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This blog post is way overdue. It was meant to be posted on Pi Day (March 14th, thanks to the screwed up date format the Americans have). Anyhow, my partner and I celebrated Half-Tau Day with a dinner full of pies. We had shepherd’s pie for dinner, and for dessert, we had a strawberry pie/tart. The shepherd’s pie on 3.14159266 Day was pretty run-of-the-mill, but the strawberry pie/tart was a little novel, and so we documented us making it. (You can jump straight to the shepherd’s pie recipe if you’re interested)

Strawberry Pie

First off, here’s a picture of all the ingredients:

Yes, you saw that right: Balsamic vinegar AND coriander were in the pie. I did say it was novel didn’t I? My partner and I don’t normally eat sugar, and we had to buy some for 3-as-defined-by-the-Bible Day.

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Earlier, I had read a great productivity trick – that is to say, start everyday as a producer, not a consumer of content. While it is not before 8 am, nor have I just got up, I’m stuck in a productivity rut right now, and I shall attempt to “restart” my day with 500 words (or so, since I can be rather lengthy). I shall also try to do this everyday (not necessarily on my blog). I’m going to choose a type of content, and talk about it on my blog. Today’s topic is varied – it will be derived from a few photos I found on my phone — think of it as a photo essay of what I found interesting and took picture of.

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At work, the milk frother had started acting up again. No one was having their morning coffee. And everyone was cranky. Our milk frother came as a set with the coffee machine – a Nespresso Gemini CS 20 – was making milk bubbles instead of foam for our cappucinos. Not keen on waiting on a Nespresso technician, various colleagues have taken to trying to fix the machine themselves. Alas, their efforts were to no avail. I came onto the scene, stared at the machine for a while, thought for a bit, and accurately deduced the problem.

Now, lest you think this is a self-congratulatory tale of my own brilliance, rest assured it is not. Instead, it is a cautionary tale about pragmatism. 

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Here’s two open letters I thought up of while on the flight back in to Sydney.

• To the guy sitting next to me
• To the guy sitting in front of me

Some parts of the narrative has been edited to preserve the identities of the peoples involved. Some situations have been slightly exaggerated for dramatic effects, but they mostly happened.

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If you’re a regular reader, you might notice that this blog’s layout has changed again. Fact is, I’ve moved hosts to Webfaction. They’re awesome as a host and beats my previous host in terms of performance and value for money.

So, enjoy the new blog!

I’ve been writing code quite a bit lately. I used to be the kind of guy who would work on any IDE with any appearances because they didn’t matter much to me. I would code with the default IDE themes (from Visual Studio to Eclipse to Aptana). But then, something changed. I became the guy who tells everyone: appearance matters (I still have colleagues at work using the default Visual Studio theme) [Read More]

Productivity and motivation gurus always talk about flow. Flow is a psychological state of being immersed and concentrated in doing something that everything outside doesn’t matter. It is very difficult to explain the concept of a flow, until one actually achieves and experiences it.

I’ve heard about flow for many many years – when we were younger, my father used to bring us kids to motivational seminars where we’d learn how to get into the flow – and on many occasions I thought I had experienced flow. But I had not. I only truly experienced flow once in late 2008. And immediately, it clicked and I instantly understood why it was called flow.

The experience came with my first ingestion of Ritalin. Ritalin (aka methylphenidate) is a drug used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). It was (and still is I believe) rather used and abused by university students who want to concentrate while studying. All I did was have a slow release of methylphenidate and I achieved flow while studying Game Theory. Since then I realized a few things: a) flow is the way of getting things done; b) I probably have ADHD that was never treated.

That however, is besides the point. You see, once you have experienced the flow state, you tend to want to experience it again – afterall, you typically exit the flow state with positive results at hand. I was familiar with the standard advice on how to achieve flow:

• Have a clear objective
• Said objective must be challenging enough
• No interruptions
• Instant feedback on the subject matter (to form the feedback loop that will feed the flow)

Easier said than done.  I remember many a days when I was in primary school, setting aside blocks of time of solitude to do my homework, but still end up sitting on the TV reading (yes, kids, back in the days, TVs were made of cathode-ray tubes and they were large, and I have a vivid memory of this incident of me ending up sitting on the telly while reading a Secret Seven book by Enid Blyton when I was supposed to be doing my homework or revising for exams). The same continued up to my university days, when I would set aside time to have no distractions, no internet, and yet achieve not much. 

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Chewxy: I am sleepy cfgt: I’m about to sleep. Good night. Not even day9 can keep me awake anymore Chewxy: I need to figure this shit out cfgt: You should sleep too. I don’t really want to wake up and get an explanation for an algorithm that only works with spherical chickens in a vacuum. Chewxy: lol cfgt: Or even worse – an algorithm you claim works on spherical chickens in a vacuum but really only works on alternate universe chickens And hence I shall sleep. [Read More]

I read with slight amusement this afternoon this article: Google, ANZ, GE Money ads caught on porn sites. Why? Because it’s within scope of my job, and I couldn’t help but felt I had done quite well. In short, it gave me pride in my job* It's a strange feeling. I don't usually feel that - I usually feel that my work could improve - I felt good. And yes, because of that, I am going to write and brag about it.

You see, the company I work for (hereforth: my company) is not a large company with a lot of resources, and it is quite comforting to know that bigger, better-resourced companies face the same problem too.  We’ve recently been pursuing brand safety as a selling point for the agency-facing side of business. Come to us, we say, for we would sell you only brand-safe inventory, and we only show your advertisements on brand-safe sites. It is a bold claim for a medium-sized company like ours. I happen to be the one who is doing quite a bit of the work in the brand-safety side of things (no, I’m not the only one. My colleagues also play a large role in creating our brand-safety policy). Join me, as I regale to you, my dear reader into the world of online advertising.

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Several discussions I had throughout today has brought me into this funk that I am in right now. But first, let me regale you with a tale of yonder. In my university years, I concentrated my study on two ‘streams’ of economics – the microeconomic ‘stream’ and the econometric ‘stream’. In the microeconomic stream, I did stuff like experimental economics, game theory and the like – you know, micro stuff. In the econometrics stream, I did stuff that had to do with data analysis. [Read More]