I was analyzing my own time-spending pattern over the last few years. The trend I observed seems to be generic with all people. Not so long ago, I was spending quite a bit amount of contiguous time towards task at hand. When I was a student, I used to sit for lectures for hours together. I used to write assignments at a longer stretch.
As I have started working professionally, I see myself multi-tasking a lot. Side-effect of multi-tasking is that I spend very little contiguous time towards task at hand and switch to something else very quickly. This is common trend with the whole world. Followers on twitter are increasing at exponential rate. Followers on the blogs are not increasing so fast.
Multi-tasking has its own advantages but the biggest disadvantage is that I am getting less and less involved in the task I am doing. This also effects the concentration levels. It also affects the ability to give 100% for long period. This has kind of annoying effect and it becomes more difficult to enjoy the work I am doing.
It has quite an interesting analogy to fragmentation problem in computers . In computers, disk fragmentation happens when sectors belonging to the same file are dispersed all over the disk. Because of this, it becomes inefficient to gather the contents of a file. As a solution, you can run de-fragmentation utilities to improve performance.
Sadly, there are no de-fragmentation utilities for time. All you can do is allocate your time in such a way that you give a significant amount of contiguous block to each task. I agree that some people can handle more tasks at the same time (just as some computers have more cores than others :)). The challenge is to know your own multi-tasking ability and give a contiguous amount of time to a set of tasks you can handle simultaneously.
This is a kind of thing that most people know. But they ignore it quite a lot. Even I was ignoring it for quite a while. I think it's about time to de-fragment the time.:)
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Change
Few years ago, I saw a quote in the Times of India - "Change is the only constant in this world." I simply loved that quote. It was expertly quoted truth. Giving value of "change" to a constant was a literary trick. Plus, It seemed so right - everything changes as we go along. I quickly believed it and was inspired for change to the core.
Today, I realize how much that particular quote is misinterpreted in this world (including me). Today, everyone wants to change for the sake of change. Bulk of the youth is craving to be different than everyone else, just for the heck of it. What they don't realize is the change in themselves comes at the cost of their own character and more importantly, character of the society they live in. If you see all this from a broader view, we see that whole of the society is changing but it is going nowhere. This is because there's no certain direction for its change. You know what, this is true for each of the individual as well. I see a lot of people acting differently from one day to next just because they want to change. They end up making no progress in any particular direction.
I guess, the point I want to make here is that change without any thought is not only useless but harmful. Let's say we have been following a particular way of doing things (tradition, if you will) for a long time. Before changing it, we should think about it. We should first think if the change is required. If it is indeed the case, we should define a direction of the change and then keep on making forward progress in that direction instead of changing just for the sake of it. In the due course of the change, it may happen that we will find out that direction we have taken is wrong. That is perfectly fine. That will initiate another change in direction which will also be because of thinking, learning from the previous course of change. Important thing is, each change has its own direction, its own purpose.
I want to give an example of a moving target missile. It changes its direction only when the target moves. Not only that, the change in the direction is based on the change in the position of the target. The change is guided by that motive.
Remember, I am not denying the importance of change here. I am just trying to emphasize the point that direction of change is equally important as its magnitude. In a nutshell, I want to change the original quote to - "Change is the only constant vector in this world."
Today, I realize how much that particular quote is misinterpreted in this world (including me). Today, everyone wants to change for the sake of change. Bulk of the youth is craving to be different than everyone else, just for the heck of it. What they don't realize is the change in themselves comes at the cost of their own character and more importantly, character of the society they live in. If you see all this from a broader view, we see that whole of the society is changing but it is going nowhere. This is because there's no certain direction for its change. You know what, this is true for each of the individual as well. I see a lot of people acting differently from one day to next just because they want to change. They end up making no progress in any particular direction.
I guess, the point I want to make here is that change without any thought is not only useless but harmful. Let's say we have been following a particular way of doing things (tradition, if you will) for a long time. Before changing it, we should think about it. We should first think if the change is required. If it is indeed the case, we should define a direction of the change and then keep on making forward progress in that direction instead of changing just for the sake of it. In the due course of the change, it may happen that we will find out that direction we have taken is wrong. That is perfectly fine. That will initiate another change in direction which will also be because of thinking, learning from the previous course of change. Important thing is, each change has its own direction, its own purpose.
I want to give an example of a moving target missile. It changes its direction only when the target moves. Not only that, the change in the direction is based on the change in the position of the target. The change is guided by that motive.
Remember, I am not denying the importance of change here. I am just trying to emphasize the point that direction of change is equally important as its magnitude. In a nutshell, I want to change the original quote to - "Change is the only constant vector in this world."
Friday, April 25, 2008
Life and senses
Life can, in some way, be quantified in the from of senses. The amount of senses we have is directly proportional to the amount of life we have left in us. That is the precise difference between a dead body and us. We have five senses – touch, sight, hearing, taste and smell. These are the only things with which we can interact with the external world. Our brain is mostly engaged in deciphering the information given to it by the sensory organs. This is the same thing with other organisms. The only difference between human and other organisms is the sense of self awareness, thinking. For now, let us call it a sixth sense. But let us not talk about it just yet.
Let’s see the perspectives with the help of a tree for a moment. Trees have very limited senses. They can’t decipher a lot of things that we can. The can’t see human beings. But still, trees have to go through the effects imposed by human beings on them. Had they some thinking power, how would their logic work? They can’t see a reason of a branch being cut, but they feel that it is cut. Would they blame it on what we call luck? We understand the things better than many other life forms on this earth because we have “the sixth sense”.
That brings us closer to definition of luck. We tend to say something happened because of luck if we can not find a logical reasoning to it. Or, if we can’t get enough information to logically justify that thing happened. Or, we had less amount of senses to gather that information required to explain the reasoning behind the so-called lucky thing that happened.
That brings us to another question. Are we all there is to the universe? Is there a more superior set of senses (and hence life) in the universe? Let’s probe a little more into this.
What is sense? Sense is a way to understand a particular event or signal. We can understand some frequencies by our ears and some other frequencies by our eyes. I can’t particularly define touch, smell or taste in terms of frequency or anything but we know they have their own limitations too. For example, we can’t really feel the touch of still air around us (though there are a lot of air molecules hitting us every moment). If we accept our limitations, it is perfectly logical that there can exist a thing which is superior to us in terms of senses. It seems perfectly possible that we might not have enough senses to gather information to prove existence of such superior thing. Plus, we can’t logically deny that the superior thing is controlling us when we say something happened because of “luck”.
Let’s see the perspectives with the help of a tree for a moment. Trees have very limited senses. They can’t decipher a lot of things that we can. The can’t see human beings. But still, trees have to go through the effects imposed by human beings on them. Had they some thinking power, how would their logic work? They can’t see a reason of a branch being cut, but they feel that it is cut. Would they blame it on what we call luck? We understand the things better than many other life forms on this earth because we have “the sixth sense”.
That brings us closer to definition of luck. We tend to say something happened because of luck if we can not find a logical reasoning to it. Or, if we can’t get enough information to logically justify that thing happened. Or, we had less amount of senses to gather that information required to explain the reasoning behind the so-called lucky thing that happened.
That brings us to another question. Are we all there is to the universe? Is there a more superior set of senses (and hence life) in the universe? Let’s probe a little more into this.
What is sense? Sense is a way to understand a particular event or signal. We can understand some frequencies by our ears and some other frequencies by our eyes. I can’t particularly define touch, smell or taste in terms of frequency or anything but we know they have their own limitations too. For example, we can’t really feel the touch of still air around us (though there are a lot of air molecules hitting us every moment). If we accept our limitations, it is perfectly logical that there can exist a thing which is superior to us in terms of senses. It seems perfectly possible that we might not have enough senses to gather information to prove existence of such superior thing. Plus, we can’t logically deny that the superior thing is controlling us when we say something happened because of “luck”.
Friday, August 17, 2007
News and reality
I saw this on rediff and I think is a perfect example of what actually happens and what comes out to public.
I am not sure whether the comment is true but it looks like it is a strong possibility.
News: Sky marshal held for sexual abuse on flight
Amid high drama, a sky marshal has been arrested for allegedly trying to sexually harass a woman passenger on a Srinagar-New Delhi Air Deccan flight which had, among others, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad and his wife Shamima Azad on board.
Krishen Kumar was taken into custody on Friday after the passenger complained that the marshal had passed obscene comments and attempted to molest her moments before take-off at the high-security Srinagar airport.
The arrested sky marshal, according to sources, originally belongs to the elite National Security Guards. Sources said other passengers rose in support of the woman and tried to manhandle the sky marshal, and the chief minister ordered his arrest before disembarking from the flight to board another flight to New Delhi.
The pilot of the flight, scheduled to depart at 12.45 pm, later refused to fly the aircraft in the sky marshal's absence.
"We have arrested the sky marshal and a criminal case has been registered against him," said Ashiq Hussain Bukhari, senior superintendent of police, central Budgam district.
Armed marshals are posted on aircraft operating on the Srinagar-New Delhi route as a security measure.
Comment below it :
Some ladies are too obnoxious
by ratnesh srivastav on Aug 17, 2007 06:39 PM
I was on the same flight and the reality is as follows:
This lady was not following the proper directions like putting the seat belt on infact she was standing in the passage and trying to open her cabin bag to get some thing out. Even though the pilot had asked everyone to sit down and put the seat belts on as the plane was about to takoff. The marshall ordered her to sit down immediately in very strict voice (clearly he was apprehensive about the possibility of the lady being a terrorist) She ignored him and continued to search her bag.
The sky marshal pushed her on her seat (He touched her shoulders only) I am eyewitness to it. She fell down on her seat and the seat next to her were vacant and the marshal as a precautionary measure took a seat away from her but in such a way that he could still observe her. Suddenly she started shouting. and the pilot took the plane back to bay area.
I am eyewitness to whole episode and I did tell the Chief minister but I guess to gain cheap popularity in public he ordered the marshal's arrest when infact the lady should have been arrested and the marshall rewarded for his alertness.
Poor chap I pity him. He should know that doing duty in our country is a bigger risk than not doing it.
I am not sure whether the comment is true but it looks like it is a strong possibility.
News: Sky marshal held for sexual abuse on flight
Amid high drama, a sky marshal has been arrested for allegedly trying to sexually harass a woman passenger on a Srinagar-New Delhi Air Deccan flight which had, among others, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad and his wife Shamima Azad on board.
Krishen Kumar was taken into custody on Friday after the passenger complained that the marshal had passed obscene comments and attempted to molest her moments before take-off at the high-security Srinagar airport.
The arrested sky marshal, according to sources, originally belongs to the elite National Security Guards. Sources said other passengers rose in support of the woman and tried to manhandle the sky marshal, and the chief minister ordered his arrest before disembarking from the flight to board another flight to New Delhi.
The pilot of the flight, scheduled to depart at 12.45 pm, later refused to fly the aircraft in the sky marshal's absence.
"We have arrested the sky marshal and a criminal case has been registered against him," said Ashiq Hussain Bukhari, senior superintendent of police, central Budgam district.
Armed marshals are posted on aircraft operating on the Srinagar-New Delhi route as a security measure.
Comment below it :
Some ladies are too obnoxious
by ratnesh srivastav on Aug 17, 2007 06:39 PM
I was on the same flight and the reality is as follows:
This lady was not following the proper directions like putting the seat belt on infact she was standing in the passage and trying to open her cabin bag to get some thing out. Even though the pilot had asked everyone to sit down and put the seat belts on as the plane was about to takoff. The marshall ordered her to sit down immediately in very strict voice (clearly he was apprehensive about the possibility of the lady being a terrorist) She ignored him and continued to search her bag.
The sky marshal pushed her on her seat (He touched her shoulders only) I am eyewitness to it. She fell down on her seat and the seat next to her were vacant and the marshal as a precautionary measure took a seat away from her but in such a way that he could still observe her. Suddenly she started shouting. and the pilot took the plane back to bay area.
I am eyewitness to whole episode and I did tell the Chief minister but I guess to gain cheap popularity in public he ordered the marshal's arrest when infact the lady should have been arrested and the marshall rewarded for his alertness.
Poor chap I pity him. He should know that doing duty in our country is a bigger risk than not doing it.
Monday, July 23, 2007
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
(Warning : A lot of things in the book are said. I haven't given away important points but still, don't blame me if you lose the thrill because of this. Chances are, you won't.)
End of the Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince kept a lot of questions unanswered. Quetions like, what are the remaining Horcruxes and where could they be found? With Dumbledor dead, can Harry continue the chase of the Horcruxes? Even if they Horcruxes are found, can they be destroyed? Is Sanpe with the Order of Phoenix or is he also on the dark side? How is he going to convince that to anyone? And many more. So, when I started reading book seven, I thought I will be moving towards getting answers to these questions and these answers will come to me one by one as the story progresses. I was in for a surprise and big time!
The book opens up with Harry at the number four, Private Drive. The members of the order have a plan to move Harry from there to the Burrow before his seventeenth birthday as the protection at that place goes away at the time Harry comes of age. The part of the plan is leaked by Snape to the Dark Lord and the Death Eaters are waiting for Harry as soon as Harry plunges into the air. But Death Eaters couldn't be successful as the details of the plan are not known to Voldemort. Nonetheless, one order member dies and Gorge Weasley loses his ear in the battle.
Then comes the scene of Bill and Fleur's wedding. The description of the wedding preparation is rather boring. On the seventeenth birthday, the minister of magic gives the three things - Dumbledor's last wishes to Ron, Harmoine and Harry. The very next day, during late wedding party, ministry of magic falls, Voldemort takes the control of the law. Wedding ends in utter chaos and parting of "Harry, Ron, Harmoine" team and the other order members. The former team goes into hiding immediately in search of the remaining Horcruxes.
The story drags on at this stage with not much drama. Meanwhile, Harry comes to know about the dark things that Dumbledor had attempted in the past and his trust on the "greatest wizard of his generation" decreases. He becomes more and more apprehensive. The frustration of not finding any of the Horcruxes and not being able to destroy the one at hand causes Ron to give up the group and wander back to the family. Sudden turn of events occur when Harry visits his birthplace, the Godric's Hollow. This is when story again becomes interesting.
Hermoine's research tells that Horcruxes can be destroyed using the sword of Gryffindor. In search of this important tool, Harry and Harmoine reach the Godric's Hollow. However, Voldemort had already created the trap there anticipating that Harry may reach there at some point or the other. Again, Harry escapes; this time, however, with a big setback. His sword is cut into two pieces by one of the Hermoine's spells. While going away from the Godric's Hollow, Harry obtains the sword with the surprising help from Ron who admits his mistakes and joins the team. From here on, book gets really interesting and eventful.
Ron, Harry and Hermoine reach Xenophilius Lovegood, father of Luna "loony" Lovegood, for the information of the Deathly Hallows. Xenophilius tells them the important stories about it; however, he also calls Death Eaters. Harry escapes again this time only to be caught by Death Eaters soon after. This time Harry is captured and sent to Malfoy's home. He escapes right under Bellatrix's nose and frees Ollivander and Luna Lovegood during the escape. Voldemort knows that Harry is finding and destroying Horcruxes as Harry brakes in Gringotts to retrieve yet another Horcrux from Bellatrix's vault. Hence, Voldemort starts his journey to find out which of the Horcruxes are destroyed.
While reaching Hogwarts for the fifth Horcrux, Harry is saved by Aberfoth Dumbledore who clears almost all the doubts that Harry had gathered during the journey. With his help, Harry enters the Hogwarts to find Neville Longbottom waiting for him. Voldemort gets the news that Harry has reached Hogwarts. He reaches at Hogwarts but not before Harry has destroys Horcrux. The Hogwarts war between the Death Eaters and Dumbledor's Army alongwith the Order of Phoenix begins. The war description here is not as good as the war at the ministry where Sirius Black dies. There are many deaths again but the sense of chill is absent even if the loss is quite considerable. Voldemort is, however, not in the war as he rightly suspects that Harry will come to him rather than he reaching to Harry.
Harry finds Voldemort and sees him killing Snape only to gain some more power. Snape gives some important memories to Harry just before dying which reveal a great deal of things about the relationship between Dumbledor and Snape. Harry then is given an hours time by Voldemort to meet him otherwise he himself would take part in the war and kill many. And the final drama begins.
I am not going to give away the thrill of final drama as there are many important details that I haven't mentioned throughout. But I though the end of Harry Potter series could have been better. The reasons for Voldemort's downfall (ain't it obvious?) are more emotional than logical. The plot was nicely set and the battleground was ready. I expected a facet, a pin which will fit everything into the place. This however, never happens. There are few things to learn though, like how to handle power or rather, who should handle the power. The book ends with the chapter describing what happens nineteen years later. End of a legendary series of stories is rather tame.
Friday, May 11, 2007
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