The person who is good at disagreement

The person who is best suited to us is not the person who shares our every taste (he or she doesn’t exist), but the person who can negotiate differences in taste intelligently — the person who is good at disagreement. Rather than some notional idea of perfect complementarity, it is the capacity to tolerate differences with generosity that is the true marker of the “not overly wrong” person. Compatibility is an achievement of love; it must not be its precondition.

[Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person, by Alain de Botton, New York Times]

Everything in moderation, even the moderation

Mem, the mad sufi

Some thoughts:
- everything in moderation, even the moderation
- people are not that greedy, but they always want something more, something different

Logicomix

About Bertrand Russell's life, the fear of insanity and incompleteness theorems.

[Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth, Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos Papadimitriou]

The art of being yourself

[The art of being yourself, Caroline McHugh]

...individuals who have managed to figure out the unique gift the universe gave them when they incarnated. And then put that to the service of their goals [...]
And it doesn't dictate your choice of job. What it dictates is how you do it.

20+ vs 30+

This made me laugh :-)
This is a before and after something. I thought that before and after 30s makes sense.

Research paper introduction

The introduction of a (computer science) research paper should answer the following questions:

• What is the problem
• Why is it important
• Why is it hard
• Why hasn't it been solved already
• What is our solution

[according to Jennifer Widom]

Search inside yourself

"There is an old Chinese Zen saying: "The small [meditation] retreat is in the wilderness, the medium retreat is in the city, and the great retreat is in the emperor’s court." Like most Zen sayings, this one is both absurd and true. All the emotional skills you learn are useless if they cannot be applied in the real world, including a setting as seductive and dangerous as the emperor’s court. Conversely, the real world is the best place to sharpen your emotional skills.

The real world is both your dojo and your zendo, from which you will get your mojo. Yo?"

[Search inside yourself, by Chade-Meng Tan]

life simple

“Many years ago I had a martial arts master from Korea. It was just like in the movies—he’d make me do crazy things like carry buckets of water up flights of stairs. He was very unaccepting of apathy. I was young at the time, so when he’d asked me a question, I’d often answer by shrugging, or saying ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I guess.’ Then one day, he told me: ‘You never give me straight answer. Your life is too complicate. I make simple for you. Do you want to be weak or strong?’
I said, ‘Strong.’
‘Do you want to be slow or fast?’
‘Fast.’
‘Do you want to be smart or stupid?’
‘Smart.’
‘Do you want to be alive or dead?’
‘Alive.’
‘You shrug one more time, you’ll want to be dead.’”

[from here]

Exhaustion is not a status symbol and productivity is not a metric of our worth.

One of the things that I found was the importance of rest and play, and the willingness to let go of exhaustion as a status symbol and productivity as self-worth.

We don’t know who we are without productivity as a metric of our worth. We don’t know what we enjoy, and we lose track of how tired we are.

What struck me the most is the fact that so few managers and supervisors and teachers and leaders get any instruction on how to give feedback. When I interview H.R. people who spend their days doing exit interviews, over and over the most common criticism they hear [from people leaving their jobs] is, “I never got any feedback.”

I think to create a feedback culture where discomfort is normalized — where there are going to be some uncomfortable conversations but they’re going to be done respectfully and wholeheartedly, with the aim to move the mission of our work forward and to move your personal goals forward — that is the heart of engagement. People felt fundamentally ignored because they weren’t receiving feedback. And when they did, it was corrective. It was fast and not meaningful, and it was blaming.

In the end, people just want to be seen and heard and valued. And they want to be inspired by leaders who engage in the behaviors they ask everyone to engage in. I think it’s that simple and that complicated.

[from here]

Tact is the ability to tell someone to go to hell in such a way that they look forward to the trip.

[Winston Churchill]

on feminism, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

[We should all be feminists, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie at TEDxEuston]

Western culture clothing

"A lesson about Western culture: Women who wanted to be taken seriously were supposed to substantiate their seriousness with a studied indifference to appearance. For serious women writers in particular, it was better not to dress well at all, and if you did, then it was best to pretend that you had not put much thought into it. If you spoke of fashion, it had to be either with apology or with the slightest of sneers. The further your choices were from the mainstream, the better. The only circumstance under which caring about clothes was acceptable was when making a statement, creating an image of some sort to be edgy, eclectic, counterculture. It could not merely be about taking pleasure in clothes.

A good publisher had bought my novel. I was 26 years old. I was eager to be taken seriously. And so began my years of pretense. I hid my high heels. I told myself that orange, flattering to my skin tone, was too loud. That my large earrings were too much. I wore clothes I would ordinarily consider uninteresting, nothing too bright or too fitted or too unusual. I made choices thinking only about this: How should a serious woman writer be? [...]

An old friend said, “Wear what you want to; it’s your work that matters.” But he was a man, and I thought that was easy for him to say. Intellectually, I agreed with him. I would have said the same thing to someone else. But it took years before I truly began to believe this.

I am now 36 years old. During my most recent book tour, I wore, for the first time, clothes that made me happy. My favorite outfit was a pair of ankara-print shorts, a damask top, and yellow high-heel shoes. Perhaps it is the confidence that comes with being older. Perhaps it is the good fortune of being published and read seriously, but I no longer pretend not to care about clothes. Because I do care. "

[Why can't a smart woman love fashion?, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Elle Magazine]

advice (a lot of)

advice. a lot of it. kinda "this is gold" :-)
didn't read all of them. yet.
for example, this is a wonderful example of common sense life advice for everybody (not only young computer scientists)

enjoy!

[compiled by Michael Ernst]

The modern sense of comfort

Notions like taste and practical chic are way too complex to sell today, when much of the world’s population is consumed with either acquisition or basic survival. For that reason it’s tough to talk about comfort and a moral economy of style without sounding grim or like one is trying to promote a car with three wheels (hey, but it drives!). On the other hand, this idea is not so far from something Coco Chanel offered when she arrived in New York, in March 1931. Asked by a reporter to define the fashionable woman, Chanel said, “She dresses well but not remarkably. . . . She disobeys fashion.” Then, perhaps thinking of her rival Elsa Schiaparelli, Chanel added, “But she is not eccentric. I hate eccentricity.” So she was extolling understatement and ease, yes, but also suggesting these choices reflected virtues like self-control and seriousness.

[Sign of the Times | Slave No More, by Cathy Horyn, New York Times]

Happier

1. Exercise more – 7 minutes might be enough
2. Sleep more – you'll be less sensitive to negative emotions
3. Move closer to work – a short commute is worth more than a big house
4. Spend time with friends and family – don't regret it on your deathbed
5. Go outside – happiness is maximized at 13.9°C
6. Help others – 100 hours a year is the magical number
7. Practice smiling – it can alleviate pain
8. Plan a trip – but don't take one
9. Meditate – rewire your brain for happiness
10. Practice gratitude – increase both happiness and life satisfaction

Quick last fact: Getting older will make yourself happier

[Social Consciousness - Ten simple things you can do today that will make you happier, backed by science]

Solomon Marcus

Solomon Marcus, nascut in 1925 (in acelasi an ca ea), la Bacau. Matematician, printre altele (semiotica, lingvistica, filosofie, istoria stiintei).

- Care vă sunt bucuriile, acum, la 87 de ani?

- Ştiţi de ce se zice că la chinezi cos­tul vieţii e mult mai mic? Fiindcă s-au obişnuit să se mulţumească cu o lingură de orez. Eu mi-am găsit şi-mi găsesc motive de bucurie într-o serie de lucruri pe care mulţi le aruncă la categoria ba­na­lităţi, care nu merită atenţie. Dacă trece pe lângă mine un copil care-mi zâmbeşte, mă încarc cu energie pentru o bucată de vreme. De multe ori mă bucur, pur şi simplu, că merg pe pro­priile mele picioare. Sau că văd ceva fru­mos pe stradă, ca "trecătoarea” lui Baudelaire. Secretul e să ştii să te fereşti de acele găuri negre, care te scot din viaţa autentică: lâncezeala, rutina, plic­tisul, viciile, stresul. Sunt stări în care nu trăieşti cu adevărat, în care nu poţi fi creativ, nu te poţi îndrăgosti. Din ele poţi scăpa oferindu-ţi spectacole, fiecare la nivelul care îi este accesibil. Eu pot beneficia la vârsta mea de marile spectacole ale ştiinţei, care celor mai mulţi le sunt inaccesibile - acele spectacole pentru care biletul de intrare nu se plăteşte în bani, ci în cultura pe care ai acumulat-o. Dispun de suficientă energie pentru a mă împrospăta continuu, pentru a putea privi cu un ochi limpede lucruri pe care, poate, le-am văzut de sute de ori, dar care îmi aduc de fiecare dată bucurie. Trăiesc în bucurie, deşi ştiu că fericirea ne este inaccesibilă. Existenţa umană este fundamental tragică.

[De vorbă cu un mare savant - Solomon Marcus - "Paşaportul meu spre universalitate a fost matematica”, Formula As, 2012, numarul 1029]

De asemenea, vezi si interviul luat de Eugenia Voda pentru Televiziunea Romana, in emisiunea Profesionistii.

Cum am ajuns la el?
Citind pe Wikipedia ca in primul sau articol care apare pe DBLP, Victor Vianu face referire la Solomon Marcus, recunoscandu-l si multumindu-i pentru orientare ("acknowledges him for guidance").

Miuccia Prada

Miuccia Prada, a fashion designer with a PhD in political science from Milan University.

[Power of One, The New York Times Style Magazine]

The Parent Rap

[The Parent Rap]

Funny, real, smart and cool... sad.
Funny :-)
Shit.

I do

"We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit."
[Aristotle]

In life, we are defined by what we do.

cu picioarele pe pamant.

O serie de sfaturi din categoria "cu picioarele pe pamant" care, desi se vor a viza casnicia, se extind atat de mult peste granita ei (in afara poate de punctele 7 si 8 :-) ). Vorbesc de prietenii, familie, si in general orice fel de relatii sociale la care tii cu adevarat...

"All the crap you read in magazines about honesty, sense of humor, communication, sensitivity, date nights, couples weekends, blah blah blah can be trumped by one word: loyalty."

[The Huffington Post - 15 Ways to Stay Married for 15 Years]