my journal 2

[Yamato]

Even today, even from work, I did some more math exercises:



It's almost becoming fun. I mean, it's fun to succeed. I don't care if they're easy. Actually math is meant to be easy. If it's not easy, it means you haven't mastered it.

By now I have answered about 2000 math questions. Yeah, because every one of the 118 exercises done here (at khanacademy.org) had 10 or more questions, so here alone I've answered 1180 or more questions, plus all those exercises I did elsewhere. This is a real academy. Better than any other math course.

In the meanwhile, no news from any prospective investors. It's unbelievable.

Some, that got away with my systems.

And the others, who were all super interested in investing in my systems, have all turned them down, one by one, during the past few weeks, in this order:

1) the american server-running friend who said he wanted to give me 100k
2) my father, who was offering about 50k
3) the guy from rome, who had mentioned 500k

It really makes me laugh. And so I am forward-testing my systems, all by myself, on my nice little peaceful server.

It seems that there's really a trend for people to say things much more easily than doing them.

Now I am waiting for the last investor, some dude from sardinia, whom I argue with each time we speak.

The truth is not that the equity curve has scared these guys. The truth is more like this: they offered help/capital when they knew i didn't need it. Even if I had accepted at the time, they would have changed their mind very quickly. People have a habit of offering help once they have assessed that their help is not likely to be needed/accepted.

We're always offering things to our rich and self-sufficient friends and relatives. Then, if five minutes later we meet a homeless in the street, we're not going to say "hey, if you need anything, let me know". It's amazing how much we deceive ourselves into thinking that we're good and generous just because we keep offering help to those who don't need it. Then you ask people, and they'll tell you that the homeless guy is faking it and he's actually rich.

 

[Yamato]

back home

Back home. I can't believe I am still alive. But I am thinking, therefore I am alive.

I will do some math now.

 

[Nonameo]

Re: back home

I will do some math now.

Khan Academy is one of the best sites on the internet.

 

[Yamato]

I am glad you agree with me, and with bill gates, who funded it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khan_Academy

The Khan Academy is a not-for-profit[1] educational organization, created in 2006 by Bangladeshi American[2] educator Salman Khan, a graduate of MIT. With the stated mission of "providing a high quality education to anyone, anywhere", the website supplies a free online collection of more than 2,600 micro lectures via video tutorials stored on YouTube teaching mathematics, history, finance, physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, economics and computer science...

 

[Yamato]

Ok, I might take a break for today. Here's how far i got:



Now I have to go to one of those dumb damn dinners, to some neighbours, who are friends with a former neighbour. She's boring, the former neighbour, they're boring, tired, almost asleep, I have to pay for everyone, and everyone is focused on how beautiful their child is, throughout the evening. Why am I going? I don't know. It's probably the last time I will ever go. They are a dumb retarded crowd. And to say that the husband is a physicist/engineer building robots that go on mars and similar. The conversation with them is utterly boring. Well, the two ladies are dumb as hell. He's sleepy each time I meet him.

Ella Fitzgerald / Easy to love - YouTube

Ella Fitzgerald - Embraceable You - YouTube

Jesus... let's just pretend it's something i have to do to rest my eyes. There is no other point in doing it. No point whatsoever in meeting these boring stupid retarded people.

 

[Yamato]

Done.



I have less than 50% to go. It should be getting easier from here on.

Regarding that goddamn sardinian investor, he is missing, too. 4 out of 4 investors have really sucked. All disappeared. This last one is really pissing me off, because he didn't just say "no". He said he was interested, but he's not even replying on skype. What a waste of time. So I guess I'll just have to count on my own money. I might start taking the bus, and invest the money I spend on taxis.

 

[Yamato]

The sardinian investor actually got in touch with me a few hours ago. He is still interested. We talked for 2 hours and he offered me all sorts of deals and ideas, and I will probably start doing something with them.

So far the most probable thing I'll do is create systems based on their ideas, and we'll trade those systems, because he says his partner is not ok with trading my systems without seeing the code, which I will not show to anyone ever again. I also said I won't let him have access to the server. They'll have the code, they will see the trades, but not directly on the server, because I want to add the new systems to my file with the existing systems.

I might as well do this. It's something that'll keep me busy and it might be profitable. It's not ideal, but it's better than nothing. Furthermore, this guy is somewhat disrespectful.

 

[Yamato]

weekly update

More money made this week. We stopped trading precisely at the bottom of the equity line:



That was on september 26th. Our last day of trading. A month and a half ago. Been forward-testing since then. While doing math.

Today a lot of videos await me. I got to a point where I can't do any more exercises without watching the videos first.

For the next 100 exercises I will have to watch one video per exercise. This will slow me down considerably.

 

[Yamato]

salman khan explains the Gambler's fallacy

Probability (part 2) - YouTube

At minute 5:30, Salman Khan gives a nice answer to the usual doubt/question about a coin being due for a tails after a big streak of heads:

"completely independent"

"it's not like the coin knows..."

In fact, the probability of getting 2 heads in a row is equal to 1/2 times 1/2, or (1/2)^2, or 1/4. And if you join the game at the third toss, the probability of getting heads is, once again 1/2, because the other two have already happened. At least that is the way I can conceive this right now. If instead I were to bet on the series of three heads happening, from the start, then I would have not 1/2 but (1/2)^3 probabilities of getting that result. In other words, as the heads keep happening, that result becomes more and more probable.

1) before rolling it is 1/8
2) after getting one heads it is 1/4
3) after getting two heads it is 1/2

That explains it to me. At the start you have 1/8, but at the last coin toss you have 1/2 probabilities of achieving a series of 3 heads.

Wikipedia does a good job as well:
Gambler's fallacy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For example, if a fair coin is tossed repeatedly and tails comes up a larger number of times than is expected, a gambler may incorrectly believe that this means that heads is more likely in future tosses.[2]. Such an expectation could be mistakenly referred to as being due, and it probably arises from everyday experiences with nonrandom events (such as when a scheduled train is late, where it can be expected that it has a greater chance of arriving the later it gets). This is an informal fallacy. It is also known colloquially as the law of averages.

It's great how at the end of the video above (last 30 seconds), Salman says that if there's a room with 128 people, one person will get a series of 7 heads, another one will get a series of 7 tails, and they might think that today is their lucky day and that they should go to Vegas, but they would be wrong, and then Salman concludes that "probability can often play with our brains".

This is quite related to trading, and to how you feel after a losing streak.

 

[Yamato]

100,000 views

Nice round number coming up soon: 100,000 views for my journal.



It will probably happen today. This, too, has to do with math, and statistics in particular. It also has to do with literature, writing, honesty, persistence... all things that went into my journal.

 

[Yamato]

One more exercise and I'll be done with math for today...

[...]



You know, I don't think there's a future for a relationship with the sardinian investor. He's busy doing too many things at once. Nothing good will come out of this relationship. The sardinian investor is also too stupid among the other things.

I think the future for my trading, if any, is all in my hands. I will probably need to either get money from my dad or stop taking cabs for a few months. Then I'll restart with my own money. Everyone is willing to give me capital when I don't need it and when I already have it. Few instead are willing to do the same when I need it. Even fewer (practically no one) are willing to give me capital with reasonable conditions (that is, without seeing my systems from the start).

 

[Yamato]

Wow. I am not the type of person who likes babies, but this time I have to admit this child is a pleasure to look at:

Wow It's mom, but I'm sleepy (

Two minutes of a beautiful movie. No plot, nothing really happening. But a great little movie. I can keep watching this over and over again. It almost hypnotizes me.

Child wakes up, smiles at mom, goes back to sleep. Then does it again, over and over. It could easily put me to sleep.

 

[Yamato]

Ok, I ended up doing some more exercises:

 

[Yamato]

i am in trouble and discouraged

On all fronts, I am feeling very discouraged.

Of the four investors who had recently told me that whenever I'd be free (from the previous investors) they'd be interested, only one turned out to be actually interested (sardinian guy) and he's an idiot, he's unreliable, and it is a waste of time to deal with him. Let alone the disappointment with the previous investors, with my dad, with the american and with the other italian. I am basically all alone now. I'll have to start taking the subway so I can gather some savings, and even then who knows what good will come of it, given that i'll be undercapitalized, forever. But guess what. Probably i am not even willing to do that (taking the subway). So i'll just keep forward-testing my systems.

As far as my math exercises, they were all a pleasure, easy and quick, until i got done with the first 100 of them. Now for example I have come across one probability exercise that's really troubling me. I can't understand it and I don't have the patience/intelligence to listen to the lecture explaining how to do it:
Dependent probability | Khan Academy

Probability of Dependent Events 2 - YouTube

As far as my meeting friends to stop being depressed, I did it. I met a former girlfriend, and a friend from college. The friend from college yesterday nearly destroyed my wooden floor, by dropping a pistachio shell on it (he's careless) and walking all over it. I can't stand to host this idiot. I won't do it again. I don't give a **** if I get depressed. He's not setting foot in this house again. This is the same guy who was supposed to come on vacation with me, and only wanted to bring 150 euros with him, for a two-weeks long vacation.

Only good part right now is work, where I am getting along with everyone. I guess it's because you can't really argue if you're depressed, so I am giving them a break. Same reason why I didn't tell my monkey friend to not do a lot of things he shouldn't have been doing. But the fact that I can't argue doesn't keep me from staying away from him. Actually let me go delete his cell phone right now. No wait: I won't do it. Otherwise there will be a cycle of getting in touch with him every 3 months. Let's keep his number and tell him: no pistachios, no drinks, no monkey in my house. Other than that we can be friends. Provided he doesn't set foot into my house.

No, seriously. i was depressed for weeks, and this guy has cured me. Now I am raging. I have successfully gone from being depressed to being upset. And now I can be by myself again. He has ruined my wooden floor with his stupidity and disrespect, and I don't have to deal with him again, because I'll stay pissed off for a few months now. No danger of being depressed for a while.

So. I'll avoid the monkey. It'll save me some money, too. And I'll do math. I can't get worse. I'll keep on swimming my way around that probability exercise until i'll finally be able to tackle it. If khan understands it, then i can, too. Probably he skipped some steps in explaining it, and that is why I am lost. Or maybe I skipped some videos, and that is why I am lost.

Once again, my motto is "**** them all". So i guess when I am feeling like saying "**** them all" it means I am in an ok mood. Which of course doesn't mean my judgment is ok. It just means my mood is ok. Which doesn't mean I am not heading for disaster. But I am in a good mood. That's all. Or rather a "not-desperate mood".

 

[Yamato]

All right. Done some math:

 

[Yamato]

Did some more math:

 

[Yamato]

Done more:

 

[Yamato]

excel 2003 rules, excel 2007 sucks

Just a quick post to say that excel 2007 really sucks and all programmers involved in it should be ashamed of themselves. What am I saying: the whole office 2007 sucks as far as the menus, which are the most important part of the programs.

And I am not the only person who's thinking this way:
Office 2007 (PC) Sucks! [Archive] - MacRumors Forums

 

[Yamato]

tough day at work

It was a tough day. They tried to overload me with work. I refused. I told him I am not his slave, to some guy who was giving me too much work. There's no way I'm going to do everyone's work while they're all on a long almost uninterrupted series of coffee breaks.

Some more math done today.

 

[Yamato]

despite all I've been thinking...

Despite the sad thoughts I've been going through, I still have not found the resolve to make success happen. I still seem to live as if I were immortal, and as if I could afford to take it easy, and play it safe, and take my time.

All it would require is some capital, which is not hard to get. If I don't spend money on cabs and similar, I could set aside as much as 1000 dollars per month. But what am I doing instead? I am spending it on cabs and pills.

Why?

It bothers me to take the subway, and travel close to all other humans. In two months of subway i could easily save enough to get started again. But what do I do instead? I ride the cab. At least I got rid of restaurants, but it's still not enough to save any money.

I wonder what it will take me to find the resolve and determination necessary to do what it takes to make it happen. It'd be so easy.

Yeah, I am studying math, and did all the other work. But when all it takes is one more small sacrifice, what do i do? I behave like a prince. I feel like a prince and behave like a prince, but this doesn't allow me to save any money, thereby postponing my real-money trading, and every other hope I had.

I wonder if I'll grow up and mature enough to take the step of riding in the subway. Right now I feel almost ashamed of it. As if it were a shame to be seen in the subway. In fact it might well be, given that everyone at work knows by now that I go by cab. It's almost a status symbol for me.

I basically pretend I am wealthy instead of working at being wealthy. I postpone my wealth by showing off wealth. How much of a big deal would it be to take the subway for two months? My father even takes it. Dozens of thousands of dollars gone into paying taxis. I almost do not know how to explain it, how to explain this to myself. I guess I am totally worried about appearance, despite denying it.

We'll see what happens. If the desire for real success tomorrow will be stronger than the desire to appear successful today, if the desire for freedom tomorrow will be stronger than the desire for a small comfort today.

My father always preached to me the need to earn things, and he always blamed me for taking the easy way. Without having to analyze the reasons, he might have a point. It might have been a self-fulfilling prophecy though, because he kept discouraging me while solving all my problems, as if he said "you can't do it, because you suck, so let me do it for you". Anyway, right now the situation is clear and it is that I am not willing to give up on taxis for two months in order to make my dream come true.

For some reason... without meaning to blame me or anyone else, for some reason I am not willing to do such a small thing, or that seems so small, for the sake of something which seems so important.

We'll see what'll happen, and what changes I will go through in my mind. For sure, a lot of expectations and assumptions have been proven wrong in the last few years.

If i won't give up on cabs, I'll at least try to compensate by studying math.