Vdsat.com

1. Wow it sucks if you’re a bear. I’m glad I’m not trading.

The S&P 500 is now comfortably above the bear market trendline. If you’re a bear, the only thing you can hang your hat on at this point is a double top possibility but I wouldn’t count on that since that would be way too easy. I’ve seen this V shaped pattern that looks like a double top is forming, but if you’re wrong you’re going to pay hard. This kind of V crap is what sucks in a lot of bears and brings them to the slaughterhouse. Although I refuse to short here, I remain a stubborn bear and I think I’ll go buy more US Treasuries tomorrow in my Roth IRA.

2. This past week I realized that of all the asian PhD students in my department (and there are quite a number of them) only two people are not fobs and I am one of these two people. When I look for a job I might actually have to indicate on my resume that I am a native English speaker or else people might think I am a fob. I can’t believe it.

3. I won’t say what they are, but so far this year my New Year’s resolutions have held up. I should have failed miserably by now.

4. I have a tapeout deadline on May 4th I am in tapeout mode right now. I have about 7 weeks and I know that I need to start layout 4 weeks before tapeout and no later than 3 weeks before tapeout.

5. After tapeout I have 2.5 weeks to prepare for my conference talk.

6. Then after the conference talk I’ll be shooting for a mid-June proposal date. I’m all ready to propose. The document is ready and I just need to get a committee together. It was supposed to happen earlier this semester but I just couldn’t get my committee together and now I am in tapeout mode so it’s not going to happen until after the tapeout and the conference talk.

I saw this ad last week.

Uh huh. Sure they are.

Electronic controls can be fail-safe under laboratory conditions, but if you can’t explain unintended acceleration in real-world scenarios, then you haven’t proved jack.

People who organize events sometimes make it look easy and many times their work is under-appreciated. I am definitely guilty of under-appreciating event organizers in the past, but after organizing a ski trip that happened today I now have a ton of respect for event organizers. I will also say that I definitely will not want to do this ever again. Although I am glad I managed to pull this off, my intention in this blog post is not to boast in what I was able to organize (none of the people on the ski trip know of my blog and it is good that they don’t know), but to show all the problems involved in organizing such a trip. I am fortunate enough that the people on this ski trip have expressed their gratitude for my work; other event organizers are not so lucky.

Here’s some background.

Sometimes brothers and sisters from church (especially those who are students) are absolutely terrible at organizing events. For example, last year we planned on going to Kennywood and unfortunately we kept postponing the trip either due to people not being able to make it or because of the weather. Eventually winter came along and Kennywood shut down for the season. It’s not that it was anyone’s fault, it’s just that by nature it is difficult to organize events. People kind of just want to do their own thing and to get a bunch of people together to do the same thing is not easy.

Back in January, we were planning a ski trip for February 13th. We picked that date because some of the brothers and sisters were doing some video training each weekend until the weekend of February 6th and therefore wouldn’t be able to go to a ski trip until the following weekend. Unfortunately because of the snowstorm the weekend of February 6th and the continued inability of the city to clear the snow on the streets, the video training was cancelled two weekends in a row, making the earliest Saturday to go skiing February 27th. As you can imagine, at the rate at which things are going wrong, this ski trip looked like it was going to suffer the same fate as the planned Kennywood trip.

Okay, so how much does it cost to go skiing? $60 for a lift ticket, $32 for a ski rental, $37 for a snowboard rental, a total of $92 or $97 depending on what you decide to rent. Kennywood was only $20 per person. If that failed, how are you going to get people to go skiing?

The answer is you get enough people so that you can get the group rate. $45 for a lift ticket, $20 for a ski rental, $32 for a snowboard rental, a total of $65 or $77 depending on what you decide to rent. It’s still not exactly cheap compared to university department sponsored and subsidized $30 ski trips, but $65 or $77 is a bit more manageable. If you’re going to get burned, you might as well get burned less and that’s how you motivate people to go.

So how many people do we need for the group rate? 20. How many people did we have? 9. So what to do? Someone grabbed two friends and I grabbed two officemates so then we had 13. I then spoke with another officemate about our situation and he said, “Your church friends want to go skiing and you need more people for the group rate? I know a ton of people who want to go skiing.” He then invited himself, another officemate, two of his friends from New Jersey, and all of a sudden we had 17 people. I then spoke with the brother organizing the trip and offered to take control of organizing the trip since I had a bunch of officemates and their friends going and he agreed. Two more people from church decided to go and that made it 19 people. I called the ski resort and the ski resort said that although the official number of people required for the group rate is 20, if you make a reservation and you end up showing up with 17, they will still give you the group rate because they understand that you may lose a few people.

Now an interesting issue is raised. The event organizer now has 19 people and only needs 17 for the group rate. Ideally you would get people to pay in advance in order to “lock them in” but I really did not want to do that. Doing so is definitely the smart move and really should be rule #1 in organizing events, but I did not want to do that to my brothers and sisters. Skiing is inherently dangerous. It’s not like going to the movies. It just didn’t feel right to lock someone into a ski trip. A very contradictory offer must therefore be made. You have to have an extremely generous cancellation policy and at the same time you have to assure everyone that everyone will pay the group rate. I spent two days going crazy over the logistics and then I realized the following: as a grad student my stipend is about $100 per weekday and I just practically flushed $200 of work down the drain. If people cancel on me and it turns out that I only end up with 14 people and I have to eat 3 lift tickets (3*$45=$135), that’s okay with me because I’d gladly pay that kind of money to make all my problems go away. Just as an investment bank needs to underwrite a company’s IPO, an event organizer must assume some sort of financial risk in order to make things happen. If an event organizer is not willing to assume some sort of risk, sometimes it can be extremely difficult to get things done.

Sure, if I really wanted to, I could have told people that they might have to pay extra depending on how many people show up but there are two problems here. First, when you sell a product, you need to specify a certain price and not attach an asterisk saying that the actual price might vary. There must be a certain certainty and finality in the quoted price. Second, come to think of it, even in a probabilistic worst case (say 1 sigma) that I need eat 3 lift tickets and pay an extra $135, $135 really is chump change. I’m not saying that I have a ton of money because I don’t; what I am saying is that I realize that money is just money. Although it is stupid to waste money, it is also just as stupid to hoard it. Money is a tool. If my guarantee that everyone will pay the group rate will ensure that the ski trip does not suffer the same fate as the the Kennywood trip, then I am more than happy to give that guarantee.

It turns out that getting enough people is the least of an event organizer’s worries. Someone’s word that they will go skiing can be iffy, but it still is far more reliable than the weather. Two days before our scheduled February 27th ski trip it started snowing heavily in the mountains: 30 inches of snow before Saturday morning. It’s great for skiing…that is if you can actually get there. On Friday afternoon I had no choice but to tell everyone that the ski trip was postponed to the following weekend. A snowstorm had already delayed our ski trip by two weeks and now this happened.

Then the ugly happened. Three brothers and sisters cancelled. Two of their friends also cancelled. One of two of my officemate’s friends from New Jersey cancelled. We had 13 people left. And the weather forecast for the following Saturday…a high of 46 F? The very last thing you want is for the snow to melt and to refreeze and slush isn’t great either. Skiing on solid ice is not safe and neither is skiing on slush that is really more like bare earth. Fortunately my officemates found another three people so we had a total of 16 people and I only had to eat one lift ticket which I was more than happy to do, and the temperature at the ski resort did not break freezing for a prolonged period of time until Saturday. The snow was actually very nice today and the weather was perfect.

So now as event organizer you have 16 people going and you only have to eat the cost of one lift ticket, and the weather is perfect. Everything is fine and dandy now, right? WRONG! On the day of the event, you have done everything that you can possibly do, but there are things that are still completely out of your control. Your people actually have to show up and you hope they get there safely. When they actually get there and go skiing, you really hope that they don’t do anything stupid and hurt themselves. Although as event organizer you are not legally responsible for whatever retarded ways people may hurt themselves, you really do not want people to get hurt. The last thing you want is for a friend to have a serious injury at a ski trip that you organized. The event organizer has the added burden of caring about these kind of things.

Worrying about others is one thing, but sometimes as event organizer you really have to worry about yourself because you actually have to show up to take care of your responsibilities. Other people may cancel for various reasons, but you absolutely cannot cancel because you are the event organizer. As for me, it was not easy for me to even go on the ski trip. On Tuesday and Wednesday, as the TA of a circuits class, I had to meet with each student for 30 minutes to discuss how they were doing on their design project. During these design reviews, rather than using a table as I should have, I would seat the student in a chair and I would sit in a chair next to the student with my right foot propped up on my left knee, and I would write on a notepad placed on my right foot. When casually discussing something with someone, having my right foot propped up on my left knee is my natural sitting position. There’s nothing like a nice chat with your right foot propped up on your left knee and that’s just my style.

Unfortunately, I sat in that position all day Tuesday and Wednesday, and by Wednesday night I noticed that something wasn’t quite right with my back. By Thursday night the pain was at a point where I could not sit still and do anything meaningful unless I drugged myself with Ibuprofen. On Friday night I went to my small group meeting and after dinner I drugged myself with Ibruprofen again…except that for some reason it didn’t work. At 9:45 pm I left my small group meeting early with the excuse that I wanted to go to bed early because of the ski trip the next morning, but the truth was that I was writhing in utter pain. I will not lie to you…right now I have at best a strained back and at worse a pinched nerve. I sure hope it isn’t a pinched nerve. Knowing that in the worst case I may have a pinched nerve because it sure hurts like crazy if I don’t drug myself, this morning after breakfast I downed 3 Ibuprofen, at lunch I downed another 2, and I felt great all day. At dinner, I downed another 3 pills. How will I know if it is just a strained back or a pinched nerve? I’ll just have to wait and see. If I’m still hurting a week from now, then the ski trip probably didn’t help. Oh well.

Nevermind the back. I’m just glad I made it down the mountain in one piece. There’s no worse feeling on the ski slope than realizing that you need to slow down but no matter how hard you try, you are still accelerating and that your only way out of the situation is to wipe yourself out gracefully. I think I understand how certain Toyota owners feel.

And to top it off, the event organizer has to find the time to blog about the entire ordeal just to decompress but that may only be unique to me.

UPDATE: They all secretly got together and decided that they’d all pay me a few extra bucks. Noooooo! They weren’t supposed to do that!

I just found an obscure paper written 13 years ago on stuff I was working on the last 8 months.

Wow, they beat me to it by 13 years.

UPDATE: I talked to my advisor about it. His general attitude is that it raises the bar of what I need to do. On top of that there’s good news and bad news.

The bad news: I found something published 4 months ago about something even more similar to what I am doing.

The good news: That paper was in a sucky journal, which means now I know I should not work on that or else my work will also end up in a sucky journal. Now I know to do something different.

I am a TA for a circuits class and students need to come by my office one at a time for a 30 minute design review for their project. The design review is to make sure they are not doing anything stupid.

Student: I don’t know the value for mu*Cox.
Me: Did you look at the design manual?
Student: No.
Me: Okay, I’ll show you were to find it later.
Student: I looked at the design rule manual but I can’t find mu*Cox.
Me: Oh so you did find the design rule manual.
Student: And it gave me this value: 1.5V/2.5V.
Me: What is that value? It doesn’t look like mu*Cox.
Student: I don’t know. I’m asking you.
Me: Well I am asking you what that is because that sure doesn’t look like mu*Cox, and you just told me you just found mu*Cox.
Student: I don’t know.
Me: Look…today I saw this number, and it’s a really cool number. Let me write it down right here on the notepad

I write down the number 5.

Me: Do you know what this is?
Student: No.
Me: Okay, well neither do I! That’s what you’re doing to me!

And the thing is that wasn’t the dumbest moment.

Student: So for this project the professor said that we have to consider layout so we have to consider layout but we do not have to consider layout.
Me: What? Okay. And?
Student: So if we have to consider layout, then you can’t do a 10 to 1 current mirror.
Me: Why the heck not?
Student: Because we have to consider layout but we don’t have to consider layout.
Me: What? So what current ratio would you do?
Student: 2 to 1.
Me: Okay. And how would you want to lay that out?
Student: Uh, I don’t know.
Me: Okay let’s start simple. You just told me I can’t layout a 10 to 1 current mirror. So what do you want to do? 1 to 1? How do you want to layout 1 to 1?
Student: Um…no. I don’t want to do 1 to 1.
Me: 2 to 1?
Student: No.
Me: 3 to 1?
Student: No.
Me: Not too long ago you just said you wanted to do 2 to 1 and now you don’t want to do 1 to 1, 2 to 1, or 3 to 1. What the heck do you want to do?
Student: I’m saying that you can’t do 10 to 1 because you have to consider layout.
Me: Okay, so what’s wrong with 10 to 1 in layout?
Student: I don’t know, I’m asking you.
Me: Well you’re the one saying 10 to 1 is not okay, I’m telling you it’s okay, and you’re arguing with me about it and at the same time you can’t tell me what is wrong with 10 to 1.

It gets much much worse.

Student: What’s small signal?
Me: You mean for this circuit or small signal in general?
Student: Both.
Me: You don’t know small signal?

And to top it off, he has to argue with me over something similar to Vdsat. No man, of all the people in the world, you don’t argue with me about something similar to Vdsat.

Student: What is large signal?
Me: Uh, you’re kidding me, right?
Student: No, I want to know.

I give him a DC example of a current source going into a diode connected transistor using the square law model.

Student: But we can’t use this equation.
Me: Why not?
Student: Because the professor said that the transistor is in velocity saturation.
Me: Look man, this is a hand calculation just to get you into the ballpark.
Student: But the equation is not right.
Me: Dude, just use some equation just to get into the ballpark and have the simulator get you exact number.
Student: But it’s wrong!
Me: In the context of the whole freakin universe which is pretty freakin huge, can you give me some general idea of where you are?
Student: I don’t know.
Me: If you can tell me that you are on planet earth, that’s already pretty stinkin good. That’s a ballpark estimate. Do you understand?
Student: But this…this actually isn’t in velocity saturation.
Me: You just argued with me that it is.
Student: Look, this is not true unless this is greater than that, and it’s not true, so it’s not in velocity saturation.

I whip out a calculator and show that it is in velocity saturation.

Student: But it’s not in velocity saturation!

I have never in my life seen a student treat me with such utter disrespect. Asking stupid questions is okay, I am okay with that. If someone just does not understand, that’s fine, it’s my job to explain. If the student still does not understand and has to argue with me in order to reach some sort of understanding, that’s fine too. WHAT IS NOT FINE IS RUNNING AROUND IN A MEANINGLESS CIRCLE WITH NO PURPOSE OTHER THAN TO WASTE MY TIME. I’M PISSED TONIGHT!

Man, being a TA is so much fun. It’s comedy, man. Every student comes to the design review with the same crap hand calculations. For every student, it goes something like this…

Me: Hey, how’s it going?
Student: Good, how you are you?
Me: Good. So what option did you choose?
Student: Option 2.
Me: Heh, everyone picks option 2.
Student: So I did a power constrained optimal noise match and I am limiting the current to 5 mA.
Me: Why 5 mA?
Student: Because the book example used 5 mA.
Me: Yep, that’s what everyone is doing. Go on.

After about 5 design reviews, instead of nodding my head and asking them to go on, I just cut them off and say…

Me: Look, power constrained optimal noise match is a good starting point, but that’s not what the project is asking for. The project is asking you to meet all these specs and to minimize power while doing so.

And it’s funny how they all come in with the exact same questions. And I love my answers.

Student: I’m trying to go through this calculation to estimate IIP3.
Me: Don’t do it. Just throw it into the simulator and see what happens. If you can’t meet IIP3, just burn more power.

Student: I don’t understand how to find the resonant frequency of the output network.
Me: The long answer is blah blah blah. The short answer is just sweep the capacitor in the simulator until you get a peak at the frequency you want.

Student: I don’t know mu*Cox so I don’t know how wide my transistor needs to be for me to get enough gm when it is in velocity saturation.
Me: Who cares? Throw it into the simulator, put it in velocity saturation, and sweep W until you have enough gm.

Seriously man, sometimes people need to toss hand calculations into the trash and go straight to the simulator.

I’m so glad I’m not screwing around in this market.

Up over the 50 MA, the presumption is that the market is going to go after the bear market trendline again.

This market just doesn’t want to die, does it? Bah.

I saw this in my kitchen today and I thought it was a green onion. And then I thought, no that does not look right. That ain’t a green onion! That’s a sprouting onion!

If you read my blog, you know I hate bankers because the bankers of this world are truly the ones who are in power.

Give me control of a nation’s money supply, and I care not who makes its laws.
-Mayer Amschel Rothschild

If you haven’t noticed already, a small number of bankers not only control the money supply of their own nation, but of many nations.

[T]he Fed has the authority to buy foreign government debt, as well as domestic government debt.
-Ben Bernanke

The implications of the Fed being able to purchase foreign government debt is enormous as it puts the US taxpayer on the hook for nearly unlimited obligations.

Now how does this fit in with the bibical view of power?

And he led Him up and showed Him all the kingdoms of the inhabited earth in a moment of time. And the devil said to Him, To You I will give all this authority and their glory, because to me it has been delivered, and to whomever I want I give it. If You therefore worship before me, it shall all be Yours. And Jesus answered and said to him, It is written, “You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve.” (Luke 4:5-8)

The devil has the authority to give Jesus all the kingdoms of the world because it belongs to him. What does the bible say about money?

No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. (Matthew 6:24)

You cannot serve God and mammon for the precise reason that control of a nation’s money supply is equivalent to the control of the nation. If you serve mammon, you are by definition a slave of whoever controls the money supply, and that just so happens to be Satan who has authority over the kingdoms of the world.

In the bible we see that Christians are not citizens of the earth ruled by Satan, but rather sojourners on the earth.

So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God (Ephesians 2:19)

All these died in faith, not receiving the promises but seeing them from afar and joyfully greeting them and confessing that they were strangers and sojourners on the earth. (Hebrews 11:13)

Being merely sojourners on the earth and not citizens on the earth, Christians are supposedly not serving mammon and hence not serving the kingdom of Satan which is actually controlled by bankers. What does it mean to not serve mammon?

Therefore do not be anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, With what shall we be clothed? For all these things the Gentiles are anxiously seeking. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore do not be anxious for tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself; sufficient for the day is its own evil. (Matthew 6:31-33)

Notice what it says. It says seek first His kingdom (not Satan’s kingdom) and all these things will be added to you. Since these things will simply be added to you because you seek His kingdom, you are not serving mammon. The money/kingdom power connection is striking.

Ultimately the difference between a citizen of Satan’s kingdom and a citizen of God’s kingdom comes down to the question of who the banker is…the bankers of the world or God (who is also a banker, but not in the traditional sense). Just as the bankers of the world use financial innovation to produce prosperity if you are a slave of money and hence serve their kingdom, likewise God will provide prosperity if you seek His kingdom. The following verse is axiomatic.

For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.  (Matthew 6:21)

Well of course! The question of where your treasure is is nearly equivalent to the question of who your banker is, and also whose kingdom you are a citizen of: God’s kingdom or Satan’s kingdom.

Not only that, God also pays interest on deposits.

And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for My name’s sake shall receive a hundred times as much and shall inherit eternal life. (Matthew 19:29)

So then do not judge anything before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and make manifest the counsels of the hearts, and then there will be praise to each from God. (1 Corinthians 4:5)

And the nations became angry, and Your wrath came, and the time came for the dead to be judged, and the time to give the reward to Your slaves the prophets and to the saints and to those who fear Your name, to the small and to the great, and to destroy those who destroy the earth. (Revelation 11:18)

Seriously, God is such a banker.

As mentioned earlier, Christians are supposedly sojourners on this earth, but they still have to use money and hence it seems to be that they are still subject to the kingdom of Satan. But who does the money belong to? If you compare the standards in the New Testament to the standards in the Old Testament, the New Testament standards are always higher than the Old Testament standards. In the Old Testament, Jews were required to tithe, that is to give 10% to God. What about the New Testament? Is it 10%? No. It is all of it. According to the New Testament standard, all your money belongs to God and you are simply a steward of God’s money. None of it is yours. In other words, according to the New Testament standard, God is the mother of all bankers. Although the bankers of the world are like a leaching octopus on your money, God completely outdoes all of them because none of the money belongs to you.

I realized this unified view of money over the last few weeks and it is quite scary how everything fits together. This realization is the result of reading Money, Possessions, and Eternity over the last few weeks combined with my existing views of bankers. I decided to read this book because very few Christian scholars even like to discuss money. Everyone else avoids this issue and runs around like a headless chicken or only covers money briefly. This book is a monster 500 pages with relatively small text and I’ve only gone through about 60% over the last five weeks.

So who’s your banker? What kingdom are you a citizen of? The two questions are identical.

UPDATE: Expect this post to be updated quite a bit.

And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it. (John 14:13-14)

Translation: Turn to God first before you turn to the bankers.

I gave Democrats $25 6 years ago and since then they’ve been hunting me down for money. When they call and ask for money, I typically politely decline. However, this time I let the poor guy who called me really have it.

DCCC: Hello, I am looking for [my name].
Me: Yup, that’s me.
DCCC: Hi, this is [his name] from the DCCC. Thank you for your past support. Can we count on a donation from you so that we can continue forward progress in this country?
Me: I don’t think we’re making progress.
DCCC: The Republicans have certainly prevented us from making progress and we would hope for your support.
Me: What I want to see is bankers getting prosecuted and going to jail. I’m sick of the bailouts. Someone needs to go to jail for this. There has to be accountability.
DCCC: The Republicans are the ones who are responsible for the bailouts, not Democrats.
Me: Look man. All you fools in Washington, none of you have your hands clean. You’re all responsible for this mess.
DCCC: Did you ever notice that Republicans tend to be more corrupt than Democrats? Go compare all the presidents in recent memory. See which ones are more corrupt than others.
Me: I understand the concept of “less bad” but “less bad” isn’t going to cut it for me. The bottom line for me is this: I want to see some bankers in jail.  The US taxpayer is getting raped. Cut the crap and send some bankers to jail.
DCCC: Well did you at least notice that we made progress when a Democrat was in the White House?
Me: I will agree with you that when Clinton was in power, the US national debt as a percentage of GDP declined…
DCCC: You see…
Me: But ultimately let me ask you this…who has the power of the purse? The President or Congress?
DCCC: Power of the what?
Me: Power of the purse. The power to decide how money is spent.
DCCC: The President has a lot of say in that.
Me: Yes he does, but ultimately Congress has the power of the purse and Democrats controlled Congress during Reagan and Republicans controlled Congress during Clinton. So nevermind who the President is. The Congress has the power of the purse. Sure, the President can waste his political capital to try to get his way but it is ultimately Congress that decides how money is spent.
DCCC: Look, we need to fight Sarah Palin and her extreme right wing conservatives in this election cycle, it’s probably going to cost more money than any election ever, and we need your support. Can you give $150.
Me: No sir.
DCCC: Then what amount can you give?
Me: I will not consider giving any amount greater than 0 until I see some bankers thrown into jail. Throw me some bankers into jail, and I’ll consider giving you money. Seriously, pull some strings for me. Get some Democrats to throw some bankers into jail. I want to see some bankers prosecuted. I’m sick of all this happy talk and I want to see some action.
DCCC: Well I told you already, the Republicans are the ones responsible for the bank bailouts.
Me: Nonsense! Tell me who passed TARP in 2008.
DCCC: That happened during the previous administration.
Me: And who passed it? The Democratic Congress passed it!
DCCC: So I can’t count on your support?
Me: No.
DCCC: I’m sorry you feel this way. Thank you for your time.
Me: Sorry for giving you a hard time. I hope you have a good night calling other people.

5 min chart

Daily

81 was supposedly the last area of significant resistance. We also have a 50 MA/200 MA cross on deck if that means anything to you. I’ll be buying more Treasuries tomorrow. I’d gladly take 3.8% for 10 years.

The move supposedly came on this news release.

If you plan on going long equities for a swing trade…careful, the last three end of Februaries have been awful.