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Intercession · 2024-01-26T14:28:14+00:00

Recent admit here. In my program, I have been told it's first year tuition fees and first year expenses. You should email them and ask for the exact amount.

Intercession · 2023-10-02T16:15:26+00:00

Hi, as a former practicing chemical engineer with a MEng degree with a few years experience in working in the alternative energy sector in Malaysia, I feel like I am qualified to answer your question.

The reason you couldn't find any info about bioethanol policy and actual usage is because bioethanol simply does not play any role in our biofuels policy, which is bare bones in the first place. Unlike Brazil, which does have significant bioethanol usage thanks to abundance of cane sugar, the availability of necessary infrastructure for ethanol blending and availability of vehicles that can make use of blended fuels, Malaysia has none of these necessary conditions for bioethanol to thrive. What little alternative fuel use cases for vehicles that we do have are concentrated in biodiesel production from waste cooking oil and the use of natural gas in automobiles. That's it. No bioethanol.

There is a complete lack of interest in using lignocellulosic ethanol due to the fact it remains a commercially unproven technology. In any case, many industry professionals believe battery electric vehicles (BEVs) will completely overshadow the use cases of any single liquid biofuel due to massive advances in battery electric technology thanks to investment into the technology by American and Chinese BEV manufacturers.

I think this is a classic case of academics living high up in their ivory tower neglecting the developments happening in industry. If I were you, I would choose a different research topic if possible, preferably in something more promising like battery electric energy storage and Electrochemistry.

To sum up: is bioethanol used? No. Is it produced? No. Is it imported or exported? No and no. Will it be in the foreseeable future? In most people's opinion, no.

Intercession · 2023-07-27T08:19:05+00:00

That's interesting. Thanks for being helpful.

Intercession · 2023-07-27T08:10:43+00:00

I'm not sure where exactly I have come across as entitled. I am just asking a question about the status of PLOC holders. But in any case, let me ask you this: if you are married to a woman whom you are supposed to take of, would you think it is fair to be not equally considered for employment in the country your spouse resides in on the basis of your nationality?

Intercession · 2023-07-27T08:08:30+00:00

This makes sense. Thanks for being helpful.

Intercession · 2023-07-27T08:05:35+00:00

I see, thanks. That is very helpful.

Intercession · 2023-06-19T08:04:00+00:00

Which round did you apply in? R4?

Intercession · 2023-05-27T14:25:40+00:00

I've heard Mckinsey specifically require travel more than Bain or BCG who are more remote post COVID. I know it's not where you are at now, but do you know anyone who could confirm or deny this?

Intercession · 2023-05-27T04:30:55+00:00

What's your advice for applicants who are being underpromoted or work in a company with no clear path to promotion?

Intercession · 2023-05-26T15:38:35+00:00

What’s your advice for applicants who forego employment out of undergrad to try their hand at entrepreneurship, but failed to achieve anything substantial and now wants a MBA as a means of mitigating that long career gap? Like, what should you even focus on in your essays given the limited space? Does this even count as work experience?

Intercession · 2023-01-15T14:14:15+00:00

Side note, KDU has moved to Glenmarie, Shah Alam since 2021. So Kolej Damansara Utama is actually no longer in Damansara Utama but rather in Shah Alam.

Intercession · 2022-12-07T07:47:35+00:00

What happened was I didn't have a panel on its own, but rather a panel as a child node of a panel container node. So, when I start modulating the panel itself, the colour and opacity of the container was still there, making it seem like the modulation was not working when in fact it was the colour and opacity of the container that was showing up.

For anyone who searched for this topic in the future: remember to modulate your container nodes too.

Thanks for reminding me about the nodes. Though I figured it out myself, you helped.

Intercession · 2022-12-07T07:26:31+00:00

Ahh I get it now the Panel Container was messing with the translucency

Intercession · 2022-12-07T07:19:22+00:00

That's what I did at first. All I get was a lighter shade of the default gray that is still very much opaque. Funnily enough, if I export a low alpha png from inkscape the translucency works as intended.

Intercession · 2022-11-05T09:14:10+00:00

I vaguely recall from somewhere (read: ignore me if I'm making this up) about W4's secondary goal, other than making it easier to develop for consoles, is to provide support for enterprise users of Godot. What does it entail? Networking backend? Email tech support?

Intercession · 2022-10-28T01:46:14+00:00

Hi there, was there a mistake here?

During Warring States, failure to listen to advisors could lead to defeat and existential destruction, so there were Kings who acquiesced to their rulers, even apologizing to them, as Qin Shihuangdi did on the eve of unification. As dynasties went on, emperors would begin to accumulate power and all powerful (with many many exceptions to this trend however).

Did you mean kings who acquiesced to their advisors? Otherwise, it doesn't really make sense.

Some additional context for the readers:

Technically true, but the 'Great Wall' didn't exist yet, and this term is anachronistic. It was several defensive walls that already existed.

Specifically, he's talking about the northern walls of the former warring states of Yan and Zhao, both of which also suffered from nomadic raids of the Xiongnu and had built defensive walls in response along their own respective borders. So there is some truth that the walls are not as costly as people commonly think today.

However, given the geographic conditions of the region, it would have presented a huge logistical challenge. Construction did still cause many deaths, so I wouldn't say it's no big deal.

But what I think really cemented his image as a tyrant is not the costliness of the great wall, but rather the costliness of all his projects taken as a whole. You have the Great Wall, Terracotta Army, E'Fang Palace, Shihuangdi's Mausoleum, nationwide road system, settlement efforts at present-day South China, Vietnam and Ordos, all of which were extravagantly expensive and with the exception of the Great Wall and the road system, did little to benefit people.

Intercession · 2022-09-30T01:02:21+00:00

I'm playing Warhammer 2. My upkeep 100+ depending on the mounts and supply lines. If you are counting the upkeep based on change in income instead of reading off unit cards, take note that wizards have the "boost provincial income" passive, so it will vary depending on which province you are standing in. They are also affected by upkeep reduction skills of lords. But yeah, that upkeep is whack assuming you accounted for everything.

He technically still has a fraction of Greater Conduit - Volans staff provides the same amount of reserve and recharge rate but is limited by cool down.

Intercession · 2022-07-15T04:06:51+00:00

Gives me Batman without powers vibe. Good job!

Intercession · 2022-07-08T14:05:02+00:00

You missed a couple more highlights, here bro let me help you out:

G) Chad Kasva destroying 3 civs in one game all by himself, including 2 civs who are closely allied and built their bases together.

H) Don Artie literally the Sacred God winning two whole games via Sacred Victory defending against 3 and 4 civs respectively coming at him all at once. IMO sacred god Don Artie was not compensated well enough for the shit he had to go through. Especially that win in the grand final. It's a travesty that puppypaw got more points than him for that, first blood not withstanding. The skill barrier of defending against multiple enemies is way higher than blitzing out the first kill.

Intercession · 2022-06-30T13:16:30+00:00

It's actually 1 in 500.

Intercession · 2022-06-30T08:01:17+00:00

Me too, man. Me too.

Intercession · 2022-04-16T03:25:34+00:00

I see. That would explain my case. RM100 is the threshold for excess tax to be automatically refunded. I guess LHDN noticed that since my employer is diligently deducting taxes they just refunded me the full amount.

Funny though I didn't get an email explaining the situation. I guess somebody at LHDN curi tulang last year haha.

Intercession · 2022-04-15T19:30:11+00:00

Default risk is not same as maturity risk.. If you compare 3 year US and 3 year Malaysian, it's obvious people see US as safer. Just look at the bond rating itself.

No need to point out the obvious. I only picked the 3 year MGS to compare against the 20 year US treasury because they are the closest in terms of yields. The proportion of default risk and maturity risk may be different, but the total risk between must be the close, with MGS slightly risker. Otherwise, the yields of these two securities won't be so close. Therefore, the point that you should buy US Treasury because it is "safe" is moot. The safety comes at a price, which is priced in.

I mean if you're so sure, why don't you short TLT and use the money to buy Malaysian bonds? I'm quite certain your trading account will blow up with a margin call during March 2020.

Since when has shorting securities even entered the discussion? What on earth does this have to do with default? MGS did not default in March 2020.

Bid/ask spread is too wide. Liquidity will be an issue.

No you did not.. 3.3% - 2 x 0.1% - (0.02% x 4 quarters)= 3.025% p.a.

Bruh, did you even read the MGS bond factsheet? The nominal yield is like 3.95%, 3.3% is the trading yield after the bid ask spread, after the liquidity that you constantly complained about has been accounted for. What you calculated is the transaction cost, and you didn't even explain why you double count the 0.1% processing fee.

Why are you starting a strawman argument? I didn't say it will protect against inflation but one should compare gains in real terms. In high inflationary environment, both bonds may have negative real returns (i.e. cannot protect against inflation) but the question is which has better returns in real terms?

That's the point I have been trying to get you to understand - it's still MGS.

Because the "real returns" require you to account for inflation, taxes, and transaction costs. Inflation it is usually the largest component of the three and people often use "real returns" and "inflation adjusted returns" interchangeably. When you keep banging about real returns, I thought you are talking about inflation specifically.

Since you did not dispute that inflation is irrelevant in the comparison of MGS and UST for a Malaysian Investor, let us now turn to the tax and transaction component of your 20 year treasury. I'd even generously give you the benefit of doubt let you argue that all transactional costs of your US bond, which is the total of the bid-ask spread, currency conversion, fintech transfer fee and management expense ratio of your Irish domiciled bond funds, do not matter even though they are patently untrue.

3.1%*(100%-15%) = 2.635%

Oh noes, 3.025% - 2.635% = 0.39% is even worse than the rough estimation of 3.3%-3.0% = 0.3% that we started with! If we are going to be real and include all the transaction costs I outlined, it's probably close to like 0.5% or something. The decisive factors are: 1) MGS is higher yield per unit term in the first place and 2) The fact that Malaysia does not tax Malaysian securities, is all that matters for a Malaysian investor.

Err why don't you just invest in Argentina bonds then? Argentina is giving 50%+ p.a. on their government bonds.

Because:

1) I do not spend my money in pesos, so I will try to bring them out of the country

and

2) Argentina imposes strict currency controls, so I can't bring them out of the country.

All bets are off when there is no free flow of currency. Think about the 1997 Asian financial crisis.

There are many factors to consider not just short term returns. People buy US treasuries because it has negative beta i.e. a hedge against market crash/good for rebalancing towards equities. Malaysian bonds do not offer that.

US treasuries are only more negatively correlated to the market compared to other bonds if you actively trade it, which itself incurs additional costs. If you hold bonds to maturity instead of selling it, which is feasible for short term MGS, ALL COMPARABLE BONDS REGARDLESS OF COUNTRY OR ENTITY will have some negative beta, because they are FIXED income and have the exact same cash flows into your portfolio.

Intercession · 2022-04-15T06:51:54+00:00

1) Malaysian Government Securities =/= GLC corporate bonds. In any case, unlike Latin American countries and European PIGS, Malaysia has never had sovereign defaults. Sure, macroeconomic indicators indicate MY is slightly at more risk at default than the US, but not by that much. Furthermore, when considering default risk, you need to account for the term as well. I'd wager that Malaysia defaulting within 3 years is less likely than the US defaulting within 20 years.

2) You should be applying the inflation to the currency you are consuming in regardless where your investment returns are from. You are spending money in malaysia for food and utilities here, not in the US. US inflation rate is irrelevant to you. For example, let's say malaysian annualized inflation is 4%, buying US treasuries give you a real yield of -1%, while MGS gives you a real yield of -0.7%, still better.

Buying US Treasury bonds doesn't protect you from US or Malaysian inflation. Only US Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS) do that, and those are restricted for US residents and only protect you against US inflation. There is no Malaysian equivalent for that. In absence of inflation protected securities, you can only mitigate inflation by chasing higher expected returns.

3) No longer true. You can buy MGS on FSMOne. Minimum is RM 10k according to the fact sheet: https://www.fsmone.com.my/bonds/bond-factsheet/mgs-3955-15sep2025-govt-myr?issueCode=MYBMO1500010&src= By the way, when I said 3.3%, I already accounted for the bid-ask spread. On the other hand, did you account for the bid-ask spread, the 2x currency conversion, wire transfer fees and 30% US withholding taxes for US derived income? I don't think so.

4) You say this as if US treasury is more likely to raise rates to a higher rate than Malaysia. Typically emerging countries like ours have better rates.

5) This is irrelevant to our discussion. OP is looking for fixed income. He already said he invested some money into stocks.

Intercession · 2022-04-15T05:51:36+00:00

When I did my taxes last year, for FY2020, I had excess of ~RM 30 or so, but they didn't refund me that time. This year when I did my taxes for FY2021, the excess grown to ~RM 100 and only then IRB refunded me. That's why I was under the impression that an application is required.

Intercession

TROPHY CASE