2018

Among things that are exchangable with money, some are highly valued due to their scarcity, like precious metals, cryptocurrencies, artworks, etc. I want to question in the long term whether community will add more items to the scarcity list like they do with cryptocurrencies, and if so, whether the pace of addition will match that of the growth of need for scarcity.

The former question is quite easy to answer, and I'll go to the latter. Let's take gold price as an example because it has witnessed the expansion of scarcity list. Over the past 50 years, annual gain of gold price is around 3%, not even exceeding inflation rate, which basically indicates addition pace is relatively quicker.

Gold price has peaked very shortly for several times. It will benefit short-term investors significantly if bets were placed correctly. The problem is that the ability to foresee such events, not the probability of being luck, is also on the scarcity list.

Admiration may go too far, sometimes beyond common sense. People might think reading 500 pages a day is difficult for an average individual on a daily basis. But if I tell you Warren Buffett can actually do it, will you be suprised? The answer is yes, at least for me. But, emmmmmm, you know, it's Warren Buffett, an investment demigod. What cannot happen?! So if you google "buffett 500 pages a day", you will likely see results as below.

Size/Dimension Matters (Nov 10, 2018)

One individual may argue/fight with another, but he/she will never do the same with gastrointestinal bacteria, or a 2-dimensional line. Size/Dimension isolates things better than distance. The difficulty of extraterrestrial/extracosmos creatures finding humans matches/surpasses that of humans investigating sub-cellular machinery.

当你给某些东西打码的时候，你一定不想别人看到码后面的东西，但是打码的细心程度有差异。粗心有可能会导致码后面的东西遭到暴露，本文即是一例。

这个字虽然看上去被遮住了绝大部分，但仍然能轻易辨别出它分为左右两个部分。左边的是部首，最下面的一笔是近似"提"，类似于"坡","玻","顷","峪"的部首，但断不是"唱","晌"之类，因为后者左下角的竖是出头的。 我们再来看右半部份。右半部份也非常特殊，最下面一横，左边一竖(如果有)没有出头，而右边的有明显出头，这样的组合在汉字里并不多见。像"唱","峪"之类是不符合要求的。它更像"凶","脑","缶"之类有"竖折"的字。

在声母为"y"的常见字里面找符合上述条件的，应该不多了。我能找到的，一个是"瑶"，另一个是"鳐"，但由于后者少见，所以就暂定为前者。由于时间关系，我并没有考虑所有的声母为"y"的字，所以不肯定是否还有其他的答案， 但总体来说，思路应该是问题不大了。

需要多说一句的是，字体对于上述结论的影响不是很大，除非是非常用字体。

Before finding a person I can transfer my rent contract (regarding the room in Tai Po Tsai) to, I applied for staff housing provided by University and got an offer which allows me to check in on Nov.06 and stay till Jun.30, 2019. The new tenant I found, however, didn't agree to start renting until Nov.12, leaving the room vacant for 7 days. That means I have to pay for both rooms during the 7 days, which is apparently unsatisfying.

To reduce losses, I could choose to delay check-in or find someone else to fill in the 6-day gap. I didn't have enough time to find a tenant to narrow the gap, so the second choice was infeasible. However, this doesn't make the first choice more favorable. I'd rather not to bother FMO staffs who processed my case because delay in check-in is not included in the policy.

I figured out it's my shyness that is dissuading further inquiry, while reluctance to bother others might merely be an excuse. Finally, I sent out an email, asking if I could postpone check-in.

The FMO staff replied yes, re-drafted the offer, and helped me save HKD565. That's the price for a simple email of around twenty words.

The two-week temporary stay in a 60-yr-old Tong Lau in Quarry Bay brought me one shock after another. I won't specify the details but they prompted me to look through the history of residential buildings of Hong Kong. In such a densely populated city, living quality never matches social prosperity. One of the major reasons is lack of land supply. Residential land supply in mountainous Hong Kong relies heavily on land reclamation, which staggers in the presence of entrenched interests of real estate developers, environment protection activists, seaside residents, etc.

Tong Lau of the earliest colonial era leaves no relic other than a wall in Wan Chai that was once shared by neighboring buildings. But Tong Lau of later 1~2 hundred years scattered over Hong Kong island and Kowloon. Nowadays they struggled to meet ever-changing expectations. Some are equipped with lifts, or redecorated, while those with over 50 years are facing safety issues, requiring frequent maintenance or even reconstruction.

The Mediocre Majority And The Probably Correct Mental Attitude (Oct 29, 2018)

During dinner several days ago, an undergraduate student discussed with me on the popularity of selling insurance among mainland students after graduation in HK. She mentioned that's the easiest way to stay in HK and have a decent life. The reason is that insurance sales requires no hard skills (e.g. solid knowledge on finance or risk management). Good connections in mainland and proper selling skills are usually essential and sufficient. However, insurance sales are usually considered indecent because it involves presenting a lot of partial truth to someone who believes in the salesperson. The situation becomes worse when the salesperson is well-educated and supposed to follow higher moral/scientific standards.

This case brought about many questions. I'll list some of them below.

(1) Is it ethically correct to pose higher moral standards to well-educated ones?

(2) What's the boundary for advertising/selling? (To what extent shall the wording deviates from the truth?)

(3) Will the involvement in such business adversely affect interpersonal relationship? Should it be like this?

(4) Could inferior personal economic status be an excuse for involvement of unethical matters?

(5) ...

By the way, I don't have a clear answer yet.