Snippets of this and that

Half a year in a roll of film

2011-11-14T21:05:00.003+08:00

I have a film camera, a delightful little semi-automatic SLR with manual aperture and focus controls.

Click here for large size image

Every now and then, I will persuade myself that this function/ event I’m going to is going to be great and I should bring my camera… my FILM camera. But when I get there there’s not so much going on that justifies squeezing off a RM 0.65 shot so I usually end up with a photo or two, sometimes 5. The small number of photos and my boring social calendar means it takes about 6 months for a roll of film to be used, by then I’m a bit jaded by the hassle and lack of instant-ness of film.

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I get the roll developed and scanned, and immediately get stunned by the vividness of it. The dynamic range is fantastic – there simply are no blown-out areas, and the tonal gradients look rather pleasing.

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It also helps with my composition that I take extra care to squeeze the trigger when RM 0.65 is on the line, so I end up with a higher proportion number of better photos.

I should... will take the film camera out more.

The World Taekwondo Hanmadang 2011

2011-11-02T01:23:00.004+08:00

3 months ago, I was in Korea for a taekwondo competition, and by golly was it an eye opener. The quality of the taekwondo competition was unbelievable (it’s one thing to see a video of an awesome one-off performance, but when you see team after team after team of consistently excellent performance, you wonder about the statistics), I saw a changing room full of naked boys, then I saw a changing room full of naked men…

The competition in question was the World Taekwondo Hanmadang 2011, with a very strong focus on the art form and no sparring at all. The event list was significant, with:
-Fist breaking
-Knife hand breaking
-Foot breaking
-Jumping kick breaking for height (highest jumping kick that breaks a light plank)
-Jumping kick breaking for distance (furthest jumping kick that breaks a light plank)
-Spinning kick breaking (most number of spinning kicks executed in a fixed duration)
-Combination breaking (break as many planks as desired, using as fancy/difficult techniques as desired)
-Team pattern
-Mixed doubles pattern
-Team demonstration (mixed event of 9 members to perform pattern, breaking, jumping kicks, weapons self defense)

Courtesy of the generosity of Air Asia X, our team of 15 flew into Korea at partially sponsored fares. Lower fares = more spending money.

Obligatory group photo at the venue. Note the slick (sponsored) team uniform

The first thing that caught our attention was the Korean teams' synchronisation. The top teams were perfect- stopwatch perfect. The coordination of both timing and techniques were impeccable. Then we realise that many Korean universities have taekwondo departments alongside their engineering and economics faculties. That explains a lot.

Fortunately for us foreign competitors, we were in a ‘foreign’ category of our own. It is a win-win situation: the foreigners don’t get steam-rolled by the Korean teams, and the Korean teams are not exposed to the slight risk that they may be embarrassed by a foreigner.

Not to say it made life much easier. In my age category, 19-30 years old, competition was extremely stiff as most athletes reach their peak at this age. We amateurs were up against very strong national teams consisting of professional athletes. Our two teams finished 8th and 9th from a pool of 14 teams. Not too shameful for first-timers.

This was the winning team, Indonesia.

And right at the end, you can see one of the Malaysia PTC teams coming in 5th place (at that time) with 7.95 points.

The mixed-doubles 19-30 years old winners from Spain looked even better, partly because a smaller team is easier to synchronise.

The under-18 group was not as heavily fortified with national teams. With the firepower of our team’s under-18 mixed-doubles pair of Monica and Brandon, a bronze medal was secured for Malaysia.

Click here for large size image
In the breaking events, Kalaiselvan in the 50-59 years old foot breaking won a silver medal. He nominated a conservatives 4 planks to be loaded on the racks, and broke them easily. Many others were ambitious and requested more, but the tight packing of the planks meant that if the kick was insufficient to break through everything, none broke.

For the 19-29 years old fist breaking, Albert punched through 4 roof tiles but was outperformed by many. This was due to a minor mistake resulting in sub-optimal momentum transfer to the targets.

Medal winners Brandon, Kalaiselvan and Monica with our head coach Zul

The organisers had a welcome banquet for foreign competitors, which went OK. It was a buffet, and the variety of food was commendable.

That's just a bottle of soft drink

To be continued…

2011-04-13T12:51:00.001+08:00

Yesterday I saw a magnificently disgusting event at the toilet.

Most Muslim men will use a bit of water to wash their penis after peeing. In some nice urinals, the flush has a spout that has water coming out so that they can use their hands to scoop the water to wash their snake. However, many urinals don’t have that spout so people have to make do.

In this factory, the urinal is not a nice ceramic one. It’s like the ones in schools and government offices- a stainless steel common wall, drain at the bottom and some nozzles at the top. These nozzles spray water directly on the wall to form a thin film of running water for flushing the wall. Usually, the factory workers will use their hand to collect some water at the nozzle outlet and wipe their snakes with their wet fingers.

Yesterday was different.

While I was doing my business with my snake at one end of the urinal, a construction worker did his thing with his own snake at the other end. When he was done he pulled the flush, leaned forward, and instead of reaching his hand out for the water nozzle, he used his arm to brace himself against the cement wall above the urinal, and leaned forward towards the stainless steel wall of the urinal. With his hips thrust towards the urinal, he used his hands to help rub the tip of his presumably circumcised snake against the stainless steel wall several times to get it rinsed with water. The stainless steel wall of a urinal, at a height which many people will urinate directly on to*.

Oh golly, that was nasty.

*If one did a bacteria count of water from a urinal nozzle that was collected on a hand, and compared the result with a swab taken from a urinal wall, the difference would probably be negligible. However, the ick-factor would be greatly different.

Programming types would say, "Hello world!"

2010-10-27T21:40:00.001+08:00

Several months ago, I made the decision to give up looking for a job in Australia and return to Malaya. Working in Australia had its benefits- high purchasing power, excellent working hours, the possibility of relying on public transport and maybe easy access to good coffee.

The key word in the above sentence is ‘working’. For a good half year, I was as good as jobless, relying on a reasonably well-paying* freelance contract to keep me occupied and my finances in the black. The field in which I was experienced was small and slow moving at that time, and it was surprisingly difficult to find employment.

Being jobless can be rather unsettling, the most obvious reason being the lack of secure income. Also, one ends up with too much time on one’s hands. I did try to occupy myself, but things still do slip after a while. There was no drama with emotional instability, I would like to think, but I think I did have too little to do with my time.

The situation did not look like it was improving in the near term but the clock kept ticking. If I continue bumming for much longer my employability will decay and I might just end up in some dead end alley.

So here I am, back in sunny Malaya and employed within a month of returning. The pay is nothing to shout home about, the cost of living seems to get scarier as I learn more about living, the traffic can be a total tosser and good cheap coffee is rare. But it’s not all doom and gloom; on the contrary I’m quite glad I’m home. The family is here, the extended family is within arm’s length, the close friends are still here, good affordable food is easily available, the pace of life is more interesting and I have a promising job.

Now and then, I’d wonder how would things have turned out if I managed to find decent work in Australia. IF.

I might be living in a smallish apartment near the city centre, working rather civilised hours and accumulating some savings. In the end I’d still return to Malaya, so the only difference is a few more years Australian lifestyle and a little heap of accumulated savings.

Things didn’t turn out as I’d have liked them to, but it’s not the end of the world. Here, it’s much easier to plan and coordinate our wedding.

* this contract was with a Malaysia company, so what was originally lucrative became less substantial once converted to Australia Dollars.

Anaglyph

2010-09-08T11:57:00.003+08:00

A few days ago, Panasonic launched an advertisement blitz across various newspapers for their 3D HDTV. Red-cyan 3D glasses were supplied with the anaglyphic advertisements.

Dig yours out, because the following still life is an anaglyph-

Lego Men
Large size better for stereo vision

2010-07-24T15:36:00.002+08:00

Bitter Gourd is sad because the Garlics refuse to play with it
Elitist bastards

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Red Velvet cake with cream cheese icing

2010-06-03T19:13:00.002+08:00

Click here for more information

The background story on how to imitate the Minolta/Sony Smooth Transition Focus bokeh on regular, large-aperture lenses

2010-05-13T22:22:00.006+08:00

This is an investigation of a concept, not the actual building process. This article will involve more mathematics than you’d probably care to read.

Basis of the STF

The STF lens is an innovative lens by Minolta (and now marketed by Sony) that gives exceptionally smooth bokeh by using a piece of grey-coloured glass to regulate light fall-off of the bokeh.

Very simply, this works by making the circle of confusion’s (the bokeh) brightness gradually fade. This is in contrast to normal lenses where the circle of confusion is a very well defined circle (or hexagon/pentagon/octagon, if the aperture blades are slightly closed).

The results are very smeared circles of confusion, as illustrated by the comparison images below.

Photo using a regular, large aperture lens

Photo using an STF lens

The design and ingenuity behind the STF mechanism is described here, with lots of sample photos from the STF lens.

Existing imitation techniques

On Minolta Dynax 7 film cameras, the STF’s smooth bokeh can be mimicked by taking seven exposures on one frame, each exposure with a smaller aperture size. This results in circle of confusions with bright centres and progressively dimmer towards the edge.

Alternatively, a long exposure can be made in dim lighting with the camera mounted on a tripod. The aperture ring can then be manually turned to reduce the aperture over the entire duration of the exposure. For this approach, manual lenses with no aperture clicks are most suitable.

Proposed filter-based mimickery

Here, I propose using a lens filter to reproduce the light falloff that an STF lens’s coloured lens. If a filter can be darkened at the edges to allow a gradual light falloff, then the resulting bokeh will have a similar falloff characteristic. The falloff can be controlled by adjusting the darkness of the glass at different distances from the centre.

Proposed concept: radial gradient neutral density filter

This filter-based approach has been used to shape bokeh, resulting in heart, star, square shaped bokeh:

A heart-shaped bokeh filter

Result from a heart-shaped bokeh filter: circle of confusion (bokeh) partially obscured, resulting in heart shape

Light falloff modelling

Light falloff on the proposed radial ND filter can be done by attempting to mimic the STF lens’s material thickness and how it absorbs light.

The first assumption would be to make an approximation of the filtering element’s lens shape. It is reasonable to assume that the lens is a spherical lens, since spherical lenses are generally much easier to cut than other aspherical shapes.

Based on schematics by Minolta (above), the lens’s geometry can be scaled to a common distance scale based on the lens’s radius:

Approximating the coloured glass's dimensions

Lens radius: 1.00r
Lens thickness at centre: ≈ 0
Lens thickness at edge: 0.47r
Sphere radius: 1.29r

After some geometric manipulation, the lens thickness can be expressed by the equation

which describes the lens thickness, t, at a particular radius, r.

To calculate the optical density of the glass, it’s useful to note that the aperture number of the Minolta STF lens is f/2.8, but the amount of light let in is equivalent to f/4.5 (the lens’s name is 135mm f2.8 [T4.50] STF). This can tell us that the coloured lens removes approximately 1.4 stops of light, from the following relation:

If by removing 1.4 stops of light, this means that only 0.5^1.4 (39%) of the incoming light passes through; the rest is absorbed by the coloured glass.

In order to select the correct optical density for the filter to match Minolta’s design, we need to match the total light transmitting through the filter to be similar to what Minolta has for the STF lens (39%).

Arbitrarily assuming that the edge of the lens removes p stops of light passing through (similar to the dynamic range of slide film), and using the knowledge that the glass thickness and optical density is proportional, the number of stops removed at a particular radius can be expressed as:
(0.47 is the thickness of the edge of the coloured lens)

This means that for light passing through any portion of the lens, the quantity that passes through can be expressed as 0.5^d. To calculate the total amount of light passing through the entire lens, we need to add intensities of all the different rays of light coming through (some rays weakened due to passing through lots of dark glass, some rays not so weak due to passing through less glass).

The integral below does that:

To find the value of p, the above equation needs to match the transmissivity of the Minolta’s coloured lens, which is 39%.

Therefore, the edge of the filter needs to absorb 2.18 stops of light, letting through 22%, while the centre practically lets everything through.
For the proposed filter to match the light falloff of the STF’s bokeh, the filter’s darkness needs to be the same as the STF’s coloured lens. Therefore, the same equation can be used to describe the filter’s darkness at all radiuses:

For this equation, the length scale is set such that the filter’s radius is 1.00.

Having obtained the proper light falloff characteristic and the relationship between optical density and radius for the filter, the filter can be constructed. This article will be continued as progress is made during construction.

Two buns and a bush

2010-05-04T10:10:00.004+08:00

Two buns and a bush

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2010-04-28T13:50:00.002+08:00

Circles

Super Takumar 50mm/1.4
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Cyclonic air/particle separation

2010-04-27T10:34:00.004+08:00

Today, I have something totally rad to tell you about.

Jean's cousin had newly acquired a Dyson vacuum cleaner. A Dyson vacuum cleaner! In many parts of the world this brand is highly notable for its fearsome dust extraction powers and general design creativity. Unfortunately they tend to be rather costly.

This particular model was a vertical type, and had a large ball as part of the hinge between the handle section and the vacuuming nozzle. The ball allowed the whole mechanism to tip left and right, effectively letting the user steer the vacuum cleaner like a motorcycle by twisting the handle.

The filtration mechanism relies on a centrifugal air filter (this relies on a high speed vortex of air that separates heavy particles from the lighter air) and a fine air filter mesh. The awesomeness about this cyclonic air filter is that it separates particles based on density, not size. Practically, it removes all dust from the air because whatever that accumulated on the floor is going to be heavier than air, so it will be removed by the cyclone regardless of size.

On the suction zone inside the T shaped wand, a rotating brush drum agitates carpet fibres to allow trapped dust to be removed.

All in all, this contraption has a fair bit of novel features:
-Light weight
-Manoeuvrable, due to the motorcycle-like steering
-Excellent dust separation
-Carpet and upholstery brush drum

Jean’s cousin was kind enough to let me take it back to try, and by golly it was fantastic. It was amazingly easy to steer and it agitated the carpets thoroughly. Before starting, I emptied the dust tank to see how much dust it would pick up from the carpets that were just vacuumed 2 days ago. The dust managed to fill up the entire dust tank, all of it fine fibres that had been missed by the regular vacuum cleaner. I had never enjoyed vacuum cleaning so much in my life!

See this contraption here:
http://www.dyson.com.au/store/product.asp?product=DC25-HEPAPLUS

But 700 AUD for a vacuum cleaner is rather expensive... If one searches for 'Dyson Malaysian", one would find many articles saying the Dyson has moved production to Senai, but there is practically nothing about buying one in Malaysia. No sane person would buy a RM 2,100 vacuum cleaner.

Ok that's it for today.

Oh and I like the photo for the gentle lighting, the neat brickwork and the pretty girl ♥

Mimosa pudica's flower

2010-02-27T12:21:00.001+08:00

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When Kuala Lumpur orgasmed

2010-02-25T07:48:00.003+08:00

On the eighth night of the Lunar Year, Kuala Lumpur arched her back in a loud and frantic display of light and sound that went on till the early hours of the next day.

The action started on a sedate pace, with occasional bursts of fireworks and popping noises from distant unseen crackers. After half an hour of foreplay, the sky began to light up with showers of golden light accompanied with ever more frequent booms.

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The noise... the noise was something to behold. It sounded like a pair of very active humans copulating noisily upon a wobbly bed that was attached to the pedal of a drum set.

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The booming went on and on, just below the threshold of climaxing. For the whole of half an hour, the imaginary wobbly bed and the drum set kept on booming. Sometimes gently, sometimes with such ferocity that the noise reverberated off the façade of apartment blocks.

And then they scaled it; they were beyond the threshold. The imaginary couple really saw fireworks. The sky erupted in light and magic accompanied by the frantic booming of explosions.

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The eruption of sensations was electric. Across the sky, flashes of orange, green, purple, red, blue and yellow appeared like sugar sprinkles on a birthday cake, and quickly faded away as gracefully as a swan paddling on the Lake Baikal. Glowing embers flung by the explosions drew squiggly lines on photographic films, looking very much like hopelessly lost sperm cells in a rectum.

When it was over, entire districts and townships were left blanketed in a light soothing haze that smelled of explosives.

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2010-01-21T20:45:00.000+08:00

Bubble Plane

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Blogging

2010-01-07T20:07:00.001+08:00

I'm now in Melbourne, jobless and enjoying every moment of the housewife lifestyle. Laundry, dishes, cooking, surfing, reading and studying. The missing element from my daily routine is tidying up after toddlers, which I actually do occasionally when we visit Jean’s cousin and his kids.

Tomorrow, I start work at a marketing company selling credit cards and financial products. I do not expect to do very well, but the sales training will be a good eye opener to a different world.

The internet connection is strangely slow. After being used to the blazing connection speeds in china (its so bloody fast because just about anything interesting is blocked by the government), this is quite agonising. 480 kb/s is simply unacceptable.

I've had a slow epiphany over the duration of the past week:

In motor sports and the auto industry, wheel slip is an important term in determining how much friction the tyres and road are generating.

A commonly accepted approach is that the tyre produces maximum friction when it is slipping a little (usually to the order of 5%). Roughly speaking, a car travelling at 100 km/h and accelerating heavily will have its driving wheels spinning at 105 km/h.

However, it is not necessary that the tyre surface actually slips against the road surface. This is because the measured speed of the tyre is actually measured at the wheel’s shaft. The tyre’s surface will move at 105km/h (as in example above), but the portion of tyre contacting the road will be moving at 100 km/h.

This can be understood by considering the tyre surface alone. The tyre surface spins around the shaft at 105 km/h, but at the area where the surface touches the ground, the surface speed slows down to 100 km/h. This is possible because the tyre surface is elastic, and can compress a little. The rubber at the surface will be moving at 105 km/h, then when it nears the contact area it sort of bunches up a bit and slows down to 100 km/h. Once past the contact area, the rubber loosens up again and speeds up to 105 km/h.

This action of bunching up is reasonable, when you consider the elasticity of the material. The bunched up material is under compression, and will help transfer force from the hub to the contact patch.

Sleep now, work starts tomorrow.

Sabrina is nuts

2009-11-05T09:51:00.003+08:00

On twitter this morning:

Yee Wei:
The 3 ladies in accounting are talking about diapers, their's kids' (in)ability to hold their bladders overnight and the cost of diapers.

Sabrina:
Dude you go talk to them bout anal sex! Just to get a reaction! GO! GO! GO!

The Knife of Legends

2009-11-04T10:09:00.001+08:00

The Kinmen knife was the star of my uncle's knife block. Made from used artillery shell¹, its very hard blade was able to hold a sharper edge compared to softer metals. The blade is made of metal folded and pounded many times like puff pastry, giving wavy lines on the side of the blade where the layer boundaries show through.

The knife is alive; it calls out to be used. It wants, desires, to cut and dice things into neat regular sized pieces². It can plant strange ideas in one's mind.

"That juicy melon probably needs to be cubed."

I heave the large juice laden melon onto the chopping board and quickly slide the pointed end of the blade into the fruit. The hard steel meets no resistance and spreads the fruit's flesh easily, sliding against the soft moist interior tissue as easily as a well lubricated shaft in a jackhammer. The fruit was of exceptional quality, and a thick sweet liquid began to ooze onto the chopping board.

***

Kinmen is a Taiwanese island located between The People's Republic of China (often simply referred to as China) and the Republic of China (also known as Taiwan). It is a widely known fact that Taiwan, unlike China, is not a republic of the people.

The location of Kinmen makes it a location of military importance, thus drawing it much attention over the course of the two Chinas' colourful history. In the late 50s, China made a move attempting to take Taiwanese islands Kinmen and Matsu into its loving arms. After a 6-week bout of intense artillery shelling on the island, the campaign came to a stalemate as the United States and Soviet Union intervened. This intervention did not stop the fiasco in its entirety- the whole thing turned into a 20-year propaganda campaign.

The propaganda campaign in question consists of each China stuffing artillery shells with propaganda leaflets (instead of explosives) and lovingly delivering said shells to the other China. Conveniently, the game settled into a quasi-happy equilibrium where each bombards the other on alternate days. This mind numbing process lasted for 20 years.

When all this ended in 1979, some 450,000 artillery shells have accumulated on the island of Kinmen. This made the island a fairytale mine from which processed high quality steel can be picked from the ground. Artisans and craftsmen collect the material and fashion them into various tools and objects, with kitchen knives being the most notable.

Notes:
1 Intact artillery shell, only used once with no explosives, lady owner. Good condition, must see to believe. Makes 50 knives. RM 200 neg.
2 This supposed phenomenon of a knife having wants may be the result of the author projecting his/her desires onto an inanimate object.

Should you replace your car with a newer model with lower fuel consumption?

2009-10-29T15:03:00.006+08:00

Contents
1. Introduction
2. Method of analysis
Choice of test cases
Valuation of cases
Cost function
Optimum solution
3. Sample problem
Available options
Cost functions
Solution method
Choosing a non-optimum choice

Introduction

Advancements in automotive power plants have produced cars with ever improving fuel efficiency. In some instances, it may be a better choice to trade in an old fuel guzzler for a newer vehicle. Other times, it may not be a financially sound move. This paper will show how some variables will affect the decision making process.

Method of analysis

Choice of test cases

The available set of test cases is preselected by the user to account for personal preferences. For example, a user may choose to consider buying a Honda Accord, a Nissan Cefiro, or stay with the current vehicle. While there are numerous other choices available in the market, these are may not be included in the test because the user deems these unfit for consideration, based on price and preference.

Valuation of cases

Each case is valued based on purchase price and fuel consumption. Depreciation/resale value is not considered as this is not easy to predict for people unfamiliar with the used-car market. Cost of maintenance and repairs is also not considered as reliable records are difficult to obtain.

Valuation is performed on a cost per month basis, where the costs consist of:
Fuel- dependent on expected driving distance in a month, fuel consumption of the car and cost of fuel
Opportunity cost (lost of potential investment income)- dependent on money invested in obtaining a new car (after accounting for the resale price of the current vehicle) and the expected rate of return in the capital market

Cases are compared on basis of cost, and the case which presents the least cost is the optimum choice.

Cost function

The cost of fuel is the product of distance driven per month, the quantity of fuel used per km, and the price of fuel.

Z = dηp + c[(1+i)1/12 - 1]

Where:
Z is the total cost per month
d is the expected distance driven in a month
η is the fuel consumption per km
p is the price of fuel
c is the cost of obtaining a new car
i is the rate of return in the capital market

The term c[(1+i)^1/12 - 1] indicates the returns from investing in the capital market that would be had if the money had been invested rather than being spent on the new car.

Optimum solution

The optimum solution is the choice which results in the lowest cost per mont.

Sample problem

Available options

Suppose our protagonist currently owns a Mitsubishi Pajero. He drives approximately 1500 km in a month, and a car salesperson has quoted him a resale value of $3,000 for the car. This car consumes 0.11 liters of petrol per km travelled. (Case 1)

He is considering buying a used Toyota Prius, which sells for $10,000 and has a published fuel consumption rate of 0.05 liters of petrol per km travelled. (Case 2)

Alternatively, a Honda Accord is available for $4500, and consumes 0.08 liters of petrol per km travelled. (Case 3)

The capital market rate of return, i, and the price of fuel, p, is not known.

Cost functions

Z₁ = 1500×0.11p
Z₂ + (10000-3000)[(1+i)^1/12 - 1]
Z₃ = 1500×0.08p + (4500-3000)[(1+i)^1/12 - 1]
As discussed above, the cost function for each case is the cost of fuel and the lost opportunity to invest in capital markets. Case 1 does not involve opportunity cost as no additional outlays are required.

Solution method

A brute force approach will be used here, as this method allows a large number of cases to be considered. It goes without saying that a spreadsheet program will be most helpful.
The cost functions for all cases are evaluated for a set of possible values of p and i.

The series of tables show the cost of making each choice for different combinations of fuel price and market rate of return. In this solution, the optimum choice (least expensive) is Case 2 if the market rate of return is expected to be low, and Case 3 if the market rate of return i is expected to be high.

Choosing a non-optimum choice

In some cases, the user may have non-monetary preferences. For example, the protagonist may have a slight dislike for the Toyota Prius because of the perception that only hippies and tree hugging Hollywood-types will want one of these cars.

As it turns out, the Toyota Prius (case 2) was found to be least costly in situations where i is low. In such situations, choosing case 3 instead of case 2 means the user will have to spend more than absolutely necessary.

How much extra are you willing to pay to choose a non-optimal choice? If p = 1.60 and i = 5%, the cost Z₂ is 149 while the cost Z₃ is 198. Are you willing to pay an extra $49 per month just to escape the tree-hugging image of a Toyota Prius?

Good grief, I am getting fat!

2009-10-27T13:27:00.003+08:00

No more walking to work/ camera mall/ wet market/ supermarket/ train station/ dinner, a well stocked fridge at home, lots of Milo at work¹ and easily accessible good food are contributing factors to this worryingly tightening waistline. Which is bad, because new pants cost money.

I need more physical activity than what my weekly 2 hours of prancing-about at taekwondo offers.

***

Over the weekend, I dropped by in Singapore (again). I've visited more malls in Singapore than I have in Malaysia and China combined². As a naïve and impressionable person, I was thoroughly in awe of the variety atriums I saw. Most memorable were the 6-storey high and irregularly shaped atrium at Raffles City topped by a seemingly open-air retail space at the top level, and the squarish triple-height atrium at Marina Square was beautifully lit with numerous white coloured deep concrete beams spanning the space diffusing direct sunlight that came in through the glass roof.

On Saturday, we had brunch with 2 of my mother’s schoolday friends, and dinner with my godsister and aunt's family. As is typical for dinners at this aunt's place, it was mind blowing- this uncle is really, really into cooking. Starter was a course of carbonara linguine, followed by a salad with feta cheese and chorizo. This was then followed by a break from eating, after which was the main course. Baked cod fillet wrapped with a thin slice of bacon, served with a dollop of wasabi-tinged mashed potato and portobello mushrooms. Another short break later, we had dessert consisting of D24 durian, jam tarts and cup cakes. The entire process was lubricated with 2 bottles of white wine and talk about food.

Mind blowing indeed.

Notes:
1 I might be over exploiting the free beverages at work. I typically make a very potent cup of Neslo consisting of 4 heaped teaspoons of Milo, 1.5 heaped teaspoons of instant coffee and 1.5 heaped teaspoons of creamer.
2 Likely because most spots of interest are located in, or need to be accessed via an MRT station under a mall of some sorts.

2009-10-15T15:17:00.002+08:00

I have resumed taekwondo training after six years of enforced abstinence. Of course, it was not complete deprivation from martial arts through those years. Until a couple of years ago, I had been dabbling in aikido, karate and pseudo-boxing (the fitness kind with no killing intent) to keep myself busy.

On re-entry a month ago, I was pleasantly surprised to find that despite a nasty decline in speed and stamina, I still had a decent grasp of the fundamental skills. In other words, I can still kick, slowly.

On hearing of an upcoming test in November, I asked the instructor if I would be able to make it. “Train for it first, then see if you’re ready later.” Sounds good. I got my black belt in late 2000, 2.5 years after starting as a white belt. My nine-year interval between 1st dan and 2nd dan tests is nine times the wait for a typical practitioner.

For the breaking part of the test, I’m leaning towards using the chopping kick for one of the techniques. Inherently less powerful than a sidekick¹, it will be a suboptimal choice if not for the fact that it’s quite satisfying.

Notes:
1. A sidekick is potentially powerful because it is a very linear kick, with the kicker’s body, the kicking direction, and the target all arranged in a straight line. The reaction force of the kick thrusts horizontally against the kicker’s body, therefore allowing the kicker to use his/her body mass to great advantage.

Hydrodynamics for noobs

2009-10-14T12:16:00.004+08:00

Seeing that my work load is particularly low today, I’ll attempt to clarify some fundamental concepts regarding the flow of water¹ through pipes and fittings.

A very fundamental notion to understand in hydraulics is the relationship between flow speed and pressure. A partially blocked pipe will be used to illustrate this relationship.

In this example, the pressure on the left, P_L, is greater than the pressure on the right, P_R. This pressure difference will accelerate water through the blockage, from left to right. As the speed of water flow increases, friction also increases. This friction force is proportional to the square of velocity: doubling the velocity results in four times the friction; tripling the velocity results in nine times the friction.
The flow of water will continue to increase until such a flow speed where the pressure difference, P_L - P_R is balanced by the friction of water rushing through the narrow blockage.

Instead of expressing the friction/ flow resistance as a friction force, it is commonly expressed as a pressure difference between the upstream and downstream areas, as a function of flow speed.

ΔP = kV²

This approach to expressing flow resistance is very convenient for practical problems. For example, one may wish to pump a certain volume of water through a valve into a water tank. If the desired flow speed V is known, and the valve’s value of k is known, the pressure difference between the valve’s front and back can be determined. Knowing the pressure inside the water tank, the pressure before the valve needs to be greater than the tank’s pressure by ΔP. This approach also can be used if there are several valves: the pressure difference across the valves can be added together to find out the total pressure loss that occurs when water flows through the system.

What happens when you open a valve in a water tap?

For simplicity, we will assume the water source for a tap is at a constant pressure, and the tap opens out to atmospheric pressure. This is quite a reasonable assumption, especially if the tap is connected directly to a water tank with very minimal lengths of piping.

As is the case for water taps, opening the valve allows water to flow out of the tap. Water flows from the high pressure side through the valve and out to the low pressure side. The flow speed is limited by the tap’s flow resistance k.

As shown above, the flow speed and pressure difference is related by ΔP = kV². Given that the pressure difference does not change, the only way to regulate the quantity of water coming out of the tap is by changing k. This happens when the valve is opened or closed. When the valve is closed, k increases (completely closed, the value of k is infinity- there is zero flow even when pressure difference is a finite quantity). When the valve is opened, k decreases.

Notes:
1. or any other viscous and incompressible fluid

Sexy

2009-09-29T15:58:00.002+08:00

Yee Wei: [boasts about numerically solving a mortgage term problem]
Jean: I think its good to study with u. Can sap your brains dry wtf
Yee Wei: My brains cannot dry one. Self lubricating brains *proud*
Jean: omg self lubricating wtf sounds bad wtf

2009-09-23T23:19:00.002+08:00

The previous post was not my doing.

***

I've been home for a month already, and it's been an awesome month. Went for granddad's 90th birthday, restarted taewkwondo training, stayed overnight at a penthouse in the middle of KL, good food on a daily basis, getting to see the gf on a weekly basis, resuming use of my 6-year old notebook (my 17-inch Dell notebook is coming tomorrow)...

It's good to be home for this little spell before I make another move.

From his ~~visit~~ honeymoon to Cameron Highlands, Hou bought 6kg of strawberries for RM 80. Slightly bruised in transit, mom decided to cook them to turn them into a jam-like gloop.

To make the best use of this decadent juice/jam intermediate substance, I made a vat of yoghurt and here is it:

You got stamped

2009-09-23T18:54:00.000+08:00

Conquered!

^^

So long and thanks for all the fish

2009-08-21T00:53:00.003+08:00

Some last minute packing, as usual. Tomorrow I'm to return the company computer, mailing a formidable parcel of my belongings home (surface mail is cheap), then it's time to go to the airport.

Personal high score

2009-08-15T20:56:00.002+08:00

Purchases made today:

5 long sleeved shirts from Marks & Spencer¹, 425 RMB
10 pairs of briefs from Uniqlo, 345 RMB
20 pairs of socks from Carrefour: 42 RMB

Footnotes:

1. Marks & Spencer opened their China flagship store in Shanghai late last year, and made some opening blunders, including insufficient stock (due to goods being detained at customs) and suboptimal product spread. They also seemed not to realise that many Chinese men tend not to wear long sleeved shirts to work, preferring short sleeved shirts or polo tees. The result- deep discounts on their stock of long sleeved shirts, with prices starting at 69 RMB each.

Honey I'm home!

2009-08-14T14:39:00.004+08:00

Yesterday, I heard that there was an urgent opening to be filled in the Malaysian office. In the evening, I called the boss to check on the situation and to ask if I can transfer over.

Yes no problem.
Awesome.

This morning I found out that “urgent” means “start on August 24^th.” Oh shit, I’ve only one weekend to stock up on cheap clothes, mail my excess luggage by surface mail, put my financial affairs in order, arrange my air ticket, finish reading Gone With the Wind¹ and pack.

I’m going home!

Yet I’m a little nervous. I have not lived in the Klang Valley for more than 6 years. I don’t really know my way around town, there’s this need to get used to traffic jams and toll charges and parking charges.

It’s a bit like moving to Kyoto, except I don’t have a bomb proof excuse when someone gives me a wtf stare because I asked where is The Gardens. And I’m going home.

Having stayed alone for some years has made me used to doing things to my own terms. What time to eat, how clean to keep my room, if I want a proper meal or just chocolate biscuits for dinner, what time to wake up…

Anyway, I’m going home and it’s going to be yet another new world.

Footnotes:

1. The landlord’s bookcase contained an almost mint copy of Gone With the Wind, printed in 1980. Here’s one of many fantastic paragraphs:

It had begun to dawn on him, that this sweet pretty little head was a ‘good head for numbers.’ In fact, a much better one than his own, and the knowledge was disquieting. He was thunderstruck to discover that she could swiftly add a long column of figures in her head when he needed a pencil and paper for more than three figures. And fractions presented no difficulties to her at all. He felt there was something unbecoming about a woman understanding fractions and business matters and he believed that, should a woman be so unfortunate as to have such unladylike comprehension, she should pretend not to. Now he disliked talking business with her as much as he enjoyed it before they were married. Then he had thought it all beyond her mental grasp and it had been pleasant to explain tings to her. Now he saw that she understood entirely too well and he felt the usual masculine indignation at the duplicity of women. Added to it was the usual masculine disillusionment in discovering that a woman has a brain.

"Gone With The Wind", Mitchell, 1936

Master of Nets Garden, Suzhou

2009-08-09T17:49:00.002+08:00

One of the smaller of gardens in Suzhou, the Master of Nets Garden benefits for a lower entry fee and best of all, is almost entirely overlooked by the busloads of tour groups.

Unlike the case in larger and better known attractions, this garden actually allows visitors to wander about in peace.

Much of the area is subdivided into rooms, courtyards, pavilions, gardens, walkways and airwells, interconnected with narrow doorways or screened openings/windows. It’s quite amazingly laid out. As one rounds a corner and enters a doorway, the scene changes surprisingly from a stern looking, wide open stone-paved courtyard into a cosy airwell with leafy palms and prickly pines.

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The Humble Administrator's Garden, Suzhou

2009-08-02T01:23:00.003+08:00

For the past few weeks, I’ve been working in Suzhou on a particularly nasty engagement. As it’s just 40 minutes away from Shanghai by fast train, I usually return to Shanghai for the weekends to tend to my little fashion boutique.

This weekend, however, I decided to stay around and look at one of the many famed gardens around town. These ancient gardens were mostly the playthings of some wealthy character or other, and have intricate use and separation of spaces. Very architecturally pleasing – a comment which is mostly untrue for modern Chinese constructions.

I was at the Humble Administrator’s Garden. Was beautiful, though the crowd somewhat detracted one’s appreciation of space by filling most of it with bodies and loud chatter.

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One of the many bodies of water within the garden, with a covered walkway along one side.

These ladies were posing on the walkway for another camera next to me. I happened to have the 135mm lens on at that time and managed to squeeze off a shot before the scene melted.

A tree in a courtyard

A tree with a vagina

*prods at map with pudgy finger*
“we are here, and that building over there is this. To get out we need to go this way.”
*Drags pudgy finger along map*

After 9000 pudgy finger-prods the map fades, leaving a gaping white hole in place of the red “you are here” dot.

Elaborately framed openings are a common feature here. Most, if not all, are unique designs.

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In the afternoon, it started raining. I hoped the rain would drive some of the visitors away, but most were well prepared.

Click here for large size image

2009-07-18T01:12:00.001+08:00

Client who wants everything (equipment packaging, site layout, piping layout, electrical drawings, process flowcharts ad infinitum) designed and drawn right now.

Chinese government still blocking access to youtube.

Client then changes its mind and decide that an additional 30% in capacity would be good, then insist we redesign and redraw everything before the end of yesterday.

Chinese government still blocking access to Facebook.

Understaffed company.

Chinese government still blocking access to Blogspot (right now I'm blogging through a proxy so the formatting will probably suck antelope penis)

Housemate took everything out of the fridge to defrost the thing, and left for Malaysia neglecting to refrigerate. That was last weekend. I just came back from outstation to a see my milk, cheese and everything else had been baking in the 33 degree summer afternoons. For one week.

Last month’s travel expenses claims still not paid out.

Ok fuck this shit, lets talk about something less miserable.

This coming Wednesday (22/7) will be Pi Approximation Day. Also, a total solar eclipse will be occurring over a narrow corridor fpassing through to Shanghai. This event will be the longest total solar eclipse of the 21st century, and it’s duration of totality will not be surpassed till 2132.

In principle, solar eclipses are quite boring event. You’re merely standing in the shadow of the moon. Yeah big deal.

However.

The moon just happens to be the correct size to blot out the sun’s very bright surface. This allows the sun’s atmosphere to become visible, where normally the surface’s brightness will overwhelm it be a factor of 1,000,000.

There was a tinge of regret when I sold my preposterously long lens on ebay. Now I know why. Bollocks.

China is the best!

2009-07-10T23:43:00.004+08:00

Of late, I’ve been stationed at one of the many factories of one of the East-Asian electronics conglomerates.

This afternoon, I returned to our company’s little regional office to do some online work (made 2 comments on Facebook status updates, surfed through BBC news, and updated some drawings and sent a few email) as the client would not allow outsiders to plug into their computer network.

The accountant’s husband strolled into the office late in the afternoon to wait for his wife to finish work. In general, he is a friendly man, but he suffers from a severe case of the widely-prevalent disorder: the China-is-best mentality. Below are excerpts of our conversation:

[typing a text message on the phone to the gf]
[walks by behind]
It seems quite tedious to type using English isn’t it?
It’s ok, I’m used to it.
Yeah but it’s not as efficient as Chinese. You get half as many characters for each message, but each word only requires one character ².
True.
I think… that English is not as sophisticated as Chinese. Have you studied classical Chinese? Each word conveys so much information, that a short sentence is able to convey a very deep meaning.
Mmm...
And English is more of a mechanistic languages. There are only 26 letters, and words are formed by combining different letters¹. For sure, it’s well suited for the purposes of computing, but for communication between persons, Chinese is still the better language.

[truncated]

Well, you can’t really tell if you don’t study it in detail. For example, if you use only conversational-grade English, it is impossible to judge the level of refinement in the language.

[...]

There must be a significant difference in the level of civilisation between the Chinese culture and the Malay culture right?
Well of course it’s different. The Chinese culture is from China and the Malay culture is from the Malaysia-Indonesia region.
So how old is the history of the Malay culture? (here it comes, a set up move for the all conquering 5000-years-of-civilisation trump card.)
[I somehow answered that question in a sideways manner and we got distracted by the details about how old other civilisations are, including European and North American. So no mention of 5000 years.]

At end of the business day he offered to drop me off at the train station, thus saving me an hour-long ride in a bus with no air conditioning (temperatures in mid afternoon is 30 to 36 celcius these days).

Thus, I shall not further vilify him here, tempting as it may be.

Footnotes:

2. I am convinced all well developed languages contain a measure of combinatorics. For example, the expression “I need to have sex with a BMW” is conveyed by picking several words and grouping them into a sentence. The words, in turn, consist of a group of smaller objects lumped together.

In English, words consist of a series of letters arranged in one dimension. In Chinese, words consist of sub-words arranged in 2 dimensions. These sub-words consist of a certain grouping of strokes, also arranged in 2 dimensions.

The fact that English words are constructed in 1 dimension makes it easy to spell words by arranging the letters along the time dimension.

1. which brings me to the second point, how one can squeeze so much more information into a 70-word message compared to a 140-character English message.

Mobile phones contain a standard dictionary of common Chinese words (which is probably not a huge amount). Assuming that there are 16,000 common Chinese words, this requires 14 bits of information to correctly assign each word to a unique number.

Assuming that each character for the mobile phone carries 7 bits of data, this is enough for 128 unique symbols (26 lower case letters, 26 upper case letters, 10 numerals, and about 30 symbols). 6 bits can only give 64 unique characters, which is definitely not enough.

As above, assuming that each Chinese word requires 14 bits to encode, it will need 2 character’s worth of information to be transmitted.

This is advantageous compared to the regular way English is transmitted: 2 characters is enough to encode a word, while English requires up about 5 characters to encode a word (sometimes up to 22 characters, such as counterrevolutionaries)

Can this method be used to give a higer information density to alpha-numeric based text messages?

A proposed mechanism is described as below.

[ok I’m getting ahead of myself, this is supposed to be a footnote, not an essay. Next entry, perhaps]

Young man, do you want to have some fun?

2009-07-09T10:55:00.001+08:00

When I went hunting for photo opportunities over the weekend, I arrived at a little area I had seen many times while cruising in the elevated light rail.

Access was through many little lanes connected to the main road. Each of these lanes fork out several times, but the paths inside do not connect.

The first lane I entered was pretty normal looking, because a police station was located inside the area.

The second lane was located just across the road from the long distance bus terminal, and most of the buildings were converted into motels and hostels.

The third lane looked rather normal, except for a woman loitering about at the entry of the lane. When she saw me approach, she asked, “young man, do you want to have some fun?”

Naturally, I ignored her. My idea of fun involves listening to instrumental music and sipping coffee while stroking a purring kitten in a BMW 7 series, so I walked ahead without acknowledging her presence.

Most touts would give up on you and find another target if you ignore them and gave them no hope of having any business out of you. Not so for this woman. She followed a few steps behind me, continuously asking if I wanted to rest, if I wanted to play, if I wanted to have a look at the girls first etc.

I stormed ahead without acknowledging the parasol-carrying woman. I wanted to take photographs, not have sex with strangers.

Further into the area, I noticed something different- there were women loitering around the streets. These were not the housewife-kinds that sit on little stools outside their kitchens plucking vegetables or watching their grandchildren play. These women were standing in the lanes with a bored look waiting for something to happen.

Shit, I seem to have stumbled into a vice den of sorts.

I turned to leave, and faced the woman who had been muttering her offers to set me a play date. I pretended to see her the first time, listened to her ask if I wanted to have fun, acted dumb and watch her rephrase her question into an invitation of “lets go and see the girls.”

I gave her a puzzled expression and asked her in exasperation, what are you asking? She skipped around embarrassing question and suggested I go take a rest, cocking her head in the direction of her brothel (presumably).

With a look of mock horror, declined her gracious offer and left, leaving the sex with strangers to other desperate souls.

Me, I just want architectural photographs and sex with a BMW.

Old Shanghai (2)

2009-07-07T20:22:00.003+08:00

On Sunday, I took a walk to another group of old buildings, this one located near the long distance coach terminal.

It is similar to the other area I visited previously, with quaintly crooked lanes, disorganised groups of houses and women washing vegetables along the lanes.

Click here for large size image

However, this area is earmarked for demolition. The process of evicting residents from their decades-old homes is common practice in Shanghai. The city government kicks everyone out and pays them a hefty sum to cover the astronomical cost of getting a new home, and these residents generally feel quite lucky to be able to get a free upgrade in housing.

More than 2/3 of the buildings in the area have been made inhabitable. The roofing has been removed, the upper level floors completely smashed through, and everything of possibly any value has been scavenged. Roof tiles, window panes, doors, washroom fixtures, wooden stairs, electrical fixtures… everything that can possibly be reused has been taken away by successive scavengers. What remains among the standing structural members (these are too difficult to break without machinery) are huge chunks of concrete, masonry and other odd reminders that someone used to call this home.

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This used to be a kitchen- the window has a little square frame where an exhaust fan used to reside, and decades of hot oily air had deposited a film of disgusting black muck on the frames.

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News in 120 seconds

2009-07-06T09:17:00.002+08:00

Fuck this shit.

Yet another engineer has resigned. Guess who will be doing all the work now.

***

Moving on to a less miserable topic...

Chocolates!

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Click here for large size image

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At 28 RMB for a box of 8 pieces, it is not a trivial matter. That it consists of a smallish biscuit entombed in a chunk of milk chocolate is a redeeming factor.

The beautiful Super-Takumar 50mm/1.4 is there as a reference for scale, seeing that it is a familiar object and most people would have an intuitive grasp of its size.

***

And now, some updates from the fashion capital of China, Shanghai.

Three-quarter length stockings have become quite popular here, the owners proudly assaulting the eyesight of the general public with their frightful aesthetics.

Designs vary, ranging from plain translucent material throughout, to more complex patterns such as opaque nylon above the knee, translucent nylon below the knee, and finished with a bold lace trim at mid-calf height.

Now to wait for the rest of the world’s sense of fashion to catch up, and we’ll see an explosion of these things from Milan to New York. Delightful.

When the visual cortex stops working

2009-06-28T16:14:00.005+08:00

Today, I watched my brain turn itself inside-out. A thoroughly frightful experience, but very “interesting” (but only in the way a scientist would use the expression).

I had just disembarked from the overnight sleeper train from Tianjin, and was making my way out of the Shanghai train station towards the metro station. All of a sudden, I felt faint. After I climbed a flight of stairs up to ground level, it felt much worse. I was wobbly, and had to stop walking to hold on to a wall to prevent myself from falling over. My vision blacked out completely- I could see nothing. This lasted for about 10 seconds.

My sense of balance was failing rapidly, and even the wall was not helping me keep upright. I had to squat down and brace my head in by hands. All this while, I was worried my condition would deteriorate further causing me to keel over and pass out on the wet pavement in the rain (and lose my computer, passport and phones). This lasted for approximately 10 seconds until my sense of balance and vision returned, just barely.

I became aware of a motorcycle-taxi behind me asking if I needed a ride. I told him my address, he quoted me 15 yuan. It was a slaughter (a normal taxi would have cost 11 yuan), but I was in no shape to haggle.

I was able to get on the bike and keep myself in balance without problem, but my vision was still bedlam. In hind sight, this is not very surprising as the visual cortex is of substantial size, and visual processing is a very resource intensive task.

Below is a Photoshop recreation of my rather useless sense of vision at that time.

Normal view

Click here for large size image

WTF view

Click here for large size image

Allow me to attempt to describe what little I could see.

It was an overcast day with light drizzle, so the sky was entirely white. My field of vision had returned to normal, however, everything was in very very low resolution. In the middle of my field of vision, I could ‘see’ some detail, but everything else was a blur of white and splotches of dull colours.

When I look at buildings, I see it as if it was a pencil sketch on white paper. I could perceive some of the edges of buildings- these edges were rendered in a plain purplish colour. The rest was mostly white in colour. It appears that the perceived edges were moving with respect to my field of vision. This is consistent with findings that moving objects are easier to detect compared to stationary ones ¹. Conceivably, the perception of moving objects is given a higher priority in the visual processing part of the brain.

Over the course of 5 minutes, I regained my sense of vision. I could walk and keep balance as if nothing had happened.

Footnotes:
1 – This is important for the survival of many species. A moving object could well be a predator, and being able to detect a predator early would increase the creature’s chances of not being eaten.

OMG, it's Euler!

2009-06-18T14:40:00.003+08:00

F Minus, by Tony Carrillo.

Weirdo

2009-06-13T23:13:00.003+08:00

Of late, I’ve taken to reading journal papers for leisure.

Despite the main body of most research papers being very in depth studies of very specific, these papers do provide a fair bit of enlightenment of the field of study and general fragments of knowledge.

Here are a few free resources that might light your boiler:

DOAJ
EMIS
DigiZeitschriften
NUMDAM
Project Euclid
Polish Virtual Library of Science
SwissDML
arXiv.org
mini-DML

2009-06-11T10:18:00.002+08:00

Fate has dealt me a good hand.

Joke of the day

2009-06-08T11:13:00.004+08:00

China Squeezes PC Makers
Beijing Is Set to Require Web Filter That Would Censor 'Harmful' Internet Sites

BEIJING -- China plans to require that all personal computers sold in the country as of July 1 be shipped with software that blocks access to certain Web sites, a move that could give government censors unprecedented control over how Chinese users access the Internet.

The government [...] says the effort is aimed at protecting young people from "harmful" content. The primary target is pornography, says the main developer of the software, a company that has ties to China's security ministry and military.

The government, which has told global PC makers of the requirement but has yet to announce it to the public, says the effort is aimed at protecting young people from "harmful" content. The primary target is pornography, says the main developer of the software, a company that has ties to China's security ministry and military.

The software requirement was outlined in a notice that was issued by China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on May 19 but that hasn't yet been publicized by state media. The notice, a copy of which was seen by The Wall Street Journal, says PC makers must ship PCs to be sold in China as of July 1 with the Green Dam software "preloaded" -- pre-installed or enclosed on a CD.

Foreign industry officials say companies have been given little time to properly test Green Dam. "The lack of transparency, the shortness of time for implementation, and the incredible scope of the requirement that is not matched anywhere around the world present tremendous challenges to the industry," said an industry official who has discussed the plans with several major PC makers.

An excerpt from "China Squeezes PC Makers", Wall Street Journal, 8 June 2009.

Old Shanghai

2009-05-23T19:57:00.000+08:00

Hidden among Shanghai’s endless blocks of high-rise buildings and badly designed metro stations are quaint little pockets of antiquity.

These decades old clusters of houses resemble the disorganised clutter of squatter houses: narrow crooked lanes that will not fit vehicles with more than 2 wheels, tiny houses built side-by-side with common walls on 3 sides, abrupt forks and branches in lanes that lead to more branches or sudden cul-de-sacs.

Fortunately, the abject misery of squatter housing is not present here. Houses are built of brick and mortar (I suppose so- anyone living in a corrugated sheet metal shanty will freeze to death in winter), there is running water, the lanes are paved with cement and provided with adequate drainage and there’s a marked absence of reeking piles of rubbish.

My walk through the area was surprisingly calming. The narrow crooked lanes do not let in any sounds from the busy streets outside, and the pace of life inside seemed considerably less hectic.

Click here for large size image

Not all houses are created equal. The buildings on the left side have carefully laid brickwork and beautiful door and window frames, as the next image will show.

Quaint, Almost
Except that the light bulb has been replaced with an energy saving tube

Hey, where did the boy go?
Click here for large size image

Quaint, Almost
Except that the bicycles have been replaced with electric scooters

It was said that there were 9,000,000 bicycles in Beijing¹, but that number is likely to continue decreasing over coming years. Electric bicycles, mopeds and scooters are replacing bicycles as the affordable means of personal transport.

Electric bicycles are powered by a lead acid battery, usually tall and narrow in shape unlike those found in cars. Typically, the rather heavy battery is recharged by hauling it indoors to be plugged into a charger. Also, some people make it a point to take the battery indoors as its high price and good resale/salvage value makes it a target of thieves.

Click here for large size image

Footnotes:
1. "Nine Million Bicycles", Melua, 2005.

Adventure at a post office

2009-05-20T20:40:00.000+08:00

Let me tell you a story.

I went to the post office with my envelope.
The envelope is from FedEx, made of manila card with a clear plastic pocket for the air waybill.
I used a sheet of A4 to tape over the orange and purple logo on the front and wrote the destination address there nicely. And slipped another piece of paper into the air waybill pocket to show the return address.

The girl at the counter asks, “Is this a letter?”
“Yes.”
“Erm, this is not an envelope.’
“It is.”

She then goes to ask someone else if it is an envelope.
She returns, “No that’s not an envelope.”
“It is a courier service envelope.”

She leaves her position to consult with another colleague.
On her return, she tells me with an air of finality, “You cannot use this envelope.”
“Fine, sell me your envelope.”

For 60 cents, she gives me a normal brown paper envelope. I write the delivery address and tear open the beautiful FedEx package to repackage my goods. She eyes the contents suspiciously.
“What is that, you cannot send that as a letter.”
“What?”
“Only documents can be sent as letters.”
“So how do I send it?”
“You need to send it as a small package.”

In the end, I decided not to mail it. I’ll repackage it properly as a ‘letter’ and mail it another day.

Online, wiser expatriates have advised exasperated newcomers to lower their expectations when in China. Expect everything to go wrong, and you’d be fine.

Sigh.

Finally putting things into practice

2009-05-18T09:41:00.000+08:00

I have been unable to access any blogspot sites since Friday, a remarkable coincidence with my little outburst against the local government regime. Perhaps they are related?

Anywhere else and I’d have said bullshit, but this country has proven itself at being able to throw up unpleasant surprise after unpleasant surprise after unpleasant surprise.

***

In the intervening time, I have FINALLY taken the time to actually start some financial planning. Like what the texts books have been telling me since… June 2007.

1. Identify financial needs and goals
2. Allocate assets

In line with item 1, I did a budget forecast of my next big thrust into ~~fatherhood~~ dictatorship, and the initial results were not encouraging. 10,000 AUD just to secure a miserable seat in the Outer Party’s Supervisory Committee is just… depressing.

How the fish do these crooks finance themselves into the Inner Party Censorship Board and Economic Planning Council? Ok fine, stupid question: they are crooks.

The asset allocation bit was a bit trickier. Having made earlier contributions to various mutual funds, I had to break down each fund into its constituent asset types to find my total exposure to each asset type. Then compare the existing allocation to the target allocation etc etc.

Ok I’ll not bore you with the number-crunching and data manipulation game.

Hong Kong, part 3

2009-05-15T13:01:00.003+08:00

Here's something a bit more pleasant to contrast the previous entry.

Mongkok, Kowloon

We met my uncle, granduncle and their families for a fantastic dinner in New Territories. The granduncle purchased about 7kg of live seafood from the seafood market nearby, and brought it to the restaurant to be served.

Click here for large size image

Clockwise from bottom left, roast goose, snails, clams, kangkung, bamboo mussels, and lobster noodles. Steamed fish in the middle. The lady on the far side is Michelle, who inadvertently provoked an analysis of conservative functions on the family tree.

Ok lunch break is over, back to work.

China is a great place to live in

2009-05-15T10:48:00.003+08:00

Excerpts from a chat:

I'm convinced the Chinese government grew up eating shit.

We have an additional electrical control box to send to Australia. It’s going to be quite a hassle because the customs/capital control does not allow goods to go out without an invoice.

Same goes for funds moving in/out. Need to reconcile to import/export documents etc., and if the client sends the money early, it sits in the bank account. You cannot access it until the payment time as stipulated on the invoice/contract.
So if your purchase order says "payment of 50k on June 15 2009", and the overseas client pays in February (a fantasy, but it happens), you cannot touch the money until June 15.

The logistics lady just said since it’s a replacement box we don’t have to reconcile to invoices. But customs can only let it out AFTER the existing broken one is back in the country. Even if the broken one is broken beyond repair, unsalvageable, a total write off.

Shit for brains. MCH.

Oh, and my post title is a lie.

2009-05-11T13:00:00.003+08:00

I stumbled out of the study heading for the washroom, my eyes fuzzy from a night of sleep. I see my aunt and cousin in the living room, so I greet them with an artificially crisp ‘good morning’ before turning into the loo.

Freshened up by the quick wash and my dragon breath banished, I join them in the living room. The night before, my aunt had just arrived back from the United States after some MBA-related classes.

She asked me how I found my work in Shanghai to be like.
“It’s ok, I suppose,” I reply vaguely.

She tells me that as I am starting out my career in China, I have to be particularly cautious as most standards of best-practice are not adhered-to. It’s important for me to develop a methodical, thorough approach and avoid picking up the bad habits.

She’s right. I have noticed a general approach that the Chinese workers seem to take: as long as it works, it’s ok. Never mind that the standards are not adhered to, as long as the equipment works (on the most basic level).

***

On my return from Hong Kong, I was faced with a shit-storm of sorts. It turns out that one of the projects I’m working on is a mess. The electrical engineer did not adhere to much of the basics of the electrical code, including using wrongly colour coded cables, lack of separation between cables of different voltage categories, insufficient documentation…

And he did try to wriggle out of the mess by saying we should try to talk to the end user to see if they will turn a blind eye to these violations. As long as the equipment works.

Gah.

***

After talking for a bit, I slipped away to get ready while my aunt fed her daughter breakfast. I, on the other hand, was going with Jean for some much-needed dim sum.

On the recommendation of my granduncle, we visited Dou Hiong. It was supposed to be a good balance between reasonable price¹ and excellent food², and we were not disappointed.

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Top: prawn dumplings
bottom: steamed lotus seed paste buns; chee cheong fun with char siew

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Top: ham sui kok
bottom: siew mai; char siew pau

Total damage: 156 HKD for the above and servings of prawn dumplings and siew mai.

Footnotes:
1. By Hong Kong standards. Doesn't help that cost of living in HK is a bit on the high side
2. Again, by Hong Kong standards. This is a good thing, as HK food standards are already high

High key; low key

2009-05-10T14:07:00.003+08:00

A minuscule bottle of toilet water, priced at 45 HKD. Labelled "not for sale", these samplers are widely available regardless. The bottle and its box is wrapped in cellophane paper and displayed in a huge mixed pile of sample-sized perfumes in pharmacies throughout Hong Kong.

Low Key

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High Key

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Hong Kong

2009-05-06T12:48:00.000+08:00

Hong Kong was great!

Before I get to the real content, I will note here for archival purposes that Jean and myself are mightily pleased with ourselves for a very accurately forecasted budget.

Before our trip, we had predicted a total expenditure of 6343 HKD (2899 MYR) inclusive of air tickets and transport to airports. At the end, we found that we had spent 6391 HKD, merely 0.76% more than the forecasted amount. *proud*

***

Lai King MTR Station
茘景

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The Lai King station has an attractive red/ black colour theme, nice for a few portraits.

Each station has a distinc colour theme to help distinguish the stops. For example, Tsim Sa Tsui is dark grey, Lai King is red, Kowloon is white and Tsing Yi is pale green. Helpful if you know your stop's colour, hence not requiring commuters to crane their necks to find the station signs.

Nathan Road is a busy 4 lane road lined with retail and commercial buildings. When the traffic lights turn green to release a cluster of large double-decker buses roaring down the narrow lanes, it can be quite a scene. The road is quite narrow, the pedestrian walkway is built right up next to the road (sometimes without the reassurance of guard rails), and tall shop fronts on both sides close in the scene. It feels like watching the wave from an uncorked dam gushing down a narrow pipe.

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A walk in the dark

2009-04-26T11:04:00.004+08:00

An Orgy of Escalators
Shanghai Times Square

Meyer-Optik Görlitz Lydith 30mm f/3.5

A colour image is impossible: lighting in the escalator atriums consist of a nasty mix of tungsten and fluorescent light. If I white balance for one, I get swathes of maroon/green for areas illuminated by the other.

Shanghai has a few elevated highways, all of which are massive infrastructure developments and enable motor vehicles to drive in the sky.

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This is the pedestrian bridge from which the previous photo was taken. Due to the pedestrian bridge's longish span, it is prone to a bit of oscillation when heavy vehicles thunder overhead. Feels like a cruise ship.

Riot

2009-04-24T22:43:00.002+08:00

It's a Riot

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2009-04-23T12:21:00.003+08:00

Seven more days, and I’ll be making my way to Hong Kong.

As always, I have the same problem deciding what to bring.

Canon 300D
Praktica MTL 5
~~Meyer-Optik Görlitz Lydith 30mm f/3.5~~
Super-Takumar 50mm f/1.4
~~Jupiter 9 85mm f/2.0~~
~~Super-Takumar 135mm f/3.5~~
Canon EFS 17-55 mm
Nikon SB-25

That should not be too burdensome.

Unicorns rock!

2009-04-22T00:05:00.003+08:00

Bollocks, now I can't sleep. And to think I was hoping to sleep at 8.30 pm. So far I've only managed a 90 minute nap. Very good!

Nothing soothes the frayed psyche like Vanilla Ninja and a good set of headphones. Of course, a frothy café latte would be a good addition but that’s just wandering into the realm of fantasy. Not in China.

Figure 1. "I'm sorry, we don't have café latte. How about a unicorn instead?"

Vanilla Ninja are very popular in their native Estonia and have had a brand of both ice cream and kohuke named after them, marketed exclusively in their homeland due to their celebrity status in Estonia.

-Wikipedia

Nothing cements your celebrity status like having your own brand of ice cream. Lingerie and perfume doesn’t even come close.

I’m exaggerating- coffees do exist in China, although not widely available and at rather high prices (relative to the per capita GDP). The market for coffee is still very immature- cappuccino might turn out to be aerosol whipped cream on black coffee. Best to look at the pictures in the menu before taking the plunge. Even chains like Starbucks and Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf are not exempt from inconsistent quality.

Oh, and there are no documented sightings of unicorns in China.

How to test/ calibrate a manual SLR camera's shutter using a digital camera

2009-04-13T17:05:00.001+08:00

Abstract:

Before loading a newly acquired second hand camera with film, it is often a good idea to check if the shutter is working correctly. This is particularly true for well used, older cameras.

While slow shutter speeds with exposures greater than 1 second can be verified using a stopwatch, it becomes much harder to check for fast shutter speeds.

This document presents a technique to verify the accuracy of a manual camera’s shutter speed by using a digital camera as the standard shutter and the recording device.

Equipment set up:

Figure 1: Shutter calibration equipment set up.
Red: digital sensor, blue: shutters, magenta: light rays, green: lens

1. The manual SLR’s lens is removed, and the film back opened to expose the shutter from both sides.

2. The digital camera is pushed as close to the manual SLR’s shutter as reasonably safe.

Caution: Ensure that nothing touches the shutter, as interrupting its movement will risk damage.

3. Arrange a subject beyond the manual SLR for the digital camera. Ideally, this subject should be of uniform colour and not throw bright reflections. The uniform colour will make brightness comparisons much easier.

Tip: Use a lens with a long focal length on the digital camera, and set it’s aperture to a small opening (5.6 or smaller). This will minimise vignetting caused by the SLR’s frame partially blocking the view of the digital camera.

4.Open the manual SLR’s shutter (using bulb mode or a long exposure), and focus the digital camera on the subject.

5. Illuminate the subject with a bright light source, and shade the digital camera from the light source. Ensure that minimal ambient light reaches the area between the digital camera and the manual SLR.

Set up notes:

When properly set up, the only light that reaches the digital camera’s sensor will be light from the illuminated subject. For the light to reach the digital camera’s sensor, it needs to pass through two shutters – the digital camera’s and the SLR cameras.

Light from the subject will reach the digital camera’s sensor if and only if both shutters are open.

Testing procedure:

6. With the manual SLR’s shutter open (using a long exposure), meter the scene and adjust the digital camera’s aperture and ISO so that the shutter speed matches the value to be tested.

7. With the SLR’s shutter open (using a long exposure or bulb mode), take a photo of the scene using the preset ISO, aperture and shutter speeds. This is the standard image, because the exposure time is that of the correct shutter speed. The SLR’s shutter was open throughout the experiment, and the exposure occurred only during the time the digital camera’s shutter was open.

8. Set the digital camera’s shutter speed to bulb (or a long exposure), retaining the same aperture and ISO settings in the previous step. Set the manual SLR’s shutter speed to the tested speed.

9. Open the digital camera’s shutter, then release the manual SLR’s shutter. Close the digital camera’s shutter (by releasing the shutter button if in bulb mode, or allowing it to close after the preset time). This is the tested image, because the exposure time is that of the tested camera’s shutter speed. The digital camera’s shutter was open throughout the experiment, and the exposure occurred only during the time the SLR’s shutter was open.

Comparing the results:

10. Both the calibrated and the tested images are opened, and their histograms observed.

11. Brightness peaks associated with the illuminated image are identified and their locations along the histogram compared.

If both shutters have identical exposure times, the peaks of both images would lie in the same locations.

Error estimation:

In the unfortunate event that the shutter speeds do not match, and the digital camera’s shutter speed is trusted, the error of the manual SLR’s shutter can be estimated.

12. Repeat step 7 using several exposure times.

13. Compare the images from the various exposure times with the tested image obtained from step 4. Find the closest match between the tested image and one of the standard images.

14. Calculate the manual SLR’s shutter error in terms of number of stops.

15. The error estimation needs to be repeated for every shutter speed available on the manual SLR to establish the real exposure that each shutter setting will give.

Camera porn – Praktica MTL 5

2009-04-11T22:22:00.002+08:00

I got a new camera!

An M42 screw mount camera from the now defunct German Democratic Republic (in general, Democratic Republics are anything but democratic).

*orgasms*
*squirts*

*grins*

Click here for large size image

I have a bunch of screw-mount lenses for use of my DSLR, but I’ve always had this little itch for a fully mechanical screw mount camera body. There’s something particularly satisfying from turning knobs and aperture rings, cocking the shutter spring and releasing the shutter through a mechanical linkage.

Praktica cameras have a little oddity – the shutter release button protrudes from the front instead of being mounted on top of the body.

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As with a basic film camera, there are only four fundamental controls: focus, aperture, shutter speed and shutter release. The back view comes across as shockingly minimalist – there is no window to show the film canister’s markings, neither is there a slot to put notes indicating the film type you have loaded. Not to mention the comforting absence of buttons and LCDs heh.

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Now I have a new problem – my camera bag does not have enough space.

Mathematics questions

2009-04-08T21:25:00.003+08:00

If anyone hasn’t noticed, there’s a deluge of quizzes of Facebook these few weeks. I decided to add to the mess with something comparatively nasty.

1. Which of the following fields contain the square root of 2 = 1.414... ?

complex numbers
rational numbers
natural numbers

2. How many dots are required to represent the ternary (base-3) number 12 ?

* * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * *

3. The topology of the sun's surface is the same as that of a

doughnut
dice
hollow sphere

4. Which of the following is the multiplicative identity?

1
2.718...
0

5. A graph which is continuous everywhere and NOT differentiable anywhere is a

polynomial
fractal
Calabi-Yau manifold

6. Two points along a circle's circumference are labelled A and B respectively. The shortest length between these points along the circumference is 34 cm. The circle's radius is 55 cm. What is the ratio of the circle's circumference to the circle's diameter?

0.618...
1.617...
3.141...

7. The second time derivative of an object's position

is dependent on it's speed
is proportional to the net force exerted on the object
is its velocity

8. There is an unlimited supply of whole numbers. There is also an unlimited supply of rational numbers. Are there more rational numbers than whole numbers?

No, there are more whole numbers than rational numbers
No, the number of whole and rational numbers is exactly the same
Yes, there are more rational numbers than whole numbers

Answers below: (click and highlight to view)

1. Which of the following fields contain the square root of 2 = 1.414... ?
complex numbers

2. How many dots are required to represent the ternary (base-3) number 12 ?
* * * * *

3. The topology of the sun's surface is the same as that of a
dice

4. Which of the following is the multiplicative identity?
1

5. A graph which is continuous everywhere and NOT differentiable anywhere is a
fractal

6. Two points along a circle's circumference are labelled A and B respectively. The shortest length between these points along the circumference is 34 cm. The circle's radius is 55 cm. What is the ratio of the circle's circumference to the circle's diameter?
3.141...

7. The second time derivative of an object's position
is proportional to the net force exerted on the object

8. There is an unlimited supply of whole numbers. There is also an unlimited supply of rational numbers. Are there more rational numbers than whole numbers?
No, the number of whole and rational numbers is exactly the same

Late night confessions

2009-04-07T01:07:00.004+08:00

Nonsensical discussions at 1.30 am, edited for conciseness.

Yee Wei: Oh, confession-
I’m getting married
Lai: Serious?
Oh wait, wrong confession
No wait, tell me??!
I DON'T WANT to be the last to know
No its not marriage related
The correct one: I'm still awake because I'm playing web-based flash games
Your leg is so fun to pull
Haha
No it's not
Hmmmmpppff
If i were ever last to know... you'd get it... really
I will make sure I send your card 2 days ahead of the rest
Fair?
No... you're supposed to let me know way before, ok?
Oh like that ah...
Very well
Send it out 2 days in advance, and by courier
FedEx. You'd get the nice cardboard envelope with purple and oleng colours too
No dear, thats too late. You are suppose to tell me when you are going to propose, not up till wedding cards are printed.
How about after the proposal
So if i get a "No! *piak* " i wouldnt have to retract my invitation
Fair enuff :)
Thanks, you are so benelovent

Century Park, Shanghai: an attempt

2009-04-06T13:35:00.004+08:00

I thought the Century Park would be a good place to start my search for peach blossoms.

The crowd at the ticketing counter (large parks in large cities have admission fees) was a massive turn off. If I want crowds I can simply go into Tesco and bump carts with the obnoxious self-centred shoppers there who park their carts in the middle of isles.

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So, bollocks to the park, I took a walk around the perimeter.

An Identity Crisis

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Fairy Tale Optics

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Jupiter 9 at full aperture, 85mm f/2 results in a soft, hazy image

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And I saw this boy trying to fly a kite.

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Oo, is that an uptick?

2009-04-03T15:10:00.001+08:00

Something's finally moving up.

No we're not talking about down there.

Dinner

2009-04-02T08:44:00.003+08:00

I headed to Carrefour after work, intending to get mayonnaise, potatoes, lemon, potato peeler, toothpaste, lamb and some vegetables. Not that I was desperately short of food at home – there’s still minced pork, mussels and prawns in the freezer, and in the fridge, eggs, tofu and various vegetables.

However, I got distracted and also purchased a Nestum-like mix, potato crisps, strawberries, rosemary, oregano, mixed herbs, mushrooms, hot English mustard, ice cream, bacon, salmon, sharpening stone and pickles. The total damage came up to a frightful 233 RMB.

And for dinner, pan fried salmon steak and potato salad with bacon bits.

Surely not the best in the world, but remarkably satisfying. Especially the salmon – slightly charred skin on the outside, yet rare and flaky inside. If only salmon was not so pricey.

Meat rolls wrapped in tofu sheets

2009-03-29T00:52:00.009+08:00

The Impermeability of Tofu Sheets
and its Role as a Wrap for Steamed Meat Rolls
Tan Yee Wei, March 2009

Abstract

Tofu sheets (fu pei) was used as a wrap for steaming minced meat, and its role as a moisture barrier is discussed.

Keywords

Tofu, soy, steam, impermeability, porosity, soup, gravy, wrap, roll, moisture

Introduction

Yesterday, I saw some thin, large sheets of tofu-like product at the market’s tofu and soy products seller. I bought some to experiment – the immediate idea was to use it to wrap minced meat like a spring roll, and steam. Preliminary research suggests that this tofu sheet is called fu pei in Cantonese, literally translated as tofu skin.

The filling consists of minced meat, scallops, garlic, chilli, coriander, black fungus and mushrooms.

Procedure

Using a knife and chopping board, alter the ingredients’ (scallops, garlic, chilli, coriander, black fungus and mushrooms) topology such that they are no longer continuous and simply-connected. In other words, chop finely.

Mix chopped ingredients and minced meat with seasoning.

Cut tofu sheet into reasonably sized pieces, and fill with erm… filling. At this point, I realised the tofu sheet is too thick to fold in at the ends, and thus they will remain open-ended.

Arrange in a plate, drizzle with a little soy sauce and sesame oil. Ensure plate is sufficiently deep as the filling will expel some gravy as it cooks.

Steam for ~20 mintues

Observations

The tofu sheet is a non-porous material, and therefore helped retain moisture within the meat. As the ends were not sealed, the filling at the end cooked first and formed a barrier. When the filling in the middle cooked, it emits a soupy juice, part of which was retained within the roll. The result was a particularly moist filling.

Conclusion

The tofu sheet serves as a moisture-retaining barrier.

Discussion

While the end result looks interesting, the advantages conferred by using tofu sheets is questionable. It is conceivable that an alternative method can be used to ensure minced meat does not dry out during the course of cooking, such as using a covered small deep bowl.

Therefore, the author's opinion on the practical use of the tofu sheet lies in the areas of aesthetics, flavour and texture.

Further work

An alternate application would be small squares of tofu sheets with filling in the middle and the corners brought together as to bound the filling inside the package (similar to a wonton). As the tofu sheet is not inherently sticky, a means of fastening the structure would have to be developed. Using lengths of dried preserved vegetable to tie the package together is suggested but not yet tested.

It is envisioned that the above approach will retain all of the filling's gravy within the package, resulting in a wet and nasty surprise for unsuspecting consumers who bites into the package. Further work is required in this area to verify the practicality of such an approach.

The authoritian fist of China; a boring discussion on encryption

2009-03-26T08:56:00.006+08:00

Of late, I have found YouTube to be unaccessible. The possible cause?

China says video footage that purportedly shows Chinese security personnel violently beating Tibetans last year is "a lie".
The video apparently shows protesters being beaten with sticks, and kicked and choked by China's security forces.
[…]
The video-sharing site YouTube has recently been blocked in China, which could be because the site had been carrying the contentious video.

BBC News, China says Tibet video is 'a lie', 25/03/09

***

After seeing my hidden message in a protected Excel sheet revealed by trivially exploiting a loophole, I resolved to construct a reasonably thorough encryption mechanism.

I say “reasonable” because while not many will be inclined to actually crack the mechanism, it is vulnerable to a careful attack by even the most slipshod of cryptanalysts.

The first step involves parsing the message characters into numbers. For this step, A is labelled 0, B is 1, C is 2 … Y is 24, Z is 25 and space is 26.

Next, the characters are grouped into blocks of six characters. Each block of six characters will be converted into a number. The most straightforward method is to adopt a base-27 numbering system to represent the number where each character is a digit in the number. Expressed in base-10 (the same base that most humans use to interface with each other and with computers), the number is of the form
X = x₁ × 27⁵ + x₂ × 27⁴ + x₃ × 27³ + x₄ × 27² + x₅ × 27 + x₆
Where X is the plaintext and x_i is the i-th character in the block.

This X is part of the plaintext: the number which 6 characters of the message. The entire plaintext is made up of many different X’s to encode all the characters in the message.

To encrypt the plaintext X, some operation is performed on X to hide its original value:
C = (X + k₁) × k₂

k₁ and k₂ are predetermined constants. They are the cipher keys that are used to modify the plaintext. The result of the modification is the ciphertext, C.

This ciphertext is then sent to the intended recipient. If anyone who intercepts the message attempts to convert the ciphertext into characters, they will be faced with a bunch of garbled characters.

The intended recipient will have the correct cipher keys to unlock the message. To find the plaintext, the encryption operation is performed in reverse on the ciphertext:
X = (C / k₂) - k₁

To recover the x_i that would represent each character in the message, the recipient converts X to base 27 to recover the values x_i and therefore the message contents.

Fine. 25 16 things.

2009-03-18T23:29:00.004+08:00

I enjoy cooking, although my repertoire is a bit limited. I also like cooking for people now and again.
When I was young, I had many problems with my urinary tract/kidneys/bladder. My mother says there was an overnight bag always ready when we needed to go to University Hospital. And we went to the hospital a lot – sometimes a few times in a week. When it was all finally resolved some years later, the bill for the years of antibiotics and medication amounted to something like RM 100. The wonders of government healthcare. But don’t ask me, I have absolutely no recollection.
In 2003 to 2005, I was mostly fascinated with writing and the art of sentence crafting. When I look back at my stuff, I’m still amazed used to be able to write such things. This, for example.
In 2004 to 2007, I immersed myself in mathematics and physics. I’d go to the university’s mathematics and physics libraries ~~to oogle at the hot geek chicks~~ and get books that sometimes become too in-depth for me after 20 pages. The maths did me much good.
From 2007 to the present, I have been fixated with finance. The first hook was financial derivatives by virtue of its non-linear valuation and tricky mathematics. The second was foreign exchange, because I was working with two currencies. My accounts are now in three currencies.
I have one flat foot.
I have a huge number of accounts: cash in China, cash in Malaysia, cash in Australia, savings in China, savings in Malaysia, savings in Australia, parents’ payables/receivables, Jean’s payables/receivables, May’s payables/receivables and a consolidated position. But only 3 bank accounts.
When I was setting up my recording system I had considered MYOB, but the student version I could get hold of can only handle one currency. SAP and Oracle are powerful but not (easily) available as pirated/cracked software. So I did it all on MS Excel with a huge number of worksheets, linked data, exchange rates and automatic functions. I’m sure my improvised and half-baked accounting would not meet the requirements of the IASB. But I can chart any number of variables against time, such as bank account balance, net position, exchange rates…
Oh and I don’t have much money, just a bit of money scattered here and there. So many accounts and so little money bleah.
I started doing taekwondo in 1998, and had to stop in 2003 because of a weak foot/ankle. I then moved to karate for about 2 years until I was no longer welcome at the university (non-students/ staff pay a premium for facilities), I went boxing at the gym. With a well developed idea of how to transfer momentum, I was able to match the impact of much larger and faster people.
I was never able to execute a proper jumping reverse swing until this year.
The first (and only) time I got drunk was in 2003 when my friends came over for my farewell shortly before flying to Melbourne. I got conned into drinking a small cup of wine with each of them. And I later realised they were drinking Coca Cola while I was fed all the wine. Tossers.
I like taking walks. This started as a necessity to save on tram tickets, but I quickly realised my mind relaxes easily with the monotonous plodding of footsteps.
I like sunsets. The kind where the sun remains visible till it disappears down the horizon, not the kind where the sun fades away before it actually sets.
I rarely see sunrises. The times I do see it is usually when I have not slept the night before.
I’m very fussy when it comes to lighting. Having a lone light fixture in the middle of the room does not cut it – this is usually terrible for a desk placed along the wall as my head will cast a shadow on whatever I’m trying to read. I’ll set up a small bright light and direct it against the wall to illuminate the desk space with diffuse light.

It's decided - we are going to Hong Kong! *excited*

Vanilla ice cream with strawberries

2009-03-08T11:30:00.002+08:00

In a previous post, I described vanilla ice cream with “gratuitous amounts of sliced strawberries” as absolutely lovely.

Sabrina, on the other hand, was of the opinion that “it all seems a little gay.”

This is my counter argument:

Super-Takumar 135mm f/3.5 with extension tube

Happy First Tuesday of March

2009-03-03T22:43:00.002+08:00

In an effort to slash operating overheads¹, my office has moved from the overly large 3-unit space in a commercial building to a cozy² apartment in a mixed-occupancy development near the railway station.

Over the weekend, a burst pipe at our block managed to put 3 of 4 lifts out of service, leaving a long queue for the lone lift up the 39-storey building. This added to the already severe problems of the building being over crowded- designed as residential units, the services are probably enough for 3 to 4 occupants per unit. But with many of these units used as offices, there was a problem of overpopulation (just like the whole of China, really).

The complex consists of a retail areas on 4 podium levels, and two separate towers of about 40 floors rising up from the podium. To circumvent the horrendous crowds at the lift lobby, we took the other tower's lift up to the 5th floor and snaked through emergency exit tunnels to appear on the roof level of the podium. Here was a roof-top garden and tennis courts for people who pay more rent, which also functions as a safe area in an emergency.

Walk along the roof-top garden to the other tower's emergency exit door, and go up to the 6th floor and tadaa!, crowd avoided.

Today, i followed the same route. Up the lift to level 5, entered the emergency exit door (which required pressing a door release button to open), travelled through a winding concrete tunnel to the other door leading outside and only to find that it was securely shut. A numeric keypad provided authorised access, and a sign said "door opens automatically in a fire". Great, looks like I'll have to use the lifts at my own building anyway.

I returned to the first door, only to find the same thing: a numeric keypad and no means to unlock it from the 'safe' side. Uh-oh. I looked at other doors and found them not to contain much promise: electrical risers and HVAC equipment rooms, probably. No good getting stuck in those. I paced back and forth along the tunnel, looking alternately at both of these very secure doors (probably rated to 1.5 hours, these doors can very well resist the spread of smoke and heat from a raging fire for at least 90 minutes).

I then found a plastic box with a hinged cover embedded into the concrete. Inside was a red phone with no number pad - if this was hard-wired to the fire department, I could stir up a mess. Hoping it was merely connected to the building control room, I picked it up and heard it ring. Fortunately, it was not the fire department.

I explained my situation, and the person said he'll send someone up to look for me. To my surprise, he didn't try to give me a talking-to for using the emergency exits (some buildings managers treat these exits as additional things they have to guard - some are even locked up at night with chains and padlocks). After several minutes (the wait was made easier playing Snake II on the phone), someone opened the door leading back to the lift lobby.

Yay I can finally go to work!

1. This, in addition to giving everyone a delightful retrenchment/paycut surprise. You know hor, my salary got reduced by 20%. [ -censored- ], good thing i don't have to worry about home loan payments and the like now.
2. Smallish

Strawberries: a design concept

2009-03-02T23:34:00.003+08:00

Fragaria
Concept 3 - GA

Click here for large size image

I saw strawberries at Carrefour over the weekend. Though smallish, they were all intensely red and almost entirely blemish-free. For 3.68 RMB (1.84 MYR) a tray, they were irresistible. I got 3 trays. The following photograph shows the contents of about 2/3 of a tray. This, for a mere 3.68 RMB.

In addition, Walls ice cream was on special offer. The 500 ml tubs were promoted at buy 1 get 1 free. The obvious solution was vanilla ice cream with gratuitous amounts of sliced strawberries.

Absolutely lovely.

The roses are two months old

2009-02-28T02:05:00.003+08:00

and this blog is four years old.

Click here for large size image

Super-Takumar 50mm f/1.4

Don't Ever Leave Me
I wouldn't.

Super-Takumar 135mm f/3.5

I'm particularly proud of this last image's set up. The dark background is just the view out of my window. A long lens was used to make sure the view of the great outdoors was restricted, allowing me to choose darker bits of the outdoor scene to be my background.

Indoors, a flash was directed upwards and fired at full power, ensuring that the brightness difference between the subject and the outdoors was as large as possible. With the exposure adjusted for the indoor lighting, the outdoor lights were just barely enough to register on the sensor, resulting in a mostly black background.

Why I carry three mobile phones

2009-02-27T19:42:00.002+08:00

Either China is one hell of a weird place, or I am not very receptive to alternative ways of doing things (like quietly walking down the street as opposed to having to hack up and spit globules of imaginary phlegm every 5 steps). Late June last year, when Jean and I were stuck in the Guilin airport, I was most unfortunate to touch someone else’s spit.

After boarding the plane, we waited for the plane to receive clearance for take off, but that never came. Apparently the weather at the destination was nasty and incoming flights were delayed. After sitting like 150 idiots in an idling aircraft, we were finally herded out and given something to stuff our mouths (a can of Sprite, a tub of instant noodles¹ and a large pack of sa kei ma – some sort of sweet confection with a description that defies my limited vocabulary). Nothing like food to placate a herd of agitated travellers.

We milled around the departure lounge eating the rather tasty noodles in MSG water, stretching our legs and generally enjoying the relative spaciousness outside the confines of the cabin. Shortly after, the boarding call was announced. Of course I took my time – I always take my time when it comes to such queues. No point rushing to queue in line when I can sit around and just stroll up to the gate when the queue has shortened considerably.

When almost everyone was done entering the gate, we went towards the gate. Along the way I chucked the empty noodle tub into a rubbish bin. Somehow, my hand nudged the top edge of the bin, and felt something gooey. Instinctively I pulled back and turned the hand around to see what I have touched. One of the fingers was coated with slightly murky and very thick mucus. I made a disgusted face, accidentally let out a rather audible “eeyer” and rushed to the washroom while Jean waited.

When I came out after a thorough wash, everyone else had boarded and the ground crew were glaring at us to hurry the fuck up.

***

Right, three phones as suggested by the title.

One of the oddities in the way the Chinese telco operates is in application of roaming charges. When the user takes the phone out of the province from which the phone line originated, all calls received will be levied a roaming charge.

Of course, this is very inconvenient if one travels and is uses the phone a lot. The first week, I managed to burn 75 RMB in 4 days. By then, by credit balance was almost depleted. On the way to dinner, I saw a China Mobile dealer and went in to get my phone topped up. After giving my phone number to the counter attendant, he asked if it was a Shanghai number. ‘Yes,” I told him. “I’m sorry, we can only service Jiangsu numbers. You may go to our office at [some building].”

That was a curve ball.

“Then I’ll buy a new prepaid line.”
“Ok. We’ll need your identification document(s).”

Shit, I left my passport in Shanghai.

On my next trip to Suzhou, I brought along my passport to register for a prepaid line. This is in addition to the Shanghai line and the Malaysian line I carry with me.

Whenever one of the phones beep, I need to fish in my pocket for it. If it’s not the right one I dig again for the other, and the other.

That large ugly one in the middle is the spare phone. I have a spare phone because the two 6510 phones are rather old and may expire any moment.

In fact, they did expire at a most inopportune time. May’s phone died first: the microphone stopped working and it was only good for texts. Which was not a problem, the Malaysian line was only used to receive texts anyway. Then when I arrived at KLIA, Hou called me to arrange where to pick me up etc. I was not yet pass customs, so I asked him to call back later. And when he called the microphone was dead - I became mute.

And I couldn’t text him because I had no credit at all. Cleverly, he got a top up card and sent me the number, after which I could send messages.

Ok enough rambling for tonight. The phones have been repaired.

1. Instant noodles are available in a large paper tub package. Very similar to cup noodles we have at home, except that the size is actually good for one reasonably filling meal.

Doom and gloom: my first economic downturn1

2009-02-22T02:50:00.002+08:00

For the past two working weeks, I had been in Shenzhen² for some work-related affairs, returning to Shanghai for the weekends and Mondays. Both the workplace and accommodation had no internet access, thus cutting me off from the universe at large.

While at Shenzhen, I witnessed a company in the midst of downsizing. It was unpleasant yet morbidly fascinating, like how motor accident would draw curious onlookers.

The company retrenched approximately 2/3 of its staff and moved out of its rented office to operate from a flat. With the severe downsizing of staff, much of the company’s assets became redundant, including the company car, several computers, a handful of air conditioners and furniture.

Departing staff made cash offers for these items, knowing full well the management will not have the time or connections to sell them. Eventually they were sold at prices well below the items’ book values, with computers being sold for a meagre 500 RMB apiece and the split unit air conditioners, 300 RMB.

One of the more street smart employees told the general manager that his friends wanted to buy the computers too – obviously he was aware that of the arbitrage opportunity at hand. The general manager was quick enough to say the original price of 500 was for the staff member; other buyers would have to pay the ‘full price’ of 800. This was still agreeable to the arbitrageur, and he went away with 4 workstations and the company car for an undisclosed sum.

On the last 2, 3 working days for the retrenched staff, the motivation for (pretending to) work had clearly evaporated. They grouped together chit-chatting, watching videos, reading comics and surfing the net.

Even with the substantially reduced rental and salary costs, all is not rosy. The company is already committed to investments that require further capital before turning a profit, yet the company is barely making it for the month’s salary and retrenchment remuneration³.

----

1. I was too young in 1987 and 1998 to notice with much clarity
2. location name changed
3. Chinese labour law requires that employers pay retrenched employees one month’s pay for each full year employed.

Botched Valentine's Day plans

2009-02-16T13:52:00.000+08:00

My St. Valentine’s Day plan was very simple, bordering on tiresomely unadventurous: design a greeting card in advance and email it a few days ahead.

The greeting ‘card’ was a MS Excel spreadsheet, with the general form of the contents as follows:

=if( today() >= B1, “Valentine’s Day greeting message”, “come back later”)

And the contents of cell B1 was the date 14 February 2009.

In plain language - if today is 14th February or later, show “Valentine’s Day greeting message”, otherwise show “come back later”.

The sheet was then protected and locked with a password to prevent the recipient from finding out the intended message ahead of time.

***

All this effort, however, was futile.

She changed her Windows date to 14th February, thus hoodwinking MS Excel and circumventing my carefully constructed mechanisms.

Fun with the MoTeC data interpreter

2009-02-15T12:40:00.001+08:00

What I did for Valentine’s Day:
Played GTR 2 for a few hours.

GTR 2 is a fearsomely realistic racing simulator based on the 2003 and 2004 FIA GT Championship series. While there are a huge number of bells and whistles, one of the most fascinating features of the game is the ability to save the car data into a MoTeC log file.

This is the same file format that a MoTeC data logger on an actual race car will produce: a time history of individual wheel speeds, suspension positions, suspension speeds, engine revs, throttle position, brake pedal pressure, steering angle, longitudinal acceleration, lateral acceleration, individual tyre temperatures at the inside, centre and outside areas…

And with the MoTeC data interpreter program, magic is possible.

***

The user can perform various mathematical operations on any combination the generous set of data logged by the MoTeC data logger.

For example, the instantaneous radius of curvature of the vehicle’s path can be calculated by rearranging the following equation:
a = v²/r
r = v²/a

Both the vehicle speed and lateral acceleration are measured, and so the radius can be determined.

Even more interesting, a general relationship between the vehicle’s speed and aerodynamic downforce can be observed after the data is suitably processed.

The principle objective of demanding greater aerodynamic downforce in a racing car is to allow greater acceleration (both in the longitudinal and lateral directions). Consequently, greater downforce will allow the vehicle to have higher accelerate.

From the logged longitudinal and lateral accelerations, the acceleration magnitude of the vehicle can be determined:
|a| = sqrt( a_long² + a_lat²)

When |a| is plotted against vehicle velocity, the following scatter plot appears:

Click here for large size image

x axis: vehicle speed, v (km/h)
y axis: acceleration magnitude, |a| (g)
This plot consists of data recorded over a distance of 6 laps, equivalent to a duration of 13 minutes. Data was recorded at 10 Hz, producing 8130 data points.

Two general trends are visible:
the lower trend, consisting of a straight line that indicates a decreasing acceleration at higher speeds
the upper trend, indicating the maximum achievable acceleration increases when vehicle speed increases

The lower trend line corresponds to data recorded when the vehicle is accelerating on straight sections of the track. Given that the power output of the engine is maintained near the peak output (by adjusting the gearbox ratios to suit the track), the straight line is consistent with the fact that an object accelerated with a constant power will accelerate slower when the object is moving at a faster speed.

The upper trend is not as clear, but is nonetheless visible as an upward sloping trend.
At 60 km/h, |a| is approximately 1.75 g.
At 100 km/h, |a| is approximately 1.85 g.
At 160 km/h, |a| is approximately 2.10 g.
At 260 km/h, |a| is approximately 2.25 g.

Several data samples plot outside the upper trend because dips and bumps in the track will result in a different normal force acting on the wheels, thus allowing momentary increases and decreases in absolute acceleration.

A small cluster of data at 250 km/h show substantial deviation from the upper limit of acceleration. This, too, is caused by changes in track elevation where the main straight slopes upwards.

A similar plot can be produced showing lateral component of acceleration instead of total acceleration. In this case, |a_lat| was plotted against vehicle speed.

To prevent the chart from being cluttered with data not related to lateral acceleration (on straights, the lateral component of acceleration is close to zero), the plot was gated by plotting only data points that meet certain criteria.

Here, a new expression was defined, where
Steering = if (steering wheel angle > 25%) 1; else 0;

This expression will take the value 1 if there is substantial steering input, and 0 otherwise.

The criteria for gating the data is then set such that only data points with steering = 1 will be plotted, resulting in the scatter plot below:

Click here for large size image

x axis: vehicle speed, v (km/h)
y axis: lateral acceleration magnitude, |a_lat| (g)
This plot consists of data recorded over a distance of 6 laps, equivalent to a duration of 13 minutes. Data was recorded at 10 Hz, producing 8130 data points. Of these, 3042 data points satisfied the gating criteria and were plotted.

The |a_lat| plot resembles the |a| plot, except for the absence of the lower trend line. This is expected, because the lower trend line is associated with longitudinal acceleration driven by the vehicle’s engine.

A trend line indicating the upper bound of acceleration magnitude was constructed by approximation, and the following correlation appears:
|a|_max = 0.0017 V + 1.56,
The units for |a|_max and V are g and km/h respectively.

With the correlation between maximum |a| and vehicle speed approximated, a new variable called theoretical max acceleration was defined
theoretical max acceleration = 0.0017 vehicle speed + 1.56
This variable indicates the maximum acceleration that the vehicle tyres can provide.

When the instantaneous values of the theoretical max acceleration is compared against the actual accelerations, it can show areas where the driver can improve his/her lap time. For example, it can reveal that the driver can apply the brakes slightly later and harder on entry into a particular corner, thus shaving several milliseconds from the lap time; or that the vehicle can move slightly faster at a particular curve without exceeding the traction limits of the tyres.

In the following graph, theoretical max acceleration is plotted together with actual |a| and |a_lat| in the upper graph. The max theoretical acceleration approximates the shape of the peak accelerations but is not accurate due to the coarse approximation for the speed and downforce correlation.

Click here for large size image

x axis: distance (m)
y axis: theoretical max acceleration, |a| and |a_lat| (g)
This plot consists of data recorded over a distance of 2.8 km. Data was recorded at 10 Hz, producing 631 data points.

2009-02-06T17:38:00.001+08:00

Yay, I got a pay cut!

MCH

2009-02-06T14:38:00.002+08:00

I was home for 12 days for the Chinese New Year break, which was excellent by Malaysian standards (some companies closed for a week), good by Chinese standards (our company had 10 days off), decent for any break from work and too short by my standards.

***

When a group of friends from the same primary and secondary school sit around nursing their over-fed bellies and drinking plain water, talk sometimes turn to things in the distant past.

There’s gossip from primary school, arguing about little details of our secondary school lives and reliving the exciting moments on the numerous trips to beaches.

There’s a likelihood we’ll still come back to these topics decades later.

***

For the past few days, I have been surviving without the internet connection at home. The apartment broadband connection was terminated some weeks ago, but I have been able to survive due to an unsecured network.

It was so unprotected that even the router control password was not changed. Using the default admin/admin username and password, I could fiddle with the router settings to give my BitTorrent program unrestricted access.

Those good days have since passed. Since my return, the same router’s security has been beefed up and I no longer have any access. In the absence of broadband, I will probably spend my nights reading, writing and…

Shit. Now that my exams have passed I really have no idea what to do with my time. Not that there’s a humongous amount of free time, probably 2 hours a day or so. I’ve pinched an international finance text book from my godmother, but that would not keep me occupied for very long.

The Bund, Shanghai, at low tide

2009-02-05T20:49:00.003+08:00

Click here for large size image

Click here for large size image (500 x 3470 pixels)

2009-02-03T10:50:00.001+08:00

The world is stranger that initially assumed.

5 winter jackets for RM 235

2009-01-21T21:57:00.002+08:00

When Jean was in Shanghai last month, we did not get to visit the clothes shops at Qipu Rd. properly due to the limited time and terrible crowds. Still, she needed a winter jacket, so I was tasked with buying her a jacket.

Tricky.

I was given a thorough briefing on the kind of details she wanted. The button types, the cutting, the length, the colour, the hood style, the simplicity, the amount of faux fur… The detailed scope made life much easier. I could glance at the stuff hanging on the walls and on display and gauge if the shop’s style held any potential, and if promising enough I would march in, quickly thumb through the black and grey jackets to inspect the potential for suitable jackets.

This being close to the end of the winter shopping period (it’s about mid winter now, and anyone who wants a winter jacket would already have one), and the jackets were selling for really good prices. 150 to 250 RMB was the typical price range.

After combing through the first and second floors, I came on a rather good looking jacket for a mere 135 RMB. Amazing! Then when the shop keeper found out I was only buying one, she said it’s 185 RMB. She had assumed I was a trader looking to buy by the hundreds. Fine, 180 (after haggling a little over 5 RMB).

On the way out, I saw something in a completely different style to what the style manual suggested. It looked good, and was only 80 RMB. After a brief consultation via text messages, I got that too.

The black one was 180 RMB; the green one, 80 RMB

May heard of my adventures (it seems I tell her everything) and wanted a jacket too. We went through the same ritual: She specified the button types, the cutting, the length, the colour, the hood style, the simplicity, the amount of faux fur…

On Monday, I rushed to Qipu Rd. after work. It was just about closing time, so I did not have the luxury of combing thorough 2 floors. Still, I managed to get a jacket that almost met the specifications, for 160 RMB.

160 RMB

This was going along rather well, until I saw a hawker on the pedestrian bridge selling jackets for 30 RMB each. Absurd! This I cannot resist. At 15 MYR each, it’s worth it even if they jackets were worn twice.

And so I got two more for a total of 50 RMB.

Click here for large size image
Both for 25 RMB each

In total, 5 winter jackets for 470 RMB, equivalent to 235 MYR. Average of 47 MYR a jacket. Not bad at all.

Except that with 5 thick and long jackets, my suitcase has not much space left for my own stuff.

The things I do for you two!

Shanghai, part I

2009-01-16T16:57:00.003+08:00

There’s this little street called Qipu Road in Shanghai that has several complexes cramped with little shops all selling clothes, accessories, hair extensions, shoes and bags. The shops are generally tiny lots not more than 3 m by 3m, packed with wares all along the walls. On each floor, there would be easily 1000 stalls (lots of narrow aisles, each aisle having more than 30 stalls).

While not actually correct, ‘voracious’ seems to describe the economy well enough. The entire area was packed with shoppers, as visible in a closer up of the bridge and the building foyer.

There’s plenty of good deals inside, but at this time of the year, they are almost exclusively winter wear.

The Shanghai South railway station is probably the new face of China. The old face but prevalent face can be found at the Shanghai railway station – filthy, crowded, no waiting spaces (waiting rooms are only for trains arriving soon; people waiting for other connecting trains have to wait outside in the miserable cold).

On New Year’s Eve we went for xiao long bao at Ding Tai Feng, a highly recommended place. Not cheap – a basket of 10 pieces costs 52 RMB. However, they were heavenly. The skin was thin, and the soup within was a rich flavourful broth.

Another famous xiao long bao shop is Nanxiang, but this one relies on low price and massive volume for its profits. The queue at the take away window is approximately half an hour long, and the workers buzz through the motions remarkably quickly. Pay up at the first window, and get a receipt. Hand the receipt over at the second window, and watch the woman grab a basket of steamed dumplings, give the basket a strong whack on the side to loosen the dumplings, and then tumble the things into a paper box. Drizzle it with vinegar from a large jug, and there is your xiao long bao.

It was not quite worth the wait: the dumpling skin was tough and slightly chewy (to withstand the rough handling), and the filling were just short of being good.

It was cheap, at 11 RMB for 16 pieces, but with my unwell stomach and the unpleasant doughy texture, we finally dumped the last 5 pieces.

On New Year’s day, the public holiday unleashed endless crowds everywhere. The trains were crowded at stations near economic attractions like shopping districts or tourist spots. Despite continuous reminders to let passengers disembark before getting into the train, there is always a proportion of commuters too stupid to understand the rationale. Instead, they crowd the train doors and try to push their way in.

At our stop, someone tried to rush in against the flow disembarking passengers. Not intending to let him in easily, I forcibly marched ahead. He did not see my substantial camera bag I slung in front of me, and when that ploughed into his gut he let out a surprised “ouff.” That was satisfying :)

The Bund was similarly packed with people milling about snapping photos and crowded up 3-deep against the embankment. While the buildings located near The Bund are supposed to be well known for being historical, most people flock to The Bund to watch the Pudong city skyline.

Part II can be found here

180 degrees panoramic view of Shanghai

2009-01-13T13:34:00.003+08:00

One of the buses that stop at my apartment goes all the way to the Nanpu Bridge (South Huangpu River Bridge), so I took a ride to that edifice for a closer look.

This is a bridge like no other I’ve seen. That is to say, I have not seen many magnificent bridges before. It commands your awe by virtue of its monstrosity and inelegance.

Shanghai is filled with elevated highways – when the roads became too crowded and there was no where to expand, urban designers expanded to the third dimension. Intersections of these elevated highways are always messy yet dramatic affairs: several layers of highways criss-crossing above a surface-level junction, with branches taking vehicles from one highway and diving down to another route.

Click here for large size image

The Nanpu bridge’s ramps are a good example of this mess of noodles in the sky. With a bridge deck high above the river surface, a circular ramp was designed to bring vehicles onto the bridge.

The bridge deck is open to tourists at a reasonable price of 10 RMB. There is no need to climb 46 metres of stairs: the columns have lifts up to the deck level.

Click here for large size image

The deck gives a representative but rather dull view of the Shanghai skyline. As it is located a distance from the main commercial buildings, most of the visible structures are not of the shiny glass and aluminium kind, but mostly concrete high rise residential blocks.

I took photographs at regular intervals as I rotated through 180 degrees, and quickly stitched them together using Photoshop. With no tripod and no exposure correction, the image is far from perfect but this will do for now.

Click here for large size image
3478 wide by 500 pixels high, 240 kb

2009-01-08T19:27:00.002+08:00

Jean was over in Shanghai at the turn of the year, thus explaining my complete absence for the past 10 days.

Today’s discourse will be limited to one aspect of our adventures: trains

The journey from Shanghai city to the airport by taxi can take anywhere between 30 to 90 minutes. However, the airport train service uses magnetically levitated trains that whiz along at an awesome 430 km/h, reducing the travel time to a mere 7 minutes. And at 50 RMB per person, it is also far cheaper than the 150 - 200 RMB taxi fare.

The ride is exhilarating. An LED text display shows the current speed (most trains use this to indicate the next station), and the numbers steadily blink from zero up to 430 as the scenery whizzes by at increasingly fun speeds.

The elevated track is gently banked at curves, so that when the train whizzes into the curve, the view on one side will be mostly sky and clouds, while the other side will be dominated by a dizzying view of motor vehicles slowly puttering along on the highways.

Very soon, the speedometer begins to blink downward as the train approaches the station. The train must have been travelling at top speed for not more than 2 minutes; the rest of the time is spent gently accelerating from rest, and slowing down on approach into the station.

And the ride is over. Too fast.

***

Shanghai has two railway stations – the Shanghai Railway Station and Shanghai South Railway Station. For our trip to Suzhou, we went to Shanghai South to take a train Suzhou. Shanghai South is a new facility, clean, spacious and aesthetically pleasing – unlike most train stations in China.

We got a pair of tickets from Shanghai to Suzhou on a fast train, and had a long wait ahead of us. While in the toilet, I had a sudden horrible flash of insight. The ticket says Shanghai to Suzhou, not Shaghai South. It doesn’t really make sense for this railway station to sell tickets for departures from the other station, but strange things do happen in China…

A bit of asking around revealed that we make our way to the older station, located about 20 minutes away by subway. MCH.

The train stations are generally dingy places, with huge crowds, filthy toilets, smoky halls and not quite enough seats to go round (which is not surprising, seeing that each train can hold thousands of passengers). This was indeed the case in the Shanghai Station.

The train, however, was a completely different story. A bullet train with well a finished interior that is better trimmed than an airplane cabin and seats with more room than in a bus, it was entirely comfortable.

This being the fast train, it was really fast. At 200 km/h, the 75 km trip was done in 30 minutes.

Not bad.

Of course, that was the fast (and expensive) train. The slow trains can take up to 100 minutes, where the fares are much cheaper and the seats being hard benches.

The brownies were good

2009-01-06T15:14:00.002+08:00

Click here for large size image

A delicate crust, and a fudgy interior moist from the molten chocolate...

2008-12-26T13:48:00.002+08:00

Today is my last working day of the calendar year.

Hope everyone had a good Christmas. Mine was awesome – I woke up at 8 am, arrived at work at 9 am, had lunch at 12.30 pm, left at 5.40 pm, went to a supermarket to get some food on the way back, made fried rice at 7.00 pm, listened to part of a lecture in field theory (this business of the Langrangian is actually quite fascinating), swept and mopped the apartment’s floors, took a warm shower, raced a few laps on GTR-2, called home to check on their Christmas eve party [most of the relatives who attended are not Christians- we celebrate Christmas as another opportunity to get together, have fun, eat and make noise], chatted a bit, read a few blogs and went to bed.

I'll be on leave till the 5th of January. Back next year.

Lunch break is over.

Amazing Shanghai

2008-12-22T00:41:00.006+08:00

I got my pants fixed at a tailor in the market (yes, one of the shops in the market belongs to a tailor). It was about 4 cm too long, and the wear over the years had frayed the last 2 cm quite badly.

The tailor tut-tutted disapprovingly at the terrible state of my pants, and told me one of the holes would have to be patched before she can shorten and hem the legs. “You should have got them repaired earlier before they became like this,” she chided.

Expecting the worst, I asked her how much to get it fixed.

7 RMB, she tells me.

I collected it the next day, and the workmanship was good.

But golly, 7 RMB!

(7 RMB is equivalent 3.60 MYR or 1.02 USD.)

***

On days when I do not feel like taking the 30 minute walk home from the office, I take a bus that costs 2 RMB and takes about 30 minutes for me to get home (after considering the waiting and the bad traffic).

The front door of the bus is for entry, and the rear to disembark. However, when the bus is full, commuters will squeeze in from the rear door anyway. On bad days, the interior of a bus can be more miserable than a can of sardines (part of the reason I chose to walk).

Remarkably, some of the people who enter from the rear (this sounds… ~~sexy~~ wrong) will tap the shoulder of someone in front, and pass them their metro card. Slowly, the card gets passed to the front where it is beeped against the card reader-writer to deduct the fare, and then it makes its way back again.

Perhaps this is a very normal occurrence in cities around the world. Maybe it’s just my kiasu, exploitive mindset that makes it appear so amazing.

Please enlighten me – is voluntarily paying the bus ticket normal?

***

Updates on the previous post:

I have found an unsecured wireless connection in range, so I borrow their bandwidth in the meantime. It’s a tad bit slow and unstable, but it’ll do for surfing and chatting. Still need to use my own connection for more intensive activities like Skye and YouTube though.

And I download my physics lectures at the office as FLV files and watch them at home. At 1.30 hours a lecture, these files are not to be trifled with.

Fuck lah. MCH

2008-12-20T01:26:00.003+08:00

My life in the near term seems to have gone pear shaped. Turned balls up. Headed south. Gone belly-up. Went selling salted duck eggs.

Item 1a- internet connection renewal

The apartment’s annual internet bill is due (the previous one was paid by the landlord as we had not moved in yet). The annual fee is to the order of 1,500 RMB. However, the apartment lease, which expires in May, will not be renewed. If I cough up the money it will be a waste.

Item 1b- internet connection package

When I arrived at Shanghai, I asked if the apartment’s connection was a time-limited package. I was told no, so I acquired a router and set it up to be permanently connected, as any sane person would do.

Last week, a massive bill of 1,300 RMB arrived at the office. After some investigation by various people, it turns out that the connection package is actually a 30 hours per month package. Access after the 30th hour will incur a by-the-minute charge.

The company takes care of most of the apartment’s utility bills, so I’m not directly hit by the shocking bill, but the implication is that I can only get online for an average of 1 hour a day.

WTF.

Time to stay back at the office more :(

Item 1c- unavailability of internet connection

With my impending departure (refer to item 2 below), I will not be in Shanghai long enough to justify signing up for any internet package, so pretty soon the apartment will have no fucking connection.

Item 2 – impending departure from Shanghai

A reliable source has indicated that the company will dissolve the Shanghai branch, leaving me with two possible outcomes, both of which are distasteful:

a – retrenched

b – booted back to Tianjin

The dissolution will occur soon, although the directors may try to stretch it past Chinese New Year, according to the source.

Fuck lah. MCH.

Still, all is not gloomy and ranty; there are a few glimmers of joy to look forward to:

Item A – Jean’s visit

Jean will be dropping by Shanghai next weekend, and will hang around for 10 days. I’ve got leave for the duration too, so that should be an interesting week. Apart from participating in Shanghai’s glitzy retail market, we’re planning to take short trips to the adjacent provinces to observe the natives and take in the scenery.

*disclosure: in previous posts, the turning-on of the particle accelerator was an analogue for Jean’s arrival.

Item B – Chinese New Year break

I’ll be home!

2008-12-16T23:41:00.002+08:00

Today, the entire office disbanded an hour early so that we may converge at a karaoke joint in time for our 5 pm reservation. Buffet-style dinner was provided, though the food quality was quite dismaying for such a well-appointed venue.

As I was picking at my food (try picking up soft, gravy drenched tofu from a flat plate using a pair of chopsticks), a particle physicist who sitting across me asked, “Your particle accelerator is scheduled come online tomorrow right?”
“No ah.”
“I thought you said it was on the 17th of December?”
“No no, it’s the 27th of December.”
“And anyway you look very happy today.”
“Really? I’m normal today.”
“No you definitely look happier.”

Strange. Must be ~~in love or something~~ something in the water…

Unimportant content

2008-12-14T21:15:00.003+08:00

Now that I do not have to worry about exams I have been having a lot more time on my hands. It really feels strange.

I actually have time to take random rides on the subway to look at various things, chat freely without the nagging guilt of ‘I should be studying’, running lap after lap on the Spa-Francorchamps circuit in various angry cars, analysing a portfolio of options. I have even taken to watching physics lectures from various universities on YouTube.

This last activity usually raises questioning eyebrows, so I tend to not mention it unless absolute necessary. Such as now.

I was chatting with my cousin Lai some days ago when the following transpired:

Lai: You can pay for my trip to…"that-god-knows-where-place" in China…
Me: I’m no longer in that dump called Tianjin
I’m in Shanghai!
Ooh, you’ve upgraded. I can't remember ;)
Yeah, been in Shanghai since 29 October
Didn't you notice, I'm less cynical and morbid these days. So much more cheerful
Bu bu but...the Yee Wei I know has always been cynical & morbid.
Hence, can't tell if he is any less cynical and morbid :S
Haha aww, that’s such a compliment!

The Cold Stone experience in Shanghai

2008-12-08T21:47:00.005+08:00

So on Saturday I fulfilled my quest to sample the much anticipated Cold Stone ice cream.

It was fantastic: I picked the Founder’s Favourite- sweet cream flavoured ice cream with pecans, brownies, fudge and caramel mashed in on the spot, and served in a thick wafer bowl.

The ice cream was smooth and rich, and the best part was that the ingredients were added in there and then, thus ensuring the nuts remained crunchy and the cake not soggy.

Unfortunately, the matter of price is enough to cause a severe cringe (or two). The medium sized serving of 170g cost me a painful 39 RMB.

Below is a cost comparison between Cold Stone in the US and China:

Medium size serving: 8 oz (US); 6 oz (China)
Price: ~ 4.50 USD; 39 RMB (5.70 USD)
Price per ounce: ~0.56 USD/oz; 6.5 RMB/oz (0.96 USD/oz)

Unlike in the US where Cold Stone stores are common, ice cream parlours are not a very common sight in China. In addition, the live action of mixing ingredients into the ice cream adds a novelty to the entire process, allowing the chain to position itself as a premium brand.

With a booming upper-middle class in Chinese cities, Cold Stone can afford to charge astronomical prices and (probably) turn a profit from those willing to splurge on something out of the ordinary.

WTF. An ice cream commentary just turned into a company analysis…

Anyway, the ice cream was pretty good. It’s quite a different experience from a purist like Mövenpick, concentrating more on giving a mix of flavours and textures in each bite. However, the astronomical price greatly detracts from the overall enjoyment.

2008-12-05T23:02:00.003+08:00

From a practice question:

Alice Costain operates a convenience store in the financial district of London. If Costain increases the price of a Magnim ice cream bar from £1.00 to £1.15, weekly sales decrease from 200 units to 180 units. Which of the following statements is most accurate?

A. The price elasticity of demand is -0.66.
B. The slope of the demand curve equals the elasticity of demand.
C. The price increase will lead to an increase in total value of Magnim ice cream bars
D. Since the price elasticity of demand is less than one, the demand for Magnim is elastic.

Now I feel like a nice chocolatey Magnum...or this

Entries these days seem to be getting more and more whimsical; pardon me - brain's evaporating.

Sigh

2008-12-01T22:29:00.000+08:00

With the Large Hadron Collider’s scheduled turn-on being delayed by several months, my year-end plans have been thrown into disarray. Tell me, how can one celebrate the winter solstice without the company of Higgs bosons?

As if the uncertainty was not causing enough misery, my personal accounts suffered a valuation allowance equal to the full value of my outstation claims.

MCH.

On a more cheerful note, May had been raving about this Cold Stone ice cream franchise in the US. You pick your ice cream flavour, some toppings (including brownie bits, oreos, Kit Kat, Reese, various fruits) and they mix it up on a chilled stone slab. Yes it’s not very different from a McFlurry but if it’s good ice cream...

Yesterday, I saw a Cold Stone signboard while in a taxi. After some research, I found that they have several outlets in Shanghai, one of them is just 4 metro stops away. Yay!

Looks like I have plans this weekend. Apart from studying and sitting for the exam.

Oh look, a meme!

2008-11-30T01:09:00.002+08:00

Seeing that I have not done stupid things in a while, I might as well fulfil my monthly quota (the smoke incident was not stupid; it was tragic). Here is a meme pinched from ze godsister:

Do you consider yourself weird or crazy?
Weird.

Who do you think the teddy bear was named after?
A long time ago I read in a general knowledge books for young children that it was Theodore Roosevelt. There’s a story behind it, something about a bear.

Do you like mint?
Generally ok.
However, I have seen mint things that most people cannot imagine (no, I’m sure you can easily imagine a mint flavoured condom). In this instance, it was a mint flavoured pau (the white steamed buns typically filled with char siew, red bean or kaya). The sweet, warm, menthol-laden and cooling paste came as quite a shock, seeing I was not expecting mint in my pau.

Are you sexually confused?
Despite being accused of that now and then, I am not sexually confused. When I was working at the restaurant, I had the extreme misfortune of having a gay man ask me if I can be dessert. Horrors. If it was a woman I could have at least flirted back or something.

Are you claustrophobic?
Only when I’m feeling restless on long flights when I am already tired, unwell and then stuffed into a non-aisle seat.

Are you afraid of heights?
No.

Do you think you sing well?
No, and I’m certain of it. I feel exceedingly out of place in karaoke sessions – the fact that I don’t really pay attention to songs make me not know a whole lot of them.
Do you know this song? No. What about this, surely you’ve heard it before? Er.. no. Ok, this one then? No.
Ultimately it frustrates the shit out of whoever who’s trying to be helpful, and I end up paying to watch people sing.

Do you like anyone?
Yah I like Jean!! <3

Do you think branded things are over-rated?
Sometimes, it’s comforting to know that the plane you are travelling in is an Airbus instead of a Fokker.
Also, the difference between a BMW and a Proton shouldn’t be neglected.

Do you think you're likely to get dementia at old age?
Does not seem likely, if my grandparents are any indication.

Do you cross dress?
Yes. I have a rather splendid collection of blouses, pleated skirts, evening gowns, knickers, A-cup bras, a few nylon stockings (these used to be really rare during the 2nd World War because parachutes were supposedly more important than stockings) and patent leather heels.
However, I have some rather masculine clothing so I’m not totally whacked. I’m particularly fond of my collection of studded leather underwear.

Are you into magazines?
I used to be, when I had to take a 45-minute train ride to that silly institution masquerading as a school. Back then we had a shit load of magazine subscriptions at home – National Geographic, Far Eastern Economic Review, Reader’s Digest, Time, Asiaweek, Discover, Scientific America, The Planetary Review.
The fees must have amounted to a bomb, but those 2 years of reading gave me so much knowledge that in hind sight, that silly institution might have been good for me after all (only because it forced me into sitting in a train for 1.5 hours a day).

Do you read a lot?
I used to. When I had access to the university’s library I would dig up books from the medicine, mathematics, physics and economics library for kicks.
Now I just work, study and waste time.

Are you an atheist?
No, I’m somewhere between a Buddhist, Taoist and agnostic.

Are you hard headed?
No, in fact my skull is so soft you could press it with the back of the spoon and it’d yield, allowing you to manipulate (or even scoop out) the contents. Inside, you’d mostly find air and differential equations.

Are you into movies?
No.

Do you like the TV?
I used to dislike it. Now I just don’t give it a damn.

Do you like the computer?
It’s my only way to connect with the world. No TV, no movies, no newspapers…

Are you fond of cosplaying?
Only if the hot girls wear teasingly short skirts with tight blouses. And if the guys stay out of sight.
But really, that situation need not be restricted to cosplay alone.
And I cannot relate to cosplay, so I will simply say I am not fond of cosplay.

Do you hate rap?
I just hate listening to it.

Do you wear polka-dotted undies?
Oh yea! Forgot to mention my polka-dotted undies earlier. A matching set of panties and bra.

Are you interested in politics?
Not really.

Are you a man of many words or are you a man of a few words?
Few words. Very few words.

Are you good at small talk?
As suggested above, no. I’m terrible at small talk.

Will you grow up to be a fine man?
I’m already grown up, a man. Cannot attest to my fineness.

How do you feel after completing this dumbass survey?
Like the dumbass I am. I just wasted a bunch of time that could have been used for studying. And the exam is next Sunday.
Dumbass indeed.

Deprivation

2008-11-27T13:01:00.003+08:00

The author is deprived of many pleasures including, but not limited to:

gelati
cafe latte
rich, fishy laksa lemak
buttery kaya toast

He is also deprived of many joys including, including but not limited to:

noisy dinner parties with his family and relatives
quiet dinners with the girlfriend

Of course, there are a handful of other perverse desires that should not be publicly aired, such as:

driving a small BMW through fast, curvy mountains roads
wielding an obscenely sharp blade against a helpless chunk of pork

2008-11-23T01:57:00.001+08:00

Several days ago, I thought I had reverse engineered a fantastic technique for making fried rice. It was brilliant; who knew plain fried rice with egg, garlic and a pinch of szechuan pepper would be so good.

Later, I saw that the szechuan pepper powder contained the following: szechuan pepper, salt, MSG.

Shit, MSG.

Today, I repeated the recipe, omitting the sinister szechuan pepper powder. The rice turned out as expected, but without that mind-blowing edge. The technique works, but it’s not a silver bullet, one-shot-kill kind of trump card.

Oh shit, is that smoke?

2008-11-16T16:05:00.002+08:00

I came back from a trip to the supermarket AND wet market loaded with one week’s supply of essential foodstuff such as vegetables, rice, pork, potato crisps and coconut juice*.

As I approached my apartment, I noted an odd smell.

--flashback--
It was nearly noon, and if I did not leave soon I’ll not be able to get back by 1 pm. The cleaning lady was due to arrive at 1, and I did not want to make her wait.

I turned up the flame on my duck soup to get it boiling sooner, and went to brush my teeth. Teeth brushed to perfection, wriggled into my jacket, I picked up the bag of rubbish and stormed out of the house.

--end flashback--

When I linked the odd smell to the smell of burning stuff, my brain switched into a panicked loop. “Not my stove not my stove not my stove not my stove not my stove not my stove not my stove […],” it chanted to no one in particular. The trance-like chanting took up much of my mental resources, leaving little processing power for my motor control. I had to fumble with the key about for a while before getting the door opened, and was greeted with a dense white haze filling the upper half of the apartment. The haze was so dense that it was impossible to see more than 2 metres ahead.

I rush to the kitchen to find a blackened pot over a furiously burning gas flame, white smoke issuing out of the lid’s little vent. Whatever water in the pot had been boiled dry long ago, and the smoke jetting out of the pot (and subsequently filling the entire apartment with layers of haze) was vaporised duck fat and protein.

The windows and balcony doors were thrown open to ventilate the place, and within a minute I could actually see from one end of the apartment to the other. My adventure, however, was not over.

From upstairs, I heard someone shouting. Shortly after, there was a frantic banging on my door. I found a man asking if everything was ok- he detected a strong burning smell from upstairs and came to see if there was anything wrong. I had to explain it was a kitchen incident; all is fine and thank you so much for your concern. He asked again if everything is ok (to which I said it’s fine) before turning to go.

Several minutes later, the doorbell rang. This time, it was a guard. Someone had called the building management about a strong smoky smell, and he was tracking down the source. He had checked all units from level 17 till he reached mine (there are 3 units per level, I live on level 10). Again, I explained that it was a kitchen incident and it’s under control.

A thoroughly unpleasant experience it was.

* coconut juice is one of the most fantastic drinks I’ve seen recently. Unlike coconut water which is a light, clear liquid, this coconut juice is diluted and sweetened coconut milk. It’s rich, fattening and comes with a flavourful punch. A very soothing drink, perfectly suited to calming the nerves after a smoky scare.

Option valuation- understanding how price volatility and duration to expiry affects the value of an option

2008-11-09T22:16:00.002+08:00

This rather long article is laid out as follows:

Summary
Option fundamentals
Valuation approach
Relationship between profit from an option and the asset’s market price
The probable market price at exercise date of the option
How likely is it that I will profit from this option?
How much profit can I expect from this option?
Another example: on the money option
Volatility sensitivity of options
Valuing the option: a hand-waving approach

Summary:
The price volatility and duration affects options because of the asymmetrical way options payback the holder. High volatility implies a high likelihood for prices to move either up or down. If process move in one direction, the bond holder gains. If prices move in the opposite direction, the option holder does not suffer losses.
Thus, a larger price volatility and longer duration give will almost result in an increase in the value of the option.

Option fundamentals
Options are securities that grant the option holder the right to buy or sell an asset at a predetermined price some time in the future.

An example of an option to buy (a call option) would be an option to buy 100 barrels of crude oil for the price of US$ 7500 in December. The agreed upon price is called the strike price.
If in December, the market price for 100 barrels of crude oil increased to US$8000, the option holder will decide to exercise the option’s right to buy from the option writer at the cheaper price. Thus, the option holder’s profit is US$ 500.
However, if the price instead decreased to US$ 7000, the option holder will be better off buying in the market. So the option will not be exercised, and the option holder does not profit.

Therefore, the call option allows the holder to profit if the asset price increases, but does not result in losses if the asset price decreases. Of course, there is no free lunch; the option has to be purchased at a cost. We will discuss how the price volatility affects the cost of an option.

Valuation approach
The approach taken here is the estimate the expected return from the option position, then discount the value for risk.

Relationship between profit from an option and the asset’s market price

Returning to the above example, we can see that if the asset price is below the strike price, the call option holder does not suffer any losses. But if the asset price is above the strike price, the option holder can buy the asset at the strike price, and then sell the asset in the market at the market price, thus profiting from the difference between market and strike prices.

Figure 1 below shows the relationship between ending price and profit. Notice that if the ending market price is less than the strike price, there are no profit/losses. When ending market price is above the strike price, the profit is the difference between the strike price and the market price.

Figure 1

The probable market price at exercise date of the option

While we may be able to predict certain trends in the market, there will always remain a large element of uncertainty. Likewise, there is an uncertainty regarding the market price of the underlying asset at the expiry of the option. Two factors affect the uncertainty of market price at expiry date: duration to expiry, and volatility of the price.

If the option is to expire next week, and the market price today for 100 barrels of crude oil is US$ 7750, we would expect the price next week to be close to US$ 7750. The probability of a large change is small (but still present: a severe industrial accident in a major refinery could push prices up abruptly).

However, if the option is expiring in 6 months, there is more time for all sorts of market events to cause changes for the price of 100 barrels of oil to move away from the current price of US$ 7750.

In figure 2 below, we illustrate the probability of ending prices. As the graphs show, prices further in the future are more likely to move further from the current price.

Figure 2

The effect of price volatility is similar: assets which are more prone to fluctuation will have a more spread out probability density function than assets which have more stable prices.

How likely is it that I will profit from this option?

Earlier, we have shown that the profit from a call option position is asymmetrical: the holder profits if the asset price is above the strike price, but does not lose if the asset price is below the strike price.

Let’s say the current asset price is 7750, and the strike price is set at 7500. We have two options, one that expires in one week, and one that expires in 6 months. If we were able to exercise NOW, we would definitely gain 250 in profits. But what about 1 week or 6 months later?

Figure 3 below shows that for the one-week option, we will almost certainly be in a profitable position. However, there is a chance of not being profitable if we take the 6-month option. This is because the longer duration increases the likelihood of the asset price moving below the strike price (however, we must not forget that the asset price can also move up higher).

Figure 3

Of course, this is not the end of our analysis. While we can now estimate the likelihood of making a profit, we still need to have a feel of how much we can expect to profit.

How much profit can I expect from this option?

If we are interested in estimating the expected profit from an option position, we need to find the total of the (probability of a particular asset price × the profit at that asset price) for all possible asset prices.

The expected profit from this position is the area below the (probability of a particular asset price × the profit at that asset price) curve. For the position of options expiring in 1 week and 6 months, the calculations are displayed graphically below (these calculations cannot be solved geometrically in a practical manner; a spreadsheet was required to calculate the probability density function, multiply the probability with the profit, and then calculated the area).

Figure 4

Figure 5

If we compare expected profit and likelihood of profit, we see that the 6 months position has a small likelihood of not profiting (as shown in figure 3) but greater expected profit. This is due to the fact that the 6 month option can earn large profits if the underlying price moves upwards significantly, but make no losses if the price goes below the strike price.

Another example: on the money option

The sensitivity of an option’s value to price volatility and duration is particularly severe for an on the money option. This is an option which has a strike price equal to the current underlying price. We use the same examples as above, but this time the strike price is the same as the current price. If prices move up the slightest bit, the option holder will profit, but if prices move down the slightest bit, option holders will not lose money.

Figure 6

Figure 7

Volotility sensitivity of options

If we were to compare the sensitivity of options, we can see that an on the money option is very sensitive to a change in volatility (in the examples in figures 6 and 7, the expected profit jumps from 52.08 to 102.71, a 97% leap) while an in the money option is less sensitive (in the examples in figures 4 and 5, the expected profit jumps from 373.05 to 381.04, a mere 2% incement).

If an option was deeply out of the money (the strike price is well below the current underlying price), then we expect the option to expire without turning us any profit. Unless we have a massive increase in volatility, the value of this option will be very close to zero regardless of volatility.

Valuing the option
If the option holder is completely indifferent to risk, then the option holder will be willing to pay the expected value of the option in order to own the option.

However, this does not apply in the real world: buyers want to be reimbursed for risk. Thus, buyers will not be willing to pay the full expected value for an option with uncertain returns.

For options that are deeply in or out of the money, the option price will be very close to the expected profit. For in deeply in the money options, the expected profit is equal to the difference between the strike price and current market price (this is also equal to the area under the probability × profit curve). For deeply out of the money options, the expected profit is zero.

For options that have their probability functions straddling the strike price, the option price has to be adjusted for that fact that there could be decent profits or none at all. For volatile or long duration options (figure 7), we will expect the discount to be substantial; for less volatile and shorted duration options (figure 6), the discount will be less.

A peep

2008-11-01T02:08:00.001+08:00

I’m alive, barely.

The week started on a horrific note on Sunday when I the nuclear bomb I had been unwittingly nurturing hit puberty. All this while I thought I was planting sweet potatoes, when in fact I had been feeding the said bomb with more and more fissile material.

The resulting boom killed the last of the giant pandas, and I’m now harbouring a deep sorrow and guilt. The pain, horror and guilt of knowing that I had harmed something so harmless and completely lovable felt like a vibrating, barbed stake plunged into my cranium and left to do its damage. It has made me nearly cry myself to sleep every night since.

Sorry pandas! ^^

On a more positive note, I’m now in Shanghai.

After the prolonged stint in frumpy Tianjin with its dust encrusted low-rise flats (decorated with a sprinkling of architecturally fugly high rise commercial buildings), the endless fields of skyscrapers in Shanghai was a welcoming sight. Along with the incessant honking of cars and endless masses of people everywhere, the food has been promising so far.

Today I had to stay late at the office so I dug around at the receptionist’s desk for some ~~home~~ office-delivery menus. Ordered a pork belly rice and a wintermelon soup at 6 RMB each (equivalent to 3.11 MYR or 0.88 USD or 1.32 AUD or 1.30 SGD).

For 6 RMB, the rice was great. 2 large strips of pork, 3 small servings of vegetables and rice. The soup was equally brilliant: it came in a paper tub (it’s like a paper cup but with different dimensions and more robustly constructed, fitted with a plastic cover) and amounted to a significant volume. Remarkably, there was a fair bit of wintermelon and meaty chunks of pork ribs- they had actually throw in the good stuff till it’s reasonably full, then filled up the gaps with soup.

Oh talking about currencies, the value of the Australian Dollar fell terribly. From 3.00 MYR to the AUD, it took a plunge to ~2.3. I’m not amused – my only Visa card (and that’s merely a Visa Debit) was issued in Australia, and all Paypal transactions have been paid out using AUD. The plunge meant I would need to fork out more AUD for the same amount of Euros/ SGD/ USD. Bugger.

Best I find myself another credit card issued in another currency. The option would allow me to buy using the best available currency.

Trying to be an optimist, I suppose the good thing about seeing wild swings in the economy is to instil some sensibility in me. Just so I know not to rush into anything guns blazing and position unhedged.

Shit it’s already 2 am. Will finish up my work and leave the office. Toodles!

Another new old phone; “Klang Blogger’s Gathering”; Back in China

2008-10-14T21:49:00.004+08:00

My phone is a cute little 6510 from the turn of the century. It was graciously given by May. Last week, Jean gave me her 6510 as well, and I managed to pinch the champagne-coloured cover from Joo Lee (whose 6510 is no longer functional).

Nokia 6510

Click here for large size image

So now I have two Nokia 6510s. One for my China sim card, and the other can run my Malaysian sim card. Not bad wat, you can send texts to me at local rates and I’ll respond to you without needing to roaming rates.

I still hold on to my record of never having purchased a phone off the shelf; the first was May’s old phone, the second came with my phone line package, my third and fourth are these 6510s. Nothing to be proud of, some insist.

***

The little gathering that later became known as the Klang Blogger’s Gathering was a blast. We met up on Saturday night for ‘supper’ at TGIF Subang Parade, and proceeded to become the noisiest group and the last to leave.

Back row, L-R: Vickna, Anucia, Kavilan, Gerald, self, Jean
Front row, L-R: Jacinta, Sabrina
Photo from Gerald

It was nothing short of fantastic.

***

I’m now in China; the trip was unpleasant.

Monday 9.30 pm: Leave the house for KLIA
Tuesday 12.30 am: Flight scheduled to depart
1.00 am: Flight delayed to 1.00 am
7.30 am: Arrived at Beijing Airport
10.00 am: Depart for Tianjin via Beijing Airport-Tianjin shuttle bus
12.30pm: Arrived in Tianjin bus terminal. Took a taxi to TEDA Economic and Technological Development Area.
1.30pm: Arrived home half dead from lack of sleep, minor claustrophobia (China Air provides no leg room), nausea, bad airline food and dehydration.

Orgasms

2008-10-09T10:07:00.004+08:00

In the form of ice cream and tiramisu.

Honey, I’m home! Hence the long spell of silence.

Yet another photo of the Beijing Airport

Click here for large size image

***

I dropped by at Singapore for visit over the weekend, and one of the highlights of the weekend was sampling some Movenpick ice cream. Yes I hear it’s available in Malaysia; I’m sorry if I sound like I come from a kampung – I just returned from China.

It’s mind blowingly awesome. The strawberry ice cream was absurdly smooth, and the flavour was light and refreshingly sour. Fruity. And there were generous blobs of frozen strawberry chunks in the ice cream.

If you were to let the crystal-free ice cream melt in your mouth, the fruity sourness melts away leaving an occasional frozen bit of fruit. Let that thaw and it regains its strawberry-ness.

The cappuccino ice cream was another case study in orgasm-inducing food. It consists of mostly of coffee ice cream with some swirls of vanilla. And dispersed everywhere are fine chocolate chips. The coffee and vanilla ice cream melts first, leaving a residue of chocolate sediment in the mouth. This then quickly dissolves into a happy, chocolaty nothingness.

I suppose the appropriate thing to say now would be “I <3 Movenpick ice cream.”

***

We made tiramisu some days ago. It came out a little short of a whole tiramisu due to a minor misjudgement, but was still fantastic. The gratuitously generous quantity of strong coffee and Tia Maria helped save the day.

With a naked cake in the fridge, I scribbled something on a sheet of paper and cut it out into a stencil for sprinkling cocoa on the cake.

It’s ~~one of~~ THE most remarkable equation in complex mathematics, eⁱ^π=-1

The first was a mess because I hand-held the stencil; the last one was incomplete because I had to try the tiramisu.

eⁱ^π=-1

Macro photos of a mayfly's exoskeleton; shopping therapy

2008-09-14T20:12:00.002+08:00

Malaysia is not a natural habitat of mayflies, so for most of us, the most likely exposure to mayflies comes from Thumbelina.

My office is located near a sizable artificial lake, and is subjected to occasional mayfly intrusions. I recently found the remnants of a mayfly that had died clinging to a wall. All of the soft tissue, including most of the head and eyes, the wings and the innards had disappeared, and only a translucent skeleton was left. This called for some macro photography:

Click here for large size image

Ghost Hunter

Click here for large size image

Mayflies are best known for their “short” lifespan – adult mayflies have lifespans between several hours to a few days, depending on species. In fact, most of the mayflies’ lives are spent in the immature nymph stage, typically for one year.

The adult stage of a mayfly (when the creature matures into the distinctive mayfly appearance with large, upright forewings and 2/3 very long tails) is primarily for reproductive purposes. Interestingly, the mouthparts of mayflies are vestigial (meaning they have lost their original functionality, like the appendix in humans) and the digestive tract is filled with air. The adult mayfly is incapable of eating.

There was also a living and intact mayfly in a darker area, thus resulting in the less than idea image quality below.

***

Earlier today, I stumbled upon a trading area within a shopping complex for used goods, including mobile phones, computers and electronic goods. It was a wide open floor with rows and rows of stalls. Most of the trading was in mobile phones and notebook computers, but there was also a decent market for computer peripherals, audio equipment, photography equipment, video cameras and projectors, portable music players and a host of other bits and pieces.

Interesting sights include:
3 Hasselblad medium-format cameras
2 Asahi-Pentax 55mm f/1.8 lenses (but with less than perfect optics, a pity)
Sony MiniDisc players
Audio amplifiers and equalisers
Headphones

On impulse, I got myself a nice pair of Sony headphones. They were going for only 35 RMB (17.50 MYR); a brand new pair’s recommended retail price is 78.00 MYR.

Sony MDR-V150

Click here for large size image

And the audio detail is fantastic. Best 35 RMB I’ve ever spent; now looking out for a 35 RMB 105mm M42 lens.

He what on the restaurant’s floor?!

2008-09-13T21:06:00.003+08:00

I usually do not mind eating at less classy restaurants as it usually means I can get more nutrition for the same price.

Consider the difference between KFC and the cheap, dingy little joint where I had dinner today:
A burger set at KFC costs approximately 20 RMB, and consists of a burger (bread, piece of fried chicken patty, lettuce fragments, dressing), deep fried potato sticks and carbonated syrup.
At the dingy joint, a bowl of rice and a massive dish costs approximately 12 RMB. The dish would be a stir fried mix of vegetables and meat slivers.

For both instances, the bulk of the nutrition comes from:
Chicken patty and lettuce fragments in the burger
Massive dish of vegetables and meat slivers
The rest (burger bun, deep fried potato sticks, carbonated syrup, rice) is merely filler.
The result is clear: I can get more useful stuff for a lower price at the dingy little restaurant.

Of course, there is no such thing as a free lunch. The downside to dining at a dingy little joint is that you share the dining hall with less classy people (now isn’t that pretentious). Today’s incident is the most memorable to date.

***

Among the diners at the table next to mine was a couple with their spawn, probably 2 to 3 years old. He was a pesky little brat, the kind prone to emitting screechy little whines when he wanted to be carried, when he wanted to be let down, when he wanted to eat, when he wanted a drink…

So everything was progressing along smoothly – him sitting in his mother’s lap, the mother feeding him dinner – when all of a sudden he went into a minor coughing and whining fit.

Must have choked on something, so the mother swings him a little to lean out of the chair’s footprint and pats his back. The child successfully clears the offending piece of food from his mouth, and spits it on the floor. She continues patting to ensure that nothing remains, and he ejected more semi-masticated food onto the floor.

Not more than five minutes later, I heard something splattering and I turned around. The child was still sitting on his mother’s lap, but this time he was turned to one side. The mother was holding the slit of his pants* open, his young penis bathing in the soft glow of the overhead fluorescent tubes.

And from this penis, a stream of yellowish liquid flowed out and splattered onto the restaurant’s floor. Not more than 1.5 m from where I sat.

***

When met with strange circumstances (circumcised or otherwise), the best thing to do would be to tell everyone about it.

I sent a text message to several people:
At a restaurant now. The toddler at the next table just peed on the floor. The mother pulled out his penis and there he goes! Uncultured brutes… die!

D replied, asking if it was big.

I replied:
Haha, no. It was so tiny I initially thought the parents had cross-dressed a girl into a boy. Upon closer inspection, I found the unruly little squirting penguin.

* pants with slits are very common for young children in China. It’s like a normal pair of pants but with the crotch not sewn up, leaving a slit running from the front to the rear. It makes waste discharge a simpler affair, but looks extremely crass.

Traffic modelling hack - how to modify your traffic modelling software to simulate traffic conditions in Tianjin

2008-09-11T21:02:00.001+08:00

If there is a need to model traffic in Tianjin using agent-based modelling, the following characteristics are recommended for the agents:

No long term foresight
No adherence to lane rules
No adherence to right-of-way rules

Below are several verifying tests you can perform to check that your model has captured the essence of Tianjin traffic:

Railway level-crossing

Create a single carriageway with two lanes – one north bound and the other south bound. Ensure that there is no physical divider between the lanes, and that double continuous lines separate the lanes, indicating that drivers may neither overtake nor encroach into the opposing lane.

Set the traffic density to a moderate level. To create the level-crossing, create a temporary obstruction across the road, to model the crossing being closed for the passage of a train.

Upon creation of this barrier, cars should start to accumulate and form a queue behind the obstruction (see figure 1a). When the queue length reaches approximately 5 cars, some cars will attempt to jump the queue by lining up on the opposite lane. Shortly after, you will observe that approximately 3 indistinctive queues have formed across the entire road. This happens on both sides (see figure 1b).

Figure 1.

When the obstruction is removed (when the train has passed without incident), the resulting blockage will take a significant time to clear (see figure 1c). This typically ranges from 2 to 5 minutes.

If your model recreates this scenario, it suggests you have successfully incorporated “no long term foresight” and “no adherence to lane rules” into your model. The first is demonstrated when agents insist on piling up on the wrong lane just to be ahead by several metres, but resulting in massive delays. The second is also demonstrated when agents pile up on the wrong lane.

T-junction

Create a T junction be connecting the end of a single carriageway to the middle of another single carriageway.

Create an agent (red) travelling along the tributary road to the main road, such that the agent’s destination is to turn left. Populate the main road with other agents (green), and set their destinations to be straight ahead (see figure 2a).
The red agent will approach the junction and proceed without stopping. On seeing the red vehicle entering their lane, the green agents will slow down (or stop) to avoid colliding into the red agent (see figure 2b).

Figure 2.

If your model recreates this scenario, it suggests you have successfully incorporated “no adherence to right-of-way rules” into your model. This is demonstrated when the red agent obnoxiously enters the main road without giving way or stopping, and relying on others to see it and react accordingly.

Multi-lane expressway

Create an expressway with 2 or 3 lanes going in each direction. Populate the expressway with a variety of vehicles, such as heavy good vehicles, trucks and passenger vehicles with a variety preferred travelling speeds.

Observe that vehicles will travel on arbitrary lanes, irrespective of speed. Also observe a proportion of vehicles will drift between two lanes. If your model recreates this scenario, it suggests you have successfully incorporated “no adherence to lane rules” into your model.

A corollary of this is that vehicles with a faster preferred speed will need to weave between lanes to overtake slow vehicles that occupy various lanes. Also, when traffic density increases slightly, the expressway quickly becomes congested as clusters of slow-moving vehicles prevent other vehicles from travelling at their desired speed.

If your model is able to predict all three phenomenon, congratulations, you have set up your traffic modelling package to simulate Tianjin traffic behaviours.

Something of mind-blowing awesomeness

2008-09-01T21:17:00.001+08:00

How to circumvent the blocking of Malaysia Today

2008-08-27T20:42:00.003+08:00

Readers who frequently visit Malaysia Today for Raja Petra Kamaruddin's writings would have noticed that the site has not been accessible from within Malaysia since yesterday. However, visitors from outside the country had no problems accessing the site.

The cause is explained by Malaysiakini:

"In a rare move, Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) has ordered all internet service providers (ISPs) to block controversial online portal Malaysia Today."

[source: Malaysiakini]

This blocking can be circumvented by surfing through a proxy site:
http://proxychina.org/
http://proxy4china.com/

Go to any of the above sites, and then enter http://malaysia-today.net/ into the proxy site's address bar. The proxy site will then retrieve data from Malaysia Today and then send it to you as if it was coming from the proxy site. Since only data from Malaysia Today is blocked and data from proxychina.org is not blocked, the data will arrive safely.

For more proxy sites, search "proxy site" on google. However, caution is advised as these are the dingier neighbourhoods of the internet, so expect pop up advertisements and maybe even obscene ads. However, the proxy sites listed above are very clean by proxy standards.

The workings of a proxy site can be described by the following analogy:

Imagine an extremely insecure and jealous husband. (For the purpose of this discussion, neglect the question of how an extremely insecure and jealous managed to get married.) He does not like his wife talking to a dashing old friend of hers. But she wants to get their primary school teacher's phone number from him.

Unfortunately, all communication is partially monitored by the insecure husband. He checks each caller, and once he has verified that the caller is not the dashing old friend, he lets her be. So there is no way she can call the old friend. Thus, she decides to use a proxy.

Our heroine calls her friend Stella- she has unrestricted access to Stella. She asks Stella to ring the old friend and get the number from him. (The connection between Stella and the old friend is unmonitored because Stella is outside the control of this insecure husband). Then Stella will pass the information back to the heroine (which is possible because the heroine has unrestricted access to Stella).

Living in China behind The Great Firewall has given me skills I never knew would come in useful.

The chart of sexual interactions

2008-08-26T10:04:00.004+08:00

Click here for large size image

Errata and addendum:
'Oral sex' in the male mouth to male penis interaction should read 'fellatio'
'Oral sex' in the female mouth to female vagina interaction should read 'cunnilingus'
Hou has pointed out that the practice of penile rubbing is known as frottage.