treat your marriage as a plant

one reflection that I recently had was that marriage should be treated as a plant. it is important to view the relationship as an organic entity, that needs constant care and attention. the roots have to be kept strong and firm, and well nurtured. otherwise, we risk focusing too much on the leaves (i.e. the outward-looking characteristics), and forget about where the strength of the marriage comes from. sometimes the focus becomes to make the leaves and flowers look good, whereas if the roots are strong and healthy, the flowers and leaves will flourish as a result. communication, consultation, love, attention to each other - those are the important parts.

there's still plenty of good in the world

here's an example. quora is a site that allows people to ask questions and get "answers and content from people who share your interests and people who have first-hand knowledge -- like real doctors, economists, screenwriters, police officers, and military veterans." the answers are often well-written, pedagogical and worth the read.

they have now released the best answers from 2012 to 2012 as an ebook, for free! there are answers from people like ashton kutcher, jimmy wales (founder of wikipedia) and many others with lots of experience answering the questions they're being asked. check it out at http://qsf.cf.quoracdn.net/best_of_quora_2010-2012.pdf!

is your screen too blue at night? try flux!

there is research indicating that lights from screens are guilty of keeping us awake at night. not just because we're having a hard time putting our laptops, tablets and phones away, but also because they suppress the production of the hormone melatonin, which helps regulate our sleeping patterns. see here, here and here.

I recently heard about a new software, f.lux, which is supposed to help alleviate this problem. how does it work? like this:

[f.lux] makes the color of your computer's display adapt to the time of day, warm at night and like sunlight during the day.

f.lux makes your computer screen look like the room you're in, all the time. When the sun sets, it makes your computer look like your indoor lights. In the morning, it makes things look like sunlight again.

Tell f.lux what kind of lighting you have, and where you live. Then forget about it. f.lux will do the rest, automatically.

I've been trying it out for about a week, and I clearly notice how the screen color goes a bit more towards red as the sun sets. does it help? I don't know. is it annoying? not really. is it worth trying out? I think so.

all you need to do is set up your latitude and longitude (which you get help with), specify your kind of lighting, and then it runs in the background and takes care of everything else. when I temporarily disable it, I definitely notice a difference, so I think it might be worth checking out. my recommendation: download flux now!

excel: last index of

assuming that text is in cell A1, and we are looking for "\" character, this works: =SEARCH("@",SUBSTITUTE(A1,"\","@",LEN(A1)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(A1,"\",""))))

from here.

note to self

don't code while on the phone.

excel: lovely keyboard shortcuts

very simple, but oh so useful:

• shift-space: select row
• control-space: select column

time savers!

excel: remove duplicates

it's a Godsend.

our unhealthy obsession with winning

an interesting article from harvard business review regarding our obsession with winning (my emphasis at the end):

… the way we've defined winning makes it attainable only for a tiny percentage of people, and even then demands a kind of single-minded focus that can create a narrow and limited life.

How can we redefine winning so there are more ways to do it, and it's more satisfying? A few suggestions:

1. Winners are people who consistently invest effort, persevere, and keep getting better at whatever it is they do — regardless of whether they win anything.
2. Winners have goals, which provide direction and motivation, but recognize that the ongoing satisfaction comes from the everyday experience of moving towards any given goal.
3. Winners are people who aren't afraid to lose — and they learn and grow from it. "I missed more than 9000 shots in my career," says Michael Jordan. "26 times I was trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
4. Winners use their skills not just to build their own value, but also to add value in the world — to give back and pay forward. Jimmy Connors and Andre Agassi both won the same number of Grand Slam tournaments during their careers. Connors invested in casinos after he retired from tennis. Agassi invested in building a charitable foundation, a charter school, and a residence for abused and neglected children in Las Vegas. For my money, only one of them is a real winner.

What winners recognize, above all, is that the ultimate goal is never to vanquish an opponent or to prove something to others, but rather to more fully realize their own potential, whatever that may be.

there is great relief...

... in unsubscribing from feeds in your RSS reader. I have been struggling for a long time to keep up with the number of posts, and noticed that there were items from a number of feeds that I would never bother reading but just clicked through. well, what's the point of keeping it? unsubscribe and forget!

technology tips

I was having a conversation with a friend last night, and showed her some of the (computer) tools, applications and methods I was using to keep myself and various notes organized. she was very impressed and stated something along the lines of wishing to know more about what exists and thus be able to use them herself. with that in mind, I will start writing some of my usages and experiences with various software, and how I use them. hopefully it will be useful for other people too!

small things done...

... are better than great things planned. (source)

take control of your life

seven simple, doable (!) steps:

1. Start to focus on what you're doing with your attention
2. Take a few minutes every day to define and write down the two or three most important things you want to accomplish tomorrow
3. Do the most important activity first in the morning
4. Eliminate as much "insecurity work" from your life as possible
5. Keep a running list of everything that's on your mind — in order to get it off your mind
6. Each time you go online to do anything, ask yourself "Is this best use of my time?"
7. Systematically, train your attention

more at the source - go read it!

evernote 2 and windows 8

there's a lot of people who prefer evernote 2 to the latest version 4. installing it on windows 8 turned out to be troublesome at first, but running the installer in compatibility mode for win xp sp3 made sure the installer worked. it's now running perfectly fine, and I can go back to tagging in peace!

update: just to be clear, you have to run the application in compatibility mode as well.

10 commandments of teaching

quite an interesting post from brain pickings:

Perhaps the essence of the Liberal outlook could be summed up in a new decalogue, not intended to replace the old one but only to supplement it. The Ten Commandments that, as a teacher, I should wish to promulgate, might be set forth as follows:

1. Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.
2. Do not think it worth while to proceed by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.
3. Never try to discourage thinking for you are sure to succeed.
4. When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavor to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.
5. Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.
6. Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.
7. Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
8. Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.
9. Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.
10. Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool’s paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness.

going offline

Three Powerful Lessons I Learned When I Got Offline - a very good article about how to have a properly balanced life when it comes to online access. this is surely also something that can be applied at the workplace; how often don't we waste time by checking this and that without really needing to?

overnight success

from things we forget

winding down

it seems that with people spending their last hours and minutes awake in front of the computer, skyping or chatting with friends, that there is very little to no time to wind down before going to sleep. how do you sort out your impressions and experiences of the day, if you are not allowing yourself some silent moments and time for reflection before sleeping? I think the last 30 minutes awake should be spent away from new impressions - TV, computer, etc. - and spent instead on prayer, meditation and reflection.

your happiness

"you're as happy as you make up your mind to be", from things we forget. so true.

20 amazing places to see before you die

check it out on bored panda! unfortunately, I've been to exactly 0 of them :(

pasta salad

250 grams pasta

2 cucumbers

3 tomatoes

feta cheese

cream cheese

salad leaves

can of corn

delicious!