oh, I didn't realize you responded so I never got around to reading this until a couple days ago, and now that it's the weekend and I have a bit more time I can finally lounge around and type this---also wow, a month and two weeks for your breaks?? it is about 3 months here, but people have argued that it's damaging to have a long break 'cause you end up forgetting a lot of your highschool coursework over such a lengthy absence! and you're in uni now right?? how's the transition been?
my mum did make me take swimming/skating lessons which I hated but if I think about it I feel that I enjoyed a lot of physical activities when I was younger even if I wasn't too good at them. lots of tag during recess, camping during breaks, dodgeball, and I loved skiing - also it's funny that you bring up badminton, yes that was probably my most played and enjoyed sport, in a more traditional sense of the word (ie excluding dodgeball and whatnot); I shyed away from and generally didn't like football/baseball/basketball. I'd be curious hearing about your experiences here, was it much of the same? when I was young all my friends were boys and I never really paid any attention to what the girls in the class were doing, I think of a lot of the trends that swept through my social circle, videogames, skateboarding, guitar playing, and I don't suppose those were popular among your friends? ofc you must've played lots of pokémon since you're here and you did mention water guns at one point?? outside of pokémon, the big games then for kids I knew were halo and call of duty
ehh I totally derailed my train of thought there, we were talking about Debussy, yeah? Clair de lune is great, it reminds me of his arabesque - his work along with Ravel's get called 'impressionistic' a lot which I think is kinda fitting even if he didn't like the label. october 17 was pretty nuts for me this year, I had a 75 minute presentation worth 70% of that course's mark the evening of my birthday - ah it was a math class; the sheer thrill and challenge of the whole experience of presenting was riveting, it's been such a long time since I've given a presentation! I'm glad you liked Good Will Hunting btw, It's always been a favourite for me I did talk quite a bit about it before, have you been watching anything else?
but as far as history goes, lately I've actually been really curious about very recent history, probably not even considered history at this point with how recent it's been, we're talking 80s, 90s up till now. though I've been fascinated with it all for a long time, about a week ago I read a very curious book called The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution, Simons was a very accomplished mathematician who hired a bunch of other math/computer science people to try and build models predicting market prices, the end result was Renaissance Technologies, arguably the most successful hedge fund on the planet, though they have competitors like TGS Management and spinoffs like Edgestream. outside of having a fascinating history they're also had enormous influence on American politics, I dunno if people in Australia pay attention to Trump, but the former co-ceo of Ren Tech Robert Mercer and his daughter, Rebekah, practically set up Trump's victory! Robert Mercer funded Breitbart and Cambridge Analytica, and early into the race when Trump wasn't doing too well, the Mercers had a lot of their friends (Steve Bannon, Kellyanne Conway, David Bossie) take over key positions in Trump's campaign staff. I guess managing a hedge fund gives you a good skillset to judge these kinds of things, as well as the money needed to orchestrate it all. most fascinating for me has been how many people I've talked to irl who have never heard of the Mercers, or even Renaissance Tech. These quantitative hedge funds have got such an enormous influence on the world, what with how many billions of dollars their firms pulls of of thin-air, and many of them are so secretive. anyways what have you been reading? I'm curious if your reading habits have changed now that you're in uni??
my mum did make me take swimming/skating lessons which I hated but if I think about it I feel that I enjoyed a lot of physical activities when I was younger even if I wasn't too good at them. lots of tag during recess, camping during breaks, dodgeball, and I loved skiing - also it's funny that you bring up badminton, yes that was probably my most played and enjoyed sport, in a more traditional sense of the word (ie excluding dodgeball and whatnot); I shyed away from and generally didn't like football/baseball/basketball. I'd be curious hearing about your experiences here, was it much of the same? when I was young all my friends were boys and I never really paid any attention to what the girls in the class were doing, I think of a lot of the trends that swept through my social circle, videogames, skateboarding, guitar playing, and I don't suppose those were popular among your friends? ofc you must've played lots of pokémon since you're here and you did mention water guns at one point?? outside of pokémon, the big games then for kids I knew were halo and call of duty
ehh I totally derailed my train of thought there, we were talking about Debussy, yeah? Clair de lune is great, it reminds me of his arabesque - his work along with Ravel's get called 'impressionistic' a lot which I think is kinda fitting even if he didn't like the label. october 17 was pretty nuts for me this year, I had a 75 minute presentation worth 70% of that course's mark the evening of my birthday - ah it was a math class; the sheer thrill and challenge of the whole experience of presenting was riveting, it's been such a long time since I've given a presentation! I'm glad you liked Good Will Hunting btw, It's always been a favourite for me I did talk quite a bit about it before, have you been watching anything else?
but as far as history goes, lately I've actually been really curious about very recent history, probably not even considered history at this point with how recent it's been, we're talking 80s, 90s up till now. though I've been fascinated with it all for a long time, about a week ago I read a very curious book called The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution, Simons was a very accomplished mathematician who hired a bunch of other math/computer science people to try and build models predicting market prices, the end result was Renaissance Technologies, arguably the most successful hedge fund on the planet, though they have competitors like TGS Management and spinoffs like Edgestream. outside of having a fascinating history they're also had enormous influence on American politics, I dunno if people in Australia pay attention to Trump, but the former co-ceo of Ren Tech Robert Mercer and his daughter, Rebekah, practically set up Trump's victory! Robert Mercer funded Breitbart and Cambridge Analytica, and early into the race when Trump wasn't doing too well, the Mercers had a lot of their friends (Steve Bannon, Kellyanne Conway, David Bossie) take over key positions in Trump's campaign staff. I guess managing a hedge fund gives you a good skillset to judge these kinds of things, as well as the money needed to orchestrate it all. most fascinating for me has been how many people I've talked to irl who have never heard of the Mercers, or even Renaissance Tech. These quantitative hedge funds have got such an enormous influence on the world, what with how many billions of dollars their firms pulls of of thin-air, and many of them are so secretive. anyways what have you been reading? I'm curious if your reading habits have changed now that you're in uni??