While chasing down a mysterious bug on a Sunday morning I realized that our “GitHub Enterprise administrators are performing scheduled maintenance”, so I went out later in the day feeling better work-life balance.
Thank you Todd! 🙂
2021-12-05
2021-12-01
Sinkhole tasks
Certain activities tend to drag me in and hard to get out, such as debugging and prototyping. To avoid crowding out other tasks, I try to schedule these sinkholes later in the day and start with these that I might skip over.
This is an orthogonal dimension with respect to the importance x urgency matrix.
2021-11-21
Random encounter of a photography collection in a physical bookstore
Physical, especially boutique, bookstores are a rare species nowadays, and I am glad to walk into one today and serendipitously browsed Impossible is Nothing: China’s Theater of Consumerism.
2021-11-19
Waiting area after vaccination
Flu shot in one arm
Covid booster another
Still little I felt
2021-11-18
Butterfly effect of small initial unbalance
Part of my body is now made of titanium.
Despite the discipline and care I have maintained, there will always be random deviations that started small but eventually amplified to visible unbalances.
Fortunately, this particular issue could be resolved via mechanical instead of biochemical means.
But something will get me eventually, as nobody lives forever.
2021-11-15
The downside of globalization
Listened to this podcast today, which highlighted the importance of help transitioning those left behind by technological and economical upheavals for social and political benefits.
Persistence
Persistence (grit, tenacity) is perhaps the quality that I admired the most from a person, who has a strong desire to achieve something without ever giving up.
(Sometimes I wonder if I have too little desire, like a monk.)
2021-11-14
Advice from my 80-year-old self
I often talk to an imaginary 88-year-old self for advices as a way to elicit answers that I already have in mind.
2021-11-13
Moral judgement on the two sides of the same coin
There are situations where one activity receives lower moral judgement than another, such as spending and saving, resting and working, consumption and production, which are actually two sides of the same coin and can only co-exist together.