After the George Floyd killing and backlash over his killing, America exploded in protests that sprang up in seemingly every major city, starting obviously in Minneapolis (now famous for the looting of a Target store) and spreading around the country from New York City to Chicago, Los Angeles, Portland, Washington D.C. (I'm just naming the ones where I saw notably raucous behavior on live feeds Friday night). It was compounded by the Lousville protests over the death of Breonna Taylor, which happened in March but is just as tragic as George Floyd's story, as Taylor was killed when police tried to enter her home due to suspicion of drug trafficking and Taylor got in the way of gunfire (unclear who fired first, someone inside the home that wasn't Breonna or the police, but this happens much too often regarding disputed stories and who shot whom and who fired whom).
I've never been part of a protest, I guess I'm not popular enough or well connected enough, or more likely, just not overly passionate about one particular cause to join in a protest. I certainly have witnessed them plenty, having lived in various cities in my life. The closest I was to joining an organized event was the 2017 Woman's March (after Trump got elected) which looped around Chicago's downtown. I also see plenty of teacher's strikes, worker's strikes, and a union protest outside the building I worked at in downtown L.A. in which the building seemed to entered into a dispute over hiring of certain groups of security guards (unclear). The point is, there are a lot of protests around the US, and around the world, although I'm not sure how effective they are. They certainly are a show of how many people feel a certain way about an issue, which is significant in itself, much like President Obama used to say he would read any petition signed by 100,000 people or more. Hopefully the protests are civil and peaceful, leading to nobody getting hurt or worse, dying, but apparently there have already been deaths resulting from the George Floyd protests, which just exacerbates a sad situation. I don't blame protesters for being mad; they are upset about a long string of cases of police brutality (I'm not sure about racism in some of the cases but am sure that there has been some abuse of police power, especially towards black people) in what is one of the most emotional issues for POC (people of color- I learned this today).
MJ reminds me that Korea seems to have effective protests, for example the Candlelight demonstration (촛불혁명) of 2016-2017 demanding the removal of office of President Park, then the Korean president. There were large groups of demonstrators (up to 2.3 million on 12/3/2016, a record for protests in Korean, which only has 50 million people total) protested, notably with few police being hurt. A notably smaller group of people also protested FOR President Park. The Korean protests seemed to have symbolic gestures like releasing yellow balloons and blowing out candles to send a message to President Park. America's most recent protests are more violent, intense, and dangerous in comparison, although they are dealing with a more emotional topic, race relations and murder of innocent people. Unfortunately for America, recent reports indicate that these protests extend an opportunity for looters to exploit the situation and ransack buildings, set fire, steal things from wherever they can, in the pretense of joining the cause. Some of the violence, though, is also general anger, as I saw some videos in various cities of ordinary citizens attacking police officers verbally and physically. Just a lot of anger, and a sense that things have gotten out of control in this country regarding race relations, so some citizens feel justified in taking it into their own hands, forgetting that the cops that they are attacking are not the ones who committed the heinous acts that they are protesting about, or that they are not attacking some leaders of the country who are making it worse.
Oh and this is all going on during a pandemic. Social distancing and stay-at-home policies have gone out the window. I applaud others to act and try to make change in the country, but I wonder if the protests that we've seen Friday night (and Saturday night as I'm writing this) have been effective in achieving those goals.
Saturday, May 30, 2020
Wednesday, May 27, 2020
Hot-Button Issue (논쟁의, 论争的, 異論のある)
Often times when I'm learning other languages, I learn about words in languages that I already know- this often happens in Chinese, where my overall vocabulary is not that high (I did not take the Chinese equivalent of the SAT's) and where there are hundreds of thousands of combinations of Chinese characters that become words. More rarely, though, I learn English words- like today, I was reminded of what "de facto" means- it's a bit tricky, but it's useful to contrast it with "de jure," which means by law, something is that way, but the law isn't always reality, and the reality of who someone is or what something is is "de facto," in fact.
In today's society, much more than when I was growing up, people have strong opinions on "hot- button issues" (hot button started out as a marketing term in 1970's America where advertisers would prompt users to hit a proverbial "button" to get them to react to products, or so the theory goes). Whether it's due to the rise of social media, or increased polarization in politics (the left and right grow further and further apart on issues, it's like 2 versions of the United States), and everyone having all the news right away and being able to express it right away, average citizens are more and more expressive about certain hot button issues. It's also partly because no one wants to read a measured response on Facebook exploring both sides and finding merit in each side's arguments, nope, people are much more likely to be "upvoted" or get "Likes" for short, to-the-point, clear-cut opinion on something hot-button (ironic that we now have buttons we "click" on to like or love posts that cause certain issues to become hot button because they get the most attention and rise to the top of the page due to algorithms. For example, today NASA was scheduled to broadcast the SpaceX launch for its seventh Starlink mission, but weather got in the way and it was postponed. This was pretty big news due to it being the first time in more than 10 years a mission would launch into space from US soil (think Apollo 13), but it's not hot-button: there are no divisions of thoughts or disagreements one can have about it: it's happening or it's not happening. The bigger news of the day, carried over from yesterday, was the George Floyd police killing in Minneapolis, where a black man was killed because a white police officer put his knee on his neck while making an arrest, denying him the ability to breath for several minutes and eventually causing Floyd to die.
Racial relations in this country is ALWAYS a hot-button topic because it's such human stories, where there are videos of killing and police brutality and crime, and has roots of white-black race relations that have haunted the U.S. since its inception of the country. Every time police brutality happens it's a tragedy, and recently they've frequently been recorded using smartphones and posted online right away, so there is immediate public outrage; almost everyone on Facebook will post their stance on it. a condemnation of the officers, and I feel there is inherent pressure to take a strong stance on it; almost as though NOT taking a stance is frowned upon, suggests apathy and tacit approval of the action. Having watched the video, the incident is hard to stomach. The officer on top of Floyd is pressing his knee on his neck consistently without even thinking about it, just casually, while onlookers tell the officers that Floyd may be in trouble, and Floyd also yelling out that he can't breathe. Unfathomable behavior by the officer, and this isn't the first time something like this has happened. I think EVERY one of these police killings is a tragedy, but I also feel it's overreaching to lump them all into one category and use it as a tool for one's arguments. There definitely is racism, explicit racism in this country. But lumping each tragedy into all racial crimes seems wrong to me. For sure, the officer who killed Floyd was right to be fired, and to be arrested and have charges pressed against him. However, certain posts like "send this man to prison now!" are a little too strong (evades the right to a trial afforded each person), and doesn't answer to me why this was a racial crime: did the white officer do this to Floyd only because he was black? Or because Floyd was a suspect in a minor crime? Does this officer do this to all suspects? Is he just a bad cop, regardless of what race of suspect he is dealing with? I've dealt with some good cops in my life, I've dealt with some bad cops, and the bad cops can be arrogant, seemingly on a power trip, and dismissive all the time, but I've never had any evidence to show that they were being racist, although I'm sure some are. These are questions that I thought would need to be answered before this got labeled a racial crime, and I think should be kept in mind when deciding what to do going forward and making officers aware in the future.
For example, today I was stopped in the streets while running by an African American man and asked "Let me ask you a question. How you gonna let a man lie on the ground and not be able to breathe, man?" The implicit reasoning that since I was Asian, I was somehow complicit in what the Asian American police officer in the video (his Caucasian partner was tacking George Floyd while he stood to the side watching) did. I don't want to diminish Floyd's death and compare his suffering to my suffering of being questioned on the street (not physically assaulted at all), but I do think these kind of incidents can trigger the wrong responses, of blaming people for deaths. For sure the Asian American officer did wrong as well, and deserves punishment in a court of law, but did he also do it because he is racist? Is it right to be racist towards me because of the reaction to these (maybe) racist actions? Doesn't seem like that hate should fuel more hate-filled reactions.
I'm learning as we go along to, and I admit to being wrong many times, and would love to learn about these hot-button issues.
In today's society, much more than when I was growing up, people have strong opinions on "hot- button issues" (hot button started out as a marketing term in 1970's America where advertisers would prompt users to hit a proverbial "button" to get them to react to products, or so the theory goes). Whether it's due to the rise of social media, or increased polarization in politics (the left and right grow further and further apart on issues, it's like 2 versions of the United States), and everyone having all the news right away and being able to express it right away, average citizens are more and more expressive about certain hot button issues. It's also partly because no one wants to read a measured response on Facebook exploring both sides and finding merit in each side's arguments, nope, people are much more likely to be "upvoted" or get "Likes" for short, to-the-point, clear-cut opinion on something hot-button (ironic that we now have buttons we "click" on to like or love posts that cause certain issues to become hot button because they get the most attention and rise to the top of the page due to algorithms. For example, today NASA was scheduled to broadcast the SpaceX launch for its seventh Starlink mission, but weather got in the way and it was postponed. This was pretty big news due to it being the first time in more than 10 years a mission would launch into space from US soil (think Apollo 13), but it's not hot-button: there are no divisions of thoughts or disagreements one can have about it: it's happening or it's not happening. The bigger news of the day, carried over from yesterday, was the George Floyd police killing in Minneapolis, where a black man was killed because a white police officer put his knee on his neck while making an arrest, denying him the ability to breath for several minutes and eventually causing Floyd to die.
Racial relations in this country is ALWAYS a hot-button topic because it's such human stories, where there are videos of killing and police brutality and crime, and has roots of white-black race relations that have haunted the U.S. since its inception of the country. Every time police brutality happens it's a tragedy, and recently they've frequently been recorded using smartphones and posted online right away, so there is immediate public outrage; almost everyone on Facebook will post their stance on it. a condemnation of the officers, and I feel there is inherent pressure to take a strong stance on it; almost as though NOT taking a stance is frowned upon, suggests apathy and tacit approval of the action. Having watched the video, the incident is hard to stomach. The officer on top of Floyd is pressing his knee on his neck consistently without even thinking about it, just casually, while onlookers tell the officers that Floyd may be in trouble, and Floyd also yelling out that he can't breathe. Unfathomable behavior by the officer, and this isn't the first time something like this has happened. I think EVERY one of these police killings is a tragedy, but I also feel it's overreaching to lump them all into one category and use it as a tool for one's arguments. There definitely is racism, explicit racism in this country. But lumping each tragedy into all racial crimes seems wrong to me. For sure, the officer who killed Floyd was right to be fired, and to be arrested and have charges pressed against him. However, certain posts like "send this man to prison now!" are a little too strong (evades the right to a trial afforded each person), and doesn't answer to me why this was a racial crime: did the white officer do this to Floyd only because he was black? Or because Floyd was a suspect in a minor crime? Does this officer do this to all suspects? Is he just a bad cop, regardless of what race of suspect he is dealing with? I've dealt with some good cops in my life, I've dealt with some bad cops, and the bad cops can be arrogant, seemingly on a power trip, and dismissive all the time, but I've never had any evidence to show that they were being racist, although I'm sure some are. These are questions that I thought would need to be answered before this got labeled a racial crime, and I think should be kept in mind when deciding what to do going forward and making officers aware in the future.
For example, today I was stopped in the streets while running by an African American man and asked "Let me ask you a question. How you gonna let a man lie on the ground and not be able to breathe, man?" The implicit reasoning that since I was Asian, I was somehow complicit in what the Asian American police officer in the video (his Caucasian partner was tacking George Floyd while he stood to the side watching) did. I don't want to diminish Floyd's death and compare his suffering to my suffering of being questioned on the street (not physically assaulted at all), but I do think these kind of incidents can trigger the wrong responses, of blaming people for deaths. For sure the Asian American officer did wrong as well, and deserves punishment in a court of law, but did he also do it because he is racist? Is it right to be racist towards me because of the reaction to these (maybe) racist actions? Doesn't seem like that hate should fuel more hate-filled reactions.
I'm learning as we go along to, and I admit to being wrong many times, and would love to learn about these hot-button issues.
Sunday, May 24, 2020
Universal Basic Income (全民基本收入, 보편적 기본 소득, ユニバーサルベーシックインカム)
One of the most popular and often-discussed topics of the last few years in American politics has been UBI, or the concept of a universal basic income, most often espoused in Democratic Presidential candidate Andrew Yang's campaign proposals. $1,000 per month to every American adult, but he dropped out in January after the New Hampshire primary due to a lack of support. Little did he know that just a couple months later, the whole world would go into global pandemic and become a petri dish for examining the effects of universal basic income, as Congress passed a bill that gave $1,000 to every American citizen who made under $65,000 based on last year's tax returns (humble brag- I made more than that, but even I got a little money from the emergency federal stimulus). Of course, President Trump famously put his name on every check that was sent out, but (surprise!) I did not see that check because I had it direct deposited to my bank account. There was speculation that stimulus would not be the end of the checks to U.S. citizens, but so far no more has come trickling down. I'm not particularly surprised, as each $1,000 stimulus deal costs trillions for the government which is already heavily in debt and doing deficit spending, which will eventually have to catch up to any government sooner or later (look at Greece and a bunch of other European states!) but that kind of long-term thinking is way too far down the road for the immediate pandemic crisis.
That's one of the things I found somewhat flawed about the Yang UBI proposal: Every single adult got $1,000 a month, so it covers the people who most desperately need it, who are struggling to make ends meet every month, but it also covers Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and tons of millionaires and billionaires. Even me, I'm glad to get $1,000 per month on top of what I make, but I don't necessarily need it (for now, knock on wood) to pay my rent or to put food on the table, it would just be a bonus check, and I'm not sure I would feel richer and inject that money back into the economy immediately, which is part of Yang's theory, that UBI would pay for itself because the money gets spent right away and is circulated back into the economy. For people with higher incomes, that may not be the case as not only did those people not really need the money in the first place, they won't spend it. However, cutting off the UBI checks for people over a certain income threshold (like $50,000 a year) doesn't seem right, neither.....maybe a formula used like the recent coronavirus stimulus (for every $1,000 earned above $80,000, you take x amount out of your check for the month). Perhaps that could be a good middle ground.
Also the fact that it cost trillions of dollars to get one injection of $1,000 per adult, just imagine having to come up with that money every single month- that's like one of the heftiest rent agreements ever, to be paid by the U.S. government. And it's in perpetuity. Even if UBI does one day become a reality, it seems terribly costly and one of the first things that a new administration would consider repealing (like Trump trying to repeal Obamacare) in order to cut costs, etc. A heavily political divisive topic that despite math possibly proving that it could work, would be too difficult politically to pull off in this country, unfortunately (and that's one of the reasons people complain that nothing ever gets done in this country).
Another stimulus measure similar to UBI has been the increase in unemployment benefits in certain states. In CA, for workers who were laid off/ lost their jobs since March 15, California EDD (Employment Development Department) , through the federal government's provision in the CARES act, called pandemic unemployment compensation, started giving out $600 a week for each week of unemployment on TOP of the normal $400+ they usually give out. That's a really big step, much bigger than the federal stimulus's $1000 one-time hit, because this is WEEKLY. That means more than $1000+ WEEKLY, not monthly. On top of that, CA is currently not requiring that people continue to look for work during this pandemic, so on the unemployment application they expressly tell the applicant to "answer honestly," because it doesn't matter if you're looking for work or not, they will approve the application anyway. This seems like an example of how UBI can go too extreme, where a worker is getting paid about a $27/ hour wage NOT to work during this pandemic (the special benefits run out in July, for now). There are plenty of stories now about people just sitting at home, not looking for work (even if there was work out there) and just taking in the benefits, because some jobs (many jobs, in fact) don't pay $27/hour (given a 40-hour week). I know my first job out of law school was for $23/ hour at a small law firm. If I was given the option to work back then for that rate or just sit at home, I would seriously consider just being at home and enhancing my career by studying or something. UBI can fail, it seems, if the basic income is too high, and we're already seeing that play out in CA (that is, of course, if you can even get your application filed and start receiving benefits, which has been very difficult for some because the EDD phone line is constantly busy, can't get any customer service, and it takes them weeks to process a filed application.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
That's one of the things I found somewhat flawed about the Yang UBI proposal: Every single adult got $1,000 a month, so it covers the people who most desperately need it, who are struggling to make ends meet every month, but it also covers Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and tons of millionaires and billionaires. Even me, I'm glad to get $1,000 per month on top of what I make, but I don't necessarily need it (for now, knock on wood) to pay my rent or to put food on the table, it would just be a bonus check, and I'm not sure I would feel richer and inject that money back into the economy immediately, which is part of Yang's theory, that UBI would pay for itself because the money gets spent right away and is circulated back into the economy. For people with higher incomes, that may not be the case as not only did those people not really need the money in the first place, they won't spend it. However, cutting off the UBI checks for people over a certain income threshold (like $50,000 a year) doesn't seem right, neither.....maybe a formula used like the recent coronavirus stimulus (for every $1,000 earned above $80,000, you take x amount out of your check for the month). Perhaps that could be a good middle ground.
Also the fact that it cost trillions of dollars to get one injection of $1,000 per adult, just imagine having to come up with that money every single month- that's like one of the heftiest rent agreements ever, to be paid by the U.S. government. And it's in perpetuity. Even if UBI does one day become a reality, it seems terribly costly and one of the first things that a new administration would consider repealing (like Trump trying to repeal Obamacare) in order to cut costs, etc. A heavily political divisive topic that despite math possibly proving that it could work, would be too difficult politically to pull off in this country, unfortunately (and that's one of the reasons people complain that nothing ever gets done in this country).
Another stimulus measure similar to UBI has been the increase in unemployment benefits in certain states. In CA, for workers who were laid off/ lost their jobs since March 15, California EDD (Employment Development Department) , through the federal government's provision in the CARES act, called pandemic unemployment compensation, started giving out $600 a week for each week of unemployment on TOP of the normal $400+ they usually give out. That's a really big step, much bigger than the federal stimulus's $1000 one-time hit, because this is WEEKLY. That means more than $1000+ WEEKLY, not monthly. On top of that, CA is currently not requiring that people continue to look for work during this pandemic, so on the unemployment application they expressly tell the applicant to "answer honestly," because it doesn't matter if you're looking for work or not, they will approve the application anyway. This seems like an example of how UBI can go too extreme, where a worker is getting paid about a $27/ hour wage NOT to work during this pandemic (the special benefits run out in July, for now). There are plenty of stories now about people just sitting at home, not looking for work (even if there was work out there) and just taking in the benefits, because some jobs (many jobs, in fact) don't pay $27/hour (given a 40-hour week). I know my first job out of law school was for $23/ hour at a small law firm. If I was given the option to work back then for that rate or just sit at home, I would seriously consider just being at home and enhancing my career by studying or something. UBI can fail, it seems, if the basic income is too high, and we're already seeing that play out in CA (that is, of course, if you can even get your application filed and start receiving benefits, which has been very difficult for some because the EDD phone line is constantly busy, can't get any customer service, and it takes them weeks to process a filed application.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
Wednesday, May 20, 2020
Layoffs (해고, リストラ, 裁员)
So little time, so many ways of saying "layoffs" and "being let go" in all languages. Even in English, there's a handful of ways to describe one of the most traumatic events in life: being terminated at your work, the awful realization that you are no longer employed. "Got canned," "packed my stuff, "laid off" all come to mind, except there are slight differences between being terminated for personal performance issues as opposed to "mass layoffs" as part of a company-wide cost-cutting measure. All the Asian languages have various ways to say it too, including getting "necked" in Japanese (probably similar to losing one's head in the olden days), "restructured" (リストラ) which is like the ultimate euphemism depicting a company's need to restructure its personnel structure. And the Chinese provide imagery as to how much of a small fish in a big pond the average employee is, as being let go is called "frying squid"(抄魷魚). apparently the story with squid is that people used to live on site at the factory they worked at and used quilts and blankets as a place to sleep, which they would have to roll up when they were let go, which looked like rolling up an octopus. What these terms all have in common is that the employee is not quitting or voluntarily leaving, it's a forced termination, and usually quite unexpected, leaving the employee a little shell-shocked and not knowing what to do next.
Currently in the legal industry (and a whole lot of other industries around the job world), lawyers are being laid off at big firms and in-house legal departments due to the lack of work from the onset of the coronavirus (clients delaying their cases, not paying their legal fees, rethinking the litigation or merger and acquisition they were planning on due to changing business needs), so the situation has become quite similar to 2009-2011 when I was in law school: lack of demand for lawyers, lawyers with no work to do and unable to bill enough hours, thus firms being unable to justify their cost and having to "restructure" them. It's a sad and unfortunate situation compounded by the fact that almost law firms are facing the same situation, so being laid off doesn't mean you will find a job and get right back on your feet soon, it's usually a lengthy delay to wait for the economy and the legal industry itself to turn around, and some people just leave the entire field entirely! Suddenly one's entire work routine is obviated, all contacts with co-workers and bosses severed, and worst, NO MORE HEALTH INSURANCE! Certainly I'm not trying to garner sympathy or pity for lawyers where many people are suffering much worse financially whereas lawyers hopefully have saved up some money during their time separating clients from their wealth, but that is a big discrepancy to go from making big law-figure salary to making zero. (Hopefully they got a severance package?)
I've been laid off more than once or twice in my life. Luckily for me, I'm used to it, and my initial expectation on the jobs I begin is not to work forever at that company, it's whenever I am no longer needed. I don't take getting laid off that hard, but then again I am in the unique position to be able to start the next job pretty quickly. I am, in many respects, like those workers rolling up their quilts at the factory, I don't think I do the usual desk decorations like putting family pictures up, getting my own orthopedic chair to improve my sitting posture (although, that's not a bad idea as I'm getting older, and I've always slouched).
Layoff could be a good opportunity to do something new! Learn a new language, start a blog, start a Youtube channel, start a vegan diet, I've done 2 of those things during this lockdown already. I think layoffs are indicative of the working world in the 21st century: Not always working at one company for one's whole life, and changing careers sometime midway through one's working life. MJ's already done it once; I've been lucky enough to not have had to change careers yet after 9 years of working in it, but it's definitely possible especially if my line of work gets replaced by automation/ computers (always possible for many jobs out there). That's why I go on reddit often to look up "what jobs do people have and how fast can you obtain them?" just to get some new ideas and look at the shiny toys that other people have, as the grass always looks greener in those other careers. Then I'll look at people who I knew in high school/ college who became (theoretically, on paper) more successful than me ("Always compare yourself to people better than you, not worse than you!" my parents always told young Robert when he complained about comparisons to family friends' children) and see that they've already weathered the long, steep climb to become a doctor and is a resident (fill-in-scientific-term-here)-ologist at a (pretty desirable location, usually urban city) hospital and I think what many people probably think when they look back and regret the college major they chose instead of biology," Ah, should have become a doctor."
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
Currently in the legal industry (and a whole lot of other industries around the job world), lawyers are being laid off at big firms and in-house legal departments due to the lack of work from the onset of the coronavirus (clients delaying their cases, not paying their legal fees, rethinking the litigation or merger and acquisition they were planning on due to changing business needs), so the situation has become quite similar to 2009-2011 when I was in law school: lack of demand for lawyers, lawyers with no work to do and unable to bill enough hours, thus firms being unable to justify their cost and having to "restructure" them. It's a sad and unfortunate situation compounded by the fact that almost law firms are facing the same situation, so being laid off doesn't mean you will find a job and get right back on your feet soon, it's usually a lengthy delay to wait for the economy and the legal industry itself to turn around, and some people just leave the entire field entirely! Suddenly one's entire work routine is obviated, all contacts with co-workers and bosses severed, and worst, NO MORE HEALTH INSURANCE! Certainly I'm not trying to garner sympathy or pity for lawyers where many people are suffering much worse financially whereas lawyers hopefully have saved up some money during their time separating clients from their wealth, but that is a big discrepancy to go from making big law-figure salary to making zero. (Hopefully they got a severance package?)
I've been laid off more than once or twice in my life. Luckily for me, I'm used to it, and my initial expectation on the jobs I begin is not to work forever at that company, it's whenever I am no longer needed. I don't take getting laid off that hard, but then again I am in the unique position to be able to start the next job pretty quickly. I am, in many respects, like those workers rolling up their quilts at the factory, I don't think I do the usual desk decorations like putting family pictures up, getting my own orthopedic chair to improve my sitting posture (although, that's not a bad idea as I'm getting older, and I've always slouched).
Layoff could be a good opportunity to do something new! Learn a new language, start a blog, start a Youtube channel, start a vegan diet, I've done 2 of those things during this lockdown already. I think layoffs are indicative of the working world in the 21st century: Not always working at one company for one's whole life, and changing careers sometime midway through one's working life. MJ's already done it once; I've been lucky enough to not have had to change careers yet after 9 years of working in it, but it's definitely possible especially if my line of work gets replaced by automation/ computers (always possible for many jobs out there). That's why I go on reddit often to look up "what jobs do people have and how fast can you obtain them?" just to get some new ideas and look at the shiny toys that other people have, as the grass always looks greener in those other careers. Then I'll look at people who I knew in high school/ college who became (theoretically, on paper) more successful than me ("Always compare yourself to people better than you, not worse than you!" my parents always told young Robert when he complained about comparisons to family friends' children) and see that they've already weathered the long, steep climb to become a doctor and is a resident (fill-in-scientific-term-here)-ologist at a (pretty desirable location, usually urban city) hospital and I think what many people probably think when they look back and regret the college major they chose instead of biology," Ah, should have become a doctor."
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
Monday, May 18, 2020
Ways of waking up (일어나는 방법, 唤醒方式, 目を覚ます方法)
Waking up is a big deal in everyday life, incorporating everything from when one wakes up, where one wakes up, what part of the REM cycle you are in when you wake up,
1.) Waking up on own: my most highly recommended method. The glorious feeling of your own body deciding that it has had enough sleep and waking up refreshed to start the day. The best mornings I have are the ones where I wake up on my own, full of energy and able to run long distances or do a great amount of physical tasks for the day. Unfortunately, these are also the instances when I wake up the latest, like 10AM, 11AM, sometimes even noon.
2.) MJ's dad used to wake her up by clapping really loudly in front of her face at the appointed time, or speaking really loudly in an adjoining room to get her attention until she woke up, pulling the covers off in one swift motion (pretty aggressive method) or (this is my favorite method) exclaiming that it is later than it really is ("Oh it's already 9AM!" when it's only 8AM and getting MJ to be alarmed about the time enough to wake up. I hope to try this on my children one day; MJ will be my guinea pig for now to see how effective it is.
3.) Different people wake up in different intervals; whereas MJ is a groggy, half-asleep but conscious of what's going on around her type of sleeper, I am pretty much either "on" or "off"- either I'm awake or not awake. I might wake up at a certain interval during the night, but then I'll go right back to sleep and keep dreaming. (Even waking up cannot break up the storyline of the dream I was having, I'm somehow able to catch up after drifting up again, sort of like a TV commercial break).
4.) I'd say 90% of the time my alarm wakes me up. Almost all the time, I wake up to my alarm; at least my body does not develop antibodies or becomes naturally immune to the sound of Apple Iphone's alarm beat. There are, however, those select times the alarm is not loud enough, or I've buried my phone under something so that it thinks I'm pressing the snooze button infinitely, which I'm not. And those are times I get to work late and have a rude awakening about what time it is. Am I a "hit the snooze button" person? Rarely, but only if I've given myself a "landing strip" to not have to wake up until I absolutely have to, where there's a bargaining stage of telling myself when I
5.) Recently, the stock market has been a good motivating factor to wake up! At 9:30AM, rain or shine, the stock market opens, and that's when the market is usually the most volatile for the rest of the day and has had a whole night to process new information, swing in the after-hour trading, so it can be a really big shock to the senses when the news (bad or good) comes out, and that's enough to get me out of bed and ready to go. I guess money/stock market is my version of MJ's latte art and coffee that gets her out of bed: a positive inspiration.
1.) Waking up on own: my most highly recommended method. The glorious feeling of your own body deciding that it has had enough sleep and waking up refreshed to start the day. The best mornings I have are the ones where I wake up on my own, full of energy and able to run long distances or do a great amount of physical tasks for the day. Unfortunately, these are also the instances when I wake up the latest, like 10AM, 11AM, sometimes even noon.
2.) MJ's dad used to wake her up by clapping really loudly in front of her face at the appointed time, or speaking really loudly in an adjoining room to get her attention until she woke up, pulling the covers off in one swift motion (pretty aggressive method) or (this is my favorite method) exclaiming that it is later than it really is ("Oh it's already 9AM!" when it's only 8AM and getting MJ to be alarmed about the time enough to wake up. I hope to try this on my children one day; MJ will be my guinea pig for now to see how effective it is.
3.) Different people wake up in different intervals; whereas MJ is a groggy, half-asleep but conscious of what's going on around her type of sleeper, I am pretty much either "on" or "off"- either I'm awake or not awake. I might wake up at a certain interval during the night, but then I'll go right back to sleep and keep dreaming. (Even waking up cannot break up the storyline of the dream I was having, I'm somehow able to catch up after drifting up again, sort of like a TV commercial break).
4.) I'd say 90% of the time my alarm wakes me up. Almost all the time, I wake up to my alarm; at least my body does not develop antibodies or becomes naturally immune to the sound of Apple Iphone's alarm beat. There are, however, those select times the alarm is not loud enough, or I've buried my phone under something so that it thinks I'm pressing the snooze button infinitely, which I'm not. And those are times I get to work late and have a rude awakening about what time it is. Am I a "hit the snooze button" person? Rarely, but only if I've given myself a "landing strip" to not have to wake up until I absolutely have to, where there's a bargaining stage of telling myself when I
5.) Recently, the stock market has been a good motivating factor to wake up! At 9:30AM, rain or shine, the stock market opens, and that's when the market is usually the most volatile for the rest of the day and has had a whole night to process new information, swing in the after-hour trading, so it can be a really big shock to the senses when the news (bad or good) comes out, and that's enough to get me out of bed and ready to go. I guess money/stock market is my version of MJ's latte art and coffee that gets her out of bed: a positive inspiration.
Saturday, May 16, 2020
Inspiration (灵感, 영감, インスピレーション)
Inspiration is just about a beautiful word: we use it to describe brilliant ideas we have (I got an inspiration!), about people who do great things ("Bono is an inspiration!") or goals we hope to achieve ("Latte art is my inspiration!") Apparently MJ's inspiration every day to wake up (not very early, but eventually) is to do latte art with her new coffee machine. We all have inspirations, and most of our actions are dictated by those inspirations.
For me, inspiration changes every few years. For the stretch between 2012-2015, it was to travel the world and see everything the world had to offer and get away from the mundaneness of law school, or the stretch between 2016-2017, I was inspired by dodgeball. For the last few years, it's been the stock market (and trying to make money off it, apparently not an easy endeavor). Often though, I lose track of my inspirations or just don't feel it anymore. For 10 minutes when I sat down to write this blog, I didn't know what to write because I didn't feel inspired, mostly because of the pandemic and quarantine I haven't been inspired by anything. Every day feels similar, living in the same apartment, eating the same plant-based food (not necessarily inspiring food, but at least it helps inspire me to get on a scale to see how much weight I've lost since the day before). I think that's probably true universally during the shut-down: we've lost a lot of inspirations due to not going out into the world and talking to people (still can through zoom, but something about face-to-face inspiration is just a bit different and inspires one to take action).
Recently, though, I haven't had much inspiration: part of it is kind of just grinding and slogging through the day, blocking out inspirations in my mind, and the realization that some inspirations can be distractions: traveling, for example, is expensive and doesn't really create any practical value (certainly has sentimental and aesthetic value, but does not necessarily translate into marketable skills or $$$). I kind of wish I had cool inspirations like MJ: I guess I'm just turning into a boring person. Part of the reason we decided to move to a new state, new school, new part of the country was to get some new inspirations: and then the pandemic happened, and I realized I didn't get a chance to meet anybody new here in a new city, have zero friends, and don't have much hope of making any for awhile, at least in person: Funny how the concept of showing up at a meeting or gathering and going "Hi! I'm new around here, trying to make some friends!" became so inconceivable overnight. I usually get some inspiration from my co-workers or people who I interact with Monday-Friday, but remote work sucks all that up.
There are both positive and negative inspirations (often called "carrots" and "sticks") to get people to act, and studies have shown that a combination of both is most effective, not just all of one. Just for weight loss, for example, I do inspiration from the scale saying a certain number, but negative inspiration like my co-worker once remarking that my stomach looked like it was "being happy"- definitely not flattering and motivated me to shrink that stomach if I could. Politically, Donald Trump was mostly known for using negative inspirations ("build a wall to keep out all the illegal immigrants") as opposed to President Obama who ran on an inspiring message of hope and change for the better; both apparently work. Today I found a pretty persuasive argument that Kim Jung Un had spread the rumor last month that he was suffering from bad health and may be in grave danger, as a way to see if there were any traitors in his regime and punish any who would act in any way to take over North Korea. That seems like the most negative of aspirations, to imply punishment for misbehavior.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
For me, inspiration changes every few years. For the stretch between 2012-2015, it was to travel the world and see everything the world had to offer and get away from the mundaneness of law school, or the stretch between 2016-2017, I was inspired by dodgeball. For the last few years, it's been the stock market (and trying to make money off it, apparently not an easy endeavor). Often though, I lose track of my inspirations or just don't feel it anymore. For 10 minutes when I sat down to write this blog, I didn't know what to write because I didn't feel inspired, mostly because of the pandemic and quarantine I haven't been inspired by anything. Every day feels similar, living in the same apartment, eating the same plant-based food (not necessarily inspiring food, but at least it helps inspire me to get on a scale to see how much weight I've lost since the day before). I think that's probably true universally during the shut-down: we've lost a lot of inspirations due to not going out into the world and talking to people (still can through zoom, but something about face-to-face inspiration is just a bit different and inspires one to take action).
Recently, though, I haven't had much inspiration: part of it is kind of just grinding and slogging through the day, blocking out inspirations in my mind, and the realization that some inspirations can be distractions: traveling, for example, is expensive and doesn't really create any practical value (certainly has sentimental and aesthetic value, but does not necessarily translate into marketable skills or $$$). I kind of wish I had cool inspirations like MJ: I guess I'm just turning into a boring person. Part of the reason we decided to move to a new state, new school, new part of the country was to get some new inspirations: and then the pandemic happened, and I realized I didn't get a chance to meet anybody new here in a new city, have zero friends, and don't have much hope of making any for awhile, at least in person: Funny how the concept of showing up at a meeting or gathering and going "Hi! I'm new around here, trying to make some friends!" became so inconceivable overnight. I usually get some inspiration from my co-workers or people who I interact with Monday-Friday, but remote work sucks all that up.
There are both positive and negative inspirations (often called "carrots" and "sticks") to get people to act, and studies have shown that a combination of both is most effective, not just all of one. Just for weight loss, for example, I do inspiration from the scale saying a certain number, but negative inspiration like my co-worker once remarking that my stomach looked like it was "being happy"- definitely not flattering and motivated me to shrink that stomach if I could. Politically, Donald Trump was mostly known for using negative inspirations ("build a wall to keep out all the illegal immigrants") as opposed to President Obama who ran on an inspiring message of hope and change for the better; both apparently work. Today I found a pretty persuasive argument that Kim Jung Un had spread the rumor last month that he was suffering from bad health and may be in grave danger, as a way to see if there were any traitors in his regime and punish any who would act in any way to take over North Korea. That seems like the most negative of aspirations, to imply punishment for misbehavior.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
Wednesday, May 13, 2020
Diet (减肥, 다이어트, ダイエット)
Ever since the pandemic began, I've lost 10 pounds! Hurray for me! I've never been a skinny person, and my goal has always been to stay below the magical BMI index line from overweight to "normal." It's always been right at the edge, but due to a conglomerate of factors in March including a long winter, eating my parents' food (salty, oily, and too fatty, according to MJ), and unhealthy habits, I ballooned past the magical "80 kg" limit (MJ has a scale from Korea that measures in Kgs, which brings a whole new level of stress and anxiety when I add another number or Gasp, TWO! to the scale because each of those represents 2.2lbs). I'm a very number-based person, so I get a physical response from seeing my bank account and stock market account rise, and a similar response happens when I see my body weight go down.
1.) sleep well. May be a little counterintuitive, but getting a full night's rest allows the body to "reset" and burn off some calories (mentioned in Bill Bryson's book The Body!). I generally weigh the least when I wake up in the morning OR
2.) After I've exercised and exorcised my body of beaucoup water weight. I didn't know about water weight early in life, but it explains a lot.......I carry tons of water weight in the winter because running outside doesn't get enough pounds to come off due to sweat. In the summer, I'm usually at my lowest due to sweating profusely in the heat.
3.) Do a marathon. After I trained for a marathon, I was at my lowest weight since I was 13 years old... and then promptly put the weight back on back to a normalized setting.
4.) Diet. I've come to realize that this is probably the biggest factor in one's body weight (and possibly in one's overall health). It's not easy to start on a diet with so many nice-looking things around you and lifestyles that we've gotten used to over years and years of repetition. They say the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, which is true, but I actually don't think the first step is the hardest: most people can try a meal or two without fatty food, or meat, or sugars for a day. It's doing that day over day that becomes extremely difficult, to resist "cravings" as MJ calls them, to say no each time despite your stomach saying "YES, EAT IT!!!" I find for dieting at least it's the 3rd, 4th, 5th, maybe 6th steps that are really hard and not to just revert back to old ways cuz that's much easier, and that after getting over that hump (it's almost like running through an uphill and not stopping) that it becomes much easier and just a natural course of life. For MJ and I, we don't have much food in the house anyway, and most of is vegetables or plant-based, so there's no real risk of falling to temptation, because there is no temptation. The pandemic and staying indoors has definitely helped that. But now I'm confined to eating raw carrots for lunch or just a light salad or vegetable mix and feel fine...like letting my body know, "hey this is how it's going to be every day from now on!" and my body reluctantly agreeing. After a day of not eating anything sugar-based (no cookies, cakes, ice cream, chocolate, etc.), my body says, "OH Hey, this isn't so bad after all," and I need it a little less the next day until I've functionally cut it off (except for my birthday, when I had some birthday treats). Definitely evidence that sugar is as addicting as drugs and body needs to "detox" to wean off of it, and then it feels great.
A big thing is not eating too much rice or noodles.....those tend to pump up my body weight higher than anything (It's amazing how meticulous I am about checking the scale now, and being able to anticipate based on what I ate the day before how much I will weigh). Also, it depends on how quickly the food passes through your system (Bill Bryson delicately wrote in The Body that food lasts in your digestive system for about 24 to 36 hours before it passes through). Well, after that food, especially heavy food, gets "passed through," it will cause a massive change in body weight.
5.) Don't overeat. I've found from not overeating that I used to overeat before. Over the course of a meal, there's a certain point where I've probably satiated my hunger and don't need to eat anymore, but I blow past that like a California stop sign and keep going until I feel really full, which is a sure sign of unneeded calories. Stopping short of being too full also means I get hungry earlier later on, but then I can just have a really light snack later on that controls that burning desire to have food.
1.) sleep well. May be a little counterintuitive, but getting a full night's rest allows the body to "reset" and burn off some calories (mentioned in Bill Bryson's book The Body!). I generally weigh the least when I wake up in the morning OR
2.) After I've exercised and exorcised my body of beaucoup water weight. I didn't know about water weight early in life, but it explains a lot.......I carry tons of water weight in the winter because running outside doesn't get enough pounds to come off due to sweat. In the summer, I'm usually at my lowest due to sweating profusely in the heat.
3.) Do a marathon. After I trained for a marathon, I was at my lowest weight since I was 13 years old... and then promptly put the weight back on back to a normalized setting.
4.) Diet. I've come to realize that this is probably the biggest factor in one's body weight (and possibly in one's overall health). It's not easy to start on a diet with so many nice-looking things around you and lifestyles that we've gotten used to over years and years of repetition. They say the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, which is true, but I actually don't think the first step is the hardest: most people can try a meal or two without fatty food, or meat, or sugars for a day. It's doing that day over day that becomes extremely difficult, to resist "cravings" as MJ calls them, to say no each time despite your stomach saying "YES, EAT IT!!!" I find for dieting at least it's the 3rd, 4th, 5th, maybe 6th steps that are really hard and not to just revert back to old ways cuz that's much easier, and that after getting over that hump (it's almost like running through an uphill and not stopping) that it becomes much easier and just a natural course of life. For MJ and I, we don't have much food in the house anyway, and most of is vegetables or plant-based, so there's no real risk of falling to temptation, because there is no temptation. The pandemic and staying indoors has definitely helped that. But now I'm confined to eating raw carrots for lunch or just a light salad or vegetable mix and feel fine...like letting my body know, "hey this is how it's going to be every day from now on!" and my body reluctantly agreeing. After a day of not eating anything sugar-based (no cookies, cakes, ice cream, chocolate, etc.), my body says, "OH Hey, this isn't so bad after all," and I need it a little less the next day until I've functionally cut it off (except for my birthday, when I had some birthday treats). Definitely evidence that sugar is as addicting as drugs and body needs to "detox" to wean off of it, and then it feels great.
A big thing is not eating too much rice or noodles.....those tend to pump up my body weight higher than anything (It's amazing how meticulous I am about checking the scale now, and being able to anticipate based on what I ate the day before how much I will weigh). Also, it depends on how quickly the food passes through your system (Bill Bryson delicately wrote in The Body that food lasts in your digestive system for about 24 to 36 hours before it passes through). Well, after that food, especially heavy food, gets "passed through," it will cause a massive change in body weight.
5.) Don't overeat. I've found from not overeating that I used to overeat before. Over the course of a meal, there's a certain point where I've probably satiated my hunger and don't need to eat anymore, but I blow past that like a California stop sign and keep going until I feel really full, which is a sure sign of unneeded calories. Stopping short of being too full also means I get hungry earlier later on, but then I can just have a really light snack later on that controls that burning desire to have food.
Sunday, May 10, 2020
College Town
This past Saturday, I spent one of my most memorable birthdays with my wife MJ in the new college town that we live in. Usually my birthday lands on a weekday and I spend it at work and postpone celebrations until the weekend, but this year May 9 landed on a Saturday, smack dab on the weekend, perfect for a party, going to a concert, going out to a restaurant to have a nice dinner with friends, spending the night on the town!......except none of that was possible because of Covid-19. But we made the best out of it. Spent most of the day walking around our new environment, from the college campus to the local downtown to the surrounding state park. And even had a nice birthday cake at home!
Asian countries that have their largest universities in the biggest cities (Seoul University, Waseda University in Tokyo, Qinghua and Beida University in Beijing) might not get the concept of a college town, but in America at least there are hundreds of towns in America that function around their main industry: education. Name-brand college campuses often have their campuses in one of these small towns so that they can have a sprawling campus to accommodate plenty of tuition-paying students and build massive buildings with laboratories and research centers. At least that's how it was at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where I went. It's a 2 hour drive from Chicago, the nearest city, and a little further to St. Louis, but in between is plenty of open road, soybean fields, and farms and pasture animals before you get to the twin cities of Urbana and Champaign. There was a whole bus system to get around to different areas of campus, a quaint downtown patch with local dive bars frequented mostly by college students, and for 3 or 4 years while attending college that becomes the world the students live in. It's similar to the feeling of going to a boarding school or like when Harry Potter goes to Hogwarts every school year, like its own little world and ecosystem that is separate from the outside world; it's like no one in the town is doing anything besides attending school, or teaching classes. Most college towns across America have this same vibe: from Durham, North Carolina to Ithaca, NY, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Gainesville, FL... they're not famous for tech companies or huge megalopolises or federal sites or entertainment venues, but everyone knows them because of the university that is inhabited there.
I also had the pleasure of attending an urban campus at the University of Southern California in downtown LA, so I can say for sure that the vibe is different. I didn't realize how much I would value the memories of attending a college town until I arrived at another college town some 11 years later.......there is just one Costco that everyone goes to, some local bakeries named after the first name of the owner (MJ found a vegan bakery that did not drop off in taste from a normal bakery. By the way, Beyond Meat stock is way up! I might look back at this stock currently at 133 bucks a share, 10 years later like I do with AMZN and wonder why I didn't follow my own advice back then and buy more. plant-based meat is very popular with millenials and the newer generation, especially with the current environmental crisis and Covid crisis causing a drop in meat production.). The campus is built with student-friendly dorms where one can literally roll out of bed and get to class (although, that might not be necessary for a while) built with the Harry Potter sentiment in mind, as there is a dorm unit called "the Hollows." Jogging around campus can yield encounters with many fresh-faced students, and there's an energy of learning and excitement abound, whereas when I go to work in crowded New York and Los Angeles office parks there's a reluctant energy of doing it because you have to, the jilted feeling of adulthood and reality setting in and "this might just be the rest of my life." Unfortunately for college towns, the excitement is party generated by the fact this world is likely temporary, that there will be more adventures to head off to after the exalted and hyped up graduation, and life will continue, but for now they can enjoy this world away from everything else.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
Asian countries that have their largest universities in the biggest cities (Seoul University, Waseda University in Tokyo, Qinghua and Beida University in Beijing) might not get the concept of a college town, but in America at least there are hundreds of towns in America that function around their main industry: education. Name-brand college campuses often have their campuses in one of these small towns so that they can have a sprawling campus to accommodate plenty of tuition-paying students and build massive buildings with laboratories and research centers. At least that's how it was at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where I went. It's a 2 hour drive from Chicago, the nearest city, and a little further to St. Louis, but in between is plenty of open road, soybean fields, and farms and pasture animals before you get to the twin cities of Urbana and Champaign. There was a whole bus system to get around to different areas of campus, a quaint downtown patch with local dive bars frequented mostly by college students, and for 3 or 4 years while attending college that becomes the world the students live in. It's similar to the feeling of going to a boarding school or like when Harry Potter goes to Hogwarts every school year, like its own little world and ecosystem that is separate from the outside world; it's like no one in the town is doing anything besides attending school, or teaching classes. Most college towns across America have this same vibe: from Durham, North Carolina to Ithaca, NY, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Gainesville, FL... they're not famous for tech companies or huge megalopolises or federal sites or entertainment venues, but everyone knows them because of the university that is inhabited there.
I also had the pleasure of attending an urban campus at the University of Southern California in downtown LA, so I can say for sure that the vibe is different. I didn't realize how much I would value the memories of attending a college town until I arrived at another college town some 11 years later.......there is just one Costco that everyone goes to, some local bakeries named after the first name of the owner (MJ found a vegan bakery that did not drop off in taste from a normal bakery. By the way, Beyond Meat stock is way up! I might look back at this stock currently at 133 bucks a share, 10 years later like I do with AMZN and wonder why I didn't follow my own advice back then and buy more. plant-based meat is very popular with millenials and the newer generation, especially with the current environmental crisis and Covid crisis causing a drop in meat production.). The campus is built with student-friendly dorms where one can literally roll out of bed and get to class (although, that might not be necessary for a while) built with the Harry Potter sentiment in mind, as there is a dorm unit called "the Hollows." Jogging around campus can yield encounters with many fresh-faced students, and there's an energy of learning and excitement abound, whereas when I go to work in crowded New York and Los Angeles office parks there's a reluctant energy of doing it because you have to, the jilted feeling of adulthood and reality setting in and "this might just be the rest of my life." Unfortunately for college towns, the excitement is party generated by the fact this world is likely temporary, that there will be more adventures to head off to after the exalted and hyped up graduation, and life will continue, but for now they can enjoy this world away from everything else.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
Friday, May 8, 2020
Fax (팩스, 传真, ファックス)
Today, on the eve of my 33rd birthday (beginning of my mid-thirties, I guess), I take you back in time to when faxes ruled the earth (at least in the communication space) and were around even before I was born. In fact, it was in the 1980's that faxes really became big, thanks to the advent of color faxing high-level technology and resolution faxing, started by the Japanese by a company called NTT, and computer-based faxing. In fact, faxes were the hero in an attempted terrorist plot against the U.S. of kidnapping the United States President and Air Force One, where the terrorists disabled the telephone lines aboard the plane but neglected to disable the fax line, allowing the ex-air force pilot President to send a fax to the White House foiling the terrorists' plot. Of course this was a fictional movie called "Air Force One" and the President was played by Harrison Ford, but it does show that faxes were a prominent part of popular media and culture at the tail end of the Twentieth Century.
Pretty much by the time I started using phones and coming of age, though, faxes went out of style and were replaced by new technology, and I never really used faxes, let alone mastered their function. However, Covid-19 must have damaged most of our telecommunications systems and set us back technologically a few decades, because the California EDD (Employment Development Department) is only accepting faxes as the way for people to send in their unemployment applications. Or this is just inefficiency and antiquated methods used by them, either one. It's almost unfathomable that a system accepting millions of applications (number of eligible unemployed people in CA right now) would be using facsimile and only facsimile (for certain applications where I worked out of state the year before). The thing with the fax is, it's a clumsier and clunkier version of email. First the recipient has to establish a fax phone number, then the sender has to have a fax machine or printer/fax machine hybrid system, then they have to have the physical copy of the document and feed it in to the fax machine, call the recipient on their number, and it has to connect. I don't know how many times I tried to connect using my apartment's fax number this week but it can't being interrupted! So finally I was forced to go to UPS to use their fax machine. Meanwhile all phones now have scanning and picture capabilities that can process 10 pages of an application within 1 minute and send through email.
This recent Fax Fiasco of 2020 (what I'm dubbing it) reminds me that although everyone in my circle of acquaintances seem to have the latest technology and social media and know all the new trendy TikTok videos or viral sensations or new shows to watch on Netflix, there is still a significant portion of the population that does not engage in these hot new things (especially older people), and the gap is widening. Watching Survivor reminds me that there are still people stuck in the 1990's watching the 3 main TV channels of CBS, NBC, and ABC, maybe sprinkle in a little Fox and PBS. Heck, lawyers still appear personally in front of a judge (not necessary), the DMV forces people to line up (the horror!), and people have to register beforehand using thick registration files and show up to polling places to vote. Looking out even further, as of 2017, not even half of he world has internet access. It's the developed nations that are focused in on all the new smartphones and addicted to screens, but there's actually still a pretty significant portion of the world that doesn't delve into any of that, still living naturally through farming and tribal communities. Maybe you don't have to have technology to live and live happily, ever all. But I do know that once you get the technology, you want to keep having it (we're hooked).
It also reminds me that despite all the people on social media screaming about certain social issues or urging people to act a certain away about Covid-19 or telling me how to feel about Joe Biden's sexual harassment allegations or Ahmaud Aubry shooting (a really sad tragedy of a young black man shot by 2 white men while out jogging), there is a large portion of the country and world not yelling out their opinions, and it's important not to let loud, passionate voices have too strong of an influence, and have perspective, consider all opinions, try to understand it from various angles. Especially in this time of health and economic crisis, I think it's important to step back and be totally consumed by all the information and opinions...maybe just be nice to each other for a start, and hope that the virus is contained and defeated sooner rather than later. That is my wish for my birthday. And of course to lose 5 pounds.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
Wednesday, May 6, 2020
Mask (마스크, 口罩, マスク)
I don't like wearing masks. They're uncomfortable, they cause itchiness on my face, they force me to smell my own breath since I'm breathing into the mask. Even as a kid I disliked wearing masks that covered my whole face when going trick-or-treating; I disliked putting on the hockey goalie mask during gym class, and I never got into MJ's skin therapy mask that supposedly kept her skin supple and fresh before she went to sleep. Nope, masks have never been for me, but during this pandemic wearing one could save lives, so I've reluctantly wore them when going outside, feeling that it's the responsible thing to do for myself as well as to protect others in case I have it. Prominent leaders of the country in media, science, health care, and government all have recommended, if not demanded, that Americans wear masks while going outside. In China it's the law: if you're found outside without a mask on, you get fined, punished.
At least in North Carolina, though, masks seem optional! MJ and I went to the North Carolina Museum of Art today, a sanctuary for many during this pandemic to get some fresh air without being in a densely populated area, but found that we were the only ones wearing a mask in the whole area! Many people just walking or running as they normally would, without masks or any kind of protection. You'd think Covid-19 never happened. There were college students, families, friends, moms pushing their babies in strollers, just a normal spring day for everyone, doing their regular routines. One couple seemed to be even allowing for love in the air, meeting at the museum park for what sure seemed like a first date: the lady said "Hi nice to meet you," the man introduced himself, and off they went on a first date with a complete stranger, both without masks on! That seems like an unreasonably high level of trust to place on a stranger you've only talked to online or on a dating app. I guess the mask would obscure the aesthetic of each person's appearance, don't want a date's first impression of you to be of wearing a N-95 mask with half your face obscured. I had been wondering how a lot of industries less obviously affected by quarantine were doing (besides just restaurants and airlines and hair salons): Airbnb is struggling based on recent reports and isn't going to IPO this year as planned, Lyft and Uber apparently recovered a bit in April and reported strong numbers this very evening, and from anecdotal evidence it appears as though dating apps still have some life left.
This whole not-wearing-a-mask thing is a bit hard to explain, and I don't think it's just a phenomenon at the North Carolina Museum of Art or even the greater Raleigh-Durham area. Across the country there seems to be a bit of a backlash against the tight restrictions placed on everyone due to Covid-19, with many including Tesla's Elon Musk claiming that it's infringing on our freedoms and human rights. Vice President Mike Pence certainly fed into that sentiment by not wearing a mask while making a visit to a hospital last week, a transparent attempt at playing to his base, similar to the idea of "don't take away our guns." President Trump has yet to wear a mask in public even when giving press conferences with lots of other people; he's also been pretty consistent in placing a priority on reopening the economy and getting the country back and running again.
While I feel bad for those who have suffered great economic harm due to the pandemic (losing their life savings in a business that was shut down, being laid off, not being able to pay rent, etc.etc.), which makes me understand if not endorse the push to reopen the economy, I really don't understand the defiance towards wearing masks. I don't think it's a time to make political statements or symbolic gestures to not wear masks; it's not that difficult to put one on, and although rather uncomfortable especially for a long period of time, it's not like we're supposed to be outside for that long anyway, and it's the safest thing to do. You don't lose anything by wearing a mask (other than appearance-wise, which should not be a priority right now). I haven't wore a mask all the time when going outside if I know for sure I'm not going to bump into anybody, but at a park or place with lots of foot traffic? Mask should be mandatory.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
At least in North Carolina, though, masks seem optional! MJ and I went to the North Carolina Museum of Art today, a sanctuary for many during this pandemic to get some fresh air without being in a densely populated area, but found that we were the only ones wearing a mask in the whole area! Many people just walking or running as they normally would, without masks or any kind of protection. You'd think Covid-19 never happened. There were college students, families, friends, moms pushing their babies in strollers, just a normal spring day for everyone, doing their regular routines. One couple seemed to be even allowing for love in the air, meeting at the museum park for what sure seemed like a first date: the lady said "Hi nice to meet you," the man introduced himself, and off they went on a first date with a complete stranger, both without masks on! That seems like an unreasonably high level of trust to place on a stranger you've only talked to online or on a dating app. I guess the mask would obscure the aesthetic of each person's appearance, don't want a date's first impression of you to be of wearing a N-95 mask with half your face obscured. I had been wondering how a lot of industries less obviously affected by quarantine were doing (besides just restaurants and airlines and hair salons): Airbnb is struggling based on recent reports and isn't going to IPO this year as planned, Lyft and Uber apparently recovered a bit in April and reported strong numbers this very evening, and from anecdotal evidence it appears as though dating apps still have some life left.
This whole not-wearing-a-mask thing is a bit hard to explain, and I don't think it's just a phenomenon at the North Carolina Museum of Art or even the greater Raleigh-Durham area. Across the country there seems to be a bit of a backlash against the tight restrictions placed on everyone due to Covid-19, with many including Tesla's Elon Musk claiming that it's infringing on our freedoms and human rights. Vice President Mike Pence certainly fed into that sentiment by not wearing a mask while making a visit to a hospital last week, a transparent attempt at playing to his base, similar to the idea of "don't take away our guns." President Trump has yet to wear a mask in public even when giving press conferences with lots of other people; he's also been pretty consistent in placing a priority on reopening the economy and getting the country back and running again.
While I feel bad for those who have suffered great economic harm due to the pandemic (losing their life savings in a business that was shut down, being laid off, not being able to pay rent, etc.etc.), which makes me understand if not endorse the push to reopen the economy, I really don't understand the defiance towards wearing masks. I don't think it's a time to make political statements or symbolic gestures to not wear masks; it's not that difficult to put one on, and although rather uncomfortable especially for a long period of time, it's not like we're supposed to be outside for that long anyway, and it's the safest thing to do. You don't lose anything by wearing a mask (other than appearance-wise, which should not be a priority right now). I haven't wore a mask all the time when going outside if I know for sure I'm not going to bump into anybody, but at a park or place with lots of foot traffic? Mask should be mandatory.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
Monday, May 4, 2020
Zoom video
Tilray. Pinduoduo. Huya. Uber. Pinterest. I've witnessed quite a plethora of new stocks that IPO'ed (had their initial public offering) in the last 2+ years since I really started paying a lot of attention, and the lesson I've taken away is to view them with a grain of salt: you can make quite a lot of money if you pick the right one (Facebook was a great IPO with a great business plan that I was skeptical on way back then), but most of them are "pump and dump," with prices that get bid up by insiders who have a piece before the rest of the public does and make a profit off of the initial excitement and are long gone before it cools off. And you can even lose your whole investment: recently Luckin' Coffee, based in China (avoid Chinese IPO's, it's like a double whammy of smoke and mirrors) went from $45 to $4, the culmination being a 90% drop in price in April due to the discovery of accounting fraud and contrived number of sales. I lost functionally my entire investment in LK (luckily for me, I didn't have that much Luckin') but definitely makes me prefer more established names with solid earnings and balance sheets in the future. All companies started out as IPO's, of course, but most companies have had a lifetime of earnings reports and passing regulatory checks to get to where they are today.
One IPO that has an interesting concept (because everyone I know is using it) is ZOOM video. It runs pretty smoothly, you just need one person from a group of 10-20 people to set up an account and send out invites, and poof, everybody appears on screen and has ability to see each other/ hear each other. The ultimate Covid-19 stock, it's outgrown its Bcorporate usefulness to being a full-time feature in everyone's social group, to connect instead of meeting at parties/ other social gatherings. However, the interaction isn't quite as good as a party: when there's 10 people on a Zoom call, there is quite a lot of wasted time for the 8 other people who are not the ones talking to each other at the time. There needs to be Zoom etiquette, like how to avoid having 7 people speak up at the same time right after the speaker ends her statement. Or the speaker wasn't done; it was a fakeout. At a normal party in a group of 10 a few people would break off and have their own conversation, but on Zoom, everyone's locked into the same conversation. Super important for there to be an organizer to make sure everyone's engaged and also for everyone present to contribute by making some are not just monopolizing the conversation.
Beyond Meat! The other current IPO out there that is grabbing headlines. With Shake Shack reporting that beef prices have risen 2% due to meat production facilities closing due to Covid-19, it may be plant-based burgers' time to shine. MJ and I have every few days as part of our vegan pandemic season (I only started 2 weeks ago, but I've definitely made the adjustment to not crave meat). At first my body felt weird after a day of vegan dining, begging the question "where's the meat?" but slowly it's begun to realize how dedicated I am (or at least how dedicated MJ is to making sure I'm dedicated) to reducing meat out of my diet. Beyond Meat is not like a cure-all panacea as it is pretty high in fat and can get a little redundant in taste (we stocked up a bunch in our fridge), but it does a good job of not making me crave meat as much. And Wall Street seems to like it after its partnerships with some major food chains (McDonald's, Starbucks). Count me as a fan!
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
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