Archive for September, 2007

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2007-09-16

 

Posted in:
random thoughts.

Unnecessary excuses

I am not going to talk about excuses about why you came late, why you didn’t do your homework, why you broke your promise, etc. These excuses are necessary, if you omit to explain why it happened, you will face unpleasant consequences (you will face unpleasant consequences anyway, but you can at least lower them by having a good excuse).

Then there is another type of excuse – an excuse no one is interested in. Why you scored bad on an IQ test: “126 but I got bored and quessed some of the later ones”, followed by: “oh and I had 20 min left at the end”, why you lost a tournament game (talking about go) against someone – I know a person who “has had a flu” everytime he loses against someone weaker.

As you can see, these excuses are unnecessary and they make the author seem like an… well, you choose what it seems like. ^^

Please, no one is interested in these excuses. You might be just lazy and/or not care about the IQ test at all. Fine, in that case you are happy with your suboptimal results. If you weren’t happy with them, you would have tried harder. (If you spotted the logical fallacy, you get one point. If you realised what I wanted to imply, you get ten points)

You might have made a blunder which cost you the game – in that case, feel free to point out that you lost the game by a blunder. But please, omit the unnecessary (and often imaginary) details about what led you to make that blunder. Or how huge advantage you maintained during the whole game (this applies even if you are a pro… being a pro doesn’t mean you can say you were winning by 30 points when in fact it was almost even and the situation was changing all the time… but sure, saying that you were winning big can improve your image and save your face (that is, if the game record is unavailable (ooops))).

And what is worst – I also make those unnecessary excuses that no one is interested in. So, while I usually don’t make any New Year’s resolutions, I will make a September the 16th resolution: no unnecessary excuses!

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2007-09-11

 

Posted in:
personal.

Registered vim user

I am now officially a registered vim user.

There are several reasons:

I greatly admire Bram Moolenaar, the creator of vim and founder of ICCF Holland. Bram sends all the vim registration fees to Uganda to help local children.

I can now vote on vim feature requests.

And last but not least – I had some money stuck in paypal (it is stuck basically because paypal is stupid). If you need to pay something by paypal, you can send me the money by bank transfer (or simply give it to me) and I’ll pay it for you. :-)

1 comment

2007-09-06

 

Posted in:
random thoughts.

Left and right

I write with my right hand.

I sleep on my left side.

I hold spoon in my right hand.

When I walk in a circle I always turn to the left.

When I walk next to someone, I prefer walking on the right side because I want to have the person on my left side.

When I walk alone, I prefer to walk so that there is something on my left.

When I listen to just one earphone, I put it in my left ear.

I chop wood with my right hand on the nearer the axe head.

I saw with my right hand.

I play floorball with my left hand near the blade.

When using a knife, I hold it in my right hand.

I hold mouse in my right hand.

When writing on a keyboard I use my left hand for about 65% of keypresses.

When swimming crawl, I always breathe on the left side.

When putting leg over leg, the left one is on top.

When putting my hands as if to pray and bending the fingers (is there one word for this?), I always end up with my left thumb on the top. Doing it the other way requires a lot of concentration and then it feels very unnatural and alien.

When crossing hands, the right one is on top.
When using a telescope, I look with my right eye.

I hold the shower head in my left hand and use the right hand to handle the soap or shampoo.

I hold the phone in my left hand (this might be so that I can write something down using my right hand when calling, but I hold the phone in my left hand even in the middle of the woods with nothing to write on).

Am I weird to even think about this? Is it strange that I use right hand for actually doing most of the stuff but the left side somehow feels more special (leg over leg, earphone, walking next to someone)?