有一隻火雞，牠的世界很簡單，主人每天定時餵牠，感恩節前夕，你問牠對前景的看法，牠會答你，「喔喔，十分好，生活不愁兩餐，主人對我好好，喔，差也差不到哪裡。」翌日，主人宰殺了牠。
見股市日日升，不要慣以為常，更不要的，是找原因去支持升市(主人對我好好)，然後最用升市去「證明」原因是對的，然後用那個原因去推斷後市。
2007/08/22
有用的function
看到左邊的瀏覽人數不斷上升，茶怪有點不好意思。因為不是每天有文出，恐怕令你白白浪費click進來的時間。現在向你推薦一個google function，可以幫你省時，就是google reader。只要預設你想看的blog，那個版面就會包羅那些blog的最新文章，並即時更新，好方便。
2007/08/16
Make sense 廢話
「隨著環球股市資金充裕，相信恆指有力挑戰新高。」類似的評語言猶在耳，環球股市突然因信貸緊縮而大幅調整。說明資金充裕並沒有任何預測性，去支持未來股市上升的論點。原因是資金不但可以流入流出不同地區，更可以迅速膨脹萎縮。回顧股市時，在已經知道升市結果時，去找原因解釋，說資金充裕，是一定對的。但若要預測股市，因為今天資金充裕而斷定明天股市繼續升，茶怪想，是一個大膽的假設。
人總是對意料之外的事情感到不安，嘗試基於已知結果，去找一個合乎常理的解釋，併砌成一個有前因後理的「故仔」，易明易記易講，安樂地作事後孔明。一位社會學者說，人並非理性動物，而是一種試圖將事物合理化的動物。可惜，自己認知的往往比想像中少，在構思「故仔」的過程中可能忽略了很多重要的因素，更否定了機緣巧合。這種思考方式很易受所謂「光環效應」 (The Halo Effect)所誤導。
每天股市上上落落，就苦了財經記者和編輯去tell the story，例如早上電視台引述美國通訊社的報導，跌市時說原油價格上升影響消費者信心，升市時說原油價格上升，石油相關類股份帶動大市造好，而不肯接受市場的複雜性和不可預知的本質。「光環效應」就是令人莽斷，升市時，誤以為所有因素都是利好的，包括油價上升; 跌市時，以為所有因素都是利淡的，亦包括油價上升。
新書The Halo Effect解釋光環效應，作者Phil Rosenzweiga扮演devil's advocate角色，挑戰傳統企業管理學思維。如果你喜歡Built To Last和類似有關企業成功之道的書，The Halo Effect不容錯過。
人總是對意料之外的事情感到不安，嘗試基於已知結果，去找一個合乎常理的解釋，併砌成一個有前因後理的「故仔」，易明易記易講，安樂地作事後孔明。一位社會學者說，人並非理性動物，而是一種試圖將事物合理化的動物。可惜，自己認知的往往比想像中少，在構思「故仔」的過程中可能忽略了很多重要的因素，更否定了機緣巧合。這種思考方式很易受所謂「光環效應」 (The Halo Effect)所誤導。
每天股市上上落落，就苦了財經記者和編輯去tell the story，例如早上電視台引述美國通訊社的報導，跌市時說原油價格上升影響消費者信心，升市時說原油價格上升，石油相關類股份帶動大市造好，而不肯接受市場的複雜性和不可預知的本質。「光環效應」就是令人莽斷，升市時，誤以為所有因素都是利好的，包括油價上升; 跌市時，以為所有因素都是利淡的，亦包括油價上升。
新書The Halo Effect解釋光環效應，作者Phil Rosenzweiga扮演devil's advocate角色，挑戰傳統企業管理學思維。如果你喜歡Built To Last和類似有關企業成功之道的書，The Halo Effect不容錯過。
2007/08/15
i'm a plastic bag
We hate plastic bags. Those bags we carry out of supermarkets everyday end up accumulating in landfills and damaging our environment. Conservation groups have urged the government to discourage the use of plastic bags and are winning widening support from the public. One of their proposals is to introduce a tax on plastic bags, or plastax. That's a fixed amount of taxation for every bag consumed. To many, it sounds to be a good idea to affect the behavior of thrifty households. But i have a different theory.
What is a plastic bag? Why supermarkets give it for free?
Isn't a plastic bag a free gift a supermarket gives for customers' convenience? Obviously, negative. Business is anything but philanthropy. Take a convenience store as an example. The cashier almost always asks whether you need a bag or not. If your answer is negative, he is trained to please you with a loud slogan: "Thank you for caring the environment." Indeed, the owner of the convenience store thanks you for saving him a bag. In the supermarket, the cashier never asks that question. Neither does he say anything to encourage you to refuse a bag.
Why the convenience store and the supermarket take different attitudes toward a plastic bag? The answer is, from the convenience store, you seldom buy more than you need, whereas, from the supermarket, you do. In the convenience store, you grasp a bottle of soft drink and some snacks, and go, because you know if you need anything else, you may always find another convenience store within a few footsteps. The convenience store chain knows they cannot make you buy more than you need, except, an extra chocolate bar and that's it.
Supermarket business is a different game. We go to supermarket to buy anything. We do have a shopping list or some idea what we need in advance. But we often get more than we need. Some economists or business gurus attribute the excessive purchase to the successful marketing strategies and the tactics of store layout. But few people observe the pragmatic bottom line. "How are we going to carry the extra stuff out of the supermarket?" Have you ever asked such a question? i never.
Without plastic bags, the amount of stuff purchased is limited to the size of your own bag. And the size of your bag depends on what you plan to buy before leaving home. Now, fully accustomed to the infinite supply of plastic bags, free of charge, that question is pointless. Supermarket knows it. Plastic bags are not for you to carry the stuff you need. They are to carry the stuff you don't need. That's why, unlike convenience store, supermarket never praises you for "caring the environment".
Supermarket wants you to understand that you don't have to worry about carrying the extra stuff even though you are not prepared to carry them. Then, it wants you to walk proudly out to the street, carrying its bags.
Have you ever noticed that there are two different kinds of plastic bags in supermarket? The obvious one is that cashier supplies, on both sides of which is printed with big and bright logo of the supermarket. The less obvious, but as common, is the smaller one that wraps wet stuff like meat, fish and vegetables. This one is faceless, all white without any logo or graphic design. Why are the two kinds so different? The answer is the faceless one sits inside the bright one when you walk out to the street and doesn't show up.
If you believe that a labeled bag is for you to distinguish what being bought from where, you are wrong. Of course, the label does serve such a purpose, but it cannot be the reason for the label to exist in the first place. A labeled bag is for other people to see, for advertising.
Remember the last time you brought a T-shirt and received an oversized carton sack from the boutique. Nothing advertises better than showing someone else is buying. Take a gas station as another example. Gasoline is the least sexy product apart from electricity. Unlike the monopolistic utility companies, gasoline companies compete with each other, if not in pricing. There is no way to tell which car has had its tank filled up by which gas company. The "labeled bag" strategy cannot work because there needs no bag. However, the marketing people do a little trick.
Gas stations give out free boxes of tissue paper with their logos printed on it. Naturally, you put the little box behind the backseat. And, by doing so, you do the gas station a favor by broadcasting an advertisement about the gas station. The audience is all the drivers behind you.
When you walk out to the street carrying the plastic bag of the supermarket, you do the advertising for the supermarket. The more bags you carry, the more physically challenged you look, the better.
i buy more than i need. i help it advertise. Plastic bag and i cannot be separated. From supermarket's viewpoint, i am a plastic bag.
It is the supermarket, not the consumer, who loves plastic bags. Imagine the government launches plastax and the number of consumers who accept plastic bags drops drastically. What would happen in the supermarket? First, shoppers have to leave behind some of the stuff they otherwise would purchase because they haven't prepared enough bags of their own. Second, they all come out the supermarket without a single hint at whether they have bought anything. Turning the street corner, nobody even knows they have ever shopped at where. If you were one of the supermarket owners, would you let that happen?
Supermarkets will do anything to protect plastic bags. For example, they would bear the cost of plastax. They would give out bonuses or coupons to keep you using plastic bags. As long as the plastax is lower than the cost of those bags made of recyclable and environment-friendly materials, supermarkets will keep plastic bags. The bottom-line is you can buy as much as you want and help do the advertising.
Then, all parties are happy, except smaller grocery shops and the start-ups. These smaller competitors don't have the resources to bear the cost of plastax. Neither can they upgrade the bag materials. In the end, plastax will stop small shops from providing customers' convenience, but it cannot stop supermarkets from giving out plastic bags. i believe plastax is one of the many examples that laws and regulations create unnecessarily biased business environment against entrepreneurs and in favor of big firms.
Quamnet column
What is a plastic bag? Why supermarkets give it for free?
Isn't a plastic bag a free gift a supermarket gives for customers' convenience? Obviously, negative. Business is anything but philanthropy. Take a convenience store as an example. The cashier almost always asks whether you need a bag or not. If your answer is negative, he is trained to please you with a loud slogan: "Thank you for caring the environment." Indeed, the owner of the convenience store thanks you for saving him a bag. In the supermarket, the cashier never asks that question. Neither does he say anything to encourage you to refuse a bag.
Why the convenience store and the supermarket take different attitudes toward a plastic bag? The answer is, from the convenience store, you seldom buy more than you need, whereas, from the supermarket, you do. In the convenience store, you grasp a bottle of soft drink and some snacks, and go, because you know if you need anything else, you may always find another convenience store within a few footsteps. The convenience store chain knows they cannot make you buy more than you need, except, an extra chocolate bar and that's it.
Supermarket business is a different game. We go to supermarket to buy anything. We do have a shopping list or some idea what we need in advance. But we often get more than we need. Some economists or business gurus attribute the excessive purchase to the successful marketing strategies and the tactics of store layout. But few people observe the pragmatic bottom line. "How are we going to carry the extra stuff out of the supermarket?" Have you ever asked such a question? i never.
Without plastic bags, the amount of stuff purchased is limited to the size of your own bag. And the size of your bag depends on what you plan to buy before leaving home. Now, fully accustomed to the infinite supply of plastic bags, free of charge, that question is pointless. Supermarket knows it. Plastic bags are not for you to carry the stuff you need. They are to carry the stuff you don't need. That's why, unlike convenience store, supermarket never praises you for "caring the environment".
Supermarket wants you to understand that you don't have to worry about carrying the extra stuff even though you are not prepared to carry them. Then, it wants you to walk proudly out to the street, carrying its bags.
Have you ever noticed that there are two different kinds of plastic bags in supermarket? The obvious one is that cashier supplies, on both sides of which is printed with big and bright logo of the supermarket. The less obvious, but as common, is the smaller one that wraps wet stuff like meat, fish and vegetables. This one is faceless, all white without any logo or graphic design. Why are the two kinds so different? The answer is the faceless one sits inside the bright one when you walk out to the street and doesn't show up.
If you believe that a labeled bag is for you to distinguish what being bought from where, you are wrong. Of course, the label does serve such a purpose, but it cannot be the reason for the label to exist in the first place. A labeled bag is for other people to see, for advertising.
Remember the last time you brought a T-shirt and received an oversized carton sack from the boutique. Nothing advertises better than showing someone else is buying. Take a gas station as another example. Gasoline is the least sexy product apart from electricity. Unlike the monopolistic utility companies, gasoline companies compete with each other, if not in pricing. There is no way to tell which car has had its tank filled up by which gas company. The "labeled bag" strategy cannot work because there needs no bag. However, the marketing people do a little trick.
Gas stations give out free boxes of tissue paper with their logos printed on it. Naturally, you put the little box behind the backseat. And, by doing so, you do the gas station a favor by broadcasting an advertisement about the gas station. The audience is all the drivers behind you.
When you walk out to the street carrying the plastic bag of the supermarket, you do the advertising for the supermarket. The more bags you carry, the more physically challenged you look, the better.
i buy more than i need. i help it advertise. Plastic bag and i cannot be separated. From supermarket's viewpoint, i am a plastic bag.
It is the supermarket, not the consumer, who loves plastic bags. Imagine the government launches plastax and the number of consumers who accept plastic bags drops drastically. What would happen in the supermarket? First, shoppers have to leave behind some of the stuff they otherwise would purchase because they haven't prepared enough bags of their own. Second, they all come out the supermarket without a single hint at whether they have bought anything. Turning the street corner, nobody even knows they have ever shopped at where. If you were one of the supermarket owners, would you let that happen?
Supermarkets will do anything to protect plastic bags. For example, they would bear the cost of plastax. They would give out bonuses or coupons to keep you using plastic bags. As long as the plastax is lower than the cost of those bags made of recyclable and environment-friendly materials, supermarkets will keep plastic bags. The bottom-line is you can buy as much as you want and help do the advertising.
Then, all parties are happy, except smaller grocery shops and the start-ups. These smaller competitors don't have the resources to bear the cost of plastax. Neither can they upgrade the bag materials. In the end, plastax will stop small shops from providing customers' convenience, but it cannot stop supermarkets from giving out plastic bags. i believe plastax is one of the many examples that laws and regulations create unnecessarily biased business environment against entrepreneurs and in favor of big firms.
Quamnet column
2007/08/09
謎圖
天氣圖對茶怪來說始終是一個謎。每次看電視天氣佈導，當天氣小姐或天文台職員簡介過今明兩日天氣情況後，略略提高聲調說: 「一齊睇睇天氣圖。」，好像要將短短幾分鐘的節目帶到高潮似的，茶怪引頸以待，準備接收重要訊息，但一看見熒光幕顯示一幅色彩豐富、刻劃細緻的地圖，就莫名其妙地問，究竟天氣圖該怎樣看? 雖然圖象熟口熟面，看過近萬次，但感受與第一次沒有分別，就是不明白，再看下個一萬次，相信只看出同樣一舊雲。究竟有沒有教育節目講解天氣圖? 有沒有可能將天氣圖簡化成「天氣先生」般清楚易明的卡通，究竟看不懂天氣圖的人會損失多少重要資訊? 有幾多人像茶怪一樣看不懂但又不知如何是好? 你曉得嗎? 如果你有子女，當他/她長大到五六歲，一天和你一同看電視，好奇地指著天氣圖問，你又如何有體面地回答? 會否像回答男女性問題一樣忌諱地說: 「寶寶，待你長大後，自然會明白吧。」當然，兩者的分別是，即使長大後，你始終看不曉天氣圖。世代相傳，天氣圖會否成為一個人類永遠解不開的謎?
2007/08/05
電視風雲
前美國副總統戈爾新著The Assault on Reason說美國人民看電視太多，喪失了對政治的理性思考能力。美國人平均每天看電視四個半小時，深受電視畫面影響，政治人物耗用大量政治經費買廣告時段，以煽情的手法，宣傳自己的政治立場，例如布殊政府誇大美國受恐怖襲擊的風險，以及刻意地將薩達姆和阿爾蓋達組織扯上關係，以誤導國民支持美軍出兵伊拉克。
電視有別於文字媒體，其參與門檻高，播放權落在少數人--電影台和廣告客戶手中，大部份人只有看的份兒，不能加入討論。資訊流通，讓人民可以掌握正確的知識，以後經過充分討論，才投票選擇政府，正是民主有效運動的條件。戈爾說，電視作為單向的資訊傳播，危害美國民主的延續。
茶怪想，電視對政治的影響力不容低估，在政治冷淡的香港，早前電視直播特首候選人辯論，引起廣泛關注，我們對曾蔭權和梁家傑亦留下深刻的印象。但政治show高潮過後，香港電視觀眾又返回追劇集的慣性動作。
港人每天花在熒光幕前的時間相信較美國人更長，而且收視率高度集中在一個電視台，電視的影響力在香港較美國更甚。香港電視絕少提及有關政治的課題，沒有戈爾口中的政治偏袒，但茶怪想，電視影響的不是在於政治，而是在社會倫理。香港最高收視的節目，多半是有關家庭倫理的長篇劇，每晚追看的港人，不知不覺地習慣了探究別人的家事，然後加入自己主觀的道德判斷，去判別誰是忠奸。對現實世界中的桃色誹聞、遺產爭奪新聞，這些與社會上大部份人無關的事件，港人像看劇集一樣感興趣。
電視有別於文字媒體，其參與門檻高，播放權落在少數人--電影台和廣告客戶手中，大部份人只有看的份兒，不能加入討論。資訊流通，讓人民可以掌握正確的知識，以後經過充分討論，才投票選擇政府，正是民主有效運動的條件。戈爾說，電視作為單向的資訊傳播，危害美國民主的延續。
茶怪想，電視對政治的影響力不容低估，在政治冷淡的香港，早前電視直播特首候選人辯論，引起廣泛關注，我們對曾蔭權和梁家傑亦留下深刻的印象。但政治show高潮過後，香港電視觀眾又返回追劇集的慣性動作。
港人每天花在熒光幕前的時間相信較美國人更長，而且收視率高度集中在一個電視台，電視的影響力在香港較美國更甚。香港電視絕少提及有關政治的課題，沒有戈爾口中的政治偏袒，但茶怪想，電視影響的不是在於政治，而是在社會倫理。香港最高收視的節目，多半是有關家庭倫理的長篇劇，每晚追看的港人，不知不覺地習慣了探究別人的家事，然後加入自己主觀的道德判斷，去判別誰是忠奸。對現實世界中的桃色誹聞、遺產爭奪新聞，這些與社會上大部份人無關的事件，港人像看劇集一樣感興趣。
2007/08/02
我的名字 你的閒事
電話響起，來電顯示: "withheld"。
「喂。」
「唔該你茶乖先生?」
「你地係恆生銀行打黎。」
「咦? 你點知嘅?」
「因為只有恆生銀行先叫我做茶乖，其實我叫茶怪。」
「喔，唔好意思，因為我地個資料系統只顯示英文Cha Gwei，不能顯示中文名。」
「我知，上次你同事已經解釋過了。」
「咁今次向茶生介紹番啦，恆生銀行最新嘅儲蓄計劃，請問你有冇興趣呢?」
「冇，唔該，唔該晒。」
單憑英文譯音去估中文名，成功機會恐怕不足五成。例如，英文名Chan Wai Man的人可以叫陳偉文、陳慧敏或陳維曼。茶怪想，連客人的名字也弄不清，電話推銷員要推銷標榜為客人度身訂造的個人理財計劃，說服力自然大減。銳意發展財富管理業務的恆生可能要想想怎樣改善對客人的稱呼。
「喂。」
「唔該你茶乖先生?」
「你地係恆生銀行打黎。」
「咦? 你點知嘅?」
「因為只有恆生銀行先叫我做茶乖，其實我叫茶怪。」
「喔，唔好意思，因為我地個資料系統只顯示英文Cha Gwei，不能顯示中文名。」
「我知，上次你同事已經解釋過了。」
「咁今次向茶生介紹番啦，恆生銀行最新嘅儲蓄計劃，請問你有冇興趣呢?」
「冇，唔該，唔該晒。」
單憑英文譯音去估中文名，成功機會恐怕不足五成。例如，英文名Chan Wai Man的人可以叫陳偉文、陳慧敏或陳維曼。茶怪想，連客人的名字也弄不清，電話推銷員要推銷標榜為客人度身訂造的個人理財計劃，說服力自然大減。銳意發展財富管理業務的恆生可能要想想怎樣改善對客人的稱呼。
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