Tag: t_jolt22

sharp reminders I tend to forget

##habit2brush-aside %%achievements + cohort

Posted on by tiger40490

I have a habit to dismiss/brush-side/ my competitive achievements by … brushing aside the cohort ! I tell myself things like “矬子里拔将军”. However, this is a distorted perception of reality about the cohort. Most the time I lack minimum knowledge about the cohort to reach that assessment.

— eg (trigger): 2023 JPM5.6km | I won 2nd place among MLP runners but I tend to brush it aside by assuming that my peer group are not fit enough.

I was #344 among 6000 “visible” finishers, but there are total about 10,000 participants in Singapore. All participants are serious about CRE.

The large sample size gives credibility to the statistics, so my city-wide personal ranking is far more accurate than the company-wide personal ranking, but I tend to ignore this fact and brush aside even a large-sample, highly credible assessment.

— eg: 2026 Tyco sport event | #1 in 400m.
Whenever I am #1, I would brush aside the cohort automatically ! However, there were good runners! I have no justification to ignore it.
— eg: 1989~199x I was the top physics student in Shiyan (lower and upper years). I routinely brushed aside my entire Shiyan cohort, saying that Shiyan cohort was strong in math, not physics.

That perception of reality was unfounded. Math and (theoretical) physics talent are highly correlated.
— eg: 1993 HJC | AO level Chinese exam .. HJC was the strongest JC in this subject. The exam actually featured composition!
— eg: 1992 or 1993 HJC | American high school math competition | international champion team. I was the first among 4 or 5 team members to go on stage to receive the prize.

HJC was a powerhouse in high-school math across Singapore and SEAsia, and I simply ignored that and brush aside the entire Singapore cohort.
— eg: 2016 UChicago | GPA 3.75.. There is really no weakness in this cohort, but still I brushed aside the cohort .. _irrational_

Even if I were to score near the top in MIT or Stanford, I would still brush aside the cohort.
— eg: 2010 Citigroup superday | #1 pick ..
Q: is there any justification to brush aside this cohort? None. I actually worked alongside these guys later in Citigroup, so I know them personally.
— eg: Over the 2010s I was an elite WStC candidate. Then I was told that Europe candidates and WSBA techies were visibly stronger on average. Wholeheartedly I have since accepted the inferiority of the entire WStC cohort.

Basically, I brushed aside my cohort to devalue my own achievement and preeminence.

Putting on a critical hat, this perception of reality is flawed, unfounded and biased. My first-hand assessment of those “external” counterparts was unconvincing. Europe salaries are measurably lower than WallSt. Europe clusters (London, Frankfurt, Zurich,,,) won’t beat WallSt in talent diversity.

健忘: error-free trips #realistic expectation

Posted on by tiger40490

k_short_term_mem_challenge … k_mellow

We all hit forgetful accidents when we go out[1], and we end up losing personal items.

For many adults, as we grow older there will be more forgetful accidents.

I won’t surrender passively, but I won’t hold on too tight either. I think grandma has many such memory accidents since midlife. Grandpa also has some. They are normal individuals. Given my recent forgetful accidents, I really need to avoid carrying expensive items when going out such as

  • extra cash
  • expensive watch, jewelries
  • expensive phone or two phones
  • expensive specs

jolt: Somehow, the retainer loss ($200) felt less painful than pouch loss. Pouch loss requires lots of legwork.

— When hsbc movie card balance = 2, buy a new card but don’t carry both. Risk is running out of card balance by accident.
— on the go: avoid unnecessary checking .. on phone, wallet, laptop etc when outside home/office. Probability of “accident” is slightly worse when outside due to distraction, but cost of accident is significantly worse. Each time we check, an valuable object is at risk of loss or damage. Some item could drop into a bad location or break.

For 0.txt printout, accident is less likely as it is in a low-risk pocket?

— retainer .. don’t wear every day n night. Let the gum rest.
don’t ever leave it on the table, even at home. Develop a strong habit of always keeping it in pocket or container. If you think you are forgetful, then remove before going out.
— realistic expectation
Q: Out of 20 flights you take, how many percent of them would be error-free? What’s a reasonable target?
A: 75-80%. I once left behind jacket, hand luggage (Bali); and missed connecting flights twice; took wife’s passport;;;

Compare to other “experiments”, a flight is typically longer duration, with more moving parts and “error-prone” moments.

Q: Out of 100 commute trips, cinema trips, library trips, how many percent of them would be error-free? What’s a reasonable target?
A: 90<-95%. I often left behind phone, mrt card, wallet,,,

Q: Out of 10 family outings, how many percent would be error-free? What’s a reasonable target?
A: 85<-90%.

Therefore, it’s unreasonable to expect 99% error-free. An unrealistic expectation creates excessive pain, burden of guilt, burden of blame, zsms,

Analogy — in a bottling plant, 2% of the the liquid is spilled during the bottling process. If you try to reduce that to 0.1%, then your precision equipment would increase the cost per bottle by more than 2%, completely unworthwhile.

— [1] Some risk-averse individuals may choose to reduce going out. I have an alternative — travel light i.e. carry fewer expensive items. We can also carry cheap spares.

It’s worth pointing out — Even at home, I have lost some items due to misplacement, but so far nothing valuable.

— compare to exams .. in Shiyan and other top schools, many students aim for 100%. Takes years of practice. I think it’s worthwhile if the results actually determine your college admission.

In SG, for each subject there’s only A/B/C not 3-digit scores. Some forgetful accidents may not affect the grade.
— compare to software testing .. except calculators like tax or interest calculators, most realistic software systems can’t achieve 100% test coverage.

Unlike exams, software testing is not primarily about forgetfulness, because there’s a system to generate and track all corner cases. Therefore, the SWE who are less forgetful (about minor details) have an advantage that’s much smaller than in the China exams.

Macq meet-up : the young ones

Posted on by tiger40490

In Macq 2015 or 2016, I attended a meet-up social event for “employees below VP”. I was visibly the oldest among the attendants, mostly in their 20s and 30s. I felt OK until the organizer’s opening remakrs referred to the meet-up as “…the younger employees”. I soon left and never attended another session. It’s a shocker that left a long shadow.

Put yourself in my shoes. If you feel ashamed of your age/rank, I think it’s normal (not ideal [1]). If the shame drives you to improve your overall professional effectiveness, not mere OC-effectiveness,  then good. If the shame drives you to seek leadership roles, then it could be deadly — Not everyone is suitable for leadership.

There are also non-managerial leaders such as technical leadership roles. Again, I don’t see the necessity to “climb” in those directions.

Q: What’s wrong with a greying techie not occupying any leadership role, just a foot soldier until retirement? WallSt contract roles are the best example I known.

[1] The shame is a toxic by-product of the drive en masse towards greater/bigger/higher i.e. more visible “success” as defined by exclub. We parents often push our kids to “achieve” more and get ahead, but remember the 4 def@success.

## effi^Dependency #weakening

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Now I think most of my efficiencies, my peers’ efficiencies, organizational and government efficiencies are built on (“dependency”) some technologies. Dependency and efficiency might be the two sides of a coin.  In economics, another team for efficiency is productivity, largely correlated with technology. In this blogpost, I choose to focus on a specific theme “efficiency^dependency”, to avoid creating a vague, boundless blogpost.

Economics is about choices. If a /resource/ provides a new choice to achieve a goal, vs an older choice, then we compare the two choices in cost and benefits. I propose an acid test — A dependency is an _unhealthy_ choice if either
– costly .. more costly than alternatives, in t$
– or not dependable .. [including unavailable] in some important contexts

Q2: does it matter if no one else depends on this thing?
A: not much beyond my 2 criteria. The self-learning endeavor is slightly resource intensive.
.. Jolt: Most people in my community are not serious about this endeavor so they make do with a tiny screen ! This is similar to my attitude on cooking — I make do with simple healthy food as I don’t care about taste.

Q3: does it matter that the dependency tends to weaken our self-resilience? Walking stick is low-cost but not always available.
A: Yes I have seen it throughout my life and I try to reduce the weakness. But ..
.. Jolt: Consider King’s speech.. his dependency on his speech therapist makes him resilient rather than weak. The King is a symbol of fortitude. Costly and imperfect availability, but he has no better choice.

  • eg: 5-laptop set-up .. (all active). It sounds like over-dependency, but I would argue that the incremental benefit/cost is favorable at each acquisition. Cost and dependability both acceptable.
  • eg: dependency on office/McDonald/MRT as /harbors/ .. enhance my self-care, well-being. Cost tolerable. When unavailable, I was coping with some difficulty.
  • — blogging, learning .. See Q2
  • eg: printout for work/learning .. (in general). It does enhance my efficiency, proven over 20Y. When availability is a non-issue, this dependency is tolerable.
  • eg: 2-printer home set-up… does enhance my efficiency. See separate blogpost
  • eg: printout for paper-blogging .. does enhance my efficiency. (In this example, I want to focus on printout for _blogging_.) Consider the cost and reliability of basic printers, I feel this dependency is lower than the online-blogger’s dependency or the offline blogger’s dependency.
  • eg: my dependency on books .. inexpensive but not always available. I functioned well without books.
  • — wellness, where (jolt –> ) the “cost” of managing ill health is much higher
  • eg: yoga studio. See separate blogpost likes [21] 3M$450 PlatinumYoga reboot
  • eg: see the blogpost on $7.50 salad
  • eg: With dental hygiene, I rely on frequent dental scaling to compensate for flossing. The t$cost@scaling is tolerable in SG but will someday become less available, and resemble the yoga situation.
  • eg: The jogger backpack enhances convenience at a small cost. The purist can say it is an unnecessary convenience, but I disagree. See also Q2.
  • — economies
  • eg: SG and many governments rely on e-gov technologies .. efficient. Not costly when you consider the efficiency benefits.
  • eg: many economies have a serious dependendency on fossil fuel. Questionable Dependability. However, the alternative solutions are often more costly and less dependable.

— eg: tuition centers… Many say “unreliable” because sooner or later we must become self-motivated. Well, how about dependency on school?
Many adults still choose to go back to school and learn something, including me, Rahul, 金庸. The alternative of self-learning is neither efficient or effective.

all-green @a computer: unhealthy idealism

Posted on by tiger40490

 

k_detach .. k_all_green_dashboard

Genesis .. BigBrother was a system monitoring tool I used in 2001-2003. I remember it says if any system component has an issue, you will see some red or amber . If you find yourself in a sea of green then you are very lucky, but it probably won’t last forever. Similarly, we should feel lucky-for-now if any laptop is all-green

  • no serious windows/MSOffice activation issue
  • no browser crash
  • wifi stable
  • printing OK

Detach .. Don’t develop an unhealthy dependency on all-green. It can disappear any time. Like perfection, all-green is not as important as it appears. In fact, all-green could develop into all-deep-green, a unhealthy obsession with minor imperfections.

— wear-n-tear .. a new laptop can progressively lose the all-green.  For example, A95 hit “slow-start” .. see A95: issues #all-green

Trying hard to eliminate any of the above [like demanding a 1-minute start-up ] is unhealthy idealism, even if it is achievable. After trying for a while, I choose to give up and allocate my time to bigger battles.

— pre-owned .. Some pre-owned laptops have delivered all-green service for quite a while, such as the $120 CashConverter and the $250 Dell

— j4 multiple laptops .. Since all-green is rare, having multiple machines would increase the chance of having at least one all-green when needed.
— J4 low-cost laptops .. When a laptop starts giving too many headaches, I would simply buy another (pre-owned?) laptop and enjoy an all-green honeymoon.

jolt: even with an expensive laptop 3 times the price, its all-green honeymoon won’t last 3 times longer.

— current all-green laptops:
* HP71
* L360

 

multiple-laptop lifestyle

Posted on by tiger40490

Recently I bought many gadgets [earphone, printer, laptop, router, 1 each]

A _common_ /zsms/ … “already bought so many”.
A _common_ j4 is ……..  convenience, evaluated against the (low) cost… but is it lifestyle creep?

— next laptop for office [gmail, calendar] Note git-blogg is safer done in MLP computer than any laptop due to universal access.
I don’t want to repair A299 since it has multiple problems and may fail soon.

Simple Choice: buy a low-cost new or pre-owned (OS pre-installed). Simple choice is often stupid

Choice_9: buy a new laptop for wife (at least decent like $700) and then use Aspire in office, but 1) I recently upgraded Aspire for boy 2) wife may not need a new laptop so much.

— disuse is a key concern.. For many gadgets (laptops esp.), prolonged /disuse/ (not a common phrase but concise) can damage the device, perhaps due to /oxidation/.

Sugg: bring out and use each laptop once a while.

Q 1: which shelved laptops need the most TLC? A299

— ROI and j4 the 7 laptops. I also include some action points on each laptop

  • [r/R=decent ROI , considering the long_service/t$cost]
  • [r] iview .. utterly unreliable. I don’t discard it because it might prove useful one day. However, I tend to overinvest my time trying to revive it, ignoring (the fact that) the keyboard issues are not going away at all.
  • [R] dell250 .. backup for office, still usable with on-screen keyboard. Keyboard OK after cool-down. However, L36 is more effective.
  • [r] a299 .. I carried it outside, as a primary laptop for “outside”.
  • — now the primary laptops
  • [R] Aspire .. old, heavy, sometimes slow, but still wife’s primary laptop, and important to boy
  • chromebook .. from XMS
  • [r] A95 .. primary laptop for cockpit_1
  • [r] HP71 .. primary laptop for WFH cockpit_2
  • L36 needed in office for better convenience than Dell250, to reduce the compliance risk

Q2: Which “employees” still need to prove his/her ROI? Jolt: Alas, In Jul 2021 when I bought the HP71 I was focused on convenience and didn’t care about this question !
A: 1) HP71 is 95% proven, 2)A95 is 97% proven.

Q3: Which laptop can be wife’s personal laptop? A: she said she can share the Aspire with boy.

def[semi-highflyers] #c++IV rockstar

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— update Xiong.Zou .. I only spoke to this fellow c++ de for a few minutes. He struck me as an interview rock star, similar to Venkat and Henry.Wu.

Because I care so much about my c++IV, I am very quick to classify fellow c++dev as “above or below” me. For the huge gap in my actual knowledge about a person, I let my _imagination_ fill in the details.

How about successE [cashflow ground, family harmony, wellness, WLB]?  I don’t need higher income, given my successE.

k_tectonic k_X_FOMO_v_livelihood .. k_semi_kai3mo2

See also

Over the decades, I have been held hostage by the envy for these groups of individuals

  1. MNC managers, OC-effective, like HY.Cai, YY.Tao, K.A #sinking
  2. c++ (and web2.0) interview rock stars
  3. start-up rock stars like Zhu Jiang

As discussed in OC-effective: overrated, these three groups of high-flyers are not necessarily successful by ANY definition whatsoever. I call them SEMI-high-flyers or  questionable_Role_Model. They are good at that one game only. They don’t even make more money. If they do, their family Brbr is likely inferior to mine, and underwhelming in some cases.

Is there something in common among these groups? Well, introspectively, these are the biggest games I choose to play but not as well as they play. I felt so much envy exactly because I played seriously. In contrast, there are other games I chose to play but no longer so seriously:

  1. parents of academic kids
  2. owners of multiple properties
  3. husband of a beautiful (and thrifty) woman

However, I would point out a few games of higher “value”,  in terms of family livelihood and satisfaction with my life:

  • family harmony and resilience
  • healthy, resilient, motivated kids
  • healthcare provision — SG compares favorably with welfare states like Canada. See ##SG healthcare inflation Cushions #YJL. In contrast, majority of those semi-high-fliers are stuck with the expensive U.S. healthcare.
    • Other social safety nets — SG compares favorably
  • my own wellness and career longevity, as a major pillar for family livelihood.
    • other defensive, resilience measures for family livelihood as in [20] list@Protections — those semi-high-fliers are unlikely to have these.
  • brbr, FullerWealth (thanks to my nonwork income) — I suspect some of the semi-high-fliers are trapped on cashflowLowerGround, even if they have two incomes.
  • efficient, comfortable commute

I would say the (c++, algo or java) interview game is still worthwhile. I play for honor, for self-challenge, for self-growth, for confidence-building, for resilience.

personal branding: UChicago > NYSE/GS

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In terms of personal branding, I would say the alma mater has more impact than a past employer:

  • reason: a branded university has better longevity, durability and sustainability. A branded past-employer may lose much of the brand value over a few decades esp. in technology and esp. online .. Sohu, Motorola, Merrill, Microsoft, SUN, Bell labs, HP-way, big-blue
  • reason: degree is easily and routinely verified
  • reason: a much larger number of individuals can put NYSE or GS on the resume after a very short work project. No differentiation between long-term, high-ranking employees vs short-term junior contractors

What types of personal branding would have even higher impact than the alma mater? Nobel prize. Gold medals. high-profile publications/inventions

impact: universityBrand>FCH> EE-DL>bookPrize #selfEsteem

Posted on by tiger40490

There are other ROI to my “UChicago investment”, but today I will focus on 2) personal branding and 1) self-esteem as a goodStudent/outstandingStudent/.

For years during and after NUS, my self-esteem was tied to EE-DL (Department of E.Engin Dean’s list) and then to FCH (first-class honors degree). However, in hind sight,

  • how about my Engineering faculty book prize? Probably one student per year in the EE department. More unique.
  • UChicago branding has more impact on my self-esteem (and personal branding) than EE-DL + FCH combined. The GPA or class of honors don’t matter in the broad strokes
  • FCH has more impact than EE-DL in the broad strokes

Christopher Reeve

Posted on by tiger40490

 

k_Kahneman

See also https://btv-open.dreamhosters.com/45310/blogg-topic-prefer-well-published-stories/

Q: If you were Robin Williams or a family member, would you prefer your friend to BB) die a quick, painless death soon after the accident, or AA) live the 10Y longer life that Reeve lived?

For many outsiders, we would choose BB… A short but glorious life like the NUS professor Lee Loo Hay. As Kahneman pointed out, PeakEndRule and DurationNeglect.

For Reeve’s children who were born before the accident, and his wife, the choice is clear. Kids need the father.

If I am the parent of a victim like Reeve, I would prefer AA unless my son is stuck in a comma. I would cheer him up (just as Robin did) and encourage his fighting spirit. For a fighter, there’s nothing to loose, and there’s so much to gain. The pain and suffering will subside over time, as Buddha observed.

Clearly, Reeve himself preferred AA. He fought for years to live longer, after he came to terms with this chronic condition.

— U-index .. (defined in this bpost) His U-index was probably no worse than ordinary people. This U-index is hard to comprehend because we outsiders always compare.. compare such a “limited” life with our normal lives. However, Reeve probably doesn’t live in that comparison. The comparison with his own past was probably not a constant backdrop. He had jobs to do, including parenting, film production, writing.

If you stay busy and focused on goals, then you probably end up comparing less. I assume those comparisons have a net negative impact on xpSelf’s wellbeing, and rmSelf’s wellbeing.

— side question: Is the disaster a white swan or a misstep? Not exclusively, but a combination.

My prediction — the more we perceive it as our own misstep, the less we attribute it to back luck or other people’s mistakes, the earlier we would come to terms with it, and take responsibility to rebuild our life.