on Why I am an XXTX

I was asked if I didn't know the Xs or if I was keeping it a secret:

I switch. Usually INTP. But possibly ENTP repressed for civil reasons. Also I find it easiest to roleplay as ISTP when communicating with SJs. My own work recognises the futility of abstract targets so i have to ISTJ myself as backup. Getting paid to be an ESTJ is fun. Clearly all this switching is an ESTP thing. Oh wth

Approaching Corporate Governance: as Capitalists (Part 2)

 In (Part 1) I wrote that capitalists could consider the following. 

Model:

1. Shareholders would lead, by setting financial mandates.

2. Strategists would design and own product economics: from aesthetics, to microeconomics, to macroeconomic contexts. 

One may view "microeconomics" and "macroaesthetics" as the same thing, if we may borrow the turn of phrase from economics - in which case perhaps we should just flip and refer to aesthetics as "nanoeconomics" (again, to be clear, not Mr. Arrow's semantics).

3. Operators and strategists would collaborate daily on execution, as execution is a burden shared between both roles.

Likewise, one might imagine that strategists and shareholders would also collaborate daily (perhaps weekly) on design, as design is a burden shared between both roles. (I'm really fucking with the traditional binary roles here.)

Qualification:

I guess it might seem by identifying "shareholders" with "financiers", i.e. "the money contributors", that I meant that "this is a guide written for the financier's point of view", and to a certain degree that is indeed what I had in mind. 

But then I changed my mind a bit, and that's why (Part 2) is being written. I don't think (the view described in the previous paragraph) is the best way to approach (the title, the sum of both its Parts 1 and 2). A better way to think about capitalism is to consider that each of the following are independently capitalists:

1. contributors of money

2. contributors of design / architectural / strategic insight

3. contributors of time / meat / labour

... and that the agents who play each role are themselves capitalists regardless of which role they play in this model.

So here we're really just fucking with Marx's semantics. Marx says, you know "capital is the factor of production which is non-human, so owners of such are 'capitalists', and non-owners are 'labour', and so we have this dialectic between capital(ists) and labour(ers)," or something like that.

But of course, I beg to differ. Capital is best understood as the factors of production in general, and so good capitalism doesn't try to make capitalism all about money (1). Capitalism is equally about intellectual property (2) and meat (3). Capitalism therefore is well regulated when all factors of production are viewed as fungible, such that you can turn more of one thing into some of the other, etc. Neither tangible goods, nor cash, nor labour, nor intellectual property should get special protections denied to the other factors - after all, they all just result from the same thing.  

(And I guess personally, I only have that view because I think everything is an information system. At this point in writing, I'm a bit concerned that given my ignorance of the history of Marxist thought, I'm reinventing parts of some other tradition, but no matter.)

Mutation:

So now it's time for thought experiments. Given the hierarchy stated in (Part 1), what would it be like if besides ...

- "financier leads architect leads operator"

... also we fleshed out the consequences of ...

- "financier leads operator leads architect"

- "architect leads operator leads financier"

- "architect leads financier leads operator"

- "operator leads financier leads architect", and 

- "operator leads architect leads financier"

... phew, what a mouthful.

- "financier leads operator leads architect"

This probably happens most often, when (dumb?) money meets competent operators ... operators get things off the ground, but eventually evolve meta-operations for efficiency. 

- "architect leads operator leads financier"

This appears to happen when a founder with strategic insight dominates a co-founder with a greater inclination towards implementation. The former charges ahead while the latter scramble to locate traditional financing, and things kinda just move at a feasible pace.

- "architect leads financier leads operator"

This appears to happen when you have founders with no talent management capability (whether for lack of interest, or ability, that is irrelevant) ... who find financiers to work for them in setting up downstream operations.

- "operator leads financier leads architect"

This appears to happen when founders lack strategic capabilities, thereby outsourcing the work of hiring strategists to the money.

- "operator leads architect leads financier"

I'm not exactly sure what this looks like - I guess an operations-oriented founder would have hired managers who eventually grew the shop via professional money.

Hm. Droll. 

Approaching Corporate Governance: as Capitalists (Part 1)

I had some funny questions from a capitalist who is opening a new business. I hoped my comments, providing **counsel for the capitalist's point of view** ... I hoped that my comments weren't too confusing.

Summary:

1. It is better to have shareholders lead, by setting financial mandates.

2. Following that, a strategy team designs brand and product unit economics.

3. Following that, operations and strategy teams have daily standups to figure out if unit economics are on track.

Elaboration:

For the record, and this is important, 3. is always the hardest to obtain (because a capitalist starts at the opposite end of the value-chain). :) So back to talent management strategy, with consideration for the pattern that the progression from 1 to 2 to 3 ... decreases in abstraction. 

We may pause here to ask, "what is the meaning of 'real'?". To abstract thinkers, ideas are more real than facts - to concrete thinkers, the opposite is true; they differ in terms of what data structure they use to preferentially carry their thoughts. Abstract thinkers are probably great at 2, but concrete thinkers will probably do better at 3.

We should expect abstract thinkers to set conservative targets when playing role2, because they don't have the ability to control the execution of role3 in great detail.

Whereas concrete thinkers would have a better grasp of how to outperform at role3, so they may set riskier targets when they play role2.

(In my current company, I am the actor in 1, 2, and 3 ... this is a bad example. Haha. I set very risky targets, and I can never train people fast enough to achieve them.)

So just now in the call, there was a question about:

1. 

And 2.

And 3.

But this is not answerable by one party effectively. The three parties should be separate, and they have to answer separately in order from 1, then 2, then 3.

And then you reiterate, and that is a more systematic approach to building companies.

... Part 2

Rough method for frothing milk

General algorithm:

0. Hygiene and maintenance issue first: after the wand tip exits any body of liquid, purge the wand with copious amounts of steam and wipe its outsides clean. Or you get milk in the boiler ...

1. Before starting the steam wand, position the wand in the spout of the pitcher, tip above liquid. Holding the pitcher handle, pull against the wand, and notice that you have fewer degrees of freedom to move. Play with this for a few seconds. Proceed when bored. Keep the wand in the spout until the end.

2. Raise the pitcher until the tip is 2cm beneath the liquid's surface. Turn on the steam. If your position is correct, the liquid should spin immediately without having to adjust the position of the pitcher. You can practice this with water. Proceed when after you never fail to start in the right position.

3. After the liquid is spinning, slowly lower the pitcher until the tip of the wand approaches the liquid's surface (without exiting), and you hear a sound like paper tearing. Stop dropping the pitcher (neither raise nor lower it at this point).This is the sound of air being sucked into the liquid. As the sound progresses, you should see the liquid level rising, as the volume of foam increases. Once you have 1cm height increase, raise the pitcher again so that the tip is submerged and no more air is injected. Continue spinning the liquid until just before it is too hot to touch the side of the pitcher. (One hand firmly on handle, one hand touching the side of the pitcher ... the same hand that you need to move to turn off the steam.)

Try?

Criminal adventure: one month post-arrest

5 Nov 2020

A month ago I was arrested for the first time - also the first time in the course of my professional duties. I have been busy administering the consequences of that arrest, upon my business, so I have hardly had the time to reflect upon the consequences of that arrest upon myself. (Without discussing the specific charges arising from this investigation:) I have been quite excited by the little adventure it has brought me through, in learning about the Malaysian law enforcement process.

First of all, on the day of arrest, I was not informed of the process which was being conducted. For example, I was asked by police at the station if I had a lawyer, but it was not stated what the purpose of a lawyer would be - so I said, I did not have a lawyer ... yet maybe if I had one, I would not have been remanded that evening (to-date I have not bothered to discover the details of the process which was not explained to me, though I intend to study it in the future). To be remanded means you are stripped and put into the police lockup, and you get to wear the crunk suit in orange or purple - I chose purple, it had a more regal feel to it. There is apparently a set of "Lockup Rules 1953" but these I noticed by accident, pasted in the hallway a day later, and these rules are not visible from the lockup cells. Quick Googling indicates that often enough, these rules are not adhered to, and so I must read them some day. My hypothesis at this point is, if you have someone else come to the station before 5 p.m. on day of your arrest, you may have them bail you out - if the investigating officer allows it, but I have yet to confirm this theory. Even these little discrepancies are fascinating. (Now I'll skip over the details of the lockup conditions, as I have written about that already elsewhere. I'll also skip through the process of release from the lockup, though I should mention that the new investigating officer who interviewed me prior to release was not the same chap whom I met on the day of arrest.)

Second, on the day before my first court mention, the new IO called me by telephone, and told me to turn up at the court the next day at 8:30 a.m.. I had to further inquire with him about what my charges would be under this investigation, before he told me. At this point, I was still unaware of the existence of the Criminal Procedure Code (Kanun Tatacara Jenayah), and so in between my business work on the day of the IO's call, I received advice from various friends about certain sections of the CPC, and I also briefly skimmed the CPC as I prepared my statement for mitigation (reduction) of the sentence - as I intended to plead guilty to the charges. What I remained unaware of, was that it would be possible to settle the charges out of court with the Deputy Public Prosecutor, but in order to activate that process it would be customary (not mandatory) for me to plead Not Guilty at the first court mention when the charges would first be read to me.

So the next day, as I entered the courthouse premises, I discovered that suited individuals claiming to be lawyers were canvassing each member of the public who was facing charges ... apparently this is normal, they have a custom of just waiting there and pitching their services. Great, but unfortunately not procedural, so I ignored these touts. Their pitches were not very good also, as they didn't explain what systematic value they would add to a self-repesenting accused member of the public - instead preferring to speak only of abilities to assist in the reduction of final penalties via this or that tactic, all very arbitrary and lacking in context. So on this day, I was read my charges, and I pleaded guilty, hoping to be quickly sentenced and fined or put into jail whichever the magistrate should prefer. To my dismay, another date was set for sentencing, so instead of reading my mitigation for the purpose of reducing my sentence, I was allowed to read my mitigation for the purpose of reducing my bail. All quite fascinating. (Skipping over some dramas I have already written about elsewhere.)

Following these events, I chit-chatted with more lawyers in some Facebook groups and was rather miffed by their sense of entitlement towards the preservation of a class divide between legal professionals and other members of the public. However, they were helpful enough to introduce me to the proper name for what is called the Letter of Representation, which is how anyone customarily writes to a Deputy Public Prosecutor, asking for a change or cessation of charges. Other friends elsewhere were helpful in producing guidelines which DPPs have for processing such Letters, and even the DPP's office which I visited was forthcoming in providing an example of such Letters.

Up till now, I haven't made the time to read the CPC in greater detail, nor have I submitted my Letter to the DPP. I am reminded by professionals that the Letter may be ignored, unless I have any material changes go introduce, whereas it should not be ignored on any basis that a trial has begun and is ongoing as my initial guilty plea has aborted any trial. I'm not yet sure if I will make time to write, or what my final Letter will say. But I think I will certainly comment a little on my experience as a subject of the law, who is actively learning about it. Quite, absolutely, fascinating.

The Malaysian public education syllabus for 13- to 15-year-olds has a book called Kemahiran Hidup (Life Skills) and it's an end-less joke that everyone spends a month learning how to hammer a nail, yet receives no mention of any construct of modern governance such as taxes. I guess little encounters such as the above will help, if I ever get around to writing an updated Kanun Kemahiran Hidup ...

Yawn 67

 2020-10-04 - 2020-11-03

Oct 5:

Wondering if my focus on work is an excuse to distract myself from loneliness, for example, you could imagine then when my girl left for an internship in 2012, I was sad, or when my girl left for college in 2015, I was sad, or etc. But the reasonable argument is this: few intimate relationships will pay for industrial projects - whereas industrial projects often pay for intimate relationships. So one picks the richer mommy.

//

There's a lot of complexity to wrestle with these days. Today, I am going to focus on the design pattern of referential transparency between user-interface, and data storage layer.

//

"I'm all about hospitality. I'm very pissed with myself when my partners are offended by me - I try to please them. I don't need them to acknowledge me - but I do need to know that they are happy."

"Why would they be offended??"

"I'm generally offensive 😛 Talk too much, say the wrong things, etc."

(I was talking to a lady about other ladies, so business partners should ignore this.)

//

Against cargo-cults: it is wrong to associate with REST, the notion that API URLs should "follow an intuitive pattern". In fact this is opposed to the "Uniform Interface" constraint ... because the uniformity referred to is not supposed to be in the syntax of URLs, but in the application of the "HATEOAS" heuristic, where the client always asks the server for the server's required syntax. This is a constraint requiring a low-context assumption about URL syntax, in fact opposing a high-context assumption. A priori knowledge of URL syntax is an antipattern.

//

What's your tiktok username?

//

"Eh, you think this profile real ah?"

"Confirm real lah."

"Bit too standard, eh?"

"Only a dumbfuck amateur would put one face photo followed by two photos of a latte lah ..."

//

I am at the police station. Updates may or may not follow. Business is currently on hold.

//

Oct 8:

Pantai got cluster. GG

//

I had a good morning. First, I went to imigrations enforcement and they said there are no side-channel agents who can fast-track jail stays for my friend - which implies that there is at least a veneer of formal process around all of this.

And second, while driving I figured out what my defense would be if I were to be hauled up to the judge. Basically I would plead no-contest, and ask for leniency for conscionable objection on a utilitarian premise. The most productive workers were hired, and all value was passed to customers, as the business has made a clear loss so far - we helped more Malaysians than we hurt, and our social contribution has been measurable and publicly commended. So it is then up to the judge to decide if my money is better spent paying fines, or building more businesses, and if my time as an educator is better spent coaching in prison, or outside. Deciding that transfer of value is the judiciary's job, and I will take ten years for this, if it comes to that. This should take two minutes to present, and I will offer to add any qualifying details on numbers. I guess that's it.

//

Many people have asked me if our shop was targeted, and if I have enemies. I cannot tell you, because I don't know. I mean, you could suspect literally anyone - back in 2017 before we were attacked at least two parties were sus. A stakeholder threatend in Facebook messenger to burn the shop down. A bunch of cybertrooper customers gave me dirty stares when I told my British friend, I had lived almost my entire life in a country devoid of rule of law (Malaysia). Why play guessing games? There are so many better games to play.

//

Please remember to get your expat staff tested, individually. Or you may end up in the lockup! 

//

"Siow tried to kick the victim, swinging her arm at him a few times" - perfect description of why I like being sober

//

It's rather heartbreaking to hear that people believe that going to jail must be a bad thing. It just reminds me that we live in a culture where people are so dissatisfied with their limitations that they'll emotively do just about anything to avoid having more limitations. Such greed is largely disgusting. But hey, what the hell ... basic people will do basic people things ... and those of us who are perpetually bored by the diversity of options around us, will seek to have fewer options for our time. And that's totally ok, because you know, freedom, lol.

//

Thoughts about going to prison:

1. Finally honing in on ikigai. I never thought political activism would take this form, but I guess life is what it is. You find out along the way.

2. My balls are going to be so itchy. Not in the sexual sense ... I'm just expecting a perpetual state of unmedicated fungus.

//

An unusual day:

I spent most of it talking to new people - pitching my body to two, and my business to seven to twelve others. It was fun, and easy, and not challenging, and I am totally reminded of why I don't like working in sales ... it's too easy for someone who is unmotivated by social outcomes to just slide into social activity and enjoy the process of social interaction. That's why I much prefer harder problems like research, and quality assurance, and risk management, and logistics, and service continuity, I suppose.

//

Copies of my keys and the location of crucial documents will be given to key individuals in my network. No update from cops yet. Just making preparations in case of sudden confinement. Now for food, and back to the office! Sell sell sell ...

//

I am disappointed with my friends who believe that the cops are always active only when they are looking for bribes. In the same breathe, it should be noted that my neighbours who run traditional businesses are still in the habit of providing festive angpaus to the cops.

//

I am not feeling well. My head is a little slow from all the tactical complexities, and every day I find new issues brought to my attention by troublemakers. But friends have been helpful, so net net it is just another day. On with work, but with a little more attention today for diet, exercise, and socialising.

//

Drove some coffee machines to Seremban and came back with a sewing machine. Maybe it's an omen.

//

In office all day cleaning, sorting, throwing, selling, writing, and fund raising. Drop by before CMCO! But, I will be here during CMCO also ...

//

2020-10-13-22:38

Super busy couple of days. Between administering a sale of goods, some potential sales of shares, and a physical campus, plus trying to eke out a non-zero social support system, I am tired and under-slept. However, some of my work from yesterday is undone, so I shall try to do it now.

10-14-08:28

I am reviewing business risks before the day begins. Then I will examine my  social anxieties, and probably organise them before heading for breakfast near the office.

//

I will focus on doing accounts today. Do drop by if you are in the area, for business talk.

//

I've been getting some private messages expressing concern for my current situation. Please note that my current situation is okay. 2020 is probably hitting everyone pretty hard, but frankly, this year is not particularly shocking given some of my past experiences. So I am quite bogged down by tedious housekeeping work at this time, but generally in good spirits. I may write about things in a sad way, but that's what one does when one lacks for social life, I suppose. 😛

//

On dealing with investors and vcs:

Simply commit to not worrying about what you do not control.

//

Ran an IP R&D operation for five years. Then we get a proposal to de-register, and then I'm told people don't know we have trademarks. FML

//

2020-10-16-09:12

Yesterday ended up being spent more on cleaning and talking to people, such as the landlord, curious parties seeking to help, shareholders, and customers. So today is still, for pricing and sorting.

My sympathetic nervous system is still dominant, as I wake up most days focused on the urgent priority of safeguarding what is left on our balance sheet. In order to balance out the parasympathetic functions, I do some controlled exhalations. 

2020-10-15-09:07

Pricing sorta day.  I don't like 4D chess, but business is.

//

"So there's no coffee?"

"I recommend you check out, X, Y, Z, W, nearby."

"But I only like the coffee at two places, here and one place at Pavillion (14km away)."

WTF - even I don't know how this happens. It's not that we do anything particularly different from our peers. So I guess you would call it intangible value ... 😛 not that this is worth anything until it's sold, I suppose.

//

My neighbour, who has legitimate foreign workers: "Oh, I just checked with immigrations - it's not currently necessary to have your foreign workers tested for COVID."

I guess this was only relevant in May after all.

Just our luck.

//

Most clueless Malaysian comment I heard in the last week:

"Why was Jerng locked up for so long? Was it because he tried to pay a bribe?"

Addendum: not clueless lah, I am sure commenters simply hate me.

//

"25-30 is stressful because you worry about hitting adult goals"

Wow. What is wrong with you people? I was just focused on figuring out how to learn something useful from the dearth of intellect which is Malaysia.

//

There is this company I have shares in. Every now and then, someone comes to me and asks if I can help them buy some shares at a good price. I always ask them to get a lawyer, because I can't represent their interest. My job is to get a high price for the people on my side of the table, and your job is to get a low price for your people. I'm not "trying to be complicated", because those are simply the rules of the game - either play by the rules, or don't play the game. Take your feely bits, and fuck'em ...

//

Ah, Amos is trending again. To be fair, non-criminal pedophilia simply involves following the law. No one stops you from being a pedophile as long as you don't do any of the (list of things).

//

I wanted to write something to the groups, asking for advice. Maybe tomorrow.

//

It was a good day. A girl explained what she didn't like about what I said.

//

2020-10-18-10:06

It's a good day, I shall dutifully go to the office and make it a better day.

Sorting and organising rubbish are the order of the day.

//

TFW: on reflection my notion of a massive personal loan is less than what some Malaysians make per month.

//

Well, if I had to think about why my existence is aligned with migrant welfare ... my dad did after all come to Malaysia when he was seven-years-old or something like that. So the immediate children of immigrants are literally my subset of Malaysia.

//

I have not had so many conf calls in a day for a single project in my life ... finally getting to grow up and have fun, I suppose.

//

Oct 19:

Court date tomorrow!

//

2020-10-21-10:22

The past night's sleep was punctuated with just one break, for water and urination. Upon waking for the day, I find that my subconscious has been ruminating on the sensory experience of yesterday's events, from courts, my own case and our investigation into the case of my friend, to social networking, and to business activity which followed all that.

That is good, meaning that these are experiences my subconscious seeks to learn from - otherwise they would be as trivia and quickly forgotten. So I work through the queue of concerns as received from my subconscious, and find that queue pressure is relieved after an hour or so, and I proceed next to log this exercise here.

Next I must wash, feed, and work on various accounts.

/

All economic activity begins and ends with consumption metrics. 

If SG wants to see wages go up, it needs to subsidise/fund that rise with consumption taxes.

//

Asking for advice (not for a spouse):

- I have an Indonesian friend who over-stayed their social pass

- friend is a middle-aged lady with children in university back home; generally she is a timid person

- currently they are under court authority, in PJ police station

- I met the friend yesterday while we were passing through the same court holding area on separate cases; she seems anxious, and may be in holding until a December court sentencing

- I was wondering if anyone has had experience requesting for a psychiatric evaluation of detained immigrants, in order to deliver to them any mental health care

I am not particularly optimistic, as this is 'good ol' Malaysia - but any advice would  be appreciated! Thank you!

//

Quick note on today's exercise:

Yesterday I was passing through the local city court dungeon on my own court case. I briefly passed by a friend who was on her court case. She's a tourist / expatriate and she looked terrified. We were both in shackles - guys are are all tied together, and girls are all tied together. She's a middle-aged mother of university-aged kids, she's been in the lockup for two weeks, and it looks like she'll be in there for another six weeks before her case is sentenced. Our common investigating officer said these delays may be due to workflow interruption due to current COVID lockdowns. Who knows?

I took note of her condition and tried my best to comfort her. After I got out on bail, I updated her family on my findings. I did think it might be pertinent to call in her state of anxiety with a medical professional, but I didn't know how to go about that in Malaysia. So today I found a Malaysia Ministry of Health website which delineated anxiety disorders, and I printed it out, with my friend's case number and name on it. Then I went back to the courts to see what I could do.

Usually, cases such as hers are held in prison. But all the prisons are blocked from entry and exit while the current lockdowns are on. So she's being held in a police lockup nearby. The folks at the court counter told me to look for the police in the room around the corner, and those guys told me there's basically nothing they could do - any request for special attention for a prisoner would be under the prison department's jurisdiction, as the police were only holding prisoners temporarily on behalf of the prison department. 

Going back to the court counter, I was told to try inquiring at the police lockup itself. So I did that, and confirmed that my friend was held there. But the police at the front counter said there was no formal process for requesting special intervention, and tried their best to assure me that prisoners are under daily monitoring, and that they are fed daily.

The end. I just wanted to make a note of what happened today so that I can refer to it later.

Addendum: also I noticed that courtroom SOP for COVID is pretty weak. Speakers tend to remove their masks, and are expected to project speech across twenty feet, as there are no electronic amplifiers. This includes the magistrate themself. At any time there are fifty people present. #sprayallthegerms

//

I followed through on the concept. On 20 October my charges were read to me, and I pleaded guilty. Sentencing has been set for 9 December.

I had prepared a mitigation plea for reduced sentencing, but was allowed to read the same mitigating reasons for a reduced bail. 

Here is a (better than what I actually read) version of the plea I read in court. Yes, it can go either way ... the PP can of course nitpick on issues and raise more charges against me based on this statement, or they can pull the charge, or they can do nothing and I will simply be sentenced based on the original charge.

Various expert advisors and proofreaders must be credited for their contributions to this essay:

https://docs.google.com/.../1wrPZdfxDZhBbKlF2BP0.../edit...

//

The phrase "hire a lawyer," is starting to remind me of the "I know a guy who knows a guy," approach that Malaysia takes towards blue collar trades - it's just disgusting that people would rather discuss technologists than technology.

//

2020-10-22-11:21

The past night's sleep was punctuated with two water breaks, etc. Last night I worked out a bit, and also stumbled upon more legal devices in my general readings and social networking about my and my friend's outstanding cases. Much to think about, now.

But first, basic accounting work at the office.

//

Update on obtaining legal aid for my friend:

Tenaganita, Selangor Legal Aid Centre / Bar Council, Embassy of Indonesia, are all dead-ends. So the remaining option is if anyone wants to finance a private lawyer to look into the case.

//

Some of my friends, are anxious. But I am not so anxious - I can only say I am a little anxious. I am not going to lie and say I am very anxious. So I leave it to my friends to be very anxious. Sorry. I have work to worry about - that will persist regardless of my physical environment.

//

Recap:

Oct 5 arrest;

Oct 7 release;

Oct 20 pleaded guilty - Dec 9 set for sentencing;

Oct 23 all ducks in a row ... deployed succession plan planning : 

"Folks, 🚨I just wrote a multiverse map and emailed it under the business continuity thread.

PLEASE READ IT or LET'S meet and read it together, because: if I am raptured on 9Dec, someone else needs to take over administration of the multiverse. And we need to PLAN NOW if this would be you, or if we need to assign another agent of administration."

🤘🏼🤘🏼

//

Currently learning how to self-represent in a criminal case. Just walked into the DPP's office and got advice on how to write a LoR (thingy asking for DPP to pull the case). This part is a good experience as the DPP seems affirming in the accused's ability to navigate the system by current customs.

Meanwhile, the Selangor Legal Aid Centre said that by Yayasan Bantuan Guaman Kebangsaan guidelines - they would not provide any aid  for a case where the accused has pleaded guilty - so I have to self-represent (or hire a privateer) until 9 December, then plead not-guilty, then only refer the case back to YBGK.

//

Despite any sensational statements politicians make about "making a country attractive for startups" - my understanding is that startups are just ordinary businesses, and so the underlying problem is what is commonly called "the ease of doing business" factors within any given country.

//

"Hey, which mukim are you in?" #CMCOdating

//

(meme)

Copy/paste but change what the bunny is holding.

(\_/) (\_/)

( •_•)( -, - )

/ >🍑 \  \

//

2020-10-25-02:52

So it's now the wee hours of Sunday. Most of Saturday was spent playing used-cafe-equipment salesman, and touching up September's bookkeeping. I met a beautiful lawyer and a famous musician, but had to Google each of them separately as I evidently know nothing about good music or beautiful lawyers. The later part of the evening is spent catching up on the excitement of COVID statistics both domestic and international. A bit of physical exercise. Another drive to the office to measure planks for a quotation.

Finally my thoughts return to the letter I have yet to write to the city's Deputy Public Prosecutor, requesting a cessation of prosecution prior to the delivery of judgment upon my case, the charge of which I have already pleaded guilty to. I have not yet put deep thought into this; on one hand I must maintain the coherence of my guilty plea, and on the other I must present a compelling account for why I should be forgiven, not by the magistrate, but by the DPP. So here's what I have after thinking it through one shower ... 

first, I shall commit to not withdrawing my guilty plea;

second, I will recount the events of the day of arrest, narrating how the routine enforcement operation for COVID safety protocol which resulted in our arrest on non-COVID charges ... involved zealous and well-meaning officers who failed to find any legitimate fault with our implementation of protocol, who then booked us on an issue which was external to COVID safety protocol compliance; !!! DANGER - this section needs review !!!

third, I will indicate that the issue we were booked on is an issue which is rampant in the city and on our street, and within the universe of this issue we were found to be non-compliant at the minimum possible degree (one offense); wherein if equal zeal were applied by enforcers to our neighbours and other peers in the city (sorry, neighbours and other peers), they would probably find that many premises nearby are guilty of offenses many times the magnitude of ours; in other words, we have been unfairly targeted for enforcement;

fourth, I will demonstrate the weakness of any argument that our offense was motivated by profit, providing audited accounts and public citations of the value we have generated for the community at a great loss to ourselves;

fifth, I will indicate that our offense is partially motivated by humanitarian concerns amidst the chaos of the pandemic;

sixth, I will anecdotally refer to incidents where we have undertaken great pains to enforce known laws, even at great risk to our reputation and wealth (finally, the virtue signalling which became #doggate can be put to further use);

seventh, I will indicate that having experienced the effects of enforcement, fairly or unfairly, my individual guilty person has already suffered grievance greater than the minimum available penalty for the offense; !!! DANGER !!!

... and so, in light of these concerns, it would be a miscarriage of justice to penalise me further. Nevertheless, by committing myself to a guilty plea, I subject myself to the wisdom of the judiciary in ultimately deciding what is or is not just. 

In this form, I shall submit my request for the DPP to pull the charges in this case against my person.

Ok. Done with bedtime notes ...

//

Oh my god. These people who message me and ask me to think about my parents, and think about myself, and avoid going to jail ... hello, if I was trying to avoid jail at any cost, obviously I would present a completely different case to the judiciary. You may worry that jail is a lack of freedom - but from my personal point of view, I remain happy wherever I go. Don't you feel that your fear of jail is a limitation on your freedom - that it makes you easy to control? If I cared about my parents feelings about me going to jail, clearly it would feature prominently in my defense. But I do not - two people and their feelings are of a rather small importance relative to the numerous business counterparties I would engage with on a normal day in the ordinary course of business. Customer welfare is far more important to me than family. My argument is based simply on delineating the benefits to society accrued from keeping me in, or out of society. I am not going to lie and say I fear going to jail, or that I fear to hurt my parents feelings. Fuck off.

//

I take issue with the use of the term "self-destructive", to describe people who are moving from one happy state to another happy state while the people around them are up in arms. Is it not obvious that the former are entirely constructive in their self-conduct, even at the expense of those around them? "Destructive", is probably as accurate an alternative here, as "self-constructive", but saying they destroy themselves makes no sense. Only the watchers are hurt. Or are they?

//

0340 yesterday. She joined Telegram. And I said nothing. Because she once told me to say nothing. Maybe in another year, I'll defy her. Not this week, as I am spent.

//

A middling day. Most of it was spent entertaining customers through the junk sale process. I spent a bit of time on a call, clarifying my position stated in a paper on last-mile delivery services, to the bloke at StoreHub - I'm not sure if it was helpful to him, or not. Besides putting my complaints about naggy friends on the record, I am somewhat saddened that my friends are of such poor quality - surely I can do better. I did a little work out. So that's four things. Very small things. Overall I am just troubled by how easy it is to find in commerce the sort of people who fail to be happy unless they acquire specific environments for their bodies. I suppose it is all of us in varying degrees.

On with the long wait. Life is a constant process of finding out what is going to kill you. I remember hours of sitting through kindergarten, waiting for the days to end. Later it was months  and years of sitting through school, waiting to go to to college. Then it was years of waiting for graduation. Then in every job, it was weeks of waiting to discover when an employer would slack off on the utility curve and fail to be sufficiently profitable. Then in running my first company, it was hours of shift work through weeks of repetition over years of jostling with shareholders. Now it is days of entertaining in a showroom, and weeks of waiting to find out what my court sentence will be. Life is a long wait. While we are waiting, we can only try our best to have fun.

Everyone uses different language to express their sense of loneliness.

"I've always been surrounded by dumb people."

"Why does everyone have such bad taste?"

"We need to make the world a better place."

"I wish someone would be my friend and talk to me."

These all mean the same thing.

//

2020-10-26-12:05

Yesterday was a day of many intermediate steps, and few conclusions. 

This morning I woke up and got more feedback on my draft letter, which was negative, so that made the day more interesting on its own.

First, I must wash and head out to meet a customer.

//

OK - I've had a good think about it. Unless people are throwing mad amounts of money in my direction (which is what happened in 2015), my tentative plan for my time after the current project (including any jail sentence), is to take a basic job which affords me time to pursue independent study & development of machine personalities. I'm 37 this year, and it's been about fifteen years of industry-facing work, so as I was thinking during my planning session in the lockup on 5-October, this is a good time to call it "the end of grad-school" and to move back to a more basic approach to making ends meet and pursuing my work.

Nevertheless, you know, fair dinkum - everything is for sale at the right price, meat, time, my entire life. I'm always open to suggestions and discussion.

//

2020-10-27-11:26

Yesterday, spent some time addressing a friend's anxiety. Also found out another match is facing charges on other stuff. Updated busness partners on September accounts, warned of upcoming balance sheet write-offs, and prepared an avenue for voicing concerns on locations of business.

Today, more showboating of gear, petty cash accounting ... and then we will see ...

//

I think I am the only guy loving 2020 lol. Everyone else is to shy to announce their wins, or just in too much pain to think about it.

//

I think one of the best policies we normalised was the "fuck-off" drink. I used to ask staff to bounce unprofitable customers - but they were too timid! I ended up helping staff by implementing a process where they send a free drink, and a rules card.

I'm bringing this out of our archives because I was discussing the same with a bloke today.

#beforeCOVID

In hindsight, we were ahead of the curve. Nowadays, all F&B establishments have check-in processes. Next shop we build, the check-in counter (where ALL rules will be published) is literally going to be part of the built-environment design.

//

Note to self: maybe my next company has to be in the Apple ecosystem. I have been avoiding that for 10 years. So it is good to go there now.

//

So is it pronouncre ra-ba-keit or ra-ba-ka-teh?

//

What happens if we actually sell enough gear to generate enough cash to renovate, turning the entire kitchen into seating space (cost: trivial), adding glass over the front outdoor seating area?

//

[Was spraying down rat shit at the three-weeks abandoned kitchen at midnight.]

Need your feedback on this COVID pivot. Feasibility? Bugs? Opportunities I missed?

PRE-COVID:

Restaurant license, 24-7 operations. 

COVID:

1 metre rule reduced seating capacity and foot traffic - now I wish we had died because of low sales like everyone else, but it turns out we got regulated out of existence first. So we need to up-end the entire value-chain.

A PLAN:

Currently we're selling all the hardware, and the registered trademark, and are on track to terminating the tenancy. So any discussion about NOT terminating the tenancy is purely opportunistic.

Option: Stay in current location. Toying with the idea of converting the entire kitchen into customer seating. Adds 20 seats at a meter's distancing. Move all F&B production to the small bar. Turn the main bar into customer seating. Add another three seats. House now holds 50 people fully distanced.

Context: I need to clarify ... we are not a "F&B first" company. We are a "built environment first" company. The question is what built environment to deploy .

LICENSING:

Discard restaurant license, switch to office license (per city council practice for co-working spaces). Even fewer issues with 24-7 operations as this sector is less regulated than F&B.

ENERGY:

HVAC is always the highest cost after rent. Renovate to add insulation zones and evaporative cooling between outdoors and air-conditioned zones.

F&B:

Coffee is now free flow. Quality is higher than previous restaurant model. Occupants can bring in food from neighbouring establishments. Maybe we provide snacks - maybe we even produce them. But they are free.

REVENUE:

Instead of charging for space, now we charge for time, like other coworking spaces. RM10 per cover (8-hour block). 

UNIT ECONS:

Rent 3500-4500

Utilities 2500-3000

Staff 3500-7000

Cost of Goods consumed 20%-33% of sales

Totes 21,750 sales needed at upper limit. 725/day. 73 covers @ RM10/cover. (On max occupancy of 3x60=180 covers/day). Min looks like we need 40 covers/day. 

FINANCING:

I definitely spent a few hours in the lockup trying to figure out if I should take a massive personal loan to buy out my shareholders. I still don't know. But it is pretty clear that I need to on-board people who will help do actual work when things get busy, rather than complain, wait for me to die, fret that I'm not dying fast enough, kick me while I'm trying not to die, and then complain that there's an almost dead body in the hallway ...

I don't know. I need to make new friends. Maybe. IRDK.

Going to sleep on it.

[Hey, best thing about this, if it's not a restaurant, then you could bring in your dog, you cat, any goddamn pet you want, without worrying about contravening Ministry of Health regulations ... hell, you could probably walk in a penis on a leash, and no one would give a damn ... ]

CORPORATE STRUCTURE:

Maybe retain first entity for food production, and as IP holder.

Maybe move all facilities management operations to new entity, under stricter corporate governance.

//

Useless conjecture: Seems like COVID antibody prevalence sampling could be used as a herd immunity metric to indicate when public health officials might want to INCREASE infection rates, from time to time.

//

Am I the only one who feels that some BFM interviews really kill brain cells ...

//

"There are many ways to settle such affairs, without escalating to a courtcase." So this, very common sentiment, which I now hear on a weekly basis, reminds me just how full of assholes Malaysian society is. I think I will mention this in my letter to the DPP if I ever get around to writing it. Dear sir, what does this phenomenon mean? I have scoured the texts and found that perhaps, the legitimate way for my case to be settled is by such a plea for mercy. 🤷🏻🤣

Caveat: being a non-professional scourer of legal texts, I'm sure there are other things I've missed.

//

2020-10-30-11:00

Body weak. Enforced feeding. Resalinisation. Examination of cognitive apparatus, and emotional tendencies. Programming of prepared responses, and reinsertion of such into subconscious memory.

Time for a shower.

//

By and large, all rights are synthetic. Humans invented rights. Saying X has a right to kill Y, is just as boring as saying M has a right to N quality of life. All of it is temporary, and outrage is still boring. I need better headlines in my life. Where do I find them?

//

"What do you want to eat?"

"Do you prefer steak or French?"

"I usually just chapfan."

"This can be a new experience."

"I would want say, ten to twenty data points, so one is not going to be very useful."

"An ocassional celebration."

"Okay, I am going to disavow any special interest in these options. But since it evidently makes you happier to spend your money like this, I'll keep you company for such purposes."

//

What a boring end to a busy month, in a boring year. Tonight I shall turn my attention to matters of gravity. But I am not sure what to be grave about - I do want to think about business matters, so as I pack up my stuff from the office, I will start to raise my sense of urgency about this.

//

2020-11-01-13:06

Gravity is the order of the day. Maybe the week. For now I must not allow myself to enjoy the days.

//

So, it has come to this.

I was just prompted for the Nth time, by folks who pitched in the first fund, to raise a second fund to bail out the first fund.

If this is at all interesting to you, you can PM me.

For risk management purposes, I would advise you to also talk to people who pitched into the first fund in 2015.

Cheerio.

//

Roadtrip.

Six hours and one forgotten bag later ... I'm just tired. But more work awaits. I don't mind being the anvil, but being the hammer and anvil at once, most of the time, is a bit tiring.

On the Art of Branding

Sometimes well-meaning counterparties are just completely incompetent at adding value. Other times they can be useful. I was just thinking about this just now when my friend invited her friend to buy things from my business ... whereupon I agreed to wait 30 minutes, and ended up waiting for 90. Who knows, perhaps this will translate to value for my shareholders later, anything is possible.

I also think about how I asked too often about the health of another friend, and was summarily ex-communicated. Such is life. I am often ex-communicated, so it is something I have become quite comfortable with over the years.

Earlier today a shareholder posted a screenshot, from the Facebook reviews of a restaurant not my own. There, a member of the public praised that restaurant for acknowledging its mistakes, and in contrast my own office was mentioned as an example of "one which does not do so, and consequently it is are closing and selling things". Encouragement comes from strange places.

I thought this a great triumph. Despite my shareholders efforts to squash my branding operations for our business, by banning me from social media activities involving the corporate brand since 2017, it would appear that the media campaign I launched slightly before that continues to add value to this day. This evidenced quality of work alone is thrilling, and it encourages me professionally, to continue doing what I do for the world, even if sometimes I must work especially hard, and especially long in order to complete a single iteration.

I find it generally useless to evaluate a project while it is underway - I am not so good at that, I believe there is a conflict of interest between the agent as a planner, and the agent as an executor of the plan, if the agent is the same person. In order to properly execute a plan, an agent cannot simply switch between planning an executing on a whim, as that destroys the purpose of planning. Of course, there are times when this is relevant, such as when the objective is to iterate upon a loop to optimise for a specific target. However, there are other instances, such as when a single iteration has not been completed, and therefore any distraction from basic execution will interrupt the only existing implementation of a plan, which has yet to be implemented.

Now it is the "season" for review, as the first iteration has ground to a halt. I found it quite the challenge to operate a brick and mortar business, on a shoe-string budget, without social media for nearly three years, and right through the pandemic of 2020, at that. With respect to the efforts put in by my team, I am quite proud of all individuals who contributed to this work. I remain disappointed with the decision makers who put us through this, however, I believe that we have each and every one of us executed our corporate duties to the best of our individual interests, and so as a whole the corporation as a social entity is a success.

Financially, it is a great failure, and I volunteer myself as the person to be blamed. But then I generally view my projects on ten to twenty year time frames, and this one is only five-years-old. And so far it is not yet exactly over. Perhaps a judge will throw the book at me, and then it will be thoroughly screwed, but this is not yet the case, so I remain, as it is my job to be so, optimistic about the potential for our body corporate.

I do believe that my colleagues are well-meaning, even if they have done some rather foolish things. And I am sure they have a symmetrical view of my work. I avoid allowing this to bother my daily work, and I suppose that is the difference between someone who has to keep their head cool for service, and those who must inspire themselves with daily dramas in order to invent meaning for their situation.

I do wonder how the story will end. But it is not over, and so I will not pretend to know. I can only document the parts that I have seen and lived through, for the betterment of others who may chance upon these readings.

Industrial Organisation: C-Level

"My first mistake in my first company, was deregulating the investors. My second mistake was assembling incompetent founders (hands-on). So now that I am in the process of restructuring, after five years, I am spending a bit of time to design the next team."

I'm trying to map out a clear delineation of roles across C-level/functions for the next hospitality team I build.

Model, iteration one:

- finance and IR need to be paired under the same person; finding, managing, and firing investors comes under this person; also both top and bottom line responsibility; this role is both political and quant, but facing strategic counterparties.

- operations; talent management, SLAs, and execution of routines including self-improving routines fall under this person; ditto political and quant but facing tactical counterparties, i.e. staff, suppliers, customers.

- legal and technology fall under the same person; because the legal constraints and innovation / fundamental problem solving concerns involve the same sort of thinking, popularly referred to as engineering talent.

Thought in progress.

Iteration two:

You may ask where product and marketing in general fall in this rubric. Well, I do think that this being the economic essence of the business it actually needs to be shared across the three functions above. Engineering needs to work on the strategic level, ops needs to work on the tactical level, and finance needs to provide political air-cover. You can't separate finance from politics. Politics supervenes on economics. It's political economy all the way down every value-chain.

Iteration three:

You may ask about branding and the soul of the company, or its heart. Well if you don't understand how branding is an engineering problem, then you simply don't have a rigorous model of how human thought works.

AFA: follow up to earlier TIFU

(And yes, I basically drafted all of these letters in my head, while in lockup.)

Asking for advice:

Proposition: Should I look for a massive personal loan to buy all the shares in a project I have been working on for five years?

(If anyone knows me personally and comments the project name, I am sorry, but I will have to delete the comment for political and regulatory reasons.)

Qualification:

We all know that borrowing money to buy shares is a risky decision. However I am hoping that readers can put themselves in my shoes, and then provide an opinion about whether the proposition is reasonable or not, given *my* specific premises. Of course, you are free to comment on the premises as you may disagree with some. Some premises may be more or less fixed, such as the premises about my motivations.

Here are my premises:

- the project is a community-facing business which provides unique and sometimes essential infrastructure to middle-class urban citizens;

- aside from lockdowns while we were closed, we served an average of 100 counterparties per day over a period of five years;

- the project has reinvested most of its profits into R&D specific to our industry; this R&D has yet to be monetised as we have been in roach mode since 2016;

- the project has never taken external investment after incorporating;

- the project has no debt; but does have accounts payable; I am personally the main creditor of the business, by simply not claiming business expenses or wages on time; this credit is interest free; (outside of the project, I usually I use my personal lines of credit from cards or relationships to keep myself liquid);

- recently, for regulatory compliance reasons the project had to turn over the entire staff; currently it has no cashflow to train new staff in the short term;

- there has always been an available opportunity for fund raising, or for any party to consolidate the ownership of the project (it has multiple owners), in order to simplify decision-making processes which are often deadlocked or simply inactive, which in turn have resulted in operational and roadshowing roadblocks since 2016;

- (hence my proposition)

- if I were to go ahead with my proposition, I would not expect to generate a great amount of cash for myself, from this project; however the project would be able to continue towards its original goal of becoming commercially self-sustaining, while addessing a few specific B2C and B2B gaps in our industry;

- if I do not go ahead with my proposition, the project is likely to fail when we become unable to pay the rent; this may or may not subsequently result in write-offs or write-downs in various remaining assets, and then possible deregistration of the corporate entitity;

- I have about 17 days to decide on this before we are late for rent;

- I created this project in order to occupy myself in 2015, as I lacked for activities, whereas I wanted to work on something for-profit in the commercial sector;

- my original background is focused on "academia" (1991-2005), and I have been studying various "industrial" operations after that (2005-2020); on the same trajectory I expect to be working at the "strategy" layer of commerce or government at some point in the future;

- I plan my life around Malaysian minimum wage, and consider any other income a luxury; most of any income I have obtained over the past few years has been reinvested in the project;

- I have no ambitions to raise a family, or to care for any of my existing family members in the future;

- I have no ambitions to be remembered fondly by anyone;

- however, I need something useful to do with the remainder of my time on earth, and so far the project has been useful;

TLDR:

Should I continue to go for broke and commit my future finances to this project? 

If you were in my shoes, given my interests (or lack of other interests) what would you do?

Instead of this project, what else might you do?

(Changing my interests is not a useful suggestion.)

Thanks for your suggestions!

The Customer Makes Coffee: what are businesses "for"?

I had an evening chat with a chap who came looking for me based on some stuff I posted on a Facebook group. Dude legit said he had thirty-thousand Ringgit and wanted to help me, but wanted to know how - I told him he needed to figure out what would make him happy before he spent any money. I also advised him that if he could be sure that he could wake up every day for a year and go to work knowing that all his money would be lost, then he'd probably be able to match my risk appetite. Then we made fun of the other dudes driving up to my office (closed for business) who just came by the sit in their cars and use the wi-fi.

Anyway, here are some other things we talked about. I was working out yesterday and ranting to myself on Facebook Live about how people complain when businesses don't make money - as if that's the only function of a business. I think this point of view is rather prevalent in startuppity circles because the startup industry is basically defined by venture capitalism. Anyway, I found a fun little way to describe the issue, so here's a version of it.

A business is a black box, which people put things into, and which they then hope to get other things back from. Different parties are looking for different inputs and outputs, and that's generally how we define stakeholder segments. Each type of stakeholder interacts with the same black box, but they each use a different interface, as they each expect the black box to function in a different way from what the other stakeholders expect.

"The purpose of a business is to make money."

Mostly I hang out with capitalists, so I hear this one the most (or maybe I am a capitalist, so I think about this more, IDK). I was just thinking on the drive home from work, about how democracy and capitalism are mutually exclusive - capitalism is a lie told by oligarchs to peasants in order to keep peasants believing that they have opportunities for emancipation, while the deck is already stacked in favour of oligarchs. But that's a longer discussion for another post. 

1. Anyway, this function of businesses is relevant to investors: use a business to turn money into more money. Investors put money into the black box hoping to get more money back. Roughly.

2. However, it's less often spoken of, but basically understood that this function of a business is relevant to labour as well: in using meat to make money. Labour puts meat into the black box hoping to get money back. Again, roughly, perhaps even crudely for word-choice.

"The purpose of a business is to make goods and services"

3. This is spoken of far less. This function is relevant to customers: use a business to turn money into goods and services. Customers put money into the black box hoping to get back goods and services. So for example in a cafe, the barista isn't there to make the coffee - from the barista's point of view, the barista is there to make money. But from the customer's point of view, the customer is there to make coffee. So the customer makes coffee.

All that being said, let's look at some value chains.

Under function 1, some businesses are led by investors - a pool of money is formed, and the first staff are hired (paid). The staff are mandated to serve customers, and so if staff are paid in a correct fashion, then customers will get goods and services in a correct fashion, resulting in more money for investors, and that closes the loop, for function 1.

Under function 2, some businesses are led by labour - a pool of meat is allocated, and then either the first customers are served or the first investors are found: but the second step always results in money of some kind, which closes the loop, for function 2.

Under function 3, some businesses are led by customers - a pool of money is formed, and then either the first investors are baited into volunteering capital (and they subsequently hire staff) or the first staff are baited into taking cash for labour, which results in goods and services, closing the loop, for function 3.

A popular billionaire is known for saying that if investors first pay staff well, they will in turn make customers happy, and that is how to make investors rich - and he's not wrong, but that's still only one side of a multi-faceted story.

Where do things go wrong? 

SO MANY things could go wrong, but whether they are wrong or not, depends on the function under which an analysis is conducted.

I'm going to cut this piece short, here. My main point was to write a note of encouragement for entrepreneurs (labour) who regularly face criticisms of not making money for investors. Just stop worrying. You're here to build a business, and while investors are always useful, they are not always valuable - and if we are to take said popular billionaire at his word, then investors are always the last to get paid, if at all.

Focus on building better businesses. But try not to piss off your investors.

END

Addendum 1: we've left out various stakeholders such as governments, neighbours, and the fifty-thousand people who never use your product but leave bad reviews on your social media pages, and a more comprehensive text might touch upon those interactables also - but that would be more of a textbook chapter than a blog post.

TIFU: for the second time in a month

TIFU:

I forgot to get one our staff tested for COVID (update: a past, but not current, industry requirement) and when our area was checked, we basically had to shut down operations, and then I spent two days in the police lockup.

Day 1

I spent the first few hours crunching through a giant corporate finance model in my head, and pretty much figured out that I had run out of ways to actively keep our five-year-old venture alive. 

The lockup experience itself was unsurprising in quality, and if anything at all, it was more pleasant than I had been trained for when I studied solitary confinement in college. Everyone was very friendly and optimistic about their own situation, and basically THAT has been a reminder to me that things may quickly get worse, since I generally tend to hedge against the majority view. (More notes on this have been written elsewhere, AMA, I'll paste in the relevant answers.)

Day 2

I spent a bit of time talking to memories of girls I've loved, in the same way that people who believe in God talk to their personal God (a long time ago, I was trained, to train people in how to do this). I also firmed up the brand identity for a fashion concept based on oneliners by people who disagree about why their breakups happened, as catharsis for getting dumped earlier this month. But back to the main issue - business continuity ...

Thanks to (a Malaysian business Facebook) group and the group member who bailed me out after the remand period concluded! I thought I would write a bit about this experience to open the door for people to share similar experiences also.

Right after I got out, I fired the entire staff. It was the right thing to do, as we could no longer help each other, our customers, or the country which we had all been serving. I also sent some data to the investigating officer to assist in his work, in order to demonstrate what is trendily called a strategy of "radical transparency". Then I met my audit signatories to get their views on my model for a controlled termination of our business. Everyone has a bit of homework, that was last night, and I'm still catching up on my bit because ...

... Day 3

I got our signage printed to advertise the sale of our tangible, intellectual, and financial assets. I sent more data to the officer. I visited my parents out of state to pay my last respects, in case I would have go to jail later. I updated a lot of personal and business contacts and eventually was just copying and forwarding the same answers to questions from everyone. I caught up on voice calls and meetings that had been missed, or which had been somewhat overdue. I got out ex-staff to update some social media properties about our cessation of operations because I have not been allowed to touch corp social media since 2017.

... Day 4

At around 3 a.m. I finally got around to summarising in email our current situation to investors, and now have to go do a little homework (see above), before I try and wake up to get to Putrajaya by 8 a.m. ish in order to assist our now-friends in their situation by finding "snake" agents who sit in government buildings, and allegedly can make penalties magically disappear. If I find any, I will let you have their contacts if you face similar problems. But I am, as I have been for two decades, disgusted that this is even a thing.

TLDR: I missed one federal protocol item, lost my entire staff, disappointed our customers, got fungal infection in gaol, and am now waiting for hate mail from stakeholders and a possible charge from public prosecutors, while I try to ensure that all our stakeholders are treated fairly, as we proceed to liquidate our business, and/or refinance the project.

Yawn 66

 2020-09-21 - 2020-10-04

2020-09-21-08:34 end of day. Recharged my car's AC by myself for the first time. Cleaned the house drain also.

Avoiding more coding today in the interest of building more mental agility rather than focusing.

16:38 up and alert. B12, salt management, and exercise may have helped with sleep. Only eight hours were consumed, but also I was not entirely exhausted at the time of entry.

What is the technical or a shorter term for falling asleep?

Looks like another day of solo work. But I may allow myself dinner with a friend.

2020-09-22-02:35 midday. Break from work. Time for a walk and review time, perhaps.

/

2020-09-22-16:45 Back at a desk after enforced feeding. Focusing on work. Keeping an eye out for the usual news.

/

I think I finally got banned from a local developer group. The last thing I posted was a comment "Collect everyone's opinion; trust no one. 🙂"

/

Malaysia is one of those places where innovation goes to die. How do we change that? Should we even bother?

/

2020-09-23-19:24 rice meal near the office. Insides of mouth burnt from breakfast. Mouthwashed halfway through sleep ... can't be sure if the itchiness in throat was due to histamines versus burn, or bacteria eating up the dead skin.

We have so many opportunities for data in our world. If you value wellness, there is much to look forward too. But these are mediated by our oligarchs, so if you value wellness you must value wealth also.

I am not sure that I value either ...  but in the short term, wellness is necessary. How should we die?

- 

I must write about a personal failure today. It is a repeating issue, and with each error I increase my dataset, so this will be the latest iteration for review.

Just done with the second meal, and walking home. The cina kopitiam on the corner is blasting Deep Purple at closing. 23:40

-

2020-09-24

M&E repairs at the shop before dawn. Fixed a bug in software configuration preventing new user sign-up. Tyre replacement before rest.

Pre-bedtime. Incredibly tedious punishment chore of unliking hundreds of profiles of overseas people I thought I might have something to say to. This is not the time. A good reminder of priorities - best to work on the bodies at hand, than the minds at reach. As always, I will fix this, as I don't expect anyone else to do it for me. 🤷🏻 Need to recalibrate to search for locals again.

Going to eat, groom a little, maybe fall asleep, or continue work.

The nap was short. Work continued a few hours later.

Like-list cleared. Holy crap, what a chore.

2020-09-25-03:20

Followed this with some social gaming, and soon to proper sleep. Maintenance coaching in the morning.

What an insane 36 hours.

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Historical data indicates that it takes about five years for me to get over heart break. That doesn't mean I stop loving a subject, but perhaps that's when I start to deprioritise their memory. There are so many overlapping periods of such.

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It's been long established that I am a lousy friend when it comes to establishing smooth communication protocols with cagey people. My disinterest in empathy as the defining factor of friendships is a key factor in this. That being said, good friends are hard to find, and whenever I lose one I generally ask to have them back, even when they express disinterest. In commerce, it is simply said that you don't know the limits of what you have access to until you ask. With my latest lost of a friend, I intend to maintain projected discipline and only text them in the next new year. I don't expect to be take seriously, or to even be acknowledged. But I suppose, I must remain consistent in my approach to these social things. That is a portfolio strategy.

/

I was just contrasting a recent experience with one I had a while ago, in 2007. I had met a girl, and we dated a few times ... but I was concerned that our relationship was defined mostly by sexual compatibility than by friendship. So, I proposed to her that we cease sexual interaction in order to first focus on exploring the construction of a friendship before resuming sexual relations. She was adament that if we stopped being sexual, she would simply not wish to date me at all. 

.

Perhaps this experience instilled in me an unhealthy aversion to negotiating the deescalation of sex, in order to focus on constructing friendships. Given this reflection, I should remind myself to focus more on building friendships with partners.

/

- you start

- someone dies

- you lose a friend

- you take a shower

- you go back to work

- your co-workers leave

- you log a few milestones

- you get new co-workers

- your co-investors leave

- you learn a few things

- something breaks

- you learn a few more things

- something else breaks

- you learn to fix hardware

- you take a break to mend your health

- you build software

- you invest in people

- someone dies

- you lose a friend

- you write a song

- you go back to work

- other friends comfort you

- nothing is ever the same, because each detail is irreplaceable

- you take a shower

- you go back to work

/

Sometimes I'm mainly driven to focus on work because I've been abandoned by this or that party. Who else will save my ass? 😛 Story of my life, perhaps.

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2020-09-26-15:35 up, missing a lower priority breakfast idea.

16:52 more awake now. Disappointments are just reminders to pay closer attention to work. Much to do.

17:20 quiet time (meditations on tactical business) shall commence.

18:12 washed. Need to get groceries for shop.

I think, I should update my dating profiles with new information. Done.

22:50 some tiling work done at the office. Multi-vitamins of late seem to be helping with metabolic rate (perhaps it's jist the B complex component).

Going to clean the house fridge.

Then lunch. And back to the office to keep the boys company till closing, while desk working.

Coded half a feature and coached some maintenance issues.

2020-09-27--12:42 did not fall asleep, for the better part of seven hours, but up for recycling delivery and a social.

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Cleaning my shared housing fridge: I swear, unkempt domestic fridges are their own special variety of sickness. You never know how long it's been since the owners cleaned them.

Do you think anyone would pay RM150/first-hour + RM75/hour to have their home appliances cleaned inside and outside to a spotless condition?

Because we are already doing this haha.

/

Seriously tempted to just throw money at this problem. Like a week's wages / my monthly rent.

I don't need the money, but my business does. More than some girl, whatever amount of hurt she's in, so, once again, work wins.

But I really would send a bottle if it wasn't going to affect my work.

I should have led with that lol. #lovelanguageroulette

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Considering renovation of a roofed area beside my office. Examination of local law indicates that asbestos is hardly regulated in Malaysia. 

/

2020-09-28-14:45

Day begins. The usual concerns have leaked into conscious memory, overnight, both sense data, and code as sense data. Housekeeping must now proceed to evaluate the conscious memory space, and to aggressively select what data to run through what code. Most of it just needs to be recompacted and restored ex-consciousness. The term "sub-conscious" may be considered inaccurate because it imputes hierarchy. Ex-conscious memory, and ex-conscious computation may be more accurate terms, without the connotation of temporal priorness.

Once that is done, I must prepare myself for the next few years of work, again. Preparation for the next lonely journey, albeit on the same project. While it is being done, I must wash and feed.

2020-09-29-0326

Standing stretch, legs apart at the all-night-lit park nearest to me. Earlier: Did some tiling. Installed a barrier at the bar. Miscellaneous desk things. Need to buy a glasscutter to learn how to work tiles.

Looking at Orion's belt, the hunter, etc. I don't remember most constellations. The sky is empty but for a few wispy clouds today. There is lightning in the distance. 

Managed to enjoy desk work at the cafe a bit. I guess I should go there to sample and tweak customer experience whenever I am not working on heady stuff that benefits from silence and large monitors.

/

I was working out on a court near my room. Someone walked up to me.

"Hi," they said. I looked up.

"I ... sense a presence near me. But I don't see anyone," I said, "if there's anybody out there who wants to be seen, tell me that you're there. Who's there?"

#minishorts

/

Decyphering alcohol licenses in Petaling Jaya:

- (city) MBPJ Perlesenan says:

- if you are registered under a "management office license", and if you sell only soft drinks to occupants not visitors, you do not need a rider license

- all co-working i.e. office sublet businesses are registered under "management office licenses", and once someone pays the coworking rental fee they are considered occupants not visitors

- so whatever you sell to occupants, even if it is weird, the coworking rental fee is effectively a cover charge antecedent to an otherwise unregulated sale of goods (the rental fee converts a visitor into an occupant, and MBPJ doesn't care what you sell to occupants)

However, on booze:

- once you go over X%, regulation falls under the district (bigger) not the city (smaller)

- (district) Pejabat Tanah Petaling says:

- whomever the F you are, you need a "retail RM840/y" license at minimum (whereas MBPJ appears to simply not enforce this on behalf of the district)

- caveat: Pejabat Tanah Petaling says to inquire again tomorrow with a senior staff

... on we go.

/

Ok ... you know how I say eat/sleep/ travel are the unholy trifecta of femme online dating profiles? There's one more thing ... not sure if CmB makes it an MCQ option ... "makes me laugh" ... I swear there were like five profiles in a row with this, and it's probably a good thing that CmB is helping stressed women to express that feeling, so that men know how to make themselves useful. But wow, people are so boring. 😫

Wondering now about how this maps to predispositions in the balance between SNS and PSNS in different sexes.

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Gin: Why do so many people like Roku? I found it cute but boring. OK, IDKA, sorry.

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I don't have Snapchat. Should I download it just to make an anime avatar? No - I could probably just post a still of Avatar's protagonist ... or that one-punch fucker ...

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My useless best friend sent me a link and asked me to hit on Ms Thai USA.

I live in Malaysia, it's COVID season.

Thanks best friend, ILU.

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Today's DIY project: WHY IS THE CSV STANDARD SO LOOSELY DEFINED

Build a parser. Explicitly delineate rules.

(A day or so later:)

OMG. We wrote a CSV parser. WHY. Well, in all honesty, on the way to ETL ...  this is the L.

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2020-10-02-06:53 Perhaps my last week of bad sleep is just due to insufficient HVAC utilisation. Too hot. Maybe I lost track of basic infra while trying to shore up other basic infra.

Fix up. Fix car. Do payroll.

Coding. B12 and fish oil. Nap. This. That. More coding. Counselling staff.

2020-10-03-00:11 More food. 

I need to zero my imagination for more hours per day. Been lacking practice here.

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Not feeling very effective at work this month (probably just a sentiment, and not grounded in any metric). But in order to increase pressure on myself, I think I'll skip a paycheque. 😛

Lots to clear up outside of office, in order to get more official stuff done.

2020 finally got to me, because I neglected a part of my support structure that was outside of official responsibilities.

Focusing on the rebuild. But everything gets harder. 😕

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Paradoxically, Biden may be the one to die first as a result of Trump having C19.

All bets are off. #usa2020

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"You seem to treat relationships like an Olympic sport."

"What, no ... relationships are like work. I mean, sex is a sport ... relationships are business ... "

/

Personal memory management update. Items I do need to check off daily.

- zeroing the imagination: doing it at least once a day helps remind me to do it tactically intraday, otherwise I forget that the tactic is available

- reviewing business priorities: doing it at least once a day helps to realign the days amidst each week

- reviewing the fears and triggering semantics of my loved ones: doing it at least once a day reminds me of how to handle them delicately

- reviewing dietary, grooming, and sleep daily: work, work, work ...

//

"How come your profile all so deep thoughts?"

"Beats me, bitch ... just think about how much time I spend wondering what to do with the lot of you who think that way."

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CSV load vector is kinda sorta done.

2020-10-04-21:38 and so today is a bit of a rest day.

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Coffee Meets Bagel - the app that's supposed to focus on quality, has horrible mobile chat latency (UI and network), no desktop interface, geez.

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"team memory management"

Cloning patterns for force multiplication, as discussed with a friend:

A) For any task that hits the CEO ("the executive"), a staff should be included/attached as a shadow, functioning as the #2-person for that task; after a suitable number of iterations (as few as one) future tasks of the same sort can be routed directly to an experienced shadow who then begins to function as the #1-person for such tasks; this frees up executive memory for focus on design and performance management ... the scientific parts of resource management. This can include tasks as small as 30 seconds long. If the truck-number for the task is "1", then the cost of a 30-second task is far more than 30-seconds, as the #1 needs to context-switch out of some other task, and the cost of the context-switch may be minutes to hours long.

B) All staff should be encouraged to practice pattern A, whenever possible. #2s should be creating #3s, and #3s should be creating #4s, etc. It should be mandatory for #1s to be creating #2s. In small teams the end result has exponential effects on team agility as the entire company can literally pivot in place, i.e. you call pull off actual events where every single staff switches roles without moving any butts from seats.

Related:

C) From the formal point of view, staff operations are measured in delivery per unit of time. Key performance indicators can be prioritised either on-quality, on-time, or on-price - usually one metric is more important than the others, per given task. Informally, whatever needs to be done is done to hit formal targets. As retrospective documentation improves,  informal processes are gradually formalised based on historical merit.

 

Managing Sleep

More water first, to ensure there's enough blood amd lymph in the system, then a few cycles of [

- active hyperventing to drop CO2, 

- automatic slow down, but 

- - keeping the proprioception of breath in conscious memory, 

- - allowing that to displace other conscious memories, 

- - conscious buffer shrinks a little; 

- - other studies indicate that at this point blood vessels constrict and lymph moves in for cleanup, but I am not sure on what timeframe

]

 ... repeated until until the consciousness stays down for a stretch of hours instead of just fractions of a second.

I guess this exercise is pertinent for securing neural detox for shorter periods also. I don't know the exact mechanism, yet, but fractions of a second spent unconscious do alleviate stress a little, and one feels slightly less tired already.

Dietary stack notes

 I think I figured out how to use B-complex this past week, so I'm gonna do a quick recap on the intra-day benefits I SEEM to be getting from dietary supplements studied thus far:

- B-complex (includes B12, but usually in tiny amounts, like 10-100 mcg): raises metabolism and blood sugar. Generally useful if I am going to be physically punching things, and want to feel ready. Best ingested after breakfast, or exercise, almost NEVER before trying to sleep. Avoid to avoid the antsy muscles feeling, or if there is slight bacterial infection where sepsis SEEMS to be exacerbated by blood sugar boosts - that uncontrollable tingly ticklish feeling around the face, neck, and other muscle groups which comes from the sugar high, heat generation, and reduction in muscle control. Thinking about this now, I might as well just take a generic multivitamin instead.

- B12 (500-1000mcg): doesn't seem to make me burn hotter, but appears to boost neural tone significantly. It pretty much seems to amplify (the rate of data processed for) anything I set my mind to ... analytical focus, kinesthesics, or sleep ... which also means you gotta pick one direction to go in and avoid contradicting yourself mid-boost.

- creatine monohydrate (2-3g): plenty of literature on that; go read about it; at slightly higher-doses (barely 5g in my case) makes me antsy but not warmer; deadens reflective ability, but helps with rote tasks - reminds me of how caffeine has a cognitive tunneling effect; possssibly due to involuntary tensing of muscle resulting in awkwardly shaped proprioceptive data which then becomes a distraction.

- caffeine (0.5 - 3.0 espressos): as above but stimulates the sympathetic nervous system considerably; needs to be balanced with action on the parasympathetic nervous system via exhalation resistance exercises (many people cheat and use nicotine), or ... 

- fish oil (1-3g doses, up to 5g/day): ... which lowers blood pressure, and seems to encourage my heart to pump hard but slow (there are papers on this); more reading required; remember the side-effect: it's also a blood thinner, so you should be wary.

- protein powder (13-30g protein content): general dynamics, better kinesthesia, actually food, a macronutrient, helps my immune system to reign in histamic/runny-nose symptoms which seem to pop up whenever I haven't eaten enough protein AND am under physical and/or cognitive stress

Thousandaire, onanist, playboy, philanthropist.

I had a biblical education as a kid. I always thought Solomon was cool because he was smart. I wanted to be smart like Solomon, but I didn't really care for the money or hoes. Then I grew up and I still didn't really care for the money or hoes, but I also realised that being smart came with a bunch of conveniences. You get to CHOOSE if you have, or don't have, money and hoes. 

Let me postscript this inane bio with metanote on hoes. I think there's absolutely nothing derogatory about calling a woman a ho, just like there's nothing necessarily bad about calling her a bitch. I absolutely love women. I worship them like they're idols and I love'em all, whatever you tell me about saying so. So, my hoes, my bitches, my friends, my ladies, my loved ones, my people, be lovely, be good, be fierce, be wonderful, crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their ho-bros. I do so love you. And I don't care if you don't want me to talk this way, even if you believe it means I love you less.

Mandatory postpostscript: I am also not condoning, nor do I practice the pull-out method for birth-control. I tried it once years and years ago and failed miserably, of course! (Mea culpa, it was my second time, I thoroughly failed her.) But I also hate being referred to as a genius because it's a word used by people who simply don't know any better, such that it carries limited meaning to me. This is about the word-choice of Onanist. I'm merely referring to intellectual masturbation.