Lost another kilogram. Just weighed myself and discovered this.
Absolutely no idea why this happened. In fact, this defies logic IMO.
Here are the many reasons why this is how I feel about it:
1) I've just rediscovered deep frying at home.
2) I've a box of 20 frozen hashbrowns in my freezer, over half of which has already been consumed over the last three week by myself alone.
3) I have not been cutting down on my fast food deliveries at all.
4) I have been splashing oil liberally when I cook because this makes my food taste better.
5) I have been frying a lot of fishballs before using them as ingredients for other vegetable dishes. In fact I buy at least 60 fishballs a week and usually some fishcakes too.
6) I've been eating breakfast recently, and not light ones at that.
7) More like fried ones, even.
8) I have not been going out much due to a lack of business during this part of the year, ie living a more sedentary life.
On the other hand, there are a few possible reasons for this:
1) I've been having light dinners because heavy dinners make me very sleepy and recently I came to realize I have to, as much as possible, avoid repeating my old habit of sleeping too early and risking waking up at 3am and badly screw up my body clock for several days.
2) I have almost completely cut off my coffee intake, partly because I haven't been needing it and partly because the remaining ground coffee in my kitchen is now stale. Speaking of which, I'm very surely going to buy whole beans from the vendor next time and grind only what I need when I need it. Right now I still have 500g of it that's destined for the bin and it's such a waste.
3) I've been practically preventing myself from having supper ever since I began to brush and floss my teeth again at night. I just don't want to go through it twice a night. My laziness overwhelms my hunger and it's awesome. But it's also like saying I'm so lazy I'd rather starve than eat, which... is actually true in this case. Oh wow. Seriously, I'd rather spend the whole night with a growling stomach due to having a light and early dinner than eat, floss and brush again.
Also, it's 6am and I've been up long enough to be fully prepared for what's to come. A large cup of coffee and final packing stage (toothbrush, deordorant, etc). It's no big deal since it's likely I'll be back for tonight before staying there for the rest of the week, so if I'm still forgetting anything, I can return to get them.
On the other hand, I'm not sure if I should bother coming back if there's nothing I need to take. I'll decide later.
I'm not sure if people are supposed to really want to go home when they're in reservist training, but I don't care. In fact I didn't bother going home the last time I got a night off. There's just nothing at home that I miss that much after merely a few days.
The best thing about this, other than the single night off, is that it's confirmed that I can book out early on the final day, again due to the fact that I cleared my IPPT for this year. Dohohoho!
Monday, 9 July 2012
Sunday, 8 July 2012
Rant 1022 / Pingas!
If practising medicine is how I think it is, wouldn't it be relatively easy to replace doctors with a combination of computers and medical assistants?
My impression of what doctors do is that they find out the symptoms displayed by the patient and they judge which condition best fits the combination.
If this is really what it is, then you can just have a computer system containing all the diseases linked to their symptoms together with the relevant probabilities, like how common they are and which symptoms are more common with which disease.
In addition, they can also display the drugs that are routinely prescribed for the illnesses plus the relevant allergies and conditions that forbid the drugs. Non-routine stuff would be sent to a central HQ sort of place where the real doctors are.
Medical assistants will then find out what symptoms there are and input them as using keywords like "rashes" and whatever names they have for whichever body parts, and the computer would display the possible illnesses together with their probabilities.
Of course things like surgeries are still going to need human hands as long as robotic arms currently available are not able to replace surgeons completely.
But diagnosing might get simpler if there is a nationwide system that not only does what I described but also contains the medical records of everyone in the country. This would allow the system to adjust appropriately for whatever bias the genes in the country has for whatever conditions.
This would remove a huge chunk of stuff from the medical schools' curriculum which, for the most part, seems redundant for general practitioners. I mean, they appear to be only good for minor stuff like flu and coughs. Anything more and they refer you to the specialists.
The system and the assistant, who is pretty much a GP without the medical encyclopedia in his head, or who can be seen as a person with only the empirical knowledge for diagnosing illnesses, can theoretically replace the GP.
That would free up a lot of talents in the medical field.
I mean, all those people who qualified for a place in any medical school are pretty smart people. It just feels like a waste if their jobs are as simple as such routine things as prescribing cough medicine day in and day out.
So coffee makes people lazy and yet boosts brain power (at least temporarily).
The good news is:
Only today did I learn that Yu Pin King is under Shop N Save. No wonder I keep seeing promotions for this brand all the time.
Speaking of Shop N Save, I just bought 6 litres of Knife brand cooking oil since it was having a promotion. It was a 5-litre bottle with an extra 1-litre bottle of the same oil. I have to say the timing is perfect. I have almost used up my 2-litre bottle and felt that it was empty too soon. Moreover, I recall my mum used to buy the larger 5-litre bottle in the past which implies that it shouldn't go rancid before I finish it.
Now I have more oil for deep frying stuff.
My NS unit is allowing everyone who cleared his IPPT one night off during the coming reservist training. I've completed mine through IPT for this window! Woohoo!
The remake of Baldur's Gate 2 is going to have DLCs.
What we can be sure they're going to be is that they will be inconsequential events that have little to do with the main story or anyone else in the original game.
Otherwise, they will ruin the game.
My impression of what doctors do is that they find out the symptoms displayed by the patient and they judge which condition best fits the combination.
If this is really what it is, then you can just have a computer system containing all the diseases linked to their symptoms together with the relevant probabilities, like how common they are and which symptoms are more common with which disease.
In addition, they can also display the drugs that are routinely prescribed for the illnesses plus the relevant allergies and conditions that forbid the drugs. Non-routine stuff would be sent to a central HQ sort of place where the real doctors are.
Medical assistants will then find out what symptoms there are and input them as using keywords like "rashes" and whatever names they have for whichever body parts, and the computer would display the possible illnesses together with their probabilities.
Of course things like surgeries are still going to need human hands as long as robotic arms currently available are not able to replace surgeons completely.
But diagnosing might get simpler if there is a nationwide system that not only does what I described but also contains the medical records of everyone in the country. This would allow the system to adjust appropriately for whatever bias the genes in the country has for whatever conditions.
This would remove a huge chunk of stuff from the medical schools' curriculum which, for the most part, seems redundant for general practitioners. I mean, they appear to be only good for minor stuff like flu and coughs. Anything more and they refer you to the specialists.
The system and the assistant, who is pretty much a GP without the medical encyclopedia in his head, or who can be seen as a person with only the empirical knowledge for diagnosing illnesses, can theoretically replace the GP.
That would free up a lot of talents in the medical field.
I mean, all those people who qualified for a place in any medical school are pretty smart people. It just feels like a waste if their jobs are as simple as such routine things as prescribing cough medicine day in and day out.
So coffee makes people lazy and yet boosts brain power (at least temporarily).
The good news is:
“Workers” began to slack off after consuming caffeine. “Slackers” remained slackers regardless of caffeine ingestion.Phew. For a while I thought it could make us slackers slack even harder.
Only today did I learn that Yu Pin King is under Shop N Save. No wonder I keep seeing promotions for this brand all the time.
Speaking of Shop N Save, I just bought 6 litres of Knife brand cooking oil since it was having a promotion. It was a 5-litre bottle with an extra 1-litre bottle of the same oil. I have to say the timing is perfect. I have almost used up my 2-litre bottle and felt that it was empty too soon. Moreover, I recall my mum used to buy the larger 5-litre bottle in the past which implies that it shouldn't go rancid before I finish it.
Now I have more oil for deep frying stuff.
My NS unit is allowing everyone who cleared his IPPT one night off during the coming reservist training. I've completed mine through IPT for this window! Woohoo!
The remake of Baldur's Gate 2 is going to have DLCs.
What we can be sure they're going to be is that they will be inconsequential events that have little to do with the main story or anyone else in the original game.
Otherwise, they will ruin the game.
Friday, 6 July 2012
Rant 1021 / Hype-powered Tide Of Idiocy
I'm thinking I shouldn't be going to China in early winter. If I'm only windowshopping, why pick China?
The problem with being big is that everything cheap is too small for you. Like everything on sale in online Japanese or Korean stores. Looks like I'm destined to own only shoes bought at normal prices or above.
Went to the ENT specialist at NUH today and I'm going to have to do a sleep study to confirm whether I have sleep apnea.
Consultation fee was S$101.65 and the larygnoscopy cost me another $197.95.
The laryngoscopy was just expensive. It was a little uncomfortable but the doctor did what he could to avoid irritating my sinus too much with his cable-like camera. He also took some pictures that his assistant copied for both him and myself, although I have no interest in seeing what my nasal passage looks like.
Apparently other than my weight, I'm also suffering from an allergy and a sensitive nose. I know my weight caused my snoring but I've gotten used to it long ago. It's this allergy that's making it so much worse that when the doctor sprayed something into my nose that was supposed to be stinging and bitter, all I can sense is the bitterness when I swallowed.
The strange thing is the allergy. I have no idea what I'm allergic to because little has changed in my home all these years.
The only thing I'm known to be allergic to is penicillin but if I'm sensitive even to the airborne spores that's present everywhere, it would have caused the reaction a very long time ago.
He's going to test for it in a month. In the meantime, I'm supposed to see if the steroid spray works enough to stop the swelling gradually.
A week before the appointment I'm also going to have to do a sleep study to confirm whether I have sleep apnea.
This is another weird part because for some strange reason, a private practice is able to do it more cheaply than the public hospital.
Both cost about the same in cash of about S$200 but the difference is that, according to the doctor, the hospital charges an additional sum from my Medisave (which is empty btw) which will raise the total bill to a grand.
Moreover, the private practice recommended by the doctor (and he highly recommended this option) is able to let me do it in my own home while the hospital's version has to be done within itself.
A very easy decision there.
For treatments, he presented me with three options.
First, I can just stick with the nasal spray I'm using. It does work but only to a small degree for me.
The second option was a simple procedure to reduce the swelling.
Third was a slightly more complicated procedure to the same effect but lasts longer and has a few slightly possible negative side effects.
Obviously, all three won't work well as long as I continue to be exposed to whatever is causing the allergic reaction. The first will continue to work only for a couple hours and to a small degree. The last two will only last anywhere between several months to several years before I have to go back to him with the same problem again.
Finally, I also bought a backup bottle of the spray from the pharmacy there since it requires a prescription and I didn't want to go back just for it. This doctor prescribed a different spray called "Avamys fluticasone furoate". They're about the same size but this new bottle cost $25.26 whereas the old bottle was $29.
So everything I ordered from Amazon last month arrived.
Couldn't get the $20 off at Vpost even though I logged on at 1.30am on the first of July. Clearly lots of people wait for it on the first of every month since it's only limited to the first 150 people per month.
So I only got the 15% off which, for this order, was about $11.
Regardless, I've paid for it and they have arrived.
The shoe tree was indeed aromatic. I'll have to give it a few months to confirm whether the light pleasant smell is naturally from the wooden shoe tree since I do not recognize this smell nor the smell of cedar wood in general.
More importantly, they fit inside my shoes snugly.
Perfect.
My two bottles of suede waterproofing sprays were also among the packages. It's just unexpected that both came in oversized cardboard boxes filled with these full plastic air bags. I wonder if they could have just used smaller boxes and hence saved on the shipping.
I just used one of them and I'm keeping the other as spare. This bottle's instructions was that I was supposed to soak the leather in the liquid so I sprayed so much they rolled off the leather.
I just hope this doesn't deform my suede shoes, but then again, I had left the shoe trees inside so they could probably help hold the leather properly. So far so good.
The suede eraser I bought from Amazon didn't remove the old sweat stain from the suede but I'll have to try again to know for sure, and this time I'll rub harder.
It's not much so eventually when I visit a cobbler or laundry shop, I'll just get them to remove it, if the eraser doesn't work.
Finally, my book came. It's entitled "Valuation" (5th ed) and is about how to assess and improve the value of a company.
Right now I've only read the very beginning of the book and it's already given me a completely new view on the financial crises.
From what I can understand, most of the financial crises we have today is based on the use of short-term debts to buy long-term illiquid debt (an simple example of an illiquid debt is a home you're still paying for), usually because the investors believe the things they gain from this long-term debt will outweight the cost of the short-term debts.
This is known as "leverage".
This alone does not trigger a crisis. In addition to this, there needs to be some kind of reason for lenders to stop lending, thereby stopping the flow of short-term debts.
In the 1997 Asian financial crisis, an event I never really understood even after reading the Wikipedia page on it, the book explained that it was caused by an explosion of borrowing and building of industrial plants in Asia. When they finally realized there was too much production capacity everywhere and what they were going to produce wouldn't be able to cover their debts anymore, obviously financial institutions became reluctant to lend them anymore money to do something about it.
Since they couldn't borrow money to repay their earlier debts, they had to sell what they built to cover them... except everyone else was also trying to do the exact same thing.
Same with the 2008 mortgage crisis in the US, except this time replace the plants with homes. Banks were offering home loans for very low interest rates for a period of time in the beginning followed by a much higher rate for the rest of the payments, a rate that most people wouldn't be able to afford (up to a whopping 20% according to Wikipedia).
The common reaction of the borrower/home buyer was to think that he/she would get a raise eventually and that would cover the new interest rate when it comes, otherwise they could just sell their homes. The prices of homes there were in an upward trend back then, so nobody worried about the latter.
Except the pays didn't rise enough and US home prices began to stop rising eventually.
So they only had one option - sell their homes - that was essentially a non-option.
The rest has been explained in the previous story.
Oh wait, there's also another complication to this one - the banks sold these mortgage debts as parts of securities thinking it would reduce the risks to themselves by spreading them around, so everyone who bought these (including the banks themselves) also got dragged into the shit, which, in hindsight, there was quite a lot of.
Obviously there are more to these tales than what I've said here but I'm actually just rephrasing what I got from the little I read from the book just to prove to myself that I understand it.
These crises also proved the power of hype. With enough of it, all the geniuses in the world cannot stop the hype-powered tide of idiocy.
The problem with being big is that everything cheap is too small for you. Like everything on sale in online Japanese or Korean stores. Looks like I'm destined to own only shoes bought at normal prices or above.
Went to the ENT specialist at NUH today and I'm going to have to do a sleep study to confirm whether I have sleep apnea.
Consultation fee was S$101.65 and the larygnoscopy cost me another $197.95.
The laryngoscopy was just expensive. It was a little uncomfortable but the doctor did what he could to avoid irritating my sinus too much with his cable-like camera. He also took some pictures that his assistant copied for both him and myself, although I have no interest in seeing what my nasal passage looks like.
Apparently other than my weight, I'm also suffering from an allergy and a sensitive nose. I know my weight caused my snoring but I've gotten used to it long ago. It's this allergy that's making it so much worse that when the doctor sprayed something into my nose that was supposed to be stinging and bitter, all I can sense is the bitterness when I swallowed.
The strange thing is the allergy. I have no idea what I'm allergic to because little has changed in my home all these years.
The only thing I'm known to be allergic to is penicillin but if I'm sensitive even to the airborne spores that's present everywhere, it would have caused the reaction a very long time ago.
He's going to test for it in a month. In the meantime, I'm supposed to see if the steroid spray works enough to stop the swelling gradually.
A week before the appointment I'm also going to have to do a sleep study to confirm whether I have sleep apnea.
This is another weird part because for some strange reason, a private practice is able to do it more cheaply than the public hospital.
Both cost about the same in cash of about S$200 but the difference is that, according to the doctor, the hospital charges an additional sum from my Medisave (which is empty btw) which will raise the total bill to a grand.
Moreover, the private practice recommended by the doctor (and he highly recommended this option) is able to let me do it in my own home while the hospital's version has to be done within itself.
A very easy decision there.
For treatments, he presented me with three options.
First, I can just stick with the nasal spray I'm using. It does work but only to a small degree for me.
The second option was a simple procedure to reduce the swelling.
Third was a slightly more complicated procedure to the same effect but lasts longer and has a few slightly possible negative side effects.
Obviously, all three won't work well as long as I continue to be exposed to whatever is causing the allergic reaction. The first will continue to work only for a couple hours and to a small degree. The last two will only last anywhere between several months to several years before I have to go back to him with the same problem again.
Finally, I also bought a backup bottle of the spray from the pharmacy there since it requires a prescription and I didn't want to go back just for it. This doctor prescribed a different spray called "Avamys fluticasone furoate". They're about the same size but this new bottle cost $25.26 whereas the old bottle was $29.
So everything I ordered from Amazon last month arrived.
Couldn't get the $20 off at Vpost even though I logged on at 1.30am on the first of July. Clearly lots of people wait for it on the first of every month since it's only limited to the first 150 people per month.
So I only got the 15% off which, for this order, was about $11.
Regardless, I've paid for it and they have arrived.
The shoe tree was indeed aromatic. I'll have to give it a few months to confirm whether the light pleasant smell is naturally from the wooden shoe tree since I do not recognize this smell nor the smell of cedar wood in general.
More importantly, they fit inside my shoes snugly.
Perfect.
My two bottles of suede waterproofing sprays were also among the packages. It's just unexpected that both came in oversized cardboard boxes filled with these full plastic air bags. I wonder if they could have just used smaller boxes and hence saved on the shipping.
I just used one of them and I'm keeping the other as spare. This bottle's instructions was that I was supposed to soak the leather in the liquid so I sprayed so much they rolled off the leather.
I just hope this doesn't deform my suede shoes, but then again, I had left the shoe trees inside so they could probably help hold the leather properly. So far so good.
The suede eraser I bought from Amazon didn't remove the old sweat stain from the suede but I'll have to try again to know for sure, and this time I'll rub harder.
It's not much so eventually when I visit a cobbler or laundry shop, I'll just get them to remove it, if the eraser doesn't work.
Finally, my book came. It's entitled "Valuation" (5th ed) and is about how to assess and improve the value of a company.
Right now I've only read the very beginning of the book and it's already given me a completely new view on the financial crises.
From what I can understand, most of the financial crises we have today is based on the use of short-term debts to buy long-term illiquid debt (an simple example of an illiquid debt is a home you're still paying for), usually because the investors believe the things they gain from this long-term debt will outweight the cost of the short-term debts.
This is known as "leverage".
This alone does not trigger a crisis. In addition to this, there needs to be some kind of reason for lenders to stop lending, thereby stopping the flow of short-term debts.
In the 1997 Asian financial crisis, an event I never really understood even after reading the Wikipedia page on it, the book explained that it was caused by an explosion of borrowing and building of industrial plants in Asia. When they finally realized there was too much production capacity everywhere and what they were going to produce wouldn't be able to cover their debts anymore, obviously financial institutions became reluctant to lend them anymore money to do something about it.
Since they couldn't borrow money to repay their earlier debts, they had to sell what they built to cover them... except everyone else was also trying to do the exact same thing.
Same with the 2008 mortgage crisis in the US, except this time replace the plants with homes. Banks were offering home loans for very low interest rates for a period of time in the beginning followed by a much higher rate for the rest of the payments, a rate that most people wouldn't be able to afford (up to a whopping 20% according to Wikipedia).
The common reaction of the borrower/home buyer was to think that he/she would get a raise eventually and that would cover the new interest rate when it comes, otherwise they could just sell their homes. The prices of homes there were in an upward trend back then, so nobody worried about the latter.
Except the pays didn't rise enough and US home prices began to stop rising eventually.
So they only had one option - sell their homes - that was essentially a non-option.
The rest has been explained in the previous story.
Oh wait, there's also another complication to this one - the banks sold these mortgage debts as parts of securities thinking it would reduce the risks to themselves by spreading them around, so everyone who bought these (including the banks themselves) also got dragged into the shit, which, in hindsight, there was quite a lot of.
Obviously there are more to these tales than what I've said here but I'm actually just rephrasing what I got from the little I read from the book just to prove to myself that I understand it.
These crises also proved the power of hype. With enough of it, all the geniuses in the world cannot stop the hype-powered tide of idiocy.
Thursday, 5 July 2012
Rant 1020 / Holding My Breath In Anticipation
Japan strikes again!
(Hint: it's an upcoming game.)
And again!
This video is about SquareEnix being desperate for revenue.
Persona 4 got an anime and Persona 3 is.... getting a movie!
And I have yet to finish both games.
And I don't want to play them in my living room.
And I don't have a TV in my room.
Accidentally pureed my onions and tomatoes when I made beef bolognese.
My bro had bought a food processor the day before and I was curious about it.
The problem is that I've never used a food processor to chop food before, so I didn't think to throw in everything before switching it on.
At least it was easy to clean.
What's more interesting was that his gf ate an entire soup bowl's worth of cooked pasta. I boiled a whole kilogram of dried pasta and that bowl was about 2/5 of it.
This isn't the first time she ate this much yet her appetite continues to impress me, probably because of her thin frame. I can't eat that much even when I'm starving.
And I continue to be impressed by my iPad's battery.
For a while I got spoilt by it and didn't bother to close my apps after checking them, like the XE app with which I keep myself updated on the exchange rates of several currencies.
To my surprise, I managed to drain a full battery in less than 48 hours. In comparison, it usually lasts 3 days with about 10-15% battery to spare by the third night.
It turned out that I had like 10-15 apps opened simultaneously in the background by the second day. It was being drained so quickly recharging from the power socket directly was barely moving the battery bar.
So I closed everything except 1 app then left it locked, and within 5 hours it was full again.
Back to Prophesy of Pendor. Now this is much better. I can pick fights more easily now because the random bandit groups are so aggressive and numerous.
I was only building up my army while searching for good trading routes most of the time. It took a number of reloads since there were quite a few seriously overpowered bandit groups on the map like the Jatu raiders whom I think are some of the best cavalry in the game.
Still, I managed to get enough renown to be invited by one of the kingdoms after some time. To sweeten the deal, he threw in a village as my fief. I've never got this before in the past because I've always had to ask to join the kingdoms.
In fact I was considering creating my own kingdom but decided it wasn't worth all the trading I was going to have to do to get an army large enough for to hold just my first castle.
Aaaaaaaaaaaand the castle it was under got taken by another kingdom, so I have no fief now. What a waste of time :|
Tuesday, 3 July 2012
Rant 1019 / Too Much Being Too Little
With Fire and Sword is not as great as Warband. The early game is just terrible and the path to glory isn't exactly intuitive.
I can't just fight my way up; I can't even find fights. The random bandits and deserters are too fast for me and the battles between factions do not allow my involvement until I join a faction.
But I can't join a faction because I don't have enough experience and renown.
So I can't fight because I'm not in faction and I'm not in a faction because I can't fight.
In addition, my troops suck. I rarely get any combat so they have little experience for leveling up. With such poor troops, I can't siege towns nor pick fights with the enemy nobles of the faction I wish to join.
To hell with this. I'm going back to modded Warband. As I recall, the Prophesy of Pendor mod was pretty fun.
I have to admit the guns are fun, but they are OP anyway. If you have 80-90% of your army using guns you're practically invincible.
So the guys at the top are finally admitting that the current macroeconomic theories are inaccurate.
What took them so long?
The US seems like a prime example.
Most undergrads would assume that such flaws are likely solved by theories they aren't going to be taught at their levels of education. Sometimes, those don't exist, and it's scary to know what we learnt is incomplete to this degree.
I wouldn't go as far as to say that the intellectual separation should take all the blame. Most of their employees and the younger people they work with were taught by the same intellectuals or their written works, so if after all these years they found nothing wrong with these students, you shouldn't use their teachers as the scapegoats for your problems.
For too long, economists have been trying to fit evidence into theory, instead of the reverse. Now, we may be looking at a new age of economic theories, one that is based on the lessons learnt since 2008 and those we are still learning today.
Being superstitious is not necessarily a bad thing. It is true that it could mean that they are willing to believe in anything without real evidence, but it could also indicate how far they are willing to go to achieve something.
For example, the newer generation of Chinese people who don't really believe in traditions but still have food offerings ready for the spirits during festivals even when nobody expects them to do it, it just shows how motivated they are to succeed in life.
They are willing to try anything.
Of course I'm not talking about those who are expected to follow traditions. It has to be completely voluntary to the point where nobody would even know whether it's done or not.
If a man discovered that his grownup child was not his biological offspring, can he sue him/her for all the money he spent to bring him/her up?
Apparently, you can. And you can also do the same to his/her biological parents.
Worst of all, there are actually people who did either of these, and it's common enough that they aren't considered newsworthy.
I can't just fight my way up; I can't even find fights. The random bandits and deserters are too fast for me and the battles between factions do not allow my involvement until I join a faction.
But I can't join a faction because I don't have enough experience and renown.
So I can't fight because I'm not in faction and I'm not in a faction because I can't fight.
In addition, my troops suck. I rarely get any combat so they have little experience for leveling up. With such poor troops, I can't siege towns nor pick fights with the enemy nobles of the faction I wish to join.
To hell with this. I'm going back to modded Warband. As I recall, the Prophesy of Pendor mod was pretty fun.
I have to admit the guns are fun, but they are OP anyway. If you have 80-90% of your army using guns you're practically invincible.
So the guys at the top are finally admitting that the current macroeconomic theories are inaccurate.
What took them so long?
"The paradigm that the market corrects itself, on which all the traditional economists such as Blanchard and Mankiw base their theories, is on the rocks," said Gatti. "What the traditional theories do not consider is that the financial market must be regulated. A too-liberalized market creates monsters."
The US seems like a prime example.
Up to one in four people can't find work in parts of Europe, and the reality of people who are unemployed without choosing to be is one of the biggest holes in mainstream theory, for Bofinger and others. In orthodox teaching, supply and demand in the labor markets should fix unemployment leaving just those people who choose not to work in the dole queue.
Most undergrads would assume that such flaws are likely solved by theories they aren't going to be taught at their levels of education. Sometimes, those don't exist, and it's scary to know what we learnt is incomplete to this degree.
Simon Evenett, professor of international trade and economic development at St Gallen University, said macroeconomists had ignored the financial system in most of their models, and the finance guys missed economic linkages. "That intellectual separation has been the cause of a lot of misdiagnoses."
London School of Economics economics professor Charles Goodhart told a conference macroeconomists had been "totally and egregiously hopeless." Their assumption that everyone in an economy can borrow at the same risk-free rate "blows one's mind, the degree of intellectual error."
I wouldn't go as far as to say that the intellectual separation should take all the blame. Most of their employees and the younger people they work with were taught by the same intellectuals or their written works, so if after all these years they found nothing wrong with these students, you shouldn't use their teachers as the scapegoats for your problems.
For too long, economists have been trying to fit evidence into theory, instead of the reverse. Now, we may be looking at a new age of economic theories, one that is based on the lessons learnt since 2008 and those we are still learning today.
Being superstitious is not necessarily a bad thing. It is true that it could mean that they are willing to believe in anything without real evidence, but it could also indicate how far they are willing to go to achieve something.
For example, the newer generation of Chinese people who don't really believe in traditions but still have food offerings ready for the spirits during festivals even when nobody expects them to do it, it just shows how motivated they are to succeed in life.
They are willing to try anything.
Of course I'm not talking about those who are expected to follow traditions. It has to be completely voluntary to the point where nobody would even know whether it's done or not.
If a man discovered that his grownup child was not his biological offspring, can he sue him/her for all the money he spent to bring him/her up?
Apparently, you can. And you can also do the same to his/her biological parents.
Worst of all, there are actually people who did either of these, and it's common enough that they aren't considered newsworthy.
Rant 1018 / PSO
Phantasy Star Online may be the best MMORPG right now just because of the extraordinary jiggle physics.
Ordered a delivery from Khansama the other day. Didn't read the old flyer I had carefully and dialled the number printed prominently in large fonts on the first page.
Turned out to be the number to the main branch at Little India, and they had to transfer the order after taking it down to the one closer to my place, which also called me to confirm the order.
Next time, I'll just call that nearer branch instead.
This time, I ordered more than $50 because I just felt like trying more, since I haven't eaten Indian food for some time now.
So I had a full set of tandoori chicken (they also offered half and quarter sets) for $22 and it had 8 pieces of them.
The meal showed me that for deliveries from Khansama, I should stick with soft or liquid stuff like rice and curry, even though there are quite a number of fried and roasted food in the menu. This is because unlike fast food deliveries, Khansama isn't able to keep things crispy - both the gobi manchurian and tandoori chicken were soggy.
I haven't tried everything because I left the fish curry, butter chicken and half the tandoori chicken for another meal, but everything so far is more spicy than expected.
Next time, I think I'll just order a lot of biryani and naans plus one or two curries/masala.
Sometimes I wonder if our police force has grown proportionally over the years with our population growth.
I'm always excited when I'm expecting a package. Now I have 4 on my waiting list.
No idea why but it's like waiting for gifts, even if they're paid by myself and meant for work.
Speaking of work, I recently came to the conclusion that I still have little idea how to handle the freedom I gained. I recognize the fact that I can do anything I want but my methods of doing things rarely involve solely my own decisions without the advice of others.
After playing Fire and Sword for a while, I realized that the lance had been nerfed and it's way better to fight with the newly introduced firearms. The reload may be slower than a dead snail but 3 shots from a good gun can kill even someone wearing heavy armour.
Of course, those 3 shots may be the only ones you have time to fire throughout the battle, but still, it sounds like fun.
Unfortunately I have already invest 3 levels' worth of points in polearms, so I'll have a long way to go before I become a competent musketeer.
Holy crap! Dota 2 can suck my balls.
Sunday, 1 July 2012
Rant 1017 / The Other Day I Had
Oh wow this manufacturer actually explained to me about wool after I told him I could get 100% lambs' wool sweaters at half the price he quoted for his mercerized-merino-wool-with-acrylic sweaters.
Lambs' wool is soft and fluffy but considered inferior to merino wool because the latter is apparently much lighter.
Nevertheless I did not plan to order sweaters within that price range so I cannot continue with my original order. I already have enough of those from my current suppliers.
His email reply sounds like the sales pitch of a persistent salesman except I actually learnt useful knowledge from him.
I'm only curious about why he is trying so hard. Does he want this deal so badly or did I sound like a big company? No, surely I didn't order enough to be considered a big buyer.
With this nonsense happening at what is probably the biggest church organization in Singapore (I don't know for sure), I for one am glad that we have nothing like Fox News here among our media.
It is easy to imagine the kind of "news" they would report and together with the fact that the church members are mostly young people, it's just scary to think about what fires it could ignite.
But so far it's fine. Fortunately.
Just tried this Amethystory facial wash gel stuff from Ginvera. It's a tiny tube of free sample I got some time back and never used until now.
I rarely use facial wash and usually I just get random tubes from Biore. The last one was this black-and-white stuff with tiny beads within.
This Amethystory, however, was quite different. At first, it didn't feel very soapy on my face so I thought maybe my housekeeper sprayed water on it and some of it got into the tube. I mean, my floss has gotten wet before because of her, so this isn't surprising.
Then as I massaged my face with it, my fingers felt lots of stuff on my face gathering the way eraser dust do when you use an eraser on a piece of paper.
Hence came the realization that it didn't feel soapy because it contained a lot of rough stuff inside, kinda like adding soap on sandpaper.
This facial wash is practically liquid sandpaper.
Finished Deus Ex: Human Revolution.
Very nice game, but I noticed the trend that games with such great graphics are becoming fun to watch instead of being fun to play. When playing, I'm usually too focused in the looting, fighting and sneaking to appreciate anything else.
Anyway it was fun trying to get the Ghost award for most of the missions, and at the end I was just using invisibility instead of finesse since I had so many nutrient bars and I had a feeling it was the final part of the game.
When I finished the game, I didn't even use up everything.
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