A New Phase In Life
Thursday, June 5, 2008

After 4 torturous years of engineering studies, the moment of truth finally arrived. As always according to Bucky's infamous quote " NTU never fails to fuck us over each sem", the damn NTU server was down and nobody could access the results cept for a few lucky ones.

Honestly, I had a pretty bad feeling this time. I knew I did not put in the neccessary effort to even secure a passing mark this time round. Thanks to WSOP freeroll tourneys haha. Anyway, Thank God, I managed to pass all! BYE NTU. Hello working world.

I start work next week at a brokerage firm broking fx forwards and swaps. It's gonna be tough, brokers have no patience and if ya meek they will eat you up without any mercy.

Heads up to my fellow MAE grads! Bucks, jeremy, beng, ash, cheng, dex, stan.

posted by Daniel @ 10:48 PM, ,


Every Vote Counts
Saturday, April 26, 2008

This is absolutely hilarious!

posted by Daniel @ 4:47 PM, ,


Movie: Sex is Zero 2
Sunday, April 20, 2008

Amid the exams, Sarah and I sneaked out for a midnight film. Needed to watch a crazy funny movie to release all that stress induced by exams!

Bucky, go watch it! You will laugh till you cry.

posted by Daniel @ 10:23 PM, ,


Uniquely Singapore
Saturday, April 12, 2008

Oxford Dictionary: Singaporean Edition

1) LILY - adverb. extremely, really.
Wah, you lily can sing well ah!

2) VALLEY - adverb. extremely (same with lily).
Look! My Versachee belt, valley nice hor?

3) GORGES - adj. stunningly beautiful, normally found with valley.
Wah! Ah Beng's girlflan is valley gorges leh!

4) CORAL - verb. to bicker.
Why, you not happy, ah? Want to coral, is it?

5) REEF - (normally followed with coral) to argue with.
You lily wantto coral reef me ah?

6) ALTITUDE - adjective. a disagreeable demeanour. '
Ah Lian lily got a bad altitude ploblem.

7) CIRRUS - adj. certain.
You cirrus or not? Dun bruff!

8) CANOPY - phrase. impossible.
He bought new handphone? Canopy lah! Where got money?

9) OLDLADY - adj. completed.
Wah...you finish oldlady ah.

10) SUIT - verb. to project forward.
Suit! Suit! See goalkeeper come out oldlady.

11) SOW - verb. to reveal.
Sow me, sow me your new ting.

12) LOAD - noun. a path normally made up of gravel & tar.
We go Orchard Load leh.

13) BLINK - verb. deliver, send.
What you blink for me? Sow me, sow me.

posted by Daniel @ 3:10 AM, ,


Words of Wisdom by Bush
Wednesday, April 9, 2008

"You work three jobs? … Uniquely American, isn't it? I mean, that is fantastic that you're doing that." —President George W. Bush, to a divorced mother of three, Omaha, Nebraska, Feb. 4, 2005

Well done Bush.

posted by Daniel @ 1:09 AM, ,


Is Life a Random Walk?
Monday, April 7, 2008

A friend recommended me to this particularly interesting insightful book: Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in the Markets and in Life by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
Will definitely grab a copy when I'm finally done with exams and my mother****FYP. Oh my professor wanted me to change the title because it didn't sound sexy enough. I always suspected he bought his PHD from an dubious online website.
Back to the review, Fooled by Randomness is an insightful and thought provoking look at the fallibility of human knowledge. Basically his arguements are that people are often tricked, mainly by the architecture of their own brains, into thinking that things that happen at random are actually happening by design.
I'm curious to see how the book relates to fnancial investing, since my FYP argues that the stock market is partly a non-random hypothesis relying on past memory of human investing behaviour. And coincidentally it's somehow interconnected with my blog's headline: Degrees of truth are often confused by probabilities. Intriguing.

Is life really a random walk? Like how low-probabilty events are life-changing eg; lottery, tsunami, 9/11. Does the past frequently tells us nothing at all about the future?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The answer:

Control what you can control, your behavior and attitude. Play your role with dignity. Everything else, good or bad, luck or disaster, is not your achievement and not your fault, it's just part of the soup of randomness life throws your way.

posted by Daniel @ 10:41 PM, ,


Newton's Fourth Law
Friday, April 4, 2008

A quote from Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway 2005 letter:

"Long ago, Sir Isaac Newton gave us three laws of motion, which were the work of genius. But Sir Isaac's talents didn't extend to investing: He lost a bundle in the South Sea Bubble, explaining later, 'I can calculate the movement of the stars, but not the madness of men.' If he had not been traumatized by this loss, Sir Isaac might well have gone on to discover the Fourth Law of Motion: For investors as a whole, returns decrease as motion increases."

As a student majoring in mechanical engineering, Newton's 3 laws of motions are my bread and butter formulas. Reading this quote kinda makes me chuckle. It's like the god of finance poking fun at the god of physics.

I chanced upon this picture at Sarah's friend's blog.
Damn you traders :)

Goldman Sachs Traders gathering to protest bonus drop

posted by Daniel @ 12:37 AM, ,