While on the bus today I overheard two guys talking behind me.  The following is a breakdown of one part of their conversation:

First Guy: “I’m heading back home to get a Master’s degree next month.

Second Guy: “Masters, cool…hmm…Masters…The only Masters I am interested in getting is an MBA…”

Here there is a five-second pause while the second guy is obviously thinking about something.

Second Guy: “A business Master’s is where it’s at.  What’s the ‘A’ stand for?”

I thought to myself: Yup, this guy sounds just about worthy of an MBA. Warren Buffet should be called immediately.

There’s a guy I know who is listed as a friend on my Facebook.  He routinely posts status updates of the kind that tell all what he is/has been doing. I always wonder if people really care that much about such things but I start to think that it is something many feel they must do.

Someone is going to the park today

Another is eating great hot-dogs

This person wishes the weather was better

I really don’t know why people are so self-interested in these types of basic comments to make them worth going onto the computer, logging into Facebook (or Twitter) and posting just so you can tell all of your friends that you wish the weather was better.

If I go back to this guy I know on Facebook apparently he is supposed to be traveling in Europe right now by himself.  He has never travelled before and I noticed something that completely confuses me as to why he’s there.  He has literally posted some six or ten status updates every day that he has been gone.  I don’t know what kind of traveling he’s doing but when I travel it is rare that I find myself at a computer.  But this guy can find time six or ten instances everyday to be present at a computer so that he can satisfy his self-centered mentality to tell people what he has been doing.  I find this amazingly delusional.

There are two aspects to this that I am trying to comprehend.  One is that there really is a big issue today that finds people lacking so much confidence in their actions that they require approval of others.  The second is that people are so self-centered that they require the admiration and reaction of others to satisfy themselves.  Just like people (everyone knows at least one I bet) that crave attention and every time they go to a gathering they must make a scene lest they feel uncomfortable in the situation.

Addressing the first point it should be noticed that often these other people are practically complete strangers.  Yet, they are still perceived as people you need approval from.  Why is that?  Who is to say some guy I have known for a couple hours, a day or even a month or two should determine if what I am doing and how I am doing it worthy?

I imagine that both these points are of the same root cause.  Self-centered mentality and self-confidence.  Does having faith in your own actions and not caring what others think of you mean that you really don’t care to attract attention to what it is you have been doing all along? Perhaps they do go together in some degree.  The confident person can talk about his work, sure, but it shouldn’t ever be an issue where they make a point of mentioning it - the confident person is secure in not needing to define what it is they’re doing.

Can a person be very self-centered and have lots of confidence in themself?  I think this is not possible.  They might appear very confident; they might be quick to become offended and defend their actions and seem to talk a lot in order to show why what they are doing is worth time and money.  But deep down this means that they have false confidence.  The person who is quick to the defense is this way because they lack true the confident structure, that is why they feel that they need to prove it is worthy.  Meanwhile a person who is quieter and doesn’t advertise every little fact about their actions is sometimes labeled introverted and boring.

It’s a very bizarre phenomenon that I notice with the North American world in particular.  Far less of my well-travelled colleagues whom I talk and work with in Europe are this way while my acquaintances from back home definitely have more of this tendency.

I just read this article at the NewScientist website.  The main premise of the article is that the inside runners of a race have an advantage since the sound of a gun firing reaches them first.

Arrogant headlines like this annoy me since usually they are written by some pseudoscientist/journalist who has just learned some fact that pretty much anyone who took physics in high school already knows.  Then they try to apply this fact to some upcoming ‘event’ so that it starts controversy and attracts readers.  Modern no-taste journalism.  So, I thought I would see what the article has to say, in this case about the speed of sound and, lo and behold, the facts just don’t add up.

The author says that it can take 150 milliseconds longer for the sound of the start gun to reach the outside runners than that of the inside ones.  Automatically I knew this was totally false.

Let us say that the start gun is placed right beside the ear of the first lane runner when it is fired (ignore any harmful effects of it being so close).  The average lane width in a running event is 1.2 meters, this means that the eighth lane outside runner is roughly 10 meters away.

The speed of sound at sea level with an air temperature of 20 degrees Celsius is roughly 343 m/s.  This means that it takes, conservatively, 29 milliseconds for the sound to travel this distance.  The runner who has the gun right beside his ear has 0.029 seconds to react before the outside runner, not 0.15 seconds.

I don’t care who you are, if you have reaction times in the low tens of milliseconds you definitely need to be studied for that is super-human.  I would wager no Olympic athlete even has a reaction time below 100 milliseconds.  So, where did this seemingly perfectly rounded 150 milliseconds come from?  It seems that the journalist was told that the average start time of the outside runner in the past two Olympics (a study was made of only two sources, are you serious?) was 150 milliseconds and then they came to the amazing conclusion that this must be the time it takes for the sound to travel there.

The point of this is that one should always beware the facts given to you, especially in silly pop-science articles such as this one.  Think things through for yourself and come to your own opinion, don’t blindly believe what everyone tells you, even if they are supposed to have a more eminent standing in the field.  Sure, the sound really does meet the first runner before the last one, but the true question is “Does this matter?”.

I found this poem much more difficult to read than Lamia.  There were lots of references to Greek mythology that I kept having to reference and even some of the old English was beyond me.

I will need to read this sad tale of love again.

Even bees, the little almsmen of spring-bowers,
Know there is richest juice in poison-flowers.

A neuropyschologist from Bristol, England named Richard Gregory poses the idea that 90% of visual perception is actually sensed from memory.  The remaining 10% comes from actual sensory input.

While far from being in any state for arguing this fact, I think that something like this cannot be so easily time-fixed.  I am sure that for older people, due to the fact that they have seen more, the ratio may be like this.  An old man has perhaps eaten some ten-thousand apples in his lifetime - one more doesn’t require much effort for him to perceive its visual essence or taste.

Younger people, on the other hand, have seen much less and perhaps their sensory elements are more sensitive due to higher use.  People often state how younger people notice more, smell better, hear better, et cetera.  Could this be partly because they use their senses more?

Another analogy that I notice with this is that of time rate.  Very young children see time go very slowly while the older one gets, the faster time seems to go by.  It is my belief that this is because for a child, a specific duration of time is relatively a much larger portion of their overall living time than for an older person.  One year for a 70 year-old is 1.4% of their lifetime while for a four year-old it is 25% of theirs.  Therefore one could state that a 70 year-old sees time travel almost 18 times faster than a four year-old.

Time is relative just as perceptions are too I think.

Here are some of my thoughts behind my site and how I use it to gather information.

Main Entries

These postings may be of things which I would like to remember and keep for myself.  This may be for tomorrow, next week or even in a few years.  I see this service as a wonderful tool for modern-day journaling.

These main entries are also for displaying material that I think other people might find interesting.  I should mention that the main premise behind my site here is far from trying to attract an audience.  It doesn’t matter much to me whether I have one person visiting my site per week or a couple hundred.  The real point is that I offer something; anything actually.  That is the true belief I have.  The person who sits alone in their house and just passes life by is doing two things: 1)  Wasting their life when they could be happier enjoying the living process;  2)  Not giving anything back to society in any form whatsoever.  It is similar as to the author who doesn’t share any of his/her work or the musician who never plays for others.  It is important that all people give back to others in some way - the beauty of a free society is that you can choose how you would like to do the giving.

Delicious Bookmarks

I think Delicious is an absolutely wonderful tool for sharing the resources of the Internet.  Part of its attractiveness is its simplicity.  I try to comment on most of the items that I save and although I am not sure how many people actually read comments for saved items in Delicious, I do and find it interesting to read others comments too.

An interesting feature I noticed about the bookmarks listed on my site is that if you hover over an entry with the cursor my comments pop up for you to read.

Reading Wishlist

I always enjoy seeing books that other people recommend for reading.  Off the top of my head one of the best people I have noticed for this is Ryan Holiday.  He posts a short list about what he’s been reading on a somewhat regular basis and I have gotten many good recommendations from him.

I think the Amazon service for the Wishlist is best since Amazon pretty much has a page for anything that has ever been seriously published in the past 20 years.  Plus anyone who has spent even a little time on Amazon loves the commentary section at the bottom of a product’s page.

Bookshelf

Continuing the theme of reading, I use LibraryThing for keeping a digital catalogue of my books.  I only place the books I have read on my list and give each a rating as I see fit.  It is another service that I enjoy using since I have had people thank me for suggesting books to them straight from my listing and ratings.

I started to read some Keats today.  Actually, I have been meaning to get into some of his work for the past three months now but, admittedly, I hadn’t felt like bringing on a new poet into my reading list for the moment.

So far I am impressed by the first part of the ballad.  The prose is wonderful and easier to follow than I had anticipated.

Here are some personal favorites of so far about the wonderful and wicked half-woman, half-serpent Lamia and her love with the mortal Lycius.

She was a gordian shape of dazzling hue,

Vermillion-spotted, golden, green, and blue;

Striped like a zebra, freckled like a pard,

Eyed like a peacock, and all crimson barr’d;

Her head was serpent, but ah, bitter-sweet!

She had a woman’s mouth with all its pearls complete:

And for her eyes: what could such eyes do there

But weep, and weep, that they were born so fair.

But the God fostering her chilled hand,

She felt the warmth, her eyelids open’d bland,

And, like new flowers at morning song of bees,

Bloom’d, and gave up her honey to the lees.

Into the green-recessed woods they flew;

Nor grew they pale, as mortal lovers do.

One of the most frustrating and small-minded aspects I routinely notice on social websites is that so many people are on the Microsoft-bashing bandwagon. People saying things like Micro$oft, Bill Hates, Microsucks and all sorts of other immature, if still clever at times, ways of saying how bad Microsoft really is. Of course, just like with most in-fashion things, most people really have no idea why they say these things. The furthest most people get is that they can tout one simple catch-all such as Microsoft is evil because they charge money for their product. Yes, what a shame that a company should be financially rewarded for their services…

I am not saying that I believe in Microsoft’s business ethics and morals. If I said this I will have tons of haters after me with no intent on listening to a single word I said. In fact I know very little about Microsoft’s way of running business (as 99% of rest of people do too I believe) other than what is found in recent media. There are however a few things that I do know.

One; the digital world would be nowhere near as refined and advanced if not for Microsoft. Yes, you can debate this with other companies being required too and some see this modern digital world as nothing but folly but that is besides the point I am trying to make. Microsoft allowed the focused improvement of computing power since for a time no one really needed to be concerned with software compatibility issues.

Two; Bill Gates has given more money to charity than most people could ever dream of having in the first place. I think things being considered there could have been much worse people being lucky enough to have such an amount of capital.

Why is it that Microsoft is considered so evil? Obviously, it is partly because they charge for what some people now give away for free. Forget that these modern free services come more than a decade after initial development of Microsoft’s product or that they are still not even close in terms of serious performance matching. I could be talking about office suites or operating systems here of course and I think I might get hung on this comment by people. Secondly, and the part I do agree with a bit, is that Microsoft has been bullying the competition for years. This was perfectly evident recently in their suggested bidding for Yahoo. Rarely has a company come across so arrogant that they seemed entitled to buy something like Yahoo just because they said they wanted to.

Still, Microsoft was not always like this. Over a decade ago they were the shining light in the software world. Everyone was touting Microsoft and leaving the competition because of their great products and popular brand. An Apple PC was a joke to have in the mid-90’s and IBM was terribly looked at by most since they had already lost their own monopoly in the computer hardware world. Microsoft allowed software to be the governing force and all sorts of new start-ups could begin making their own hardware and it would only need to be supported by Microsoft.

If we look at today, people are touting Google as being the new shining light. Why? For the simple reason that people can use their services and not be charged for them. Granted, Google offers technology such as Gmail and searching way beyond what Microsoft’s more apathetic development squads could. The true underlying fact is that it’s because Google makes its money in a completely different way than how Microsoft does. Google makes their money through advertising from larger companies, not from the home user.

I am intrigued by how Google will be viewed in the years to come. Like IBM and Microsoft, will they go “evil”? Paul Graham thinks that they might not simply because they have promised to everyone that they can be profitable without being evil.[*] I think it will be an interesting thing to see.

The truth to all this is that people really do have a short attention span. Apple used to be hated and by a miracle of marketing, they jumped to a higher level than they had ever been. Microsoft took an opposite dive but they still have larger market shares than anyone else in the business and Google remains some beacon of light, some Robin Hood, since it seemingly charges nothing for the use of all its quality services. Apparently, what matters most is the now; the past is immaterial.

The only confusing thing to me is that if people like Google because it’s free and don’t like Microsoft because it’s not free what’s the deal with Apple who charges exorbitantly for things? Is it just because of the image? Being able to have an Ipod or Itouch or Iphone? Being able to say that I spent hundreds more on a laptop which doesn’t even come with a CD drive? These things show how nonsensical the human mind is. The bottom line is that people must like you either now or in the near future for once all your customers start taunting you and giving you a bad rep for reasons that are mostly groundless you become stuck in a very deep hole that may prove fatal to come out of.

I read an interesting essay[i] by Paul Graham about his attempts at overcoming the huge addictive distraction that people call the Internet.  The Internet today is used on a daily basis by over half the population of the western world and there is so much distracting material on it that even the most disciplined of people can get caught in its web (bad pun warning).

I like the idea of keeping one’s main working computer unattached to the Internet.  This directly causes you to work and nothing else.  Of course, if you have computer games also loaded on to the computer then these will need to go too.  This is the perfect application of Graham’s quote:

One of the best ways to beat procrastination is to starve it of distractions.

By eliminating the chance of using it, over time you will suppress the need to want it.  The Internet can be considered a drug in this sense.  The separation of Internet computer and working computer will also naturally cause you to place a bad aura around the Internet computer.  This causes you to want to avoid its use since you know that it is a source of entertainment, not work.

Just like television has been in the past, Internet today is likely one of the biggest time-killers to the younger generation’s productivity.  The Internet is becoming more and more social.  Socializing à là Facebook and Instant Messaging is huge.  Flickr, RSS feeds, commenting on favorite blog posts, YouTube, the list just goes on.  It is so easy to get caught up with all the distraction.  The television of the past has nothing on the Internet usage.  I wonder what will take the place of this next?  Perhaps it will be a believable virtual reality system.

The biggest issue I have with the Internet removal method is that at times you will require the Internet for research and for practical communication purposes through Skype or email.  How is this overcome?  It can be done at desired times; maybe you only check email once every two-to-four hours.  Maybe you set up a call-forward from Skype to your nearby phone or just get a Skype voicemail.  The important thing is that there are ways around this.

Research over the Internet is the one hole where you likely might need to do it at very specific times.  This requires a little discipline upon yourself to get on the Internet, find what you need, put it on a USB stick or save it to your computer and then get off the Internet.  I recognize how easy it has been to go to Wikipedia, find my initial topic of interest and then end up on my Google reader page and browsing news items for a long period of time.  It is so easily done.  I agree with Graham when he says that the Internet has been developed in a way to increase this distraction since it is by distracting you that many online website attract your attention and can offer you a product or service.

All this being said it is still fun to surf the Internet and it should be recognized that I am not promoting the complete elimination of any online browsing.  It should just be realized that there is a time and place for it, that’s all.  The Internet is great for many things and one of those things is procrastination.  Another one of those things is learning.  The Internet is a valuable and powerful tool that must be used responsibly and with discipline, else it will be hazardous to you in many ways.  I still realize that Internet browsing is for me the primary way I learn and read about new things and I hope this also works in turn for people who read my little site.

I was being given a drive back into the city after work yesterday. The driver and main front-seat passenger were people whom I worked with and they had graciously offered to give me and another person a ride. The bus strike in South Holland right now is a pain for everybody who had relied on using the bus services.

Our approach into the city brought us close to where I lived but I had just asked to be brought to the train station since it was an easy landmark for the driver to arrive at. It is a ten minute walk from the train station to my house but since we were having a conversation in the car at the time of passing I did not wish to cut off the speaker and try to have the driver manoeuvre the car in the heavy traffic to find time to drop me off. I knew it was no difficulty for me to walk back from the train station and it would make things much easier for the driver as well.

The other passenger hitching a ride was a woman from Thailand who also lived in the same city as I. She only lived five minutes from the train station however and it was expected that she would leave the car at the same time I did. The driver and his main passenger were not going to drive into the city anyway as it was out of their way. Nonetheless, the lady asked that she be driven into the city and to her house. She had no luggage to carry or direct reason for this request. It seemed to me that her opinion of the situation was that since these people had offered to drive her into town she deserved to have them drive her right to her house and not some five minutes away.  Even if it was an inconvenience beyond what driving her in had already been. I was a little shocked at the attitude this lady took and I could see on the faces of the two others that they had similar thoughts as me. Nothing more was said about things however.

This is not a comment about a thought that I have superior morals than another or some other such hidden perception. It is a comment about how a person will always have a different view about things than you yourself do. The key to being a magnanimous person is acceptance of other opinions, even if you do not agree with them.

If you become friends with people, it is because you think alike in many similar ways as that person. The closer the relationship, the more you probably think the same. This lady’s actions about being greedy of what was a charitable effort from another lowers the chance of me wishing to associate with her in the future. The next step is for me to decide whether I can accept this decision. One must remember that actions are often affected by numerous hidden reasons but it is easy to defame one based on a momentary occurrence like what I mentioned above.