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Drunken rambling

In this drunken state of mind where logic fails, I hereby state this unqualified statement that “there comes a point in time in the life of man when the thrill of acquiring wealth, fame and power far surpasses the thrill which comes with the successful pursuit of women.”

Should a man upon having reached this stage in life have found a woman for himself which he could deem as a soul mate, he can indeed be considered a fortunate man.

A man otherwise is a man who have to eventually accept the fact of his aloneness. Try as he might, there will always exist this inconquerable gap between him and his mate to be. As such mate will never be deemed to be a soul mate but rather a mate of convenience.

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The importance of knowledge management within an organization

Lawrence dropped by at my place this evening, he had some issues with a few of his software packages he apparently had problems solving. In the name of  friendship, I solved it for him. It took but a while.

I was asking about his recently operations and soon realized that he was being extremely occupied of late. Majority of the problem revolves around available resources (time Lawrence has available to him) not capable of existing supporting needs (requirements of his customers)

The secondary problem revolved around the inefficiency of information transfer based on the current most predominant long distance channels of communication, namely voice conversation and text email messages.

Suddenly it occurred to me, that a lack of proper knowledge management system might be a contributing source to his problem. He expressed that supposed he got sick one day and one of his colleagues had to take over his duties, that colleague would be suddenly lost in the midst of a strange environment his is not aware of. He said he had the same problems as well when he first took over the duties of one of his colleagues who departed to join another company.

Also there would have been no need for him to drop by at my place had he been able to effectively transfer his knowledge of the problems he was facing to me via traditional channels of communication.

Thinking back, I realized it was such a waste of the time to have to travel from one place to the next to convey a message simply because long distance communications failed.

Further pondering on this issue of knowledge transfer, it suddenly occurred to me weren’t there multiple instances of developers (me inclusive) around wasting more time than they should because of failure in the knowledge transfer process? To draw a simple example from my experience, there were in deed a few times when I had to commit hours to solve a problem that had already been solved by another of my colleague simple because his knowledge of how to solve the problem could not be effectively transferred to be. Had the transfer been successful I would have to waste tons of time attempting to figure out the solution to a problem and he would not have to waste the same amount of time attempting to guide me through the problem over the phone in real time.

What if there is a knowledge repository over the internet where people could go to for detailed instructions of how to solve their problems? What if someone could solve a problem once and thereafter have his knowledge effectively packaged, stored and there after transmitted to the people who need it without as ambiguity?

There have been past attempts to do so over the internet with the use of forums. However, ambiguity often results due to the difference in the way a message was encrypted in words for storing and thereafter decrypted from these same words for usage. The only site that came close to fulfilling this function over the internet thus far is YouTube which is actually becoming quite popular as a self learning tool used by many.

Just for experimentations sake, and partially due to the inspiration I acquired from my reading of the book “the world is flat”,  during my next IT project, I will attempt to engage a friend in India to aid me in the development of a few functions and components on Joomla. If this method which I envision to use to further promote effective long distance communications works, I might have for myself a viable outsourcing model. Then again fingers crossed.

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Taking a step back and enjoying the space

Suddenly, it felt as though the world around me is spinning at a faster and faster pace. Strangely, I felt increasingly detached to all these occurrences happening around me.

No longer is my cat able to stir any sense of annoyance in me when he cries out loud to be let out in the middle of the night. No longer do I get annoyed when my train of thought gets disrupted when some one around attempts to get my attention while I am in the midst of work. Perhaps what truly changed in me was the  sudden disappearance of this mysterious sense of mission that had been prodding me along for the past two years.

In retrospection, it was truly curious how it came about.

This afternoon, I took for myself a break while in the midst of drafting up a report of my findings from my survey of the staff nurses in Tan Tock Seng Hospital. I sat for 30 mintues in front of my Clavinova keyboard doodling away enjoying the disharmonic notes that were coming forth from the keyboards.

I unconsciously recalled of a time back in New Zealand, then I was sitting in the studio staring out of the window into the streets above under the gloomy skies.

I was suddenly affected by a tinge of sadness. What happened to those people from back then. It was like our paths diverged somewhere along the way and never ever crossed again, with the exception of a few.

Mansu finally got himself into Singapore for a business trip. We were out drinking last night. It felt as though it was just last week when I parted with him in Seoul. How strange the concept of time can be sometimes.

Suddenly I started laughing to myself, I remembered one phrase I plucked off hand from somewhere in the cosmos and threw to the crowd during one of my conversations.

“How do you relieve your stress? ” some one ever asked me then.

“Just start relaxing and some one else will start feeling the stress instead” I replied.

We laughed not because it was nonsense but because, as with all jokes that are ever really humorous,  it carries a grain of truth in it.

Stress is truly something perceived and an illusion like life itself.  Try as we might, the earth will still hurtle through the universe at break speed with us on it. Try as we might, it is still inevitable we continue falling through this abyss called life.

Many calls to action, but most of them a waste of effort. It is for the best to just respond to those that really matter.

Lately I started harboring deeply this notion that to work is to devote time to art and inspiration. To devote effort for monetary profits or out of fear is in essence not truly work, it falls more under the category of slavery a laborious task indeed.

If my interpretations are sound and correct, wouldn’t it be true then that there are more slaves than free man amongst us human nowadays. Nice! Modern as it may seem we are once again in the feudal age.

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A very familiar prose

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”

After many years, I can finally across the above again, this time while reading through the book Dune by Frank Herbert at page 6. The first time I did so was when I went sky diving in New Zealand. There is really great truth to be found in this 8 sentences. Even Sun Tze ever spoke about it, though in another form, popularly known as Sun Tze’s death ground theory.

Take away all the gimmicks that has been flooding the time and space of our age and the underlying wisdom remains unchanged through the ages.  In a sense, as a species though we might have made advancement in terms of science and technology, we did not really progress in terms of other arena.

Then again the advancement in terms of science and technology is much debateable, historians has made findings that hinted at the existance of technologically advanced civilisations that existed prior to ours.

Maybe we have been and will always be doomed to go around in this meaningless cycle. Well at least if there is any consolation to be had from this time and age, we could at least be happy with the fact that unlike those who past before us, we have the ipod and blackberry to keep us entertained while the merry go round continues.

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Huge influx of opportunites and the hidden opportunity cost

Suddenly I experienced a surge in the amount of opportunities coming my way these few weeks. Being faithful to the teachings in the topic of Economy during my times in the commerce faculty back in Junior college and in the stream of electronic commerce  back while I was doing my honours in the university, I understood and felt strongly the other side of the equation.

Opportunity cost!

Opportunity cost is defined as the lost incurred when you forego the next best alternative in the process of deciding on one of the available opportunities.

Let me talk in layman terms for your better understanding. Suppose one day you decide to spend 5 hours of your time reading a book in the library instead of spending those 5 hours sitting by the beach and reading the same book. The opportunity cost to you in this situation is the joy you feel when you sit by the beach. In this scenario, the cost is hard to quantify.

Let me illustrate for you a better example which I will draw from a real life situation.

Client A approaches me presenting before me a deal that could potentially make $4000. It requires an upfront investment of my real time of 80 hours. (as opposed to virtual time – aka asynchronous delay or some one else’s time) There exist 2% chance of complications happening. (this we will define as risk)

Client B approaches me at the same time presenting me another deal that could potentially make $10,000. It requires an upfront investment of my real time of 300 hours. (as opposed to virtual time – aka asynchronous delay or some one else’s time) There exist 10% chance of complications happening. (this we will define as risk)

As both clients came to me at the same time in need of my real time immediately, I am now faced with a situation whereby I will need to choose one and forego the other. To a normal person, he would very likely choose the deal that offers $10,000. However on closer inspection, the second deal is not actually a very good deal as compared to the other.

Let me work out the mathetics

Total likely incurrable man hours for deal A – 80 hours X 1.02 = 82 hours
Total revenue receivable $4000
Actual hourly rate for real time sold = $48.5

Total likely incurrable man hours for deal B – 300 X 1.05 = 315 hours
Total revenue receivable $10,000
Actual hourly rate for real time sold = $31.75

Some might explain that the lower rate justifies for the large sum of potential revenue receiveable in deal A. Ok then lets do the math for the other part of the equation still left invisible.

Given this active period in the market, the percentage of closing more deals simlar to A in nature is around 60%. Translated into hours it would be estimated at  (315-82 hours) * 0.60 = 140 hours

Appling the prevailings rates in deal A to this equation, I will get 140hours X 48.5 = $6,790

So if I choose to take up deal A and forego deal B, below are the mathematics:

I will have saved [315 – (140+82 )] 93 hours of my precious time and still potentially make [$10,790 – $10,000] $790 more.

Also since, I have a few channels which I could devote my time to build up recurring  income, this 93 hours extra time available at my disposal could thus be used to expose myself to the effects of the positive black swan, with zero opportunity cost incurred by me. So basically, the net comparison will be as per below :

[$10,790 +++ versus $10,000 nett]

Actually the equation that brought me to the conclusion of never getting myself employed into a full time job and a fix salary per month is almost similar to this. Get employed with a fix salary of $3000 per month and the possible financial situation you will be facing for the next 12 months will likely be

($3,000 X 12 ) = $36, 000 —

  • The minus sign is just in case your boss decides to fire your ass before the year ends.
  • also your maximum potential income has been capped at $36,000

Go about living life as a free bird

$0+++ = ???

  • Don’t worry God is kind
  • you normally won’t die from what you already, it is usually what you don’t know that will kill you.
  • You know what is your base but your upper boundary has no limits!

Life is great live free!!!!!

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I will kill 75 Singapore Dogs and they will die on the 17th of May

Social loathing is a proven phenomena that happens when lots  of people get together. What is social loathing? A simple example is this.

If one person exerts an effort 5 newton of work is done
If another person exerts an equal amount of effort 4 newton of work gets done

Logically speaking if both people were to work together to exert their effort, it is not possible to achieve 9 newton of effort. The output will likely range around 6 to 7 newton of effort.

Another example, if a lady were to fall in a deserted area where there is only one other person around, the chances of this person coming forth to provide aid is 75% and the chances of this fallen person receiving aid is 75%.

However if a lady were to fall in a crowded area where there are hundreds of other people around, the chances each person will come forth to provide aid will be 5% (majority assumes that someone else will step forth) and the chances of this fallen person receiving aid is actually lower than 75%.

A few days ago I received a message from Kirk stating that twenty or more dogs will be put to sleep on the 13th of May 2010 if no one step forth to adopt them by then. The reason of their death is because the owner of the pet shop they were kept at decided to run off due to financial difficulties . These dogs were left to fend for themselves, it was simply not possible. The only option thus was for them to all be put to sleep if no one came to adopt them by the 13th of May 2010.

This situation fitted perfectly with the illustration provided by the analogy of the lady falling in the middle of the shopping mall. The owner who should have a 75% chance of feeling responsible fled the scene thereby creating a situation where there is only us people who will only have an average of 5% chance of feeling responsible on the scene.

After I received the message from Kirk, I did a logical calculation. It was simply not possible for me to adopt a dog without causing a major commotion at home. The chances of me actually taking action to adopt a dog is thus 5% if not lesser. I instead forwarded this message to some of my friends. However the forwarding of this message is beside the point. From a moral point of view it does not in any way alleviate the sense of guilt I should be feeling thus.

The main point I am driving at is that we are all potentially very selfish and cruel at heart. Let me state the most optimal premise where this inherent selfishness and cruelty in us will most likely show.

  • When the living  being who is to be the receiptient of the pain, torture and potential lost of life is far removed from all of us.
  • When the relationship between the act of causing pain and suffering on this unfortunate recipient and the resultant pain and suffering felt by this unfortunate recipient is vague and far removed
  • When the person enforcing the pain and suffering has more pressing and urgent matters to attend to, such as appeasing the demands of an authoritative figure. (your boss or client perhaps? :P)

The perfect proof for the validity my argument is the Milgram experiment an experiment conducting shortly after the end of world war 2 to find out how was it possible that so many Jewish were exterminated by the Nazi’s and no one involved bothered to step up and do something about it.

Back to my argument, speaking from a practical point of view,  I should just do what I did, simply forwarding the message on and assume someone else will come forth and adopt the dogs. The responsibility is not mine anyway it is too troublesome to save a life.

However from a moral point of view, I did what I did with the deep down knowledge that I will be cursed for even ever harbouring the thought that something material could be worth even more than precious life itself, even worst acting upon it without a second thought.

I am going to hell. Hell cant be that bad a place. If there is any consolation at all it is at least filled with drugs sex and alcohol. And also see all of you there too. We are all Nazi’s at heart. Hail Hitler for that! Alright people hurl me your verbal abuses and send me hate letters if you will.I will gladly accept them, even laughing merrily when I read them.

However if you are seriously not convinced by my lame argument about how great hell is and would really like to stay out of that horrible place with a special seat all reserved for you by the devil himself , then please Pasir Ris Pet Farm Kennel 9 and save as much dogs as you can.

ecipient

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The joy of living like nomad and the ease that comes with learning to fail properly

Yesterday I suddenly experienced a drastic paradigm shift. For the past few months, I always attempted at creating a peaceful and quiet environment back at home to allow for better concentrate while at work. It was a lost cause. The presence of mom and dad plus little blackie gave me no peace whateverso. Any attempts at doing so would have resulted in immediate failure.  Only short spans of peace could be achieved, this was when everyone was out and blackie was having his afternoon nap.

Satheesh was kind enough to pass me the use of his wireless mobile card. It had been sitting much use in my bag for the past few months excepts on occasions when I had to do some off shore co-ordination when I was at Toshiba’s data center and service center.

It was morning yesterday when I took my laptop and aigo’s demo kit for a trip to Aigo’s main office. After some hiccups here and then we managed to settle the outstanding matters with Aigo.

I met up with Alena for lunch this Taiwanese eatery near east coast beach. Shortly after lunch, I took out my laptop and started checking some mails which Kelvin sent over a short while ago. Quickly I forgot the presence of Alena and concentrate on my work at hand. After 1 hours of solid uninterrupted work I decided to take a break.

We arrived at East Coast beach where I decided read a book. It was not long before she dragged me into roller blading with her. While she attempted hard at keeping her balance and fall as little as possible, I took the more practical approach, an approach which I unconciously acquired during my work as a software developer.

I started by concentrating my efforts on learning how to fall properly while on blades. In fact I fell more 30 times during the short span of that 2 hours on blades suffering no injuries whateverso. This was totally weird in contrast to the pained expressions passerbys gave when they saw the scene.

Alena on the other hand whil attempting to stay on her foot, minimized her falls to less than 10 times during this entire period of 2 hours, managed successfully to sprain her right wrist which left her feeling somewhat hindered in her movements for the rest of the day.

One interesting thing to observe is this. Taking the notion of falling for granted, I was thereafter truly able to focus my mind on acquiring the techniques to manage the skates properly. Fear (of falling) is truly a most unneccessary distraction in this scenario. Also 40% of my time during this 2 hour period was spent sitting on the bench observing the techniques strangers while on blades as well as chatting up with any particular blader whom I wanted to clarify in more details th techniques they. In some instances, I received weird and uneasy expressions from bladers unused to speaking with total strangers on the streets. However being mechiavellic as I am, staunchly believing that the ends justify the ends, I ignored these and continued on my conquest of the blades.

After that two hours on blades, I believe given another two to three sessions on blades I should manage nicely.

Once again, I have deviated. Back to the discussion on life as a nomad, we sat down at coffee bean and enjoyed some coffee, bossa nova music and the view of the beach at night, while I once again started to work on the net. It was truly great, getting the peace and quiet I needed to concentrate on my work while not having to spend an ounce of effort at maintaining it. Alena mean while took a chinese book on Business Management from my bag which started reading it.

We left for dinner at bugis area. Thereafter I sent her home before finding a spot by the Singapore river to spend the night. Thus it is, I woke up the next day having a great view of the sun rise over the marina promenade. I was truly feeling that life for me is once now again free and the way it should be.

Now I sit just across the street from Hotel Rendevouz in the lobby of the SMU Business faculty enjoying the afternoon breeze and the lively scenary while surfing the net and charging my laptop free of charge, courtesy of  SMU. Haha. I think today I will spend once again out doors, enjoying my new found freedom and space. Life is GREAT!

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The sad case of being an unfilial son once again

It was advertisements now on Channel U. The previous 15 minutes were showing how blangadeshi workers could go out of their way to help their friends in need.

Suddenly, I notice something amiss.

“Mom! How come these blangadeshi could be so willing to fork out money to help their friends in need and can be so close to each other in the community and you are preaching about being on guard against everyone around you including our own relatives??”

“Humans are selfish by nature.” mom replied

“But they don’t seem very selfish to me.” I argued.

“Me and your dad has met with enough trouble with customers who dont pay up after borrowing money even if they have money.”

“But that cannot mean all people are like that”

“Most people are like that because humans are really selfish creatures. If a person is poor, everyone will avoid him” was mom’s reply.

“Ok Mom. I will take your advice to heart. In case you get broke in the future, it is not my fault and neither am I unfilial if I choose to avoid you. I was just following your advice you know.” I said flashing my million dollar smile.

“Shut up! and watch the television! ” she ended our conversation.

Once again my mom got totally pissed off.

Sometimes I believe it is truly a failure on my part as a son, why is it not possible for me to just accept what has been told to me lock stock and barrel by my parents? Why is it that I always find it necessary to iron out all contradictions that exist within any piece of information given to me before accepting it. Why too then do I even after accepting any particular piece of information do so with a deep sense of doubt; a doubt derived from my belief that somewhere in the world some facts are going to be unearth in the future, facts of which will overturn everything which i believe to be true until now.

Perhaps if I could numb myself to such an extent of being unaware of all the contraditions that are happening around me then I might be able to live happily in blissful ignorance.

Alternatively, perhaps if I could change myself to such an extend of being able to accept the existance of contradictions without feeling the strong urge to question them and thereafter sort them out, I will be able to live happily in peace with myself too.

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Technical paper on a possible generic PHP based system

This article is for personal reference. Its creation became necessary while pondering on a certain subject, I realized my brains (as with all brains being limited to a maximum of 7+2 variables simultaneously) could not handle all the required variables at once and was therefore unable to see clearly a coherent big picture of the envisioned idea.

Hopefully in creating this technical paper could it be made visible to me any possible design flaws when I examine each part in detail.

The goal is to create a system/framework that does the following

1. Accept many user created xml documents each describing different reptitive tasks that happens in a company in XML.
2. A XML document will contain:
2.1 All fields that exist and their data type
2.2 All stages that exist and their order
2.3 Fields and Stages mapping, access permission to fields available in each stage
2.4 Each stage will provide views of the object defined in the XML document
3. Instantiates an object that holds all that is in the corresponding XML document declared as properties
4. Assign system users as personel in charge of each xml defined stage as this is not captured in the XMl document to keep XML document system independent
5. Serialize this object and store it as a record in the template database table.
6. When Template Manager Object is triggered, it retrieves this template object from the template database table and replicates a working instance which will be then stored in the object database table
7. Has a work manager object which handles the manipulation of data stored within working instance objects.
8. Has a work manager object which handles the synchronization of serialized records in the object database table and the instantiated deserialized records in the system SESSION.
9. Ideally the work manager object will have built in features that will handle concurrency issues.
10. Data types defined in the XML document as part of object property will automatically instantiate existing native classes already included in the System
11. Data types will extend a parent data type which will provide methods which child data types will have to declare. Possible methods envisioned includes
11.1 Display
11.2 Edit
11.3 Store

Potential advantages of what I have envisioned thus far.
1. Database table structure will be independent of the object structure
2. Database structure will effectively be just reduced to two tables irregardless of the variety of object structure.
2.1 template table
2.1.1 field : id -> primary key
2.1.2 field : data -> serialized object
2.2 object table
2.2.1 field : id -> primary key
2.2.2 field : data -> serialized object

3. Framework remains sufficient abstract and can be easily ported from system to system

Potential down side of what I have envisioned thus far.
1. All objects instance in the object table will be loaded into SESSION during each call. This might impose a high load on the database server during the initial loading.
2. It might be difficult to sort or do a search amongst a collection of the same objects as compared to sorting available in traditional SQL search queries.
3. Synchronization issues might arise.
4. Possible out of memory error as more object instance comes into existance.

My next step from here will be to research into design patterns to examine the possible patterns that I could apply on this framework to address issues 2 & 3.

I will also need to look into the PHP documentation to understand the factors that will cause issues 1 & 4

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An evening when all things come in threes. Work productivity and the two matrix

Since two months ago, I started putting into practise the maintenance of a time sheet. This is thanks to the need that arose due to my participation in one particular project. However not just limited to maintaining a time sheet for that particular project, I extended the use of this practise to maintain a comprehensive record of all my daily activites.

Each day of my time is divided into 30 minutes slots. Each hour will contain two time slots one ending at the 30minute mark and the other ending at the 60 minute mark. Each slot is dedicated specifically to just one activity and one activity alone. In the event whereby contingencies arise, that contingency is assigned to the next available time slot which is in best case scenario 1 minute away, in worst case scenario 30 minutes away. Such a practise while inflexible at first helped me in maintaining continuity in work hence ensured an acceptable level of productivity. I effectivly avoided the situation of having to tackle all matters while getting none done at the same time.

This evening after clocking a 9 hours working day, I sat down infront of my computer and started examining my time sheet. More specifically I matched the profit (in terms of cash in my bank account) I made over the past two months to specific time slots of specific days.

That which arose clearly before my very eyes was very interesting indeed. I observed a very clear pattern. Two patterns in fact. Profitability in terms of products sold as well as quality of customers.

The 3 businesses below are still by far the more lucrative products of my operations

  • Internet market campaigning for SMEs
  • Building DIY sites based on wordpress for SMEs
  • Building non-DIY sites based on Joomla for SMEs

Lucrativity is measured in terms of the 3 factors below

  • length of project turn around time.
  • Promptness in terms of client payment.
  • Cost in terms of time and effort spent on after sales support.

Having summarized my operations with the use of both matrixs. The images of three men suddenly popped into my head.

  • My Dad, veteren hawker who has been in business for years.
  • Master Gwee, an aged Feng Shui Master who is one of my existing clients that constantly provides me with clear insight to things in the environment as well as human physcology
  • An old Chief Marketing Officer of an IT company, which I once went for interview at, whom along with the CTO was very interested in getting me as an Executive Committee member for their company. (I finally backed out from their offer because I came to realized I wanted more from myself and that giving up the chance to bring forth my fullest potential just so as to provide security for a woman would cause be deep bitterness and hatred in me towards the latter part of my life.)

From my dad, this statement “son do not ever enter into ventures that don’t bring in money but just empty promises. Always ask your customers to show you they have money to spend and are willing to spend it.”

From Master Gwee, “always focus on where your finishing line is and do what you should do to get pass the finishing line. Avoid other side adventures that will only delay your crossing of the finishing line.”

From the CMO “you might die from prolonged starvation but you will definitely die immediately from indigestion. Despite the fact customers always attempt to beckon us to venture in a certain direction, we always politely reject them when that venture will not bring us strategic advantage but only cause the thinning of our valuable resources.”

To make a long story short, I only have a maximum of 14 possible working hours per day hence I should be spending a higher percentage of these hours milking my existing cash cows by concentrating on the sales of my most lucrative products as  well as looking for related markets to push these lucrative products to, instead of spending half of them for the creation of new products.

Creating of new products can come when I have automated the delivery process of my lucrative products through a process called leverage and have more funds and capital for RnD.