Chew Piin Huann 丘品焕

Do you guys know why are text editing (investing time on difficult-to-use text editors, learn macros and bindings of text editors, learn text editing utility like sed, diff, patch, grep, awk, regex) and version control (the most famous one being Git, investing time to learn confusing things like tree structure, merging, fetching, committing) these 2 things peculiar to only the world of digital bits and the world of computer software dudes? Computer codes and softwares can't be the only things on Earth that fiddle with texts. Other fields that deal with texts a lot: writers, journalists, lawyers, academicians, teachers, professors or even finance, accounting and medicine dudes, they should have equal passion in version control and text editors'[1] techniques and hacks no? But you don't see an attorney or a journalist shouting "Use xxx version control apps" or "Use xxx text editor" because "They make you a better and a more productive lawyer/prof...

We determine if something is ergodic or non-ergodic roughly by comparing the two: a) At one single timestamp, you compute the average of 1,000,000 people b) Take 1 single person, going through 10 years, you compute his average We all know very slow, low productivity fields (construction, electricians, retailed restaurants, or even consultants, accountants etc.) are very ergodic. Their (a) and (b) are the same. Internet couldn't help scaling the atoms unlike the bits, they remain very localised. There is no such thing as "a millionaire electrician/baker/construction worker", "a law firm or consulting firm that goes public", "an amusement park with million-dollared valuation". These localised fields are "winner-take-little" or "losers-take-alot". Try running a local retailed shop selling goods and make a million quickly! Even people who make hardware are pretty ergodic (again Internet is not really their ally). We also know that fina...

One of the hallmark of science is the presence of a control set in an experiment. Sometimes this modality is known as "randomized trial and error". Many science teachers in elementary schools are cognizant of that and always try to "teach" students what does "control set" really mean.  Alas, the nature of this "controlled experiment" technique is very subtle and not easy to be grasped. I myself made the mistake to gloss over it for decades. Until very recently I had an epiphany on the real essence of "controlled experiment". For example, if we want to know if water is a vital ingredient for photosynthesis, we build 2 sets of plants, one with water and another without (while keeping the remaining variables fixed for both plants). The corollary is that 1 of the 2 sets of plants must be able to grow. If it is the one with water hence it is self evidential that water is required, if it is the one without water then it is otherwise.  It so...

  The following are some examples of things I wish I'd known or done when I was 20 in year 2013 (This advice is suitable for people who were born in year 2003 and beyond) - Be careful of popular things like law, medicine, accounting (translating into 2023 it might be something like web 3.0, crypto, data science). They are not necessarily bad, but think twice because you are gonna be sucked into the prestige magnet - Always aim for the super long term. Want to have a girlfriend/boyfriend? Ask yourselves if you could still live with such a person 10 years later? Want to choose a career? Ask yourselves could you stand doing that thing consistently for 10 years. If the answer is not a solid yes then they are not your right partner or your right career. - Dare to give harsh criticisms to friends and family. Being too nice to them in the short term by sugar coating is actually harming them in the long run. By being truthfully harsh to people around you, they also tell you the truth in r...

I wish people talk more about the difference between a problem-solver and a problem-solved-er. The latter is a person whose sole motive is to get rid of problems at all costs. You would find such a person agonizes at every step and every second during the actual problem solving process. Never for a second he would marvel at the odd idea of "problems are fun as they challenge you and push your limits". "Equating the word 'problems' with 'fun'? You can't be any more lunatic!", he said.  The former, while caring about getting a problem solved at the very end (because otherwise he is just a lazy-bum who never gets anything done), derives equal amount of (if not more) delight from the apparently gnawing problem on his hand.  For a problem-solved-er, the sole reason to bend over backwards is the final reward of "problem solved". Anything before that is excruciating evil. For a problem-solver, the struggle during the problem-solving process is...

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[Case 1: If Vaccines are Mandated] Chance of vaccines killing everyone on the planet: As low as the roof of your house falling on your head Chance of vaccines eradicating COVID-19: Not 0* Chance of governments tyrannically implementing a unanimous policy: Almost 100 [Case 2: If Vaccines are not Mandated] Chance of COVID-19 being eradicated: How is it even possible?^ Chance of COVID-19 (from at least 1 person) killing everyone on the planet: Not 0 Chance of individual liberties remaining impervious: 100 [Notes] * Those who allege that vaccines caused coronavirus mutation couldn't prove that "If there weren't vaccines coronavirus would never have mutated". ^ Saying "Darwinian elimination method (letting weaker people die from COVID-19)" is a "COVID-19 eradication method" is like saying "let cockroaches eating my leftovers" as a method of washing dishes.

6 Hypotheses on why Covid-19 pandemic might have been overrated: Note: The hypotheses are ranked based on their likelihood in descending order.  1) [Misattribution of deaths counter] The daily death numbers of covid19 patients might have died because of heart diseases, diabetes, stroke but mis-attributed (or sloppily attributed) to COVID19.   2) [Iatrogenics] If COVID-19 receives less public attention, people who contracted it would just rest at home instead of coalescing with other patients in hospitals (When we get normal flu, we don’t go to hospital). Staying at home alone heals the patient better, while putting all COVID-19 positive people together in hospitals made their situation worse.   3) [Anchoring problem] The Earth has 7 billion people. Malaysia has 0.02 billion people. Actually, before year 2020, every single day lots of people died because of illnesses, but we never felt them and never feared them, because they were almost never reported widely by any media....

I grow up witnessing hundreds of people around me talking about lotteries. Some of them are frequent purchasers while some, although proclaiming that "I only buy occasionally for entertainment purposes", are still mystically fervent to participate in any conversation about lotteries.   Those conversations typically consist of the following:  The amount of cash prizes if one wins An astronomical amount of hearsay stories about a person's friend's friend's cousin's friend's neighbour winning a 100,000 bucks of cash prize last month (Normally being received with a huge "Woah" by the listeners) A person's almost-winning attempt 3 weeks ago (E.g.: He/she bought the number "677839" and the winner number turned out to be "677838") and him/her claiming it as a near-miss like how Neymar missed a penalty kick The conversations almost never entail the following: Who was the founders of the lottery companies and how they were founded ...

Parents vs Teenagers Every single parent used words like "Fuck", "shit" or "damn" when they are speaking to their friends. When they are back to home they avoid all those words like how a soldier avoid land mines.  Every single teenager used words like "Fuck", "shit" or "damn" when they are speaking to their friends at schools. When they are back to home they avoid all those words like how a soldier avoid land mines. As a result, two of the phenomena converge into one: A household without a single "bad word". There are also a bonus of two assumptions that are spectacularly far from reality: a) The parents extrapolated their kids as teenagers who have never spoken any vulgar words in life; and b) The kids extrapolated their parents as adults who have never spoken any vulgar words in life.  On Procrastination Most humans have the superpower to avoid completing urgent tasks.  The conventional advice to solve this proble...

[Part 1: How to trick employees] If you are a manager, a boss or in whatever position that requires you to lead some people, this is the tip for you: Give RM50 raise (or any other small perks) to every employee, and tell them "This is specially for you only, don't tell the rest".  You now successfully made the whole team love you. And none of them will tell the rest, because everyone believes that he/she is special like what you have assured them.  If you are an employee, team member or in whatever position that requires you to be led by others, this is the tip for you: Be very careful when your leaders tell you that you are the special one, because very often they are telling all of your colleagues the same line.  [Part 2: How to make people dislike you] If you want people to like you, talk only about him: his job, his family, his hobby, his frustrations, his fear etc. Ask everything about him, talk nothing about yourself. If you want people to dislike you, talk only abo...

We now take for granted that living to an age of 70 is normal, while living for only 40 years of life is tragic. But that wasn't the default in most parts of human history. Many people died very early in the past. Some died of Addison's disease at 41. Some died of tuberculosis at 40. Some died of tuberculosis-induced heart failure at 34. Some died of meningitis at 24. Some died simply because of having eaten a rotten fruit at 36. Some died of airplane crash at 34. Some died of epilepsy-induced accident at 29. My grandfather died of appendicitis (can you imagine?) at 28. I am not even talking about self-inflicted deaths like that of rock stars who died of drug abuse or depression-induced suicide. I am talking mostly about pure misfortunes, mainly due to some completely random diseases, either genetic or bacterial. We can safely conclude that if most of them were born in the world today, they would have survived way longer. Almost no one dies of tuberculosis ...

Very effective tips on how to be unhappy: Always worrying about making mistakes  Afraid of rejections Never talk to janitors Always hoping that one day you will be lucky Following thousands people or liking hundred pages on social media Always envy Always playing sport games with artificially certain and finite rules (E.g.: Football, basketball, badminton, ping pong etc.) Afraid of criticising friends Always saying "I have no choice" Reading famous self-help books like "Think and Grow Rich" or "Rich Dad Poor Dad" Pornography and "babes" on social media Eating sugar all the time Always texting instead of calling Afraid of being stupid, afraid of unknown Speculating stock markets Having a "bucket list"  Attending motivational seminars to get "motivation" Comparing salary and bonuses Always desiring to be special, afraid of being normal Thinking atheism is better than religion Believing that Social Science ...

If you are naturally an unhappy person, after being rich you stay same as an unhappy person. In fact, isn't it very unscientific and illogical, to think that money is an alchemy that can transmute happiness for you out of thin air? If you are naturally a happy person, money will augment your happiness. Money is just a multiplier. Whereas you yourself is the base. When you base is 0, even if you multiply it with 1,000,000,000, your end outcome is still 0. When your base is non-zero, even pennies can lead you to non-zero outcomes. If you have to wait until you become rich to be happy, you never will. No mathematicians will be able to make multiplication of 0 into anything.  Don't focus so much on multipliers until you lose sight of your base, not realising that it has become 0.

Some close friends know me for being philosophical. In fact I am often accused of being too philosophical. While I vehemently disagree with the idea of "studying philosophy" [1] , today I will try to give a brief account on what is philosophy in general. I have never received "formal training" in philosophy studies. I "learned" it mainly via self study and partly because my major back then (law degree) is a key branch of formal philosophy studies. To start with, I will talk about the formal 5 branches of philosophy. Philosophy can be divided into: Aethestics (What is beautiful? What makes beautiful things beautiful?) Logic (What is true, accurate and correct?) Ethics (What is morally good? What is evil?) Epistemology (What is real?) Metaphysics [2] The first resembles all the arts in general. Music, painting, sculpting etc. The second resembles Mathematics. The third resembles what judges and lawyers do da...