Book Reading - The old man and the sea

It might be the most famous novel by Ernest Hemingway. It's published in 1951, and won him a Pulitzer and a Nobel.

Of course, it's a story of perseverance, endurance, courage, pride and friendship. Of course Hemingway's ways of telling story with short and simple words is powerful. And I did feel the echo when the old man held the line for the fish day and night suffering from pain, hunger and tiresome. Thought of slack came to mind and dismissed. And also the moment when the old exert every piece of tool/weapon to fight the sharks.

Still it's not exciting, not a book that can attract you to turn page by page till you reach the end. I guess the classic might not be my favorite for two reasons,

1. The structure of the story. Challenge-overcome-more challenge-overcome again-biggest challenge-heroic achievement. Inspiring but no surprise.
2. The view of story is main character and his/her thoughts. Modern novel usually implement multiple angles to tell the story. 

Anyway, a good novel by a strange old man who can be destroyed, but can't be defeated.

Book reading - Life of Pi (Part 3)

Topics covered by the book

• Essence of different religion might be the same
• Essence of zoo keeping might be the same as religion
• feed and care animals vs care about the subconscious
• be strong to take control of animal vs discipline/control on subconscious
• Science vs Religion
• Symbol of Tiger/Hyena/Orange-Utan
• Tiger is the combination of vital and brutal aspect of life/human being
• Tiger/subconscious needs to be cared and controlled
• Hyena is the brutal part of life/human being
• Orange-Utan is the tender/vital part of life/human being
• Symbol of blind?
• Symbol of Island and meerkat?
• Island is a state of physically comfort, but mentally lost
• A very compelling explanation can be found on this blog
• Symbol of the journey of Pacific Ocean
• Spirit journal to find God/peace
• Courage to handle difficulty mentally and physically
• Intelligence to balance routine and risk

In general, the spirit journal to find God/peace might be the key for this book.

Book reading - Life of Pi (Part 2)

Part one. Toronto and Pondicheey
Chapter 01. Zoology and Theology. Indian life and Canadian life
Chapter 02. (Author) Description of Pi Patel
Chapter 03. Where the name of Piscine Molitor Patel comes from
Chapter 04. Home of Piscine is a zoo
Chapter 05. Where the name of Pi comes from
Chapter 06. (Author) Pi Patel is a good cook
Chapter 07. A good teach of biology, Mr Kumar - Atheist
Chapter 08. Lesson from father, human is the most dangerous, and stay away from tiger - Humanity
Chapter 09. The key to train an animal is to let animal used to the presence of human
Chapter 10. Animal escape due to lack of security
Chapter 11. Many case of animal escape
Chapter 12. (Author) Pi Patel likes to share his story
Chapter 13. To train an animal in circus need trainer to make sure he always remains super alpha
Chapter 14. Social inferior animal in circus stays close to trainer and becomes star in the circus
Chapter 15. (Author) Pi's house is like a temple
Chapter 16. All religion are related. How Pi connected with Hinduism in first place
Chapter 17. How Pi connected with Christian
Chapter 18. How Pi connected with Muslim
Chapter 19. Continued with previous chapter
Chapter 20. Continued with previous chapter
Chapter 21. (Author) Pi's way of telling stories
Chapter 22. Seeing religion from Atheist's perspective
Chapter 23. Selection/Unification of Hindu, Christian and Muslim. Conversation with his father.
Chapter 24. Ravi laughed at Pi's choosing all three religions
Chapter 25. Pi found peach between three religions internally and externally
Chapter 26. Pi's family accepted his choice of all three religions
Chapter 27. Continued with previous chapter
Chapter 28. Continued with previous chapter
Chapter 29. Pi's family decided to move to Canada
Chapter 30. (Author) Pi is a humble family man
Chapter 31. Mr Kumar (Atheist) met Mr Kumar (Muslim)
Chapter 32. Zoomorphism - An animal takes a human being to be one of its kind
Chapter 33. (Author) Pi showed his picture in India
Chapter 34. Pi's family sold the zoo to prepare the trip for Canada
Chapter 35. Pi said farewell to India
Chapter 36. (Author) Pi has a happy family after all his suffering in the past
Part two. The pacific ocean
Chapter 37. Ship sank, and Pi got into a boat
Chapter 38. Flashback to how Pi got into a boat after ship sank
Chapter 39. Continued with previous chapter
Chapter 40. Pi was alone in the boat without Richard Parker, the tiger
Chapter 41. No Richard Parker, but a hyena and a zebra with broken leg on the boat
Chapter 42. Orange Juice, the orang-utan came with bananas
Chapter 43. Pi was scared with hyena
Chapter 44. Pi was scared and with hope to be rescued soon
Chapter 45. Hyena took the broken leg of zebra
Chapter 46. Hyena ate the zebra and Orange-Utan had a fight with Hyena
Chapter 47. Hyena killed Orange-Utan. And the tiger appeared.
Chapter 48. How the name of Richard Parker comes from
Chapter 49. Pi searched for water and explanation on why the tiger hided for three days
Chapter 50. Description of boat
Chapter 51. Pi found water and supplies
Chapter 52. List of supplies
Chapter 53.Chapter 52. List of suppliesChapter 53. The tiger ate the hyena, and Pi built a raft and moved to the raft
Chapter 54. Pi's plans to remove the tiger
Chapter 55. Fear of survival on sea and the tige
Chapter 56. Continued with previous chapter
Chapter 57. Pi started to train the tiger
Chapter 58. Preparations for survival on sea and training the tiger
Chapter 59. Pi improved the raft and thought about fishing
Chapter 60. Suffering and the universe
Chapter 61. Caught fish for the first time and train the tiger in a difficult situation
Chapter 62. Learn solar still for the first time and train the tiger
Chapter 63. Routine for survival
Chapter 64. Challenge of soil water
Chapter 65. Uncontrol of navigation
Chapter 66. Fishing from fish to turtle
Chapter 67. Obverse lives around life boat and raft
Chapter 68. Little sleep and the tiger remains mild
Chapter 69. Hope rised and sank
Chapter 70. Cut turtle
Chapter 71. Plan to train the tiger
Chapter 72. Pi tried four times and succeed in the fifth time
Chapter 73. Huger for books and kept a diary
Chapter 74. Kept religious pratice
Chapter 75. Say happy birthday to mom
Chapter 76. Besides feed the tiger, Pi cleaned feces for the tiger as part of the training
Chapter 77. Challenge of lacking food
Chapter 78. Challenge of bad weather. Happiness is relative
Chapter 79. Fishing shark
Chapter 80. Super alpha status confirmed through holding a fish not giving to the tiger
Chapter 81. Summerize the relationship with the tiger
Chapter 82. Continued of previous chapter
Chapter 83. Storm came and Pi lost the raft, but hold the orange whistle tight
Chapter 84. Whale and birds
Chapter 85. Bolt and thunder
Chapter 86. Ship passed by, but didn't notice the boat
Chapter 87. use asphyxiation to escape the reality
Chapter 88. Encounter floating trash
Chapter 89. Last page of diary revealed the extreme difficult Pi has met
Chapter 90. Pi turned blind. Conversation with a blind man (French accent). And the blind was eaten by the tiger.

Chapter 91. Recover from blind
Chapter 92. Pi discovered an island with abundant food, but no metal sanity
Chapter 93. The survival story of grief, ache and endurance
Chapter 94. Rescued and the tiger left
Part three Benito Juarez infirmary, Tomatlan, Meico
Chapter 95. (Author) Mr Okamoto shared his interview with Pi
Chapter 96. Mr Okamoto and Mr Chiba visited Pi
Chapter 97. The story
Chapter 98, Mr Okamoto and Mr Chiba didn't believe Pi
Chapter 99. The brutal story of French cook killed sailor and mother. And Pi killed the French cook.
Chapter 100. Mr Okamoto's report and his acceptance with Pi's tiger story

Book reading - Life of Pi (Part 1)

I got this book as my birthday gift of last year. but I never got the chance to read through it because I was "busy".
I downloaded audio version of this book before, but I never got the chance to hear the whole because of being "busy".
I watched the movie once, amazed by the story told/directed by Ang Lee, but not sure I really understood the message.

Now I am on the edge of losing current job (true) and getting a new job (so far a wish). "Being busy" doesn't sound like an excuse any more. So, I finished reading it in 3 days.

The first impression is the same as watching the movie.

• what a great story
• but I am not sure I fully understand the messages

Maybe this novel is so rich of messages that you can get different ones from different perspectives. So to help me to sort out the messages, I will summarize the contents and touch these topic on my mind.

BTW, I am not sure it's a good book for encouragement and inspiration during job hunting. This book is more than that. 

Things I have accomplished during recent job search

I might hit the wall during job searching. It's much like you hit the wall during a marathon/long run. The overwhelm feeling is if I can continue applying for jobs. The action is procrastination. (stop doing meaningful things and purely kill time through web surfing on trivia things)

The cure is, focusing on accomplishment during recent job searching. (say from Jan1 2015 till Mar20 2015)

• Improvement on interview skill
• phone interview with HR/Hiring Manager
• preparation on 2 min elevator pitch
• preparation on typical behavior questions
• research on hiring company
• research on HR/Hiring manager in LinkedIn
• preparation on asking questions
• on site interview
• preparation on matching review between job requirement and my strength
• keep STAR in mind when answering behavior questions
• keep focused on interview marathon
• Reflection on previous work
• keyword searching through job requirement to see expectation on job market
• reorganize resume to align with job requirement
• Self reflection on future plan
• plan on role
• plan on location
• plan on industry
• plan on personal strength 
• Read news/articles/books
• The noise and the signal, why some forecast failed, and some not
• Search - how data explosion makes us smarter
• How to practice - the way to a meaningful life (not completed)
• Some articles about Big Data
  • the culture of big data
  • disruptive possibilities
  • on being a data skeptic
  • Analyzing the analyzers
  • big data now
• Sherlock Holmes (not completed)

Labor cost optimization of supporting functions for employers with distributed business model

The question comes from a request HR to see if indirect staffing in each facilities and to see any opportunity of cutting cost. It's not a surprising question for FPA.

Put the request into some contexts. Company has 2 facilities. Facility A has revenue 100M, and 5 supply chain EE. Facility B has revenue 75M, and 5 supply chain EE. Is there any room to cut supply chain EE in facility B?

Attempt 1, use metrics of revenue per headcount.
Concern, workload for supply chain EE (raising PO for purchasing) in facility B might be high because facility B has low volume and high compared with facility A.

Attempt 2, use metrics of related activities (# of PO raised for purchasing) per headcount.
Concern, EE has little incentive to improve productivity when they are paid/measured by workload, but not top line or bottom line impact.

Attempt 3, go back to use metrics of revenue per headcount with consideration of complexity of business.
Concern, complexity of business might be difficult to quantify or no similar to compare.

Attempt 4, go back to use metrics of related activities per headcount with consideration of value added for business. i.e. pay by hour with bonus/profit sharing
Concern, hard to balance pay by value added and by work load

So, the key question is whether employer should pay employees by value added or by work load.
or finance metrics vs operation metrics.

Trending of Medical Device Industry - Part2

In the blog, I will try to answer the question, what's the impact to FP&A from the trending.
A brief introduction on FP&A role.

1. Financial planning on revenue and cost associated with it
2. Financial analysis for projects or functions
3. Translate business issue and analytic problem and analytic solutions to business actions

Here is the imaginary impact,

• Financial planning on revenue
• new products
• more related to aging people
• more related to patients rather than physicians
• new customers
• from emerging market
• new business model
• product only to service/subscription
• Financial planning on associated cost
• Cost to communicate with consumers. (From B2B to B2C)
• Cost of supply chain integration (with emerging market)
• Cost structure dramatic change when business model changes to service/subscription
• Financial analysis on revenue
• revenue components change when demographic changes (shift to aging people, and shift to emerging country)
• decision maker changes on healthcare merger (from physician to procurement)
• decision maker changes on consumerization (more ads for mass consumer)
• Financial analysis on procurement
• more from emerging market/supplier
• Financial analysis on IT/business intelligence
• big data on customers

Trending of Medical Device Industry

To prepare for potential job opportunities, I start to look into these industries.
Opportunity one - Medical device

Some Google search and I found that most of these trending are not far from when I searched it 4 years ago. This link might summarize what I expected most appropriate

1. Aging global population
1. Buyers - more buyers 
2. Substitute - Biopharm 
2. Growth of emerging market
1. Buyers - more buyers and well educated buyers
2. Suppliers - more suppliers and well educated suppliers
3. Competition - more players
3. Increase regulation
1. Hurdles to product approval
2. Sudden change of environment like medical device tax
4. Healthcare consolidation
1. Buyers - powerful buyers, and shifted from physician to procurement
5. Consumerization
1. Expand the landscape
2. New buyers
3. New Suppliers
4. New Competitors

One key to understand the industry of medical device is, it's very diversified industry in terms of product. It means the situation could vary segment by segment

Drone Technology

One of the most attractive (or most likely to be approved by regulation) application of drone, is photographing.
The attractiveness lies in,

1. Unique perspective of viewpoint. No or very little alternative.
2. Technical feasible. The only thing need to carry is camera or lens; requirement for speed is low; requirement long time in air is flexible.
3. public safety is most likely to be met

However the major concern is privacy of citizens and secrecy of national service.

Then two techniques are needed to clear the concern or protect the privacy and secrecy.

1. Drone detection
• Through sound
• Through vision
• Through infrared radiation
2. Drone communication blocking
• Jamming communication
• Disable lens

TED watching: Mathematics of love

Today is valentine's day. And when i walked on treadmill, I watched a Ted video called "Mathematics of love". Very interesting talk.
It provides 3 tips to improve possibility to find love.

• Tip 1: How to stand out in online dating
• Recommendation: Make oneself liked by some, and loathed by some other
• Tip 2: How to find the perfect partner
• Recommendation: Reject the first 37%, and select the first one marginal better than best of first 37%
• Tip 3: How to avoid divorce
• Equation of response of husband and wife: Rt=Ralone+Rt-1+It-1

Thought about the video

• The technique in tip 1 and tip 2 can be used on job hunting and hiring
• The technique in tip 3 can be used on country competition
• Simulation of how to get the conclusion of tip 2

Is job market an efficient market?

It's a question rising from lots of time spent on job hunting.
When I haven't found the job for certain time period, the natural question is why.

1. One side is on my side, all prep right? 
• Resume, linkedin, working permit, find the right opportunity, find the right channel to apply, am I capable
2. The other side is on job side
• Enough job outside, right timing, is the job market efficient

Also the question comes from upcoming Superbowl news.

The best forecast of who will win comes from gambling market because gambling market is an efficient market.

In the meanwhile, NFL is an efficient market. We observe that through prosper trending of the market.

Then for job seeker like me has to wonder why job market isn't like these two markets and what's right in these markets

Here are basic elements for job market before we can answer that question.

A market needs buyers, sellers, goods and information

• Buyers: Potential Employer
• Sellers: Potential Employee
• Goods: Service/Commitment provided by employees with their skill to meet employers requirement
• Information:  Info about skills, requirement, sellers and buyers

How to tell a job market is efficient?

• Job seekers can find idea job in short time with fair pay
• Talent seekers can find idea candidate in short time with fair pay

Observation on current job market.

• People in labor force/market are shrinking compared with a few years ago.
• Employers keep on complaining about hard to find right candidates
• Productivity of the whole country increases very slowly compared with before 1970s

Then the next question is where is the issue. I can try to answer the question through each element.

Not enough buyers

• Corporate does not generate enough vacancy 
• because global economy is not strong enough, 
• because new technology or process re-engineering has replaced some vacancy, 
• because existing employees work harder and become more productive
• Shrinking industry with more and more players move out
• Location constraint
• for small town, only so many employers
• Time constraint
• Corporate has concern on year end budget.
• Corporate has concern on upcoming big risk
• Information of buyers are not published/shared
• Small or medium business have limit budget for talent acquisition
• Private owned without much public info released.
• Even for public trade company, working environment, culture even organization structure is little know.

Not enough sellers

• Booming industry with few employees well trained in this fields
• Location constraint
• for small town, not many willing to move
• information of sellers are not published/shared
• Currently, resume, education, and working experience are only info presented if no reference
• Cost of interview (phone or on-site) is high
• Reputation in the circle is limited to top candidates

No enough info about the goods

• Information of job requirement is not well defined.
• Some misalignment between daily work and words in job description
• with technology advance, some jobs have already evolved, but not the mindset of managers, and not the job description
• Information of candidates is not clear presented
• before phone interview, the only info are resume and cover letter. For some candidates, they have LinkedIn profiles. For referred candidates, they have referral from insiders.
• Existing info focuses on tracked records. Progression of title, experience and hard skills listed. But there is a gap between tracked records and capability, a gap between the candidates have done and what the candidates can do.

The next question is how to address the issue.

• Continuous training to address quick change of industry
• education system adapt itself to address industry need
• the corporation is the best resource to provide training because it understands best what it needs
• Match of employer and employee on location
• encourage relocation of employees
• encourage immigration
• encourage corporation to open offices where it finds labor supply
• allow virtual working environment and build procedure to ensure productivity 
• Build market for sharing of labor force
• auction market that easily link buyers and sellers
• More apps on profiling of candidates
• more data than education, experience and skills
• recommendation
• progression of career development.
• project sample 
• integration with other data
• data mining on data
• More info released on organization and role definition from corporation's perspective
• standardize the role and make it like modular
• provide clear definition of the role

Maybe i can expand the idea of building market for sharing of labor force

Interview preparation from recruiter’s perspective

To make the process of interview fun, I put on some thoughts about how HR try to achieve through an interview, disassemble the components of goal, construct questions to achieve that.

The thoughts cover the following contents,

• goal of phone interview
• components of checking candidate's quality
• job requirement and candidate's knowledge & skills to fill it
• expected key attributes of candidates and their contribution to job requirement
• HR constructs an interview
• HR constructs questions

Interview preparation from recruiter’s perspective

There are a few left,

• key competency metrics for the job
• typical behavior questions to address the key competency

Valentine day's gift - wearable technology

It comes from my struggle about valentine day's gift for my wife.

I think about wearable technology a lot. Before apple watch comes out, Fitbit is the market leader, and it just released two new bands. One Charge HR, the other Surge. Charge HR is more of traditional activity tracker with heart rate monitor included and Surge tried to take some elements of smart watch.

Some random thoughts about wearable technology.

1. The revolution path: Mainframe to PC (extended users) to laptop (Compact and mobility) to smart phone (Compact and mobility and multiple functions) to wearable technology (Compact and mobility and additional functions)
• Hardware. Compact depends on critical technology advance, chips become more powerful, smaller in size and require less power (battery size). Small size sensor with less energy consumption. But GPS is a big energy eater.
• Mobility. More easier to carry then smart phone in certain cases. such as exercises and sleep.
• Functions. Functions will tip on activity tracker and reminder/notification/alert. Another useful function is input/output portal. Input can be activity data, voice command, touch command. Output can be voice, vibrate and display (light, OLED, full screen). Another new function in the new era is internet of things. 
2. Functions and users

• Activity tracker. Health conscious consumers.
• Sleep analysis. Health conscious consumers.
• Hints from Apple watch: Display and remote control for iphone
• Calendar. - Display
• Weather - Display
• Map - Display
• Music - Remote contr
• Video player
• Dictionary  - Display
• Camera 
• Picture  - Display
• Email  - Display
• Message  - Display
• Call notification  - Display
3. Fitbit vs Apple watch and other wearable technology
• Conceptually, Apple watch is in the right direction.
• Ecosystem with support from wide selection of apps
• Functionally, wearable device is more than data collection, but also response and feedback. more than activity focused for health conscious consumers, but also multiple functions for casual consumers
• Practically, Fitbit leads this market for some time. it understands the product design and consumer habit better. But the technology is not mature one. And Apple is good to be late adopter. 
• Quibble on Healthkit. It's about ecosystem and data control.
• Healthkit is not a good platform. not yet.
4. Trending of wearable technology
• Timing is essential. We roughly know what the ideal watch will be in future. Energy efficient chips, multi-purpose, voice command, connect with other devices and last long. But some of the technologies are not there yet. So, current product design has to comprise between functions and hardware
• Energy efficient chips for GPS and wireless cellular might not be ready, then it depends on its ability to communicate with other devices. And without these two, wearable device can't live without cell phone.
• Multi-purpose. The key question is why in wearable device, not in cell phone.
• Calendar with one line of title and schedul
• Weather with a few words description or one picture
• Map with voice focused
• Music and video player. remote control
• Dictionary/Knowledge center with voice
• Call and message notification
• Voice command. Need Siri to be better
• Internet of things. Communication has be to cheap
5. Decision. Not yet. I can foresee apple watch will be future, and fitbit will dominate the market (or niche market of activity market) for a while. But not sure about if it's a good time.

Oil price drops, the reason, the impact and the future - Part3

This blog will focus on crude oil production, especially variant impact on different countries and different extraction technology

Cost of producing crude oil from EIA

Reading from this table,

1. Middle East, Canada and Central&South America has advantage on production cost over US
• Middle East has biggest advantage in production. So, Saudi Arabia can stand low price
• It makes economic sense to build keystone pipeline from Canada to US
2. Total extraction cost comes from two parts, lifting and finding.
3. Off-shore cost is much higher than on-shore, but lifting cost might be similar
• Finding costs are sunk cost in short term. So, when crude oil price drops suddenly, most countries to continue to lift crude oil, but might hold on drilling

Another interesting chart by Morgan Stanley half a year ago.

Cost in this chart might not be consistent with table above, but we still read relative cost between different technology.

Reading from this chart,

1. When crude oil price drops, the first three technology will be stopped are,
• Arctic
• Oil sand
• North American Shell
2. Average production cost of Russia is higher
3. Cost variance of one technology is high.

Oil price drops, the reason, the impact and the future - Part2

This blog will focus on downstream impact.
Economist focus on its impact/little impact to renewable energy, but covers little on transportation and industry use.

Use of petroleum

• Fuel (74% based on EIA) for transportation
• Petrol - for cars (46%)
• Diesel - for heavy machines (20%)
• Kerosene - for jets (8%)
• Non Fuel
• Petroleum jelly
• Lubricating oils
• Plastics
• Solvent

Use for transportation

1. Auto industry
• Electricity car - Less popular
• Fuel efficiency car - Less popular
• SUV more popular
• Auto maker needs to be flexible to adjust to consumer and market
2. Logistic industry
• Fedex/UPS - Cheaper
• Free shipping provided by Amazon - More
3. Airline and airplane
• Air ticket price - lower
• More flight to new routes
• Airplane to promote fuel efficiency - less poppular
• Airplane buying - fewer/delayed
4. Taxi
• More savings for taxi drivers
5. Agriculture
• Production - cheaper
• Shipping - cheaper
6. Global trading
7. Processed food
• less shipping fees
• cheaper plastic
8. Customers
• More money to spend from saving on gas

Use for industry

1. Chemistry industry
• Lower cost
2. Manufacturing
• Lower cost of chemistry
• Lower cost of shipping
• If not related to energy capital investment
3. House building
• PVC pipe, asphalt, shingles, paint and etc
• interest rate will be low (from low inflation)

Oil price drops, the reason, the impact and the future - Part1

Crude oil/gas price drops almost half in recent two months.
So, most people can't help wondering about the reason, the impact to other industry and future price.

After I put down some thoughts on this, and then I found one article in Economist explains better than mine.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2014/12/economist-explains-4

If i may summarize their points, the reason comes from four.

1. Global demand is low
2. Turmoil keeps on pumping crude oil stably
3. US increase oil production due to fracking
4. OPEC failed to reach agreement to reduce production

The impact to upstream will be,

1. US fracking
2. Weston oil company with projects to drill expansively
3. Countries export a lot

Then Economist explores some downstream impact in later issues.

If i may summarize these. The impact to downstream will be,

1. Countries get the opportunities to restructure their economy
• Reduce subsidy for gas with less resistance from voters
• Add carbon taxes with less resistance from voters.
2. Trend of renewable energy will not be hindered
• most renewable energy go to electricity generation, while crude oil goes to transportation and industry
• Biofuel will be impacted
3. Consumers get some relief
4. Trend of energy efficiency will not be reversed
• Consumers' mindset has changed

One interesting I found during research is the oil price trend since 1946. Considering inflation, real price exclude inflation impact makes more sense.

Reading from the chart,

1. historically, when global economy increases stably, crude oil price is low.
2. Mideast war (early 80's) bumps oil price
3. Speculation (late 00's) bumps oil price
4. Stimulation (early 10's) support oil price in higher level

So, the future crude oil price might stay in a relative low level considering the following

1. There is seldom wars between mideast countries.
2. There is less speculation due to finance regulation.
3. Stimulation runs out of steam

IMF forecast it will be around 65 at the end of 2015.

Time planning when work from home and job hunting

In these days, I work from home remotely, and in the meanwhile looking for next job opportunities. And I am lucky to have in-laws to take care of the little one. Theoretically, it's not a bad arrangement for transition between two jobs. But there are also challenges.

1. Sometimes I don't know what to do. whether working for current employer or job searching
2. When job searching, I don't know what to do. application in indeed, change website of a few companies. review resume and cover letter or reading to recharge
3. when working for current employer, don't know how much efforts to put on

The solution on my mind at this moment will be a better time planning. Here are the rules.

1. Separate working from job hunting if possible. Half day for working and half day for job hunting
2. Activities for next job should include all three. Short term: job application, resume review and interview prep. Mid term: self reflection on current/previous job and exiting skill set. Long term: self reflection on career path and recharge through reading
3. Combine the approaches for job searching: cast net wide and keep close watch on a few companies
4. Activities for current employer should be limited to bare bone. 

Reflection after book "The signal and the noise"

First reflection is on my daily job of financial forecast of the company.

The financial forecast focus on profitability of the next 12 months. EBITDA (Earning Before Interest, Tax and Depreciation) is considered the most important output. The forecast is based on sales forecast from customers or sales. And operation team builds the plan according to foretasted revenue and cost is calculated based on that.

The book "The signal and the noise" mentioned about three basic rules of good forecast

• Rule 1: Provide forecast and range
• Rule 2: Always validate forecast and results and adjust model accordingly
• Rule 3: Look for consensus

If we use these rules to examine my forecast work.

Rule 1:

Yes. we do provide a range of EBITDA or risks & opportunities after providing EBITDA forecast

But, 

1 .the range is not based on statistics, but on risks & opportunities (scenario analysis)

2. scenario considered is very limited. Most of time, it focuses on revenue only. not on operation side.

Rule 2:

Yes. we do compare forecast and actual monthly. And we look in details about where the variance comes from.

But, 

1. the range of EBITDA is never validated

2. error of the forecast might be understood in P&L detail level, but model is not adjusted

-  For material, no purchase is foretasted, so, PPV is hardly predictable. And inventory adjustment is seldom forecast.

-  For labor, no labor schedule is foretasted. so, labor usage is forecast poorly

-  For direct cost, no procurement policy on factory supplies and no validation of efficiency

-  For OH/SGA labor, it's hard to tell when new hire will join and the turnover rate is high

-  For OH/SGA expense, a big error comes from repair and maintenance. no real tracking on repair and maintenance.

Rule 3:

Sort of. The consensus comes from if the forecast are aligned with historical trend.

But, we never/seldom look outside of the company to see performance of other companies.

Book reading - "The signal and the noise - why so many predictions fail and some don't" by Nate Silver

I bought this book in hard copy around 3 weeks. I felt really happy when I finished the book. The last time I finished a book in hard copy might be 4-5 years ago.

The interest of the book comes from my phone interview with Discover Financial in Nov 2014. I didn't handle the questions well on assumptions of regression. Then I realized I have produced so many "accurate" financial reports in my daily work and almost lose the healthy suspicion on the model. I think this book does answer part of the question.

This books covers different topics of forecast and explains the common issues in some of the forecast. I spend some time to summary them.

In the next blogs, I will examine the forecast I've done in my work or life, and find why they fail and if possible find a way to improve it in the future.

Forecast	Existing forecast	Why Fail (Challenging)	Why Succeed	How to improve
Recession	Most economists failed	1. Fail to forecast house bubble - Limit data in US history 2. Fail to forecast impact of house bubble to whole economics - Limit data in US history - Large leverage 3. Rating agency provided wrong rating from their incentives - Wrong assumption of independant events
Political forecast	TV show forecast bad Some tools are good	1. Bias because of party position
Baseball	Some tools are good	1. Difficult to bring quality attributes into model	1. Lots of input data 2. Only a few output variable
Weather	Some tools are good	1. Nonlinear behavior 2. Simplification of linear requires lots of calculation	1. Lots of input data 2. Lots of validation 3. Simple physics rules
Earthquake	Almost impossible to predict time and location	1. Very little sample data 2. Overfitting 3. Variables (like stress) in physics model can't be measured
GDP growth	Most economists failed	1. Weak mechanism 2. Both input and output macro economic data not accurate 3. Policy impact
Epidemic		1. Extrapolation with big prediction interval 2. When data is brought from one country to another, the underline condition has changed 3. Accurate simulation requires lots of input for human behavior
Basketball game				1. Using Bayes rule to update propensity with new facts
Chess				1. human vs machine. each has its own advantage human good at pattern identification and imagination machine good at in-depth thinking
Poker game				1. Using Bayes rule to update propensity with new facts 2. Validation of forecast and differentiate skill with luck
Stock price
Global warming				1. Combine mechanisms with statistics
Terrorist attack				1. Focus on frequency instead of when and where 2. For forecast of rare events, need imagination on scenarios

Day1 to start the blog

Cycle of life.
Search for job, find one, work hard, leave the city, search for the job again.

For me, finding a job is never an easy thing. Lots of pressure. And luckily, I found the therapy of writing a blog to release the pressure. So, I decided to continue the practice as 4 years ago, and name this blog chapter 2 of previous blog.

The post in this blog will be similar to Days to be employed. It covers from different topics with sources from reading, web searching, investigation and reflection.

Two difference from 4 years ago,

• I am not totally unemployed yet. Currently, I work remotely for current employer. But it's a temporary arrangement. Need to find the next job soon.
• Little Max was born 2 years ago. And I just feel so refreshed after playing with him for a little while.