LOLOLOLOL

 

Apparently blogger.com is still not allowed behind China's firewall. Oh well, send me updates of your life through email! =P

 

In other news, I am in a shady ass internet cafe right now in Beijing. It is a surreal experience, the past 2 days. Oh well, it's a good learning experience all in all.

 

P.S. I won't be reading your comments for quite a while. So...keep that in mind when you post a comment.

Respect for Actuaries: -1

"In the United States, the underwriting loss of property and casualty insurance companies was $142.3 billion in the five years ending 2003. But overall profit for the same period was $68.4 billion, as the result of float [investment capital gains]. Some insurance industry insiders, most notably Hank Greenberg, do not believe that it is forever possible to sustain a profit from float without an underwriting profit as well, but this opinion is not universally held [LOL, are you joking me?]. Naturally, the “float” method is difficult to carry out in an economically depressed period. Bear markets do cause insurers to shift away from investments and to toughen up their underwriting standards. So a poor economy generally means high insurance premiums. This tendency to swing between profitable and unprofitable periods over time is commonly known as the "underwriting" or insurance cycle.

Property and casualty insurers currently make the most money from their auto insurance line of business. Generally better statistics are available on auto losses and underwriting on this line of business has benefited greatly from advances in computing. Additionally, property losses in the United States, due to unpredictable natural catastrophes, have exacerbated this trend."

- source: Wikipedia

Some interesting questions:

What do you consider more morally wrong?
Jaywalking vs. Downloading a song?
Sharing your neighbour's cable hookup vs. uploading a TV show with ads removed?
Smoking marijuanna vs. Downloading MS Office?
Sneaking into a movie theatre vs. buying a movie from the black market?
Stealing a $1.00 chocolate bar vs. Downloading a $65 video game?

The question I found the most iffy was the last two. What do you guys think?

source: http://beta.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/download-decade/if-piracy-is-wrong-whydoesitfeelsoright/article1136934/#interactive

I am so unprepared for what's ahead of me.

Is this fear? The trappings of comfort? A relapse? My intrinsic deficiencies?

I can't explain this mental paralysis in me.

In honour of Mayur's enlightened post, I too shall promise to write about my life in progress at some later, more convenient time.