Business Motivations : under the Lens of Art vs. Engineering

After jotting down a conceptual note differentiating Art and Engineering, earlier this week, I was reflecting on my motivations for doing business. ( For the purpose of discussion, Engineering is when you want to impose your understanding upon the world, and Art is when you want the world to impose its understanding upon you. ) Why do most people do business?

(A)

I find that most people I talk to are in it for the money. I am not - it's much easier making money just buying and selling other people's companies, and making bets on the overall economy - than actually doing business, myself. To do business with a singular optimisation target of making money, is mainly a form of financial Engineering, I would say. In some cases where the business person is more liberal about how the money is made, it can be Artistic also ... in that the business person is engaged with the activity of modifying their own understanding of the world, and not stuck purely on making the world fit their preexisting vision. What are some other motivations for people to do business?

(B)

For some it is a matter of science - a hypothesis requires tests, and tests must be self-financing, so the tests have to take the form of a business. This is largely what governments, academicians, and venture capitalists are up to. This leans towards Art, as the business person engages for the sake of research.

(C)

Charity. We often read of people executing business in order to "give back". Without further qualification, this is broadly practiced, and generally understood. This leans towards Engineering, as philanthropy tends to have a specific outcome in mind.

(D)

Adventure. This is almost certainly on the Artistic end of things, as one is looking for what one does not know or another state of experience which one does not have.

(E)

Duty. Sacred, filial, or otherwise, some are motivated by the social / spiritual motivation of jihad.

(F, G, H ...)

Mostly I find that I am motivated to do business by B, C, and D.

How about you?

Lens : Art vs Engineering

/ Art vs Engineering /

Engineering has become a very popular word over the first two decades of the 21st century. We can thank software advances for that social phenomenon. But a word, is just a word.

Another word, more commonly used, has been Art. Notoriously hard to define, I would like to take a moment to frame it in opposition to Engineering.

1. Engineering is what you do, when you have a specific outcome in mind. Often enough, the ends justify the means. This is what you do when you want to change the objective world, to fit your subjective vision.

2.  Art is what you do, when you don't have a specific outcome in mind. Often enough, the means justify the ends. This is what you do when you want to change your subjective vision, to fit an objective world. 

3. In other words, this dichotomy measures on a scale how rigid you want your subjective vision to be. If you don't want to change yourself, you are most certainly being an engineer, by asserting that what you specifically want should be reified in the minds of others. If you mainly want to change yourself, you are most certainly being an artist, by asserting that your cognitive state will eventually reify what the objective world will force you to do.

4. Of course, there are man points on the scale, and one rarely picks an extreme.

5. Of course, this dichotomisation is arbitrary study of language, and language is only as useful as its users deem it.

Good day! 

Xref : https://sextechandmergers.blogspot.com/2024/08/neural-development-all-systems-go.html

Size is Structure

 I was listening to a talk by a political scientist. Terms like "structuralism" may be opaque - so I thought of a simplification for the pleb. 

You're heard of "might is right," well then, "size is structure".

Good day!

Yawn : Sabbatical 2 : Quarter 5

Mon 2024Apr1, Sabbatical2 @1.014years ( year2; month13; week53; day370 )

0129 : I believe that human life is individually valuable.

I believe that people who work with a passion will achieve what they want.

I believe that a team of likeminded people who are agreeable in spirit can achieve anything together.

I believe that each person's emotional experience should drive their engagement strategy with other people in our world.

I believe the world is beautiful, and we should work together to make it better.

Happy April, fools. 

0308 : Friend : sends me random messages about how they're feeling about certain subjects.

Me : sends back random screen caps of stupid STEM shit I'm supposed to be studying

Friend : why do I get word salad, when I express my feelings?

Me : you share random stuff, I share random stuff ... neither of us is heavily invested in these exchanges ... we're just chatty friends, right?

0333 : down

1020 : up

1647 : It's going to be a long, painful year, with few useful friends, if everything goes as planned. Finops and physops will be the main concerns.

Got to strategically avoid risky social assets, I suppose. Based on track records of volatility.

More hedging required.

1906 : added salt to my mirepoix today - exciting albeit slow development. gymmed a bit.

Tue2024Apr2, Sabbatical2 @1.016years ( year2; month13; week53; day371 )

0037 : Stuck for over 24 hours chopping down the wikipedia articles on relational database theory.

Wondering about potential brain fog from exercise. Resistance training at the gym : shoulders are out of shape and need more stretching.

Can't control the speed of learning, but can adjust food, sleep, exercise, and portfolio asset allocation to try and minimise stress. Over 20% cash today. Probably should encash some more.

0120 : Surrounded by poverty. All kinds. Stressy stressy.

0225 : Study mode is at least half spent on letting the subconscious mind clear queues, partition spaces, and attach new concepts to old cells.

Appropriate recreation is key, to maximise output.

1014 : up

1116 : Enforced feeding, reading, and work out.

1522 : At 25, I was studying how to organise the campaign to catch up on all the things I postponed at 20. I kept finding new things to postpone along the years.

At 40, I am catching up on things I postponed when I was 15.

I am wondering if, I should properly catch up on the 15-23 period, and keep the list accumulated from 23-40 on the shelf. This seems like it could be a tidy strategy.

2110 : Sent car to the shop to examine the transmission fluid leak. Train. Short visit to TRX. Found that Mercato is cheaper than MyNews. Pharmacies are normally priced. Seibu stationery is the same price as everywhere else. Dinner and walk with a friend. 

Home with tea. Not yet ready to read more on relational algebra, so ... time for some fun with tofu ( OpenToFu ).

2230 : So Cloudflare now has hypervisor-like use of V8 to run different isolated JS runtimes ... which means one V8 runtime can execute many customer JS environments ostensibly in isolation.

Cute. I see the Erlang-ification of JavaScript is progressing well.

"

"

Wed 3Apr2024, Sabbatical2 @1.019years ( year2; month13; week53; day372 )

0159 : A challenging evening of catch-up on launching VMs / microVMs / containers whatnot ... good foundations as I prepare to configure my own Hob(by)Stack.

One interesting reflection was, that union mount filesystems DO increase the efficiency of a FaaS implementation, via deduplicative compression and caching of trees of filesystems, across { projects, environments, runtime-states }

0433 : down

1133 : up

1233 : Can't find a good paper to back up this meme.

""Maximum speed gain from contextualisation of learning is 20-40x, reducing costs to 2.5-5.0%""

Synapses, systematic facilitation, emotional manipulation : play

This is what teachers are really for ... 

And on my own P&L, I have always been my own best teacher.

1444 : Programmers : once every three years, Googling an obscure library's API.

Generalists : once every three years, Googling how (sshd) works in Ubuntu.

Thu 4Apr2024, Sabbatical2 @1.022years ( year2; month13; week54; day373 )

0445 : down

0736 : up

1239 : remedial work on cloud-desktop because google-chrome-stable is not stable 

1838 : met up with friend to return a bunch of stuff. super tired. preparing to nap 

2300 : 11pm train. Nice to have modern infrastructure. 30 years later.

Fri 5Apr2024, Sabbatical2 @1.025years ( year2; month13; week54; day374 )

Sat 6Apr2024, Sabbatical2 @1.027years ( year2; month13; week54; day375 )

0119 : Got clocked by a bike while switching lanes, right after I picked up the little car from a transmission flush. Was looking at a pretty decent week - well then, it's a horrible day, hopefully everything turns out ok for everyone involved. Now just gluing my bumper together, but I think, it is a temporary solution until I order parts online - there are gaps exposing the signal lights to water. One guy is resting, so I am not going to disturb him today. Another guy was more irate, so I have paid him a sum to try and give him a good night's rest. I hope I did the right thing.

0404 : Probably going to waste twelve hours of my life, or much more, handling a traffic accident. Learnt a lot about bumper plastic mechanics while executing a temporary reattachment - it's gonna be zip ties all the way until I get the spare part. 3am dinner outside - phantom power loss ... jiggled the connections ... found a few unattached connections, which I'll have to ask an electrician to snip off later, if unused. Car works. Car goes home. Super stressy. 

Really worried that my friends will come around tell me that I have a lower stressed life because I am not employed by others. I think a lot of people associate stress with incompetence ... there's highly stressed and highly competent ... by the time stress starts to eat into your competence, it's no longer good stress. I'm probably moderately competent at the moment, but highly stressed.

I should probably dial down the risk levels a bit. 

But the market is busy - very very busy.

And so is my little life.

0416 : TIaR : Maslov and Maslow are the same word in Russian. Stop bugging me when I use the wrong name for the hierarchy guy :P #nothingbuttertodo

0440 : studying the process of painting a car 

0501 : Kubernetes or another method ... at some point, you need to be able to live/warm migrate an application/service from a dying pod/container to a fresh one ... otherwise there's no way to ""free the machine from the metal"".

And once that becomes normal, we are start talking about persistent software personalities/souls. 

1016 : up

1703 : Bought a new bumper for the little car. Mopped my car park with degreaser. Good day for painting - dry air, late sunset.

2005 : Strap in and get ready to buy. Tick tock.

2024 : I need to remember to wash my solvents on the shower floor, and not in the kitchen sink.

Sun 7Apr2024, Sabbatical2 @1.030years ( year2; month13; week54; day376 )

1355 : TIL : fibreglass in polyester resin and a 1% harderner are super cheap to work with

1844 : It is commendable of the media and the PDRM : road accidents happen all the time. But the volume of daily reporting on this has swollen, in the two weeks prior to the largest festive holiday in the country. Keep up the good scare.

1958 : argh. it's paint chemistry day ...

2151 : Time for lunch. Ramen and veggies again. Will test new soy isolate stock later.

Mon 8Apr2024, Sabbatical2 @1.033years ( year2; month13; week54; day377 )

0037 : Stress still high. Competence still moderate. That means, tempering is in process. Continuing to engage with slight calibrations in risk profile.

0211 : Did some reading. Competence has flatlined, but stress tolerance is still not maxed out - so I need to expend stress tolerance in some other dimension which has lower frictional fatigue.

Hm. Switch.

0230 : down 

0915 : up. ratcheting back the alarms

1143 : I've now read the Kubernetes manual, and have an overview of some core concepts of ontology and operation. I will now set this subject aside for some time, to allow the above to settle into longer-term memory, freeing unvailable short-term memory addresses. 

Meanwhile available short-term memory addresses will be used for other studies. At this moment I am foraging around to see what will fit.

1644 : I need to set up a [ provision + deploy + freeze + terminate ] pipeline for my entire garage of software projets, omg.

1741 : Culture wars : the #1 Mpop (Malaysian pop) girl band which previously had a 2:2 representation of the nation's Muslim majority ... has now lost one Muslim member, making it just another Muslim-minority entity. Stay tuned to Universal Music Malaysia for further updates. :)

2152 : got more top-stitch thread, but in black ( had tested white ). I guess I should get a monthly train pass again, as I am all up for walks now. 

2208 : earlier today - figured out how kubernetes, knative, and ""cluster api"" fit together, I think.

Tue 9Apr2024, Sabbatical2 @1.036years ( year2; month13; week54; day378 )

0042 : digging into openstack 

0242 : down

0928 : up

1740 : Replaced one bumper and two water tanks on my car. So many unexpected details lol.

1824 : Fixed car. Checking off socials. Market sideways. Studies inching along.

Risk-off. Head down.

2147 : learnt about QEMU and KVM. 

2158 : kubernetes container runtimes : totally need to understand this before deciding to use K8s or to build something else

"

"

Wed 10Apr2024, Sabbatical2 @1.038years ( year2; month13; week54; day379 )

0551 : Building IaaS : for learning how to 

... host block-storage, this may be a good starting point (nbd) : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_block_device

... set up software-defined networking, maybe start here : https://ubuntu.com/blog/data-centre-networking-sdn-fundamentals

0609 : down

1219 : up

Thu 11Apr2024, Sabbatical2 @1.041years ( year2; month13; week55; day380 )

0448 : down 

1122 : up

1508 : Socket programming at 40. Having successfully postponed, and then resumed priority for big things over 25 years, I am very reflective about my relationship with time today

1637 : Gonna try and port some containers to alpine linux.

Fri 12Apr2024, Sabbatical2 @1.044years ( year2; month13; week55; day381 )

0132 : It's hard enough trying to get people to accept their emotional disability. As for other bugs in the system, this shit is exhausting.

( screencap stackoverflow) 

0305 : down

1238 : up

1619 : Fruitless work session. Enforced feeding. Napping and restarting upstream.

Horribly unproductive for 48 hours. Risk profile still too high.

2101 : Horrible day. But groceries are done. Washed.

Repeat the exercise.

Sat 13Apr2024, Sabbatical2 @1.047years ( year2; month13; week55; day382 )

0051 : Poor week for work. Some ups, some downs. But, mediocre performance should be regarded poorly, for the time being.

I had a bit of time off while walking to the mall for groceries. I thought about how time consuming studies are. I figure it is a way of life committed to.

It is very likely there will be little time for many other trades than that of being a software developer. But you never know how things turn out. The important thing is to build good foundations.

I am forty. I am happy with my foundations in various fields. Software development is a good intermediate space to focus on at this time.

We shall see, in a bit, for how long exactly.

0324 : Crypto pops as IXIC pops.

IXIC pops as FFUNDS drops.

See you in 3Q24.

0710 : down

0711 : When it is time to die, just die.

1236 : up

1300 : Rise and grind.

1636 : argh : studying electrical signal engineering -_-

1858 : Time for a walk about town.

2031 : TRX is now my second home, as I can train over for a flat monthly fee. It's a sizeable mall, which is about as close as it gets to a window on the world of retail, from Malaysia. I wonder how long it will take me to memorise every SKU here. Oh well, plenty of time for that, and it complements the senseless study of quant stuff on a daily basis.

Sun 14Apr2024, Sabbatical2 @1.049years ( year2; month13; week55; day383 )

0400 : Some odd (poor? hip?) perspectives I've had on money, over the years.

1990s : estimated cost of living requirements to rent a room and eat basic food ... 138 $/month ... what's the minimum work I have to do to make 138 $/month?

2000s : 30,000 $/year scholarship ... this could be the best job I ever have ... Also with $3000 in the bank, I'm rich, so I'm going to donate a third of it to charity ... Malaysia finally has a minimum wage in 2009 ... if I plan my life around minimum wage, I will always have enough money ... and when it is time to die, I die.

2010s : I need to force myself to invest, or I'll never get started ... time to buy a $26,000 apartment on a 40-year mortgage costing 101 $/month ... also I have $29,000 in current assets ... it's too easy to make money trading options ... I should burn most of this, to force myself to get a job.

2020s : risk assets fluctuate 40% a month ... I am still studying basic diets, and every day is still a good day to die.

0426 : XBT corrects to 62k - no major surprises ... but my timing was off by a week; live and learn 

0542 : Distractions aside, studies are going well this month.

I will need to set aside a solid hour per day, for asset management chores. Mostly checking risk metrics and news. I wonder when I will get around to this.

1146 : up

2105 : I am starting to think that, we know enough about signalling dynamics to actually model a human brain, soon ... perhaps even within my lifetime. So, we watch.

Mon 15Apr2024, Sabbatical2 @1.052years ( year2; month13; week55; day384 )

0338 : systemd-logind : So much shit to do, so little time to do it.

0441 : down

0445 : Wealthier than many, but not wealthy enough to bend nations with ease. Back to work. Sacrifice stragglers. Optimise survival. Prepare for death. Plan for war. These are the ordinary things which make life worth living.

1400 : up

1854 : Tired. Enforced eating.

Tue 16Apr2024, Sabbatical2 @1.055years ( year2; month13; week55; day385 )

0054 : Hung out at 26th floor gardens - figured out how to appreciate it - I keep the brown noise ( low frequencies ) loud in my apartment. So when I go out, it appears to be less noisy.

0321 : ""single system image"" - wondering how to code this up for Linux in 2024. One DBUS abstracting over laptops strewn around the room? 

0449 : I think I'd be (at least a little bit) happier if I could run browsers on remote machines, using my local machine as a gateway.

. work begins on local desktop GUI 

. local ssh client opens connection to remote ssh server

. local ssh client maps remote ports 80,443 to local ports 80, 443

. browser binary runs on remote CPU ( pre-installed remotely, or is sent over and run via lxc image ) and accesses remote ports 80,443

0450 : ok i have an 1130 social, so I should eat, shower, and go to bed a little earlier than usual

0952 : up

1355 : my friend complained that I talk about death too much. Does it worry you, to think about death? If it does, please seek help. If it does not, keep thinking. 😎

1558 : Woke up early for a social. Got a parking ticket. Paid it. Bickered with an old mate on social media. Missed the turning to the supermarket on the way home. Submitted a proposal to building management. Worked a bit on publications. Turned on the noise generators. Time to rest, hopefully soon, back to work.

1646 : My friend said something funny today. ""You are good at fixing big company problems."" Well, I don't know about that.

I sure could hypothesise it, but who can't? A distracting thought, while I am trying to focus on systems programming.

Time for enforced feeding.

Most people seem happy to avoid struggle. I find it is a bit too easy to avoid the brink of difficult choices. Well it is a luxury to have the choice to struggle, or not to struggle. 

1915 : Making a point to listen to music charts for the first time in half a decade or two. Cultural calibration.

"

"

Wed 17Apr2024, Sabbatical2 @1.058years ( year2; month13; week55; day386 )

0540 : down

1223 : down

1311 : Awake. Enforced eating

1924 : Touched up paint on car and home. Venting home. Attending to legal matters. Exercising. Making a note that my ""freeze"" response remains overpronounced, and my ""fight"" response remains muted. Need to work on appropriate stimuli design.

2005 : Lifted weights. Showered. Contemplated the nature of anxiety. The subconscious operation of the body determines the majority of our lives. I find that my short-term conscious computations are alert, but they does not have the full and effortless cooperation of other parts of my mind which are subconscious - one observes the subconscious by observing what data appears in conscious memory, which did not result from a conscious computation.

I am undergoing a period of busy context-switching ... there are two investment projects on a cusp. One matter of civil and criminal liability, unresolved. A multifarious study of computer systems programming. A number of social relationships. Some home and automotive chores.

So I think, I will put on some piano music, which aligns with the tempo needed for meditation, and I will study what more I do not know about why my subconscious mind is making a fuss.

Unfuss the fucker, and then we can get on with more fuckery.

2330 : down

Thu 18Apr2024, Sabbatical2 @1.060years ( year2; month13; week56; day387 )

0040 : up

0220 : Finally getting to study (ssh) properly ... learn all the feature flags, read the wiki, and RFCs. Never had priority to do so since using it in 2009!

0450 : ESG in computing. In 2024, designing a LAN-scale distributed computing system, to utilise aged hardware, for daily computing needs, must take into account the computation per watt available from said hardware. 

So, the system must control not just process orchestration, but compute node provisioning as well. And it must be able to provision (and deprovision) compute nodes based on a posteriori performance-per-watt knowledge of each available node.

0535 : linkedin headline : Career Student | Governance Nerd | Soldier of Fortune

0615 : down

1224 : up

1531 : Going to see about a friend in trouble. Being conservative and taking the train instead of driving. Parking is particularly expensive.

1820 : I was talking to a successful consultant, of sorts. They explained that their sales strategy has simply been to loudly tell marks that their businesses have problems. I am probably not a good consultant because, I have no interest in the success or failure of most people I meet. Sure there is potential revenue everywhere, but I am mostly hedged against needing revenues. So generally, I don't nag. I am happy to point out to people what is wrong with them, and how to fix it, but mostly it does not concern me - you have to pay me to start caring.

90% of the people we meet daily may be successful at what they want to do. But what they each want to do may not concern the rest of us at all. From our point of view, they might as well be debating the mechanics of sandcastles.

Fri 19Apr2024, Sabbatical2 @1.063years ( year2; month13; week56; day388 )

0426 : down

1231 : up

1500 : paid bills

1700 : Halving event extremely overhyped on a very long leash. Still, all in on this asset class within its fund. Just gotta allocate cash to other class funds as well, to stay somewhat diversified.

Sat 20Apr2024, Sabbatical2 @1.066years ( year2; month13; week56; day389 )

0014 : Shit. My vegetables are wilting. Need to redesign the entire fridge layout.

1230 : up

1352 : the day begins with protein - a bit of extra leucine as there was exercise yesterday. perhaps still over-stimulated. i must slow things down a little 

1500 : down. an above average day - billing chores, exercise and emotional therapy for a friend. then home for more housekeeping. placement of market orders. study of HVAC 

1557 : From ops today, managing peer emotions : 

""like i said - whether i am free or not free is not so much a matter of moods - if by mood you mean some sort of feeling.

at this point we are just different people with different schedules. It is ordinary that i will not always be free when you text me and vice versa.

there is zero reason for you to expect more from anyone""

1626 : A curious study. Last year I did something that I don't often have time for - it was a good exercise. I have been making time for people who have volatile demands for emotional support. Over the past two quarters, I've been clawing back resources from such endeavours. But you know, while remaining somewhat invested in the assets, albeit minimally. Lately I have been mostly unburdened by these counterparties, and I think operations have improved significantly. There hasn't been a full recovery to quality, but I think I'm almost back to par. I need to stay focused on improving the quality of my time, and to do less charity as a matter of rigour. More assistance can be granted to others if and when I am properly outfitted for unnecessary philanthropic expenditure. The maintenance of balance between being selfish and helping others is of course, a general problem that plagues all humanity. Many people simply don't think about it.

1845 : Looks like the coming week's study must pivot slightly to economics. ( I am not quite done studying SSH, but you know, emergencies. )

---

The USA continues its 2022 campaign to aggressively export inflation.

B2C effects. As long as US domestic real prices remain high, the Fed enforces DXY bullish foreign policy. In doing so, it creates opportunities for Asian and European producers to seize market shares in sectors where innovation and brand equity are only slightly behind incumbent US brands - US brands display eroding value-propositions unless they cut prices to compete with Asia and Europe.

B2B effects. Downward price pressure on US equities, from growth opportunities outside the USA, is strengthened by risen Treasury yields. Of course, that's mainly what the Fed wants - a tighter noose around the neck of US corporate finance, greater domestic competition, and hopefully a lowered CPI.

IXIC. The moshpit of American exceptionalism remains its bellwether. Innovation and marketing excellence separate the goats from the sheep. On the scale of decades, we still don't hear enough about the quality of technology ex-USA - but in a stand-off between PE optimism and the Fed, the Fed always wins. The outlook averages to be a mixed bag.

The bullish case for cryptocurrencies is generally poor as long as FEDFUNDS maintains its pace. But since FEDFUNDS doesn't move much, these days, all eyes are on the NASDAQ.

1958 : Exhausting decade. Even the restful parts tire me. But that's the problem with being a game hunter, I suppose. At some point the game kills you. 

2009 : r&r is so important 

2213 : Learning about why companies like Netflix may use FreeBSD instead of Linux. 

2311 : Time for coffee. Long-ass, desk-bound, shitty day fueled by leftover junk-food. Don't ask where it came from.

Sun 21Apr2024, Sabbatical2 @1.068years ( year2; month13; week56; day390 )

0228 : I might not live to see someone write and produce the great Malaysian movie (TGMM). But if I do, that would be nice.

0257 : reflection : leucine appears to be helping my metabolism today

0845 : up

1606 : Need to systematically address this massive ops risk issue : brain and muscles competing for protein during sleep.

2307 : This poor country. There is never enough to do here.

Mon 22Apr2024, Sabbatical2 @1.071years ( year2; month13; week56; day391 )

0035 : OK, at some point I need to do a survey of global money supply ( all of it ) and federal interest rate policy history. But I don't feel like doing it now, so it'll have to wait till later - I'm still stuck on passband modulation, tf

0130 : Slapping on the near-term filler-priority list :

- learn how to read katakana and hiragana

- learn German grammar

0201 : The end of another droll day. Consciousness ebbs pixel by pixel, until the brain decides to represent it tomorrow. Or not.

1033 : up

1311 : In marketing lingo, these are promotions. Gold, for example, has many uses beside being a store of value. Jewelry is a popular, but non-industrial use of gold. Bitcoin Artifacts/NFTs are basically jewelry ... 

1330 : It's somewhat telling that BTC Ordinals have been around for 1.2 years, but there's no Wikipedia article yet. If you're into rare goods, you want to get a toe it before it hits mainstream.

2236 : VIX DOWN !!

Tue 23Apr2024, Sabbatical2 @1.074years ( year2; month13; week56; day392 )

0157 : following a random chat about data pipeline architecture - it is time for enforced sleep. I have managed to refactor the fridge, armour the front door post (uglily), clear mail, and insulate and calibrate a little oven. Restful day. 

1142 : up

1241 : The world is as dangerous or opportunable as one is prepared for it to be.

In speech with any other individual, one is so engaged.

In action against the elements, likewise.

1529 : Trial and error with polyester resin. There were errors.

1801 : INTERMARK

A MORE MATURE CROWD THAN TRX

FOOD ALSO CHEAPER, I THINK

SAME TRAIN

2006 : ( Warp = Fill ) vs ( Weft = Woof = Shute = Filling ) tf

2202 : Imposter syndrome :

- the pursuit of work in solitary organisations

- the support of ungrateful people

Ah well, do all the things.

2254 : I must commit myself to less babysitting for a while - or I will not get much else done.

"

"

Wed 24Apr2024, Sabbatical2 @1.077years ( year2; month13; week56; day393 )

0135 : got a bit more painting done on the car - I guess it will be a few months' work of slow detailing 

I have been wanting to do more specialisation in math and physics since I was in primary school. By the time I got to Malaysian secondary school specialisation in the 10th grade, I found that the syllabus for physics quite shit - fortunately math was a bit better. Anyway, I pivoted to other subjects.

While I may be too old to participate in fundamental STEM work in Malaysia (well, never say never), perhaps I will live to see others achieve it under better governance than I grew up with in this STEM forsaken country.

0201 : Reconfigured my screen noise to resonate at 500ms so that I am drilled to intuit standard tick-tock more easily. Mostly this is (htop) and (unimatrix). ( This doesn't work because the timing is off - I should just get a metronome. ) 

1212 : up

1530 : down

1721 : High gum / soluble fibre foods + hydroloading = purging @ waste

2034 : 10kg front row, 63 reps, rest, 64-80, rest, 80-100.

I think this counts as weak. Will run more tests.

2053 : I need to make a habit of being less disgusted by, and more greedy about taking advantage of, disabled companies in my business environment.

Also, I am thinking about how businesses are not often candid about what they exist to do.

2127 : OK - the data is clear : due to Malaysia's government acceptance of single-use plastic norms ... It is environmentally friendlier to eat out than to cook. Unless you shop for grocers from fringe vendors. Well there we go, blaming other people for everything.

2228 : Salt administration : MgCl(2) , KCl , NaCl ... I should probably try to design a way to automate this.

Testing kits are out of the question for pricing.

Maybe just a matter of habit.

Let's try adding salts to tea.

Thu 25Apr2024, Sabbatical2 @1.079years ( year2; month13; week57; day394 )

0248 : Tonight another test. I will sleep on old cushions from the cafe. Not what I planned in life, but hey, if life gives you old cushions ... run some tests.

1100 : Awake. Weigh in. Enforced eating. Salted tea test.

1410 : Calibration : need to take breaks more often, recovering from smaller chunks of work, as total complexity over time increases every hour. And salt up more.

1834 : Opportunities for failure. I am not happy with my current distribution of risk.

For hypotheses about phenomena with long cycle times, it takes longer to generate information. So the majority of what I have been working on over the past year ... academic studies, interpersonal relationships, physical conditioning, sector asset allocation, realestate sales ... all of this generates information quite slowly.

So these past two days I have been attempting to plug in more hypotheses about phenomena with cycle times of seconds, minutes, and hours. Mostly I am working on physical conditioning, but there are some financial market phenomena which warrant attention also.

Fri 26Apr2024, Sabbatical2 @1.082years ( year2; month13; week57; day395 )

0108 : Not my favourite time to sleep. But I still have to sync up with business people for both work and play, so in bed I lie.

Enforced sleep.

0135 : 2023 was such a self-defeating clusterfuck. I did too much charity. I was too nice to too many people. I will overcome this error.

0357 : The further I get into my own interests, the more I am reminded that it comes at the cost of ordinary life. Oh well. 

1145 : up

1321 : Increased difficulty level today, on toy tracker for physical activity. I find that the easiest thing to forget is, that sedentary activity of 2-3 days is sufficient to chop down cognitive throughput by 5-10%, and this compounds over time. One of the main methods to avoid stupidity is simply to give the brain more work to do in kinesthetic terms. #jerngvsmeat

1649 : Sigh. This is where I officially extend my budget ... under my long-term strategic plan ... to stretch the period of study over a decade. I don't think I can reasonably brain it if I commit less time to it - I already tried doing STEM as a secondary priority for the 19 years since graduation, and not much STEM got done :P Done with initial post-college decade, and commercial-focus decade, now on to more mature things.

1915 : Lifted. Fed. Enforced rest.

2257 : Incredibly daft ... how do people mistaken identify the SSH protocol suite to start operating any higher than at OSI Level 5 : Session Layer?

Sat 27Apr2024, Sabbatical2 @1.085years ( year2; month14; week57; day396 )

0257 : down.

1124 : up

1157 : Sleep improved with proper resistance and salting. Direction verified. Full throttle.

1303 : Repositioned and cleaned some fans around the flat. Surveying ops. Washed, fed, planning the day.

1852 : As a joke, someone should redeploy Taylor UUCP on IOT today 

2128 : I like how I can move seven kilometres, mostly air conditioned, to buy a bunch of celery from China for 75 cents, while watching Seibu, Coach, and Tory Burch try to sell things to my fellow plebs. Quite an upgrade from mini buses and the Chow Kit market of the 90s. #happyformertaxpayer 

2301 : Finally getting around to studying TCP/IP at the protocol level. Having postponed work for 27 years ... feels a bit surreal.

Sun 28Apr2024, Sabbatical2 @1.088years ( year2; month14; week57; day397 )

0207 : to bed,a wake to attend in the morning 

1212 : Alright, back to work.

1445 : Prepped some study notes ( most of what I do these days, is prep study notes ). Break for rice and veggies. Brief rest.

1613 : In my twenties and thirties, I thought it would be okay for me to side-step specialisation in STEM because there was a lot of competition in STEM, so presumably the masses would get something right.

I have been disappointed. So here I am, specialising in STEM again.

2050 : Time to mix up my study. Probably lit.dev and webcomponents tonight

Mon 29Apr2024, Sabbatical2 @1.090years ( year2; month14; week57; day398 )

0433 : down

0818 : up

1047 : Rise, and grind. Cleaned some glue off a sheet we used as a projection screen years ago - baking soda was used as dust. Desking with coffee. Catching up with old friends. Wondering which of my current dating app matches will turn out to scams. Studying the frailty of my physical condition. Inbox needs clearing too. Car paint is on pause. Coffee machine is still in queue. Also waiting for the market to drop or pop.

2018 : takes two hours to train to Kepong Metropolitan park, walk once around and get home.

2217 : down

Tue 30Apr2024, Sabbatical2 @1.093years ( year2; month14; week57; day399 )

1217 : Business executed. Time to sit back and study the follow-up process with care.

1425 : Carbo-loading phase of the day.

1529 : Fed's not going to hike unless CPI goes above 3%. Psychological barrier.

Hm.

1548 : Won't cut with CPI above 2%.

Won't hike with CPI below 3%.

Watching the paint dry. And the war cries.

2216 : ""Funerals are for the living."" - a friend

"

"

Wed 1May2024, Sabbatical2 @1.096years ( year2; month14; week57; day400 )

0119 : Surprisingly productive day. One agreement signed, met two new people, and saw a bunch of classmates from ancient times.

PS the VIX is up again.

0234 : When the first man falls, the first thing that comes to mind is that, this is the first of many.

0244 : TIL HTML content categories 

0303 : down

1130 : Following up on a productive day, apparently got enough rest, but need to reset and execute the next day properly. Hm

1237 : As much as I like talking smack with old boys and teasing pretty girls ... my education tells me that if I'm not spending money on people, there's very little in the way of convenience that I provide to most of them. Therefore it is best to keep a moderate distance, from most of them, most of the time.

1544 : I feel a pressing need to study yield curves, money supply, and trade, this week.

But I'm buried under the DOM, with TCP on hold in then next window.

Fortunately dietary concerns are relatively stable.

How does one prioritise?

Note : this is the sort of thing I have feelings about. LOL. MY friends are correct when they note that I don't hold space for their feelings. It's probably the case that space got eaten up by my studies, which are more important to me.

1709 : Tactical : evening rains are falling. Deprioritising park plans today. Hydrotherapy instead.

2217 : Mg supplementation was apparently helpful again. Gotta upgrade this protocol I guess.

2247 : old hat:10x is 2^3.3ish ... I've doubled my money at various points in history, I just need to figure out how to do it more often, and then not give it away, also.

Thu 2May2024, Sabbatical2 @1.099years ( year2; month14; week58; day401 )

0042 : Problems of the privileged : viewing the absence of extraordinary attention as a liability, instead of viewing the presence of extraordinary attention as an asset.

0131 : m.f. short-term FOMC drama ... almost everything is already priced in. At best prices crawl up slowly over the next few weeks. At worst they drop today, then crawl up slowly etc.

0139 : Phyrric study day. Either the DOM Living Standard Specification is poorly written, and at times self-contradicting, or ... I drank too much and damaged my head yesterday. Either way, magnesium supplementation helped today, but I am a bit tired, markets are down and possibly about to go out, and I don't want to think too much about it. So it is time for another shower, more protein supplementation, and then enforced sleep.

0225 : Friend filters : friends get trolled, teased, and stress tested, a lot.

Clients get less. 

Pay for polity.

1127 : up

1155 : 16 May ... let's go ...

IXIC to 15,164

XBT to 50,000

then it should turn around - because in the grand scheme of things, this is just noise

1220 : I had a good sleep today. Protein, B12, Ω3, Mg, before. H20 rinse, after. Upon reflection, I should also soon aim to shift my nor/adrenaline stimuli slightly away from caffeine, and more towards kinesthesia. I was in decent form at the beginning of Sabbatical 2 H1, but H2 was a huge slow down due to social morass - we're in H3 now, I hope for unregression.

1522 : 2024 web development is fun! I'm catching up on the APIs they added in 2018 ... picture-in-picture, fullscreeen, etc.

1536 : Rain hit at 3:30pm today. Guess I gotta leave earlier for the park, next time.

1636 : Rain stopped. Time to park. Let's time this m.f.

1922 : home-train-park-train-home : timed at 95 minutes today, including a lot of waiting at the lifts. My limiting factor for higher output here is oxygen. I mainly focused on forced exhalations today - I feel that when swimming, I have to focus more on forced inhalations. Bitch body need needs higher targets - totally out of shape.

Fri 3May2024, Sabbatical2 @1.101years ( year2; month14; week58; day402 )

0112 : Wow, crypto technicals look like sh it on a cheese board. Gonna eat dinner and think about it a bit.

0256 : down

1120 : up

1212 : Slept 80% to target. Up, and prepping for desk. Grinddddd

1228 : Circling back to financial markets today. Been a bit too long under all the web protocol rot blanket.

1235 : Since I already figured out building, and HVAC ... might as well figure out sewerage for stand-alone homes also.

1406 : I feel sad today.

As I read more and more the view of page administrators who speak of irony and humour, empathy and spiritual formation, and then say, ""only humans could do that.""

It was always sad that people believed this - and now, it is sadder because they say it more, out of desperation to find in themselves an identity that will soon be lost completely.

1558 : Dietary adjustments. Currently I'm running 150g dry brown rice twice a day ... but I've generally been happier with 100g. This is of course, more work. I might have to start freezing pre-chopped vegetables at this rate, to make it easier. 

Ah yes, the organic scale-up ...

2227 : I shop in many markets daily. In three, I am not doing so well :

- knowledge

- money

- women

But yet I have more of these than many other people, so I find myself unjustified to complain.

And I have excesses in other markets which I do not spend much focus to celebrate :

- years of life

- health

- happiness

- aptitude

So overall, though I want to complain, generally I only say about 15% of what nonsense I see being presented to me on a daily basis ...

... it is better to focus on operations to improve where markets are hard.

Sat 4May2024, Sabbatical2 @1.104years ( year2; month14; week58; day403 )

0115 : down

0806 : up

0931 : Trx grocery run to skodeng rich people goods ( though not a lot of actually rich people ).

1100 : Trx first floor, glass window between Prada and Balenciaga. (Spelt it properly.) Great place for a morning coffee. There is a beautiful tree and a bunch of dressed up morning people walk about.

Rich pleb lore : access to the premium concierge is granted for two years, with MYR 10,000 spent within three receipts.

I still don't know what the benefits are. Probably access to spend money on more things - as discounts would be an anti-pattern.

Also the best time to download art historical details from retail merchandising, as every store is seen the way it is meant to be at 10am.

Groceries after this.

1143 : 1130 mall got busy. Guess that's the time to fu ck off

Sun 5May2024, Sabbatical2 @1.107years ( year2; month14; week58; day404 )

0348 : Sad. Talked to too many clueless people today.

0730 : up

0846 : Preparing for the day. Bunch of work to do. Enforced waking, washing, feeding, kinesthesia, and socialising also. Gotta em all.

1553 : Working in a social vacuum on difficult subjects always gives me the heebie-jeebies.

As it should. On we go.

1929 : On to some positivity ... enough whiny people looking for an emotional crutch. So on my walk today, there was a thunderstorm. I was prepared in light clothing. That's about 5km walking around a lake with 15 meter trees in some places. Frankly I was most worried about lightning. I wondered if I'd get fried instantaneously, or just paralysed and maimed. Awesome hydrotherapy. Hope to do it again - but may need better flip-flops.

Mon 6May2024, Sabbatical2 @1.110years ( year2; month14; week58; day405 )

0216 : down. Mixed bag of a day. Swore in regex. Walked in a thunderstorm. Befriended a milf. Met a Haskeller. Meditated on the four or so Fs. Rebalanced portfolio slightly. Ran out of rice. Did only a little writing and study - but it is a horrendous subject, the FAKE web components FAKE standard. Sneers in Trumpiness.

1053 : up

1127 : Rise and grind.

1312 : Observation : creatine and various salts mess with extracellular and intracellular hydration levels - which in turn messes with cognitive performance. Mineral supplementation helps, with a recent focus on magnesium. ( I added MgCl2 to my KCl and NaCL protocols lately ).

Googled around for relevant research. Here is some. https://cedar.wwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1612&context=wwuet

1507 : Both hypertrophy and cognition involve histaminergic activity. Histaminergic activity is correlated with sensations of pain and discomfort. The modulation of histaminergic pathways is therefore a structural factor of both muscular and cognitive devops. 

2336 : Bit of a strange day, with new and old social connections.

Tue 7May2024, Sabbatical2 @1.112years ( year2; month14; week58; day406 )

0230 : down

1106 : up

1223 : Rise and grind. What is the market up to? Why is my celery wilted? How do I attach new elastics to my old pants? How long more before I'm done documenting Web Components?

1731 : Enforced park walk.

2104 : Ah. Well. When petrol subsidies stop, inflation is gonna pop. 

BNM will have to raise the OPR. Corporate bond yields will rise.

Consumers will temper discretionary demand. Business margins will shrink.

This heralds a new cycle of death, and rebirth ... let a thousand flowers bloom ...

The Ringgit will be fine. Government expenditure is on track with expansion. FDI is not directly affected. It will be more expensive to hire Malaysians, but the removal of overall distortions to the economy will set the foundations for systematic clarity, such as we have not had in a very long time.

Snort. Now if only they would fix the sugar and rice problems too ...

"

"

Wed 8May2024, Sabbatical2 @1.115years ( year2; month14; week58; day407 )

0221 : My social life is so depressing. There are like no fun people in this town.

Hahaha. Probably exactly what people say about me.

0222 : down

0816 : up

1912 : Enforced walk in the rain. Dreamt about a friend last night - she was pregnant - completely fictional.

Today, despite the absence of intelligent conversations, I am grateful also for the absence of whingey ingrates in my immediate vicinity.

Food, then back to work.

2200 : on success without the appearance thereof. I felt like that as a college student. I decided to leave it behind and just focus on learning how ordinary people do ordinary things. Maybe one day I will accomplish something else I consider to be impressive.

Thu 9May2024, Sabbatical2 @1.118years ( year2; month14; week59; day408 )

0016 : Protein loading : so baseline for non-athletes is generally 0.8g balanced protein per 1kg body weight. The thing is, the athletic ratio is somewhere between 200% and 400% of baseline. I've given up trying to figure out what my personal baseline is supposed to be, and now my calculators just show me how many g-protein per kg bodyweight I'm doing daily.

0450 : down

1104 : up

1336 : I rearranged the furniture a bit, today. Walking paths have improved, but some storage is now colder than it was. 

I think about why I have limited respect for my peers ( of course, they might feel symmetrically about me ). I have few special concerns for other people, whether those people are God, gods, family, friends, or neighbours. It's not that I don't care at all about these, but that I don't care more for one than the other.

Most people pick some. I only picked myself.

1655 : Mother's day is coming. My friend asked me what I am getting my mom - I said, ""I don't have that kind of relationship with my mother."" In fact, I am happy that my mom is no more - it's one less thing for me to worry about. 

Recently I have met a lot of moms. If you're a mom, and you need a hand, let me know - I can't guarantee results, but I'll see what I can do to help.

2016 : Prasarana : Just look at the communication issues they have. They're operating the business like a utility instead of as a consumer product.

A station is a portal ... portals can be dreadful, or wonderful ... you want people to think about going to the station, even when there's no destination in mind. Less Dark, more Stargate, so to speak.

2255 : Meditating on two decades of planned boredom, may four if we add in the unplanned. As usual, I find it less useful to wonder about why people are boring, and I find it more useful to focus on being productive about my boredom.

Fri 10May2024, Sabbatical2 @1.121years ( year2; month14; week59; day409 )

0016 : Reflection : my benchmark for asset growth is currently about 95x ... or about 6.5 powers of 2.

But I have no timeframe for this game, so whatever.

0325 : down. today b12 may have made a difference 

1145 : up

1247 : Tired. But I guess I'm still 20% under my daily sleep target. Perhaps I didn't notice while nutrition and exercise were lacking - but with more exercise, and increased nutrition, the deficit starts to become apparent. ""Smart enough to know you are stupid.""

1617 : Meal Calibration : 

- subject mass 51kg

- 150g dry brown rice 

- 30g whey protein concentrate, estimated 76% protein

- is too much 

So, gonna try chopping it down to 100g + 20g. But that just means more labour as I have to cook/eat more often -_-.

1622 : Gotta do a grocery run today - so gonna swap out the park walk, for gym, after groceries. Let's see how that feels.

1848 : Maybe one day, I'll get tired of working on massive projects by myself.

Until then, I guess the trauma is just right. But efficiency should be improved.

Sat 11May2024, Sabbatical2 @1.123years ( year2; month14; week59; day410 )

0143 : I watched a bit of Nausicaa with a friend. I remember this being on TV in the 90s when I was growing up. I wonder if my taste in women is shaped somewhat by it. Cute, strong, in uniform, good with meat, good with metal ... generally lethal. Haha.

Also I realised that far too many people I meet actually treat television as a relaxing activity - for me TV is mostly work, because it's not something I identify with ... I go into cultural datawarehousing mode, so it's more fight than feed or fuck in the F-model. 

Interesting.

0452 : Sometimes you lose 25% of your balance sheet in a week, while trying to philanthropically balance work and social networks. If a social network responds by increasing its whinging, it's a clear signal to sell the network. Empathy with blindspots and emotional disability is nice, but some folks are just not making themselves worthwhile. Ingrates are incredibly dangerous to organisational development. Pew, pew, pew ...

1027 : up

1209 : I hate being both cop and civvy, but, long solo projects are ... what they are.

1225 : The reason I stay out of most conversations is, I too easily dominate them.

Better to be asocial, than to be social but bored because you have too much influence.

This is really a B-player thing haha ...

1545 : 100g dry rice cooks in 22 minutes. Perhaps I standardise the use of that time for routines or (memory) garbage collection. 

2135 : down.Well this is rare. Rains sounds to sleep, tonight.

Sun 12May2024, Sabbatical2 @1.126years ( year2; month14; week59; day411 )

0215 : Time to feed, again.

Calibration : I should just fast for three hours and shoot macros after 6am..

0506 : Time to dig into the Russell indices.

0528 : GC report : end of D1 - planning to extend to D2.

 I guess that's reasonable - when I was 20-ish, 24-hour GC cycles were infrequent, but non-zero. Now I'm 40-ish. 

I wonder if that scales linearly, and I'll end up taking 3-day vacations like normal people when I'm like 60.

0611 : Looks like annual protein intake is 30-40kg. Figuring out how to retain most of it, gets reframed a bit. I think procurement is almost settled.

1451 : Mediocre day. I think most people I know are busy with husbands, kids, and boyfriends. 

I went for an early walk in the park, and encountered the Snoopy Run. Imagine the smell of two thousand not particularly attractive recreational walkers ... Whoa there. Perhaps I am still too spoilt by the lifestyle industry's norms. After that I returned home to feed, and nap. I woke dehydrated, and somewhat annoyed. The fix was easy, just water. Then I went to the gym before a shower. It did not feel like a good session, perhaps I have been drinking too much - 1.5 units over two evenings. However, there are all sorts of factors at play, and I am glad to have iterated on resistance training. Then laundry, and another meal, and this note.

1720 : I've witnessed a number of people in pain this week, and I hope they all feel better eventually. I am also trying to figure out if I have any other trauma I need to sort out before Monday.

1906 : This is middle age ... 40 to 60 years of age. Life expectancy is reasonably 80, and 120 is your best-case scenario. (Quarter-life on the same scale is 20 to 30 years of age.) 

--

Hm. Out of shape - even versus a year ago. I think I fucked up my protocols. Too many distractions.

Physical conditioning without protocols? Not going to happen - just like investing without protocols. Tried that for the first twenty years after college. Just too low a priority in my list of interests. Anyway ... need to 

- adjust protein supplementation up from about 2x30g soy to 4x23g whey

- do at least one day of measured mass displacement at the gym ; topped out at 26,600lbs/d a year ago ... with body mass going around 53kg dry, vs 51kg dry now

- use front-crawl in the pool, and measure laps/day : now at a measly 4 x 25m ( need to measure the pool, also ) ... for comparison, ironman is like 155 laps in the fucking sea

I need to get better. I allowed myself to hang out with too many weaklings and to adopt their ways of life.

2006 : down on schedule ... but to what end

2308 : Clear skies with long arcs of lightning nearer to the mountains, tonight. I am grateful for a more quiet office, of late, and space to work on high-value work without emotionally distracted people making a ruckus all around me. Maybe I am too picky about women, but that is only fair as women are a lower priority than other things I work on. Perhaps eventually I will put more effort into looking for matches. Gotta be smart enough to be unburdened by social relationships ... that is rare ... smart enough to handle their own money, and not require me to do things that require anyone's money ... smart enough to manage their own bodies ( physical conditioning , not aesthetics - the latter is the next point )... gotta be pretty enough to fuck ... gotta be smart enough not to get angry, or fearful all the time. A good partner will be hard to find ... there was never the probability otherwise ... and given the low expectation of success, it has always been a low priority.

Mon 13May2024, Sabbatical2 @1.129years ( year2; month14; week59; day412 )

0930 : up

0949 : Sleep 95% on target. But coefficient of readiness was .693, so it took 13.5 hours to get 95% -_-

1029 : Loads of somatic data coming in, the morning after a more physically resistant day. Pain indicates nutritional issues. Of course, hydration first to clear neural pollutants. With water must go the minerals. Then half a multivitamin, and nitrogenated supplements ( creatine, caffeine, beta alanine, citrulline ), while waiting for rice to boil and sear. After rice, will be proteins made more palatable with coffee or chocolate. Perhaps I should also group showering with drinking water because they are alike in source material.

1614 : Meal2 down the gullet. Just rained. I guess it's time for a park walk.

2052 : I'm leaning towards the notion that there's no mid-term strategy in volatile asset investment. Short-term is full-time eye-on-ball mode, and long-term is hodl mode. Doing any quantity of research in the grey-between is a slippery slope. In light of that, perhaps I need to allocate time to specific strategies across each year.

2142 : AI startups dominate Y-Comb's latest : Readying myself to watch another decade of people making huge money from ridiculous tech 😎

Tue 14May2024, Sabbatical2 @1.132years ( year2; month14; week59; day413 )

0205 : Slow feels stupid. Stupid is smooth. Smooth is yet to be proven to be anything else.

0302 : down

1050 : up

1117 : Visiting the taxman today. Need to do groceries. Readying myself for a disappointing week, and decade. Grind!

1253 : Power Game : staying under 5 kWh/day including air conditioning. Context : it's still the warm season, but not the warmest part.

2031 : Q1 : How do you help your friends who self-mutilate their emotions? 

Q2 : How long do you keep putting resources into such charities, if the subjects don't actually believe that they're self-mutilating?

"

"

Wed 15May2024, Sabbatical2 @1.134years ( year2; month14; week59; day414 )

0025 : late to bed again 

0510 : up

0641 : guess small meal discipline is happening 

2018 : Good day for comms - poor day for learning and development. Gonna catch a nap. Wake me up when the data drops.

2213 : A fun day, but not a good day.

2355 : down

Thu 16May2024, Sabbatical2 @1.137years ( year2; month14; week60; day415 )

0830 : up

1021 : I'm still quite nervous and all the technicals still look like shit.

2246 : Someone was selling a new 4K TV, cheap. Looked it up ... then realised I don't even have a computer that can drive that resolution in a useful manner. LOL. Later.

0940 : up000: Fri 17May2024, Sabbatical2 @1.140years ( year2; month14; week60; day416 )

1319 : Today I am working on local government matters.

The motions are four,

Resolution A. Reminder of (ManagementCorporation)’s ordinary legal powers and responsibilities.

Resolution B. Improvement of (ManagementCorporation)’s governance feedback loop.

Resolution C. Guideline on smoke and music.

Resolution D. Facilitating community self-management.

1527 : Taker fees, go.

( I am going for a walk. )

1711 : Off to enforced train ride.

1945 : I had a look at the traditional Swiss defense doctrine, and concluded that we run our lives the same way.

2002 : Working down the thirty-year to-do list ... time to do yoga.

2146 : I reviewed some relationships I had with people, which progressed across my recent transition from paid employment to unemployment. I struggled for about a year before finally scaring off the counterparties. While I regard these people as friends, I find that they have little use for me while I have no budget for their enjoyment. One of these relationships is an amicable reduction of time spent together, and the other relationship is just weirdly full of anger, dissatisfaction, and demands of entitlement from the counterparty. 

I thought I was already quite stingy with my time, but it seems I have been far too generous, still. I must learn to be less generous with people.

2329 : the experience machine: Oddly enough, some of us have this in our heads, and we do go in and out at will.

2340 : malaysian flag :malay mail, 1949, apparently 

Turns out we almost became the malayan union, instead of the united states of malaysia 

The marian symbolism would have been ironic : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Europe

Sat 18May2024, Sabbatical2 @1.142years ( year2; month14; week60; day417 )

0042 : The ritual of a daily walk in the park, is sometimes amusing because there is a thunderstorm and I get to just walk about in flipflops wondering what it will feel like to be paralysed with pain if a lightning strike doesn't kill me. Other times, it is amusing because the landscape is picturesque. Other times, because the age of the vegetation shows from its parasitic accompaniments. Today it was amusing because, among other things, I was reminded that I have something in common with the joggers around me. I have preferred three hours a day of resistant kinesthesia, but I do not currently afford it to myself.

0133 : The humans most disappointing, are those who feel shame. I hope they get better.

0300 : When people struggle to define themselves, in terms of other people's opinions, their observers are sleepy, as the process is tedious and juvey.

1024 : up

1313 : Done with morning meeting on local government. Checked in on hurt counterparties to see that they are coherent. Now for a coffee, then to figure out how to be productive for the rest of the day.

1326 : Slept 75%

Made 2.9%

Weighed 50kg

Need to improve observability.

1454 : Wholllllle week spent around slowpokes. Need to acknowledge the fact, and not get subconsciously aligned with it. Then, consciously recalibrate to what is normal for me. 

1546 : Tried VR headsets for desk work. It just adds variables of control so it's not beneficial if you already have a full field-of-vision monitor rig. However, if you need visual noise blocking or are in a tiny space, then the headset has extra benefits.

1713 : 1. Need to reset biokinetics. Feeding time. Small meal discipline may need to go ... smaller. What now, 50g of rice instead of 100?

2. Move slower on all SOPs.

3. Move faster on all extraordinary business.

4. Maybe find friends who aren't offended by my boundaries. 

1857 : Not sure if my cognition is jerky today because I'm underslept, or overempathising with stupid people.

2025 : Nudged 39% more than 2 days ago, but still 29% down from last year's high. At least something is improving.

2330 : down

Sun 19May2024, Sabbatical2 @1.145years ( year2; month14; week60; day418 )

0400 : up

0700 : down

1151 : up

1248 : Market is doing ok. But I am in no mood for more trauma, so almost completely risk-off. Poor form.

Portfolio doing about what it was in December.

1600 : Was doing 3x 100g dry rice + 4x 23g whey protein concentrate. Whey protein isolate digests faster and seems to excrete faster also, so, switching the protein dosing to 5x 18g instead. 

1651 : Also this week, I think it is time to focus on investment management a bit. So I will work on my market observability tools.

1932 : Transitioning! Turning off social work mostly, so that I can focus more on personal development. Not sure if the first year was a waste, but, it's good to be diversified.

2142 : down

Mon 20May2024, Sabbatical2 @1.148years ( year2; month14; week60; day419 )

0325 : down

0852 : up

1002 : Diet studies : there are two or three protocols to test over the next few weeks.

- B12 after rather than before sleep

- citrulline 2g daily

- chocolate ( because a neighbour gave me more bon-bons and I need to clear them )

2323 : Here's a good illustration of I've never prioritised my success in the professional services industry. Jim Donavan lists six essential skills. It's just not part of my personal brand to recommend that anyone, trust anyone else, ever. (fails point 1) Otherwise, I like all the other modes.

1. Persuading clients to trust you.

2. Quantitative technique.

3. Interest in commerce.

4. Discretion of communication.

5. Confrontational ease.

6. Client-first orientation.

Tue 21May2024, Sabbatical2 @1.151years ( year2; month14; week60; day420 )

0941 : up

1108 : Meal#1 down. Off to the desk.

1324 : What monitors to set up after lunch? Commodities or treasuries? I think I understand commodities better, so I'll do those first.

1500 : Resistance - you probably haven't had any for 16 hours, ya?

1621 : Added a daily reminder :

2125 : studying how securities are delivered at the DTCC, shorting mechanism, brokerage practices, etc. Playing catch-up vs teenagers ... well there's a time in life for everything :P

"

"

Wed 22May2024, Sabbatical2 @1.153years ( year2; month14; week60; day421 )

0019 : Hm. Day B12 protocol, stacked with simple sugars, seems to have resulted in some sort of insulin crash. This is completely hypothetical since I don't have testing kits. Vision was kinda blurry for a bit - hope it's not hyperglycemia.

Anyway, energised around 12 hours post-waking, I went for a run. Ended up at Titiwangsa. XPDC was playing a gig! One of my favourite Malaysian bands. Good old times.

0232 : down

0951 : up

1116 : Hit the desk with a coffee upon waking, wasn't feeling particularly hungry. Still not feeling it, but I should enforce eating, soon.

1318 : Time to drown in classics : 20+y postponed from college ... not quite as long as I postponed computer education ...

1359 : My imagination is a bit overperformant - it's pretty much a holodeck inside my head, in all sense modalities.

I think it's a learnable skill. But contemporary education systems do not emphasise this as much as would be useful. It'll come back more as AI becomes trendy.

You can't build AI if you don't understand NI.

1545 : FIT21 is very important. This amounts to a deregulation of securities by the US government. Looking forward to a bubble, and hoping not to become the bag holder. Also the scale at which this is happening gives the world more ways to short the dollar. So I wonder if it will be related to a future DXY crash. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-securities-regulator-urges-against-crypto-bill-adoption-2024-05-22/

1618 : TRX MPH design flaw : bestseller case is backlit, but not simultaneously spot lit. Told them to add spots.

1909 : I am happy with my park walking daily ritual. Now I have to figure out where to get a rucksack that can carry up to 40kg.

2122 : Monitoring crypto technicals in MYR was a silly mistake. Over to USD, then.

2155 : In slight discomfort from tactical issues. But generally still in a state of great privilege. Will proceed with the day's fourth quintile of feeding, and see if I can get any more desk work done.

Protocol update : got to test moving the multi-vitamins and fish oil to breakfast, instead of dinner.But I may need to wait one day, till Friday morning, to do this, as I am also switching stocks from whey isolate to miscellar casein this evening.

2305 : Nature of investment volatility - you're gonna lose a hundred k every now and then, and it's ok as long as you get it back later.

It's also ok if don't get it back, but your investment mandates have non-financial objectives. Very few people believe this, however.

Thu 23May2024, Sabbatical2 @1.156years ( year2; month14; week61; day422 )

0030 : Just realised that every ISFJ I know is a ball of nerves. It's a thing! I thought the type was a sort of reliable support staff stereotype, but, perhaps that is contingent on very rigid assumptions.

0204 : Year 1.156. Creeping progress. Many simultaneous programs, and lots of difficult people to empathise with. On we go.

1035 : up. Awake. Grind. Reiterate.

1145 : 4:4:9 ... the kilocalories per gram of protein:carbohydrates:fat.

Since I find that I'm eating too much, too often, I should probably replace some of the carbs calories with fat calories.

1347 : Studying petroleum chemistry. Not a super high priority ... but seasonally relevant because I'm digging into commodities. Because I'm digging into markets. Heavy sigh.

This guy! So pretty. Needs its own t shirt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzo(a)pyrene 

1455 : dye chemistry is interesting. so many types.

Fri 24May2024, Sabbatical2 @1.159years ( year2; month14; week61; day423 )

0029 : Ethereum ETH drama : what a lot of tactical work with nothing to show for it. For now.

0053 : I have attained my penultimate form, as your local weird guy, walking in circle daily, wearing shorts and flip-flops, doing push-ups while waiting for the trains to arrive. Every now and then I'm in dress pants and shoes, or reading from a tablet, but it's that guy. That asshole.

0110 : down

1006 : up

1747 : Alright. Done with distracting chores for the day. Back to desking.

1941 : I think I will need to start baking soon. Pushing down costs further from store-bought goods is hitting a limit. High protein/RM materials need to be repackaged into low time/consumption formats.

2027 : Standing by for a massive social chore in the morning. Local government elections.

Sat 25May2024, Sabbatical2 @1.162years ( year2; month14; week61; day424 )

0303 : 1.159 years. Main structural research concern is still dietary economics. Good to work on it now, rather than later in life. If there is a later. Anyway.

Yesterday, resistance training indicated a lack of recovery in short-term energy stores. Accordingly, I'm pulling up the priority of adding fat to the day's low-fat model which was built around brown rice, and soy protein isolate. I wonder if vegetable oil will do, and I suspect it will. There's plenty of space for calories here, as the model is only at 1.4 megacalories before vegetables, snacks, and supplements. An indicator of possible success with this hypothesis is, the notable energetic output on the day I cleared most of the bonbons my neighbours gifted me. Let's see if the rice bran oil, which I have for seasoning pans, will do. At 9 Cal per g of fat, I can probably do another 30g of vegetable oil daily, to test - that's slightly less than five bonbons.

0415 : down

0720 : up

0845 : Raiding of Account3 has begun!

1437 : Done with building AGM#2, ending a year of social choring. 

1527 : Well that was a busy fucking year. Hopefully I am ""properly"" retired from formal and informal responsibilities, pertaining to the government of my residential building, a very interesting $100 MM asset and matter of oversight.

Sun 26May2024, Sabbatical2 @1.164years ( year2; month14; week61; day425 )

0235 : New year begins today. 

0258 : down

1022 : up

1122 : Awake. Optimisation begins. Setting and cancelling of appointments. Coffee and news. Then enforced feeding. The sky is very clear today. The mountains are a dark blue green against high clouds in the distance. I can never remember the names of their types. Closer to the valley, low clouds are forming, But there is nothing in between high, and low, so the mountains are very clear. 

https://www.weather.gov/lmk/cloud_classification

1226 : saw a comedian make fun of tourettes. Meanwhile I have a tendency to plan well-timed ""fuck off""s, when I see direct sales people walking in my direction. I wonder if people think it is a tic 

1321 : SNS is still a bit overstimulated today - need to focus a bit on the PSNS. 75% on-target for sleep, last night. 

1821 : Current backpack straps too narrow for 20kg load - circulation and nerve damage likely. Gonna upgrade since the base target is 40kg anyway.

2050 : Took a gamble on the most basic single bar internal frame rucksack at Decathlon for $38. 10-year warranty? Sure. And I get to study the ""standards"", since I've been trying to build my life around global infrastructure like Ikea, Uniqlo and Decath. Tested it with a 20kg weight in-store, curious about how it'll hold up over time.

Also played with the skateboards, but I don't need one now. Fun. Good old times.

2346 : This evening's study is on essential fatty acids, and the metabolic imbalance of omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acids, and how to fix it.

Mon 27May2024, Sabbatical2 @1.167years ( year2; month15; week61; day426 )

0340 : fairly happy new year's day - did mostly sensory stuff, about rucking. diet model for the day ran well. Will compare tomorrow. Late to bed now. 

1145 : up

1711 : Delivered a physical premise, and have one less thing to do. Phew. OK, it's lunch time.

2053 : Rucked the daily walking route, with the 20kg sack. Not bad. But, I smell worse on the train.

2201 : Oh, it's memorial day. #marketsclosed

2319 : It is ... late. I should sleep. I might need to buy a coffee grinder to facilitate the sale of a coffee machine. We shall see about this.

Tue 28May2024, Sabbatical2 @1.170years ( year2; month15; week61; day427 )

0050 : Looks like XBT is gonna break the 13 March trendline. Twenty hours until the next US market opening, and Asia is usually bullish.

0230 : down

1100 : up.

1503 : I think it's time for me to rationalise my high-sigma portfolio a bit.

Roughly ( i.e. telling only small lies ) over 547 days, my hs portfolio has netted annualised returns in the range of -7% to +37% ( -25% to +80% without lies ). But I should probably start tightening it up to be more conservative ...

1551 : KLCC area is prettier these days, but still boring and uncultured as there is no small trade in these areas.

1645 : The week creeps along, I will not ruck heavy today. I worked a bit on building governance, and my tiny business network. Had to grab a candy bar while getting groceries. Heading home for meal two.

1808 : Time for the daily walk in the park. Snail mode. This research is helpful because I am usually going faster than I should be.

2130 : The sky is clear today, that Genting twinkles with a few hundred lights, and it's prettier still when the cirrus clouded sky behind it lights up with lightning.

2228 : I'm enjoying dietary research, and getting really good at counting calories. I wish I did physical conditioning more earlier in life, but it was never a priority. No regrets so far ... just priorities to be addressed at appropriate times.

"

"

Wed 29May2024, Sabbatical2 @1.173years ( year2; month15; week61; day428 )

0003 : I've met a lot of women who look for emotional dependency in their relationships. It's always interesting to observe people who want something specific, and are very determined to get it - folks like that don't really appreciate other folks who don't want anything in particular. I suppose people who enjoy being aimless will be a perpetual source of frustration to people who enjoy having objectives, and perhaps vice versa.

0349 : Not sure if I'm overworking my brain, or my muscles and PNS, or just having insulin crashes from carboloading.

0353 : down

1015 : up

1505 : Done. Official unemployed. LOL

1807 : Debt collection metrics are up! Good weather this month, I guess.

1923 : Enforced park walk.

Thu 30May2024, Sabbatical2 @1.175years ( year2; month15; week62; day429 )

0109 : Supper time. It is Maggi Kari, again. Thoughts while away from my phone :

I wish I knew more inspiring people - in fact, I wish I knew any at all. In the absence of things to envy, one has to figure out how to make something worthy of envy, in a void. And that is how time passes, when there are too many years to kill, and too few people to love, on this earth.

1028 : up

1158 : Time for meal1. Seems like a procurement day for machines.

1557 : Ah, I learnt a good thing. Instead of just cost averaging out of cash, income averaging into cash, is sensible.

1827 : A lot of social work today. And yesterday. And the day before.

1836 : It's sometimes notable how many business owners are struggling to make a profit without understanding what their customers want - while there are folks walking around who understand the market very well, but who aren't trying to profit from it.

2348 : down

Fri 31May2024, Sabbatical2 @1.178years ( year2; month15; week62; day430 )

1040 : up

1146 : clearing photos

1436 : Market has been quiet for a week. Every bit of noise slaps loudly - but little of it matters in the long run.

Taking the opportunity to work on simpler things - like touching up the paint on my car. I need to study respirators for the next hour or so.

1751 : updated the paint on my seiko and took a dip in the pool. weak and stupid today, nevermind money. gotta get stronger and smarter.

2251 : The wetware of a dog and a human are more similar than the software of a human and a machine. But the interesting thing is, that is going to be falsified in our lifetimes. Many will not contemplate it.6

2330 : Some days, I think, maybe I should stop being friendly with stupid people. It just makes them angry, and adds to liabilities. Of course, the conservative approach is to be more selective in conversation. Unfortunately I am not so loss-averse. On we go ...

Sat 1Jun2024, Sabbatical2 @1.181years ( year2; month15; week62; day431 )

0022 : Some days, I think, maybe I should stop being friendly with stupid people. It just makes them angry, and adds to liabilities. Of course, the conservative approach is to be more selective in conversation. Unfortunately I am not so loss-averse. On we go ...

0041 : A lot of decade-long projects are getting wrapped up just now. A mediocre decade, a good quarter decade, a poor year. I don't feel particularly accomplished, in fact I feel quite dense. However, this is already a position of great privilege and I am moving faster than some billions of people ( it is boggling to mind ) - any remaining sloth I can blame on poor fortune, such as any privilege can be blamed on good fortune. Ah, it is such a lazy position. Really, anyone could say exactly the same thing about themselves no matter what their standing. Yet many do not because they are not clever enough to reflect.

0247 : I should probably aim to wrap a chunk of my hardware chores in June.

I should probably also, remind myself that caution in all things is not foolish. For each minute I work on one project or another, sighted, yet a dozen more are out of sight and often out of mind. And there is no way to guarantee that one can hold all strings together.

0320 : down 

1121 : up

2100 : Every next minute in life is a set of unknown variables. Time to act. Off into the darkness I go ... we have supplies to refactor.

2228 : Time to divest down to 30% or so, before data week comes in hot ...

Sun 2Jun2024, Sabbatical2 @1.184years ( year2; month15; week62; day432 )

0214 : Repacked my rucksack. Trying to tidy up a little before bed. Hoping for a productive month.

0230 : Housekeeping has improved to the point where it's actually feasible to take all my gear from two flats, stuff them into the forward base, and sell the storage unit. I can, but I really shouldn't.

0338 : down 

0802 : up

Mon 3Jun2024, Sabbatical2 @1.186years ( year2; month15; week62; day433 )

1414 : Sungai Tekala falls : hundreds of plastic tourists downstream, with gas cookers making french fries by the water, leaving rubbish uncleared. So come earlier morning before traffic.

1942 : Waddle waddle asset allocation waddle waddle splat.

2011 : A reasonably priced, but rather social weekend ... now I am recalibrating my nervous system to baseline, before I proceed with further work. 

2015 : Quiet Time : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiet_time#:~:text=First%20developed%20in%20Christian%20and,the%20founding%20of%20Alcoholics%20Anonymous.

I was wondering about the origin of this term in Xtian traditions. So now I can date it to 1945 lol.

2045 : Scenario : 6 June : ECB rate cute -> DXY down -> IXIC down -> crypto down

2241 : When you look at PPP-GDP/capita, the US pull something like 75k, Australia 65k, New Zealand 48k, United Kingdom 45k, Japan 38k, China 13k, Malaysia 12k. It's fascinating ( to a noob ).

2257 : I should really study the very good Wikipedia article on HK swear-words, as I still haven't processed the language taught to me on the school bus thirty years ago.

2335 : $22.30 went to a minimal 3M respirator and four organic vapour and particular combi filters. It feels smaller in dollars, but is a great many Ringgits for a minimal amount of protection.

Tue 4Jun2024, Sabbatical2 @1.189years ( year2; month15; week62; day434 )

0200 : down 

1057 : up

1635 : Hrm. Having locked in the gas respirator yesterday, I probably should review water filtration today. 

1943 : What is a pleb? I was thinking about the buckets I sort people into when I see them. I guess in my head, a pleb is anyone who is dissatisfied with their situation in life. This isn't the conventional definition of course. But if you're looking for material growth ( including money ), or respect ( social capital ), beyond what you already get without moving a finger, then you probably live in the pleb bucket in my head.

1948 : I guess BNM does open-market operations to keep the USDMYR below 4.79. It keeps bumping up against that number then sitting down again.

"

"

Wed 5Jun2024, Sabbatical2 @1.192years ( year2; month15; week62; day435 )

0558 : I suppose year-one was constricted by second-parties. Year-two is less so, and I remain the sole cause of delays. It is an awkward period of rationalisation. There are many things to consider. Work begins again in two minutes.

Thu 6Jun2024, Sabbatical2 @1.195years ( year2; month15; week63; day436 )

0936 : up

1452 : Time to get a global brokerage account. Can't sell the storage unit yet - prices no good. After research into water filters, and paying the power bills.

1547 : Working on fund accounting. Ugh. Throwback 2007.

1931 : non-farm payrolls drama in 58 minutes ( no, that's tomorrow ) 

2210 : I think a massive operation to loft the square bed is happening tomorrow. Just shy of two years living in this flat. Ugh. More risk.

Fri 7Jun2024, Sabbatical2 @1.197years ( year2; month15; week63; day437 )

0300 : Subconscious is quite active today. Pros and cons. More stuff gets done under the hood. Less conscious control..

1356 : finally Facebook can auto post from IG and FB to Threads. This consolidates 15 years of waiting for Twitter and Facebook to unify. .

Sat 8Jun2024, Sabbatical2 @1.200years ( year2; month15; week63; day438 )

0211 : down

1006 : up

1745 : Yesterday was a testing day. Today should be a planning day. Tomorrow should be a cleaning day.

1906 : Asset allocation today : I'm still wary of a 20-30% drop in crypto-mains, if the economy remains boisterous. So while my crypto portfolio is now 0% cash, I am reminding myself to allocate further funds to non-crypto assets for the time being. 

2125 : Looks like they're about to pump ... well, it's up or down, not much sideways ...

2246 : HSI down but stabilised, commodities down, NASDAQ up, DXY flat ... maybe a good time to shift towards equities this week.

2307 : Time to rest. A turbid day, with turbid risks, in a turbid life. My happy thoughts are with my friends who are doing great things with their lives. I ran out of great things to do, so many years ago. I am just lucky to have a few peaceful hours here and there. Eternal vigilance, something something 🐽

Sun 9Jun2024, Sabbatical2 @1.203years ( year2; month15; week63; day439 )

0220 : I was trying to think of an instance where spending more than the price of a Happy Meal on a first date worked out in my favour ... see, mainly my problem is snobbery, I rarely ever think of things that people sell are worth my money, so the more I spend, the more disgusted I become, and if the date actually likes stuff I find disgusting, that doesn't work in my favour either. Then I remembered one time, where my date had significantly less income than I did, right, that kinda explains a lot - maybe she didn't really ever like me, but I suppose that'll always be up for debate.

0935 : up

0955 : Time to feed. Lots of cleaning to do.

Mon 10Jun2024, Sabbatical2 @1.205years ( year2; month15; week63; day440 )

0330 : down

0835 : up

1650 : Option to raise fridge 55 inches above ground.

1800 : Pain is temporary.

Honour is forever.

Bullshit ... helps time go by.

Tue 11Jun2024, Sabbatical2 @1.208years ( year2; month15; week63; day441 )

0042 : down

0943 : up

1628 : XBT volume has been very low, I reckon it could go down to 60-64k with minimal support ... later the bulls will just shove it back up all at once from a low price. Below that, hedge funds could still push it to 55-60k, but there would be a bit more controversy, and volume involved - unless the IXIC and/or gold are both in freefall after economic data drops later this week - then no controversy, and low/mid volumes should be sufficient.

"

"

Wed 12Jun2024, Sabbatical2 @1.211years ( year2; month15; week63; day442 )

0517 : Flat layout refactoring almost complete. How tedious.

1148 : up

Thu 13Jun2024, Sabbatical2 @1.214years ( year2; month15; week64; day443 )

1809 : One error discovered, a little too late in the day ... so, it will carry over till tomorrow, and then hopefully it will be completely resolved.

Fri 14Jun2024, Sabbatical2 @1.216years ( year2; month15; week64; day444 )

2052 : Feels great to utilise assets developed over 11 years. Pretty much ready to shut down the storage unit now, but I might still keep it.

Now that the Fed has projected expectations till EOY, I'm expecting a small pop in markets later, and a gentle rise, until the next swan.

2133 : Refactoring work infrastructure is expensive. I've been eating out instead of in, at some 500% of normal costs. Well, hopefully this smoothens out soon. I think I stress drank like six sodas today. Diet, albeit.

2213 : So ... a KIA dealership is opening up down the street. I haven't done car sales before, and was wondering if I should give it a shot as a student job.

So the LAST TIME I SOUGHT A STUDENT JOB ... I worked as a bartender on Changkat in 2008, subsequently helped someone to launch what turned into a major local brand in 2013, and then raised money and got myself stuck in the industry for six years beginning in 2015. Gosh.

Sat 15Jun2024, Sabbatical2 @1.219years ( year2; month15; week64; day445 )

Sun 16Jun2024, Sabbatical2 @1.222years ( year2; month15; week64; day446 )

1657 : Busy ass week. Burnt a lot of money. Back to routine in the coming week, I guess. Also not looking forward to nose-diving markets, but wth, it's the market.

Mon 17Jun2024, Sabbatical2 @1.225years ( year2; month15; week64; day447 )

0506 : Semi-productive evening. Kitchen is largely sorted.

0643 : down

1354 : up

1731 : The one excellent use of cellophane tape is to repair cling wrap. I really don't know what else it's great for. Sure, it's good for lots of things, but greatness is slightly beyond its grasp.

Tue 18Jun2024, Sabbatical2 @1.227years ( year2; month15; week64; day448 )

0433 : down 

0943 : up

1457 : I was wondering about the sanity of my fund returns dropping from +64% to +5%, then I realised the main underlier has done -56% in the same time, lol.

"

"

Wed 19Jun2024, Sabbatical2 @1.230years ( year2; month15; week64; day449 )

0547 : Crash time. Decent progress in home design and development. But social chores take up so much of the days

1230 : up

Thu 20Jun2024, Sabbatical2 @1.233years ( year2; month15; week65; day450 )

0939 : This week in meme fashion

Out : Hang

In : Hawk

1103 : I was hanging out with my friend who watched food review videos on TikTok. It came to mind again, that I find people who get excited about consuming food, family, fashion, cars, travel, and things like that ... to be dangerously stupid. I find myself in those subsets from time to time. But if I think these are stupid, one might ask why I invest so much time to study these things. Well, it is plain and simple. As they say, keep your opportunities close, and keep your threats closer. To live safely among plebs, one must fully become one.

Fri 21Jun2024, Sabbatical2 @1.236years ( year2; month15; week65; day451 )

0230 : enforced bedtime

1238 : up

1308 : Enforced waking

1514 : YIL : Phillips makes really good keyboards.

2252 : Today's workout was - degluing bottle.

Sat 22Jun2024, Sabbatical2 @1.238years ( year2; month15; week65; day452 )

0212 : Rest. Remaining wary. Market remains frothy. All developments have tail risk of imminent collapse. A feckless day. Not sure if it was the six hours handling tax forms, or the hour of scrubbing glue off glass bottles, or the miscellaneous furniture repair.

If I don't die, I progress.

0305 : It is cool enough to open the windows today, in bed. Deinsulation also admits the higher frequencies of the city's soundscape. Street and rail below are much closer again. These days I am denominating my protein in terms of halves of the minimum daily dose. Today I had three halves. I rest and restore my memory structures to accommodate desk studies again, after two weeks of built environment studies.

1014 : up

1821 : Electrical refactoring and furniture repair. Ugh.

2049 : Great time to wrap up office remodelling. Next I need to restore physical conditioning standards to what they were three weeks ago. Then time to refocus on markets.

2211 : Risk off. I need a holiday.

Sun 23Jun2024, Sabbatical2 @1.241years ( year2; month15; week65; day453 )

1956 : Pet peeve : shallow people looking for deep conversations on dating apps.

2359 : Alright. Hauled in more hardware from Kajang. Sold off most of my crypto this weekend. A bit of consolidation, for the short-term.

Mon 24Jun2024, Sabbatical2 @1.244years ( year2; month15; week65; day454 )

0220 : Mostly unpacked today's haul from storage. Closed off final crypto sales with taken orders. 77% cash now - typically we joke that tomorrow the market goes up by 100%. I have to do fund accounting now. And to check on taxes for something else.

0426 : Monday : 

- tax office

- hardware studies 

- finance studies 

- culinary studies 

- hypertrophy studies 

1330 : up

2007 : Tidied up Kajang a bit, and hauled more stuff to KL. Market dipped further today, so I'm happy that I got out before that. I should really focus on hardware and finance for the year.

Tue 25Jun2024, Sabbatical2 @1.247years ( year2; month15; week65; day455 )

0910 : up

1201 : Why Malaysia is poor : I recently engaged with the real property gains tax process, and found it to be full of failure modes, duplicated effort, and manual processes. Maybe if it was actually easy to collect tax, more tax would be collected. If I were a billionaire, one of the first things I'd do would be to volunteer to reengineer the tax collection mechanism to lock down more national revenue.

1205 : On the ""yellow pages"" business model in Malaysia. Right solution for the wrong problem : it's not hard to get recommendations - it never was.

But it has always been hard to ensure legal process, in quality control, and the absence of that, for decades, has been the fault of the government.

1326 : Asset allocation plan set for the week.

SOHO state is 90%-ordered. Will improve.

Other chores to peruse ...

"

"

Wed 26Jun2024, Sabbatical2 @1.249years ( year2; month15; week65; day456 )

0209 : coffee and desk work. so much for sleep hygiene. Moderate partying for the past two weeks - back to very budgeted work, I think.

0343 : Looking at XBT to zoom up a bit, but if it doesn't get past 65k, looking for it to zoom down below 58k. Enjoying my holiday - only 20%+ invested in this asset class. 

0420 : down

1136 : up

Thu 27Jun2024, Sabbatical2 @1.252years ( year2; month16; week66; day457 )

0244 : Hm. Straight line of sight from entrance to balcony. Long board for meetings ( behind monitor ). Considerable walking path around island. Monitor shielded from glare. Balcony door curtain rail made pernanent. Verticalised storage for raw materials and tools. Seems like finally, after three years, this space is hewing closer to the original design.

0356 : Sanity check. Had a look on Glassdoor. Khazanah folks still making just $100-200k a year. Even if we're off by 100%, small potatoes. Gotta just focus on the bigger picture. Much to learn for a few years.

0403 : Over the last 18 months, MYR denominated returns in global equities have been excellent due to the MYR correlation with the CNY and JPY, which have all slid due to DXY strength. I need to give some thought to phasing out of global equities somewhat, and into Bursa tickers just before the Fed starts to cut and the USDMYR starts to drop below 4.6.

I don't know man ... what do you think?

0510 : down

0908 : up

0928 : I dreamt of my ex who idolised Maggie, after realising that her elder sister looks like Mirren. We were happy. Dream type : wish fulfilment.

1351 : Submitted a Foreign Exchange Policy query to Bank Negara. I feel very important, for no good reason.

1652 : Half asleep, but many chores were done. Perhaps a nap.

1835 : Front crawl practice - weak, but smart enough to actually study the situation.

Groomed, overdue.

Coffee, and study of TRIAC regulator circuit.

2115 : Focus returns from the moving and sorting of stuff, to the study of stuff, and its use in physical and mental conditioning.

Fri 28Jun2024, Sabbatical2 @1.255years ( year2; month16; week66; day458 )

1514 : xbt : Still sniffing around for blood. 48k guardrails. 

1629 : 85% cash. Sell more.

Sat 29Jun2024, Sabbatical2 @1.258years ( year2; month16; week66; day459 )

2336 : Strangely, in 2024 ... it suddenly makes sense to own multiple tablets because ... THE CLIENTS ARE BLOCKED BY THE SERVERS ... so client A waits on device A, and then you open up client B on device B and do something else while waiting for A to unblock. Holy shit.

Sun 30Jun2024, Sabbatical2 @1.260years ( year2; month16; week66; day460 )

0422 : Moving a bit more from cash to global equities, and reducing the size of crypto buy orders for both long- and short-term positions.

0535 : down

1509 : up 

1547 : 

1632 : In business I would generally focus on managing people. But i can never find enough people who do quality work, at a price i am happy with lol, so I end up doing a lot of training by example. I guess I am a cheapskate and a snob.