Tag: what i’ve learned

Population onion

I read this odd spot* some time ago: If the population of China was to walk by you in single file, the line would never end due to the rate of population growth.

I thought, “No. Really? Really?” I’ve looked up China’s birth rate in Wikipedia and with a population of 1,298,847,624 people and a growth rate of 0.57%, and assuming that growth is mainly due to births, then there are 14 new Chinese babies every minute, or one birth every 4.3 seconds.

Now, I reckon that in 4.3 seconds, about three people could walk pass me in single file. That means that if I wait long enough, then I will eventually get to the end of the line.

It would take a while and I suppose I can work out how exactly how long. Bother. It’s late but now I have to do it. Hey, this would make a good short answer problem in Unit 3 of Maths Methods.

Okay, it’ll take 58 years based on the assumptions above (and 365.24 days a year). If someone wants to check this, I’d appreciate it.

Of course, the growth rate 0.57% won’t be constant. China’s population profile is onion-shaped. I’m not sure what that means in terms of rate of population growth. The profile is probably dependent on the Government’s population policy too. Perhaps the current state of affairs isn’t all that significant in the grand scheme of the 58.4 years that I’m sitting there watching them all walk by.

*Girls will probably know this trivia already and also the ones that go ‘Until 1990, sausages were still legal tender in East Germany’ and ‘No piece of paper can be folded more than 7 times’.


China’s population onion (Source: NationMaster.com)

Wisdom from TV

I was half listening to the TV on the weekend and this is what I heard on the British show, ‘What not to wear‘:

You don’t make the clothes look bad — the clothes make you look bad.

I was flabbergasted. Of course! Here I was, feeling inadequate because I felt fat and ugly, but it’s all the clothes’ fault!

The truth of such a simple statement bowled me over.

Joan the Poser

In the January after the end of Year 12, I got a phone call from Herald Sun. The university offers were to be published in an early edition of the paper and for some reason, a journalist thought I would make a nice photo. I still don’t know how they got my number. Perhaps someone from my high school thought I was particularly photogenic.

The idea, the journalist explained, was to get a shot of me looking up at the Herald Sun printing presses, as those make-or-break editions of the paper were being churned out.

Mum and I were very excited. Together, we put together the perfect outfit — casual, young, unfussy but flattering. I wore my new pink Winnie-the-Pooh t-shirt and grey 3/4 length pants.

On the evening the university offers came out, mum and dad rushed to the newsagent and brought home the paper. We weren’t keen to see my offer, oh no, we were looking for my photo.

We flipped through the paper (cursory glance at my offer code, yeah, whatever, ho, engineering, what a surprise) then flipped through it again. Lots of photos of other earnest, smiling, casual-yet-elegant teenagers, but no Joan-amongst-the-printing-presses.

Disbelief! Betrayal! Disappointment.

From that moment onwards, I lost all respect for the Herald Sun. Not only do they publish populist, trivial, sensationalist, blatantly manipulative “news”, not only do they shelter Andrew Bolt, but they also hurt my feelings. Die, Herald Scum, die.

One day, I’ll be able to sell my soul

In our line of work, the most senior of the technical consultants are engaged by clients as expert witnesses in court cases and tribunals. We charge double time for this because it’s an extremely stressful job. Dr Peter, one of my mentors, is a world-acknowledged expert in his particular field of environmental work, yet on the witness stand, lawyers have attacked his credibility. Peter told me about one case where his client had a technically unassailable case, which the prosecution could not match. The prosecuting lawyer chose not to question the technical merits of the analysis and instead, proceeded to attack Peter’s professional and personal character. The aim was to cast doubt on Peter’s competency and integrity.

In the end, our client lost that case.

“Do you think this was fair? Did the judge choose the correct outcome?” I asked Peter.

He considered my question. “No,” he said after a while. “I don’t think it was the right decision.”

At work, there are sometimes flyers in the tea room advertising training workshops on how to be an expert witness. It really is something you have to train for. You have to learn to manoeuvre yourself out of the traps that are set for you. You have to know which laws and regulations to memorise. You have to learn to play a game you have no experience in.

Yesterday, I came across Intota, a website where you can hire expert witnesses in particular fields. For example, check out this expert in ‘Industrial Ventilation System Engineering for Dust and Vapor Control’. It seems like a useful service and maybe one day, I’ll be good enough to be an expert witness. The risk with this kind of thing is that maybe you can hire experts to say anything you want.

Her Royal Majesty, Joanium

I’m reading The Divine Right of Capital by Majorie Kelly, which is essentially a critique of the prevalent unquestioned self-evident truth that companies exist to profit shareholders. That is, for the majority of companies, the measure of success is how much wealth they generate for stockholders. And sometimes, it is necessary to trade in the welfare of employees, communities and the environment to achieve this aim.

I began reading this book with a certain level of hostility. In fact, I am still wary. I am wary because:

  1. Bloody hippies, kill them all.
  2. I am a shareholder and I’m not evil.
  3. I couldn’t imagine a different world, where society was arranged so that companies naturally delight in increasing community wealth, instead of being pressured to do it by regulators. (Okay, so now I’ve revealed myself for the right wing economic rationalist that I am. Yeah, that’s right. I’ve only been pretending to care about the environment and people and all that other crap.)

I haven’t converted or anything as wholesale as that but there was a turning point in my thinking in my early readings of the book. Ms Kelly seems to have anticipated my lack of imagination. She says approximately, “Once upon a time, the aristocratic class lived off the productivity of peasants, while contributing nothing themselves. It seems ludicrous now but in those times, it was simply the natural order of things. Some people were closer to God than others. How could it be any different? In much the same way, we accept that the only way companies can work [innovate, be productive, compete] is when they’re driven to generate profits for shareholders, who really contribute nothing to the productivity of companies.”

This was a useful analogy for me, not because I was convinced that shareholders are modern day aristocrats (read: societal deadweight) but I was suddenly able to conceive that truths and foundations that seem self-evident now may not be self-evident and essential in some future.

Boing!

As I read further, I started thinking about these rich young (or old) things, canny investors, people who caught the wave and are so invested up that they can live off their passive income (dividends, rent, interest etc.). They drive around in their Porches, hop between holiday homes, may choose to work or choose to play golf depending on the weather. In all the investment books that I’ve read, this is the ultimate goal, right? “Make your money work for you!” they cry. It’s what the smart people do. It’s what I’ve been trying to do ‘coz I’m a smart person.

Now I’m thinking, “Is this fair? Is this desirable? How can there be people who live so comfortably off other people’s labour without having to contribute to the community? Are these the new aristocrats?”

And that makes me uneasy because maybe I am evil after all.

What should I do? Do I stop investing? Stop buying shares that produce dividends? Stop putting my money in the bank? Should I live on my salary alone? Isn’t that really stupid? If the system’s there, why not educate myself and use it to my advantage? If I think it is unethical, can I protest the system with the left corner of my mouth while telling my stockbroker to ‘buy buy buy’ with the right corner of my mouth?

I don’t know. I don’t know.

Snakes and ladders

We’ve been discussing this theory, first introduced to me by my friend, Ajay. It is a model for the differences between the way males and females separate “friends” and “potential mates”. We’ll limit the discussion to heterosexual relationships for simplicity — I don’t know how it may apply to gay relationships.

According to the model, girls have two “ladders”, one to rank male friends, the other to rank male potentials. When she meets a new boy, she will put him on one of the ladders. As she gets to know the boy, he may have the opportunity to move up some rungs.

So a boy makes the effort to get closer to a girl he’s interested in. He thinks, “This is great! I’m moving up the ladder!”, and when he thinks that he’s in a good position, he makes all the right moves. But BAM! He is crushed to discover that he’s on the wrong ladder. (Or, as Ajay puts it, the girl has been getting the benefits of a confidant and companion but the boy will not get the *ahem* physical benefits of a relationship)

The persistent boy tries to make the leap from the “friends” ladder to the “potential” ladder. Be careful, though! Too many boys who have attempted this manouevre have fallen into the black Abyss between ladders. Also, when leaping from one ladder to the other, even if you make it, you invariably land on a rung lower than your previous position. How frustrating.

The model goes on to say that boys have only one ladder — all girls are “potentials”. You just need to be on a high enough rung.

Now, I’ve just made some sweeping generalisations here. Maybe there is a kernal of truth or two. Maybe boys themselves will tell me so. But I’m sure some of my more complex (that is, not simple) male friends have at least two ladders. I cannot imagine how it could be otherwise.

Today, I found out that one of my engineering friends actually does a double degree with psychology. I presented this theory to him and he was delighted. We tried to apply the model to hypothetical situations.

“Meng, what would you do if the girl at the very top of your “potentials” ladder shows no interest but someone a few rungs lower is chasing you? Do you keep chasing your dream girl?”

“Well, Joan, if the boy is smart, he’ll use this opportunity. He should spend some “quality time” with the lower girl. This will definitely catch the attention of the top girl. Jealousy is a powerful motivator!”

HAHAHAHA, that’s brilliant! I love it. Thanks, Meng.