Today Allan and I ran his exercise circuit, jogging around the park and performing various exercises at different locations. He had described it to the German girls during dinner the previous Thursday. On Monday after a conference call, we discussed it again and I suggested we run it together.

These are the exercises we did. The aim is to do 25 of each exercise, possibly consisting of variations on the exercise, at each stop.

• Lunges
• Table jumps
• Burpees
• Hamstring (biceps femoris) stretch
• Pushups
• Hipthrusts
• Chinups
• Warrior (yoga) sequence
• Abs
• Dips
• Sprint
• Hill sprints
• Stretching

After we got back. I showered and we ate soup and bread, and watermelon. The I continued on to work.

Also, I expect a student investment fund might be a worthwhile place to invest some long-term assets of a student financial institution and a student investment fund could be part of an expansion of student-managed businesses on our campuses.

The description of the funds portfolio strategy is also appealing.

Real Money: The Portfolio
The focus of the Laurier Student Investment Fund is on small capitalization stocks. Smaller
companies have less analyst coverage and hence are more likely to be mispriced. The Fund avoids
direct exposure to resource companies, bio-tech companies and large multi-product corporations
because students do not have an edge in forecasting cash flows for those types of companies.
Laurier restricts the Fund participants from buying or selling option contracts and from short
selling. As such, risk is managed through asset allocation and diversification. Our cash is invested
in money market funds.
— Student Investment Fund, Real Money Real Experience, LSIF Brochure

In a general sense they have a strategy to capture more value by finding underpriced assets. Essentially the low-cost of student analysts can focus in different places that paid analysts and the target assets can be matched to student capabilitiies. With our project we will have to realize efficiencies and better serve our market in order to beat the competition.

In this recent visit Magda and her friends played some music videos about what a coastie is and then what a sconnie is. I find them hilarious.

Cultural artifacts like these are fascinating to me because they distinguish schools and show an observation of one’s own community even if in a simplistic way.

I read, though, that there are actual racist origins to the term “coastie” because Jewish students, when they were first admitted to UW-Madison, they weren’t allowed to live on campus.

From a perspective of optimizing one’s finances it makes sense to pay bills as late as possible so you hold the cash for longer. In fact it isn’t just the 21 days, but additionally the number of days before your statements date, that you can hold the funds before you need to pay it, which can be up to the number of days in a month.

For post-secondary students, however, who don’t have a regular and sufficient income paying off spending earlier can help them keep track of their position. Many students do not track their spending directly, but keep an eye on their account balance as an indicator. With that “method” it is important to avoid the lag that optimum credit card use would create, because in 21 or more days someone can really overspend.

I heard of an office chair made by Herman Miller that approximated the best average support when not adjusted. The reasoning behind the design was market research that indicated very few chair buyers actually adjusting the other models of the company’s chairs. In the same way, the best system for personal finances may not be the one that is optimal.

If people spend more because the effects of spending on their account balance is delayed, prompt indicators of the growing liability can encourage more reasonable behaviour. In absence of such a service, the next best thing may be to pay off transactions right away.

Here is an excerpt:

He believed such a service could provide students with financial products and advice of better value than they receive from traditional banks.

“I had no issue with the basic logic of what he intended to do,” says Larry Smith, adjunct associate professor of economics, whom Mr. Chen-Wing consulted. “I think he’s correct that students have some significant money for the first time in their lives and that there’s a gap in their knowledge [of what to do with it].”

Today, Mr. Chen-Wing’s vision is moving closer to reality. He has done his research, is finishing up a business plan and hopes to see the service launched “within a year or two.” He has already enlisted 250 student supporters and named four students as directors of the key departments.
– Financial services to be offered by students, for students universityaffairs.ca 13 Jun 2011

The article got my program wrong referring to my study as a single major rather than a joint major in economics and history (which, no, is not even half right). You never know where that was missed though. Also, strangely, there was no mention of the name of the project.

It is good, however, because more people will hear about us because of the article and we were again mentioned on the UW Daily Bulletin.

Students organize banking for students
Student organizers of the Waterloo Banking Project, a group led by Ryan Chen-Wing, currently a joint economics and history major, are holding an information meeting on Wednesday, 5 p.m., in J.R. Coutts Hall room 211. Attendees are asked to register (see their website) by 5 p.m. the day before. University Affairs magazine’s online issue of June 13 carried an article about the initiative, described as “Canada’s first student-run credit union.” Since its beginnings a year or so ago, the project has expanded to include Laurier students and organizers have discussed linking with an existing financial institution. Its special appeal will be its planning and advising services tailored to the needs of students.
– When the rains ended; other notes UW DB 11 Jul 2011

We still have a lot of work to do, but it is good that we are getting more recognition.

• University Affairs features Waterloo Banking Project 3 Jul 2011

In Phase III the candidates undertake a four-day assessment process. During this assessment the candidates are pushed to their physical and mental limits under physical and mental duress. Here they are assessed on the following criteria:

• Physical fitness (aerobic and anaerobic);
• Performing effectively at heights, in water and in confined spaces;
• Teamwork;
• Emotional stability; and
• Interpersonal skills.

– Joint Task Force 2 wikipedia.org

The description I heard makes it sound somewhat like the Navy SEALs’ “hell week” where candidates are pushed to their limits of physical and mental endurance.

A piece I found particularly interesting was that apparently this phase of JTF-2’s selection includes solving Sudoku puzzles, Rubik’s Cubes, and remembering briefly revealed images all while undergoing physical endurance tasks.

The reason I found it interesting is that performance on or ability to concentrate on these mental tasks is being used as an indicator of performance needed in the field. In my project to start student-run financial services in Waterloo we will have to do evaluation and assessment of potential staff members and of potential borrowers. We need to know who will be effective workers and how risky people we grant credit to will be.

It parallels the principle I saw in the book Moneyball where a baseball manager chose to focus on meaningful but often overlooked statistics to more accurately assess the value of baseball players.

The promotional material for the special operations force includes a word graphic of aspirational traits.

It includes the words and phrases: intelligence, mental agility, and ingenuity.

A friend suggested the mind puzzles might show the willingness to learn new things because interested soldiers practice these Sudoku and Rubik’s tasks while preparing for selection. I feel it may be being used to test whether candidates can keep their wits about them and think clearly while fatigued and under intense stress.

A while ago I read an Times article about Google trying to correlate high performers to certain traits. The article highlighted that having a dog and having founded a not-for-profit might have been significant indicators.

People might not think solving puzzles predicts success in military special operations, but it seems that it does.

• Lessons and ideas from the book Moneyball 13 Nov 2007

Our current, but soon penultimate, website has snapshots.

We used my Nikon D40 and had to set up lights. I borrowed a five-socket bathroom light fixture from Melba and installed some LED lightbulbs as well as incandescent and placed a lamp on the other angle.

For a white background, we used duct tape to affix a sheet to the wall.

We still need to get a shot of Andrew, but here are the photos of me Erica, Helena, and Tyler.

The best part of the conference was the quality and variety of the speakers. There were some organizational hiccups and there was a lack of communication to delegates and a dearth of food, but the value of the content shone through.

I think the highlight for many delegates was Evan Reas who runs LAL.com (LikeALittle). He was at the conference interacting with delegates the whole weekend. Evan is clearly a bright and energetic person and was just as ready to listen as to offer input and advice.

Before the talks there was a short pitch from the Microsoft guy who asked who in the room had a Windows 7 phone. He noted that one person put up his hand. He asked the students to call out app ideas and three complied. He awarded a Windows 7 phone to the last guy (thereby doubling Microsofts market share in the room).

Alexis Ohanian
Alexis is co-founder of Reddit, founder of Breadpig and does marketing for Hipmunk, which was co-founded by his Reddit co-founder Steve Huffman. Alexis recounted studying history and rooming with Steve at UVA and how they went to Boston to pitch to Y Combinator. They started Reddit and later got $82,000 funding when their only costs were “Rent, Food/beer, and Servers/bandwidth.” His message was that you should start doing good in the world while you work on whatever project you have. He said it was better for a million people to do that than for someone in a million to contribute to charity long after having built a huge company (like Bill Gates).

Matt Flannery
Matt told the story of founding Kiva while he was working at Tivo. He wanted to do something worthwhile while he was helping people pause live TV. It is, of course, a great story. Kiva, in case you don’t know, which you should because it has been mentioned on on Oprah, is crowdfunded microfinance. The most interesting tidbit was when Matt said that someone in Kenya contributed to a microfinance project in New York City.

Eric Diep
Eric is a former Waterloo student who dropped out to start a company. He listed the different things he programmed over his years in high school and university. He talked about how he left school and went to California and ran into a speaker he had seen at CUTC who became a mentor. Eric runs an app firm based in Vancouver called A Thinking Ape. Joonha asked him how he decided to leave school and he responded “I just did.” He said that he wants his people to leave their egos at the door and have pride in their work, saying that smart people are good at convincing people of something that is wrong. Ego drive them to do that. Someone in the audience asked how to reconcile having no ego but having pride in work. Eric had a good answer. I later explained it differently to a friend. Ego is wanting to be told your work is good, pride-in-your-work is wanting it to be good.

Tech Expo
The expo was a bunch of tables with companies looking for employees or students showcasing their tech projects. We got sandwiches and fruit for lunch.

There was also a news conference from hockey stick testing company Hockey Robotics. Guy Lafleur was there.

Duncan Stewart
This guy from Deloitte talked about the firm’s technology predictions from the previous year and the reasoning behind them. He gave examples of future developments like the growth of smartphones but the limited available bandwidth. He said that dropped calls in NYC don’t reflect the quality of the network, but that people are downloading loads of data.

Another big observation or question he posed, after talking about how Oreo got more exposure for less money by moving its campaign from the web to Facebook, was whether Facebook might become a layer on the web.

Deloitte Innovation Quest
The Deloitte Innovation Quest was an event where three finalists pitched ideas for innovation in a particular sector. They were chosen from online online brainstorming. I had opted for higher education topic, but wasn’t in the running because I got login credentials to the collaboration tool late. I found the three ideas quite prosaic. I would paraphrase them thusly: a alumni-student collaboration bulletin board, student projects for campus IT improvement, and improved online marketing of universities.

Evan Reas
Back in the lecture theatre, it was time for Evan Reas to talk. They played a video of a tech blog touring his company’s
house where they program and sleep on the floor together. He was wearing similar looking clothing in person as in the video. An OWU tuque, a navy sweater, clamdigger shorts, and flip flops.

Acknowleding that LAL’s location services is similar to others, he said that the space is valuable, so while the odds of success may be low the reward of winning is large (that is me paraphrasing). It is a good way of looking at some opportunities. I think many people don’t realize how many Facebook-like websites there were five years ago compared to now.

Near the end of the talk Evan encouraged people to contact him, saying that he responds to all e-mails. That prompted a few laughs because he had called up his e-mail to share a link and we could all see that he had 2,097 e-mails in his priority inbox and 16,291 in his inbox. Of course those e-mails might be bacn or something.

Those of us the the entrepreneurship stream the next day would see more of Evan.

Wendy Whaley
Wendy Whaley talked about her work on 3D compute graphics for movies. It was a fascinating topic and she showed good examples like those from Avatar. I wasn’t clear what company she was from.

George Roter
Before George’s talk, I called out, “Hey George!” I know him from Waterloo engineering, Eng Soc and uwstudent.org. I told him about my work with Waterloo Banking Project.

George talked about Engineer Without Borders’ work and posited the provocative theme that technology doesn’t matter, but eventually clarifying that technology on its own is not enough.

He gave an exampled of a failed and inefficient innovation for pumping water and then discussed other challenges of maintaining water pumps in Africa. Then he talked about ways EWB is working to effectively ensure access to clean water.

He also talked about an example of a startup EWB invested in that provides a payment system money transfers using secure identifiers sent through mobile phones and coordinated by locations around the country.

To emphasize his point about technology he said that product innovations need to be accompanied by service innovations and operational innovations, using Apple’s iPods, iTunes, and design and manufacturing operations as an example.

Ariel Garten
After dinnertime Ariel spoke. She was was interested in art, but pursued study of the brain which intrigued her as well. She leads Interaxon which is creating a brainwave control system so people can use their brain to send signals and control machines.

She showed a video where Paul from MBET (2007 or something) controlled a game on an iPad through sensors on his head.

I e-mailed councillors last month urging them to at least take a position. A motion was put forward that opposed measures to restrict supply, but it was tabled until this month. The motion sent Friday actually aims to support the bylaw. I have serious concerns that the new motion is based on specious clauses.

Below is an excerpt of the e-mail I sent to councillors:

Councillors,

I have serious concerns about the new motion on the proposed rental housing bylaw. The clauses do not sufficiently support a resolution that favours the city’s bylaw proposal.

The clause on the cost of rental housing is specious. While city staff may have actually made such a statement, the statement itself is not true.

“WHEREAS according to the City of Waterloo, under the revised proposal, the cost of rental housing will increase by $12.00- $20.00 per month per renter; and”

If the bylaw merely dealt with the assessment of fees on rental housing, such a simple calculation dividing the fee across the number of rooms might be reasonable. The proposed bylaw, in fact, is not just about fees but includes many obstacles to renting and restrictions on the number of rooms. The many measures in the bylaw will surely have
an effect on the supply of rental housing and therefore on the cost of that housing.

Another clause that refers to grandfathering applies to only a fraction of the off campus housing Waterloo students rent.

“WHEREAS a grandfathering clause has been introduced that would protect the supply of rental housing in the City of Waterloo; and”

This grandfathering clause covers only 1,160 licences which house about 7,000 people, while many more people in Waterloo need off-campus housing.

Surely, it is worthwhile to protect those spaces, but tens of thousands of other students also need accommodations off campus.

Based on numbers from Fall 2010, there were 37,733 full-time graduate and undergraduate students at Waterloo and at WLU’s Waterloo campus. Of those students, 7,309 are are housed in UW and WLU residences. The remaining 30,424 plus any growth in enrollment this year must find somewhere to live off campus.

The city cannot truthfully claim to be protecting students housing if its grandfathering measure applies to less than a quarter of off-campus housing needs. Remember also, that many part-time students and non-students also require rental accommodation.

The bylaw proposal still restricts non-lodging houses to three bedrooms and the zoning bylaw still applies minimum distances of separation for licensed houses. I do not believe that anyone knows the magnitude of reduction these restrictive measures will have on the number of rooms for rent. Certainly, no student councillor should support the bylaw or a endorse a motion to support the bylaw without knowing that rental spaces are protected.

It is reasonable to support the safety measures in the bylaw and be willing to see houses shutdown that do not meet standards of safety and quality. To restrict the capacity of houses for purposes other than safety is not reasonable and will reduce the supply while student demand remains.

Ryan

• Addressing city council on rental housing proposal 11 Apr 2011
• Feds Students’ Council should take a position on the rental housing bylaw 25 Mar 2011
• Waterloo’s rental licensing scheme and rent increases 1 Mar 2011