Yawn 48

Mar 22 - Apr 15

I think it's finally time to do taxes. #thischoreorthatchore #choreschoreschores

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It would be great to have an accounting service that has modularised pricing. For example in February, we had:
- A: bank statement lines
- B: purchases / invoices received
- C: co-factor for number of lines per invoice
- D: lines of other transactions e.g. intra-day petty cash or cash register accounting
Fee per month = some fixed function of A, B, C, D
So far we do it internally, but it would be worth outsourcing for under RM500/month. We have A = ~50, B = ~100, C = ~8, D = ~120 per month, monthly financial reporting, . Hourly freelances have worked within our budget. Larger teams and companies tend to want to charge at least RM800 for this - I get quotes typically in the RM1,500 - RM3,000 range due to corporate overheads. Paperwork is expected to be in auditable condition by the end of each month.

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It would be great to have an accounting service that has modularised pricing. For example in February, we had:
- A: bank statement lines
- B: purchases / invoices received
- C: co-factor for number of lines per invoice
- D: lines of other transactions e.g. intra-day petty cash or cash register accounting
Fee per month = some fixed function of A, B, C, D
So far we do it internally, but it would be worth outsourcing for under RM500/month. We have A = ~50, B = ~100, C = ~8, D = ~120 per month, monthly financial reporting, . Hourly freelances have worked within our budget. Larger teams and companies tend to want to charge at least RM800 for this - I get quotes typically in the RM1,500 - RM3,000 range due to corporate overheads. Paperwork is expected to be in auditable condition by the end of each month.

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Orang dari Malaysia pandai menuturkan pasal ugama. Penulisannya mengenainya sudah bergenerasi. Perlembagaannya ada, percakapannya ada, karangnnya panjang, komennya lagi panjang, mitosnya turun-temurun, istilahnya digaulkan dalam bidang-bindang politik, perdagangan, permainan, pemakanan, dan pelbagai pean-pean selain daripada itu. Alangkah langkah-langkah keagamaan ini hanya membesarkan kepala rakyat-rakyat kita, dan sehingga akhir harinya hati mereka mencerut kemerosotan jiwa yang berasal dari kekosongan pertuturan ini.

Pardon my faint attempts to Malay. One seeks diversity occassionally.

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If smart is defined by the size of one's (short term) working memory, then I'm generally not a very smart person. I just happen to have groomed myself into owning a good grasp of data structures, which make it easier to context-switch between disparate bodies of knowledge due to how things are cut and labeled in my head. This is pretty much what nakes me a "robot" in the colloquial sense - I am able to disassemble every conscious experience into a MECE set of data, and so I can reassemble it easily at other times. That being the fundamental framework of my mental life, I still learn as slowly as anyone else... for example, in 2019, I'm learning a lot about plumbing fittings, and domestic implementations of the Carnot cycle (steam, refrigeration, etc.). So this being a relatively new body or knowledge, it's probably still banging around in the neurons responsible for mid-term (interday scale) memory, which is more emotionally engaged, and not yet transferred to long-term memory (interyear scale). So I do feel awkward and nervous as I go about work, switching between plumbing, accounts, compliance, refrigeration, SEM, talent management, etc. on an intraday and intraweek basis. Looking forward to stuffimg this very basic set of new skills into long-term memory and moving on soon. Grunts.

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Enforced waking. Just terminated a job applicant before their first interview, as they cancelled the meeting, and tried to appeal to empathy by using "bro," language. Double red flag. Nevertheless, I advised them to consider reapplying in a month. Am I too generous?
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" The main reason for the termination of your application is word-choice. It is not advisable to refer to strangers as your brother. :) Particularly in a competitive environment, where you are demonstrating a competitive disadvantage. I'm sure you will do better next time."

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Tomorrow peace marching 🤔 🌈 boleh pakai?

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Often I get comments that I make myself struggle unnecessarily. I think these commenters are correct. As an individual, I am generally happy and far-removed from the struggle of needing to keep myself alive. It is much harder to figure out a good reason, the methods are many easy - it's very easy for me to figure out how to stay alive, but nearly impossible for me to figure out why I should bother. This is a great privilege. While most people run around trying to achieve something to hold their fragile egos together (ambition), or to eke a smile put of those who have social influence upon them (love), to relieve themselves of pains of hunger or sickness (aversion), or to build a better world to prop up their ideals for humanity (idealism)... wait, I think I belong in the last group. I too am so bored (ok, maybe it is not the last group, but another one) that I have only ideas to pursue. Unfortunately for many spectators, my ideals for humanity are stark. People are generally concerned with one jihad or another, one yoga or another, one kampf or another... is it not ok for me to seek harder problems, when I am unburdened by lesser ones? So, let me tell you, that is why I bother to do something difficult, like run a better restaurant on crowdfunding. It is because no one would pay me enough to get me to attack a less interesting problem.

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It's not hard to take a mind apart. Minds supervene on machinery. Starve a person, keep them from sleep (repair), and the mind will be irreversibly destroyed. Solitary confinement alone is harmless for properly trained individuals. But then, maybe some element of aptitude plays a part.

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Another 24-hour day, and much work remains undone. Better to focus on work, than on a multitude of lesser people. So many needy characters, and so little independence. It's like watching children play, all day, every day. Well well, we each have some idea about what can be destroyed on this earth, and surely, not always will we agree. More fuel, more fire, more ashes. Onward. :)

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Today is a happy day. A trainee who has been with us for 27 months, finally passed a test demonstrating an understanding that the quantifiers "small," "large," and "regular" are not on our menu for pasta. Can you imagine going to KFC and ordering 100g of chicken? Absurd! We should enjoy happy events, because we don't know what will happen tomorrow. Performances will always tend to a reversion to dirt, by the laws of entropy. No one should tak it personally - those who do, will be extinguished.

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Back on creatine. ATP...

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Underslept. Missing medical checkups this week. Shower time. Back to work.

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Any .edu, realestate, or built environment angels want to sponsor an architect on their M Arch?

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Wow - off the shelf dish detergent actually contains NaOh.

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Irony level twelve. It's like a three-way crossfire of colonial interests. #lordsofthe21thcentury

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Capitalism (c), is the law of the jungle, with a strong emphasis on law; it is built on the presumption that the weak will always be eaten. Humanism (h), is a belief in the inherent value of individuals; it is a soulful ideology.
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Socialism (s), advocates for for the identity of the collective, but there are varieties of this: a humanistic (democratic?) socialist (s-h) sees socialism as a means to an end, the collective serves the individual; what is called communism (s-s) typically goes the other way, the individual serves the collective. Both varieties of socialism make use of capitalism in controlled local environments.
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Many people say they are fundamentally capitalistic (c-c) without realising what it means... that if it benefits you, you kill neighbours, and eat children, because they are tasty. Most people who call themselves fundamentalist capitalists are usually humanists (c-h) or socialists (c-s) at their core. But they are drawn into arguments upon a false dichotomy of "capitalism vs socialism".

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I am in support of public policy that requires adoption rates to meet orphaned rates, before birth rates are allowed to grow.

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How many of you idiots actually think WeWork is a tech company and not a hospitality business?

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How many of you idiots actually think WeWork is a tech company and not a hospitality business?

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Realestate arbitrage is a feature, not an app.

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I was giving my Bengali friends a class, on how to be classist. "Don't tell poor people that they are poor, simply treat them as if they are poor." Hospitality! #theworldsoldestprofession

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Kana$ai, another exercise in strategic consulting with no open implementation and governance. (Council of eminent persons' report)

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Some people are shocked that the terms of a relationship must be defined explicitly. Others, shocked that a relationship can be assumed to exist without a definition. Each type of believes the other is incongruous. For some people, the absence of sentimentality is bullshit, and for others the absence of rules. Lol

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The continuous development of entrepreneurs who shit on pursuing fundamental advances in science and technology, is what has made Malaysia a poor country. On it goes!

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PSA: never type "types of nipple" into Google without also adding "plumbing".

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Someone needs to tell Grab to get its shit together and do something that's actually innovative. (battery swapping taxis)

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/commented/ I think x is right is identifying censorship and safe spaces to be at odds with one another. However the given function of the group is as a safe space, prioritised over being a forum for debate. So clearly Shaun appears to be excluding himself from the group by choosing to raise debates deemed unsafe for members of said community.

No biggy. Just check spelling, check protocol, and do the obvious enforcement.

It would be blaise yet entertaining to pick fights with everyone, based on their triggers, but why bother? It's pretty easy but arguably uncivil to go to other people's houses expressly to talk about things that bother them. If it wasn't, then social welfare would involve:

- going to animal rights groups, and talking about where the soul enters the body
- going to pro-choice groups, and talking about predetermination
- going to vegan groups and talking about the economic benefits of carcass chomping
- going to democratic groups and talking about ketuanan Melayu
- going to Christian groups and talking about the fabrication of Jesus myths

Etc. Etc. Etc.

It's so easy to do these things, but they may or may not cohere with the rules of said societies.

I think for the part of societies, they can do better to provide explicit guidance on the semantics of written rules, and to improve their written rules. That is law.

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It's not my place to tell people what's bad for their bodies, most of the time. It is quite nice to have them figure it out and write about their learnings over years. The social media panopticon is very cute.

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McDonalds in Malaysia is now quite pricey after the last hike. Big Macs now seem priced for better value than beef burgers. Or maybe I got the math wrong.

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Gave up developing capacity to work with delivery services. Instead, we just slapped a blanket 20% discount on all takeaway orders. 25% for BYO containers. Try for a month :)

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/trolling in the personal finance and investing group/ How many of us feel, that life is too long? That there have been too many times when one has too much money sitting idle, without any desirous way to spend it? That games must be invented, and arbitrary value assigned to excess time, and excess money? Who plays this game? You understand me!

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A noteworthy day. I have been up for about twelve hours, will soon recline, and then rise for a shift that begins three-point-five-hours from now. I write this over the table of a fast food restaurant. Most of my day was spent in the kitchen, building an indirect evaporative cooler, from parts previously assembled. Along the way: coaching temporary staff in low tones with gradually increasing urgency by the third or fourth warning on a specific point of order. Along the way: cleaning of a shelve that was supposed to have been cleaned by another staff the day before - business now out of order, and many accidents occuring. Clean-up! Result of cooler iteration: fan mounting is inappropriate, and will require adjustment. Gravity driven heat exchanger working perfectly. Temperature drop, meagre, it has been better - but I look forward to reviewing this after the fan mounting has been adjusted, and air-water mixture improved.

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"Is this home made?"
"We have two types, ma'am... this supplier works in her own house, and uses a number of synthetic flavourings. This other supplier uses only fresh just-killed ingredients, and works in a commercial kitchen... actually, what are you looking for?"

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Wouldn't it be funny if Brunei became the last stand on Earth for [unnamed] conservative Islamic groups, and then Malaysia got into a global world war due to colocation? Wow.

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TIL - one of the first screens in #thematrix #20years is subtext lol

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Malaysian immigration law is a mess. Even if you're marrying into the nation. Get support here. (group)

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Bounty hunters. I absolutely love the sound of that. (enforcement of regulatory requirements privatised)

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Social enterprises are stupid. The notion of an SE sits on the notion enterprises are inherently social menaces, which is not supposed to be the base case. Fuckin hipsters.

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How aggressive are you in removing talent from your company?

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/commented on how to improve co-working spaces/

My view is that the end-game is a co-horeca, so you can call it whatever you like, but the social networking is a frilly thing that always existed under another name. Fundamentally the industry is about infrastructure provision: "we are an infrastructure business". So just consider the Maslov* hierarchy (including wifi) and deploy your business according to those priorities, and you will be fine. Tactically, an examination of the hierarchy and the immediate whining of your customers will tell you what you need to install next, whether it is a swimming pool, a pool table, a washing machine, a gigolo, or a desk. (* whoops, Freudian slip?)
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Addendum:
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As a very loopy extension to the point above... horeca businesses are positioned to manage a complete sensory experience for customers. It's like you're the DM/GM in a game - you literally have the opportunity to control everything, the smell on the left side versus the right side of a seat, the user's spinal position and therefore overall musculoskeletal position, what they put INTO their bodies, whether the background consists of (old men babbling in hokkien, 'grammers taking wefies, some asshole yelling too loudly at staff, or suits on computers), the ethnomusical backdrop, the volume of work sounds, etc. etc. etc. And that's low level stuff. Go up the semantic layers and you have the memes associated with each of the above, you get to control the mythologies associated with each sensation, based on little stories stitched together over years across seven media platforms - extending to the talky networks beyond the premises. It's fucking insane if you think about how many variables there are to tweak. It's basically an architecture job (think Matrix).
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But do most space operators consider these variables? Sure, most consider some to some degree. No one really has a handle on all of them.
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An operator creates virtual environments, which the user interfaces with as a medium. Stories are useful to people because they convey thought processes. By reading Aesop, you think about morals; by being in Tesco, you think about poor people and their livelihoods. ( Speaking of which, I just noticed today that Putrajaya's urban planning seems to have eviscerated most opportunities for small trade, by spacing everything out, and consolidating commercial retail in malls under a few big landlords. No wonder the area is associated with interesting wealth/poverty statistics.)
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Back to the view that managed spaces are virtualenvs. Yeah, it's just infrastructure to me.

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"Why are you so cuddly today?"
"Because you're in a good mood. Thay's why you should pay more attention to your mood, and less to the pretty dresses."

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Since Malaysians enjoy the subject of Moral Education and the pastime of moralising diatribes, perhaps I should rebrand myself as an expert in moral education. 🤔 It was after all, the family business...

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It's been a good week, except for one large scheduling fuck up. Monthly routines will be late. However the weather is grey and thus comforting, failure rates are around fifty percent and thus challenging, and I could afford to be back in school for two days despite the inefficiencies of schooling in general, so on we go.

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I've been pitching the notion of halal bars since 2009. 😛 You can shit on it all you want, but the market speaks volumes. 50-75% of the market doesn't drink.
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Also: you are supposed to brand it as HABA™

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Enforced waking. Do all the things. Where's my jigsaw...

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3.5 years in, still feels like the third week on the job. As expected.

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Worse than the headline implies. Also maybe CN has an F-35 now...

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I think people are confused when I say that I am not a competitive person. I mean, in terms of aptitude and training... I am at least moderately competitive in general arenas, but in terms of interest in competitions... I am solidly disinterested in the objectives of the competitions which excite a majority of the Earth's population. Perhaps for clarity, I should say that I am anti-competitive. 🤔

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I just want to work in a company where it's ordinary business to discuss differential equations and shoe design with the bartender, and where board members dictate minutes while cleaning dead chickens in a sink. Is that too much to ask? Perhaps. Most people can't wrap their heads around it.

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Sugar babies are sex workers. Change my mind. (FWIW, I'm quite positive on the legitimacy of sex work.) (Good counter-example in comments - sugar babies some times do not engage in sexual conduct.)

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/commented/ This is a good idea in practice - if you imagine judges on every street corner, but there may be a bit of a org chart restructuring required to make this sort of visually evocative rule-of-law effective. (Singapore's fake news law - Shanmugam proposes to let judges decide the majority of minor disputes.)

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1. Installs Tinder on new phone.
2. Opens app.
3. Wonders how "0..." became "99+ people like you".
4. Realise that app reverted to default settings and apparently men will fuck anything... 🤔

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NSK Selayang test run, ~45km round trip, ~RM18 estimated travel cost. NSK Kuchai Lama is 29% closer. Target savings is RM12 to make it worthwhile... which means a full car-load.

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Ekbatan Town : What Putrajaya should have been.

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It is very tiring to work towards the absolution of the human species' attachment to its dependency on communal life, while everyone around you is celebrating it and trying to make it last forever. Oh well. On with work :)

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"Your parents are no one," is the new "vader killed your father."

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3.9k net profit. Woohoo. But that's against a 297k accumulated loss... so no big deal. Could be worse next month :P

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Mr. DIY : Atria outlet, staff using teeth to crimp cables at testing station. Are you serious? Lol

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"You seem to have a temper."
"I thought I was the most bored person in my circle."
"It's the way you speak."
"I am familiar with the modulations of pitch, timbre, and meter, word choice, narrative, and political strategy... given a subject which is fairly simple, such as optimising in the short term for a target human to complete a target task, often the optimisation is fairly simple. It sounds like military drilling. Some will consider it unnecessary, but usually I am of a mind that the non-spartan stuff is really what needs to be discarded from civilisation. It is a role, you see, to direct. In the absence of roles, who cares, about anything at all? But given a specific role, one should complete it with efficacy. It is not my role to save the world, or to improve the lives of those around me, or to attract followers. But engaging those as subroles may from time to time prove useful in fulfilling objectives engaged by the main role which I play."
"And what is that?"
"Player."
"WTF"

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On negative population growth:

"the single biggest effect on fertility is the education of women,"

I basically stopped growing when I was about 14 years old. That age in life when everything starts to look severely repetitive. I'm 35, so that's some 2.5 lifetimes I've lived in my little head... I wonder if I can make it another six decades or so, to see the decline.

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Gender and Sex: The Landscape of Debates

The main issue in definitions of gender and sex... involves the proposition, "there are only two sexes which have value, if any other sexes are found to exist then the other sexes have lesser value, only the genders which map one-to-one with sexes have value, if any other genders are found which do not map one-to-one with sexes then those other genders have lesser value," and that appears to be it. If you unpack the four components, and negate all of them, then you basically arrive with a model containing two opposing sets of four beliefs each, which almost encompasses the entire field of the debate in our world today. #tldr