Yew Jin's Blog

Software Engineering

2008-06-25T16:19:00.000-07:00

"Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler."

- Albert Einstein

Writing software is a messy business. You come up with a solution that works. This is probably best exemplified by the Netflix Prize competition (see wikipedia article for a quick overview if you have not heard of it before).

One consensus I got at KDD Cup 2007 was a slight disappointment at the "hackish" nature of the leading team, which later won the 2007 progress prize. Their winning solution is described here.

It is easy to have bloat creep into code as bugs are fixed and features are added.

One positive plus of working in Google is the inclination to frown on code bloat, and engineers are recognized for coming up with simpler implementations. This philosophy of constant iteration of software engineering ensures that systems are capable of keeping up with features while being maintainable. (Unit testing is HUGE here too)

MOM

2008-06-06T14:40:00.000-07:00

Doing a Google search on "mom" shows how overloaded the term is. Poor mothers... Not getting the mindshare of searches all over the world.

And of course, again we see evidence of Singaporeans' love for acronyms as Ministry of Manpower [mom.gov.sg] is such a high-ranking result.

Singapore finding unknown unknown threats

2008-06-06T12:45:00.000-07:00

Interesting nugget - Larry Brilliant's won the TED prize in 2006 and his TED wish was to create a new global system that can identify and contain pandemics before they spread. See video [ted.com].

Singapore's version - RAHS (Seriously, do we need to make Risk Assesment And Horizon Scanning an acronym?). If only we could have used it to find, oh I don't know, missing terrorists or recalcitrant political activists. :)

Pseudo Nasi Lemak

2008-06-01T18:27:00.000-07:00

If Nasi Lemak don't come to Yew Jin, Yew Jin will cook some pseudo Nasi Lemak. Our first attempt.

Memorial Day Weekend

2008-05-26T19:01:00.000-07:00

Peace on earth. May all beings be free of suffering.

Orh

2008-05-17T21:55:00.000-07:00

Today I found out that my wife nodding and replying "orh" to what I say does not constitute agreement or even understanding of what I am saying.

Case in point: Lately it has been very hot in Mountain View, reaching over 37 degree Celsius in the past two days. Our house, which does not have any inlets except for the main door, is generally not in the direction of the wind. This causes the apartment to a furnace during hot days and starts baking the occupants - something that I start hearing about in the afternoon when my wife calls me and yelping for mercy from the heat.

One solution we found is to switch on the fan while the door is opened. The fan draws the cooler air from the outside and cools our apartment. This solution is not ideal as it leaves, well, the door open (i.e. you can't be sleeping). As an added bonus, insects get in.

I started proposing an alternate solution to my wife over lunch - use a fan to blow air out of a window, and open the other windows while leaving the main door closed. As air is being drawn out of that one window, this creates moving air (aka wind) and circulates the cooler air from outside to inside. And even if the air outside is just as warm as it is indoors, the air movement will cool the insides of the house, thus preventing baking of the occupants.

Arriving home in the evening, I proceeded to close the main door, bring the fan to the bedroom window and face it outside. My wife walks in and demands to know what I am doing. To which I replied, "trying out that hypothesis I mentioned earlier today". I walk outside to the living room and show her that cool air is starting to be circulate through the house, and say "see... it works!"

My wife exclaims: "oh is this what you were talking about over lunch? I still have no idea what you are talking about though."

Canonical Strings, or, why I like Python

2008-05-14T08:55:00.000-07:00

I needed a quick and easy function to map strings into a canonical form. In this case, punctuation, upper/lower case, and word order are not important. i.e. "!$%!@$!@!This!?! is... a test" == "a test this is". Less than 1 minute and I am good to go with...

import re
re_punctuation = re.compile(
    r"[`~!@#\$%\^&\*\(\)\-_\+={\[}\]\\|;:\'\",<\.>/\?]")
def GetCanonical(input):
  canonical = re_punctuation.sub(" ", input.lower()).split()
  canonical.sort()
  return ' '.join(canonical)

GetCanonical("This is a test") == GetCanonical("a test this is")

Cookie Monster Meditates

2008-05-04T05:42:00.000-07:00

Me love cookies. Me tend to get out of control when me see cookies. Me know it not natural to react so strongly to cookies, but me have weakness. Me know me do wrong. Me know it isn't normal. Me see disapproving looks. Me see stares. Me hurt inside.

When me get back to apartment, after cookie binge, me can't stand looking in mirror—fur matted with chocolate-chip smears and infested with crumbs. Me try but me never able to wash all of them out. Me don't think me is monster. Me just furry blue person who love cookies too much. Me no ask for it. Me just born that way.

Me was thinking and me just don't get it. Why is me a monster? No one else called monster on Sesame Street. Well, no one who isn't really monster. Two-Headed Monster have two heads, so he real monster. Herry Monster strong and look angry, so he probably real monster, too. But is me really monster?

Me thinks me have serious problem. Me thinks me addicted. But since when it acceptable to call addict monster? It affliction. It disease. It burden. But does it make me monster?

To read more, click on the original article Cookie Monster Searches Deep Within Himself and Asks: Is Me really Monster? by Andy F. Bryan.

We're having too much fun here

2008-04-19T22:09:00.002-07:00

The article based on the interview with Straits Times is now available - Our Guys in Google [straitstimes.com].

I am now wondering if I remembered wrongly - is it supposed to be the 100 feet or 150 feet rule?

Oh well, hopefully this nugget of information does not become a circular reference like the Sacha Baron Cohen past job history factoid as featured on slashdot. :P

Being more effective at work and in life

2008-04-13T10:50:00.004-07:00

Work hard, play hard.

This is easier said than done, and I am working on being more effective both at work and in life. I have always maintained that one should be working on things that they love, but that neglects to mention how to separate work from the other demands of life.

The truth is, it's not easy (for me at least), and sometimes I devote all my energy in work; leaving no time or energy to have a social life.

The problem with integrating work with life and working "hard" (aka long hours) - I become myopic in my work - working on the immediate goals, and not standing back to focus on the big picture; working on small features, when there are revolutionary things up for the taking.

Take that Sub 2H half marathon!

2008-04-12T22:36:00.003-07:00

2008 Santa Cruz Half Marathon (13.1 miles or 21.097 km)

Chip Time - 1:50:36.5. Gun Time - 1:50:57.2. Pace - 8:27/M

That was tougher than I thought, but it felt good. Not sure if I can find the time to train for the next one though. ya know, things to do, places to be...

brain rules

2008-04-06T11:34:00.002-07:00

The author of Brain Rules is giving a talk in Google next week. I'm going to attend the talk because he has the rules:

Exercise - Brain Rule #1
Sleep - Brain Rule #7

I already agree.

So what's up?

2008-03-29T23:46:00.010-07:00

I went for dinner with some friends of my friends, and one of the 2nd degree friends asked me about the "layoffs" in Google lately. A little shocking, but I believe he was mistaken - he was probably confusing us with other search engine companies.

They were also curious about the atmosphere in Google (presumably due to the "layoffs"), but I think it's important to inform everyone about the ten things Google has found to be true.

Quite appropriately, #1 is "Focus on the user and all else will follow."

We focus on being a really good search engine, and do whatever we can to help the web ecosystem with our technology. We believe that stock price and market capitalization is incidental to being a great company doing great things.

p.s., to clarify in case there is any doubt, there are no "layoffs" in Google. The confusion arose because of the constant media focus on the negatives of the US economy lately. In addition, the perception of any form of exodus is, in my opinion, overplayed. People naturally come and go.

In fact, now is a good time to note that Google is always looking for great people to hire. So if you have what it takes, please apply for a Google job now!

Maybe in Newspaper?

2008-03-23T17:42:00.002-07:00

I got interviewed last week by a reporter from Straits Times with several other Singaporeans - so I might be appearing in an article if they choose to use our group photo with Meng. Other than the fact that he is possibly the only person you can reliably depend on having a camera on him, he is, conveniently enough, possibly the most famous Singaporean Googler.

Don't be too shocked at my hairstyle - and yes, my parents are asking me whether Google has any barbers (yes, there are on-site hairstylists, but they are not free). And no, I'm not cutting my hair anytime soon. :P

Romancing the Angel

2008-03-15T21:18:00.003-07:00

Description of run by organizers:
Whether you've lived in the Bay Area all of your life and never visited Angel Island or you're from out of town and want experience one of San Francisco's top tourist destinations in a unique way, this event is for you! You'll find out why Tony Bennett left his heart in San Francisco after running this trail!

See pictures of my Angel Island Run 08

Inner Contrarian

2008-03-09T07:25:00.007-07:00

Everything moves in cycles, and it seems like the proverbial recession in US has arrived after a secular bull trend. My inner contrarian has revived the perennial need for me to think about retirement (at 35) - Buy now! buy! buy!

Ever since reading A Random Walk Down Wall Street, I have been using dollar cost averaging for my investments in index funds. Despite numerous studies that suggest that lump sum investing is statistically better than dollar cost averaging [Math professor article] [Journal of Financial Planning article], they appear to assume the obviously improbable - that you have the lump sum of money just waiting to be invested.

Alas no, I do not have a lump of gazillion dollars sitting alone in the corner and waiting to be utilized, but I do have regular income that I feel should be working as hard as I do (erm, maybe a little harder). But let's face it, with high confidence, I claim that I will not be as successful as Warren Buffet or David Swensen in achieving 15-20% returns on my investments over an extended period of time.

And until I can get my sentient uber AI investment software up and running, maybe I can consider modified dollar cost averaging as a means of investing.

The Points of Life

2008-03-02T19:10:00.005-08:00

Career - Work where you do what you like and get paid for it, then goto step 2.
Retirement - Be frugal, and make your money work for you, then goto step 3.
Meaning of life - To find the meaning of life. D'oh.

Another random thought - how does one invest during a recession? Buy bonds, gold, basic minerals?

Or be contrarian and buy equity?

That's a big dog...

2008-02-28T15:16:00.002-08:00

Only at Google.

Today I was walking across the hallway when I saw a lady hugging this really huge dog (think waist high), until I realized it was a pony! And there were also a few roosters and chickens around. I thought I was going bonkers.

So it turns out that this is a party for Googlers who help out in various ways outside of their normal job scope, and this was a way to (1) attract attention so that other Googlers know about this, and (2) entertain Googlers as there is some strange appeal to looking at farm animals gaze grass, poop, and walk around in the sun. In any case, there were also goats, bunnies, ducks, and a pig.

Only at Google.

New Tower of Drinks

2008-02-21T20:35:00.002-08:00

Can you tell the difference?

Non-Noogler Update

2008-02-05T10:24:00.000-08:00

I am a week away from being a three month-old Googler, and currently I call myself the "non-noogler" (but not yet a googler). Things that I have done so far:

151 unique drinks in Googleplex found and drank
Have jogged, cycled and driven from home to Google
Felt like I can change the world with my work after seeing the launch of my team's product
Have zealously promoted Google products to friends until wife now rolls her eyes whenever I mention 1-800-Goog-411 but forget to mention yelp
Commented that I "only" had halibut for lunch - ya'know, nothing special
Changed to using ion3 as my windows manager
Met Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports, and Second Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts
Got to know about 10 Singaporean googlers, including Meng
Attended numerous meditation classes/sessions at Google
Missed two company trips. One to Hawaii, and another to Disney Land
Loving it here

Singapore's Existence

2008-01-25T09:54:00.001-08:00

Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, 2nd Minister of MICA, visited Google recently to learn and share insights on the development of IT and engineering in Singapore, US and globally. We had a fairly long discussion, about 2 hours, talking on issues ranging from how Google works to the rationale behind scholarships with bonds.

As the new guard of the Singapore government, I talked away with the impression that the minister had thought long about Singapore and its role in the global economy - a very poignant quote from him (paraphrased) "~~what~~ why and how can Singapore, a place which logically does not deserve to exist, continue to thrive?"

Technical Jobs in Singapore

2008-01-12T23:00:00.000-08:00

Revisiting a popular (relative to this blog) earlier rant on technical jobs in Singapore - what are the problems with technical jobs in Singapore?

Respect, Not Fear

The culture in Singapore is rift with infusions from Confucianism, and one theme is that the young should respect the elder, all else being equal. This somehow translates to managers expecting that junior employees will execute orders almost unconditionally, despite the manager's lack of technical expertise (and even if the manager is an engineer, he or she should know when the topic is out of their own expertise). Managing engineers is like herding cats - organized chaos. You really cannot tell engineers exactly what to do and when to do it. Engineers will feel much more respected if you outline the problem, and allow them to explore and develop solutions by themselves, other than micromanaging them and inspecting their work at every minor milestone. A pet peeve of mine is when managers suggest that a solution should be trivial or easy when they have no technical understanding of the issue at hand, this raises a major major red flag for me - this is why engineers should be managed by other engineers, preferably superstars who have done it all (Maybe people like Vinton Cerf, Ken Thompson, Amit Singhal, and obviously, Larry Page, Segrey Brin and Eric Schmidt). In engineering though, good ideas are king and bad ideas should be vilified - it does not matter if the idea came from the janitor or the superstar engineer. Herein lies another problem with "respect your elders". It has evolved to "fear your managers" in the Singapore context (partially because managers are given so much more power in organizations, which I discuss next) - engineers simply feel uncomfortable pointing out and rejecting an idea that the manager presented because they feel obliged to accept the idea. This phenomena is present to some extent everywhere, but I feel this is particularly problematic in Singapore.

Look, in the sky, it's not a bird, not a plane, it's your new boss

As outlined in my previous article, one, if not the biggest, problem is that in Singapore IT companies, managers are more valued and better compensated than engineers. Everyone pays lip service to "oh, engineers are number one". Even if there is a career path for engineers that reaches to senior management, there will inevitably be a non-technical person with higher status (or more likely, a whole bunch of people) in the organization. This sends a signal that propagates throughout the organization that engineers are not number one - and as non-technical people gain more traction and start making organizational decisions that make no technical sense, engineers will feel segregated and meekly allow non-technical people to make decisions for them. Lather, rinse, repeat, and the original motto of "engineers are number one" is watered down to somewhere along the lines of "engineers. oh. they do stuff that we tell them".

Meritocracy, also from the tenets of Confucianism, is alive and well in Singapore - scholarships are given to individuals who perform exceptionally in examinations and are rewarded with a fast-track career in the civil service. I believe that this is actually an excellent system that has resulted in an efficient and frankly, world-class caliber civil service.

However, it is common to "parachute" management from other parts of the civil service to technical organizations in Singapore (which, unfortunately, constitutes the major players in IT R&D in Singapore). Not to pick on the army (because management movement happens in the entire civil service), but the current policy is for generals to retire when they reach about 45 years old (give or take a few years) - they are considered senior civil servants who are able to head an entire organization, even R&D and IT organizations, which brings me back to the point - are engineers number one?

Treat smart engineers right, and great things happen. Most engineers actually do not be look to be the CEO, or to earn outrageous salaries (which, ahem, people do in the civil service) - but we do hope to be respected. I would feel insulted if engineers are "respected", but are the minority in management. That's lip service, and we know it.

100% right the first time always means ...

The last point which I will not dwell on too much is that we Singaporeans on the whole need to be more advantageous in our thinking - fall a few times, it is ok. IT organizations too, have to accept that good ideas result from a gazillion bad ideas accumulating. If everything you did worked and you reached all your goals, you are not trying hard enough.

Organizations in Singapore expect results very quickly, which is good in the industry, as you want to move fast, but also expect that these results to be the "next best thing". No, separate the two - you want to develop prototypes quickly, but be just as quick to discard it if it turns out to be bad (and to reward that behavior). Otherwise, you just have a bunch of people trying out safe alternatives to get tangible results (but not the next best thing).

This Article Writes Itself

2008-01-08T21:48:00.000-08:00

Mike is a dear friend whom I have known since my undergraduate days in Waterloo. Mike is an astute observer of life and I refer to him as "Mike the Critic".

Blogging is hard work

me: I should just use your quotes.
mike: you should start by saying... blogging is just too much work [smile]. That's what Mike the critic would say

Using Mike Quotes

me: oh yeah
reminds me that i do have a textfile in my home laptop
titled "mike quotes"
mike: that's "Mike's" quotes
(you can add grammar nazi too)

AAPL is a good buy

Mike: so I feel safe with my AAPL investment
missed out on the iPod
so hopefully this'll be a catalyst for even greater returns
I've hated the cell phone industry for so long
now the hate is gone.

Very critical

me: You are overly critical of everything.
mike: yep, that's me
snob of everything

Buying and Selling Lemons

2008-01-01T13:49:00.000-08:00

The market of lemons explains why company insurances are so cheap, and the professionals call the key effect adverse selection.

I mean, this has bugged me for some time - why is it so expensive to buy personal insurance for myself, but it only costs a few dollars a month to get excellent life coverage as part of a work package, possibly from the same insurance company that was going to charge you a hundred dollars a month?

It is a simple explanation, and it begins with information, or, to be precise, the asymmetric nature of it. Insurance companies can gather and calculate statistics for life expectancy for the general population, and they can use these numbers to formulate life policies to sell to people at fair value. However, when these insurance companies try to sell such policies, less healthy individuals are more inclined than the more healthy individuals to buy these policies. If you know you are sick, your expected returns from buying a life insurance is higher than if you know (or think) you are as fit as a horse.

Insurance companies have no way of differentiating between the more healthy and less healthy individuals, but soon realize that the people who buy the insurance are more likely to be sick. (And they pay out more than the statistics suggests) To counteract this, companies will undoubtedly increase the prices of the life insurances, which further discourages healthy individuals. No matter what price the insurance is set at, this trend continues. Even if life insurance costs $10,000, individuals who are sick and find the returns profitable will be more likely to buy the insurance than healthy individuals. The asymmetry of information, in this example the health of oneself, causes adverse selection.

In the workplace, however, everyone is given the same life insurance as part of work. Because everyone buys the same life insurance, adverse selection no longer plays a part, and the "fair price" (plus obligatory obscene profit-margins) for life insurance can be given to employees.

Turning american

2007-12-21T19:20:00.000-08:00

I caught the shopping bug, especially since Google gave out a $1000 holiday bonus to all full-time employees. Besides a Harman Kardon Soundsticks II (connected remotely to my ex-neglected airport express!) and iRobot Roomba, I got a bunch of DVDs and digital music from Amazon and iTunes. I actually thought to myself, "man, I'm turning american". (like how people turn japanese). At least I can still afford my credit card bills.

In other news, I helped to host teachers from the Singapore Sports School at Google. I found it highly commendable that the school funded these teachers to visit other schools in the US and multinational corporations like Apple and Google to learn about organizational culture, operations, etc. Now the onus is on them to spread the word and make real changes in Singapore.

I also attended the highly-coveted interviewer training classes by (1) drafting a response to attend the class before openings are available, (2) setting an alert to inform me when there are openings, (3) ???, (4) profit! Oh wait, I'm not on /.

Google really places a lot of emphasis on interviewing, and it is something that software engineers consider as an actual work activity, because interviewing well is tough - You have to take the time to prepare for the interview, actually conduct the interview, and finally write a detailed summary so that Google can make an informed decision on whether or not to hire a candidate.

On the other hand, when I told the Mrs that I attended interviewer training, she informed my mother that I "went to attend some nonsense course to skive"... ouch. That hurts.