This is my last weekend of funemployment. After a luxurious two month break, I'm excited to start my new job on Monday. It will probably be a while before I'm posting again. Before I go, I'd like to share some miscellaneous funemployment thoughts. A two month break hits the duration sweet spot, conditional on at-home … Continue reading Day 27: COVID Funemployment Thoughts
Month: May 2020
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Day 26: Re-learning Chinese as a Heritage Speaker
I recently read How Will You Measure Your Life by Clayton Christensen on recommendation and now I'll propagate the cycle by also proselytizing the book. It's an accessible, self-reflection provoking read with great insights for cookie-cutter career-conscious yuppies. I was personally galvanized by the discussion around "Investing for Future Happiness" and "The Risk of Sequencing … Continue reading Day 26: Re-learning Chinese as a Heritage Speaker
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Day 25: Special Meals
Disclaimer: I don't take good food photos. Here's some weird corn instead. Food for thought that recently came up at the dinner table: what makes a meal special? Specialness is a tricky idea, heavily influenced by individual perception. A meal is never categorically special - you and I perceive, experience, and subsequently feel differently. This … Continue reading Day 25: Special Meals
Day 24: Mini-Startups at the Bank
Many folks claim that financial math, market knowledge, and engineering are the triumvirate quant skills. I argue that unless you have direct PNL to your name, those skills merely help past the post. In a highly politicized environment such as a bank, successful quants are those who have vision and are able to sell their … Continue reading Day 24: Mini-Startups at the Bank
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Day 23: Jiu Jitsu: The gentle art of folding clothes while people are still in them
An oldie but goodie For the uninitiated, if you've ever seen adults wrestling on the gym floor whilst wearing fancy pajamas, that probably was jiu jitsu, a submission-based grappling martial art. New folks might find jiu jitsu inaccessible relative to more self-explanatory martial arts - without understanding the techniques, it looks like an exercise based … Continue reading Day 23: Jiu Jitsu: The gentle art of folding clothes while people are still in them
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Day 22: Bad Behavior, Good Politics
The antithesis of How to Win Friends and Influence People The Dictator's Handbook by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith is not for the faint of heart. Mesquita and Smith present a cynical and pessimistic framework that explains the terrible behavior of leaders in power. They argue that a leader's primary purpose is to … Continue reading Day 22: Bad Behavior, Good Politics
Day 21: WordPress Themes
I've started playing around with the aesthetics of my blog by exploring different website templates. A few quick thoughts: Choosing a WordPress themes is an exercise in tedium. Decision fatigue is incredibly real and unfortunately, quantity of choice does not translate into quality. Medium does a good job of having a one-size-fits-all template aesthetic. This … Continue reading Day 21: WordPress Themes
Day 20: SPY Puts
A few weeks ago, I rolled my SPY put into SPY 200529 P 260, entering at $6.49 mark ($280 SPY). Since then, SPY has done me the favor of consistently moving sideways, even testing a $290 SPY regime. The mark on this position is currently $2.02 ($283 SPY). $-447 PNL can be explained by ~-$300 … Continue reading Day 20: SPY Puts
Day 19: The Intrepid Spirit of US Markets
The front cover of this week's Economist highlighted the growing gulf between the stock market and the real economy. Over the past two months, many of us have watched US equity's rip-your-face-off rally with significant disbelief and nontrivial FOMO. Personally, I'm still waiting for another correction, but I'll admit maybe my mental markets model is … Continue reading Day 19: The Intrepid Spirit of US Markets
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Day 18: NexKey Deep Dive
Let's take a closer look at cloning a NexKey RFID access card. Unfortunately, our steps for cloning HID tags won't generalize. The NexKey protocol is rarer and locked in a more comprehensive security package. The Proxmark tooling has less functionality for NexKeys so prepare to get scrappy. We start by reading the card and the … Continue reading Day 18: NexKey Deep Dive
Day 17: Links for Context
Housekeeping today. I've received feedback that many of my posts are too inaccessible for a lay person lacking the necessary context. There's a fine line between adequately grounding your reader and providing original commentary. My strategy is to hyperlink the reader to the necessary context elsewhere, otherwise I run the risk of becoming too skilled … Continue reading Day 17: Links for Context
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Day 16: World Order and Diplomacy
World Order: "Vintage Kissinger" Hillary Clinton refers to Henry Kissinger's World Order as "vintage Kissinger." While she undoubtedly intends the phrase as fulsome praise, it makes me far less excited about reading Kissinger's earlier works. Kissinger's writing is both dense and assumes a high level of background knowledge on global political history. If you have … Continue reading Day 16: World Order and Diplomacy
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Day 15: Nf3, Réti Traps
Réti Opening: 1. Nf3 d5 2. c4 Allow me to begin with the disclaimer that I am not a good chess player. I am at best a 1500 strength player whose time would be better spent studying positions than playing blitz. Unfortunately, I've chosen to spend the past decade playing cute blitz openings on chess.com … Continue reading Day 15: Nf3, Réti Traps
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Day 14: HID Deep Dive
Yesterday I wrote a demonstrative example of cloning an unencrypted HID RFID access card. You might complain that it was exercise in Proxmark magical keyboard incantations. Well buckle up reader - today we dive into the details. Image 1: Proxmark scan data from reading our HID card The above screenshot (Image 1) shows the results … Continue reading Day 14: HID Deep Dive
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Day 13: HID Cards
Proxmark 3 Easy, original HID card (note the printed card number 67924), and rewritable T5577 card My first task is to clone some old RFID cards I have on hand. Today, we're working with a HID iCLASS card, commonly used for building access. Our Proxmark is able to identify the card type and read the … Continue reading Day 13: HID Cards
Day 12: RFID Cloner
My first introduction to the technological transhuman movement was a few years ago when a friend showed me his implanted neomagnet and NFC chip. Once the nerves had healed around the neomagnet, he was able to feel EM waves emitted from nearby electronic devices - a useful trick for an electrical engineer. He used his … Continue reading Day 12: RFID Cloner
Day 11: My Writing Process
Having made it to two weeks of near-consecutive posting, I'd like to reflect on my writing process. Quality daily blogging is challenging mostly because of my limited idea-generation. To guarantee output, it would be easy reverting to stream-of-consciousness journaling. However, not only would that defeat the spirit of this exercise, I also doubt anybody is … Continue reading Day 11: My Writing Process
Day 10: First Day of Spring
Today's weather is too beautiful to spend indoors on the computer. Spring may have started in the northern hemisphere on 19March, but NYC weather only just became aware. I'll see you folks on the roof.
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Day 9: Editing for Clarity and Style
The cheeky cover to an excellent little manual. Today I pulled out from storage Dreyer's English - An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style by Benjamin Dreyer. As an aside, pro strat for the day: when storing books in giant moving boxes, stack them so their spines are readable. It will make retrieval so … Continue reading Day 9: Editing for Clarity and Style
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