Tuesday, May 22, 2007

What I Learnt Today: 22nd May 2007

  • Humans manage complexity through abstraction. For example, people do not think of a car as a set of tens of thousands of individual parts. They think of it as a well-defined object with its own unique behavior. This abstraction allows people to use a car to drive to the grocery store without being overwhelmed by the complexity of the parts that form the car. They can ignore the details of how the engine, transmission, and braking systems work. Instead they are free to utilize the object as a whole. (quoted from some e-book whose title I've no idea about)

  • Have you ever felt the value of something only when you're forced to do without it...Sort of like people realizing how invaluable Paul Scholes really was to Manchester United only after he sat out half of the last season with his eye problem? Well, that's the sort of thing I'm facing these hols. Gone is the joy of solitude, the peace of lonely toil and the ecstasy of a free-spirited will looking to roam the skies. Instead, it's been replaced by more mundane things like waiting for a good movie to be broadcast on TV, thinking about what great dish Ma is going to whip up next and worrying about when the maintenance guys will heed the calls to keep filling up the water tanks more frequently (or maybe it's just that water is more scarce these days, so he can't help but fill the tanks less frequently)

  • A label list that extends for more than a single screen view doesn't look too good, so it's better to do away with it. That and Blogger being the great tool it is, I can put it back any time I feel the need.

  • The best stress-buster is shallow thinking. The more you think about something, the more tense it can make you. I envy all the guys out there who've been accused of having the emotional range of a teaspoon (in J K Rowling's words) by others. At least you won't be giving in to stress sometime soon.

1 Responses (Leave a Comment):

Unknown said...

now tht i have finally placed where to comment....agree with you on shallow thinking....blissfully superficial...though i suppose its the summer effect..