SimpleBlob's Life

Slice of life

2011-06-20T16:35:00.001+07:00

When you see someone being happy, sad, or angry, it is only the snapshot of their life. Reacting to those (negative) emotions are like reviewing the movie by looking at a single frame.

But for yourself, remind yourself that most people only remember that first frame you've shown them, whether it was you being happy or sad.

Another Life Quote

2011-03-17T20:44:00.001+07:00

It took me too long to understand that lots of people show you how they're feeling right now, and not how you deserve to see them. Now when someone's pissed off and won't talk to me, I think "I bet it isn't me. I'll wait a day or three and see how they are then."

-- gfixler, reddit

Financial crisis is a decrease in trust

2010-11-24T19:23:00.000+07:00

Braindump:

Bank is an entity that makes profits on the mismatch of Lenders (deposits) and Borrowers (loans). A bank will match the cash in-flow to the cash-outflow and take the haircut as profits. If the borrowers are trustworthy then the collateral will be low (or zero) and so that amount of money can be used the get more resource (the for borrowers).

The event of mass defaults shook the banks and the lending system at the core, now each entity will demand more collateral and return, hence make the system much less efficient, which then results in decrease ability to produce goods and services.

In summary: Someone very rich misplaced the bet and went bankrupt, everybody is linked to that person, nobody wants to lend money (fear), economy grinds to a halt.

Rainbows End - 2010 Vision

2010-08-25T22:56:00.000+07:00

Long Term thinking - decisions

2010-07-24T22:21:00.001+07:00

When we decide something, should we choose base on our current values, or should we ask ourselves:

Will I regret doing/not doing this in my deathbed?

Given that no choices are going to kill or cripple us, I think we should ask this question as often as possible.

Shortest Sentences

2010-07-18T22:08:00.000+07:00

For me, there is a poetry in succinct writings. It expresses the meaning perfectly with the smallest amount of information possible. Something about its efficiency and simplicity amazes me. Recent authors with this style includes Paul Graham and Ernest Hemingway.

And these kind of words don't come freely, you have to really work at it. And the results showed. When I come across these kind of texts, I savor it. I reread it several times and always find something new. They has a quality of "Zenness" that needs reflection.

As an example, take the world's shortest novel by Hemingway.

For sale: One pair of baby shoes. Never worn.

Isn't that beautiful?

Human communication bandwidth is dismal

2010-07-16T21:37:00.001+07:00

I have one personal problem that has been nagging me for all my life. I can't seem to explain complex thoughts to anyone. Almost every time I tried, people will have confused look on their face and after several attempts, they gave up. I also don't know how to tell a story very well.

Now, I could be too hard on myself. (see: Dunning–Kruger effect) But at any rate, any improvement at all would make me a very happy person.

I always like to talk to myself in my head a lot. I argue and agree with myself all the time. I just notice that when I am very excited about something, I want to share it with another person as soon as possible. Then I begin describing it exactly by what is going through in my head, in other words, a "brain dump" or "info dump."

As I have to need to explain to myself all the words and concepts that I already know, the thing that came out of my mouth must have been.... a little bit hard to understand. I view this as a channel problem. I thought I was communicating brain-to-brain. (with also have shared prerequisite knowledge). But the reality is much worse: my brain --> voice --> ear --> another person's brain.

I also notice that when I think or have a talk with myself, I tend to do it very fast -- impossible to physically vocalize, in fact. This is one of the point I should remember. When talking to someone, slow down drastically.

If we think about this in term of communication channel optimization, then there are simple steps that needs to follow. I don't know if I can make this work right away, but I believe it can be trained into a habit.

1. Slow down (until the listeners are comfortable)

2. Speak clearly

3. Plan roughly what to say first, do not think around.

4. Speak in term of things that the listeners understand

5. Relay messages in chronological order

6. "Listen" for feedback

People usually can only remember 4-7 maximum item simultaneously. I already forgot half the list. This needs to be second-nature, automatic. I think starting with 1. and 5. is my best bet.

Unnatural readings

2010-07-14T21:37:00.000+07:00

I've burned through a lot of blog posts nowadays. Everyday I read/skimmed about 20-30 through Google rss reader, and another 5-10 through social news sites like reddit. I found that often the most thought-provoking and informative posts has no comment at all, and the opinionated, controversial posts with less substance generate an order magnitude more response.

I think this is due to the reading habit of people on the internet (myself included.) We prefer sound-bites and clear-cut stories more than logical and fact-based ones with nuanced positions. Our brains digest them easily and yearn for more. That got me to another question: Is this the natural preference of the brain, and can we "train" the brain to like reading denser stuff?'

Recently I began reading scientific/technical papers. They are packed with concepts and information, which makes them very hard to read at the beginning. Later on, I found that the biggest reason is I don't understand a lot of words/jargons that the author used. Words are like compressed ideas. In this case, really compressed clever ideas. These papers are quite efficient at delivering information, given that you know how to decode them (knowing what all the compressed words mean.)

So I began jotting down all the terms I don't know, and google+wiki them. After that, most of the papers read like a complicated short story, though completely understandable. The funny thing is, I relax between reading sessions by browsing those blog posts.

My Sleep Schedule

2010-04-16T17:38:00.000+07:00

Relevant.

We thought it was so easy

2010-03-31T00:10:00.003+07:00

But it actually takes 10,000 hour to master something. That's 2 hours everyday for 14 years. A Freaking long time.

We were fooled because The Karate Kid made it looks so easy -- with a 2-minute montage.

Logically you gotta choose carefully if you wanna invest 10,000 in mastering something. But you can't. 'Cause you won't know what you want.

If you're passed 20 you should know what you sucks at though, so don't invest in those. Invest in your core competencies -- to paraphrase Peter Drucker.

Dilbert author has an interesting advice -- Be very good at two or more things. It takes so much effort to be the top 5% at something, but not so much for top 25% at two things. And you'll also be in a unique position, it's rare to have a combination of skills. "Queen of two trades"

So Invest about 7,000 hours into two or more things, and you'd do great!... in 20 years. :)

2010-01-07T22:03:00.001+07:00

There's a pervasive belief in this society that perfection is possible. So if something bad occurs, it can never be because we just got unlucky. It must be because something went wrong and someone is at fault, and then things must be fixed. Sometimes, though, this simply isn't true. Sometimes it's better not to fix things: either there is no fix, or the fix is more expensive than living with the problem, or the side effects of the fix are worse than the problem. And sometimes you can do everything right and have it still turn out wrong. Welcome to the real world.

A quote by Bruce Schneier

The Network Revolution

2009-12-15T21:50:00.004+07:00

Yet another revolution, from industrial revolution, to computer revolution.

And yet..... this is real.

Even though the internet has completely transform our life up till now, we still haven't seen "the real McCoy" yet.

We still have a somewhat half-ass attempt at connecting everything together - be it servers, mobile phones, cars and other gadgets. We still haven't found/implement a good network model.

But things are a-changing.

First, we're transitioning from voice atm network to VOIP packet network, which make every transaction data now. What that means is we can use an economy of scale to serve every one very cheap connection. Almost, free. Imagine unlimited call for $1 a month.

Second, We'll tag every device with an IP address. Right now, we only use this for computer client/server. We will fill every slot in IPv4 (256*4bit address), so we're moving on to IPv6. (enough to label every human on earth millions of time over)

Each device now has a "name" of its own, and it can start chatting. your bed can tell your light bulb to turn on because you just wake up, for example. Huge, huge amount of possibility here.

Third, social change. Imagine that being "connected" to the internet is your birthright. You don't need a fast connection, just a basic 3Mb/s is enough. Government can set up a nationwide network, just like roads and streetlights, to enable you to connect all the time, 24 hours. And you carry with you a supersmartphone, which is actually a minicomputer by then. Imagine what it can do for you and what you can do with it.

In fact, Finland has done just that. I expect other countries to follow suit in the next 10 years.

All of this will take about 20 years at most, so a majority of us will be able to benefit from it.

The future is going to be a hella exciting.

The Grand Theory of Human Mind

2009-11-24T22:15:00.005+07:00

Or, my little model of human mind I just thought up myself during my train ride home -- without any evidence to support the model. (well, I haven't looked it up yet)

OK, my belief is that our mind has 2 parts: the conscious-logical mind, and the jungle-like pattern matching unconscious mind. These two are separated physically, but not in a clear cut way like left & right brain.

1st part is responsible for aceing the IQ test, doing math, and critical thinking. Anything that is reasoning and "careful" logical thinking. I stressed careful because that implies you have to be fully conscious when you are using this part of the brain. Most scientist-types are proficient in using it. As you can tell, it is most suitable for analyzing information and making "perfect" decision. The downside is time. You need to consider everything, slowly.

[Programmer talk: This is like a deterministic algorithm. Can find optimal conclusion, but computationally expensive]

2nd part, this one is interesting. It does pattern-matching for you without you knowing what's going on, hence operating (mostly) unconsciously. What you usually get is a "hunch". Ex: Something is off about this guy. I don't like him. This place is somehow odd, I'm not sure I wanna rent it. And many more example. The people who has the most advanced form of this part are the intuitive type -- usually women. They are great at guessing things, but they can't tell you why they "think" that way.

Most people downplay the importance of this 2nd part. It actually is another form of intelligence. Very useful for quite a few things -- Like interpersonal skills. Most salesperson use it to read the customer and react accordingly -- without knowing it themselves. It's fast, almost instant. The decision is good, but not the best. Mostly "good enough"

[Programmer talk: This is a heuristics part. Plenty fast and cheap. but might stuck in local maxima]

This is why scientists can't sell and salesmen can't do science! Their brains are completely different! (Well, to be more accurate, they only like to use one part of their brain and try to use it to solve every type of problems. When you're a hammer, everything you see is a nail.)

I'm a scientist type. Everyday, I try to approach the people-problem using the analytical part of my mind. I think I gain some insights, but it's usually too slow, and so DAMN tiring. With people, it's like solving 3 differential equations at the same time without knowing the variables. I can see the benefit of the "ituitive" brain, but I don't know how to use (or activate) it. I'll be researching more of this.

Hoo boy, I'm taking a brain dump here. It's hard to write something coherent when you're tired, and this is especially a hard concept to explain. Hope I can read it later and still gets it.

My iPod gone

2009-10-22T20:04:00.002+07:00

My iPod got stolen today, during my evening walk back home. Damn the Bangkok thieves! I had my hands full today and left my iPod in my messenger bag. He probably saw my white headphone line disappeared into my bag -- pinpointing the device location.

I was a bit upset at my bad luck, but now I revel at how the thief's luck is equally bad. You see, my Ipod is an obsoleted 5-years ago model. He probably couldn't sell it through a 2nd hand market, or if he could the price would've been dismal. Plus, my songs are mainly in English and Japanese, which I presume is not his kind of music anyway.

So what he essentially stolen is a 5 years old hard drive. And what I got is --- an opportunity to buy a new iPod! (gotta pay for it though, hmm or is stealing a choice?)

Money vs Time (vs Quality of life)

2009-08-29T12:39:00.000+07:00

Reddit, Being Frugal.

I've said it before on /r/Frugal and I'll say it again.

Being frugal is not about saving money. Not one bit. Being frugal is about saving TIME.

HOWEVER... when you think on the relation of time vs. money... you need to factor in something that many people leave out... how much TIME did it take you to EARN the money? You need to convert costs to time, not dollars. The oil change may cost you 35 dollars... but if it takes two hours to earn that money back then you may be losing in the long run.

We are frugal not because we want to save money. Money is essentially an infinite resource. If we spend what we have we can always make more. The catch is that we have to spend time to make money. Time is a very, very finite resource. Most of us will only get about 70 years worth, and if you're old enough to be living the frugal life you've probably already spent 20 or 30 years of it.

We are frugal because we want to avoid spending money and essentially eliminate the need to make more of it.

If you're frugal because you want to spend all of your time saving money so you can stockpile it then I think you have the wrong idea. I also think you have the wrong idea if you're being frugal so that you can build up enough money to buy "things". Or, maybe you want to retire young but you don't wanna look back and think that you wasted the best years of your life earning money so you can spend the most increasingly difficult years of your life saving money to leave behind. I certainly hope you aren't visiting /r/Frugal on a regular basis because you want to save up enough money to buy a great big house so you can spend time making money to fill it with more "things".

You can get money back. You can't get time back. But being frugal is about not being wasteful with money so that you don't have to spend time.

Another Sowell gem

2009-08-08T01:33:00.000+07:00

If you could knock a little something into the heads of young liberals, what would it be?

I'd like to get them to think in terms of incentives and empirical evidence, and not in terms of goals and hopes. Over the years, I've reached the point where I can hardly bear to read the preamble of proposed legislation. I don't care what you think this thing is going to do. What I care about is: What are you rewarding, and what are you punishing? Because you're going to get more of what you're rewarding and less of what you're punishing. -- Thomas Sowell

Google wave developer = Viking Legend

2009-05-31T19:45:00.002+07:00

I was just watching Google Wave keynote, and noticed that Lars Rasmussen, the creator, looks so much like Askeladd, the character from Vinland Saga manga.

Singapore all-age employment

2009-04-27T07:28:00.002+07:00

I've intended to write this post a few weeks ago but completely forgotten about it.

I have visited Singapore a while back and had an interesting observation. It's about old people in Singapore. They're still working -- in their 80's and beyond. On menial job, which I think government reserved for old people.

I've specially experienced a strange but warming scene when I went in a local fastfood (near hotel) for a quick meal. I ordered a bowl of niku-don from a very young cashier. (probably 12-14 years old)

Then got served by a 25-something waiter. Then after a while, very old grandma came out from the back and went to stand at the front handling out discount flyers to teenagers. She is about 85 and has her back bent like a question mark.

First impression -- this is like a family business!

Second impression -- why doesn't grandma's son/daughter take care of her? Chinese has a culture of taking care of their parents.

From trying (and failing) to communicate with this grandma, I still found out that she likes this job. I still remembered her smile.

I tried to get every employees (12,25,85) to take a photo with me but they are too shy. Oh well.

That's it I think. No conclusion, no nothing. I just think it's a weird and want to share it.

Linux & Windows, general user statements

2009-03-13T21:17:00.001+07:00

I spent 4 hours trying to get my broadcom wi-fi adapter working in ubuntu. When i finally got it installed, i could ping, but i could not browse. I gave up and re-installed vista and everything worked right off the bat. I dont even know why i am posting this. I guess i just want somebody to feel my pain.

Dugged.

The day when the banks die..

2009-02-21T21:32:00.001+07:00

Closing levels of S&P 500 Index :

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bottom of Dotcom bubble burst
October 9, 2002 ===========> 777

CNBC's Jim Cramer's "This is Armageddon!" call
August 6, 2007 ============> 1468

All-Time closing high
October 9, 2007 ===========> 1565

Close of Beijing Games
August 25, 2008 ========> 1266

Lehman Bros. collapses
September 16, 2008 =========> 1214

CNBC's Jim Cramer appears on "Today Show"
October 6, 2008 ==========> 1057

U.S. Federal elections
November 4, 2008 =========> 1005

New Year's Day
January 1, 2009 =========> 903

Chinese (Lunar) New Year's
January 26, 2009 =========> 836

Feb '09 options expiration
February 20, 2009 ===========> 770

U.S. banking nationalization?
February 23, 2009 =========> ???

Oh, and also -- BAC is toast.

Ray-traced real-time games

2009-02-17T01:43:00.007+07:00

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3928/sponsored_feature_light_it_up_.php

The link above showed QuakeWar rewrite to use raytracing instead of rasterization for graphics. Impressive, impressive feats. Although right now the power of high-end PC can only maintain about 20-30fps for this game, I believe that in 3 years -- 2012 -- we will see the first "commercially viable" ray-traced 3D games.

Need to save up money right now...

Recession, Depression - 2009

2009-02-16T03:02:00.004+07:00

With Recent Global Economics Downturn, many people are strugging to find a job. (or keep their old jobs) Many, many bad news are floating around the internet, and I can't help thinking about recent/coming college graduates who will definitely have to face a toughest job market in 30 years.

But this is also the time and you can prove once and for all -- what you are made of.

Just to remind myself: I still have roof over my head!

Starcraft Matches on youtube

2009-02-12T22:33:00.002+07:00

For anyone who likes playing starcraft, and enjoy watching those Korean progamers slugging each other, I want to recommend Cholera's Youtube Channel. He is Commentating these videos in English and I would say he is a very, very good. How good is he? I would watch any sports he want to commentate on.

my octopus test animation

2009-02-04T02:19:00.002+07:00

Massively arms jiggling!

Another year older

2009-01-11T15:24:00.002+07:00

I've been making pizza today because it's a special day! Not much to blog, except I felt happy that quite a lot of people remember it.

"Outliers" comments on Reddit

2009-01-01T02:37:00.002+07:00

Just want to copy/paste a snippet of good discussion on Reddit about the book "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell.

The Question:

These things are interesting, including other types of "success" books like "Good to Great", but they all seem to fail in one respect. They only look at one side of the coin. Even the most statistically rigorous, multivariate analyses seem to only look at variables that are necessary, but not sufficient. Sure, all of the analyzed successes have these similar overlapping properties, but that doesn't make them useful properties. For example, they also all breathe, eat, and take a shit every day.

It's good when they go a step further and show a direct causal link from the property to the outcome, but even that isn't enough. How many people have done all of these things and still failed? These books imply that if you do these things then you'll be more successful. All lottery winners have the necessary property that they bought lottery tickets, and there is a direct causal link, but that doesn't make buying a lottery ticket a good plan to get rich.

How much of these successes are just random chance on top of those factors?

The Answer:

You'll never know. If you are trying to get hard data like that, you are going about it completely the wrong way. The causal links can never be proven, especially not when it comes to intentionality as opposed to the workings of a computer program, which is deterministic by definition.

Instead think about what brings you joy, and do that. It's that simple and you can't go wrong with that. The problem is that often it takes some courage to do what brings you joy rather than what brings you steady money. Or, another problem could be that you may not know what brings you joy. All this can be figured out though.

Every second you spend in joy and contentment is success. Whether or not you become famous or make big bucks or both is secondary. Live fully and face all the fears you have, starting with the scariest first. Forget about success and just do what is in front of you to do, and success will find you. You don't have to go looking for it.

What they don't tell you is that NONE of the successful people gave a damn about success. You think Tiger Woods would stop playing golf if he was told he could only be number 2 max? The successful people LOVE what they do and would do it no matter what. The Beatles would have played no matter what.

So making the right choice is easy -- ignore success and do what you love.

Every second you spend in joy and contentment is success - Wow, never thought about it that way..

Event ID 11

2008-12-29T00:59:00.003+07:00

My Hard disk went a little foobar on one specific file. (downloaded from torrent)

When copying the file, it just freezes at 56% mark. And then several event logs of "Event ID 11" came up. From googling, it can be anything from motherboard controller, cable, or the harddisk itself.

This is the 2nd defect within 2 months of my Dell refurbished laptop purchase. I hope this is not a common occurrence, or else Dell should fire the whole QC department.

Another link about 10,000 hour practice

2008-12-20T16:55:00.002+07:00

I always enjoy Khatzumoto's post about learning Japanese. His post is the motivation you need when you can't seem to go on anymore, and his post actually apply to anything else that is skill-based endavour.

This latest post is especially encouraging.

Although I think the innate talent is important (especially in the beginning), for most things the amount of work you put in will contribute much more to your expertise on the subject. Currently, there is only one exception that I can think of, and that is mathematician. For this one, talent rules all.

Lucky I don't want to be one.

Food Network Star

2008-12-14T11:43:00.002+07:00

In America, everything is a competition. Even in cooking, if you want you can make a competition out of it.

Quite similar to "America's Next Top Model", the Food Network has its own show of future "cooking" TV personality. From the 2 episodes that I watched, it was done quite well. There are originally 8(?) contestant in total, and each week the committee will decide who will be cut base on their performance. The test they made each week is something related to being a cooking TV host -- like food knowledge, or performance in front of the camera.

In the latest episode I watched, there are 3 contestant left -- Aaron, Liza, Adam. I feel most comfortable with Aaron so I'm cheering for him.

Do work, get good

2008-11-07T07:38:00.002+07:00

Ira Glass, American radio personality, has a sound advice for any person in creative career (actually any career)

Summary: You need to do at least 10 years of hard work before you will be able to make (great) stuff that you are satisfied with.

This reaffirms the 10,000 hour/10 years to proficiency theory. Also, he said the amount of work you do, [not the quality of work], that will make you better.

Metafilter: How to find your passion?

2008-11-05T15:46:00.002+07:00

This is one of the advices at metafilter. I especially find this particular answer to be very deep and use, so I copied/pasted it here in case Metafilter delete it. [original post from grumblebee]

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Is there a difference between "discover your passion" and "discover what you want to do"?

I ask because I hear people talk about their Passion (with a capital P), as if everyone has one whether they know it or not. As it it's a special glowing ball inside each of us. Yet I see no evidence that this ball necessarily exists.

To me, it's more likely that we have things we like and things we dislike. A like becomes a passion when it repeats with regularity. For instance, I like peaches, but I don't constantly crave them. So I wouldn't call peaches a passion. On the other hand, whenever I see a book, I want to read it. I like reading... I like reading... I like reading... So I'd call reading a passion.

Is there anything like this for you, even if it's something "stupid" (e.g. watching TV or eating poptarts)? If so, that a passion for you. If it repeats with great rapidity (and if the urge is very strong), then it's an obsession. (I can't keep my hands off my iPod. I think about it all the time. If I lose it, I panic.)

You don't get to chose your passions. Since passions are just intense likings, choosing a passion would be like choosing to like eating eggplant. You either like eating eggplant or you don't. Perhaps, if you don't like it, you can learn to like it. But RIGHT NOW, you either like it or you don't.

I've met some people who don't seem to have any strong passions. Some admit to this. They certainly have likes and dislikes, but nothing specific crops up over and over. In fact, some people dislike anything that repeats too often (you could say such people have a passion for novelty). Other people DO have passions (defined as I've done so, above), but they don't think of them as such. For many people, their passion is other people: passion for their kids, passion for their families, passion for helping others in need, etc....

Many people THINK they've discovered a passion when if fact they've only found a surface activity that lays atop their real passion. For instance, I love working in the theatre. At the risk of sounding holier-than-thou, I believe my passion is pretty "pure." In other words, my passion for theatre doesn't hide a deeper passion. I love theatre because I'm fascinated by the specific mechanics of telling stories on stage. When I'm not rehearsing a play, I will choose to read a book about theatre mechanics just for fun (for another dose of my obsession).

I've met others like me, but I meet far more theatre people who seem to be USING theatre to feed some deeper passion. (Please note that I'm NOT saying that there's anything wrong with this or that I'm better than these people. I believe neither of those things. And there are plenty of other activities -- just not theatre -- that I use as tools to feed deeper passions.) Such people may be into theatre because they love attention and praise; they may love belonging to an open-minded group (many "misfits" find their way into theatre in high school and stay because they love belonging to such an accepting culture); they may even be operating on autopilot, doing theatre because for whatever reason, they got into it when they were younger and it never occurs to them to quit. (They probably enjoy having mastered something.)

I think it's useful to delve into your psychology and ask yourself WHY you like what you like. Sometimes (as with me and theatre), the answer might be "because I simply love the activity." (How do you know if this is true? Try mentally removing orbiting aspects of the activity: would I still want to direct plays if no one saw them? would I still want to direct plays if I could only work with bad actors? Would I still want to direct plays if I hated the results? Would I still want to direct plays if I always got bad reviews? etc. For me, though I wouldn't enjoy the activity as much in these cases, I'd still want to do it.)

This is useful because if you learn what your TRUE passion is (the underlying one, if there is one), you may be able to change your life for the better. You may be able to say, "Wow! It's not theatre I like, it's collaboration! Maybe I instead of continuing in theatre, I should look into all sorts of collaborative activities and get into the one that's the MOST collaborative."

Such psychological delving may also help you deal with a crisis: "Oh no! I've lost my voice. I can't act anymore. Wait a minute: it's not specifically theatre that I like, it's storytelling! I could write a novel."

There's also nothing wrong (and a lot right) with realizing, "I love attention and praise, so theatre is a great activity for me." In all of these cases, you'll have learned something about yourself.

Once you know your passion, you will be tempted to ask -- as you did -- "How can I turn this into a career?" I think that's the wrong question. I don't think it's totally wrong. I just think it's too specific. Instead, I recommend you ask yourself this: "How can I best arrange my life so that I can spend the most time engaging in my passion IN ITS PUREST POSSIBLE FORM and derive the least amount of pain doing non-passion activities?"

I am a director, but I'm not a working (as in paid) director. To pay my rent, I have a "day job." I COULD work as a director, but I'd have to direct plays that I don't want to direct. For some people, that would be fine. For me, it's not a good trade off. I'll be more happy with the day job and the ability to direct whatever I want -- forgoing pay. It took me a while to come up with that "formula," and it's a personal one. Mine won't necessarily work for you.

(If you realize you're like me, find the least painful day job you can, getting yourself training if you have to. I actually like my day job. And I continually work to make it better and more interesting. The cliche of waiting tables to support your passion isn't a necessity. If you commit to the idea of having a day job -- I'll likely have one for the rest of my life -- it behooves you to make it a good one. Or at least the least painful one you can find.)

I see a lot of people working REALLY hard to make their passion into a job, and -- tragically -- when they finally make it happen, they don't enjoy the passion any more. (E.g. a lot of working actors, who got into the business to play Shakespeare or Chekhov, spend most of their time acting in commercials.) If this happens, it's really worthwhile to do some soul searching. Would I be happier with a day job? Am I happy doing a compromised version of my passion? If I AM happy doing a compromised version of my passion, does that (perhaps) mean that what I thought was my passion wasn't really my passion? ("Hmm. I thought I wanted to act, but in order to do theatre for a living, I've had to become a producer. And -- hey -- I like it. Maybe acting isn't my real passion. Maybe my real passion is being a key part of a big project.")

I am NOT saying there's anything wrong with figuring out a way to do your passion for pay. Often, that's a great way to spend most of your time doing your passion. Just make sure that if you're doing your passion as a job, it's really your passion that you're doing and not a perverted version of it that will fail to make you happy.

So, go through this thought process:

1. I've identified my passion as X. I am now going to define X as fully as possible. For X to be X, it MUST include A and B. C is optional. It can't include D.

2. I've realized that I won't be happy unless I'm doing X for a living.

3. Are there any jobs that will allow me to do X as I've defined it? (Or that will let me gradually work towards a pure version of X?)

4. If not, then I need to either brainstorm other ways I could be happy (compromised X? doing X as a hobby?) or resign myself to unhappiness.

5. If so, then I need to make sure that I can live with non-X aspects of the job. (Wow! I can do full time, paid theatre, but I'd have to work with the dreaded Mr. Y!)

Finally: I've noticed that people (myself included) have a strong urge to classify themselves. People REALLY want to be able to say, "I'm a director!" "I'm an engineer!" "My passion is gourmet cooking!"

There's nothing wrong with that drive, but putting yourself in a category is not the same thing as actually being in that category. In fact, categorizing yourself -- since it's so final -- is a good way to thwart any attempt to discover your actual passions. Once you say, "I'm a director," it's hard to think, "Wait a minute: is it actually directing that I like or some other activity that directing helps me achieve?" Which is why, at the start of this long post, I suggested you de-romanticize the whole thing and, instead, think about what you like and dislike, rather than trying to pin down your Passion.

Maybe you don't have a Passion. Maybe you have many likes -- you like playing in the sun; you like watching movies; you like hanging out with friends... If so, you'll be much happier if you arrange your life to maximize your chances to do these activities than if you expend a ton of energy categorizing yourself.

Problem: Ogre3D mesh with Intel Graphic

2008-10-18T20:19:00.004+07:00

If you are trying to export an ogre mesh from any 3D apps, and want it to be compatible with intel GMA900 & 950, then don't use "shared geometry" option because the chipset doesn't support that feature and your program will get this error:

ogre exception(3):failed to DrawPrimitive :invaid call in RenderSystem_Direct3D9 ::render at ..\src\OgreD3d9RenderSystem.cpp(line 2812)

here's the link explaining the root of the problem.

John Carmack perspective

2008-10-07T10:27:00.004+07:00

After reading a John Carmack Article, it just hit me that why don't I just follow my dreams like he did? I mean, just do it, without worrying that it might not work out.

The Worst(tm) that could happen is that I'll be working as an actuary/programmer somewhere in Bangkok. I won't starve, I will have enough money to take care of my family, and I will probably can afford anything that I want.

So be it. Let's try coding without worrying for once.

Changed World View

2008-09-20T10:36:00.004+07:00

6 Years Old, Kindergarten:
Wheee! There so much to do and have fun in this world. I'm learning so fast!

10 Years Old, Elementary School:
Heh, this stuff is too easy, is there anything more to learn? I'm smart!

18 Years Old, High School:
Ohh, so many fields to go into, which one should I choose? I could learn all of these in 20 years anyway. I'm a genius!

22 Years Old, Finished Engineering Undergrads:
Man, All the subject in this fields... must have taken 30 years just to master them all. I'm not sure I can do this... it's boring... but I've got 150 IQ, that means I'm still a genius!

26 Years Old, Finished Master degree in Finance :
Wow... I don't think I could understand all of Finance even if I studied it all my life. Plus, I have found many people who are way smarter than me...

Future me, 2nd Master degree in CS: (hopefully)
This stuff is frigging deep! For all these years, I haven't even scratch the surface ... I'm such an arrogant idiot ! Hopefully I could master one subject in the field when I retired.

Make lots of things, pick best ones, show them, profit!

2008-09-08T21:29:00.002+07:00

I just found this blog post through StackOverflow.
Essentially, it encourage you to produce a lot of things (says, photographs) and then choose only the best ones out of the rest, then you will be seen as a great photographer.

Very good philosophy. Also, you become better faster by producing lots of rubbish than concentrate on making the best one.

StackOverFlow.com is good for developer

2008-09-08T21:19:00.003+07:00

I just got a mail invite for StackOverFlow Beta Testing.

Basically, it's the website similar to Yahoo Answer/Metafilter, but specifically for software developer.

I tried it an hour ago and I was hooked! It has a Digg-like moderation system. You can Upvote/Downvote Questions and Answers. It also has a "reputation system" (slashdot karma?)
where if you contribute positively (insightful answers/question), you gain power to do more things -- like editing posts or even lock offensive posts.

I love the communities! Most helpful and insightful members I've ever seen. I guess it's a small beta so there are mostly veteran developer. I wonder if the post quality will go down when the site is open to public. I also wonder if there's any way to game the reputation system. haha.

The gist of life.

2008-08-27T18:33:00.003+07:00

Sometimes, great wisdom is found in the strangest of places. This time, at GameDev.net forum:

Petr, aged 15 from the Czech Republic, writes in his signature...

There are two life senses [note: 2 purposes in life]
1. Be happy.
2. Make others happy.

When I think about living my life like this, I found peace.

Changing Career

2008-08-22T17:54:00.003+07:00

Alice: Oh, no, no. I was just wondering if you could help me find my way.
Cheshire Cat: Well that depends on where you want to get to.
Alice: Oh, it really doesn't matter, as long as...
Cheshire Cat: Then it really doesn't matter which way you go.

I just got a degree in one field and now want to work in another. In just one short year, I have changed my mind 3 times about where I want to go. The Cheshire Cat was right, it all depends on where you want to go.

Oh, and when you've really nailed down your career choice, this Japanese proverb perfectly tells you what to do next.

好きこそ　ものの　上手なれ
Become good at what you like doing.

Cheers, career changers.

Back from Siggraph

2008-08-17T04:12:00.003+07:00

I've been to SIGGRAPH'08 conference and I had a blast.

Many new things in computer graphic world. Many interesting people.

I had even shaked hand with one of the lead art designer from Blizzard.

More than that, going to Pixar night and watching "The Pixar Story" have changed my perspective about life (in a good way.)

We look at Pixar now and see a very successful company. Everybody wants to work at Pixar.
But you know what?

Pixar was almost got bankrupt many times and John Lasseter, the main guy behind Pixar, had been fired from the company he loved (Disney), just because the executives didn't like his work.

Success doesn't come easy, indeed.

I guess it all came down to perseverence. Just keep doing what you love. And I found that what I love to do is not exactly Finance. (Long story for another time)

Anyway, for any 3D artist/programmer/enthusiasts who has never been to SIGGRAPH,

just go.

It's worth it.

PS. random thought: people like playing The Sims or games like this because they feel like they're improve their life. And it's easy to measure with all the "money" and "happiness" stats.
(I love watching green bars go up too.)

What if we do this in real life? Putting huge chart/screen in front of you with the stats you desire, ex: money, fame, etc. Would it motivate you?

Game: Time Waster?

2008-04-20T13:19:00.003+07:00

A second piece about time waster.
I'll keep it short this time because I'm lazy.

Is playing video game a time waster?
Mostly Yes. But sometimes, no. It depends.

Ultimately, it's our intention and our goal that decides what it is.
If you use the "playing game" activity to have fun with your family & friends,
that's not a time waster at all.
If you play games and learn something from them, then they could be called "educational tools."

Unfortunately, when we play purely for pleasure, that's when we play games for games' sake.
So just be careful, games are designed to be addictive. Some people become so addicted that they devote their life to playing games. (WOW Addicts for example)

That's it for today. But before I end this, let me share with you a very unique game. You can finish it in 5 minutes. I can't promise that it will be fun for you, but I assure that you will have a unique experience.

It's the game call "Passage." Download Here. Then unrar and play.

Time Waster

2008-04-01T00:11:00.000+07:00

Time is a precious thing. It's one of the rare instance in life where everybody is equal. Everyone gets 24 hours per day, whether they are rich or poor, beautiful or ugly, lucky or unfortunate, etc.

But even knowing that, we still often do activities that are categorized as "time waster."
A time waster is, for me, an activity that is unimportant or not relate to our real goals.

Why do we still do such things, even we are fully aware that they "waste" our time?

Simple: Instant Pleasure.

We always choose to do something base on how much pain or pleasure it will give us.

Important activities give us pleasure when we achieve them.
Time waster(TW) activites also do the same, but they're so easy to achieve it's instant.
Also, they are set up in a way that is addictive. You'll keep coming back to do them.

The bad thing is that they give "fake" pleasure. True, we achieve something but it's unimportant, it's not what we actually want. That's what makes them dangerous.

Next post will talk about games as time wasters.

Quote.

2008-03-05T04:34:00.001+07:00

An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
- Gandhi

I wonder if he was trying to warn us or he was simply telling us about the future.

The "Final" lecture from a great professor

2007-09-23T07:55:00.000+07:00

"Last lecture" is a common title for talks on college campuses today. Top professors are asked to think deeply about what matters to them and to give hypothetical final talks. For the audience, the question is this: What would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance?

At Carnegie Mellon, however, Dr. Pausch's speech was more than just an academic exercise. The 46-year-old father of three has pancreatic cancer and expects to live for just a few months. His lecture, using images on a giant screen, turned out to be a rollicking and riveting journey through the lessons of his life.

The full version is here. Youtube has partitioned it here.

Stupid International

2007-09-13T10:47:00.001+07:00

Today I didn't feel like doing any work, so I idly surfed the net and accidentally wandered into MENSA Spain Website. (MENSA is a high IQ society. To be a member, you must have IQ score higher than 98% of the population.)

It has a "mini IQ-test" there -- 16 questions, 8 minutes. Naturally, I took it to see if I'm the "elite" 2%. Here is the result:

Agradecemos el esfuerzo y tiempo empleados en realizar el test orientativo que hemos colocado en nuestro web.Su puntuación ha sido de 16 aciertos sobre 18 posibles. De ello deducimos que cuenta con posibilidades para entrar en Mensa.

Si está interesado formar parte de nuestra asociación, puede solicitar realizar el test preliminar o el test supervisado.

Si reside fuera de España lamentamos tener que informarle que, debido a los estatutos de Mensa Internacional, sólo estamos capacitados para realizar el test a residentes en España. Así pues, para entrar en Mensa deberá dirigirse a la página web de Mensa Internacional http://www.mensa.org/

Having no knowledge of the Spanish language. I plugged this glob of text in the google translator.

The result is.... illuminating.

We thank for the used effort and time in making the orientative test that we have placed in our Web. Its score has been of 16 successes on 18 possible ones. Of it we deduce that it counts on possibilities to enter Stupid.

If it is interested to comprise of our association, can solicit to make the preliminary test or the supervised test.

If it resides outside Spain we were sorry to have to inform to him that, due to the statutes of the Stupid International, we are only enabled to make the test to residents in Spain. Therefore, to enter Stupid Web of the Stupid http://www.mensa.org/ International will have to go to the page

Now I know why so few people has joined MENSA in Spain.

Memashow's new blog design

2007-09-11T03:03:00.000+07:00

Head over to see!
http://memashow.blogspot.com

This is my congratulation gift:

The Legend of 1900

2007-09-10T06:28:00.000+07:00

This is (in my humble opinion) the most beautiful song ever written.
It's from the movie "The Legend of 1900." The Main Character (whose name is "1900"!) was born in, you guess, 1900, on the cruise ship. He was left there by his parents and was raised on the ship by the crew members.
Having born in the ship, he never set foot on land. Later on he became a genius pianist who could compose songs on the fly.

This scene is when he became famous and people asked to record his music. He started playing random tune but then it changed because he saw someone... his first love.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAsCZ0qBlr4

There are other memorable scenes too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Sv4r8PPTPQ&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BO0fmkSA80o&mode=related&search=

More on IQ and Extreme Intelligence

2007-09-09T09:30:00.000+07:00

Here's an interesting question:
If there are a pill that will increase your IQ by 100 points, will you take it?
That would push your IQ into 200-300 range, making you the smartest human alive.

I would take it in a heartbeat, and I think most people will do the same.
What's not to like?

Upon some more thinking, I found that the cost might outweigh the benefit.

The Good:
You will have a much deeper understanding of the world. You will breeze through most of the stuff that normal people finds difficult.

The Bad:
You will lead a very abnormal life (by normal people standard.) It will be hard to find someone that has the same interest as you do. Most people will not understand you and might label you a madman.

The Ugly:
You can't talk to anyone openly. Being much smarter than the rest of the society, it's like you're living among chimpanzees.

People are social animal. We need to communicate. We need to be understood. We need to feel that we belong somewhere. And When we can't do that, we become a very unhappy person.

Here are some examples that support my point.

- William James Sidis, an american child prodigy with 200+ IQ. He first became famous for his precociousness, and later got shunned from the public media. He avoided mathematics entirely in later life, and would only take work running adding machines or other fairly menial tasks. Sidis died penniless in Boston at the age of 46.

- Theodore Kaczynski, A.K.A. "The Unabomber", is a Harvard graduates turned serial murderer who carried out a campaign of mail bombings that killed three and wounded 23. He sent bombs to several universities and airlines from the late 1970s through early 1990s. It is said that he has IQ in the range of 160-170.

There are also some movies and literature that reinforce my belief.
The famous ones are Flower for Algernon and Phenomenon.

However, there are also a lot of counter evidences. Many of the 180+ IQ individual seems to live very well in the normal society.(See the Termites.) Another famous high-IQ person, Marilyn Vos Savant, live a very normal (almost boring) life writing weekly magazine column.

After all these evidence, I would summarize as this:
Having extremely high IQ will not make you mad, but there is a extremely high chance that it will.

Update: This article has some intriguing analysis of the 180+ IQ individuals [specifically the termites] and their social (mal-)adjustment.

Interesting Note: I noticed that there are no "genius" or nobel prize winner that has 180+ IQ. (only in 120-150 range) Why so?

What's your IQ?

2007-09-08T01:02:00.000+07:00

I used to write an IQ test when I was a little kid (10?) and got very excited about it.
The score is quite high -- 143. I printed the result, and to my dismay, the tested date is April fool! (The score was still valid though)

Since then, I've taken several online IQ tests, and scored between 130 - 163. Sorely inaccurate, I'd say. The S.D. is wider than the Pacific ocean.

Right now, I still really want to know my IQ. I read that if you want the score that you could brag about, you should have a real psychologist testing you. And so I found out how to do that...

1) Take a Mensa IQ test. 40$, and the testing sites is nowhere near my town.
2) A test Administered by Local Psychologist. 300$. That's right, three-hundred-dollars.

The common sense kicked in and said "look what you can do with all that money! Is it worth it --Going through all that just to know some esoteric score that's weakly correlated with my intelligence?"

Well, I figured that everyone who has an IQ of 120+ would choose:
3) Save the money for something else. And so I did. :)

Lolcat++

2007-08-03T00:55:00.000+07:00

I so love this cat.
Find more here.

Sickos on Digg.com

2007-08-02T03:31:00.000+07:00

Recently, Michael Moore released "Sicko" -- a documentary examining the state of American health care system. Moore has obviously favored Universal Health care (or Socialized health care, and vehemently promoted it in his film.

Anyone who saw this film will see that Moore picked the worst problems in US health care and masterfully showed it to the audience. On the other hand, he portrayed Socialized health care system as a panacea of all problems. It went on so much that I would have described the system as "Utopian."

Now, I agree that US Health care system has a lot of problems. But so as the Socialized system.
Any reasonable person could see that the film was downplaying one system and trumpeting another. So it all boils down to which political agenda Moore is trying to push.

Nevertheless, the film will promote discussion and I like that.

What's really shocking me is diggers reaction to this issue in general. Here. Here. and Here.

Some diggers are at least rational and respectful, but most of them are... sickening.

Having know nothing, they proceed to digg down every opposing comments regardless of how well it was written.

In Contrast, the inanes but popular comments has a 30+ digg.
This observation confirms that most diggers are left-wing socialist. (and apple fanboy)

Finally, I wonder if most American people are the same. I hope not.
(most diggers are young (about 15-35), working in tech-related job, and support democrats)

Cooking -- A Pleasant Surprise

2007-06-22T11:58:00.000+07:00

After moving in a new Apartment, I cook every day.

Do I need to cook? No, not necessarily.

I cook because I love cooking.

Every moment in kitchen contains unexpected surprise -- Like forgetting to buy some important ingredient -- to cracking raw egg and let it fell right into the burner hole. (luckily i can open inside and scoop it out.

Not to mention, you can experiment with new recipes and new ingredient.

And lastly, if you are lucky, you will get a delicious meal.

Here is one of the first meals I cooked in the U.S.

"Spaghetti with Beef Tomato Sauces"

You can see the rest of it here!
(*note* - some of them are not photogenic.)

My Life : Updated : From Thai to Illinois

2007-05-20T08:07:00.001+07:00

I'm here at Illinois[Champaign] for 3 days now.
Trying to get accustom to the weather and other things.

Here's some pics from my journey.

May 15 4:00AM [BKK time], Arrived at Suvarnabhumi Airport.

Well actually, that's the only photo I got. throughout this trip, I was too excited to take a picture.
Let's move on.

May 15 6:00PM [BKK Time], Plane took off. it would land at Narita in another 6 hour. I sat next to a Thai and we had on a great conversation. He is actually a US citizen now and has been living in L.A. for 20 years. I learned a few things from him about living in the US.

May 15 1:40PM [Japan Time], Arrived at Narita Airport -- 20 minutes to change flight.
Because of the weather, I was delayed for 40 minutes. I thought I was not going to make it to the next flight. (Detroit)

May 15 2:00PM [Japan Time], Yes, of course I got there on time. I was happy that things were going well, not knowing the ordeal not far ahead -- the 11-hour flight.

May 15 1:00PM [Detroit Time], That 11 hour was pure hell. Imagine sitting still for 11 hours in poor lighting condition,with only 2 round of food and 2 glass of water to between those nightmare. Luckily, I sat next to a very very nice Japanese guy. Although he can barely speak English, we shared a lot of story and develop rapport. Believe it or not, I mainly used my rusty Japanese to communicate.

May 15 2:00PM [Detroit Time], I passed a US immigration check. It was an interesting experience. I wait in line for half an hour because of an indian family in front of me got a questionable Visa. When it was my turn, the policeman behind the counter was already grumpy. In fact, he was a Big fat grumpy black policeman with the name tag -- "Little John." Yup. Nice knowing ya.

May 15 4.00PM [Detroit Time], this was the time I should board my plane to Champaign, IL but some problem came up. Due to the lighting storm, my plane couldn't take off and my flight was cancelled. This was my worst nightmare, but it actually turned out quite well. There were a lot of people who booked this flight, so I went to talk to them and become good friends (1 Australian, 1 Singporean, and 2 Koreans.) The Airline apologized and booked us the following morning flight. After that, we went to hotel nearby and slept through the night.

May 16 8.30AM [Detroit Time], Finally got on the plane to Champaign. It's a little AirBus plane. It can only take 30 person at a time.

May 16 10.30AM [Detroit Time], Arrived at Champaign,IL! What a long journey... It's beautiful here, and also very cold. Anyhow, my life here at the US ... has begun.

My Life: Updated

2007-05-07T20:40:00.000+07:00

Hulo!
It has been 4 months since I last posted.
What did I do with all that time?

Jan - March : 3 Freelance Projects , Prepare for School and USA Visa stuff
April - May : Play games

Wow! That actually sums it up quite well.

Hmmm wish I would waste less time playing game (especially online games).

Anyhow,

It's now an "8-day" countdown.

I'm flying. Away from home. Away from everything I got used to.

8 days from now, I would be half a globe away.

Kinda strange, it didn't feel so exciting anymore.

I heard someone said, " Everyone wants progress, but noone would like to change "
It's really true.

Wahhhhhh~ Does Anyone get homesick before they leave?

My Blog-tag

2007-01-12T00:37:00.000+07:00

Well, I got Blog-tagged from Memashow, so this is my response..

5 Things about me that people never know before:

1. I have Synesthesia (The Fusion of Senses):

It's the way my brain is wired. Mainly I see alphabets in colors -- any alphabet.
For example: the m in "me" is brown and e is poop-like. Yes I know it is all black.

I start notice it when I first learned A-Z. I asked my mother why A is "red" and she freaked out. (she thought something is wrong with my eyes)

2. I started learning English because I thought it would make me "cool":

Until this day, I still think the ability to converse in other languages is awesome. It should also helps with getting girls (or boys.) Speak French = Sexy!

My goal is speaking/writing fluently in 8 languages. Oh.. imagine the chicks you get! I will go set up a Harem now.

3. I bought a lot of books and never finished them:

My interest mostly waned after the 2nd chapter. I always feel guilty about this, but not much.

4. I survived getting hit by a car when I was very young:

Well... I dodged it, actually, by lying on the ground.

I was very young then. I was playing near the front yard of my neighbor's house and incidentally a car was going out from garage to the main road. the driver should have seen me, but back then I was so short (my head is lower than the hood), so he drove at me in full speed .

I turned around and saw the car coming toward me very fast. Amazing, I was shocked and falled backward, making my lying on the ground. The car literally went over me, but leaving me unharmed. Nevertheless, it's a long time before my family let me play on that yard again.

5. I have a natural red, brown, and occasionally gold hair:

Although my hair is mostly black, sometimes I found 1 or 2 strands that are in those color. I thought it was very cool.

------

Well, that's it. I hope you never know these before. If you do, then you must know me very well indeed.

Good News is in (at least for me)!

2006-12-23T22:09:00.000+07:00

Wow long time no update, right?

Actually I was waiting very patiently for my application result(s), and it just came in on the 2nd day of this month.

Ho Ho Ho.... Guess what? I got an early chrismas gift from University of Illinois.. (UIUC) Woohoo!

I finally decided I want to get a Master of Finance degree and UIUC is my top choice. (To tell you the truth, I haven't applied to other universities haha)

Although UIUC is on the 2nd tier (ranking #24-28), its Finance department has a lot of wonderful professors and its location is good in term of job prospect (near Chicago) --- so I am very very happy I got admitted.

On the other note, I just bought 2 domain names -- www.simpleblob.com and www.simplepause.com. Now you can type in those address and it will redirect you to this blog.

PS. Happy Holidays Everyone!

When you have BAD Grades

2006-08-20T15:46:00.000+07:00

If there is one true teaching of Buddha, it is this: what you did in the past will follow you long after you forgetten them.

Likewise, my bad karma is my grade.

When I was looking for the general requirement for Graduate Schools, I noticed that I couldn't get pass any of the GPA requirement (for top-tier school). I want to get in top schools nonetheless, so what should I do to fix this? Here are the choices I can think of:

1. Get another degree first
- In my country, this is called "chooptua" or (figurative) coating yourself with shiny new degree to hide the ugliness underneath. I prefer to think of it as cleansing and reinventing yourself. This is overall the most reasonable choice. However, you must be financially secure (rich) to do this.

2. Get a stellar score on GMAT,GRE,TOEFL, or any test that the schools accept
- this way is quite difficult for a normal person, but it won't be much of a problem if you are smart and diligent enough (very)

3. Get an outstanding letter of recommendation (preferably from a famous professor)
- A glowing letter can easily tips the scale of the application commitee. It is another way to say that "I have an evidences that I'm qualified, besides my grades."

4. Experiences in the field
- How important this is depends on your position, the company you work for, times spent, and the field you're going to apply.

For me, I've already got some of #4. I hope to do #2, then get into #1 which also make #3 possible,all the while reinforcing #4.

Capisci?

Another Cross-road in Life

2006-08-19T17:52:00.000+07:00

After working for 2 years since graduation, I thought that I have accumulated enough working experience and office politics. I began to realize that being a code monkey (programmer) is not what I want to do for the rest of my life. I want to explore other fields or careers. I also want to work abroad.

After some consideration, I thought that studying abroad would be my best chance. I get to see the world, which I wanted to do since I was a child, and the degree would make career change easier. It also enables me to work abroad.

So in order to do that, I resigned and started preparing for Graduate School.

However, choosing what to study has been more difficult that I expected. I know that I don't want to be JUST a programmer, but I don't know much about anything else. I also had dismal grades from my undergraduate adventures, but I decide that they will not limit my options.

Because of the high cost of Graduate Education, I take the decision very seriously. I asked myself what are the important criterias in choosing the field (that leads to a career), and came up with these 4 :

1. Interest - This is the most important values. I love challenges. I like the field that have a lot of them. I believe I can do any job in any field, but to do something for life, I must love doing it.

2. Environment - I cherish independence more than anything. The sheer thought of someone controlling me would destroy my productivity. Also, I like to be with smart people because they always have interesting things to say. (and also remind me how stupid I am)

3. Money (Family) - I want to earn at least enough money to feed my family. By feeding, I mean capable of supporting an upper middle-class family. I don't have an urge to have a big house or a fancy car, but in term of important things such as education, I want my family to have only the best.

4. Altruism - Lastly, I work for something that benefits mankind. No, I didn't mean it in a grand and dramatic way, but in a much smaller scale -- like having a shop in the neighbourhood so that people can buy stuff easier, or making a product that people can use.

Some of you might think that this is more like choosing a job than choosing a field, but I think they are all related. Some jobs are available in all fields, but some jobs aren't. Hence, we must find out what we like to do, in a particular field.

At the moment, I can picture myself doing these jobs: International Economist ( Economics), Financial Engineer (Finance), Software Architect (Computer Science), Psychologist (Psychology), Consultant (various fields), Researcher (various field), and Business Owner (MBA?)

I am very confused for the time being. I will definitely write up a new blog entry when I made up my mind.

Hell, I might be all of this combined -- An Owner of business which does research and give advices about International Financial Products (derivative securities) modeling. Hahahahahaa!

Have Faith in Facts

2006-08-14T17:36:00.000+07:00

Do you think you are a reasonable person?
Do you think logically and base your decision on facts?

I used to think I'm quite a fact-based decider, but after reading Thomas Sowell's articles, I'm not sure anymore. (By the way, Thomas Sowell is a famous economist, and also my hero.)

Studies Prove: Part I
Studies Prove: Part II
Studies Prove: Part III

The articles are mainly about the decision that is based on "studies" or "evidence", is in fact not true at all. Many government funded studies, such as Global Warming, try to provide one-sided evidences that is conformed to what people want to believe.

Sowell himself used to read one scientific study which cited 6 other studies. He somehow doubted the validity of this study, and went to check all 6 references. Shockingly, he found out that these 6 references all cited the same other study! So he went to check that particular study, and to his horror, it was a study of a very different situation from the latest study (which cited it!)

So What should we do?

It would be time-consuming, and sometime impossible for the average person to check ALL the references. In other word, most of the time we have to trust the source that it is telling the truth.

But there are other method to make the right decision. You can make a lot of decisions until you find the right one. This is sometimes the best method because it actually saved more time and effort than to analyze the decision first.

Lately, I tend to notice that I use the study-it-first method for all the decision I made. I hoard data by reading books, interviewing people, and searching the internet before carefully making a decision. The result is, I am still wrong sometime, and it was VERY time consuming.

Perhaps, it is better to fail as much as possible, than attempting to succeed at the first try!

Minimum Wage Debate

2006-08-05T21:27:00.000+07:00

It turns out that increasing minimum wage doesn't affect unemployment as much as we think, according to this article.

In fact, the power of the minimum wage to kill jobs has been greatly overestimated. Nowadays, most labor economists will tell you that that minimum wages have at most a tiny impact on employment.

Twenty years ago, they'd have told you otherwise. Back then, dozens of published studies concluded that minimum wages had put a lot of people (especially teenagers, blacks, and women) out of work.

As the studies continued to pile up, you might think we'd have grown more confident about their common conclusion. Instead, the opposite happened. Even though the studies were all in agreement, they managed to
undercut each other.

WoW Remash (Lord of the Ring Style)

2006-07-26T13:53:00.000+07:00

http://recoil.org/~avsm/wow-remash.gif

Only the real World of Warcraft players will get it.

Some Reminder

2006-07-22T13:36:00.000+07:00

For those desperate in life, and in GRE Exam....

Jessica Pierce: 1989-2006

Link worth visiting for Graduates-to-be

2006-07-21T11:49:00.000+07:00

Usually I don't read slashdot because I think it is full of childish comments and flame wars, but this link is very worth the read.

If you are considering going to Graduate Schools, please read it, especially the comment section! There are so many good advices there that I didn't think it would be possible with slashdot.

The level of language

2006-07-20T20:11:00.000+07:00

Today, while I was reviewing my GRE test on the verbal part, a question came up to my mind -- why are there so many words that mean the same thing?

For an example, today I struggle with "skulduggery","chicanery","trickster","swindler", which all means something about fraud. I think words like "skulduggery" would be used only once in a lifetime, while "fraud" would be used much more often.

There is really a level of language. An entire tier of words which are synonyms with another tier of words, only that it is more formal or more polite.I know that the Japanese language is like that. To say thing to your teacher instead of your friend, you have to use completely different sentences. In Japanese and in many other languages, it is the politeness or even privilege that makes language much harder, but also much more fun to use.

GRE Diagnostic test... BooHoo!

2006-07-17T14:50:00.000+07:00

This is an essay I wrote for the GRE Diagnostic test.
Now I know that my brain is rusty beyond recognition, and if you disagree, just take a look at most of my old articles here..

Task 1: Issue Exploration (45 minutes)

“A person who does not thoroughly comprehend the technical side of a craft is incapable of judging it.”

Many craftsmen spent a lot of time honing their skills to make the finest products possible, so it is not surprising that they took great pride in their work. While most of us aren’t as skillful, we are still compelled to judge the quality of their work, and rightly so. This might sound unfair, but let me explain.

There are 2 types of skill needed to be a successful craftsman. One is making product, and the other is judging the quality of it. The first one is difficult to obtain, however, the latter can be learned much more easily -- sometimes we are born with it.

With that reason, someone who never cooks at all in his life can tell if the food is delicious or not. Or, in the same vein, many of us can judge about the quality of shoes, hammers, or a haircut. This mostly happens in the crafts that make functional products for people to use.

Also, there are other kinds of related skills, such as between an architect and a carpenter. An architect must design a building, but a carpenter has to build it. So, does an architect know more about carpentry than the carpenter? The answer is no, but they know enough to design it.

However, there are also exceptions, which is mostly in the field of art. One piece of art can generate a lot of different opinion, even from artists themselves. As someone has said, “the picture is worth a thousand words.” -- Unfortunately, the words are not the same for each person.

All in all, the person that can judge the craft correctly depends on which craft he’s judging. We should be careful to criticize something.

Physical Check

2006-07-09T15:41:00.000+07:00

Well, today I woke up groggily at 6.30 a.m. in order to do a physical check at the hospital.

Why so early? Because when you need to give a blood sample, you can't eat or drink for 10/12 hours before that, and I get really hungry after 8 a.m., so it would be ideal to get this done fast.

the physical check program that I took is quite thorough, not only they check for normal things like blood pressure or a heart rate, there were also EKG, dental health, Hepatitis B virus, etc.

The hardest part about this, for me, is definitely the urine sample. this was arguable the hardest leak I ever took in my entire life. No kidding.

It started when they gave you the cup to fill your...liquid with, and then I headed to the bedroom. well, after standing there and trying to do it for 10 minutes, you will feel very silly. Question -- they prohibited you to drink any water for 12 hours, and then expect you to get it out more?

To make a long story short (no pun intended), it took me almost and hour to fill the cup, luckily I ask them to take the blood sample first, so I can drink more water -- make the process faster!

And after all assortments of test, 3 hours later, I got my result. Everything is normal, except my cholesterol is a little bit high. Me? I rarely eat anything oily. it must be genetics.

Economic Ignorance

2006-07-06T14:43:00.000+07:00

Recently, someone forwarded the email to me, titled something like this -- "Save our country before it becomes a second Argentina." It refers to the economic collapse of Argentina, the country which money worth nothing.

Inside the email, the author had cited many examples how my country are acting just like Argentina before it collapsed. Most of it is about how we buy goods from foreign companies, or how foreigners are taking over many local companies.

One example is this --
"We should not buy things from Carrefour (French-owned?) because our local wealth will be transferred to foreigners and leave us with Nothing!"
"I myself buy all my stuff at local stores, even if they are more expensive, to support our country!"

Bullshit. This is sooo wrong on many levels...

the problem in question -- our money is flowing out to another country. Therefore we get poorer. We lose.

Now, the money is a paper. it's JUST a paper. What make it valuable is that we can buy something with it.

Ask yourself this, when we can buy the same thing at cheaper price, or buy more things at the same price, does it mean we get richer? And does it make our country richer?

In fact it does, in both questions. Because when another country can produces thing at a cheaper price -- ie. use resource more efficiently, both country will benefit from it.

I will try to explain it using example.

Japan and Ghana has never traded with each other before, but they're starting to. We will focus on 2 products which both countries currently produce -- Computer and Banana.

Japanese businessmen see that importing banana from Ghana to sell is much cheaper than buying from japanese banana farmers, so they imports a lot of it.

The result is many japanese can now buy more delicious and much cheaper banana. And the japanese farmers have to change to do something more profitable -- like planting rice.

On the other hand, Ghana businessmen also see that, Japanese computer are better and dirt cheap compare to its own country, so they start selling that instead.

You see what happen? in both countries, people are gettings better things at cheaper price, therefore better standard of living.

Whew... a little long read.

Me as a consultant?

2006-07-04T18:47:00.000+07:00

Today I just refuse a very easy job with easy money. It was a consulting job for ERP implementation. I was hired to fix performance and others issues, but I quit (in a same day) after found out that I could do nothing about the problems.

Because it was all ERP software's fault, and I told them that they should try contacting the ERP software's tech support instead.

Damn, A title as a consultant would looks find on the resume, but I couldn't accept the job and do nothing useful. It wouldn't be fair to the employer.

Weird, huh?

Bought a new Graphic Card

2006-06-23T14:30:00.000+07:00

After I the old card starting to act strange (rebooting several times), I rushed out and bought a new Radeon X1600 Pro for $130.

So Happy..

I Stop Counting

2006-06-20T21:58:00.000+07:00

I think it's against the quality to forced me to blog everyday... but nevertheless, I will try to do so.

For today's news, my 2-years-old graphic card (Radeon 9100) seems to acting weird lately. Everytime I browse the net and use the mouse to scroll down the page, the card stopped working, making the screen turn black.

At first, restarting the machine made the problem went away, but only for a while. And the latest catalyst driver (6.5) didn't help at all.

It seems like the time to buy a new present for myself!

Day 56

2006-06-12T00:13:00.000+07:00

You say it best... When you say nothing at all...

Day 55

2006-06-11T13:21:00.000+07:00

I don't think I would ever see a flash site that is usable!
http://2advanced.com/

Day 54

2006-06-10T19:08:00.000+07:00

Sometimes the work rushes you,
and sometimes you rush the work.

Day 53

2006-06-09T22:23:00.000+07:00

Brazil will WIN the 2006 World Cup by beating Italy in the final game.

well..According to this...AI.

Day 52

2006-06-08T08:03:00.000+07:00

Do older people write more than younger people
because they have something more (experiences) to write about?

Day 51

2006-06-07T13:32:00.000+07:00

Leveling Up in Real Life...

Day 50

2006-06-06T19:46:00.000+07:00

Start Programming (for Work) Again, hmm not fun as before, dunno why...

Day 49

2006-06-05T01:49:00.000+07:00

Just watched "The Bourne Supremacy". This movie is so fast-paced I just feel the need to do everything faster.

Day 48

2006-06-04T12:23:00.000+07:00

You definitely don't want to get stung by this.

"If a colony of about 30,000 European honeybees were to be attacked by 30 giant hornets, they would be wiped out in 3 hours. The hornets would enter the nest, kill the bees, and take their bodies home to their young. After a few successful trips, hornets rub a pheromone on the nest that signals other hornets to attack."

Day 47

2006-06-03T07:45:00.000+07:00

Waking up early is more satisfying than sleeping late.

Day 46

2006-06-02T02:08:00.000+07:00

Who is our friend?
Who is our enemy?

Day 45

2006-06-01T10:31:00.000+07:00

Just came back from Country Trip.
It's so relaxing I don't want to go back to urban...

Day 44

2006-05-28T19:17:00.000+07:00

Are you tired in a strange way?

Day 43

2006-05-27T20:28:00.000+07:00

Why are you blogging?
Do you blog because you want other people to read it,
or because you want to read it yourself?

I'm in the first category, but lately, I've had a wonderful experience from reading my past archive. I found a lot that I've forgotten -- such as this. I couldn't write like that anymore.

It teaches me. Thank you, myself.

Day 42

2006-05-26T10:46:00.000+07:00

What would happen if the hot countries get cold, and the cold countries get hot?
Would people change?
Would building change?
Would you move to another country?

Day 41

2006-05-25T22:29:00.000+07:00

I'm now Manga-Deprived. I've read all of my manga, and no new one has come out...
So tempting to buy a new story!

Day 40

2006-05-24T20:02:00.000+07:00

I've finish main quest of Elder Scroll IV: Oblivion.
Comparing with Morrowind, it's so much shorter -- like a walk through a park VS going cross-country biking.

Anyway, I'm bored so I got a new game to play already.

It's...It's....It's....WOW! (World Of Warcraft)

My account has been frozen since I stopped playing a year ago.
Has they wiped my characters?

I revived my account with anticipation, and found that..
everything is still there!

Viva la Blizzard!

Day 39

2006-05-23T06:38:00.000+07:00

After you quitted your job, you should...

1. Get your reference letter (this should be before quitting)
2. Check if last months salary is correct (I got 22 days' worth)
3. Check if there's other money you should have recieved (like provident fund)
4. Go travel and relax!

Day 38

2006-05-22T13:43:00.000+07:00

This is it. I have quitted my job.
Now I'm home, looking at my future.

What should I do?
What should I become?
Where should I go?
When will I do it?

Answering these question take some times.

Day 37

2006-05-21T21:59:00.000+07:00

Eating Taro is fun but exhausting...

Day 36

2006-05-20T06:47:00.000+07:00

I'm off to play games again.... I think I'm really addicted to it. Should I quit?

Day 35

2006-05-19T19:28:00.000+07:00

I've been playing game Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. And it's great fun!
It's a single player RPG with huge game world, great storyline, and great graphic.

My graphic card couldn't handle it though...(Radeon 9100 series)

Day 34

2006-05-18T13:09:00.000+07:00

I've just handed in my resignation letter today, but it will be effective on 22 May 2006. It's weird because I didn't feel anything changed. Maybe it haven't sunk in yet.

Day 33

2006-05-17T23:30:00.000+07:00

Do you work for money only, or do you also enjoy your job?

I first enjoy it, but now it's only for the money. Hopefully this will change soon....because I'll be looking for a new job!

Day 32

2006-05-16T17:58:00.000+07:00

Need to recharge myself.....

Day 31

2006-05-15T13:23:00.000+07:00

1 Month from Songkran Resolution

I had:
- Travel to Singapore
- Find out a little bit about myself
- still blog (almost) everyday!
- becoming independent

overall, good progress!

Day 30

2006-05-14T09:01:00.000+07:00

Half Way There...

Day 29

2006-05-13T03:30:00.000+07:00

Is Every Programmer a nocturnal person?
- Some get work done only at night
- Some must also have a beer first
- Some boost productivity by playing games

What kind of things you do to help boost your productivity?

Day 28

2006-05-12T14:46:00.000+07:00

The future of game is here!

Wii: the new game console from Nintendo!

The internet is buzzing with this name -- What is it, actually? Here.

E3 2006 Nintendo Press Conference about "Wii".

Day 27

2006-05-11T22:42:00.000+07:00

[manga] AirGear's #12 issue is out!

Day 26

2006-05-10T06:35:00.000+07:00

Someone told me that it's not hard to make a decision right on the spot, even tough decisions.
Because, in reality, there are no tough decisions, it's only that you can't accept what you have decided.