Yew Jin's Blog

What I have learnt as a Journeyman

2009-11-01T19:11:00.000-08:00

I have been working at Google for almost two years now. Google is a great place to work in - great benefits, outstanding colleagues and, well, a stable job in today's economy. And to think this all started with my wife applying for me on her own accord [see Making a career choice]. I have grown immensely as a software engineer, but there is still so much room to grow. Here are a few tidbits that I have picked up along the way:

Unit testing - when your code is live and serving traffic 24/7, it enables me to sleep better knowing that it is tested. The tests range from small (each library has unit tests for each individual function) to big (integration tests that the service can connect to all backends and work as intended). Using Mock objects helps to test environments in a controlled fashion. Unit-testing for failure conditions have saved production crashes in numerous occasions. [See Google Testing Blog]

Refactoring works. Especially with those nifty unit tests written to ensure everything works.

Code does smell, and at Google, it's usually my own first working implementation. Oh, wait, that's why refactoring works.

Mapreduce is my hammer - all nails shall tremble in its presence.

Patterns, paradigms and ideology are great, but don't let it get in the way of getting things done. Overengineering is your worst enemy.

Why you don't learn how to write programs in university

2009-10-27T08:43:00.001-07:00

A while back some Ministry of Education officials visited Google and were wondering how to revamp the 'A'-level Computer Science syllabus. I think the viewpoint that the software engineers had were that school never taught us software engineering. This article from Joel (of Joel on Software fame) articulates this point nicely:

I have some limited experience with this, having worked with a group of Rose-Hulman students over the course of their final year project. We let them pick their own schedule, and, of course, they put everything off until the last minute and produced something that was incomplete. The typical CS assignment expects students to write the “interesting” part of the code (in the academic sense of the word). The other 90% of the work that it takes to bring code up to the level of “useful, real-world code” is never expected from undergrads, because it’s not “interesting” to fix bugs and deal with real-world conditions, and because most CS faculty have never worked in the real world and have almost no idea what it takes to create software that can survive an encounter with users.

-Joel Spolsky, Capstone projects and time management

Internets This Way

2009-10-27T08:40:00.001-07:00

Can believe it took me this long to post this, but today I started noticing the pipes around the buildings in Google labeled - "Internets -->"

Google Voice Invites

2009-10-20T19:02:00.000-07:00

Hot on the heels of the Google Wave invite - one Google voice invite (valid only for users in US). Again, the first person I know who contacts me gets it.

[Update Oct 20: Taken!]

Boring

2009-10-16T19:31:00.001-07:00

I have three draft posts, all about investing. Yeah, I know - Boring.

Here's something a little more interesting - I have one more Google wave invite left. First person I know who contacts me about it gets the invite.

[Update Oct 20: Taken!]

Repeat after me - Don't Worry

2009-08-29T19:59:00.000-07:00

Why Investors Need to See the Light and Slow Down by Jason Zweig

In his classic book "The Intelligent Investor," the great money manager Benjamin Graham wrote that "the investor with a portfolio of sound stocks should expect their prices to fluctuate and should neither be concerned by sizable declines nor become excited by sizable advances." If you can't exercise that kind of emotional control, then by Graham's definition you aren't an investor at all.

Is the market overvalued? Is this a "real" rally? Do not concern yourself with such worries - find a good business, determine that it is fair-priced (or at a bargain!), and then buy it. Rinse and repeat.

Great Article on US Housing Crash

2009-08-25T09:29:00.000-07:00

It's Still A Terrible Time To Buy

The best summary explanation, from Business Week: "Today's housing prices are predicated on an impossible combination: the strong growth in income and asset values of a strong economy, plus the ultra-low interest rates of a weak economy. Either the economy's long-term prospects will get worse or rates will rise. In either scenario, housing will weaken."

Taxi Driver with a PhD

2009-08-20T20:06:00.000-07:00

Straits Times has also reported on the blog of the Taxi Driver with a PhD in Singapore.

It is apparent from the number of comments in the newspaper article and the blog that the netizens of Singapore are up in arms with this - horrors, a PhD holder driving a taxi cab. I suppose the Asian mentality is still influenced by the axiom that getting a good education means a good life. Well, and the warped notion that a good life is a high paying job.

In any case, this story has personally touched me and I read through the blog in one sitting (and my wife is dumbfounded at my fascination at this issue). I suppose it was a stark reminder of how things could turn out for me and my family - will I get retrenched in my 50s, be laden with debt and no job prospects, and be resigned to driving a taxi cab? (Sidenote: I have secured various verbal agreements with people to live in their balcony if things get bad)

In other news, I received this email:

I am writing to confirm that we have corrected your name on our records. Please reply with any corrections.

Here is how we now have your first name: Yew Jin
Your last name: Lim
Since you have completed your PHD, we have changed your title to Dr.

Communications to you should now be addressed: Dr. Yew Jin Lim

One question:
When addressing your mail using only your initials, should we include the initial of the second part of your first name, ie. Dr. Y.J. Lim?
Or, should we use the first initial only ie. Dr. Y. Lim?

Thank you for your patience in this matter.

In response, I have fulfilled my end of the bet (see the landing page of yewjin.com for details)

Grrrrr. Ok, which one of you emailed the University? :)

A Singapore Taxi Driver's Diary

2009-08-14T20:59:00.000-07:00

Probably the only taxi driver in this world with a PhD from Stanford and a proven track record of scientific accomplishments, I have been forced out of my research job at the height of my scientific career, and unable to find another one, for reasons I can only describe as something "uniquely Singapore". As a result, I am driving taxi to make a living and writing these real life stories just to make the dull job a little more interesting. I hope that these stories are interesting to you too.

A Singapore Taxi Driver's Diary

My investing style

2009-07-30T21:41:00.000-07:00

Lately I have been more critical of my posts, abandoning at least three over the past few weeks. The posts were all from the personal finance theme whereby I lay out my investments (deemed too private), my goals (deemed too ambitious and probably highly unattainable) and my returns on investments so far (deemed too private).

I had "abandoned" my kaChing! account a while back due to several problems I encountered with the site, but reflecting more I guess it's the most public forum for which I can openly discuss my investment philosophy (investing $10M and $XXXK are two totally different modes of thinking and operations).

How would I invest $10M?

I make long term investments as if we were buying shares to become a partner in the business. Looking for a mix of both good growth and value companies. During the "great recession of 2008", it seems that stocks were so oversold that large cap stocks that would have been sold at a premium in normal times became affordable and safe. In other words, lots of potential for profit, but manageable safety margin (when taking a 10 year and beyond horizon).

We do not particularly look for either value or growth as both are valid investments - a great price for a good company or a good price for a great company, but we give preference to the latter.

It is my opinion that predicting the market short-term *might* be possible, but it is too time-consuming and error-prone for me to consider trying. I do, however, believe that long-term trends can be gleaned from understanding macro-economics, human psychology and politics. If I can't understand a business, it is not worth the risk. If the situation warrants time to analyze, and the opportunity passes, so be it. I would rather have a margin of safety.

Knowledge about finance and accounting can only get you so far in investing - you actually need to know the company. i.e. spend time talking to the management, the employees and the customers. You also need to somehow learn about the company beyond the company reports to see if the company is sound and to really know if a company has the right stuff. Recall Enron, WorldCom, Long-Term Capital, and how "amazing" their books were before they collapsed. I buy into companies under these conditions:
1. Fundamentals are good. I favor a holistic view, but will typically screen based on Price/Book, Price/Sale, Free Cash Flow and Return on Equity.
Action: None, but is a necessary condition for further investigation.
2. I know the industry and the company. Probably due to having experience using their products or knowing someone in the company.
Action: Invest in the company.
3. Long-term prospects for a sector is sound and it is reasonable to buy a basket of stocks of the sector.
Action: Invest in the sector. Note that while such "diversification" is frowned upon by Warren Buffet, but it mitigates the need to determine which company is good or not to invest in. The rationale is to invest in high potential sectors to seek gains, and to diversify within the sector to gain safety. This might not result in the maximum profit, but it reduces volatility.

To summarize, my main investment style is long-only, and to average down as the stock price drops as long as the company valuation looks good. I sell under two conditions:
1. When the macro or micro economics have changed and the company or sector no longer looks attractive.
2. Or, when there are better investment opportunities elsewhere, and there is no other asserts available to sell to finance that better investment.

Randomize lines in bash

2009-07-10T12:50:00.000-07:00

while read line; do echo "$RANDOM $line"; done < $1 | sort | sed -r "s/^[0-9]+ //" > $2

... sigh... or just

shuf $1 > $2

Money blogs

2009-07-03T14:25:00.000-07:00

Personal finance blogs that I find interesting

A short note about growing old

2009-06-14T21:55:00.000-07:00

As you grow older, you

1. realize that you are at the age at which you were 12 and exclaimed, when I grow up, I will XXX. Well you haven't done XXX yet.

2. realize that you don't recover from being sick as quickly as you used to. That bites.

3. begin to think birthdays aren't all that great.

4. really hate being sick (see point 2). I am sick and I hate it. Now get off my lawn.

5. forget stuff. So when I grow up and reach 40, make sure that I have already read Berkshire Hathaway shareholder letters. All of them. And try not to fall asleep while reading them halfway old man. [http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/letters.html]

6. think it's really cool that you are old, because you can now say things like, "you young people", and when you do something wrong, you just go, "meh, what do I know? I just a grumpy old man."

7. worry about becoming a grumpy old man.

8. think it's best to not count based on absolute age and we should be counting based on relative age. So from now now, my age is TBD (to be determined), but when I die, I would have been (current_age / age_of_death * 100%) old.

Money tools used

2009-06-04T22:21:00.001-07:00

Just Thrive - Online money management. Pro: Nags you a lot. Con: Nags you a lot.

Mint - Online money management. Pro: Has alerts when bills are due, checks are cleared, etc. Con: Not great for investment monitoring.

Yodlee - Online money management. Don't know. Have not tried it yet.

Credit Karma - Free credit report supported by ads. Pro: Free credit report score! Con: Score only comes from Transunion and site is ad-supported.

Cake Financial - Investment portfolio management. Pro: Great analysis tools. Con: Only investment portfolio management (if that's a con).

Overheard today

2009-05-29T21:01:00.000-07:00

Bad Joke of the Day

Question: How do Microsoft employees greet each other lately?
Answer: How have you bing?

Awesome Google Finance Discussion

2009-05-13T08:56:00.000-07:00

Discussions for OceanFreight Inc. (OCNF)

muzz...@gmail.com
In just about a week I lost half of my bankroll. Between commissions
and a nasty hit from OCNF stock, and now with CVM on a downturn I
need a big turn-around, otherwise I'm toast. I've got to be very very
careful from now on. I still feel OCNF should pay me the .77 dividend
after all it's posted on the GOOGLE finance chart, that would help out
a lot..

srt4r...@gmail.com
[some advice]

muzz...@gmail.com
I know but CARRIER said I should sell my 100 shares of OCNF and buy
CVM, and I would make a lot of money. I'm not listening to him
anymore.

ac36...@yahoo.com
[some advice]

carrier...@gmail.com
Muzzie, OCNF will not pay a dividend until 2015 they relased that
document a while back... If you did your research before you bought
OCNF, you most likley would not have bought it for the dividend
because there is none, and will be none. This stock is now trash! Im
sorry that you think CVM is on a downturn... But the downside risk is
to .25 and the upside risk is to $1 . Now if you want a greater risk
to reward ratio than that, may I suggest these stocks NM CPE WRES CEP
UYG FBR and if you really want to get risky BCON PAE.

muzz...@gmail.com
To arse36...@yahoo.com, You also should have listened to CARRIER,
take a look at OCNF pre-market, All you who have been bragging about
the multi K shares you own and making fun of my 100 shares, do the
math and see how much you're going to lose today I'll bet you wish
you only had 100 shares. My advice to you guys is to go on E-BAY and
type in "CRYING TOWELS" in the search box.

bmy1..@aol.com
LOL............ Ask your monny to change your diaper.
I leave tips for waitresses after dinner bigger than your 100
shares.......... Get a job! Save some cash! And then come back to the
stock market with a half way decent bank roll. You're waisting your
time with what your doing.
muzz...@gmail.com
I bet; you're probably a waitress at that diner. OCNF still going down.
I got out at $1.6, you should have listened.
rickharrison
are you seriously whining about losses and you only had 100 shares?
studwilli...@gmail.com
It's not a loss until you sell.
carrier...@gmail.com
It's not nice to make fun of Muzz because of the little bit invested!
Maybe $100 is all he has to invest...
muzz...@gmail.com
CARRIER, I checked out all of the stocks you listed, every one of them
are DOWN, don't you know any good ones, I'm
looking for stock that goes UP. I want to make money not lose money. I
got hammered with OCNF, I don't want that to happen again, It would
wipe me right out..
muzz...@gmail.com
That's correct; about $100 left but I started with $211and look how
fast I went through that. That's why I keep telling you guys I need a
good stock so I can make myself whole again.
greg.o.roo...@gmail.com
muzz, you make it interesting to be involved in this company's stock.
it makes things way more interesting.
everyone else, you keep it up too, it is entertaining.
bmy1...@aol.com
idiots.

Ah yes. Internet forum humor.

My Top Two Purchases from Amazon.com

2009-05-03T15:43:00.000-07:00

I did not think much of white noise as a sleep aid. But since I am a sleep deprived parent willing to try anything. I figured I would just buy some white noise MP3s with the cutest album cover - Yes, that was how I decided. I was that skeptical about the effectiveness of white noise that I figured I would get more utility out of deciding which album art was cuter.

Combined with a cheap MP3 player, and spare computer speakers. Bam. My own white noise machine that also plays classical/jazz music on the side for the cheap.

It's not a panacea for cranky baby, but it sure helps me go to sleep. That's why this is my top two purchases. I now get solid 6 hours of sleep. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

You Don't Need to Know That

2009-04-13T21:32:00.000-07:00

Overheard in a cubicle.

B is trying to help debug A's code, and is soliciting some explanation.

B: "What does this chunk of code do?"

A: "You don't need to know that, because I don't understand it myself."

B: "..."

In Challenging Times, the Tide Changes

2009-04-12T14:56:00.000-07:00

Geeks are So In

In the early 1960s when he was choosing a career, Professor Chamberlin recalled, technical people were respected and well paid. Money, he said, was part of the equation. “But the bigger part of the motivation for me,” he said, “was that I would be doing exciting and important work and that my contributions would be appreciated.”

--With Finance Disgraced, Which Career Will Be King? [nytimes.com]

The universities in Singapore have release information regarding the grade profile of students entering each course of study. [NTU] [NUS] [SMU]

A comparison between common courses at the various universities at the 10th percentile (letter grades are for GCE A-Level grade combinations, and floating point numbers are the polytechnic diploma GPAs):

Course	NTU(H2/H1, GPA)	NUS	SMU
Accountancy	AAB/B, 3.71	AAA/B, 3.64	ABB/A, 3.60
Business	AAB/B, 3.63	AAB/B, 3.50	ABB/B, 3.49
Economics	ABB/B, 3.48	BBC/C, 3.39	BBB/B, 3.30
Law	-	AAA/A	AAA/B
Information Systems, NTU Comp Eng, Computing (IS)	BCC/C, 3.38	BCC/B, 3.54	BCC/B, 3.16
Social Sciences, Psy, Socio	BCC/B, 3.39	BBC/C, 3.39	BBC/B, 3.28

Reproduced from [Jay Lim's Blog]

Some observations: Computer Science/Engineering has the one of the lowest admission cut-offs, except when considering polytechnic diploma GPA for NUS (at which point, CS actually has a more stringent requirement than even Business).

It is true - we simply do not get the best and the brightest in Computer Science. And while I imagine it would be very difficult for an entrepreneur with solely non-technical background to create the next big thing in software and Internet technology. The faculty in NUS routinely relies on foreign students to prop up the quality of the student base - an illustrative example is a fellow Singaporean in Google who had my PhD supervisor as his supervisor for his project. In the first meeting between the professor and the student, the professor simply assumed the student was not Singapore and asked, "so, which part of China are you from?".

Geeks make money - No?

Do not fill young people's heads with too much nonsense like how they have to look cool. Sell the cool ideas they work with. Teach them to see that you can make money and be rich only if you have something worth selling, and that is where engineers come in.

Years ago, engineering was the top school to go to.

Today, everyone wants to be in business and make money and that is why our young flock to anything and everything to do with business, finance and economics.

-- Straits Times Forum Comment - Focus on engineers' 'cool' ideas, not their image [straitstimes.com]

As my colleague (in Google mind you) likes to quip: "If you are in software engineering for money, you are in the wrong business."

If you are the gahmen, hear my plea

Singapore might want smart and hardworking generalists to be to civil servants by enticing them with extraordinary salaries. But if you want a striving science and technology sector, specialists have to be nurtured. And my last rant: uhm, propping up A*Star scholars like trophy dogs is not the way to go, simply due to the overemphasis of look-at-my-scholars-with-their-high-grades, aren't they adorable sense of it all.

Rejected by Harvard? Not a problem. You're in good company.

The list is, well, impressive. Investor Warren Buffet, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass,
Rolling Stone magazine founder Jann Wenner, NBC "Today" show host Meredith
Vieira, former "NBC Nightly News" anchor Tom Brokaw, New Yorker magazine
editor David Remnick, CNN founder Ted Turner, folk rock legend Art Garfunkel,
Matt Groening, creator of the animated television series "The Simpsons," Sun
Microsystems chairman Scott McNealy, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
president Harold Varmus, and Columbia University President Lee Bollinger
round out the list.

-- Non Ivy League Graduates

My Erdös Number

2009-04-10T15:36:00.000-07:00

My Erdös number is 4.

COMPUTING TIGERS AND GOATS
Y. J. Lim, J. Nievergelt - ICGA Journal, 2004

Jürg Nievergelt coauthored with Komei Fukuda MR1708017
Komei Fukuda coauthored with David M. Avis MR1130229
David M. Avis coauthored with Paul Erdös MR0949289 (90b:05068)

A few thoughts here and there

2009-04-05T19:23:00.000-07:00

I think that:
1. After seeing the disintegration of Wall Street, I am less inclined to consider pursuing a MBA.

2. After being disabused about how flawed financial modeling and short-term trading can be, I believe that a logical person can read the macro-economic signs and deduce a trend that can result in a successful long-term investment plan. You too can be Warren Buffett.

3. The latest bull run is a technical rally, and we will see a bearish market soon. Perhaps even matching the March lows.

4. In light of the presumed bearish market, I am waiting (and evaluating if it's worthwhile) to contributing more to my Roth IRA before April 15, the last day to contribute for tax year 2008.

5. A 529 plan seems like a good plan, except that we might not be staying in US until DJ enters university.

one arm blogging

2009-03-28T17:03:00.000-07:00

Baby is sick. Wife is sick. I am sick. Maybe i should switch to twitter.

Cake Financial

2009-03-24T16:50:00.000-07:00

Even with a brokerage account (especially a low-cost one like Zecco), I have found that stock and financial analysis and reporting to be dismal at best.

Just like how mint.com has made financial planning easy and streamlined, Cake Financial does the same for portfolio analysis. You enter your brokerage account info (WARNING: Only for people who believe in the security of 128 bit cipher keys), and Cake Financial downloads your positions and transactions, and compares your performance with a benchmark group that have a similar profile as you. I have tried Covestor, but have found it less intuitive and user-friendly. (Think big pretty icons, clean design and nice charts)

kaChing!

2009-03-13T12:45:00.000-07:00

I decided that it was better to gamble away virtual money - my family will sleep much better at night that way. :)

[My kaChing profile]

The power of a million monkeys

2009-03-11T10:12:00.000-07:00

When a million monkeys play Go, they win.

Enter the Monte Carlo method, named by its Manhattan Project pioneers for the casinos where they gambled. It consists of random simulations repeated again and again until patterns and probabilities emerge: the characteristics of an atomic bomb explosion, phase states in quantum fields, the outcome of a Go game. Programs like MoGO and Many Faces simulate random games from start to finish, over and over and over again, with no concern for figuring out which of any given move is best.

--Humans No Match for Go Bot Overlords [wired.com]