Wednesday, March 09, 2005
Ed Seykota
This is a really interesting article I read about risk management and bet sizing. Ed Seykota is supposedly the mother of all successful commodities traders. Basically the point of the article is that the outcome of any betting exercise can be fairly well controlled via the size of the bet, even if the odds are uncontrollable. You do have to have some idea of the likely odds, though, in order to size your bets.
http://www.seykota.com/tribe/risk/index.htm
Good Quotes
"We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about."- Einstein
"Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever." - Lance Armstrong
"Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever." - Lance Armstrong
Friday, March 04, 2005
Sam for President
I have discovered by accident that my elder child Sam might actually have some artistic ability. He's been drawing Scooby Doo characters out of a book - not as in tracing, but as in copying them freehand. And golly, they are really good!! I am going to frame one of them.
Now I have always been quite fond of Sam and thought him to be pretty exceptional, but I am starting to think he really truly is pretty much the Perfect Child. He is very smart, funny, overflowing with personality, fairly athletic, and now it seems artsy-fartsy to boot. Plus, he does a stellar job of the stupd stuff like keeping his room clean and making his bed.
I'd like to say something here like "a chip off the old block" but really I am none of those things except maybe the first six. But seriously, I don't know where all this comes from. But its pretty amazing.
Now I have always been quite fond of Sam and thought him to be pretty exceptional, but I am starting to think he really truly is pretty much the Perfect Child. He is very smart, funny, overflowing with personality, fairly athletic, and now it seems artsy-fartsy to boot. Plus, he does a stellar job of the stupd stuff like keeping his room clean and making his bed.
I'd like to say something here like "a chip off the old block" but really I am none of those things except maybe the first six. But seriously, I don't know where all this comes from. But its pretty amazing.
Tuesday, March 01, 2005
Dinner
So, I got invited to this dinner thing last night that was sponsored by Nesbitt Burns. I was pretty sure it was going to be boring dinner chitchat and a moderately interesting presentation about hedge funds. The opposite turned out to be true. Dinner was at a nice nichey little restaurant in Kerrisdale and I was at a table with the head Lawyer for Telus (a she), a hedge fund pitcher, and a dyke couple one of whom worked for the BCNU. I learned some interesting stuff. They were all really nice and interesting, but there was the usual ideological clashes.
1. 6.3% of nurses are male, but 8.4% of nurse supervisors are male. The nurse dyke clearly interpreted this to mean that even in the all-male world of nursing, men are able to screw women; I interpreted it as meaning that gee, maybe men really *are* more ambitious.
2. The nurse dykes started bitching about Wal-Mart and how evil they are. The hedge guy described Wal-Mart as "possibly the best company on the planet" and said something about "forget all that moral crap" though he feels their stock is overpriced (evidently they trade at close to 30x earnings, or more than double normal for a mature company, and they have to double their business for the next 20 years to justify the current share price, which is going to be hard even for them).
3. The lawyer said that Telus has 25 lawyers on staff and does most of their work in-house; everything from union agreements to CRTC stuff to contracts to lawsuits. She was talking about how lean and mean Telus is and said "my job used to be done by three people". I interpreted this as a positive sign of how efficient Telus is, and I think she meant that too; the nurses were all like "oooh, that's awful, they're overworking you!".
4. I felt like saying that anyone who feels successful companies (WM) are inherently evil, or who assumes and labour efficiencies necessarily exploit the workers, has no business attending a hedge fund presentation or buying stocks.
Anyway, as for hedge funds, I don't think so. It turns out, Nesbitt buys their hedge funds from BluMont. BluMont outsources the investment operations to Man Investments. Man Investments actually hires the dudes who decide what to buy and sell. Who knows what those guys do, but adding in custodians, there are at least six companies taking a piece of the action before you get any, which seems ridiculous.
By the way, Let The Blog Show we bought a Rendezvous. I was humming and hawwing then the guy told me he'd give me $6k for our trade-in, which is more than double what I expected. I squeezed (??) him for another $800 and the deal was done. Its a very nice vehicle (colour and leather wise), and about 20% better mileage than the Cherokee. So, while the hybrid deal is dead, everyone is either happy (them) or not overly unhappy (me).
1. 6.3% of nurses are male, but 8.4% of nurse supervisors are male. The nurse dyke clearly interpreted this to mean that even in the all-male world of nursing, men are able to screw women; I interpreted it as meaning that gee, maybe men really *are* more ambitious.
2. The nurse dykes started bitching about Wal-Mart and how evil they are. The hedge guy described Wal-Mart as "possibly the best company on the planet" and said something about "forget all that moral crap" though he feels their stock is overpriced (evidently they trade at close to 30x earnings, or more than double normal for a mature company, and they have to double their business for the next 20 years to justify the current share price, which is going to be hard even for them).
3. The lawyer said that Telus has 25 lawyers on staff and does most of their work in-house; everything from union agreements to CRTC stuff to contracts to lawsuits. She was talking about how lean and mean Telus is and said "my job used to be done by three people". I interpreted this as a positive sign of how efficient Telus is, and I think she meant that too; the nurses were all like "oooh, that's awful, they're overworking you!".
4. I felt like saying that anyone who feels successful companies (WM) are inherently evil, or who assumes and labour efficiencies necessarily exploit the workers, has no business attending a hedge fund presentation or buying stocks.
Anyway, as for hedge funds, I don't think so. It turns out, Nesbitt buys their hedge funds from BluMont. BluMont outsources the investment operations to Man Investments. Man Investments actually hires the dudes who decide what to buy and sell. Who knows what those guys do, but adding in custodians, there are at least six companies taking a piece of the action before you get any, which seems ridiculous.
By the way, Let The Blog Show we bought a Rendezvous. I was humming and hawwing then the guy told me he'd give me $6k for our trade-in, which is more than double what I expected. I squeezed (??) him for another $800 and the deal was done. Its a very nice vehicle (colour and leather wise), and about 20% better mileage than the Cherokee. So, while the hybrid deal is dead, everyone is either happy (them) or not overly unhappy (me).
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
I Hate Harj!
What the fuck happened to PEY today? Oil is up something like 5%, but PEY dropped a buck. WTF?!?!?! Worst of all, here I am committing one of the cardinal sins of trading stocks: blaming someone else for my loss. Anyway, I don't really hate Harj, in fact, I think he's a great guy, hilarious and smarter than all get-out. I'll think so even more when PEY makes a run at $60.
Still thinking about vehicles. The current official position is that we're waiting for the Highlander Hybrid. But man, with leather, we are looking at $60K, easily. I could buy the Buick for $27, and at current gas prices it'd have to last 20 years to pay off the difference in gas savings. I am only willing to go so far for the fucking Kyoto Accord.
Another thought I had today is that easily 50% of the mileage at the moment is the ball & chain driving to work, her alone in the massive gas guzzling Cherokee. We should buy something small and/or hybrid for her, and then buy the Buick or whatever (cant just keep the Cherokee because of the fucking third-row issue) for soccer, camping, etc.
My neighbour has three goddamn cars, two BMWs and a Mercedes SUV, and no kids!!! Plus I have never seen his wife. I think she is agorophobic, or whatever you call it when you never leave the house. (I have a friend with a Mom like that; she hasn't stepped outside in 27 years).
Anyway back to the 2-vehicle thought. The downside is the B&C would have to swap vehicles on her way home from work. I'd have to rig up some kind of electric shock device for every time she failed to do that. And then there is the cost downside. The cheapest hybrid is most likely the Civic 'from $28,500'. Let's assume that is not bullshit for sake of argument. The Buick, which is almost certainly the cheapest half-decent 3-row (and we'll assume we won't drive it much and thereby it won't fall apart too fast), is $28k. So, plus taxes and minus trade-in, we are still looking at $60k, easy, and the B&C will be pissed off at driving a Civic and having to switch vehicles. There is no fucking way I am blowing $60k on this.
Maybe I should give in and buy the fucking Buick and screw the gas. I can't necessarily just leave things as they are, because the Cherokee gas bills are obscene, and the Buick's will be somewhere around 15% better at least. And the B&C will be happy. Saving $25k (or so) should compensate for having to repair the fucker all the time.
BTW, who knows what the fuel rating will be on the Highlander Hybrid? It's 6.6 on the Escape. God DAMN I loved that Escape. If ONLY I could convince her to buy it.
Still thinking about vehicles. The current official position is that we're waiting for the Highlander Hybrid. But man, with leather, we are looking at $60K, easily. I could buy the Buick for $27, and at current gas prices it'd have to last 20 years to pay off the difference in gas savings. I am only willing to go so far for the fucking Kyoto Accord.
Another thought I had today is that easily 50% of the mileage at the moment is the ball & chain driving to work, her alone in the massive gas guzzling Cherokee. We should buy something small and/or hybrid for her, and then buy the Buick or whatever (cant just keep the Cherokee because of the fucking third-row issue) for soccer, camping, etc.
My neighbour has three goddamn cars, two BMWs and a Mercedes SUV, and no kids!!! Plus I have never seen his wife. I think she is agorophobic, or whatever you call it when you never leave the house. (I have a friend with a Mom like that; she hasn't stepped outside in 27 years).
Anyway back to the 2-vehicle thought. The downside is the B&C would have to swap vehicles on her way home from work. I'd have to rig up some kind of electric shock device for every time she failed to do that. And then there is the cost downside. The cheapest hybrid is most likely the Civic 'from $28,500'. Let's assume that is not bullshit for sake of argument. The Buick, which is almost certainly the cheapest half-decent 3-row (and we'll assume we won't drive it much and thereby it won't fall apart too fast), is $28k. So, plus taxes and minus trade-in, we are still looking at $60k, easy, and the B&C will be pissed off at driving a Civic and having to switch vehicles. There is no fucking way I am blowing $60k on this.
Maybe I should give in and buy the fucking Buick and screw the gas. I can't necessarily just leave things as they are, because the Cherokee gas bills are obscene, and the Buick's will be somewhere around 15% better at least. And the B&C will be happy. Saving $25k (or so) should compensate for having to repair the fucker all the time.
BTW, who knows what the fuel rating will be on the Highlander Hybrid? It's 6.6 on the Escape. God DAMN I loved that Escape. If ONLY I could convince her to buy it.
Thursday, February 17, 2005
Options
I'm up to my eyeballs, but almost done, with options now. I spent the latter half of December and first half of January on automated options setup; the past month its been options margining changes. This has been a relatively welcome chance to revamp some god-awful code from Day One that was long overdue for a retrofit. I hope I can hand it off soon.
We got the Official Corporate Stamp Of Approval (tm) today for Project Lego, which will have our mutual fund system front into ADP's monstrous back office engine. There are a million problems to be solved, none of them hugely interesting. However, I am going to get to learn a bunch about BPS, and THAT will be interesting; I also imagine I will adopt my traditional role of Other Vendor File Guy.
I picked up my D70 today, which as you will recall has been in repair for 2.5 weeks. Although I definetely missed it, I was unprepared for the joy which flowed through me when I put the battery in and sparked it up was immeasurable. I wish I could figure out a way to make a living with my camera. Photos are SO much more fun than real life.
We got the Official Corporate Stamp Of Approval (tm) today for Project Lego, which will have our mutual fund system front into ADP's monstrous back office engine. There are a million problems to be solved, none of them hugely interesting. However, I am going to get to learn a bunch about BPS, and THAT will be interesting; I also imagine I will adopt my traditional role of Other Vendor File Guy.
I picked up my D70 today, which as you will recall has been in repair for 2.5 weeks. Although I definetely missed it, I was unprepared for the joy which flowed through me when I put the battery in and sparked it up was immeasurable. I wish I could figure out a way to make a living with my camera. Photos are SO much more fun than real life.
Monday, February 14, 2005
Whatever
I fucked my back up on Sunday lifting our new TV (which we got a great deal on, BTW) out of the car. I've been all gimpy ever since, and bailed on running today. I had a couple of fairly intense spasms on the way home from work, so I think I'm gonna bail on running for one more day. Feeling very bad about that, tho.
On the way TO work, I was as usual reflecting on how much I hate driving to work and how terrible it makes me feel, good-of-humanity wise. After pondering this a spell I came to the conclusion I really HAVE to start riding again, and to make time room for it, I'm gonna have to cut running back to 1x/week. I think that will be OK as long as I don't give up running entirely. Driving exacts too high a financial and spiritual toil. Once Donna gets back from Australia, and I lose my free parking spot, damn it, I am going to do it!
My sister emailed me something that really hurt my feelings, but I decided just to ignore it and her. I had sent her a slightly gloaty Email about the Wal-Mart in Quebec where they unionized it and WM turned around and shut the store down. I stand by my joy at this turn of events and I knew she would feel the opposite. However, in her response she more or less equated me with our homophobic, ultra-intolerant Aunt, AND, white south africans. Then she went on to say something about right wing people who make no effort to even try to find out about the opposing view. Not that she has ever tried to get inside the head of a gay-basher, etc.
The car hunt goes on. I think the wall of opposition that the spousal unit has raised vis-a-vis the Ford Escape Hybrid is showing signs of weakening. The hybrid sports a fuel rating that is nearly half of most of its competitors, and getting close to a THIRD that of our gas-guzzling Cherokee. The exact numbers, in L/100k, are Escape - 6.6, Odyssey - 13.0, Sienna - 13.0, Cherokee - 15.4, Explorer - 16.5. For my money, and it IS my money for fuck's sake, I'd rather pay the huge hybrid cost (about $10k) up front and at least feel good about driving it, even if the fuel payback is debatable at best (at CURRENT gas prices). Anyhow, the NV Ford dealer has a REALLY spiffy looking burgundy one with leather, we are going to take it for a test drive on Friday... there is a sliver of hope there.
On the way TO work, I was as usual reflecting on how much I hate driving to work and how terrible it makes me feel, good-of-humanity wise. After pondering this a spell I came to the conclusion I really HAVE to start riding again, and to make time room for it, I'm gonna have to cut running back to 1x/week. I think that will be OK as long as I don't give up running entirely. Driving exacts too high a financial and spiritual toil. Once Donna gets back from Australia, and I lose my free parking spot, damn it, I am going to do it!
My sister emailed me something that really hurt my feelings, but I decided just to ignore it and her. I had sent her a slightly gloaty Email about the Wal-Mart in Quebec where they unionized it and WM turned around and shut the store down. I stand by my joy at this turn of events and I knew she would feel the opposite. However, in her response she more or less equated me with our homophobic, ultra-intolerant Aunt, AND, white south africans. Then she went on to say something about right wing people who make no effort to even try to find out about the opposing view. Not that she has ever tried to get inside the head of a gay-basher, etc.
The car hunt goes on. I think the wall of opposition that the spousal unit has raised vis-a-vis the Ford Escape Hybrid is showing signs of weakening. The hybrid sports a fuel rating that is nearly half of most of its competitors, and getting close to a THIRD that of our gas-guzzling Cherokee. The exact numbers, in L/100k, are Escape - 6.6, Odyssey - 13.0, Sienna - 13.0, Cherokee - 15.4, Explorer - 16.5. For my money, and it IS my money for fuck's sake, I'd rather pay the huge hybrid cost (about $10k) up front and at least feel good about driving it, even if the fuel payback is debatable at best (at CURRENT gas prices). Anyhow, the NV Ford dealer has a REALLY spiffy looking burgundy one with leather, we are going to take it for a test drive on Friday... there is a sliver of hope there.
Friday, February 11, 2005
CCI and PEY
CCI is still lingering above $9.50, which I guess means that is a resistance level, but it looks anemic. I'm just going to keep an eye on it awhile.
I finally broke down and bought PEY today. I couldn't stand to see Harj racking up the profits any longer. I seriously thought about it about 3 weeks ago at $45; I just paid $53.25 today. That should be the signal for them to enter bankruptcy. Goddamn stock market!!
I finally broke down and bought PEY today. I couldn't stand to see Harj racking up the profits any longer. I seriously thought about it about 3 weeks ago at $45; I just paid $53.25 today. That should be the signal for them to enter bankruptcy. Goddamn stock market!!
Computer Panic
I attach below the full text of a hilarious (to geeks like me) Email that I got from my sister yesterday. It was a serious reply and I stand by it.
No idea. If your screen is still usable, I would leave it at that and be thankful you got off easy. Any attempts at fixing something like that, 50/50 you will end up with no computer at all.
-----Original Message-----
From: Janet Tomkins [mailto:jtomkins@telus.net]
Sent: February 10, 2005 6:39 AM
To: 'Tomkins, Greg - ADP Dataphile'Subject: COMPUTER PANIC
Hi, Greg.
I made a mistake last night, and in the course of removing a program from my computer, accidentally removed another one as well. I believe it was called something to the effect of “Unicode Graphic Drivers” – or similar.
I’m not sure what it does, except that it does seem to be affecting my screen resolution.
Do you know if it’s important and how I would get it back? I tried the Windows XP Recovery Disk that came with my computer, but it didn’t seem to help.
J.
No idea. If your screen is still usable, I would leave it at that and be thankful you got off easy. Any attempts at fixing something like that, 50/50 you will end up with no computer at all.
-----Original Message-----
From: Janet Tomkins [mailto:jtomkins@telus.net]
Sent: February 10, 2005 6:39 AM
To: 'Tomkins, Greg - ADP Dataphile'Subject: COMPUTER PANIC
Hi, Greg.
I made a mistake last night, and in the course of removing a program from my computer, accidentally removed another one as well. I believe it was called something to the effect of “Unicode Graphic Drivers” – or similar.
I’m not sure what it does, except that it does seem to be affecting my screen resolution.
Do you know if it’s important and how I would get it back? I tried the Windows XP Recovery Disk that came with my computer, but it didn’t seem to help.
J.
Deep Cove
It was an absolutely perfect day today (albeit freezing cold by Vancouver standards), truly a day you are thankful to live in Deep Cove, as opposed to the other 364 days of the year when its pissing rain nonstop. There I go, being negative again!
This http://www.edge.org/q2005/q05_print.html is a very cool website for the philisophically or perhaps physicsally (??) / cosmologically inclined.
We're trying to teach the kids how to answer the phone properly. Granted, I myself have often been accused of having abysmal phone manners, but, well, Bite Me (tm). Anyhow they think its hilarious. Try phoning our house and when they answer the phone, ask them something like "is you bum round?".
Speaking of phones, I didn't put on my Rant List about telemarketers. Is there ANYONE whose livelihood doesn't derive directly from these parasites, who will defend them? I bought a TeleZapper once, but it didn't work. Once I called a carpet cleaning company for 2 solid hours and screamed into their answering machine. That tactic actually seemed to work. If it didn't I was going to figure out who the owner is and call his house. I think someone should publicize the home phone numbers of telemarketer owners/employees. That'd teach the fuckers.
This http://www.edge.org/q2005/q05_print.html is a very cool website for the philisophically or perhaps physicsally (??) / cosmologically inclined.
We're trying to teach the kids how to answer the phone properly. Granted, I myself have often been accused of having abysmal phone manners, but, well, Bite Me (tm). Anyhow they think its hilarious. Try phoning our house and when they answer the phone, ask them something like "is you bum round?".
Speaking of phones, I didn't put on my Rant List about telemarketers. Is there ANYONE whose livelihood doesn't derive directly from these parasites, who will defend them? I bought a TeleZapper once, but it didn't work. Once I called a carpet cleaning company for 2 solid hours and screamed into their answering machine. That tactic actually seemed to work. If it didn't I was going to figure out who the owner is and call his house. I think someone should publicize the home phone numbers of telemarketer owners/employees. That'd teach the fuckers.
