Elysium

Everyday Man Part I

Posted by snow under Blog, china

It’s a couple minutes before 6. I push back my bag to reveal the left pocket of my dress pants to reach for my keys. The brown stain of dirt on my pant leg left when I had scraped past a construction worker causes a minute of irritation. “I’m going to have to wash these pants again.” I’ve worn the pants for only two days and had not yet earned back the time I invested washing them by hand. With a rattle and a click, my dorm lock opens. I carefully avoid the giant gaping cavity on our flimsy plywood door to find a relatively solid part and push it open. My roomate wasn’t home.

He’s been coming home later than usual these days, either because of the pressures of work, or because of the plethora of friends he’s obliged to dine with. It’s just lonely me tonight, at least I can get some work done. I set my bag down along with my bus pass, keys, cellphone, Chinese cellphone for reading text messages, wallet, all part of my daily armament and sit down on my bed, one of two sitting surfaces that belong to me in the room. I take a deep breath and let out a long sigh, as if such an action could relieve the built up stress of a day of heat, crowded spaces and trying not to get robbed.

Suddenly, as the hour hand hits 6, like clockwork, the school’s broadcast system blares to life and the streets are flooded with the sounds of beautiful music. A pair of sweet voices reach out from this bouquet of sound, like a pair of roses. “Beijing Technical University School Broadcast” they introduce themselves as, letting their voices hit the last two words in unison. I pause for a couple moments, absorbing in the music, and soon the broadcast about school news. They were talking about someone receiving an award, and then about a bit of history from the Tang dynasty. It was interesting stuff, but made little impression in my mind. The sound, blended into the din roar of old diesel tractors and loud voices that created the backdrop of my entire trip.

With a start I awake from my stupor, glance down at my watch, 6:30. Shoot, if I didn’t get going to the school dining hall, I’d be eating leftovers again. I swap my formal pants for some light tan shorts, the kind that don’t ever seem to get dirty and my short sleeved dress shirt for a gray t-shirt. My black socks and leather shoes were also swapped for a pair of flip flops. My garb was not stylish by any standard, but was quite comfortable in the 34 degrees celcius weather in Beijing. It was a relatively cool day too, so I wouldn’t have to worry about my sweat drenching my tshirt and me having to wash it immediately upon my return.

Pick up the wallet, lock the door and I was soon on my way. Five steps out the door, I double back and knock on my neighbors door. Courtesy demanded I check whether he’d be eating tonight. *knock*, *knock*, *knock*. . . No sound from inside, great, I’m on my own today. I scamper down the stairs, my flip flops making loud clapping noises against the dull gray cement steps. The sound, dust and light outside paralyze me for a moment, almost long enough to be hit by a passing bicyclist, the rings of his bell reminding me of his presence just in time. I make a sharp left and head for dining hall #3.

Note: New commentors are currently disabled as I can’t access WordPress from China and can’t turn on a Spam Filter == billions of spam comments.

Safe Landing

Posted by snow under Blog, china

Beijing Welcomes you! The familiar slogan peeks through the piled up gunk on a building’s wall. I sure felt welcome. The hardened look of students walking by me and the steeled expressions of street workers created an atmosphere of oppresion that gave me the warm feeling of home. It’s been what, three days since I’ve landed, out of around 70 or so and already I’ve begun to miss the comforts of home: potable water, internet, mosquito free rooms, 80 degree balmy weather, park benches, the list goes on. But, this stay is not without it’s benefits. I’ve so far eaten far better than I’ve imagined. And, the 0.4 RMB (roughly 8 cent) bus rides make me feel rich. I went out and bought myself a nice pair of dress shoes the other day, total? less than 40 USD.

One thing that has amused me to no end, and is something I think we should have (but doubt we can pull off) in the US is school wide radio broadcasts. Every day at 12:00, the schools loudspeakers begin broadcasting the school radio across the entire campus. It, a student run program covering entertainment, school news, fashion and a plethora of youth related topics hosts a surprisingly beautiful and professional pair of voices. It created a sense of unity and identity for me almost immediately, a feeling that not four years of school spirit building and activities at U of T could foster.

I’m working at my intended location now, though as you may notice (I’m typing this out at work) not at my intended role. This is a brokerage firm and I’m working in the IPO/Merger department. So far, I haven’t been able to discern what it is that everyone is doing when they stare at their LCD displays. Seeing as it’s ‘just after lunch’, it seems impolite to ask all the sleepy, preoccupied people.

Photos are forthcoming, when I can get some internet in my room, or remember to upload them from my phone.

Abandoning the Past

Posted by snow under Blog, china

China is an interesting place. Despite the modernity of Shanghai, or Beijing, its success is very much a modern phenomena. In the countryside where time passes more slowly, the traces of the old world have not completely given way to the new. Dig one or two generations back and an almost mystical world unravels itself, one without electricity, modern industry or concerns. Now, these relics and ways of life are slowly slipping away into history while the rest of the nation is focusing on the future.

When i was a child living in the countryside, not having electricity was the default state. There were so many brownouts, during the day that it could not be relied on for any part of our life. It was not uncommon for there to be no electricity for weeks or months. Bedtime was usually when it was too dark outside to do anything productive (8:30) and we owned no appliances. Nobody seemed to mind. We had a wood stove to cook food and on some days, the smoke from burning corn stalks would mask the courtyard like gunpowder flashes on a battlefield. I use to splash water into it and be chased away elsewhere to play. Everywhere in the house, there were strange devices of wood and bamboo that seldom saw use: a roomful of equipment for making cloth from cotton (something my dad told me took up the majority of a wife’s time), carpenter tools for making furniture, a chisel for printing ‘money’ to send to deceased family members. It was all strangely fascinating and i soaked in these sights without much appreciation or thought: they were just part of ‘life at grandpas’. When i go back now, i can hardly find any trace of that lifestyle. The ancient foyer table for the lord and lady of the house had been disassembled, the cotton weave burned, the carpenter tools sold, various homemade straw hats, mats, baskets being replaced by their modern counterparts. I was even hard pressed to find candles about the house. I look at the next generation and wonder: will they know what it was like to be Chinese then? will they ever understand the easy, agrarian lifestyle passed down for countless generations on which i was weaned?

China is very much a country of culture, ancient traditions and sights still dominate our lives. Yet, with today’s modernism and focus on material wealth, much of the joys and guidance our past offers us is disappearing. Many relics of thought and identity are lost to make way for progress. I can’t help but wonder, a hundred, five hundred, years from now, will they still understand what it means to be Chinese? what it is that we value? that we strive for? Perhaps this is the way it’s meant to be, the future should cannibalize the past to grow. I wonder how many in similarly old cultures hold similar thoughts.

::EDIT::
I’ve decided to at least pull my weight in preserving the past. I’ll put up pictures and blog posts about the little i know of this lifestyle.

Tolerance

Posted by snow under Blog

This arose in a discussion with a friend recently.

If we see wrong in this world, should we actively seek to fix it? I suppose all of us would say yes for this question and each of us would envision a different scenario, say an old lady being mugged, or a corrupt tax official punished. But where do we draw the line? How about a person eating him/herself to death off of junk food, or a country imposing a stringent dress code on their population? When should we stick out a hand to help and when should we respect the fact that we don’t know enough about the situation to act meaningfully?

My friend, a revolutionary, was . . . displeased with my passive attitude and on several matters disagreed with my lack of action. In my eyes, we should not act to change the life of another unless it’s directly causing immediate harm to another person – eg. violence or swindling. All other matters we should empower the individual with the proper ideas and tools to help him/herself. Why? Because each of us experiences a different reality, created by our different circumstances and experiences. Our views make perfect sense in each of these unique realities. To criticize another’s behavior while not experiencing another’s reality is not only pointless, but also destructive. More helpful is to listen, to empathize, to immerse oneself into another’s reality, but subjectively and free of the emotions that another is experiencing. The way to interject is not by forcefully altering the landscape of another’s reality, but by offering glimpses of one’s own reality to another and providing a path out of their current plight. Give him/her an idea that can allow him/her to escape their present situation. I feel this not only applies on a personal level, but scales to a communal, national and global level. To fire down criticism from out rocking chairs as the mass media society would have us do and to act brutishly on these often misguided perspectives is arrogant, offensive and often causes more harm.

Dry Skies

Posted by snow under Blog

During my most recent international flight of ~3000 miles, American Airlines didn’t serve drinks for it’s passengers for free. Instead, they were asking for $1 per drink. I gauged my personal reaction and did the math. It didn’t seem like a good business move..

The problem is not that $1 is a ridiculous price to charge for a drink, but the ingrained concept that drinks should be free on a flight, that they are bundled into our seat price. Of course, we can rationalize this by thinking “the ticket was cheaper”, but it leaves a poor impression. More importantly, judging by how few people asked to buy drinks, people are generally thrift in this issue and would rather bear the discomfort of slight dehydration than pony up $1 for a coke. These two cause me personally to feel dissatisfied with the service both physically (being less hydrated) and mentally (feeling ripped off). This is worsened by the ban (or nuisance of bringing) liquids onto airlines. While the actual demand for the drink may be several dollars, the price passengers are willing to pay is very low. This is a very dangerous situation for a merchant.

I did the calculations, It costs the airline roughly $0.62 per passenger to provide everyone who wants a drink a drink (excluding those who bought a drink). In my opinion, American Airlines is giving it’s customers an impression of a stingy company that’s uncomfortable to ride with at the gain of less than a dollar per traveller, a deal I wouldn’t make.

Assumptions for Calculating $0.62:

- 1 can of coke is 241 grams (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_does_a_can_of_soda_pop_weight)
- 150 people on the plane
- 125 cans of soda is consumed
- with paying, 25 cans of soda is consumed (roughly from my tally on my flight)
- 42.8MJ/kg for kerosene (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density)
- 1.1 MJ / available seat kilometer (http://www.transportenvironment.org/Publications/prep_hand_out/lid:398)
- each seat is roughly 80 kg
- price of kerosene: $1.31/gal (http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pri_spt_s1_d.htm)
- assume price of drinks is $0.5 per can

cost of shipping the drinks is: 43.26
cost of drinks: $50 -> 93.26 more per flight, or 0.62 per ticket

That which we are accustomed

Posted by snow under Blog

Windows’ start menu didn’t load properly when i clicked on it today. That’s not surprising, what is surprising is that i instinctively just clicked the desktop and tried again. This blatant acceptance and forgiveness for screwups in software is quite crazy. I lose count on how many such issues occur on a daily basis with Windows, but imagine if something similar to this happened when you went to a restaurant. You sit down, the waiter trips over you with hot coffee, then brings you the wrong meal and brings you a cheque for three times what you ate and goes home before returning your credit card. You’d leave and never come back!… so why is it linux doesn’t have crazy market penetration? The same reason why not everybody raises their own cattle: there may be no artificial growth hormones, but it’s quite a hassle.

Completing the Circle

Posted by snow under Blog

And so ends the voyage. Before me lies the same routines, same old life. Yet it feels so alien, to a point that i wonder how such things defined the extent of my world. The texture of my laptop keys, the feel of the touchpad, even the strange comfort of my clothes, they are almost relics from another life.

A respite from the familiarity of the every day gives time for inflection. One is far enough away from the miniscule details of everyday life to ponder the bigger picture. It becomes criticism and analysis of another’s life rather than one’s own. I feel much wisened from it. There’s a certain spring in my stride these days, and a resonance in my voice that didn’t exist before the trip, though such things, much like inspiration and euphoria are tragically transient.

Thank you, my travelmates for the tutelage.

Clocking Life

Posted by snow under Blog

I stumbled on a great article perousing ycombinator news:

http://www.tecnicadelpomodoro.it/docs/francesco-cirillo/2007/ThePomodoroTechnique_v1-3.pdf

It outlines a method for increasing one’s productivity in a day. Although the method is a bit too rigid for me to apply in life, it does have many great points. The “Pomodoro Technique” involves subdividing your life into discrete segments, or Pomodoros, each 1/2 and hour including 25 minutes of work and 5 minutes of rest. Ideally, the work segment is uninterrupted. You start with a table of things that need to be done in the day and record how many pomodoro’s you used on it.

The benefit’s of the system are:
- you know how much time you spend on your activities
- you can plan out your day in much more clarity
- you reduce interruptions and distractions (like slashdot)
- you focus well on each task

The method feels a bit rigid, but it’s core ideas are essential to daily productivity.

I’m amused by the strong relationship between this and circuit design, particularly between clocked and unclocked circuits. In unclocked circuits, it’s a bit trickier to design because you don’t know when inputs to your system are stable. Also, the propagation time between different parts of the circuit may be different so you have some components waiting on others. Clocking the circuit makes everything much more predictable and quantifiable, which increases productivity.

Oligopoly

Posted by snow under Blog

If you go into BestBuy or Radio shack, you’ll find that an audio cable or an HDMI cable costs well into the $40 range and some over $100. If you didn’t know better, you’d give up and grab one after checking all the stores around you that would carry them. You would pay something like $60 for a 6′ cable. If you go on Newegg, you’d notice that these cables should cost $8-$12, depending on length.

These people are offering “better shielding and higher performance and bandwidth” for a five fold premium, which is kind of ridiculous. You don’t need better shielding, all these cables are shielded already and for a 6′ cable, the coupling effects and interference on that wire are negligible. And bandwidth? audio and HDMI are standardized formats with standardized bandwidths and performance measures. The only thing they can offer is perhaps extended lifetime. With the rate cables change these days, and the fact that a normal cable lasts years, it’ll be 30 years before that super cable pays itself back… if it lasts that long.

If so, how is this business model viable? Belkin and Monster (the two companies that seem in the business) must’ve signed a exclusivity deal with all these vendors. So long as neither undercut one another, and they can maintain these contracts with Best Buy, they’re golden. The average user won’t want to wait for a cable and probably won’t look online. They have a 2 tiered oligopoly going here, first between the cable manufacturers and then between the cable retailers. The retailers have to promise that none of them will carry the cheaper cables and the manufacturers must promise not to sell for too cheaply to anyone else.

I think Monster started this trend, by introducing ‘premium’ wires and slowly making these agreements. It’s a disturbing, but lucrative market.

Software Development

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It seems all software development models are trying to solve two separate issues with one combined approach. Software requires both creativity to understand the customer and consistency to write good code. A good approach to software development is to split the task into design and implementation. In design, the goal is to focus on the problem, how to solve the problem, what algorithms to use. In implementation, the code is actually written, implementations created and tested. These two elements require different methodologies and approaches. For design, a very open, ad-hoc system should be applied, brainstorming should be encouraged, ‘hacking’ should be the standard approach and generally the goal is a proof of feasibility. This phase should focus on mapping the solution space and properly defining the problem. If any misinterpretations occur in understanding the customer in this phase, issues will arise. The implementation phase is very different. It is methodical, rigid, formal. Specifications are set and must be followed exactly. There should be little room for interpretation.

Should problems or disagreements arise in the implementation phase, the group should immedately switch over to design and resolve the issue immediately. Any wiggle room in the specification means that different interpretations of the final product exist, which can be disastrous. A lot of different processes try to grasp at a good approach for software development, but it is imperative to isolate these two processes from each other. Pure hacking will cause multiple misinterpretations to arise in the implementors while pure documentation will stifle all innovation and insight into customer needs. An ideal system would be to weave design segments with implementation segments with varying lengths. But, it is imperative that the designer understand what phase they are in and focus on the purpose of this phase: don’t implement in design phase, don’t design in implementation. It is also imperative that the team be close knit and switch between phases dynamically.

Of course, nothing can substitute for clear vision of the customer demands, or close teamwork. A team strong in these skills doesn’t need any approach, but a well organized approach can help other teams implement internally consistent, good code.