clothing to keep my measurements consistent. I have about a 600 gram weight difference depending if I've already eaten dinner or not (meaning the consumption of solid foods and liquids). Not bad for 1 week's worth of results. A small image of my tabulated weight data week 1 is posted below:
It will be interesting to see what happens next week as I continue on my exercise + diet routine.
After work, I am currently alternating between riding my new cross-bike for about 30 mins, covering a distance of about 10 km or training with weights at home to build some muscle. I think there has been some modest physical changes around my butt as I now have to wear a belt or else my pants start sagging. My stomach has also started flattening out as well so I consider this a pretty good week in exercise.
In terms of weight loss, I've done better than my target of losing 500 grams (or 1 lb) per week, and managed to lose 1 kg (or about 2 lb). I have started a routine where I weigh myself right after dinner with minimal clothing to keep my measurements consistent. I have about a 600 gram weight difference depending if I've already eaten dinner or not (meaning the consumption of solid foods and liquids). Not bad for 1 week's worth of results. A small image of my tabulated weight data week 1 is posted below:
It will be interesting to see what happens next week as I continue on my exercise + diet routine.
Connecting work to money
In the R&D world, I feel that there is a disconnect between the work a researcher does and their ability to make money from it. No doubt that I believe that doing R&D is important, but it is hard to gauge the impact a person has on a product/society when working on a large project.
I've been working on several different aspect of my project over the past few years. I've been trying to improve power efficiency by manipulating device structures to improving reliability by testing out new materials to make sure they don't start degrading when used in environments where there are electric fields and strong sources of light.
I have a work evaluation coming up in a week and just started preparing stuff to discuss with the boss during my interview and the my angle is to try and connect the work I do either some monetary value or some impact it has on the project. The bigger the value/impact the better prospects of me getting a bigger bonus. I've been looking through some of the internal company grading schemes and it turns out that people are generally graded on a 7 step scale with most people ranked at the middle. You are then ranked higher if your boss has a positive perception of the work you do.
For a person in my position, if I am ranked at a 4 and ranked up to a 3, I'd probably get about $800~$1000 more for my seasonal bonus (my summer one). Japan has an interesting system where that everyone is paid a monthly salary and then 2 bonuses throughout the year (one in the summer and one in the winter).
The monetary bonuses are generally equivalent to about 2 months worth of salary and can be more or less depending on the performance of both the company and the individual. I generally view positive performance as the ability to find more efficient ways of doing things, thus improving the quantity and quality of output. My strategies usually involve finding ways of multiplying my output over what the average person is able to produce, thus I generally believe that financial incentives should scale with output. Unfortunately, that isn't generally the case when it comes to R&D.
When it comes to R&D, we are generally looking at either developing new technologies or improving current systems. The number of experiments and the amount of data you are able to crunch is usually inconsequential unless you produce good results. I come from the camp that if you are able to run more experiments and are able to analyze/manage large data sets effectively, then you should eventually hit on a good result sooner or be more informed when planning experiments.
The other question that one needs to ask, how much is a good result worth? An extra $800~$1000? In the real commercial world, that good experimental results are worth more, and I believe that people are generally short changed when it comes to work, simply because they do not understand the value of the work they are producing.
Interestingly, just writing a patent application will net a person $100. If the patent turns out to be an OK one, you might get $1000~$3000 ish for it after review. Exceptional patents get $10,000 in bonus cash. But here is the thing, if you created an enabling technology that created a multi-million market, wouldn't you think that a $10,000 pat on the back is a little cheap? Especially when they pay you after the fact? I think so.
I sometimes miss the times when I used to be a tutor, because I knew exactly how my work equated to monetary reward. I would eventually run an exam preparation program which was sort of an idea borrowed from the days I was part of the Math Club at UBC that sold solution packets to old first year exams. These guys would easily make $5000/term and was one of the richest clubs on campus. I took my experiences from working with their business and created a Physics version of their business and added a lecture section to the business and netted the Engineering Physics club a $4500/term income stream just for teaching first year students how to prepare for first year exams. When you get students to pay $15 for a 3 hour lecture, it is amazing how well they shut up and pay attention. Professors would easily be in envy of how I was able to keep control of my classes, because they knew that this was coming out of their pockets.
After lots of initial setup, teaching these courses would probably earn the lecturer about $400/hour as I used to have 150 students attend a single seminar. And compared to other lecturers like "Dan the Tutor", my lectures were damn cheap -> $15 compared to his $25. If I jacked up the price a little more I'd make incredible profits. But I was young and could never wrap my head around large financial numbers, so I tended to be modest when charging people. In the business world, things are quite different however.
I miss those days, when I could directly equate my work to money. I rather dislike airy-fairly corporate evaluations when in comparison. After the project I am working on ends, I'll be looking for ways to bring me back in touch with finding ways of directly producing value to people.
I've been working on several different aspect of my project over the past few years. I've been trying to improve power efficiency by manipulating device structures to improving reliability by testing out new materials to make sure they don't start degrading when used in environments where there are electric fields and strong sources of light.
I have a work evaluation coming up in a week and just started preparing stuff to discuss with the boss during my interview and the my angle is to try and connect the work I do either some monetary value or some impact it has on the project. The bigger the value/impact the better prospects of me getting a bigger bonus. I've been looking through some of the internal company grading schemes and it turns out that people are generally graded on a 7 step scale with most people ranked at the middle. You are then ranked higher if your boss has a positive perception of the work you do.
For a person in my position, if I am ranked at a 4 and ranked up to a 3, I'd probably get about $800~$1000 more for my seasonal bonus (my summer one). Japan has an interesting system where that everyone is paid a monthly salary and then 2 bonuses throughout the year (one in the summer and one in the winter).
The monetary bonuses are generally equivalent to about 2 months worth of salary and can be more or less depending on the performance of both the company and the individual. I generally view positive performance as the ability to find more efficient ways of doing things, thus improving the quantity and quality of output. My strategies usually involve finding ways of multiplying my output over what the average person is able to produce, thus I generally believe that financial incentives should scale with output. Unfortunately, that isn't generally the case when it comes to R&D.
When it comes to R&D, we are generally looking at either developing new technologies or improving current systems. The number of experiments and the amount of data you are able to crunch is usually inconsequential unless you produce good results. I come from the camp that if you are able to run more experiments and are able to analyze/manage large data sets effectively, then you should eventually hit on a good result sooner or be more informed when planning experiments.
The other question that one needs to ask, how much is a good result worth? An extra $800~$1000? In the real commercial world, that good experimental results are worth more, and I believe that people are generally short changed when it comes to work, simply because they do not understand the value of the work they are producing.
Interestingly, just writing a patent application will net a person $100. If the patent turns out to be an OK one, you might get $1000~$3000 ish for it after review. Exceptional patents get $10,000 in bonus cash. But here is the thing, if you created an enabling technology that created a multi-million market, wouldn't you think that a $10,000 pat on the back is a little cheap? Especially when they pay you after the fact? I think so.
I sometimes miss the times when I used to be a tutor, because I knew exactly how my work equated to monetary reward. I would eventually run an exam preparation program which was sort of an idea borrowed from the days I was part of the Math Club at UBC that sold solution packets to old first year exams. These guys would easily make $5000/term and was one of the richest clubs on campus. I took my experiences from working with their business and created a Physics version of their business and added a lecture section to the business and netted the Engineering Physics club a $4500/term income stream just for teaching first year students how to prepare for first year exams. When you get students to pay $15 for a 3 hour lecture, it is amazing how well they shut up and pay attention. Professors would easily be in envy of how I was able to keep control of my classes, because they knew that this was coming out of their pockets.
After lots of initial setup, teaching these courses would probably earn the lecturer about $400/hour as I used to have 150 students attend a single seminar. And compared to other lecturers like "Dan the Tutor", my lectures were damn cheap -> $15 compared to his $25. If I jacked up the price a little more I'd make incredible profits. But I was young and could never wrap my head around large financial numbers, so I tended to be modest when charging people. In the business world, things are quite different however.
I miss those days, when I could directly equate my work to money. I rather dislike airy-fairly corporate evaluations when in comparison. After the project I am working on ends, I'll be looking for ways to bring me back in touch with finding ways of directly producing value to people.
Garbage bin + a dehydrator?
Spring is coming up and usually that means that biodegradable waste has a tendency to start stinking in the garbage bin. I used to just use a plastic bag I kept under a table to throw out waste and take it outside after the bag got full, this was usually done a weekly basis and the interesting thing I've noticed is that keeping biodegradable waste in an open garbage bag smells less worse than keeping it in a closed garbage bin. I would accredit this phenomena to the escaping moisture from the thrown out bio-waste making it harder for things to rot and smell rancid.
Now just imagine if you could incorporate a dehydrator into garbage bin and thus expelling out moisture from all your waste thus making it harder for things to rot. The most ideal environment would be to create a very dry environment for garbage storage, possibly with some heat (but not much, because things may end up smelling again due to the warmth).
Now the trick is, could you make the bin cheap enough that the average person would want to buy?
Now just imagine if you could incorporate a dehydrator into garbage bin and thus expelling out moisture from all your waste thus making it harder for things to rot. The most ideal environment would be to create a very dry environment for garbage storage, possibly with some heat (but not much, because things may end up smelling again due to the warmth).
Now the trick is, could you make the bin cheap enough that the average person would want to buy?
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