Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Havadan Sudan

 
Ref: Google Maps.
 

Monday, December 12, 2011

Three ancient Chinese Curses

  1. May you live in interesting times.
  2. May you come to the attention of those in authority.
  3. May you find what you are looking for.
Though, they may not be of Chinese origin...
 

Monday, December 5, 2011

What's wrong with or what's working in American court system

Got this "Notice of Proposed Settlement of Class Action" yesterday.
"This proposed settlement ("Settlement") is on behalf of a nationwide class of consumers (the "Class") who (1) purchased tickets on Ticketmaster's website, www.ticketmaster.com ("the Website") between October 21, 1999 and October 19, 2011...
...
The proposed Settlement will provide a combination of benefits to the Class and UPS Subclass. Additionally, Lead Class counsel (identified below) will apply for up to $16.5 million in attorneys' fees and expense reimbursements to counsel for the class and for an incentive award of $20,000 to each of the class representatives..."
The two plaintiffs who brought the case will get $20,000 each and the rest goes to the attorneys.  That is 0.24% vs. 99.76%.
 

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Quotes for future

Nowhere in the contract says I have to be consistent.
 

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

A fun funding platform

for music, film, art, technology, design, food, publishing and other creative fields.
 

Friday, November 25, 2011

Knickerbocker 60k results

Completed last week's race in 189th position out of 270 finishers.  I haven't been running long distances since the operation in June and the result shows that I wasn't ready for this distance.  Need to ramp up weekly miles before snow falls (again!).  Below is a graph of a simple average race pace (x-axis in minutes) versus the standard deviation (y-axis in minutes) the 9 loops only.   The race also had a 1.46 mile out and back in the beginning to complete the distance to 60km which I didn't include in the computations.
 
 
 (photo credits Brightroom)
My coconut water bottle on one hand and homemade gel (yogurt and honey) on the other.  For some reason I was starving all the time.
 

Ramanujan's Series for 1/π: A Survey

Ramanujan’s Series for 1: A Survey

Nayandeep Deka Baruah, Bruce C. Berndt, and Heng Huat Chan

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Friday, November 18, 2011

Outer class instance variable access from inner class

Inner classes have access to enclosing class variables.
 
    public class Outer {
 
        private int foo;
 
        class Inner {
 
            private int bar;
 
            Inner() {
                this.bar = foo+1;
            }
        }
    }

What if we want to rename bar to foo as well? "this" prefix will refer to inner class swe have to qualify it with outer class as below.      
 
    public class Outer {
 
        private int foo;
 
        class Inner {
 
            private int foo;
 
            Inner() {
                this.foo Outer.this.foo+1;
            }
        }
    }

Monday, November 14, 2011

Data Driven Documents

D3: A javascript library, orthogonal to css, html, and svg
 

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Sharpe Ratio optimization with Matlab 2007a

Blank
Never versions of Matlab has this feature built in but for the people still on the old version may help. 

 

[w,fval] = fmincon(@(w) -w'*r/sqrt(w'*c*w),ones(N,1)/,-eye(N),zeros(N,1),ones(1,N),1);

 

objective term: -w'*r/sqrt(w'*c*w)   is the formulation of Sharpe Ratio, where r is the excess return vector, c is the covariance matrix,and w is the security weights we're optimizing. Since it's a minimization algorithm we have to negate it.

 

N is the dimension of the problem where c and r dimensions need to match.

initial value: ones(3,1)/3 to start the search

long only constraint:   Aw ≤ b   where A=-eye(3), b=zeros(3,1) which becomes w ≥ 0

budget constraint: Aw=b  where A=[1 1 ... 1], b=1 which becomes ∑wi = 1

 

the outputs are the weights and the optimal function value at these weights.

 

 

 

Friday, November 4, 2011

cool tools

Blank

http://www.reqall.com/   transcribes your voice mail (human assisted) and send it to you as an email.  Good for short reminders, calendar entries, even for longer text. You can call from registered five phone numbers or with a PIN from any other phone as well (they use caller id to identify the account).  Available worldwide.

Best part... it's free. 

Friday, October 28, 2011

Introduction to Probability by Grinstead and Snell

Blank

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~chance/teaching_aids/books_articles/probability_book/amsbook.mac.pdf

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Poland Spring 5M Race on Sunday in Central Park

Path schedule never works for me on the weekends.  One train is too early the next one is a little late.  My Goldilocks choice would be a 7.30am. 
What to do...
 
I'll take Path @7.13am, arrive WTC @7.17am, and wait 20 minutes before transferring to 1 (7.39am) or A (7.49am) to 59th street.  Walk north first to finish line for bag drop, then to start line.  Race course here: http://nyrr.org/races/2011/pdf/Poland%20Spring_map_2011.pdf
 
 
Weather report looks very promising for Sunday.  Do I see "snow" on Saturday.  Already?
 
 
 
 

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Carbohydrate mouth rinse effects on exercise capacity in pre- and postprandial States

by: Fares EJ, Kayser B.
Source: Institute of Movement Science and Sports Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Geneva, 1211 Geneva 4, Switzerland.
Background. Oropharyngeal receptors signal presence of carbohydrate to the brain. Mouth rinses with a carbohydrate solution facilitate corticomotor output and improve time-trial performance in well-trained subjects in a fasted state. We tested for this effect in nonathletic subjects in fasted and nonfasted state. Methods. 13 healthy non-athletic males performed 5 tests on a cycle ergometer. After measuring maximum power output (Wmax), the subjects cycled four times at 60% Wmax until exhaustion while rinsing their mouth every 5 minutes with either a 6.4% maltodextrin solution or water, one time after an overnight fast and another after a carbohydrate rich breakfast. Results. Mouth rinsing with maltodextrin improved time-to-exhaustion in pre- and postprandial states. This was accompanied by reductions in the average and maximal rates of perceived exertion but no change in average or maximal heart rate was observed. Conclusions. Carbohydrate mouth rinsing improves endurance capacity in both fed and fasted states in non-athletic subjects.