Jul 04 2009
Thesis/Trading Computer/On Being a Miser
This post is a long one because I haven’t blogged for a number of days.
I met with my advisor last Wednesday and he started talking to me about my thesis and vaguely outlined the main points. My advisor would like me to propose this Fall and graduate within two years from now. Since he won’t be able to meet with me next Wednesday, he wants to move next week’s meeting to Monday. By Monday I should show him slides talking about what my thesis is going to be about.
The timing could not possibly have been worse. Usually on Wednesdays, I start goofing off shortly after my meeting with my advisor. On Thursday my computer parts arrived so I put my computer together. Friday is when people take their July 4th vacation because this year July 4th is on Saturday. As for Saturday and Sunday, well, that’s the weekend, and unless there’s some pressing deadline, there’s no point in working over the weekend. As of right now, I have absolutely no work done other than a title slide, and that’s after showing up in the office on Friday and Saturday for a combined 6 hours just to make myself feel good about showing up in the office. It is now Saturday night and pretty soon I need to start cooking up some slides for my advisor.
I started putting my computer together at 3:30 pm on Thursday. I thought it would take me about 45 minutes, but it ended up taking me 80 minutes, mostly because the bundle of cables coming out of the power supply made it somewhat difficult to slide the motherboard in, especially when the form factor is micro-ATX. I also had some trouble mounting a 2.5 inch SSD in a case that does not have any 2.5 inch mounts.
I ended up going to bed around 4:00 am on Friday morning. From the time I finished assembling my computer to the time I went to bed, I was fighting video driver issues in Linux. The 3D and 2D acceleration seemed to be okay, except that I was experiencing mad mouse cursor lag in thinkorswim. Thinkorswim runs on Java and Java runs faster on Linux than on Windows in all areas except one: Java 2D rendering. For me, that’s the deal breaker right there because I bought this computer to be a dedicated trading computer and my trading software is built on Java. So yes, I had to come back to the dark side and install Windows.
Regarding Windows Vista, it’s not worth paying for nor is it worth pirating. So perhaps Windows XP? No. I just so happened to have a bunch of legal copies of Windows Server 2003 which is just like XP except that a lot of the bloat is stripped off and some server features were added. Other than the software that came with it (which isn’t much), I have installed the following:
Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla Thunderbird
Adobe Reader
Adobe Flash Player
Pidgin
thinkDesktop
Skype
winRAR
DriveImage XML
OpenOffice (On a dedicated trading computer, you don’t want to go try and pirate MS Office.)
Logitech Webcam related software
That’s all I have on this computer and nothing else. After boot, only 172 MB of RAM is used up across 22 processes. Power button to login screen is 32 seconds including 10 seconds in the bios. The webcam alone accounts for 2 seconds and the sound driver adds about 5. I haven’t installed my printer yet, but when I do I am afraid it will add another 1-2 seconds to the boot time and another 4 MB to the RAM usage. Yes, I have 4 GB of RAM and SSD drive capable of 180 MB/sec sustained read and a 0.1 ms random access time, but it is very important to keep a dedicated trading machine slim. If for some reason my dedicated trading machine is not in tiptop shape, I can restore my computer back to its original state with DriveImage XML in only 10 minutes because the drive image for my dedicated trading machine is only 6 GB.
Right now I am having a small problem. My trading computer is so much faster than my old computer that I do not want to use my old computer. The original software list for my trading computer did not include Skype but it eventually made the cut. There are a lot of other things out there I would like to install, that I refuse to because it violates the idea that this computer is a dedicated trading computer. My printer wasn’t on the list either, but it looks like it will probably make the cut very soon.
Where do you draw the line for what ends up on the trading computer and what doesn’t?
I am very tempted to install Tribes 2, but I know that if I do so, I will have to enable Direct X hardware acceleration, and I am unwilling to do that. I probably also want to install an FTP client, ghetto Firefox FTP extensions just won’t do. Perhaps I should install some video codecs so that I can watch some movies. I might need Eclipse because sometimes I need to write some Java. Maybe I would want to install LaTeX, because I might need it to write my thesis. Sometimes I need to use GIMP because MS Paint just won’t do. Oh but what about Inkscape if I need scalable vector graphics? Oh and seriously, integrated audio sounds horrible, I should put my X-Fi sound card in my trading computer. How about my scanner? Sometimes I need to scan stuff.
The answer is that either you cut the list of software on your computer short, otherwise you might as well install EVERYTHING. The problem with installing too much software is that you’re adding all this junk to the Windows registry, and the system just slows down. I think I am going to draw the line at my printer. My printer is going to be the very last thing that makes it onto my trading computer, everything else will have to remain on my old computer.
The solution: Buy yet another computer?
Sigh. If I am going to do so, I might as well go all out. The trading machine must be dedicated and I also need a fast machine for other stuff. I can’t believe how stupid this sounds. How many people do you know have a freakin’ dedicated trading machine? If I did not need a dedicated trading machine, I would not have this two computer problem. In fact, it is actually currently a three computer problem.
Computer #1: The main computer with all the software and hardware that runs like crap.
Computer #2: The dedicated trading machine.
Computer #3: The EEE PC I paid $350 for because I need a notebook, but I am such a cheapskate that I am unwilling to blow $1k on a notebook.
The real solution: Do nothing. Wait until I graduate in two years, then go all out. And even then, I’ll still probably only go halfway.
Some people think that if only they could make X number of dollars, then they can do Y. However, the truth is that you can never make enough money. Just like determining where to draw the line for what software ends up on a dedicated trading machine, a line for how much money to spend also needs to be drawn. Also, just like the trading computer where you either limit the number of things on the computer or put everything on it, when it comes to money, either you be a miser or you go all out and dig yourself into a giant debt hole. After you have a certain amount of debt, you’re so screwed that adding another 10, 20 or perhaps 50% to that debt pile isn’t really going to make a difference. It is well documented that making more money does not lead to more happiness. (I could go on a rambling discussion as to why that is, but that is out of the scope of this post.) Since making more money does not lead to more happiness, you might as well learn to live with less.
I need speakers for my new dedicated trading machine. Audio feedback from trading software is nice to have. Sure, I could go spend $100 on a nice set of speakers. How much did I just spend on speakers? $11.99.
Being rich is not about making a whole mess of money. It’s about controlling what you spend and living within your means. Case in point: Michael Jackson died with $400 million in debt. Any celebrity with at least half a brain would make sure that even in the worst possible scenario, they’d come out at least $1 million in the green.
Suppose for every $100 you make you manage to save $10. Now let’s suppose one day you get a 5% pay raise. It’s only a 5% pay raise, but if you can keep your standard of living the same, the amount you save will be up 50%. That’s a good deal if you can pull it off. If that sounds unreasonable, then save half the raise and spend the rest and even then it’s still a good 25% increase.
When considering a non-essential purchase, you should not compare how much that item costs to your monthly gross salary. Instead, you should compare it to what you are able to save each month. It’s far more painful and realistic that way.
Why am I a miser? If you read my blog and know me well, you know that I am lazy. I went to grad school because I am lazy. How do I perpetuate this laziness? By not being a slave to money. How do I not be a slave to money? It’s simple. Just spend less. Do I love and care about money? No. I love and care about being lazy. The more money you can save, the lazier you can be.
If I really wanted to, I could cut $200 from my monthly food bill by eating out less but I am too lazy to do so. For optimal laziness, there exists a balance between thrift and extravagance.