After 5 years of ski touring me and Martin finally mustered some courage to try High Tatras in Slovakia, our highest mountain range. Their unpredictable weather and rough terrain make them very dangerous. To top it off, a couple of days before our planned arrival the weather was awful—freezing rain followed by snow and very strong wind. Thanks to an icy base layer, there was very little snow but high avalanche danger. Our plan was to go up to Zbojnícka chata chalet and assess the local avalanche danger ourselves. There must be at least one good slope to ski!
Wednesday
Poprad in –21 degrees Celsius.
We went up to Zbojnícka chata as planned. Suprisingly, the amount of snow was decreasing with increasing altitude. The last bit below the hut was very icy and we both hated it, because we took our skis off at least 5 times. After a short nap at the hut we went outside to exercise avalanche rescue and dig some snow pits. The first snow pit was completely safe which we couldn't believe, so we dug another one in less deep snow. A column of snow failed before we even started an avalanche test.
A snow column fell even before we started executing a test.
I jokingly said that I'm staying in the hut tomorrow, but I was hoping we would find a safe slope the next day. It started snowing in the evening and I was really happy. At least the annoying ice will be covered by snow.
Thursday
The safest slope in the valley was below Svišťové sedlo (marmot saddle). I was expecting a cloudy day but the sky opened as we approached the saddle.
The Sun finally reached us. Or did we reach the Sun?
When the slope exceeded 30 degrees, we decided to dig a snow pit and make another avalanche test. The snow was deep and the slope safe! The conditions in this particular valley looked perfect and nobody has been here for a couple of days. We left the skis and climbed the last meters with ice axes.
Martin climbing the last few meters.
Rovienková dolina
Happy to be in the saddle.
The view was great and the Sun was shining. Time to ski down.
Safe route choice. All other routes were either steeper or more wind-loaded.
We skied down to Zbojnícky spád which had a lot of blown-in snow. Perfect! After skinning back to the hut, Martin swore that he'll either end with ski touring or buy new skis, because his skins were slipping a lot on a steep slope. It was still only about 1pm, so why not practice self-arrest? This is a useful technique to stop a fall on a slippery slope with your ice axe. We survived even this exercise.
Friday
The weather forecast predicted high winds on Friday. Some parts of High Tatras got winds of speed 100 km/h, but the valley was calmer. This is no weather for ski touring, so we decided to head back to civilization early in the morning.
High winds up in the mountains
It was mostly alright, although sometimes we had to stop to let the wind gusts disappear.
All in all, it was a great trip. It turned out to be very educational besides all the skiing and climbing. For the first time I saw a snow pit test failing and we also did some useful avalanche and mountaineering exercises.
Small selection of my photos is on Flickr and an album merged from 2 cameras including some videos is on Google Photos. Martin also made a YouTube video in Slovak from the trip (just don't take inspiration from the first avalanche test, it was poorly performed).
Last year a doctor told me to take histamine antagonists every day and I lowered the dosage almost immediately to about 20%, because taking it every day was too much. This worked well for about a year but I was slowly acquiring debt that I had to pay back later. Histamine is essential for the body and if you start messing with it, the body fights back. I tried to get off the medication, but then I couldn't sleep instead. At the same time my stomach problems got worse. Sometimes I had to give lectures and I could only do a good job if I didn't eat for 18 hours. Paradoxically, my stomach didn't like food.
I started taking too many sick days. It reached a point when I felt truly powerless and I cried for the first time in ages. But as one of the best amateur psychologists Louis CK says, you are lucky to live sad moments (the important bit starts at 1:11, but you should watch the whole video).
When you have the three basic F's—family, friends and
F-You money—you have absolutely nothing to worry about and the sadness will quickly disappear.
After this moment I went on a sick leave for a couple of months. My suspicion for stomach problems turned out to be correct when I received a new stomach diagnosis while visiting my parents in Slovakia. I don't see a point of revealing this one, so I just call it diagnosis X. After starting the treatment, I have immediately gained 4 kilograms, although there are still some unresolved issues and I have a suspicion that there is a deeper problem causing both histamine intolerance and diagnosis X.
I am still taking very cold showers and try to exercise, but I have to agree with the guy who once said:
Cold showers are a great tool, but they are not a solution to all your problems. – Lukáš Poláček
I know, I know, I'm quoting myself, but that is not the first time I have done that, so you have to deal with it.
It was time to go back to Sweden. This time I came back prepared for the Swedish doctors.
Professional patient
A few years ago a private company mailed my blood to Germany for a histamine intolerance test, because the diagnosis is mostly unknown in Sweden. In the next couple of years I got used to explaining the diagnosis to the Swedish doctors. This year after getting my diagnosis X in Slovakia, my general doctor told me that Sweden doesn't have a tradition of treating it. Cool, now I can educate the Swedish doctors about 2 diagnoses at once!
Even though I have read quite a lot about my problems, I decided to do much more and become a professional patient. I started by reading some medical books as well as various internet resources. Recently I have also started to read scientific papers in medicine. If you ever plan to be sick, don't be scared of medical textbooks, they are quite readable and often have nice pictures.
The doctors of course don't like patients who self-diagnose themselves and I'm not encouraging you to do the same. When you are in a restaurant, you don't go to the kitchen and show the cook how to sear a steak; but when you order Château Lafite year 1869 and get 1898 instead, you immediately recognize the difference in taste and complain. A doctor once tried to give me medicine that would not work. After telling him that, he admitted I was right and referred me to a specialist instead.
I think most doctors take this self-education well. One time I couldn't recall the Swedish word for a certain body part, so I used the Latin word instead and the doctor asked me if I study medicine. I think that actually helped my interaction with him.
I want to thank my friend Miro who has been a professional patient for a long time and has been an inspiration to me.
Misaligned incentives
When it comes to saving for retirement, I advise my friends to manage the savings themselves, because whether you leave it to the government or a private company, they will not act in your best interest. The problem is that their incentives are not aligned with yours (except for Vanguard, whose founder should get a medal). If you don't want to get screwed, you should educate yourself or ask a friend whom you trust.
You will encounter misaligned incentives in the health care, too. For a doctor paid by the government you are an expense, so they might make as little effort as possible. A private doctor might keep you sick, so that you return many times and keep paying. And then there are various scammers trying to sell you expensive placebos. Believing that the government will act in your best interest is as naive as believing that a private company would put your interests before their profit.
So far the only solution I found to this problem is self-education. This is not the first time that reading about economics and game theory helped me solve some real life problems. That's why you should read non-fiction books too.
Swedish health care
Sven C. Larsson in the book Remaking America mentions examples of patients treated badly by the Swedish health care system. He compares some situations with the removal of life boats from Titanic, because not enough are available for all the ship's passengers.
A sure way to achieve equality is to make everyone suffer. But once people know about it, they start to cheat. They would bring inflatable life boats on Titanic in their baggage. I brought my inflatable life boat by getting a diagnosis in the Slovak health care system and educating myself. This is to be expected, since equality is an unstable equilibrium.
I'm not saying private doctors are perfect; they have made mistakes too. Two months ago, I borrowed a medical book that was co-written by a private doctor that I visited before. Apparently he's an expert on the topic and he is often interviewed in the national media. Despite all this he also didn't find diagnosis X.
Experts will continue making mistakes, but the government-funded system does very little to counteract them. You might meet a doctor that can't help you and then you need to wait 2 more months for another one, while you continue to suffer. If you are in Sweden, buy private insurance; it's cheap and worth it.
There are some positive things about the government-funded system, for example it's world-class when it comes to preventing people from dying. However, people who are not in the immediate danger of dying need to wait for a long time and are often given a bad service.
After 4 years of lousy treatment and low quality of life, I don't trust the Swedish doctors anymore whether they are private or government-funded. I would appreciate any tips for other countries with a functioning health care system.
My PhD
With all these health problems and uncertainty, I decided not to finish my PhD. The sick leave that I accumulated over the years and working 20% at Spotify would still give me about a year to finish, but health is a top priority now. I am still taking a couple of sick days every month and I am slowly writing a small thesis to finish with a smaller degree called licentiate (the degree is almost unknown outside of Sweden).
Even if I won't finish with a degree I wanted, all the scientific education has proved useful when reading scientific papers in medicine. And I have probably read more medical than computer science papers this year, so I already feel like I switched fields. Recently I have seen some exciting studies done on rats, guinea pigs and cows that show that some of my problems might be treatable. It's time to replicate these studies on humans.
In the previous year, I have given advice to many people about saving and investing, so I thought I would put some useful tips into one post. I don't consider myself an expert on the topic, so it's mostly links to other blogs and books. Enjoy!
Introduction to F-You money
Having F-You money brings your stress level down and makes you happier. Once you have enough of it, you can say F-You to your boss and do nothing for the next couple of months. Or say F-Everyone and retire when you are half the age of other retirees, but getting there takes longer. Just don't say F-You too often, most people don't like it.
It’s a big beautiful world out there. Money is a small part of it. But F-You money buys you the freedom, resources and time to explore it on your own terms. Retired or not. – Jim Collins
By having F-You money, you are becoming one of the bad rich guys: your savings help some companies create new jobs, expand or innovate. While doing that, you are refraining yourself from consumption and helping our poor planet.
How do you do it?
Forget your bank's mutual funds where you get a worse product for higher price. Real (wo)men buy cheap index fund ETFs on the stock exchange. Every couple of months I take some money and buy ETFs on Berlin or New York stock exchange, while ignoring the price. I also own some bond funds. I buy mostly Vanguard. I never sell and I don't keep an eye on the stock market. Trying to outsmart a random walk is very risky.
The most bulletproof strategy for saving each month is to take money from your salary on the pay day and move it to an account that is not connected to a debit or credit card. You might have been told that you have already made a good investment by buying your house, but that might have been a huge mistake.
One of the typical Slovak pastimes is complaining. Slovaks are so poor that when you go to any shopping mall, it's always full of people. And for them I have one message: as shocking as it sounds, the only way to get richer is to save. The politicians tell you the opposite – they tell you the economy needs more consumption. But what they mean is that they get richer from your consumption through taxes. What your (and my) country needs is capital. So instead of complaining, go ahead and do something about it; save 20% of your salary each month, that's a good start.
The Nordic championships in programming (NCPC) and UK/Ireland championships (UKIEPC) 2014 took place last Saturday. For the second time I was the head of the jury together with Michał Pilipczuk from University of Bergen (now at Warsaw). This was one of my most memorable contests as a jury member, so I wanted to share some things that happened behind the scenes.
First some interesting facts about the contest.
We had 257 teams in NCPC and 68 teams in UKIEPC. Most teams had 3 people, so we had almost 1000 people participating in 7 different countries!
The jury could solve the whole contest (11 problems) in 463 lines of code. Something to brag about: 4 of the shortest solutions were mine.
The winning team, Omogen Heap, solved all 11 problems 80 minutes before the end, when the second team only had 9 solved problems. These are the guys I have been coaching since high school and I have mentioned them in one of my previous posts.
The hardest problem Basin City Surveillance had 33 solutions from the judges: 11 correct, 9 wrong and 13 slow ones. There were 76 test cases, most of them hand-crafted.
Now let me talk more about the hardest problem.
Basin City Surveillance
The problem: check if there is an independent set of size k in a bounded degree graph, where each vertex has at most 4 neighbors. See problem B here for the full problem statement. Initially, the upper limit on k was 11, which allowed 5k algorithms to pass.
On the last Sunday before the contest, I sat down to write a random solution that seemed too simple to pass: it adds a random vertex into the independent set and erases its neighbors, and repeats this until there are no vertices left. If it fails to find k independent vertices, it restarts from the beginning with an empty set.
I was expecting such algorithm to require too many restarts, but only 100 restarts were enough to solve all the current test cases. I constructed some test cases that required 300 restarts, but my solution was still the fastest by far.
At about the same time, Per Austrin sent an e-mail suggesting that we raise the upper limit on k to 15, because he wrote a 3k solution and thought the whole contest was too easy otherwise. Interesting! Per's and mine solutions were intriguing enough that falling asleep on Sunday took me too long.
Michał was against raising the limits at first, but at Monday lunch we decided to go for it to make the contest more interesting, even though there were only a few days left. The next couple of days we were all busy writing all kinds of solutions and test cases killing those solutions; that's why we had 76 test cases and 33 solutions. In the mean time, we also managed to prove that my random solution needs on average at most 3k restarts.
Why the random solution needs only 3k restarts?
First we need to prove a lemma that is important when you want to speed up the 5k algorithm to 3k. For a vertex u we have two options: either it is in some maximum independent set or it isn't. If it isn't, at least two of its neighbors are. One can prove this by contradiction. If only one neighbor v is in an optimal set, then we can substitute v for u and get an optimal solution with u in it – a contradiction. And if none of u's neighbors are in an optimal set and neither is u, then this can't be an optimal set: we could add u to it to make it larger. Again a contradiction.
Using this lemma one can write a 3k backtracking algorithm, that either picks a particular vertex or two of its neighbors. With a little more insight this can be sped up to 2.31k.
By the way, this been the first and probably the last time I have written a program with complexity 2.31k. The slides contain the recurrence that leads tosuch complexity. If you want to be able to solve such recurrence, Concrete Mathematics is the recommended reading.
With some more work, the lemma above also implies that my random algorithm has 1/3k chance of succeeding. The following proof is by Per Austrin. We call a vertex good if it is in some maximum independent set and bad otherwise. Let G be the fraction of good and B be the fraction of bad vertices, so we have G + B = 1. The claim is that there is at least one third of good vertices: G ≥ 1/3.
Let us count the number of edges L that connect good with bad vertices. By the lemma, a bad vertex has at least two good neighbors, so L ≥ 2Bn (n is the total number of vertices). We have a bounded degree graph, so each good vertex has at most 4 bad neighbors, 4Gn ≥ L. From these two observations, 4Gn ≥ 2Bn and 2G ≥ B. Since G + B = 1, G ≥ 1/3.
At each step my algorithm has 1/3 chance of picking a good vertex, so in total it has 1/3k chance of succeeding. The average time complexity is therefore 3k when an independent set of size k exists.
Omogen Heap's solution is also 3k
Omogen Heap first submitted a slow 2n solution with a very small optimisation. In the next submission, they randomized their choices and added a cutoff: after 50 million iterations exit and print "impossible". They got accepted, solving everything 80 minutes before the end.
At first I thought the solution was too slow and our test data too weak, because I have overlooked the randomisation part. I told them that they got lucky. But with randomisation such solution actually has the same running time as my random algorithm, since the chance of stumbling upon a solution is high, 1/3k.
A couple of months ago me and Benny took a boat from Stockholm to Ingmarsö and then paddled for a couple of hours in the outer Stockholm archipelago. Even though we got soaking wet in the rain, it was a great experience and we had to come back. This time for two days.
The whole trip. We started in the south-west corner and slept on the big island in the north-east corner. About 30 km in total. By the way, the OSM map misses some islands and some are too big.
After two hours of paddling we found an awesome place for camping but we decided to continue a bit farther. And it was worth it, because we found paradise on Earth: Idskär is a small island of size 500 × 200 metres, so it's only inhabited by trees, birds and spiders. There were no mosquitoes or annoying ants. A couple of meters from our private beach was a luxurious thick soft moss where we pitched the tent (I ended up sleeping outside of the tent anyway).
Our private beach on Idskär with our kayaks.
It was still too early, so we went for a short ride before the sunset. The sunset was stunning.
Saturday was without a cloud and with a slight wind, while Sunday was with clouds and without wind. We had to paddle on a mirror.
We also found a very old wooden ship wreck in need of exploring.
This trip has exceeded my already high expectations. Great weather, a lot of solitude and an awesome sunset. I would like to come back as soon as possible but unfortunately the winter is coming.
Our holiday Loptoši™ 2014 to Slovenia and Northern Italy was a great success. Here is a list of highly memorable moments from it.
After a long and steep bike ride from Bled we were rewarded with an awesome view from the Talež hut (and cheap and tasty food).
We had some more great views from Mala Mojstrovka (2332 m).
Petrž, Palo and me tried to sleep without a tent every night. One night in camping I couldn't fall asleep when a fox stopped just 1 meter from me. I woke Palo up: "We are all going to die! There's a fox!" He told me to go to sleep. And so I did. In the morning none of our body parts was missing. Lesson learned: always listen to your older brother.
Roman, Veronika, Petrž and me bathed in Soča river that had 8.5 degrees. The fast flow made it colder, similar to wind chill effect.
Palo and Roman tried to catch a bug (cockchafer) with a string, so that they could keep him as a flying pet. It felt like being 8 years old again. They failed, by the way.
We had fun on the beach while the rest of the world hid before the storm.
On another beach we had some more fun burying Veronika, while the rest of the world followed us after realizing their mistake from the day before.
Some of us climbed their first via ferrata to Paternkofel (2744 m).
No Loptoši™ holiday is complete without skinny dipping, because otherwise we would lose the trademark. Besides, who wants to get their swimming suit wet? The lake was conveniently cooled down by ice floes. Still it was 10 degrees Celsius, a piece of cake compared to Soča.
The lake had an island in the middle of it, a perfect place for artistic photos.
We woke up at 4:30 am to watch a breathtaking sunrise from Oberbachernspitze (2677 m).
We had our first real-world encounter with llamas.
We drank at least 15 litres of Granko (cocoa-flavored milk) in a week.
Even though I was the one planning the whole trip, I was surprised that it cost only 230 euros per person (for transport and accomodation for 9 days). After all, the best experiences of the trip were free: ice-cold water, the Alps and the sunrise.
Check Google Photos for an album merged from 4 cameras including 3 videos. Since this is Loptoši™, beware of too many posed photos.
Throughout my life I have read plenty of non-fiction books that changed the way I think about everything. Most of them are based on scientific research, although many ideas are just theories in need for more testing. Your parents, teachers, friends and even politicians taught you many false beliefs. By changing them to something more scientific, you will experience much less cognitive dissonance, which is the mental stress you experience when reality doesn't match your beliefs. Your mind will be more at peace.
The effects of my reading so far have been far-reaching:
Being honest and vulnerable is great not only for your personal life, but your professional life as well. For example, your colleagues will respect you more if you don't hesitate to admit a mistake.
Reading economic theories made me adjust my moral values and philosophy; see for example this blog post.
I'm not saying that these books contain the ultimate answers, but by reading them I have become slightly less wrong about everything.
Every step of the way I was wrong. About everything. All throughout my life, I was flat-out wrong about myself, others, society, culture, the world, the universe, everything. And I hope that will continue to be the case for the rest of my life.
...
There's that famous Michael Jordan quote about failing over and over and over again, and that’s why he succeeds. Well, I am always wrong about everything, and that's why my life improves.
If you are a fan of political correctness, many of these books will disappoint you. Reality doesn't care about offending someone; reality just is. For each book I tried to list one idea that stuck with me the most from the book.
This is my number one book that I have read about 5 times over the years. Whenever I'm facing a big decision like choosing a place to live or a job, I consult the book to see how it will affect my happiness. Happiness comes mostly from other people and if you want to be happier by means of money, buy experiences, spend it on others or don't spend it.
The book looks at different philosophies through the lens of science and how they affect happiness. It turns out that a large part of the Greek or Buddhist philosophies survived scientific tests. The book also tells a lot of fascinating results in psychology, not necessarily related to happiness.
One idea: Suppose there are two people, one has just won one million dollars in lottery and the other has just become quadriplegic, so he can't move from his neck down. Who will be happier one year from now? Surprisingly, they will be on about the same level. Our minds are very adaptive and they get used to new situations quickly.
Even though this is a book about women, it had big effect on other aspects of my life as well. If you ignore the parts specifically about women, it reads as an excellent lifestyle guide. Better relationships and friendships are then by-products of improved lifestyle and behaviour and they seem almost effortless. The book also taught me how to be more assertive, expressive and confident.
A large part of the book is devoted to vulnerability and honesty which are two necessary qualities for stable relationships. Being vulnerable doesn't mean showing weakness, it signals inner strength and is therefore very manly (here is an excerpt of the book about vulnerability).
One idea: Polarization – don't be afraid to admit that you have listened to Britney Spears' song Toxic more times than appropriate 10 minutes into a conversation (alright, alright, that's me!). This will push away some people very quickly, but you will also find the ones you like quicker.
P.S. Mark Manson has an awesome blog (gender-neutral these days), where he writes about everything life-related often backed up by research in psychology. He's the guy I cited in the beginning of this post.
I'm cheating a bit here, since this is not a book but a blog. Before reading it, I used to save about 20% of my income but now it's up to 50% even with a lot of travelling. And if you save 50%, you can retire in 17 years. You will also become happier by spending less and saving more.
Retiring early doesn't mean that you stop working, you can work for less or for free (volunteering).
If you are interested in how it can be done, go to the "start here" menu item or read my favourite post.
One idea: Nothing beats the stock market when it comes to long term returns. Stock market is volatile and sometimes you gain 0% in 10 years, but over 25-30 years the yields are better than for any other form of investment.
After reading this book I understand myself and other men much better. It explains why evolution made us behave the way we do. The book also debunks most of the myths that modern (third-wave) feminism is built on.
There are two main differences between the two genders: nature rolls the dice more with men and different genders have different motivations. For example, men and women have similar IQ on average, but men are overrepresented among people with high IQ as well as among people with low IQ. Men also have different motivations, like willingness to take big risks. Cultures have been exploiting this – big risks often led to great results but many men have died while taking risks, or became very poor and homeless.
One idea: I used to think that women are more social than men. If being social is good, why hasn't evolution made men as social as women? Evolution actually did make men social but in a different sense. Women prefer few intimate one-on-one relationships while men prefer plenty of shallow relationships.
P.S. You can read an invited address that Baumeister gave at a meeting of the American Psychological Association. The book expands on the topics in the talk.
I like to think about capitalism using a sharp knife metaphor. So far we haven't found a better tool for cutting food than knives. Their greatest strength, sharpness, can also lead to injuries. This book talks about why capitalism is a sharp tool and how to avoid injuries. It is very old and economics has made a lot of progress since then, but I still like it a lot for how it changed my world view and moral values.
Capitalism and high levels of freedom don't mean that there is no welfare. The Economist recently
wrote: "When it comes to choice, Milton Friedman would be more at home in Stockholm than in
Washington, DC." Historically, Sweden has been very free and
capitalist. Milton Friedman was also a proponent of negative income tax, a very simple welfare
program that is more efficient than what most countries have now.
One idea: Government should be organized on multiple levels. If possible, a government function should be done at the lowest level. It's easier for you to influence a local politician and if you don't like it, you can move 10 km to another town. Things that require a lot of coordination or are inefficient on a local level, like the military or taxing pollution, need to be done at the highest levels.
P.S. Milton Friedman has brilliant rhetoric skills. Even if you don't like freedom or capitalism, I suggest watching some of his videos on YouTube.
This book saved me a lot of money. It explains many of the psychological tricks that marketers are trying to play on us. Stay cautious every time you see the word free or there are too many options given to you.
Experiences are affected by our expectations. A fancy meal eaten in McDonald's will appear tasteless while the same meal eaten in a fancy restaurant will appear excellent. Similar thing is true for many things ranging from music to pills, so you can improve your perception by increasing your expectations.
One idea: Sellers are trying to trick you by having expensive items that no one buys. Suppose a restaurant has meals costing between 10 to 20 euros. Now suppose they add a couple of meals that cost 30 euros. Nobody will ever order those, but people will spend more now than before.
Other great books
The following books were not that life-changing but they are still great. Perhaps they would be life-changing if I read them 5 years earlier.
Staying Alive in Avalanche Terrain, by Bruce Tremper – Probably the best educational book I have ever used. It has a great mix of theory, interesting stories and pictures.
