Greek Complexity

Dilbert wisdom

On CEO stock options:

And in real life? After having run the company to the ground, the CEO walked out the door and left the clean-up job to whoever stayed behind.

Losing the plot

Here's an excerpt of an email from this morning, suitably censored for public consumption:

Drivers in Singapore are such *** pieces of ***. Robots. Inconsiderate ***. I got on the CTE as usual and it was really jammed at least until Balestier and also behind me (before my on-ramp). Happens sometimes but only for a few hundred metres before clearing up. This time it was like this all the way to the CBD exit at Havelock Road. Ok, at least I could move at 40-50 km/h on my bike past near-stationary cars, but I couldn't work out why it was so jammed. Come out onto Havelock Road and it's even worse. Looked like Bangkok. This is 7 km from the start of my journey! I thought there must be some major problem like a lane closure or something. Keep going, don't see anything. Finally got to Raffles Place, just at the junction with Shenton Way, and I find there's been a minor collision between two cars. No injuries, no great damage even. But the *** *** just *** sit there and create a giant *** traffic jam for the rest of the world during peak hour. The rules are quite clear that if there are no injuries, you must move your vehicle so you don't obstruct other traffic. What's worse is, no one sees this as a problem. The police should be issuing gigantic traffic fines whenever this happens (and it happens quite a bit). People should be yelling at the numbskulls. None of this happens, as far as I know.

Robots was the funniest expletive because it's so true!

English Pronunciation

No, this isn't as tedious as the title sounds. In fact, I loved this! Wish I'd come up with it myself. Look at this poem:

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

That's just how it starts. Gets much harder and much more fun after this. As the site says, "After trying the verses, a Frenchman said he’d prefer six months of hard labour to reading six lines aloud."

click: English Pronunciation

Fry and Dawkins on giving respect and taking offence

Loved this short video clip. Really doesn't say as much about Hitchens or even about religion as it says about logic or clear thinking.

Dawkins and Fry on Hitchens' Penchant for the Offensive

Hang on a sec

A report in the FT today made me stop short. Quote:

John Canally, an economist for LPL Financial, says at least one bit of good news from the Jolts survey: the proportion of people leaving jobs who chose to quit is now back up to 50 per cent. That level is getting close to the pre-recession norm, and if people have the moxy to quit a job of their own accord, says Mr Canally, it indicates some confidence in finding a new one.

from High US joblessness puzzles economists

Why? I didn't know what the word "moxy" meant, though I could guess from the context. Just to be sure, I looked up the one online resource I use more than any other: TFD. Whoops, word not found. How about Dictionary.com? No luck there either.

Ok, if all else fails, there's Google. Which led me to two definitions. The first one being the name of an album by some heavy-metal band. I don't think Mr Canally was referring to this. The other was the only place I could find a definition that fit the sentence: Urban Dictionary. Do not click if you're the type who's easily offended. I mean, really. Do not click!

I thought it was hilarious that the FT, a fairly stuffy business newspaper, used a word that isn't found in the dictionary and seems to be used, even in its most benign form, only in informal settings. Interesting!

I am not an investment banker

When I tell people what I do for a living, I sometimes get asked (mostly by people who've heard the term but have only a vague idea what it means) whether I am an investment banker. I generally respond jokingly with something like, "How dare you use cuss words with me!" The joke is often lost on the audience but, for sake of clarity, here is why I'm not an investment banker:

It is curious to reflect that in the London market of 25 years ago, last week’s decision by UBS to maintain investment banking bonuses in the face of a thumping loss would have been literally incomprehensible. Back then, bonuses were paid out of profits. So without profits, where might the money come from? [...] I have written on this hallucinatory procedure before. Suffice it to say that whereas any corporation could in theory adopt it, only the banks have had the brass neck to do so. Then again, only the banks paid bonuses based on imaginary profits of various kinds throughout the bubble years.

from FT: Good old days when bonuses were paid from profits

This is also why I can't imagine myself ever investing in shares of investment banks. I really don't know how to analyse or value companies where profits, cash flows and spending decisions aren't necessarily related, and where the principal-agent problem is so pronounced.

Un-rant

Or

How to Execute A Sheepish Public Climb-down

The Google engineer who mistakenly ranted in public about his employer and his ex-employer Amazon as I mentioned here now posts what's probably best described as an un-rant. After his previous passionate exhortations for improvements to how Google operates, this new post has rah-rah cheerleader (for Amazon) written all over it. Certainly entertaining but not much else.

And Google seems to deserve even more credit than I gave them earlier for taking his original rant in stride so outrageously nicely. Now let's see if they actually act on any of his previous recommendations.

---

I think I use too many adverbs. Seriously.

I hope you Like this

Ever since Facebook created the Like button, I've noticed people clicking Like on the most inane of posts. Someone says, "Time for a coffee!" and 7 people click Like in the space of about 17 microseconds. The newsfeed on my Facebook homepage shows that nearly every post has at least one Like attached to it. The rush to Like has only multiplied after Facebook extended the functionality to allow Like-ing individual comments.

That's about the Like-ers. And the Like-ees? Facebook must employ the odd drug-pusher because they certainly know how to get people hooked. Your correspondent certainly needs his fix. I put up a post and wonder who's going to Like it and tot up the score when people actually do and what time of day it is where they are. I wonder whether, if enough people comment on my post, Facebook will promote its placement on newsfeeds so that more people will see it and Like it. And sometimes when someone tells me in person that they enjoyed something I put up, I paste a bland expression on my face, thank them and wonder, inwardly baffled, why they didn't just say so in a Facebook comment and click Like.

What's next? A Dislike button? I certainly know that this addict has craved one sometimes. Not least a Dislike button for the Like button.

Irony

Should this be labelled Sponsor Fail? :-)

An event that advertises the "latest in web & mobile" is sponsored by...

• Microsoft
• Nokia
• Yahoo!
• Singtel
• Amazon Web Services

What a collection! (And what a meanie I am.) AWS only just squeaks in as an honourable mention in the Funny Awards because of their recent downtime problems.

Jokes aside, I attended last year and it was actually quite a decent event though a little disorganised.

Polling Agent me

Post title ripped off Yawning Bread.

I was a volunteer Polling Agent at Singapore's 2011 General Elections on May 7th. Contrary to what you may be thinking, a Polling Agent doesn't actually administer the polls. He simply observes the conduct of the polls at a particular polling station on behalf of one of the contesting parties. I was a volunteer for the Worker's Party (because they were the only opposition party contesting my constituency). Let's leave aside my political views here because the point of this post is simply to describe my observations of the day's happenings and some of it is actually funny (I hope!).