kotmj

Tomorrow, I hope to write about tribology as it relates to suits.

I've always wanted to write a comprehensive article about caring for suits. This morning, I thought I'd start by writing about moths. -------------------------------------------------------- The biggest threat to finely tailored suits is the common moth, also known as the clothes moth, Tineola bisselliella. Their destructive power has to do with their stealth and their efficiency. Having a length of only 6-7mm and a rather pale straw colour, the moth isn't very noticeable. Moreover, unlike the mosquito or the fly which seeks you out and buzzes around you, the common moth has no interest in humans and avoids us. Instead, it has a sense of smell keenly tuned to detect moths of the opposite sex, and natural fibers, in particular wool. But the moth doesn't eat the wool. In fact, the moth has no functioning mouth with which to feed. Female moths lay eggs in clusters of up to 200 eggs on an edible substrate---the wool. A few days later, these hatch into tiny larvae, which immediately begin feeding. The moth larva, though tiny, has a mouth that can cut through even tough synthetic fibers to get to the natural fibers on which it feeds. They have the ability to digest the keratin protein in wool and silk and actively seek these out. As it feeds on the wool the way a silk caterpillar feeds on mulberry leaves, the moth larva leaves behind holes in the cloth. The warmer and more humid the conditions, the faster the larva matures to the next stage---the pupal stage, where it spins a cocoon and eventually emerges as an adult moth. Under ideal conditions, the larva takes a month to reach pupal stage. The adult moth itself does not feed, having acquired all the nutrition it needs in the larval stage. It's only goal is reproduction. It has a lifespan of several weeks, dying a few days after mating. We can disrupt the life cycle of moths in several ways. The moth is susceptible to aerosol sprays, and can be killed this way just like mosquitoes. Moths are not particularly mobile; they scuttle about on the floor more than they fly. Look out for them at the bottom of your closet. This is the best way to keep moths at bay, because it is when they are most vulnerable. You can build a closet that has a mosquito netting behind every aperture, effectively stopping the moths from reaching your clothes. Periodically exterminating moths with mosquito spray will effectively break their life cycle. You may also kill moths by spraying your room with an insecticide. A widely used insecticide for moths is transfluthrin. Fumakilla's Vape One Push V is marketed for use against mosquitoes, but with 24% transfluthrin it is just as lethal for moths. It has the advantage of being widely available. A single spray directed at the ceiling will exterminate all flying insects within the room and repel new ones from entering the room for 12 hours. Dry cleaning will both kill and remove the eggs and the larvae from your clothes. If the garment is too fresh and clean to deserve a dry cleaning, a press with a warm iron will also kill the larvae by denaturing the proteins in it. In other words, you cook them with the iron. Protein denatures at temperatures above 41 degrees Celcius. However, due to the temperature gradient, your iron would need to be substantially warmer than this. The "wool" setting on your iron is approximately 160 degrees Celcius, and is certainly hot enough to kill them. So much for killing them. You may also repel them---discourage them from regarding your suit as an eat-all buffet. The age old solution was moth balls, if only its effective ingredient napththalene weren't toxic to humans and banned in the EU since 2008. It has another unfortunate side effect---its typical odour transfers to clothes, making you smell like a mothball when you wear them. Both of these disadvantages can be sidestepped with a single measure: use it very judiciously. Put just a very small quantity of them in your closet---two or three balls. That's enough to repel moths without having the other side effects. There are also modern moth killers/repellents with the active ingredient transfluthrin, mentioned earlier in this article, which you keep in the closet. Transfluthrin is odourless and safe when used according to instructions. It works like most insecticides do, being a nerve poison to insects but mostly harmless to mammals. Daiso sells them. But they have a huge disadvantage: you don't know when they're depleted because they do not announce themselves through their odour. For me, this makes naphthalene superior to transfluthrin as a repellent. Moths are everywhere. I've had suits brought back by customers from Puchong to London with moth holes. Keeping a vigilant eye out for small, winged creatures around your closet, keeping two or three moth balls in your closet, and the occasional dry-cleaning---or in lieu a press with a warm iron---will eliminate this problem.

I've had the best two weeks of my life. I was stuck in a place I like very much---Bukit Tinggi. I like this place so much that I would commute between here and PJ every day, six days a week. I've done this for 8 years. If I'm going to have to be stuck somewhere, this is where I want it to be. Also, I live 5 minutes from waterfalls and jungle trails and a vacant golf course, so I get to bring my dogs out to these places everyday if I wish. Lately, I have to watch out for the police if I do, but this place is so rural that the police have much more promising places to patrol than here. I get to let my natural circadian rhythm express itself. Almost invariably, I go to sleep between 2am-3am. I wake up at 10am-11am. Yes, some of us are born this way. I've always been this way. This is the main reason I had to be self employed. I simply cannot fit into normal office hours. I've had to learn that the world has no sympathy for this. I feel so happy and fresh the whole day. Largely, this has to do with the lack of contact with stupidity. Something like 6 full-time equivalents work for JT not counting myself. The whole working day, I have to solve problems caused by the stupidity of others. Even after working for me for years, they are still stupid. I think people who are not promising will never become adequate. But then, most of you have the same experience. We are surrounded by stupid people, and we have to achieve results through them. I find I am a very good companion to myself. I am totally not lonely, though I live alone. I find I am intrinsically happier than my neighbours, or most of the people I meet. Some people may have noticed that I seem to not want to look them in the eye when I talk to them. I find that when I look at people too closely, there is a transfer of emotions from them to me. I start to feel what they feel. Most of the time, their emotional state is much inferior to mine. I do not want to feel what they feel. So I minimise exposure to their emotional state by not looking at their faces too much. I remind myself to have eye contact every now and then to avoid them feeling I am distant. The main problem most people have is a pervasive sense of insecurity and anxiety. Occasionally, someone sits across the table from me whose emotional state is pretty good. I find that I have almost constant eye contact when talking to them. I have no problem feeling what they're feeling. It may be time to do something productive. I can't do much from home except write. I just discovered I have an old Bluetooth keyboard that I can connect to my phone. So I may write some blog posts in the coming weeks.

My theory is Muhyiddin is afraid of vote of no confidence in parliament. The last couple of weeks, who knows what UMNO has been up to. He feels vulnerable, and wants to delay the parliament sitting until he has clarity of the political situation, or until he has secured rock solid support behind himself. Lots of senior UMNO guys are disgruntled at his policies since becoming PM. Not sufficient minister posts for them, no compromises at pursuing litigation against them, etc. Since these people are fighting for survival, you can be sure they have been doing everything they can to replace Muhyiddin with someone more sympathetic to them. So, whatever aid package now cannot involve parliament.

Well it has been said the rm25b is not through additional borrowings, but from reappropriations. Either because they just won't borrow anymore, or they need to go back to parliament to approve an increased budget, which Muhyiddin really, really doesn't want to do. I like what I see in the courage to implement the MCO at a time when very few countries were doing it. Of course, subsequently, most countries did it too. But when Muhyiddin did it, it must have required great courage, because of how damaging it is to the economy, and how unpopular it will be. I'm pretty glad it is a Muhyiddin who is PM in these times, instead of a Mahathir. Mahathir and Wan Azizah appeared to me useless at dealing with covid. They dragged their feet the whole time. The aid package is a curious joke. If you're a civil servant, it is a real "stimulus" package, because you get extra money on top of your regular salary AND you haven't the expenses of going to work. But, right now, you can't buy anything other than groceries unless you do online shopping. So I'm not sure what the government is trying to" stimulate". You can't stimulate an economy that has been ordered to shut down. All you can do is make sure people are fed. So, it is an aid package. You cannot "rangsang" an economy that was "diarah tutup". If you are a low income household, it is also supposed to be stimulatory, because it is extra money too, except many won't actually be paid by their employers. For them, it is too little to survive on. It is a disaster for them. They will feel betrayed by the government. And then there are those old people who were never registered with Hasil. They have no EPF. They don't know how to register online to receive the free money. They are illiterate. There are many such people; more than most people would imagine. Even the government doesn't know how to help these low IQ idiots. For business owners, the aid package is almost none at all. They are the clear losers. Unless there is a revision to the package relatively soon, they will see even the BN government as socialistic, not just PH. I'm not sure what ramifications this will have. It is entirely possible thi is just the first aid package. Depending on how things develop, there may be a second one. Once businesses are allowed to open again, you will see a new group of affected people---those who were VSS'd because their companies have to "rightsize".

Now, it is possible to have a more charitable view of the government. Such a view would go like this: Muhyiddin: Fuck me, we are both broke and heavily indebted. The civil servants refuse to borrow more to tide us over. So what we're gonna do is, we pay the people through their employers. These employers then are encouraged to borrow the money from the banks. We make the criteria super lax, and the interest rates super low. We guarantee these loans, so that the banks would even entertain such loans. That way, our aid package is financed not with sovereign debt, but with corporate debt. Smart or not? Jeremy: Why don't you go fuck yourself. Muhyiddin: It's our only solution! The government can't take on more debt! Jeremy: Be gone, you leprous dog! Shoo!

It's the kind of assistance that I can only imagine a mediaeval robber baron would announce when his village (which he preys upon, in exchange for "protection") is hit by a plague. Basically, if you have no money to eat, it's you punya hal.

This government reminds me of the complete lack of shame of a Syed Sadid. I wouldn't know where to fucking hide my face if I were PM and came out with such an aid package.

The fact the gov at all pays RM1.6k or Rm1k depending on household income is an acknowledgement that many employers are unlikely be blustered into doing the job that belongs to the government.

I'm almost 100% in vacation mode, which is to say I'm mostly just enjoying the moment, instead of planning and scheming (for world dominion). This MCO is one of the best things ever. My life is so idyllic, so beautiful. So peaceful. So when Muhyiddin unveiled the Prihatin Nasional aid package yesterday, I only took a superficial look at it. Yada yada yada he went. So and so many billion here, so and so many billion there. Today, I thought I'd take a closer look at it to see if there is some money for me. This is a gov that taxes you on a level that is not too dissimilar to developed countries, and definitely higher than Singapore taxes it's people. It is a government that owns oil. There is nothing for me. Not even one sen. Worse, the government wants to use my money as the social safety net for my employees. And what if I have no cash to perform that role? We'll loan you the money, the government says. Wow, what a useless government. If you look at the responses of other governments around the world to this crisis, none has tried to bluster businesses into keeping their full payroll despite zero revenues. Only Malaysia. For those who earn less than me, the situation is the following. So your company dutifully deducts PCB from your pay each month. You pay tax each time you buy something, though this tax is hidden as SST and customs duty and all kinds of other taxes. In return, when the shit hits the fan as is the situation now, the government will pay you RM1000 to maintain your entire family. What? That's RM1000 for an indefinite period. A one-off payment. It's not even a monthly aid. This Malaysian government is a fucking disappointment. Thankfully, I don't need its stupidly trivial money.

I suppose the virus hit at a reasonably good time. Most businesses in Malaysia at least have been in a time of austerity since about 2016. There was very little corporate excess when the virus hit us. Companies have been seeing revenue contractions for more than a year, and were not optimistic for the future even before the virus. Companies are very lean nowadays. This is different from 1997, when companies were bloated and expanded in every direction. For instance, The Hour Glass owned the brands Gerald Genta and Daniel Roth in 1997. You don't see retailers doing such reckless things anymore, not in a long time. I don't think the courts will agree with the government that employees continue to be paid in full during the lockdown. This is probably something the government will lose. It may go all the way to the Federal Court. Before the lockdown, I wanted to gradually take every function in-house and on-premise. The goal was to make every task be performed by a salaried employee. The lockdown shows just how risky that is. We're not talking about low sales. It's zero point zero (0. 0) sales and I'm not even allowed to go to the shop from my home. I positioned JT so that even if revenues halved, we can continue ticking. But zero revenues? There are others for whom the times are even more ridiculous. Look at Tony I-fully-support-whichever-sitting-goverment Fernandes. Not only does he have so many employees to pay, just last year he sold and leased-back all his planes. His liabilities are incredible yet his planes are not flying. But, Tony knows it's all about relationships. He will be fine. In times like these, I am reminded of a business I called the "cockroach that survives the nuclear holocaust". This business came to my attention when I tried on a Tudor Black Bay 36 at One Utama. The sales lady was a Filipino auntie. Instead of a fat, prosperous male Malaysian Chinese salesman (the highest paid demographic in Malaysia), you get a female foreign worker in a customer-facing position. I thought: how cheap of Watatime and how incongruous with the image cultivated by the brands they sell. I then looked closer at Watatime's operations and discovered an amazing structure. It is a structure that enables them to survive in the extremely cyclical business of luxury goods retailing. Watatime avoids every mistake by The Hour Glass. I may write about Watatime next.

Pretty sure that not only is every Rolex model available to buy immediately, but that even the customary 20% discount over list price will be granted.

Well, I guess the improbable has finally happened: You can actually buy a Rolex at retail now. I think those names on the waiting lists have all evaporated. Next time I'm in Genting, I expect to see regular Datejusts and Sea-Dwellers in the window displays.

I just watched a briefing by the Robert-Koch-Institut about the virus, and have more clarity about this pandemic. Let me summarize the totality of what I know. The No. 1 symptom you have the virus is a "dry cough". For a large percentage of those infected, this is the only symptom they exhibit. A couple days later, they are back to normal. This is because they have an adequate immune system that fought back the virus. In 40% of those infected by the virus, it goes a bit futher. They get a fever, which they recover from. It is safe to assume that everybody will be infected sooner or later. The whole idea of a lock down or stay home advisory is merely to slow down the rate at which the virus spreads. This is simply to avoid the hospitals being congested, or more specifically, because there is a finite number of ventilators. The way most people die through covid-19 is pneumonia. The ventilators are a way to force oxygen into their bodies. Nobody anticipated this many ventilators would be required. Without a ventilator, those who develop pneumonia as a result of the virus would likely die. This may be the case in Italy. The death rate is high because they haven't enough ventilators to keep people alive. Since there is no cure to the virus, all they do is keep you oxygenated and fed. Your immune system has to fight back the virus as you lie there in the hospital bed. You should assume you will be infected, because most people will be. The best solution is to cultivate a remarkable immune system. That way, you get a dry cough for a few days and that's all there is to it.

It's so refreshing to be home for three consequtive days. I can't recall the last time I enjoyed such a break. I find myself very fresh the whole day, even at night, as opposed to being fatigued. I find I eat a whole lot better, because I am preparing my own meals, as opposed to eating the crap which passes for food. I do not eat like most of you BTW. What I eat would not really look like wholesome food to most of you. Both my employees, and also my previous intern are down with fevers really often. I think my intern, during her two months here, was sick 3X. One of my employees who has been with me 7 months, has been ill 3X. Throughout the same period, I was ill with food poisining once. No sore throat, no runny nose, no fevers. In fact, I simply do not get the flu. For the last 8 years. I'm not surprised at their frequency of illnesses. I look at their food choices during lunch, and it's appalling. We have lost our wisdom of what to eat and what not to eat. We have even forgotten that we evolved under sunshine. We are not creatures of the dark. The other day, I asked a particularly pale girlfriend of a customer if she has trouble getting good, restful sleep. She tells me she can't sleep at all. I asked her if she gets body aches throughout the day. She says yes. These are symptoms of Vitamin D deficiency, but are not widely understood by doctors, who know very little about nutrition. People actively avoid the sun nowadays. This is so bizarre. We would not be here without the sun. To avoid it is lunacy and very damaging to your health. I went through a bout of Vitamin D deficiency myself. It obliterates your REM sleep, which you need to repair your body. So your body never really recovers. The day I discovered this might be the cause of my shallow sleep, I went to a pharmacy and swallowed 6000 IU of the thing. That night, I slept ridiculously well. Since then, I've been supplementing with Vit D and have at least 1.5 hours of deep sleep each night, according to my Fitbit. I now go into noon-time sun without a shirt for about 20 minutes each day in lieu of the supplementation, and it seems to work well. I sleep so well each night. I wake up like a new person. Every single night, with no exception. Then I go to work, and have to direct my attention to dozens of things with such rapidity and intensity that I come home quite fatigued.