I work hard because it’s easy

I wrote about my growing workaholicism about half a year ago.

It didn’t get better.

The last two projects (UTF8 and hg) are still not finished. But a new project in the last 3 months or so has been the main cause for evening logins.

I mentioned it in that old post: a complete remake of our GUI using JIDE docking framework.

It’s a greater project than anything I’ve ever worked on. I’ll truly be proud to say that I’m the creator of something functional and useful, even just for those a few hundred users of our system.

But that’s not why I’m writing this post.

I re-realized that I work this hard because it’s easy.

Easier than life.

When I’m programming, all I have to worry about is programming.

Getting a computer to do exactly what I want it to is not trivial.

But it’s many orders of magnitude easier than flushing our living room HVAC with dozens of buckets full of rusty water and pray it will work again on the coldest day of the year so far.

And it’s infinitely easier than getting Valentina to go potty when she’s watching Dora.

It’s only harder than one thing.

That’s why I’m writing this post instead of programming.

I can’t fight the natural law for the path of least resistance, which guarantees local optimum but usually at the cost of global optimum.

 

Money can buy happiness

9 years is a long time. We “became” Yankee fans since it’s just easy to pick the winning side.

2001 was a heart breaker particularly after 9/11, but it taught me Baseball 101: pitcher rules.

2003 was great even without the rings.

2004 was unfathomable. And it got worse.

Yankee’s $201m payroll in 2009 is actually some $7.6m less than 2008, but it’s still almost double of Phillies, and more than the 4 teams with lowest payroll combined. The 4 top teams have more payroll than the last 10. The world is unfair.

So money CAN buy happiness. You just have to spend it right.

 

Difference between Mainland and Taiwan

Again, from Ruan Yifeng:

在中国，当你很相信“理想”这件事，你终究会真正地失败。

It’s his response to the famous DPP legislator’s words:

台湾这个社会让我最感动的事情，就是当你很相信“理想”这件事，你终究不会真正地失败。

哀莫大于心死.

 

Swimming Treadmill Gym

I’ve never been to a gym.

So I’ll die 5 years earlier than you. Send me some flowers at the funeral, will ya?

But I’d sign up for a swimming treadmill gym in a snap.

A good one costs about $25,000.

With $100 monthly fee, 12 hours a day, 4 slots per hour, it takes less than half a year to recuperate the device price.

There are of course a lot of other costs (rent, electricity, water, repair, staff, etc). But if you can get a volume discount on the device and flexible plans to get more people to join at lesser fee, it may look like an ATM after a year or so.

If you have a few million dollars in your mattress, leave a comment.

 

What’s wrong with the financial industry

(Way out of date, but what the heck.)

A very funny blog from a friend, but too much cliche and too far from truth (as if I know it).

I-bankers are not the cause of the current crisis, nor are they getting the most part of the “undeserved” bonuses, or have they ever been. At least if you define “i-banker” in the traditional and strict sense.

I-bankers mostly do IPOs and other security issurance, and deals (merger and aquisition). They do get outrageous commision, but that’s only one sea in the vast financial oceans.

Senior execs, traders, and quants are the driving force of the industry, and they get the lion share of compensation.

Now even people from Rwanda know that the current global economy crisis roots from mortgage-backed securities. But that’s just one manifest of the massive and inherent problems of derivatives modeling and trading.

The now defunct i-banks used to have most of their business in traditional i-banking and as broker/dealer, which is to help clients (institutional and individual investors) trade. Then they discovered the amazing power of computers and mathematicians, and started to use their own money (proprietary trading) and clients’ money (asset management) to trade securities, based on ever complicating models.

Goldman Sachs (and earlier killers like Salomon) made a killing. Everybody followed suit. They have to keep finding new things to trade, as arbitrage disappears and profit margin thins in established markets as they become well-known and level playing fields, and dinosaur banks move in.

Then climates changes and extinction comes.