Another Change

On May 21, I had an entry regarding the changes I am making in my life. The first one about becoming an early bird and the next one was for gaining the ability to concentrate for 3+ hours without fearing any deadline.

Early bird thing worked out very well and it is going on fine. The 3+ hours of concentration thing also is working to an extent. I still cannot say that it is a complete success. I am not able to do it on a regular basis. For early rising, I can give 10/10, where as for 3+ hour stretch I'd give only 6/10.

My complaint was that I was not able to work uninterrupted when there was no deadline coming up. I do not have that complaint anymore. I am able to read and do things for long 3 hours - except for being a little sleepy in between, for which I take a small break.

The DO IT NOW thing is working out to an extent. The results are actually quite visible in my life - my room - which is quite clean and arranged almost all the time. And in case it's not very clean, it takes a maximum of 5-10 minutes to clear the mess. :)

Now the coming month is the time I have to reinforce on the habit which I am cultivating. Next month 20th, when I put another entry, I should have made it strong - to a level of 10/10.

This month I am going to take up 2-3 small things to work on - to improve. They are:

1. Morning exercise / walk / run - just for 30 minutes


2. Increasing my typing speed from 30 wpm to 60 wpm at least - this has to be a daily exercise


3. Reinforcing "DO IT NOW"

These are things which are not directly related to my work/studies. The one I've to improve there is to learn Maple, gain expertise in that, learn how to create new packages - and finally do the small project in hand.

To code something without having any person to guide you is scary. If it were "C" or something, I'd have been cool. Here, more than the language, it's the methods which is scaring me. There is no good documentation - there are many which are 3rd class though. There lies the fun.. isn't it?

That's it for now. If possible, I should go for TOLL WOOD tonight - the summer festival in Munich.

Signing off, Sands.
PS: After a long time, this is a post without picture nor song! [Reason: I am blogging from office]

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Moved - New Office Space

Earlier I had put a post with the pictures of my office. Last week, I had to relocate to another office room. After arranging everything, it really looked awesome. I couldn't resist the urge to show off my new office space.

Everything is very beautiful, just that I should work as I really deserve such a great office.

This is how it would look from the door. I should have kept the windows open for a better lighting. Or may be this darker one is better.

The view from another corner. Don't bother the books... it's all I have got. Haven't even touched many of them.

This is exactly where I would sit. There are two computers of which only one is mine. The other one belongs to Peter, who would come once in a month or so.

The corner with some plants! Peter owns all of them and now in my custody. I would take care of them well. :0

Signing off, Sands.

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This is a little technical post

I started reading slashdot when I was in my BTech itself. It was the times when we had 3kbps connections in real life. It was supposed to be 64kbps connection, but the average speed would have been well below 10kbps.

Well, that doesn't matter. I used to use "lynx" to browse through slashdot - without understanding much of it though. Anyway, I was never a regular reader. I used to visit it once in a while.

It was only one year back, I discovered "digg". Looked and sounded cool initially. The more regular I became in digg, I found the community is very partial. The majority of them (I mean, the majority of active diggers) are apple/mac maniacs.

Slowly, I started noticing that they were very partial.

1. They are apple maniacs
2. They are neutral to Linux/Open-software
3. They are anti M$.

The third one in the list makes them actually a little inclined towards the FSF/open-source community. Now I dont have any problem with that. But the quality of digg is degrading. I am more-or-less a regular reader and I guess my opinion counts.

All the anti-MS stuff get more digged, all the apple-praising stuff gets digged. Digg was slowly becoming partial. It is very much partial right now.

But the good old slashdot - of which also I am a regular reader, remains impartial and factual - THE STUFF THAT MATTERS. Anyway I have always valued slashdot above digg. I am seriously considering of boycotting digg.

This morning, I went to both the sites and the top news in both of them - depicted in the picture. Isn't this a good proof? (You might have to click on the image to see it clearly)




The bug-report was anyway there in digg too - with about 900 diggs!

Signing off .. from here and digg too,
Sands.

PS: Now please don't argue on this thing. It's not my M$ love makes me say all this. That's a different thing altogether.

http://www.digg.com/ - DIGG
http://slashdot.org/ - SLASHDOT

This is Race, the Rat Race....!

IT definitely is funny. The more you (try to) organize your life, more chaos are detected. I am gradually structuring many things which were left untouched for years, and I am discovering that I've to do much more than I had imagined. A smaller example would be reading - the more I read, I realize that I have to read much more than I had imagined.

Very frequently I come across quite interesting articles and books. I read them carefully and at times while reading I think. "Oh yes, I should read this again".

Sometimes it is some technical article which I am not able to grasp completely in the first go. Then I definitely have to come back and read once again. But I know, re-reading is a phenomenon which occurs very rare - whether it is a technical article or not. By the time I am ready to read something the second time, I would have added at least another 5 articles to the pile named "TO READ".

That basically boils downs to this - whenever I read something, make sure that I get everything out of it. And it is not very easy!

When you do not have enough time for vision, how to think about re-vision? Still I keep a set of stuff to re-read.

This is the problem of getting exposed to the world of knowledge. Look at many people out there who have never read even a single book, have never been to BBC website more than a few times, have never heard "slashdot" and many similar stuff - yes, those people who are not in pursuit of knowledge.

They are happy in fact. I do not think they ever feel that "Oh! I am missing out so much of stuff". Where as I have a constant feeling that I've to catch up a lot.

Daily visits to BBC, trying to read a book every week, trying to solve some problems which are by no means related to my discipline, learning about human anatomy, attending physics classes ... nothing is quenching my thirst!

(Sometimes these are done at the price of my real work... got to increase that part.. by reducing the rest)


Yes, I get it now. I am trapped in the rat-race. And there is no way to escape. Actually I do not want to escape. This is fun, pure fun.

I was not in the rat race a couple of years back. The transition was gradual and I did not know it happening. It just happened. Now, my sister is getting ready for her entry to it. I can see that coming. I should try my level best to NOT influence her. I should even restrain myself from correcting her when she makes mistakes... that would teach her more.

In another few months, she will start interacting with PCE, the one who gets you addicted to the CS world (lately electronics though). That interaction should take care of my sister's entry to the race. Life is peaceful outside the race, but once you are in.. it's fun!

If it took 5+ years for me, it would be less than 2 years for her. Thanks to computers and Internet.

I can keep writing about this for quite some time. Why to get my readers bored? Let me put an abrupt end here.

No, something more... :)

I went for a walk in the city this weekend. After taking a couple of pictures with my mobile, I went down to the subway station.


I was listening to some song from my portable media player. Suddenly I noticed a very beautiful young lady. It was involuntary; I exclaimed "Oh Boy!!". She was really hot, I was looking from behind her, enjoying the simple harmonic motion ;)

I realised that my exclamation was a little too loud. Since I was listening to the song, I did not know how loud I was shouting. The two macho-men who were with my sexy lady turned to me! My heartbeat stopped for a moment. Then suddenly I started singing with the lyrics and walked past them very fast. :)

Can you guess what is there in this picture? Do not think naughty! ;)



Signing off, Sands

PS : DidYouKnow.wmv - a good presentation (wmv file - mplayer should play)