sex, tech, and mergers: 2023-01-15

2023-01-19 at 10:20 pm

Hobbes goes Fishing

"In the state of nature, profit is the measure of right," - classical concepts which should be thoroughly understood by kiddies dabbling in electronic financial markets. The contemporary lingo is to refer to the classes of power by size of controlled capital : whales, sharks, and minnows. A larger controller will naturally seek to bait a smaller controller into starting a fight it cannot win. Basic economics, Art of War type stuff. A larger controller will almost always win - but by baiting a smaller controller into making the first move, the larger maximises its profit margin at the expense of the smaller.

"Data Scientist" and the Utility of Titles

Regarding the notion that too many "data scientists" lack domain-specific knowledge.

Hey, it's OK to not have domain knowledge. But in fad-matured 2023, many junior "data scientists" don't even have scientific training in the first place. My personal bar for anyone calling themselves a scientist is that they've published in a science journal with high impact metric scores. Otherwise, it is more accurate to call one an analyst.

Not everyone who works in engineering is an engineer. Not everyone who works in (huge and fluffy) data science is a scientist. The credentials for a scientist are not "took a two week course in science" - the credentials are a doctoral degree from a good institution, peer review, and admission to the community of peers ( journal publication ).

Yawn 90

14 nov

It seems that many SMBs still depend on informal communications across a variety of media, for work. This makes it hard to track orders, compliance, insubordination, requests to show cause and their responses, etc. So, a properly digitised company would have this settled automatically in the future.

🥔 in other news, potato chips seem to have become a staple in my fridge. Aeon's house brand sells 150g for 2.80 MYR, and I only do like 20-30g at a time because I maintain salt-sensitivity ...

In other news today : Equities : breaking even with IXIC 30% below peak 🤓

Crypto : So I've learnt how to post orders, to autobuy when price hits a number. I might have misunderstood Luno's fee structure - instant buy is 2% fee, vs deposit and then trade is 0.25 % lol. This luno is expensive, but allows access to more volatile currencies.If I want to switch from investment to trader tax class, i would probably have to switch to Sinegy. But now I am only buying not selling.Also small stakes, so practically toy-mode

13 Nov

Decided to avoid KLSE glove stocks for the time being. Too opaque (expensive to research) and lacking in global theses. If anything I should probably be booting up a US trading account. Either I'm being lazy, or just deallocating time based on disinterest. Just like how I spend most of my time in Malaysia, without spending much time thinking about Malaysia, in general.

2:20pm - enforced feeding time. And then to meditate on dietary adjustments.

I need to form investment theses based on how often to double (or otherwise raise) my stake in an entity.

EOD : perhaps I can include a bit of study before bed.

The study of commerce involves insane amounts of trivia. And so does the study of math, where we consider the names of things trivial, even if their referents are not. Therefore given finite resources I have always chosen to study math, over commerce. Perhaps one day I shall get a robot to do both for me.

12 nov

Fear, uncertainty, and doubt ... are to a predator, like the smell of blood. Maybe that's why I'm a wet blanket. How strange. #firstboughtcryptotoday

11 nov

Let me get this straight ... this year's trend is politicians declaring assets ... with no mention of liabilities ...

16% gains in major currencies! I still haven't owned a sen in this asset class, but I will consider entering at future situations. Looking for the Fed to assert a bit of pessimism in December. I have to back and check my numbers though.

I figure the NASDAQ has another 20% downside over the next quarter and a half. Should I sell, or just keep buying?

10 nov

I think the real money saver is going to be when I hit the inflection point of "street watching is less interesting than studying math", such that I skip the coffees and go straight home every day ... but it's going to be a little while more before my brain is healed up enough for this, I think.

FML. Due to some commercial error I'm now paying 14% of minimum wage for telecoms. I need to get this back to the 2-5% level.

I find it very strange, talking to business developers who don't like to manage talent. Each individual staff is a supply-chain of time - it's just business. I guess the stakes are too small, so it is difficult to negotiate with 100 one-staff-firms. In which case one needs to hire an agency - often those are just called (talent) managers.

Furthermore it seems to follow that any internal human resources department should be at least as good as a turnkey external agency ... unless a company has external agencies to rely on. Otherwise the business function of labour inputs is underserved.

#undirosak or #votebn : feel free to share your opinions on the candidates, and parties with me

"I'm not saying this view is use-less ... but it's certainly not use-ful ... maybe we can settle on calling it ... use-able?"

9 nov

Back to the grind

Almost 20 years since I paused calculus. Restarting soon, i hope

Time to learn about crypto. Who wants to crash course me?

8 nov

I just thought of one good reason for anyone to vote for Nur Fathiah.

Get more liberal muslims into the spotlight.

Unfortunately I can't think of a second, so it looks like her one role in all of this is to dilute Siti's base.

Ah well, fun and games in the metropolis.

7 nov

One last coffee, I think, let's see how much productivity I can squeeze out at 7pm

11pm. Horrors. I have run out of ramen. What will I eat now?

6 nov

Should have figured out the amortisation algorithm for principal repayments a decade ago. Will get to it later today.

5 nov

Anyone with a preference in Malaysian politics : please let me know which coalition you support and why.

As much as I like what Harapan could systematically achieved, the copy is a simp brand. Rename the party, "Ketuanan" and I'll commit my vote this year lol.

Back to route optimisation. Entering from Jalan Sultan Azlan Shah / Ipoh to the Duke at Kentonmen incurs a charge at the Batu toll booth. So entering from Segambut instead reduces the number of tolls from two to one.

Test : biked down to Galloway. Chain skipped once. Need more lights. Otherwise, not bad.

Does anyone remember the 1998 Malaysia Starbucks Tall Americano price? RM6? Well it's net with tax RM11 now ... at the Reserve outlets.

3 nov

Keep shooting the ogres. It'll only take a few thousand rounds, and then they fall.

It will always be a reasonable tradeoff between that, and peaceful negotiations, depending on the intelligence of the counterparties.

Ah, snobbery.

Guess I'll spend the rest of the month worrying about the kids. Hehe

Starbucks is often cold so my jacket may travel to my car soon

Does anyone remember the 1998 Malaysia Starbucks Tall Americano price? RM6? Well it's net with tax RM11 now ... at the Reserve outlets.

2 nov

Today is not a good day to post in the car group, about how low HP cars driven in the city, are like rallies ... frequent gear changes, high revs, tight turns, etc.

1 nov

Flavour of the month : tyre pressure vs steering geometry 😣

Figured out yesterday that I can't guarantee 10 hours of sleep per day, due to my commercial commitments, but I can add conscious meditation hours to sleep hours to reach target. In this case conscious meditation refers only to a conscious review of the nervous system's conscious SNR in all modalities, and nothing less concrete than that. It's tuning and calibration only.

31 oct

Time for meditations. Stuck at stage 3 in recent months. Also there are some bugs in this code that need to be ironed out later.

Added "calibration" to my R&R log. Tuning of neural tone ...

Warisan is going to get slaughtered in Batu. Their campaign poster has opposite messages in English and BM ... never mind the other language s

18 nov

It's pretty easy to detect high-context cultures, by their simpletons ... for example, one sometimes encounters this pattern : they repeat themselves, using the same words, when they are not understood. Don't we all? Perhaps not.

Where, entry price (E), entry expense (L) :

Buy L_2 @ E(1/2)^1 => breakeven on 2L @ E(0.67)

Buy L_3 @ E(1/2)^2 => breakeven on 3L @ E(0.43)

Buy L_4 @ E(1/2)^3 => breakeven on 4L @ E(0.27)

Buy L_5 @ E(1/2)^4 => breakeven on 5L @ E(0.16)

... today is all about geometric series-es.

I got my first BTC around 17,633 BTCUSD after FX and noob fees. Somewhat higher than the trough, but I'm not fussy, since my investment strategy here should be able to afford a dip down to 1,100 BTCUSD or lower.

I'm super out of practice, but should get back into mental shape soon if I keep spending time with my calculator.

Anyone in Seremban wants to catch up, find me at Starbucks DT now.

1. "Every vote matters; not who you vote for; vote anyone."

... nope, you are a statistically undereducated moron.

2. "Candidates over parties; vote this party, unless you get that candidate, then vote that party because it's this candidate."

... nope, you are an operationally undereducated moron.

3. "Go burn your vote; it's your constitutional right; I'm probably burning mine."

... unfortunately, I am an overprivileged and overeducated moron ... but at least I am honest about it ... p.s. I love false dichotomies!

17nov

Does anyone know if Salt x Chamberlain has been tested in Malaysia?

That's pretty interesting, if the recognition of revenue occurs upon the sale of cryto; and the recognition of expense upon the purchase of crypto; which implies that you can trade frequently, as long as you buy more than you sell, and always thus incur more expenses, and thus remain unprofitable

https://phl.hasil.gov.my/.../GUIDELINES_ON_TAX_TREATMENT...

Nov 16

I have many obligations unfulfilled. Finding the time to do so, ah well. At least I'm catching up on fundamentals.

Calling the Malaysian general election 2022 : the Pakatan Harapan alliance will win by a landslide, skewed mainly by urban and first-time voters (18-to-24-years-old). Voter turnout in general will be lower than preferred, but greater than precedents. Independent candidates will perform better than precedent.

How hard is it to set up a hedge fund in Malaysia? I know the SC is averse to shorting activities, etc. but does that include an aversion to shorting non-Malaysian assets, with funds from accredited investors?

1. Don't buy on margin

2. Don't sell

3. ... unless you wish to alter your tax status

15 nov

0110 : time to study a little math

Aspirational styloplebs complaining about imperfect glasses, literally :

The anti-wabi-sabi-wabi-sabi-club

... so cute, adorbs,and monetisable.

1700 : naptime

17th year in the job market ... one of these days, it might be nice to find stable employment. Tough market.

2030 : enforced workout, then back to work

When I was in college, I thought my career orientation would be towards something like the CIO role. Twenty years later, it's just apparent that I'm more useful as a developer of such roles, than as an actor in such roles. That being said, it's probably because I ended up working with really small companies, so perhaps I should try working in a larger one at some point.

Also, how hard is it to set up a hedge fund in Malaysia? I know the SC is averse to shorting activities, etc. but does that include an aversion to shorting non-Malaysian assets, with funds from accredited investors?

20 nov

Enforced feeding, maybe exercise.

I really don't care who forms the government. It's good for the country. It's progress. Get on with it.

Bila sudah baca penulisan umat-umat islam atas keikhlasan dan keimanan, saya, sebagai kafir, rasa ... dari segi perdagangan dalam negeri ... buang je pengelasan halal vs haram. Tetapkan je setiap syarikat dan perbadanan kena buat audit tahunan atas pengelasan islam, munafik, atau kafir saja. Jangan tambah-tambah dimensi banyak lagi sehingga menyusahkan orang ramai. Perbadanan tu kena buat pengakuan islam/kafir dengan SSM; yang islam tu, kalau gagal audit tahunan ... terus tampal je pelekat munafik.

21 nov

BTC to $1000, let's go.

Based on my current fund size, I need 30,000% growth to hit my old arbitrarily large retirement number lol.

As a rakyat, what do I want? I want a new Constitution, because the British didn't leave Malaysian with enough intelligence to operate the old one properly. Dumb it down, because Malaysians are too dumb to handle complexity. Dumb it down, for dummies.

Can we get Najib back? It's a matter of national security. We need just one person, a strong man, that everyone can agree on hating in the same direction. Like for five minutes, I swear, put him back on TV, and the whole waffley crisis is going to evaporate. Instant PH+PN+BN unity across the board. Come on, bring him out ...

People who watch football are weird. Or any spectator sport, for that matter. I only watch politics and business because I do get paid, indirectly ... they seem similar to people who care about what their food looks like, to people who give privileges to their loved ones, and to people who get excited when they go to new places. There is one good thing, about such people ... they are predictable, and so they exist for others to take their money.

22 nov

Enforced waking, enforced feeding, enforced work. Noice

1952h: do all the things

I guess it's a good reminder of why DAP and PKR consistently seem too stupid to be voted for. Their opponents have one weapon ... only one ... and they can't even focus on taking it away.

1. ICYMI : yesterday's historically important interview, wherein the former Comms Minister and stalwart of UMNO, the longest-ruling party in Malaysian history until its recent defeat in 2018, points to disunity among religiously conservative Malays, and attributes it to the greed of certain individuals.

1.1. Note, importantly, he continues to toe the rhetoric that Muslims have a religious duty to oppose both DAP and PKR. This criticism is traditional, and to-date, neither DAP or PKR seem to have ever attacked it directly, to their loss. (Kinda foolish, because if they can win this argument, then they severely disarm their conservative opponents.)

2. The pattern you see here is, "everyone is allowed to fuck around, until their friends come asking for a team - as long as you dive back into the team when it matters, the team lets you otherwise fuck around relentlessly".

2307h : time to seek solace in studies.

23 nov

To-date, one of my favourite facts to remind Malaysians of, in public discourse, is that the Rukunegara is not a law. I think the education system has so thoroughly ingrained it in various people's heads that they don't even know what it is. Haha.

Over the years, although I do not feel more vulnerable, despite living among hooligans ... I am reminded to pay more attention to aspects of "physical" security. However, I suppose someone should help us all out and finish the job. Until then, I suppose, I'm still a somewhat living, made in Malaysia, sort of thing.

24 nov

Not a lot to look forward to in the short-term, just the status quo. Grind this and that. Time for a nap

25 nov

Slow-ass day/week/year/decade. That just means, either my mind is moving too quickly and I'm accumulating idle clock-cycles, or, my mind is moving too slowly and I'm not getting anything done.

I hate public holidays. It means work slows down, because too much of my work depends on other people. Or am I dreaming, because I could be doing their work anyway. What a walnut. Maybe I am just lazy. Well generally, I AM lazy, but I am not sure that I am lazy in this context.

HR asked me twice this month, why I work so hard. First, I'm not sure I work hard. Second, what I actually said was, it's just business - I can trade time for anything, money, information, prestige, as long as it's wagered to be an opportunity gain vs doing something else with the same units of time.

Testing out the home-based tofu diet for the better part of the week. I might be losing muscle mass, but probably because I didn't hit the gym as much as I should have. First set foot in a gym 21 years ago - this year I finally live in a building with a gym amd pool, with the knowledge of how to use them. How will I end up using them? Eating meat produces bursts of energetic capacity, so eating less meat, I have yet to figure out how to raise my neural productivity in terms of both kinesthesia and semantic cognition ... to be on par with a high-meat diet.

I have so many things to do, that are undone. I can only improve by studying the shit out of fundamentals.

So, now, back to the grind.

And it is, a long weekend.

Berita Harian : AI says unicron has assimilation coefficient > 66.66%

Now, literally anything can happen. And the country is thus in some ways less stable/secure. 💁

Alright. Enough corporate clusterfucking for the week. Time to be social - which in my case tends to mean, getting a coffee and watching other people do random things.

Back to work, ASAP, but not before recuperation.

Next topic : So everyone knows, PM XI is a chink ya?

26nov

Paid for a dating app. This is a downward spiral, right?

27 nov

Middle day on a long weekend. Awake, and returning to protocol. The alternative is to wait for other people to make things happen in my benefit - not something I regularly count on.

Reviewing 2005/2006 journals was a good exercise in refreshing my grasp of the operation.

1810h: did some plastic welding and assembled some chairs from storage

Mental conditioning ...

: 3% gain requires 0.5% gain compounded 6 times

: 30% gain requires 3% gain compounded 9 times

: 9x gain requires ...

... : 30% gain compounded 9 times, or

... : 10% gain compounded 24.2 times

28 nov

Signed up for financial market tools.

Might as well make use of dead time to study.

Enforced waking, feeding, work.

29 nov

Enforced waking, feeding, work.

1737h: a long and boring day. But I need to pick up my car from the tire shop before they close, so I must pause.

Napped. Then resumed studies.

It is turning out to be a long season of grinding. Maybe it will be another five years from the start of 2021 before I enforce pivots again. Maybe, it will be a matter of weeks.

I think the defining characteristic of my agency is the ability to trade in and out of social relationships without getting too hung up about other people's feelings. It is important for me to maintain this portfolio of capabilities, while hedging against their deployment with token efforts to assuage the annoyances of my peers.

Right now food and exercise have stabilised, but sleep and commerce are still somewhat underweight. The main liquidity buffer has been dating, I suppose. I need to improve my quantity of sleep, and my qualities of commerce and dating. Well dating is just commerce after all, so well ... I just need to work harder to throw out more trash from my schedule, at work and play.

Done signed up for trading school.

Might as well make use of dead time to study.

gradschool round two, here we go

1 dec

Turbo on. Turbo goes nowhere in a traffic jam.

After a drawn out day, working on chores, I exude a sense of dread which is common to unproductive people.

I am familiar with this state of mind, as I have ground for years, in the 90s, the 00s, and the 10s, on different projects. It was generally easy with one or two projects at a time. But now my portfolio has swelled to six or seven-ish. I suppose that is a good challenge. The platitude is always that one is probably learning a lot when one feels that one is not producing anything.

On we go.

3 dec

Fahmi got Comms : the prophecy is fulfilled (or half fulfilled, I expect him to get PM eventually)

Zahid rising : balance is restored.

Food : stable

Exercise : stable

Social : stable

Sleep : easiest to fix, fix first

Work : harder to fix, fix later

I think all of Saturday is about portfolio management.

4 dec

You know what's really lacking from the Malaysian public education system? Royal protocol. I swear, most of the supposedly loyal subjects of the Executive, would not know how to interact formally with him besides the basic application of royal pronouns.

Am I mistaken, or is the main difference between the constitutionalism of the UK and Malaysia, a difference in the definition of RP?

I'm happy that in 2022, AI photo generators have advanced in the public eye, to a useful state. It's further benefit for me when I can now point to those and simply say, "well my brain already has something like that, installed for all sense modalities", when I have to explain why I don't find sensational adventures like travelling, cuisine, etc. super motivating.

Should be napping. But gonna meet someone for coffee, then we'll see. Wither work?

5 dec

Back to choring. Attack the day.

Tried to sell an old printer, but found the drum to be dirty. Learnt something about these things today.

Credit card bill is way higher than it should be. But 45% is for gradschool

Early to bed. Totally fuckin underslept

6 dec

Still underslept. Attack the day.

7 dec

I made three asset allocation errors in 2022. Will study it later.

It's pretty simple : if you can afford one first date every day, and still have savings, then the date is priced right.

Next projects : soup concentrate construction, bottled soda construction

8 dec

It's gonna be a long day. Enforced eating variously.

I need to improve :

- asset allocation

- trade accounting clarity

- trade accounting automation

Evening nap. Underslept.

Many people, they rush around, but all they want is peace - but they can't get it, so they rush on.

All I've ever had, is peace - when you see me rushing ... it probably means I got bored, and started looking for alpha.

Is there like, an Arabic Grindr, called Istiqamin?

9 dec

PSA : 7-Eleven americanos are now RM 2.50 ( volume of 7 ). Great deal for freshly ground, not-quite-shit, beans where you can cut the shot manually.

10 dec

CoinGecko is shit

CoinMarketCap Android is shit

Ok, need better tools. Keep working

11 dec

I think it's come to a point in history where you get points for ingredient supply if you name ingredients. But you get points for culinary skill if you don't bother.

12 dec

Looks like a big dip will happen whenever FTX's creditors are made public (currently sealed in court documents).

First time I've got a practical use for vertical monitors. Not the life I wanted, but here we are ...

13 dec

Decentralised Autonomous Organisations : trendy term related to anarchosyndicalism, any grassroots situation, parties in the state of nature. Disorganised religion. Haha

So I hear, my friend got brain cancer, then worked till the day he died a coupla months later. Exemplary. I wish only the same for myself.

14 Dec

So what are the chances Elon converts the Twitter database into a blockchain, decentralises servers, then ICOs the whole project to exit his position?

Every time someone dies, and the world creates a commotion, I'm reminded that we live among sappy romantics who get palpitations, thinking about never again seeing another person, whom they have hallucinated into a common identify with themselves. Scary shit, what goes on in most people's heads. Sometimes I wonder what I'm doing in civil society.

15 dec

I have, for most of my life, enjoyed running in traffic, or among larger objects than myself. I suppose this stage of learning to trade is sort of like that, as a minnow.

Let me guess. Heng Kee did not get a star

Survived the mid-month billing cycle. Time for a nap, then back to work.

Today is for studying geography ... timezones, and major market hours, and the historical significance of major financial cities.

16 dec

Moving on to new work. I didn't say "new job", so don't get too excited.

I still don't understand people who think cryptocurrency is not fiat.

Power cost of AC-drying almost an entire load of laundry : 4 h * 0.8 kW/h * 0.5 MYR/h = 1.6 MYR

Dec 19

Thank god, this world cup stuff is over. We can move on to graver matters. (As if.)

Up next it's going to be Christmas, and New Year's, and Chink New Year's ... and ... this bullshit never ends.

Distractions, distractions, distractions.

Draft model of my preferences in relative humidity.

AC-off curve :

23C 74% RH

24C 70% RH

25C 66% RH

26C 62% RH ** simplest mnemonic

27C 58% RH

28C 54% RH

29C 50% RH

AC-on curve:

23C 84% RH

24C 80% RH

25C 76% RH

26C 72% RH ** ditto symmetry

27C 68% RH

28C 64% RH

29C 60% RH

I think I should pause studies for the last 3% of the year, and prioritise resetting all my projects before 2023. 11/365

Simplified equation for my preferred relative-humidity at home :

% RH = 62 - 4 ( Dry Bulb Celcius - 26 )

Added B complex via a multivitamin supplement, to my diet. Metabolic rate is up - let's see if this stays tolerably cool.

20 dec

And for my next trick, it will soon be time to make some kind of jerky / dried meat.

Need to document price of whey protein off Shopee, tomorrow. High-plastic-waste single-serve options available. Hm. (Turns out soy isolate wins, but is on par with supermarket tofu at 7sen/g.)

Dry oats and wheat flour have about 65% more protein than brown rice. Tune, tune, tune.

Dogfood is water, hyaluronic acid is moisturiser, alpha hydroxy acid is exfoliant. Ah, all these gimmicks.

Work. Sleep. Wake.

Maybe soon, I will be fit enough to refocus on actions-per-minute optimisation. Meanwhile, it's been months of home and body economics.

In college I adjusted my fonts for optimal reading speed ... it was something like Lucida Console 7. Anyway, I have started to do it again, since I am in study mode. But now it is Ubuntu Mono 10pt (out of context, since screens are all different sizes)

21 dec

short every rally!

0850h : attack the grind

Apartment door soundproofing project : noise simulator obtained - just using a phone alarm works well enough.

"One fried chicken, please."

"Ma'am, sorry, we don't have 'halal cert'"

"It's ok, I brought my own."

"Alhamdulillah. Cash or credit?"

dec 22

Tactical training log :

Hm. IXIC at 10700, looks like it could drop to 6900 by 1FEB2023, that's 35% down.

So over 15 days, I'll move from 0% bonds (historically the manager's lowest defense fund), to 30% bonds (historically the manager's highest defense fund), and money market funds. Not sure why I'm bothering with the bonds, but could be interesting, I suppose.

Hm.

Could be another screw up, but I'll just have to keep practicing until I get good at this.

I haven't watched Avatar 2 ... but is everyone stupid, or something, why is Kiri referred to as Grace's daughter? Kiri is born after Grace dies, the same actress plays both, Kiri is Grace reincarnated, duh ...

TIL CAR exists as a country

25 dec

- sodium dithionite

- sodium percarbonate

- sodium bicarbonate

- citric acid

- hypochlorous acid

More to come ... #jerngdoeslaundryandmaybedies

In other news, I managed to find whole rolled oats, wheat, AND rye, on Shopee, and have combined them in equal proportions to test as a carbohydrate substitute for the common bases : rice, bread, etc.

I guess this "spaceship diet" thing is coming together, slowly, over time. Tofu out of shrink wrap, toast, chips, and now whole grains.

Trying eucalyptol additives to neutral tea lights. Greased shoes with new polish - did not finish the last box from maybe over a decade ago.

Adding sound isolating gaskets to front door of flat. Managed two layers within the gap, somehow.

8D chess is hard today.

Added elastic to more old PJs. Glued on more patches to the Levis.

26 dec

Enforced feeding.

Grain strategy sorted. Rolled (wheat+rye+oats) at rm8/kg.

Time to dispose of my brown rice, I guess.

Unsuccessfully tried resurrecting an E27 LED bulb today.

Next, networking meetings.

Gradually unwinding my cold-storage from the past few years through the past decade.

Gradually winding up asset allocations scheduled for mid-careering. It's the end of the second year, of the mid-game.

27 dec

A1: Blue Pocahontas

A2: Blue Moby Dick

A3: Blue Dwarf Fortress?

It turns out that chips are a relatively efficient sodium delivery method, due to surface areas contacting the tongue. A packet of soup has more sodium than two-thirds of a tube of chips. 🤯

Oh my god, I've actually caught up with postponed work to the point where I'm calibrating my sodium intake vs RDI.

29 dec

Enforced sleep. Big meeting tomorrow. No idea where it'll end up. Many chores undone.

Running a business was suitably difficult work from 2015-2020. My perception is that, due to a lack of external pressure in 2021 and 2022, my productivity was low for these two years.

I think I need to aim to catch up. For 1H'23, I should aim to be as busy as I was for all of 2021 and 2022. But that's targeting 400% of past actions-per-minute, and I'm concerned that this target is too high to be safe.

Meditations on nutrition, stimulant dependence, and rates of recovery, to continue.

30 dec

Enforce feeding. Study dopamine.

has anyone started on Greta Thumper and Andrew Twink fanfics

yay - Chrome tab groups can finally be saved

Sewed my first blind stitch!

31 Dec

New Year's Resolutions : instead of writing about a bunch of vacuous targets, with big numbers, I will simply resolve to be in 2023 ... 100% of the asshole I was in 2022. No more, no less. Just like everyone else, I am sure to miss target. Good day. Thanks for contributing to Facebook's stock valuation.

That being said, my blogging is already full of all the things that need doing.

Can I have an OnlyFans account for management consulting?

2 Jan 2023

I mistakenly thought Midea was some shitty Malaysian electronics brand. It turns out it's a shitty Chinese electronics brand. FWIW, I just discovered my mistake, and now feel safer about Midea - so now I would probably recommend it more than I would have recommended it yesterday.

Bear in mind there are non-shitty Malaysian manufacturers, and non-shitty Chinese manufacturers also. Midea is unfortuately, not marketed as either of these categories.

Up next, after a shower, either sleep or essential amino acid calculations. Tests will continue.

Just switched on #opentowork profile photo frames on LinkedIn because I'm too lazy to personally reach out to headhunters at the moment, given the workload I have across multiple projects. Offensive or not, I think the new year is a good time to activate long forewarned actions. The whole point of risk management is to have multiple-failover capabilities.

Cars, computers, talent, food, coffee, you name it ... where they're buying and selling performance without dividing per unit of money and comparing the quotient ... Malaysians really cannot count. But who's blaming them? It is a political strategy.

Second day of the new year. I have concerns about productivity. So I will address them by referring to fundamental concerns of sleep, food, and exercise. There is a lot to do, so I have to remind myself to get started because no one else will do so in my interest.

Reset the laundry station. It was getting messy.

Next : essential amino acid analysis - anyone else studying this in their diets?

4 jan

Brown rice microwave recipe almost complete.

TIL : check volume before acting on a price swing

Someone needs to make Wednesday X Pippi Longstocking

5 Jan

To improve my planning and execution cycle, I need to spend more time memorising my plans.

Angela's dropping a 118 NFT : so that's the payout ohhhh

6 jan

Figured out brown rice microwave calibration today. Ordered furikake.

Creatine supplement turned up in the mail - this one doubles as a mixer for guest drinks, since it is flavoured.

Priorities for 2023 : no time for Chinky New Year, or maybe less time, let's see.

Planning continues. Here are a few things bugging me right now, as a consequence of my adventures over the past seven or so years.

. Most of 2021 and 2022, I made okay money with little effort. At some point in 2022, income before tax dropped by 35%.

. I've seen stupid people around me, keep doing stupid things regardless of consequences, so I have little hope for their improvement in the near term.

. I don't actually have time (priority) to apply for a slew of new jobs right now, as I have allocated priority instead to personal development and late chores. So the base case is, eventually call a few headhunters (not done), put an open-to-work sign up on LinkedIn (done), then just forget about it until the calls start coming in (they always do, eventually), so I can focus on all the shit that I need to do without being distracted by what randos want from me.

. I last drew up broad strategic targets for personal development in 2008. Perhaps it is time to do so again.

. There is a lot of legacy work undone, so I need to acquire the focus necessary for moving four times as fast as I did in the last four half-years, over the next six months, or so.

. A lot could bloody well go wrong ... more income cuts, limited social support if I don't meet the right partners quickly enough, no health insurance (always easier to just die, unless one is wealthy), limited safety in that old car I drive around (not planning to buy a new car until base salary hits 150% of previous ATH - see health insurance above) ... my main limitation these past two years has been actions-per-minute, lack of sleep (hitting 70+% of a 10-hour target), nutrition, and physical development.

I can't complain about material things, by many measures I am wealthy. But the last two years have been a drag, so I will need to improve my control of what I get for my time.

Next : methionine tests

7 jan

On target twice in two weeks, but only the third time in months. Got 10h sleep!

Not sure if it is the supplements, or i just resynced to my circadian. It was 5am to 3pm today

Emergencies on radar, business as usual, and late chores. I must think about work soon

As an anthropologist, the dimensions of human experience are many more. I think the hardest thing about tracking people is that, each culture is finely variegated, and complex in idiosyncratic ways. Networks of hipsters feel differently, than networks of scientists, or networks of business people.

Most people on LinkedIn are business people ... I would remind everyone to maintain a cursory awareness of the other networks around us.

2023 "resolution" (I think of these as tactical portfolio adjustments): spend less time with people who don't talk about 10x annual growth (my own heuristic, for many years). Also Chamath's heuristic is something like 30% CAGR, but he's only addressing financial dimensions. (10x CAGR is closer to Graham's 5% CWGR, which is closer to my risk appetite.)

TIL WiFi band tuning omg.

8 jan

Probably should allocate daily quiet time for rereading of plans.

I've decided that while I hate mayonaise, I"ll make a concession for EVOO mayo. I know people don't like bitter mayo, but I think generally vegetable oil is a boring ingredient ... and EVOO is the only generally available EV with an interesting flavour profile. Maybe cold-pressed grapeseed oil too. But heck, I don't think I have the time or budget for tests, yet.

TID amino acid dosing calibration omg

10 jan

0137h. Post nap, time to study

Nap.

Major networking day. Annual fist bump with boss. New business development. Hang time with acquaintances over years. Back to work after more traffic.

118 trespassers : Some brave white boys are gonna find out ... it's not the heights you reach, or the gear you got ... puppy fat and tatts won't win you the same like some white chick in trackpants. How much is the next NFT going for? LOL. Composition, composition, composition ...

11 Jan

Following white fabric bleaching test with all of : sodium percarbonate, citric acid, sodium dithionite, sodium hypochlorite ... I think the next thing up is to test blue-ing agents.

Caught up on laundry and amino acid studies this past week. Time to rest. Waiting for inflation data next on Friday. Much remains undone.

Throwing fenugreek into cheap vodka has turned put to be the best decision ever. More tests to come with other ingredients.

Tired. I have not accomplished a great deal in the last two years - though I am grateful for small advances. The last ten years have taken a bit of a toll on my constitution. I suppose, I need to keep working on R&R, and to not expect too much of 2023, even though I'd like to be doing as much in 1H23 as I did in all four previous quarters combined.

Moved my ETF asset allocation back to 0-cash after a week ... but now still 36-ish% bonds ( it was 50% cash, and 34-ish% of that was in bonds ). Probably lost a lot of money already. I'm looking at my sleep schedule, and it's not been good this past week. Off to a bad start for the year. I suppose if my results are poor, I have only myself to blame. On the other hand, I'm happy with home ec progress over the past year. More fixing to do on sleep, exercise, and studies. Day job seems like a lost cause for growth.

I'm reminded today that many people believe a human being is "more" that just a blob of moving parts that stores information and operates on that information. This is a fundamental truth of commerce ... all sorts of dumb things have value because people assign romance towards those things. The goal of commercial pursuit is not to be fundamentally correct, but to be technically trendy. That's why both technical analysts and hipsters turn out to be valuable to someone.

In other news, some younger chaps I've been counselling seem to be making systematic progress in focusing their brand for a go-to-new-market campaign. That's nice. Hope it works out, because I also bought shares. Lmao

12 jan

Some quick numbers.

1 - body

2-3 hours - to synthesise titin, an abundant elastic protein in muscles

24 hours - to reach peak muscle protein synthesis ( only another 12 to decelerate to baseline )

trillions - of cells

quintillions - of ribosomes

octillions - of atoms

Did not know about multinucleate muscle cells. Or I forgot.

The math is in ... buying the right essential amino acid supplement is ... cheaper than buying the components, or the equivalent in natural food. Comes to about 3.3 MYR/d ... of course, add a bit more natural food to get the non-essential amino acids.

I guess I should consider this once I'm done clearing the component supplements.

Where have the days gone? Where has the year? I must sleep

Detraining notes : very little that is surprising

muscle protein synthesis high at 4h, maxed out at 24h, detrained by 36h https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8563679/

13 jan

1836h. Enforced feeding time.

RM 10 HK style roast chicken and pork, livers and gizzard, with rice ... in the news cycle's lingo ... my luxury for the week, as I've otherwise moved to whole grains and tofu at home.

Tuned up the soda water recipe. Based on molar masses a clean baking soda to citric acid ratio is 1.31. But citric acid collects water, and we need drinks to have a slight tang, so 1.4 to 1.5 works. Too much kills teeth. Anyway ...

... 1g baking soda

... 1.3-1.5g citric acid / anhydrous

... 2g 50% creatine monohydrate, where the other 50% is flavouring

14 jan

1311h seven ish hours of decent sleep. Time to feed.

Two months of studying the crypto market and I only have 6%+/-2% to show for it. That's not bad if you can annualise it to 30+% a year, but that's a helloda vol. Studies to continue.

16 Jan

Anthropology of retail traders is like going to church. Random things happen, out of control by anyone in the room. The room cheers, or mourns. Sometimes the room throws money into a black hole.

I must rest, but not for long. It is Monday, and work will soon begin. Perhaps it's time for the first all-nighter of the year. Perhaps nor. I will make a coffee, then nap.

Recently reminded that I prefer to study cultures without too much partaking in them. Always a strange business

Today I had to read up on employment law - I did not know, or had forgotten, that "apprenticeships" were explicitly covered under the law. Need to make more use of this.

17 jan

Metabolism. Enforced engagement.

Jan 18

I'm supposed to be at 400% speed vs 2021-2022, so ... where was I around 11-Mar-2021?

With consideration towards the style of taking a few slow years to catch up on fundamentals. Maybe I should stop rushing around for a bit.

Nah, it's been two slow years since the last project ... I need to get my average speed up for the entire epoch.

Coaching Noobs on AI

For those of you who are just starting to get interested in AI because it's trendy this month, bear in mind the following. If ChatGPT is a little silly about factual things right now, it's probably because they're using a mainly unsupervised learning model. All human knowledge is supervised - once they adjust the model in that dimension, the AI will sound a lot smarter.

2023-01-18 at 1:25 am

Gasotransmitter Studies (again)

Finally got around to testing arginine+citrulline supplements, to see if these are actually why I like garlic and watermelon's physiological effects on my work-out.

... chibai lagi, NO is linked to aspirin's use for cardiovascular therapies ...

summary relevance :

- perhaps you've heard of aspirin being used as a therapy for vascular disease patients

- it works on a pathway related to this COX thing, which reduces blood clots

- COX pathways have cross-talk/traffic with NO pathways (nitric oxide, the gasotransmitter I'm studying)

- so aspirin is related to viagra via COX ( haha )

"It was shown that aspirin directly stimulates the activity of endothelial nitric oxide (NO) synthase without affecting the expression of endothelial NO synthase. Increased NO formation was found to underlie aspirin-induced sustained protection of endothelial cells from oxidant injury."

2023-01-17 at 12:24 pm

Consciousness is Boring

Most people still operate on legacy software, that makes them feel wonderfully emotive about being alive. It's a unimodal distribution of motivation ... it drives the concept of family / friends / nation / in-groups in general ... it drives the concept of self-gratification / preference / identity / emancipation ... among other things ... and it makes people wonder where this feeling comes from. It makes them fear death, and disability, and it motivates them to buy insurance, and medical services. They think to themselves, "there must be a reason for me to feel so motivated," and that's where the romance of spirituality takes over, and mythologies of god and ancestrial legacy become stirring. But the nature of the software itself, if you study it closely, is not particularly complicated. The feelings are not grounded in external objects, except for the object that there is anything which exists at all. Generally this is called the Weak Anthropic Principle. Consciousness, I think, is not more complicated than that. Consciousness is boring.

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