Brian's 340 Blog

TO: Clark Hansen, CEO, AMDP FROM: Brian Tse, R&D, AMDP DATE: Sep 29, 2020   SUBJECT: Recommendation to Invest in First Solar, Inc. Today, too many corporations try to be social enterprises for the sake of meeting social expectations. In order to weed out these companies, I decided to search for specific industries that sell products and services with the intention of making a positive impact. This led me to discover the clean energy sector and settling on First Solar as the company of interest.  Through extensive research and a thorough examination of the company’s financials, sustainability report, and core values, I have concluded that First Solar meets AMDP’s strict investment criterion and encourage you buy First Solar stocks as a long-term investment. Allow me to remind you of AMDP’s investment criteria before proceeding with my analysis: Triple Bottom Line : A sustainability framework to evaluate a company from the following three perspectives. (Kraaijenbrink): 1. ...

Ergonomics For the past year or so, I've been extremely interested in the ergonomics of work furniture. I'm sure you've heard all the rage about standing desks, balance pads, ergonomic mouse and keyboards, etc. Like many others, I was always very skeptical about this stuff. I thought it was just another BS way for people to make money off of millennials looking for a gimmick. Having said this, I had also heard and read about the benefits of ergonomic furniture from legitimate sources. While I was genuinely curious about this subject, I never seemed to be able to convince myself to spend money to find out. I eventually decided to cave in to my curiosity when I started experiencing neck and back pains from sitting all day front of my laptop (and yes, I realize it's kind of sad for a twenty year old to be experiencing back and neck pains, but it is what it is). And so with that, I decided to buy a height adjustable table at  home to study on. This desk is electrically powe...

Disclosure: I’m not an astrologist. I can vaguely understand the trajectories of orbits and chemical components of planets from the little information I have gathered through sci-fi films and documentaries, but that’s the extent of my knowledge. When I first picked this book, it was simply because I vaguely recalled reading about Pluto being stripped of its status as a planet years ago. At the time, I did not really concern myself with the potential difficulties of understanding the jargon that astrologists like to use. In retrospect, there really was nothing to be worried about anyways because the book read more like a personal narrative than anything else. However, that is not to say I didn’t learn any technicalities when it comes to the discovery of new objects in space. In fact, I can now accurately describe to you the proper techniques to remember when operating different telescopes and also the correct methodology that one must follow in order to name a new planet.  The title...

Nothing Good Happens After Midnight, Or So It Goes Behind the Curtains of Opening and Managing a Nightclub Ridiculous as it may sound, some people party for a living. And I’m not talking about office or retirement parties - I mean free flow champagne, world class DJ’s, and famous celebrities kind of partying. Surely this must be the dream job and the ideal career...right? Such is the privileged life of a club owner, but the reality of opening and running a club is much more complicated and prone to failure than people may think.    As someone with experience opening and owning a nightclub in Hong Kong, I'd like to pull the curtains aside to show you what goes on behind the scenes. Let me walk you through each step I took to illustrate the secret workings of this business: from the early stages of conceptualization, to development, and finally operation.    A Concept That Can Sell Itself The very first thing you should do is formulate a unique concept. This is im...

Unlike the author, I did not gain an interest in outer space until later on in my childhood. One reason for this is because the author grew up in a sparse area of America while I grew up in the densely populated city of Hong Kong. At night, while the author could observe asteroids and planets in outer space with his naked eye, I would struggle to spot even a single star, blinded by the city lights around me. While I’m not an astronomer, nor have I ever aspired to be one, I think it is only natural for people to be curious about the things that exist beyond Earth. In hindsight, this desire to learn more about what outer space is like, especially from someone with a different perspective than myself, was probably one of the factors that made me choose this book.   At times, the author provides details, often very technical ones, about how planets and stars operate. For the average person like myself, the technicalities were sometimes a little overwhelming. However, I think the more i...