I know something has changed, but I don't know what it is.
After my Europe trip, I can feel my perspectives on the world have changed, but though as clear as they seem, I fail to pin-point them.
These two weeks could have been spent like usual in office and doing things repetitively and hence, gaining zero information. I am glad I made the decision to poke my head out to see the world and feel the entropy, with added benefit of spending time with my parents.
You may be curious on what exactly I mean. Allow me to give you some details I observed in this trip. Here I can't give you a whole lot of earth-breaking observations, but I am confident those pieces of information are integral parts of a bigger picture, which I strive to decipher.
On Dealing with People:
People in different parts of world tend to interact in a specific way. I found that in front of Americans, you better don't smile or laugh for no reason, or they will think they have screwed up some how and you are laughing at them. However British people are similar to Chinese, using smiles to signify friendliness, and 'that-is-okay'ness.
Minor technicalities aside, everybody likes to be treated with dignity and fairness. A little bit of consideration and politeness do help a lot no matter where you go (but make sure your gestures are being interpreted correctly!!) If in doubt, lay low and observe how others behave. Although sometimes what everybody does may not be the correct thing, it is a very good first step. Once you have started, let your intuition and common sense guide you.
Behaviors in Subways:
I will compare and contrast three places: Paris, London, and Singapore
Parisians: they like to read and therefore the train tends to be more quiet. They dress in the most presentable way also. This is subjective, of course.
Londoners: A lot of them dress in a more casual way and some of them border on shabbiness. A lot of people read newspaper (because a lot of those papers are free anyway). The trains are dirty with a lot of trashes which shows they are not the most civic-minded. Some people just talk loudly or/and let their children to be nuisances.
Singaporeans: The trains are clean, which most probably due to the stiff fine in place. People tend to read, but not a lot, and I suspect most of them not Singaporeans. Inside the trains usually it is relatively quiet and Singapore train is the place I see a lot of PSPs (Playstation Portable).
Just some random thoughts so far :)
Monday, June 23, 2008
Sunday, June 08, 2008
In search of ubiquitous computing devices
i said i am away to travel. this statement was almost true, except i just discovered my p1i indeed can go online as well.
there i am, sitting in changi airport and blog with a phone.
i guess i will miss you all. but fear not, thanks to modern technology, cuppa is most probably to blog on the go. only if i can live with the small screen, and the carpal tunnel syndrome inducing small keyboard.
there i am, sitting in changi airport and blog with a phone.
i guess i will miss you all. but fear not, thanks to modern technology, cuppa is most probably to blog on the go. only if i can live with the small screen, and the carpal tunnel syndrome inducing small keyboard.
Saturday, June 07, 2008
Leaving on a Jet Plane and Fooled by Randomness
I confess, the title is misleading, because it consists of (kind of) unrelated items.
First Cuppa is having his holiday with his parents for 2 weeks and will be back in late June. I have deferred this holiday for years and until early this year, I made up my mind and gave a go to the plan, ignoring all other issues on hand. It seems a Just Do It approach is mostly correct, and I will take this break to ponder upon if I should Just-Do-It on other areas of my life as well.
I know you gonna miss Cuppa, so I will leave you with a top ten list by Nassim Taleb for your reading pleasure. Although I don't agree on all the list items, I do think they are interesting and serve as good stuff to think about.
Taleb is pretty well-known in the quantitative finance analysis and derivative trading circles. From my limited knowledge, he has been an avid advocate of the concept that randomness cannot be predicted, neither randomness can be modeled and thus managed. His theory has obviously irked people who do risk management and risk modeling for a living. If Taleb was right, then those people will lose their jobs and go wash dishes or toilets.
Taleb attains celebrity status after his book "The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable" was introduced just slightly earlier than the string of events which more or less match what he describes in the book.
Events like sub-prime crisis, delinquent trader, sky-rocketing fuel prices, natural disasters in various countries had literally shook the whole world. They all share similar traits of being highly-improbable, highly unpredictable, but darn high impact. Some people may say since fossil fuel is non-renewable, and therefore its price hike should be of no surprise. Well I do agree in principle this argument, but look at the world now, how many companies, or even countries are well-prepared??
Some info about him is here.
First Cuppa is having his holiday with his parents for 2 weeks and will be back in late June. I have deferred this holiday for years and until early this year, I made up my mind and gave a go to the plan, ignoring all other issues on hand. It seems a Just Do It approach is mostly correct, and I will take this break to ponder upon if I should Just-Do-It on other areas of my life as well.
I know you gonna miss Cuppa, so I will leave you with a top ten list by Nassim Taleb for your reading pleasure. Although I don't agree on all the list items, I do think they are interesting and serve as good stuff to think about.
Taleb is pretty well-known in the quantitative finance analysis and derivative trading circles. From my limited knowledge, he has been an avid advocate of the concept that randomness cannot be predicted, neither randomness can be modeled and thus managed. His theory has obviously irked people who do risk management and risk modeling for a living. If Taleb was right, then those people will lose their jobs and go wash dishes or toilets.
Taleb attains celebrity status after his book "The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable" was introduced just slightly earlier than the string of events which more or less match what he describes in the book.
Events like sub-prime crisis, delinquent trader, sky-rocketing fuel prices, natural disasters in various countries had literally shook the whole world. They all share similar traits of being highly-improbable, highly unpredictable, but darn high impact. Some people may say since fossil fuel is non-renewable, and therefore its price hike should be of no surprise. Well I do agree in principle this argument, but look at the world now, how many companies, or even countries are well-prepared??
Some info about him is here.
Taleb's top life tips
1 Scepticism is effortful and costly. It is better to be sceptical about matters of large consequences, and be imperfect, foolish and human in the small and the aesthetic.
2 Go to parties. You can’t even start to know what you may find on the envelope of serendipity. If you suffer from agoraphobia, send colleagues.
3 It’s not a good idea to take a forecast from someone wearing a tie. If possible, tease people who take themselves and their knowledge too seriously.
4 Wear your best for your execution and stand dignified. Your last recourse against randomness is how you act — if you can’t control outcomes, you can control the elegance of your behaviour. You will always have the last word.
5 Don’t disturb complicated systems that have been around for a very long time. We don’t understand their logic. Don’t pollute the planet. Leave it the way we found it, regardless of scientific ‘evidence’.
6 Learn to fail with pride — and do so fast and cleanly. Maximise trial and error — by mastering the error part.
7 Avoid losers. If you hear someone use the words ‘impossible’, ‘never’, ‘too difficult’ too often, drop him or her from your social network. Never take ‘no’ for an answer (conversely, take most ‘yeses’ as ‘most probably’).
8 Don’t read newspapers for the news (just for the gossip and, of course, profiles of authors). The best filter to know if the news matters is if you hear it in cafes, restaurants... or (again) parties.
9 Hard work will get you a professorship or a BMW. You need both work and luck for a Booker, a Nobel or a private jet.
10 Answer e-mails from junior people before more senior ones. Junior people have further to go and tend to remember who slighted them.
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
Why Sun Has Potential
Sun Microsystems (Nasdaq: Java) should be quite a familiar name to techies, at least to those who are around my age.
Long long time ago when Linux was immature and M$ was shitty, Sun computer's Unix heritage and the Ultra-Sparc architecture at one time was synonymous to high computing power and solid performance.
Unfortunately, the past years Sun was not paranoid enough to sense how the market landscape has been changing: Moore's Law charges forward, and some OSes have advanced enough to be suitable for public consumption (what get in my mind are, in no particular order, Linux, BSD series of Unix including OS X, and Windows XP. Though I am no big fan of M$, but honestly I must admit Windows XP, up until SP2, is a pretty decent and usable OS now)
Sun got back to my radar when it introduced its open-source Niagara 2 processor. At that time I thought it was a publicity gimmick, because come on, how many people will and can manufacture processor in this world? Hacking processor source code for fun anyone? Not me.
Then Sun introduced the OpenSolaris with the ultra sexy ZFS. The development is getting more and more interesting when Sun acquires MySQL. Now Sun has in hand an impressive system portfolio which consists of processors, OS with fail-safe file system, and a database.
With the patents it currently holds, it is not likely those technologies will be implemented in competing products. To me, it seems Sun has the potential to be the Apple in the high margin, lucrative server market. The potential lies in a total solution for customers. Right until now, there is no single company that provides an integrated solution from chips to database.
There sits a huge market for servers. The tricky question is how Sun is gonna to monetize the products?
I must point out there is still a long way before Sun can build an eco-system that brings in profit. Cuppa's few pointers for Sun:
With the current price of $12.41 and PE ratio of 16.90, I think there will be more downward movement. I feel a PE ratio of 12 is more reasonable, which translates to a price of $8.81.
Recommendation: Wait and See if you wanna buy its shares
Long long time ago when Linux was immature and M$ was shitty, Sun computer's Unix heritage and the Ultra-Sparc architecture at one time was synonymous to high computing power and solid performance.
Unfortunately, the past years Sun was not paranoid enough to sense how the market landscape has been changing: Moore's Law charges forward, and some OSes have advanced enough to be suitable for public consumption (what get in my mind are, in no particular order, Linux, BSD series of Unix including OS X, and Windows XP. Though I am no big fan of M$, but honestly I must admit Windows XP, up until SP2, is a pretty decent and usable OS now)
Sun got back to my radar when it introduced its open-source Niagara 2 processor. At that time I thought it was a publicity gimmick, because come on, how many people will and can manufacture processor in this world? Hacking processor source code for fun anyone? Not me.
Then Sun introduced the OpenSolaris with the ultra sexy ZFS. The development is getting more and more interesting when Sun acquires MySQL. Now Sun has in hand an impressive system portfolio which consists of processors, OS with fail-safe file system, and a database.
With the patents it currently holds, it is not likely those technologies will be implemented in competing products. To me, it seems Sun has the potential to be the Apple in the high margin, lucrative server market. The potential lies in a total solution for customers. Right until now, there is no single company that provides an integrated solution from chips to database.
There sits a huge market for servers. The tricky question is how Sun is gonna to monetize the products?
I must point out there is still a long way before Sun can build an eco-system that brings in profit. Cuppa's few pointers for Sun:
- Make an impeccable system with all hardware and software components play well with each other. Apple is a good example
- Maximize the adoption of its platforms so that there is a critical mass of people who are comfortable in using Solaris
- Price the product competitively, especially in the early years where not many people have used Sun products before
With the current price of $12.41 and PE ratio of 16.90, I think there will be more downward movement. I feel a PE ratio of 12 is more reasonable, which translates to a price of $8.81.
Recommendation: Wait and See if you wanna buy its shares
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Rain, Rain, Rain
I like raining.
In normal days there are running kids, crazy dogs, inconsiderate smokers, fume-blowing buses, and endless noises, recklessly invading my personal space and torturing all my senses.
Raining is a god-send. It washes away all those irritants; suddenly kids are gone, dogs scramble for cover, smokers stop their acts, and all toxic gases from vehicles are replaced with the refreshing smell of fresh rain water.
Most importantly, rain provides a natural barricade between myself and the rest of the world. I and my umbrella are in our own little happy world. No one shall join and annoy, no one shall leave and despair.
Rain soothes my soul. I love raining. :)
Sunday, May 25, 2008
The Paradox of Tomorrow's
If you will be dead tomorrow, will you still go to office?
I won't.
How about if you will be dead in one-month time? 3-month time?
Nope, I still won't want to go to work. Not at all.
Repeat the above question with increasing amount of days up until one year. I still hear myself saying 'no way!'.
So far the above sounds like a typical Sunday whine. What intrigue me are the following pair of statements:
a) I will be dead in n-th day from now, where n > 0 and obviously countable
b) Tomorrow I will still go back to office to work
Something is NOT right.
My short term and long term views don't tally and contradict with each other.
If I were given a 'due date', so to speak, I can instantly identify the current job is not my cuppa.
The problem is: death is so far away to most people, including myself, to the extent we just pretend it doesn't exist, and live yet another day on something that doesn't touch our hearts. Maybe the current job isn't too bad, or it is just good, but not great. The inertia of laziness just drags us down to the point we think we are happy.
However the 'what-if' questions above really force me to re-examine what I have done, and what I plan to do.
Houston Cuppa, we have a problem...
I won't.
How about if you will be dead in one-month time? 3-month time?
Nope, I still won't want to go to work. Not at all.
Repeat the above question with increasing amount of days up until one year. I still hear myself saying 'no way!'.
So far the above sounds like a typical Sunday whine. What intrigue me are the following pair of statements:
a) I will be dead in n-th day from now, where n > 0 and obviously countable
b) Tomorrow I will still go back to office to work
Something is NOT right.
My short term and long term views don't tally and contradict with each other.
If I were given a 'due date', so to speak, I can instantly identify the current job is not my cuppa.
The problem is: death is so far away to most people, including myself, to the extent we just pretend it doesn't exist, and live yet another day on something that doesn't touch our hearts. Maybe the current job isn't too bad, or it is just good, but not great. The inertia of laziness just drags us down to the point we think we are happy.
However the 'what-if' questions above really force me to re-examine what I have done, and what I plan to do.
The Upgrade Hu-Ha of Windoze XP SP 3
My gut feeling was right: XP Service Pack 3 sucks
Cuppa already delayed the installation by almost one month and thought it would be safer to install the SP later rather than earlier.
Compared to other horror stories on SP3 floating in the net, I was lucky, because my laptop still booted up properly after applied SP3. However the speed for everything was much slower from then on (e.g. roughly 50% more time for login. Under XP SP2 it took me less than 10 second, but with SP3 it could take about 15 seconds). Boot up was slower, login was slower, and even time to launch application was also slower. Personally I suspect M$ did that deliberately, just to close the speed gap between XP and Vista. Obviously Intel would love this SP, because now users will need a more powerful CPU to go along.
Slowness was not the only thing in SP3 that bothered me. After installation, my wireless connection only worked sporadically, and if I left it idle for more than, say, 10 minutes. It would crash and a hard reboot of the system was needed.
The only good about SP3 was it did a system restore point before installation, and the users can uninstall it via 'Add or Remove Programs'. I restore my laptop back to pre-SP3 era, feeling so much better now.
Will I still apply SP3? I will say wait until next year, at least.
Cuppa already delayed the installation by almost one month and thought it would be safer to install the SP later rather than earlier.
Compared to other horror stories on SP3 floating in the net, I was lucky, because my laptop still booted up properly after applied SP3. However the speed for everything was much slower from then on (e.g. roughly 50% more time for login. Under XP SP2 it took me less than 10 second, but with SP3 it could take about 15 seconds). Boot up was slower, login was slower, and even time to launch application was also slower. Personally I suspect M$ did that deliberately, just to close the speed gap between XP and Vista. Obviously Intel would love this SP, because now users will need a more powerful CPU to go along.
Slowness was not the only thing in SP3 that bothered me. After installation, my wireless connection only worked sporadically, and if I left it idle for more than, say, 10 minutes. It would crash and a hard reboot of the system was needed.
The only good about SP3 was it did a system restore point before installation, and the users can uninstall it via 'Add or Remove Programs'. I restore my laptop back to pre-SP3 era, feeling so much better now.
Will I still apply SP3? I will say wait until next year, at least.
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