Category: Technology

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TLC Weekly Update July 10, 2022

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A busy week ended with me no internet access all day Friday thanks to the now world famous 2022 Rogers Communications outage. I have no cell phone and internet access for the whole day. Many others are still suffering though as service is not restored everywhere yet. It is a Canada wide outage that also led to many government services not accessible and retail stores not able to accept any kind of electronic payments.

Don’t know what to say about the mess they caused. I am glad that I finally get some internet access as of Saturday even though it is not stable.

A story about the q-tips from CNN. I don’t understand why many people and especially the so-called doctors telling everyone it is dangerous to use q-tips to clean their ears. I suspect it is probably the earliest form of wokeness b.s. that we see everywhere now.

For some mysterious reasons I was caught in an unnecessary discussion with some left leaning people who think communism is the solution to all the “wrongs” they see everywhere. After the discussion this new clip on communism just came up from Jordan Peterson. This is one of those subjects that if in depth history study is a requirement in school, the dumb idea of idolizing communism would never happen.

Well, there is no need to be so serious over the weekend. Here is a nice video on how hateful white men are.

Have a great weekend all!

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TLC Weekly Update June 25, 2022

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Can’t believe I have forgotten to write my weekly update last week. I don’t even remember what I did last week over the weekend until I checked my daily notes. It turned out I was doing all kinds of chores from fixing up my cottage to building a storage facility in the basement. I guess this is what happen when I do not put this writing task on my schedule …

The most time consuming task, though, was that my internet access was very unstable for weeks. Not until I use hardcore network packet tracing I could not pinpoint the problem. It just happens that the two major internet service providers in Canada are engaging in packet snoping and mess with my connections to my servers. I am not even having a server at home for outside connections. I know they block that since many years ago.

This is a whole new level of f**k up by these companies. And obviously calling these companies resulted in no help at all. So, instead of wasting more time, I chose to have these companies install the commercial version of their internet services through their business division. Fast forward to today, I am paying double for pretty much exactly the same freaking service and all the bullshit problems are now gone.

Of course, anyone trying to put blame on these companies will be labelled misinformation spreader and than they are honorable companies that never engage in illegal activities or invading your privacy …

While waiting on the phone for countless hours, I watched this video on fight scenes with spear in movies. I like the guy’s comments. It is hard to find action movies correctly depicting the proper use of these long range weapons.

I was asked a lot about the current geopolitical situation and my response is something no one wants to hear. I told everyone that given the current trajectory of how things are developing everywhere, the outcome is pretty much set in stone – US and all those countries that choose to be its goons will fall economically and politically. It does not matter what these countries do now, the way how they conduct themselves over the past two years already planted the seed of their ultimate decline.

I am not someone who gains anything from saying this. I live in Canada with a f**king idiot elected as the prime minister. Everything he does is against any lowest level of common sense. I have no business ties with Russia or China, unlike Dalio. I do not stand to gain anything telling the world that these hated countries by the West are the ones likely coming out ahead in a few years time. I hate what I see is coming but it is better to be prepared for the future than to live in an illusion.

Let’s get off this heavy topic and watch an interesting game of chess here. These two grandmasters duel it out in the FIDE Candidates 2022 tournament and according to computer analysis, both of them achieved like 99% accuracy in the way they carry their games. Super human indeed!

Here is a video explaining something I told my premium subscribers for a long time. And may I add the quantity needed to break the world right now – 2%. That’s all it takes to completely collapse the world financial system at this point.

Enough dark thoughts from me.

Have a great weekend all!

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TLC Weekly Update May 6, 2022

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What a roller coaster week with the stock market … for experienced day traders, this is golden opportunity to make good money while casual players got slaughtered without knowing why.

Interesting view about the rate hikes by Sam Zell. If he is right, then the bears of the stock market will be crushed hard pretty soon.

Lately the stock of Teladoc Health (TDOC) was quite the talk of the town thanks to Cathie Wood’s perfect timing to buy this stock at such a good price that it is now 90% lower from its all-time-high. I guess her call of the stock to 10x may now be possible if it trades back up to its peak. That, of course, depends heavily on whether it will go to zero first.

Here is a short article by Mark Manson on how we judge others. It is a good read.

I am happy that my two new trading servers are now working. Time to move onto the other projects.

Happy Mother’s Day!

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TLC Weekly Update April 22, 2022

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I am late posting again. No excuse this time. I just completely forgotten to write this until I wake up late this morning on Saturday. I was setting up two new computers as trading servers. It took so long for Windows 10 to update itself until the computers are ready for use. Before I knew it, it was already well after midnight …

I never thought the ability to scream can lead to a career doing exactly that. Interesting read indeed.

A funny take on Musk’s Twitter takeover drama. Despite Tesla’s latest cooked earning performance, given Musk questionable state of mind, any reasonable investor should seriously question the viability of this whole concept of “electric cars” and “solar power” meme.

I have seen quite a number of astrologers even claiming electric cars must be the future …

Based on my years of observing such speculations of the development of future technologies (using astrology or whatever tools), is that all such speculations when agreed upon by majority of these “gurus”, had all failed.

Hence, my interpretation of our future that we will be using clean energy because of whatever astrological setup that are going to happen several years down the road, is that there will be a new energy source discovered by then, not now. That’s the golden rule or astrology – disruptive changes do not happen before the astro setup.

It also implies all electric vehicles will be rendered useless.

Consider yourself warned by a “non guru” astrologer.

Given the crisis at Ukraine is still on-going, and that Musk calls the West to restart their nuclear reactors, I guess this video is a timely one. Remember nuclear power plants with ancient designs from 30-50 years ago dominate the nuclear power plants that were shutdown by the West across Europe since the horrible Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan.

Musk’s idea has not put into consideration of human factors. Since the close down of these reactors, the experienced engineers and operators of nuclear power plants all move on. There is no acceptable level of expertise to re-open these nuclear power plants. That implies the chance of major incidents like nuclear melt down would be 100 times higher, if not 1 million times higher (420 joke).

I urge all European leaders to ignore Musk. Otherwise, it is a guarantee that we will see large part of Europe contaminated by radiation, millions will die horribly and destroy the world as we know.

Time to get back to work.

Have a great weekend all!

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TLC Weekly Update October 22, 2021

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What a week for the stock market to challenge its all-time-high right by the end of the week and only to be disrupted by Fed chair Mr. Powell’s comments. Seriously, do these government officials time their statements right at these critical price levels? Conspiracy theory anyone?

Someone sent me this video about Bonhoeffer’s Theory of Stupid and told me he is thankful that I did not give up on him years ago as suggested by the video. To me, it is really him who determined that he could not live the same way anymore that induced the transformation. However, it takes a lot of courage for those who have this realization to take the steps necessary to turn around their lives …

I could not believe that there is a YouTube channel called Canadian Prepper. I was looking for backup power and emergency items in case of power outage this coming winter. And it is very amusing to see how far preppers can go to prepare for survival. This video talks about storing dry food powder that can last for 20 years.

Bought my son a compact hunting knife as birthday gift and taught him some basics on using one. Basic survival skills are rarely taught anywhere these days. In an emergency, they put the odds on your side. I am grateful I got the chance to learn them when I was young.

For those of you astronomy fans, I found this stunning video of Europa, one of the moons of Jupiter.

Right on the last day of Mercury retrograde, my VPN server completely broke down and I have to replace the computer. I thought my nightmare was over until the next morning I found my stock market historical data server frozen. Although I have full backup of everything, I still need to get the machine working again. After days of observation, it is now clear that it is a hardware failure issue as the computer just freeze up randomly. So my other projects have to be put on hold until I setup a new server to replace this computer too.

I agreed to do a podcast with Better System Trader coming Monday night. For those of you interested in trading, tune-in by then or wait for the video on YouTube. Actually I don’t know if you can tune-in live …

Back to my painfully slow process of setting up a new server here.

Have a great weekend all!

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TLC Weekly Update September 3, 2021

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Last month of the third quarter just started. Another week of all-time-high price actions. Some gurus even believe that the stock market will continue to melt up just like Germany back in 1919 to 1933. If so, I guess we will see S&P500 going a lot higher from here.

For those of you who find meditation not your cup of tea, there are other ways to achieve the same. From my family’s tradition Chinese medicine teaching, we have all these breathing techniques that claim to achieve wonderful results. And now science confirms that the claims are true.

I still find the scientific explanation making things too complicated though. Common sense – use it or lose it.

A video about the rarely mentioned issue with interference on our computers from outer space. I guess blaming the stars for my computer woes has some merit after all. The damn Mercury retrograde is coming back to haunt us from September 27 to October 17. Prepare for machine malfunctions by then.

Talking about computer trouble, one of my trusted Surface Pro 6 got BSOD and it looks like its hard drive died after 2 years of everyday use. I am glad that I bought the full extended warranty on the machine. 3 days after I reported this to Microsoft, the replacement is already at my door. Although I don’t like Microsoft much, this superior customer service is definitely worth mentioning here.

A very good follow-up on the Great Barrington Declaration by Unherd. During this covid crisis, we hear nothing from governments worldwide doing anything resemble common sense. The declaration made by these brave medical professionals was not only ignored but also led to hardship on them for speaking out. This is the ultimate sign that the so-called democracy based systems around the world is failing …

My busy schedule continues to use up all my time. Progress is made but not as quickly as I hope for. That’s the natural of research and development – it takes time to get results.

Have a great long weekend everyone!

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TLC Weekly Update July 30, 2021

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Can’t believe it is already the end of July. Time flies when you just work until you are so tired and crash in bed day after day.

An interesting video explaining why first class is disappearing. Airline business is indeed a tough one. I wonder how long it will take for the industry to recover from covid.

A friend sent me this video about people dumb enough to go online shopping for hitman. Are people really losing their common sense these days?

After watching this video, I want to get one of these beautiful chess sets too. Maybe I will buy myself that this Christmas …

Some of you asked why I have time to watch all these videos and read all kinds of articles while complaining about not enough time to work on my projects. Well it is quite simple to answer – I accomplish all that during my lunch and dinner. And I only eat two times a day.

This will be a Canadian long weekend. My schedule wouldn’t change though – research and development is a forever grind that takes someone who enjoy the process.

Have a nice weekend all!

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TLC Weekly Update February 19, 2021

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This year 2021 is definitely at least as bizarre as year 2020. Looking at the extreme weather we experienced this week, I wonder what else is in store in coming few months. I will not be surprised if it gets any colder here in Toronto, the polar bears will come visit us.

One good news I got this week is that Big-Game Hunter ES, the fully automated trading strategy I have created, made it to the Top 10 List at Striker Securities. BGH is the only day trading strategy made it in the list.

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BGH had some tough time over the past 2 years from technical issues to dealing with Trump’s tweet storms. I am confident that with fewer disruptive events, BGH will do fine going forward.

When I was searching for performance evaluation methods online, I came across this interesting video about the origin of minesweeper and solitaire that extends to a talk about performance feedback and evaluation. Understanding this is useful for anyone, traders included, who are trying to improve their skills of any kind.

For those of you interested in building your own PC, here are some good news for you – the Intel iCore series CPU prices just crashed hard. And in fact, if the momentum tells anything, it may persist for a while. The pressure on price came from multiple front, including the leak of the pricing of the next generation iCore CPUs.

In my case, I don’t need the latest and fastest computers to do my work which is mainly research and development of trading algorithms. Due to limitations of the trading platforms available in the market, there is really no point to pay top dollar for the top of the line computer models. Instead, I use multiple cheap computers at the same time. If one computer is doing some heavy duty optimization work that can take hours to get the results, I simply continue to work on a different set of trading algos on another computer.

Every famous investor going on TV or other media these days are talking about how unreasonable the stock markets are at the current price level. However, majority of them are also experienced enough to not going short against the markets. Not that I believe in the bullshit of Elliot Wave Theory, but trading legend Paul Tudor Jones really sums it up nicely,

“There is no training, classroom or otherwise, that can prepare for trading the last third of a move, whether it’s the end of a bull market or the end of a bear market.”

There is no shame to take profit or lock in gains on some of your long term holdings given the current high valuation of many stocks and the indices. Not protecting your capital is very irresponsible for your financial well being.

Have a great weekend all!

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TLC Weekly Update December 11, 2020

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Another interesting trading week almost over with all eyes on next week’s US electoral vote event (Monday, Dec 14) that may result in some shocking twists and turns. All these states filed their cases with the US supreme court may not impact the outcome though. But what if they do? I can’t imagine the mess we are going to see …

This is the time of the year people start to read up the astrology predictions for the coming year. One recurring talk about Dec 14 and Dec 21 this year keeps coming up. The other funny one is the talk about Mayan end of the world year was not 2012 but 2021. I am not a believer in astrology based on Zodiac birth month. It is still fun to read and watch astrologers, both experts and pretend ones, making forecast about people’s future.

I just learned about Russia’s organic food industry and I am very fascinated that how long will it take US to condemn all organic food because it is mostly imported from Russia.

My research on history for some mysterious reason landed me on this story about the evolution of bats. It is a good read though.

A good video by Yahoo Finance asking Paul Tudor Jones his view of the market. It is a short video packed with good info and his thoughts about the stock market may surprise you.

I am writing my 2021 business plan at the moment. After a year of total chaos and surprises, I have so much to add to my usual contingency plan. Trying to anticipate what has never happened in our own life time is difficult. Hence the research into past history to see what can happen and how that impact the economy and our lives becomes very useful.

For example, what if we have another major power outage like year 2003. Or that something like Ebola, instead of COVID-19, is spreading worldwide. The goal is to figure out what has to be done so that I will not react to these crisis level situations unprepared.

And of course, end of the year is a good time to clean out the junk. I finally have to throw away my trusted Samsung all-in-one printer / scanner. It served me well for over 10 years. Over the years, its drum died first, so I could not use it as a printer but I still keep it as a scanner. Then the scanner cover broke last time I moved so all it can do was doing autofeed scanning. And now its autofeeder gave in.

So after all, I ended up buying something this holiday season. Like it or not, life is a series of surprises.

Have a great weekend all!

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TLC Weekly Update September 4, 2020

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What a week for the stock market – when everyone was talking about the market would never go lower because of the Fed policy, next thing you know we got a one day drop of more than 6% in Nasdaq 100 and 3% in S&P500. Usually September and October are the more volatile months so more fireworks is very likely in coming few weeks. On top of that, we have US election in early November. This is going to be very interesting for aggressive traders going into the end of this year.

Robert Greene just released a new video on human irrationality. It is a long video (about an hour) that I think everyone should watch and learn from it.

For those of you who grew up with the Apple II computers, you probably played the game Prince of Persia. Here is an interesting video on its creator Jordan Mechner who figured out how to break the Apple II hardware limitations. What he has accomplished shows the importance of having multiple voices in any large scale projects. If he had stayed the course of doing what he thought the game was all about, Prince of Persia would not have becoming the iconic classic games of all time.

And remember, never ask a surgeon whether you need a surgery – interesting talk of clash between Canada’s CMHC outgoing chief and Canadian real estate industry.

Looks like this weekend I will have a break from my marathon meetings. I need this badly as my biological clock is totally messed up over the past few weeks. Some “me time” for meditation and exercise sounds like a plan.

Have a great long weekend all!