Magic moments

  As a kid I was making a lot of "inventions", at least that is what I called them. My famous one was the Automatic nail polish applicator 2000. It wasted a lot of nail polish, however it worked. Despite my best efforts to convince everyone that this is the best invention in the world, it fail into oblivion. Even my best customer (my mom) seldom remembers my grand invention.  Just a depiction (brass was unobtainable for me at that time) I was constantly frustrated why nobody took my inventions seriously. Although I was just a kid, I had awesome ideas, most of which I have forgotten. I know I mumbled a lot about hydrogen engines, never understanding the irrelevance of it all.  Thinking back I can't stop but wondering, what is relevance anyway, what makes something relevant, or obsolete, redundant or even undesirable. I want to argue about these five factors that determine the relevance of a given idea, invention, movement or any other disruption of the ordinary. Is it shin...

  The Natural Dynamics of Group Roles I have analyzed the dynamics of groups and the relationships forming within them for a long time. I started noticing patterns when I moved schools during my senior year of high school. By then, my old classroom had already formed archetypes and purposes. As usual, we had the teacher’s pets, the athletes, the nerds, the jokesters, the misfits—the whole ecosystem. All of that looked normal to me, just as the sun rises in the east. After all, I grew up with these kids; I observed them develop into their roles. I thought this was unique to our group of classmates. I was assigning the character traits to the person having them. I was very wrong, though... Discovering the Pattern Came senior year, I moved to another school in another city.  As I joined the new class on the first day of school, I imidiatelly started to notice the same roles, just played by different kids. The jokester was a different student, yet every class seemed to have one. H...

  I recently started teaching my daughter how to code in Python. We started with the basics and even though I am not an expert in Python, being a software engineer, gave us the capability to thread with some confidence together. I used an old book from my high school days, with simple assignments designed to be solved in Pascal. Regardless, the assignments are still usable for teaching. However after some time, I realized that every time I would leave my student to fly solo, she would reach to ChatGPT for the solution. Of course, I would review the solutions and we would discuss them. Some solutions were good, some were good enough, and some did not work at all. Consequently in some of the cases, we searched for improvements together, whilst me explaining pieces of Computer Architecture along the way, just so she understands what is happening under the hood. Things moved along nicely. Now, I am facing a conundrum: Should I consider this cheating, if a student is asking ChatGPT for ...

There are two approaches of buying tools and supplies, JIT and hoarding. My father had the JIT (Just In Time) system in place. Being a weekend warrior, he would buy the tools and supplies for the weekend project during the week, anticipating the work on Sunday. Him being raised in the 60s, he never over-consumes, if he needs a drill, he would buy a drill, not the whole set on discount (with useless tools), just the drill. Same went for drill bits, if the job required a 6mm drill bit, he would buy just one, use it, never sharpen it, and throw it at the bottom of the tool box.  Early on, having inherited some of his tools, I also adopted this JIT system of working. However, as I was enduring in more weekend projects, I realized that often times I needed multiple tools at the same time. Further more, it's difficult to predict which tools one would need in advance, especially considering my lack of experience at that time. So I often opted for improvisation, if I needed a 5mm whole, I ...

  I was always a little odd kid, compared to the rest of the children in my surrounding, that is. When all the kids were chasing the empty can they found on the street pretending to play "football", I was looking at how that exact can bounces of the curb, admiring the symmetry of the collision angles. I was fascinated by the intricacies of the bouncing trajectories, from the simple act of playing marbles to the mesmerizing chaos that unfolds as balls disperse across pool tables.  Long story short, I was the strange kid in the bunch. That impostor syndrome persisted in me for a long time through high school and college, just the topics changed. I was always considering it a bug, part of my non-fitting-in character.  What I realized growing up, was that a small perception shift can change my bugs into features. The paradigm shift was: What if I can use a given peculiar quirk of mine into a skill I can get a value from. I don't mean like business point value, I mean more lik...

  I am not a superstitious, nor an excessive believer in the divine,  however my last experience with our savior, I would only describe as holy.  Reflecting on our last ski trip to the Austrian Alps, despite our accommodation being relatively close to the ski center, we opted to drive due to my aversion to shuttle services. Anticipating the trip with my usual anxiousness, I meticulously packed our gear the evening before and ensured all necessities were in order. The weather forecast wasn't a concern for me; after all, we were prepared for the cold in the snowy mountains. Little did I know, this nonchalant attitude would come back to haunt us.  Early morning, all prepared, we got in the car and started driving. Considering this was my first time in this ski center, I was hesitant about overcrowded parking lots and having to drag the skies for a distance. I hate that, it have happened to me several times and it's an agony to say the least, cranky children don't help t...