Tomato cactus

After 3 more years of experience...

2010-10-21T11:22:00.004+09:00

(Draft: the following brain fart may be incoherent)

After 3 more years of experience* in various companies and industries, I've come to realize that the amount of money you make depends on how well you bullshit. :)

No, seriously: the best leaders, whether CEO or salesmen, have to be extremely strong at selling themselves -- their ideas, their style, their way of doing things. One can succeed as a silent, but competent worker only up to a certain level**. But beyond that level, one battles for the top with one's communication skills, a.k.a. bullshit.

What does it take to learn to bullshit?

First, not anyone can learn to bullshit. Communication skills are often misunderstood as skills that can be simply picked up, like learning to ride a bike or use a spreadsheet. This is not true. Turning from a bad communicator into a good communicator involves throwing away shyness, fidgeting, and impatience, and adding in humor and style. One has to change into a different person if one wants to learn to communicate. Rather than 'learning to communicate', the phrase 'learning to bullshit' seems to capture the deeper essence.

Also, conversational skills are *completely different* from written skills. Both might use the same language as a medium, but while writing (this includes speech writing) involves organizing ideas and developing an individual flow, conversation means being able to merge one's own flow with another, and take turns leading and following until both sides grasp the subject (whether or not they agree is another matter). This is why a person who writes excellent satire may turn out to be a poor conversationalist; it takes exposure and experience to develop one's ability to bullshit.

Finally, one needs to know the importance of patience. Simply put, being impatient makes one look like an idiot. Being a good communicator involves being able to patiently listen and wait for the right time to add the right amount of bullshit. Prematurely making judgment based on weak assumptions would make one lose credibility. A skilled bullshitter would place assumptions into context, making them appear much more justified (whether or not proven to be correct in the future). On a more sincere note, many misunderstandings can be resolved by both sides being patient enough to listen to and understand each other's assumption.

[To be continued/reviewed]

**One can succeed as a silent, but competent worker only up to a certain level. I guess one could go silently all the way to the top by being a genius techie and a shrewd investor, but this would discount the social factor, by which a not-so-genius but well-connected and well-informed person would actually outperform the geniuses.

*After 3 more years of experience... Which reminds me, I marked my 10th year in the corporate world a few months ago. Come to think of it, my immediate boss actually got me a raise from the stingy management (which is what management is supposed to do -- minimize costs, maximize profits; I am listed down as a cost in their books). My raise was measly (corresponding to my lack of ability to bullshit). I'll have to put my insights into practice to be able to improve my career.

Apology to politicians

2008-02-25T00:04:00.006+09:00

I made a mistake in my previous post, about politicians having 'nothing but ambition.' Ambition is indeed a major requirement for politics, but a politician is actually a specialization of a salesman! Sales in itself is a formidable skill and forms the core of capitalism, and selling your image is the key to success in a democracy. Democracy and capitalism have an interesting relationship, don't you agree?

Now, back to washing the dishes...

Disclaimer: I have no formal training in economics, business and political theory. Please post a comment if you would like to correct me!

Why do some people make more money than others?

2007-07-08T00:11:00.001+09:00

I tried coming up with an answer to this using two orthogonal traits: talent and ambition. Note that in this article, I mean 'talent' to be 'effective talent', hence a talented but lazy person is classified as having effectively 'no talent'.

So here is the trait-scenario table I came up with to analyze various types of people:

Traits		Possible outcome
No talent, No ambition		Bum
Talent, No ambition		Overworked, underpaid
Talent, Ambition		Executive, Top specialist, Rock star
No talent, Ambition		Politician

Trait-Scenario Table No. 1: Talent and Ambition

Well, no offense to politicians, but most political systems require no other criterion for office, except ambition. Also, the table entries are in a 'P implies Q' relationship: it doesn't necessarily mean that politicians have nothing except ambition, but one can be a politician armed only with ambition and nothing else.

And bums do have tough luck. Because my notion of talent means 'effective talent', people who have have potential but have been unable to develop it are also inadvertently classified as having 'no talent'.

Furthermore, there are a lot of people with neither talent nor ambition who are well off; the above table does little to explain the world's distribution of wealth. So I decided to factor in the luck column for a somewhat better picture:

Traits	Tough luck	Lucky!
No talent, No ambition	Bum	ala Paris Hilton
Talent, No ambition	Overworked, underpaid	Paid enough, content
Talent, Ambition	'Almost' executive, 'almost' rock star, but never there	Executive, Top specialist, Rock star
No talent, Ambition	ala Al Gore	ala Bush

Trait-Scenario table No. 2: Talent, Ambition and Luck

Conventional wisdom would state that talent that fulfills our needs is rewarded. However, after looking at my trait-scenario tables, I have come under the impression that:

Talent is what the world needs, but luck and ambition are what the world rewards.

So sad.
Maybe I should come up with a less depressing model.
Or find happier thoughts about the current model.

Shinobazu Pond

2007-04-14T04:14:00.001+09:00

Here's a video from Ueno. I took it some time ago, but I just thought of posting it now :) I know nothing about taking videos, so please pardon the jitters.

The Egg Came First

2007-04-14T01:56:00.001+09:00

Hatched yesterday [GFDL]

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Everyone has their own theory, and no one agrees which is right. Anyway, I bring forward my most correct theory and plausible solution to the chicken-and-egg quandary.

If the first chicken were to mate with a proto-chicken, their offspring would consist of chickens, proto-chickens and hybrids, according to Mendelian genetics

The theory begins with the parents very first chicken. The parents of the first chicken, were by definition, not chickens (otherwise, their offspring wouldn't have been first anymore). These proto-chickens were evolutionary precursors to the first chicken and may have tasted much like chicken. By some combination or mutation, a proto-chicken couple laid the egg of what would be the first chicken. So see! The chicken egg came first, because its parents were not chickens!

Let us further explore the life of the first chicken. Who was his mate? The first chicken may have mated with a proto-chicken to sire a brood of chickens and proto-chickens. Or suppose the first chicken's parents laid several more eggs. Similar combinations or mutations among his siblings or cousins may have produced a second chicken, with whom he would have founded the Chicken dynasty.

And they were prosperous. And they lived long joyfully. Until the discovery of frying.

Saitamakenistan

2006-11-01T00:52:00.001+09:00

Inspired by comrade Borat, I would like to show how much I appreciate my adoptive land.

Good night!

Edit: Ok, I suddenly got camera-shy.

Rivers of MUD

2006-09-13T16:00:00.001+09:00

Farewell, rom.org. Alas, all good things must come to an end.

Picasso

2006-05-12T13:58:00.001+09:00

One of Picasso's less cubic works

I came across this quote:

I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it.
- Pablo Picasso

So that explains his strange paintings... he really couldn't paint!

What English slang do I speak?

2006-02-18T04:04:00.001+09:00

I'm mostly friggin aussie! and also a quarter of everything else.

Your Slanguage Profile

Aussie Slang: 75%

British Slang: 25%

Canadian Slang: 25%

New England Slang: 25%

Prison Slang: 25%

Southern Slang: 25%

Victorian Slang: 25%

What Slanguage Do You Speak?
(link to blogthings.com)

Summer photo

2006-02-18T03:01:00.001+09:00

Bleeding cold today!

Good thing I came across this 5-year-old photo on my disc drive. I took this and a pile of other plant-and-asphalt pics on a particularly torrid day. Philippine greenery never looked so good.
I feel warmer already.

Tea plants in Saitama

2006-02-13T02:09:00.001+09:00

Guess who's frolicking in the snow?
It's not me.

Ducks everywhere!

2006-02-13T01:55:00.001+09:00

I never would have guessed what I would run into while exploring Tokyo.
One afternoon I decided to go find a grocery store that carried cheap cereal bars and nuts. I recalled Ameyoko (アメ横), a silly truncation of 'American' and 'yoko,' which I think means 'side'. Ameyoko is a mesh of alleys stretching between Ueno and Okachimachi stations, crowded with bargain and not-so-bargain shops.
Anyway, instead of shopping straightaway, I decided to get some air and walk through the park. And then... whoa!!! I splashed upon an entire population of quacks, in a huge pond, in the middle of the city.
I guess it's duck city for them, too.

Season Letters

2005-10-14T00:30:00.001+09:00

Did you notice?

winter
spring
summer
autumn

season

all have 6 letters :D

Are tomatoes evil?

2005-07-31T05:40:00.001+09:00

Red tomato, public domain.

I hated tomatoes. As a child, I had rejected all vegetables, regarding them distasteful, to be eaten only as punishment. My first act of betrayal was when I was 10 years old: at a party, I had a careful helping of some strange spaghetti, not with the usual cheese and meat sauce, but in a light sauce of olive oil, garlic and spices with tomatoes curiously fried whole. The spaghetti lacking meat, I begrudged the host for his inconsideration towards young carnivores. Though I was hungry, I avoided the tomatoes, until halfway though my plate I accidentally bit into one, thereby making the startling discovery that evening: fried tomatoes are scrumptious!

Since then I have relished the slices of tomato in my salads and hamburgers, and I have enjoyed tomatoes fresh, fried, or as catsup. I have even made it mandatory that my grilled porkchops be served with sliced tomatoes, to my gastronomical delight.

Deadly nightshade berries. Photo under the GFDL License.

Understandably, there has been a pervasive belief that tomatoes are evil. The plant belongs to same family as of the deadly nightshade, known to be one of the most poisonous herbs. Introduced by Spain in the 1500's from the New World, people were suspicious of the tomato, considering it poisonous, and even regarding it as the forbidden fruit from the Garden of Eden. It was only in the 18th or 19th century that tomatoes became popular in households. Its sinister reputation remains till present, with an entire website tomatoesareevil.com out to warn the world about the deceiving fruit (or is it a vegetable?).

Cranach, "The Fall of Man" 16th century.

It is easy to understand how some people think that something so good could be irredeemably evil (although I would prefer to speculate that the author of tomatoesareevil.com had been traumatized by The Attack of the Killer Tomatoes at a tender age). Fruit or vegetable, the tomato will always be welcome to my digestive tract.

1. Aside from deadly nightshade, other poisonous plants may be of interest to the reader.
2. The Italian word for tomato, pomodoro, sounds like the French pomme d'or, or "apple of gold": a possible allusion to the forbidden fruit of Eden [it may have come from pomme d'amour, "apple of love"].
3. The scientific genus of tomato, Lycopersicon, sounds a bit like the family Lycosidae, wolf spiders.
4. Being 10 years old, I had no idea that the "spaghetti" was actually angel hair pasta.