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.