Posts Tagged ‘lifestyle’

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For Robomen: Productivity

Saturday, September 10th, 2011

I have been working as website developer in Germany for almost six years. During this time I had quite a lot of deadlines and sleepless nights, and also I reached the limits of concentration and skills a few times. Moreover I work at my HalmaStar game, blog and other projects during my free time. I want to share experiences how to keep productivity when you have a lot of work to do yourself.

The first thing what you need to be productive is motivation. You need a reason to work responsibly, be it monetary payment, step in career, or recognition and reputation. Inspirations can be raised by TED talks. One can also program motivation using Meta states.

In order to stay calm and not to get lost in all perplexing tasks of large scope, it’s necessary to write down a list of tasks, assign priorities, and complete them one by one, not taking care about the rest. Usually I create a list of tasks for each project on a separate sheet of paper. When I complete a task, I strike it out from the list. When I complete the sheet of tasks, I throw it away. Every completion is like an accomplished mission. You can feel the progress visually. The method of writing tasks down and assigning priorities is called “Getting Things Done” by the book of the same name written by David Allen.

One needs breaks, otherwise the brain will burn. Some people go to smoke whereas I go to make tea from time to time. So I drink about 5 cups of tea a day. Usually I make tea-breaks between different tasks. One can find Pomodoro technique in the Internets which is about doing tasks in 25-minute intervals doing 5-minute breaks. The name is coming from a kitchen timer of a shape of tomato used to count time how long to cook food.

To keep my mind sharp and comprehending, I use quite a lot of caffeine in the form of coffee, tea, red bull, fritz cola or club mate. Usually a red bull drank after lunch keeps me productive for about six hours.

Routine and easy, but long tasks are best to do at the end of a day, when the organism is tired, but there is some power left.

Jade horses get shot. But who isn’t at risk, doesn’t drink champagne!

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New York from the First Sight

Tuesday, June 7th, 2011

While traveling to New York I expected to find something that would attract me to return there again in the future. The city made a lot of impressions especially on the first days, but during eleven days I got used and got tired of the size of the city.

New York consists of five boroughs. They are Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island. We settled and spent the most time in Manhattan – the island of skyscrapers. We visited Brooklyn, the borough of blacks, and the Bronx, the native land of hip hop. We stayed for five days relatively close to the central park and then another days in China Town, in a hotel where every person gets a room cabin of six square meters with only a bed and a shelf.

We have purchased New York City Passes, which allowed us to visit the main sightseeings with a discount and waiting in less queues. We saw the city from the highest building – Empire State Building – it looked similarly as from an airplane. Also we went around Manhattan by cruise ship also passing the Statue of Liberty. We walked by the embankment and had rest in parks. Also we walked in the Times Square – the street full of screens and advertisements washing your brains. Then you want hamburgers, M&M’s and Coke (to gnaw out the eaten food).

Now I’ll tell shortly about everything. Mc Donalds and Starbuck’s provide a free wifi access. People read electronic books on Amazon Kindle and similar readers in the subway. Buildings and subway trains have air conditioning. Public transportation is quite uncomfortable comparing to Berlin – there are no time schedules and it’s difficult to find stations to change trains. Electricity sockets differ from European and English, so you need adapters.

“Welcome to America, my darling!”, said a woman of a shape of a ball to her tiny friend, the waves mildly hit the embankment, and you could see the Statue of Liberty far far away. There are not so many fat people, but the S size of t-shirts in America is the same as M size in Europe. There are not so many smoking people. Bouncers at the bars demand to show IDs to check the age. There are people leading two or three dogs at once.

During the nights mice and big cockroaches run in the streets. People of homeless lifestyle sleep under staircases. Somewhere the drain holes smoke. Water drops down from air conditioners attached to windows. How hot the weather can be! The streets are full of sacks of rubbish at nights. China Town smells of fish.

The transportation system reminds Grand Theft Auto. There are lots of different cars including limousines. There are lots of taxis. Cutters, Yachts and Cruise Ships float at the piers. The most impressive thing in the architecture are Gothic churches build between many-storied buildings. One of the twins is being rebuilt again close to the original place where a memorial will be built.

That’s my mixture of impressions. I was lack of alternative people and places. I liked the trip, but I would go there next time only if I had some business there.

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How to Get Rid of Personal Problems

Sunday, May 15th, 2011

Everybody has different problems. Out of different readings and watching around I glued together a bunch of ways how to get rid of personal problems.

  1. Write a list of your problems. Self-criticism is a good thing. Self-hating is a bad thing. Sensibly define your problems to yourself. Problem recognition is the first step to solve it.
  2. Behave as those who don’t have this problem. You are unlucky because you do something differently than those who are lucky. Learn from those who succeed. Copy their best features.
  3. Purchase a book or search for the solution of the problem online. How to get a wanted job, how to find a partner, what to eat to loose weight – you can get all this information in the internets or in the books.
  4. Get a thing or a service that solves your problem. Increase the ability to see by laser operation. Use plastic surgery. Do hair attachment. Visit a speech therapist. Make a makeup… If you really need that.
  5. Train yourself. Do exercises regularly to get rid of your problem. If you have overweight, run in the mornings. If you have sexual problems, do Kegel’s exercises. If your oratory is limited, write a blog. If your eyesight is weak, do sight exercises.
  6. Hide your problem. At least temporarily one can hide his imperfection. Chewing gum can hide a bad smell from the mouth. A hat can hide a bald head. Dark cloths can hide protruding belly. Closed lips can hide wry teeth. Deodorant can hide the smell of perspiration.
  7. Pack your problem as personal uniqueness. Maybe you inherited some feature from your family. It’s not necessary to look at it as to a problem. You can look at it as to an originality not owned by the majority.
  8. Draw attention to things that you have best or can do best. Oratory, sense of humor, creativity, career achievements, or loving second half can successfully drown personal imperfections.
  9. Get something that diverts attention from your problem. So what that you can’t pronounce some letters properly; that’s nothing compared to your new car. So what that you don’t have a job you like; you have a cool smartphone. So what that you don’t look like a supermodel; you still dress stylish. Sometime you need just a small thingy to divert attention, be it a brooch, a button or a ring.
  10. Cooperate. Other people solve the same problems. Gang together to anonymous groups or forums online to solve your and others’ problems.

While writing this entry, I uncovered a pile of my own problems and that made me sad. Anyway, I hope this will help to understand your own problems and find ways to solve them.

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Work Hard. Play Hard

Monday, August 30th, 2010

I’m laying in bed in a vegetative state of mind. I danced my legs off in three nights one after another. You know, it’s fun: communication, flirting, meeting different (sub)cultures, reading (and writing) body language. I like it that way. But it’s very easy to lose your head in a metropolis.

Whirl of Partying

On one hand, it seems that you deserved that good enriched spare time after five days working eight or more hours and pushing your limits at a computer solving different technical problems. I like my job, but as in any other job, there happen things that are too difficult, very risky or just boring and making you tired, but you still need to do that yourself. Then a weekend comes, and you having robotic head go to a semi-bar semi-club to meet friends, talk to strangers, or just dive deep into trance while listening to music. Usually one club is not enough. You get hooked and go further. The night ends up at 1 PM at a cheap food store buying yogurt and pelmeni to revitalize your body. What’s the point of that exhaust? Why do I need that hardcore? Because of all those moments that I see and experience while living such a life, which are only dreams to others. :D

On the other hand, the speed of achieving your objectives slows down because of those parties. I worked on Halma game probably just a couple of weeks per year all in all. And I would already like to start new games, and analyzing and learning new technologies. From practice I know that all wishes become true, but it takes much more time than you plan. And when you spend more than half of your weekend in a dizzy state, it seems impossible at all to achieve something personal. I have a conspiracy theory that alcohol and various illegal drugs are indirectly propagated to lower the possibilities of the masses, so that these who manage the world in the underground, would stay in their leading position. Oh. I hate politics. At least it’s good that nobody forces anyone to drink alcohol, as well as one can break the norms and traditions. I like to choose by myself when to be dizzy and when to have clear mind.

I also noticed that different places I visit associate with different drinks, because of drinking them there. For example, Club der Visionäre associates with Augustiner beer, I order gin-tonic at Bar 25 by default, I tried and liked shots of Borgmann at Salon zur wilden Renate, and I usually choose absinth with RedBull at Watergate and Berghain. It’s the culture of alcoholism, isn’t it? The drinks are drinks. Sometimes I need them, sometimes not. The most important to me here is the objective of socialization. I want to get rid of the last bits of shyness and hesitation so that I could live the rest of my life only with those limits which are not dependent on me. And I feel the progress of achieving that.

I like living like this. I just don’t wanna stuck in the whirl of partying. I should probably go clubbing just one night per week and spend the rest of my free time at home at a computer. :)

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My New Eye

Wednesday, March 31st, 2010

By flipping coins I got used to asking myself even more questions. Sometimes the answers are delayed. Why should I believe in randomly given magic? And I don’t necessarily get the right answers to my questions, as they might be right only for a given moment, but wrong later in the future.

I ask myself:
“Is it possible to become famous without being rich?”
“Is it possible to become rich without being famous?”
“Is it possible to become rich staying human?”
“What is humanness?”

My new eye

Personally I am not interested in getting popular by fooling online or collecting millions using the naiveté of other people.

I tried to define some life dogmas for today, but found a much better description of the meaning of life formulated by 209:

Maximal case: create as much as possible making least negative influence for other sensitive beings and environment, and ultimately penetrate to things that are unknown yet. “Creating” means “using ultimate amount of your abilities to reach even more abilities”.

Minimal case: do what you want to do making least negative influence for other sensitive beings and environment.

And then tonight I got up after a strange dream, grabbed a pen and wrote down several objective truths in my opinion (paradox, isn’t it?):

  • All systems have multiple levels.
  • Everything is relative, but principles in small scope can be reused in large scope and vice versa.
  • Also principles of one sphere can be reused in another sphere.
  • The more power you have, the more influential you are, and vice versa.
  • The perception of power depends on values.
  • If you want to change the perception of values, you have to get enough power perceived by currently actual values.

You can decide some examples for those propositions and write down in the comments. And I will further try to combine the definition of meaning of life with these objective truths and will do something good in my life.

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It’s Time!

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010

Today I purchased a tablet for drawing. By now, I’ve got all the tools I need for the beginning of game-development career. Also I have enough literature to learn from. I just need a strong kick in the ass and some time. It would be great if I could buy time like in this animation:

The moral dilemmas of the animation remind me the conversation of two rational adults:
“Do you believe in teleportation?”
“Think logically! Would you invest your own money in it?”
“Not my own! But wouldn’t you find a crowd of stupids who would do that?”

It’s the same with time. There are many levels of information to discuss, from individuals to statistics and back to individuals.

Indirectly speaking, you can buy time.. at the expense of other people’s time. You just need to establish a company, hire employees, and do business. By buying other people’s time, you can save your own time benefiting yourself.

Is it bad?

It is bad if you don’t provide sufficient working conditions, psycologically terrorize and frighten your employees, smother the wish to improve and make one’s career, or even overuse people till death. But it is good if your own purposes are such that they help you as well as a lot of other people. It’s good if you choose such human resources (employees) whose purposes will go on the same way as yours and whom you’ll accept as companions. It’s good if you provide possibilities to learn more and to use the received knowledge for the common purpose (even in a competitive company).

So getting back personally to me, I like my job (to create the web), but I am lack of time for going towards my chosen purpose which is to become a game developer famous for games which influence the awareness of society. I keep telling to everybody that time is just as it is and having no time means nothing else than wrongly chosen priorities. Therefore, I think, it’s time for me to rearrange my priorities so that I could spend at least 8 hours per week practicing game development and blogging about that. I am about to define the purposes for myself to achieve in twenty-ten.

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Experiences of Contemporary Art

Sunday, October 18th, 2009

Last weekend I was in Berlin National Gallery with Judita and Viktoras to check out what’s happening there. And we found the photography exhibition of Thomas Demand there.

Judita, Viktoras, and I

After waiting in the row, we got the tickets, got in, and started exploring. There were mostly daily-life scenes without people, so to say, still life. That seemed to be nothing special. Sometimes I didn’t even like the composition. But there was something what didn’t look natural. The photos looked cleaned very much without any noise. The contrasts were large. Probably he did all that cleanness with a lot of photoshopping. Some photos even looked like modeled 3D views. This is how we watched half of the exposition.

Thomas Demand

Then we read the description of the exhibition at the flyer that we had received with the tickets. It said that all those compositions were made out of paper. No! That can’t be! The cloakroom of a sports hall, a corner in an Asian restaurant, windows with convolvulus all around supposed to be made out of paper.. But when you look closer you really notice that. This glass was made out of plastic, that broom was made out of cardboard, and so on.. Cool! We started watching the exposition from the beginning again.

Thomas Demand

Probably many students were involved in making those models. Or, as Milda says, it was all made by the hands of little children :D

Thomas Demand

This is how contemporary art can surprise you. It’s just important to get to know the conception.

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Sincere Naiveness vs. Problematic Perfectionism

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009

I almost learned beeing alone as comfortable as with friends. I don’t create connections with people whose faults look to me bigger that their merits. I never take the first step unless I am sure that I’ll get what I want. I never start a conversation if that’s not necessary. I accept either nothing, or everything, but no failures! I am still deep into my psychological sh*t. I am afraid to look weak or a loser.

Yesterday I was counting airplanes and satellites in Club der Visionäre when I got hungry and decided to buy a pizza. I started eating it with beer and saw a girl sitting in front who turned to me when she smelled the food and felt hunger. She suggested her friends to order a pizza too, but they refused to do that. I could share mine, because it would be enough for me. But I was too shy to start talking to her. Neither my German, nor English is perfect. But I was sure, she would really like the offer. “If she turns to me once again until I count to 60, I will suggest her a piece”, I thought. One, two, three… Twenty four… She stood up, turned to me and looked for a second. Should I be a bourgeois or a socialist? She was about to leave with her friends. Should I offer her a piece of pizza!? She was moving away. I didn’t suggest it… FAIL! I stayed a bourgeois. The one who had a solid meal doesn’t care about the hungry one.

I remembered the words of a 40-year-old fellow passenger in a train going from Klaipėda to Vilnius:

No matter how much you achieve in your life, the most important thing is not to get puffed and stay sincere.

Maybe someday…

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Tricksy Adventure

Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009

This story has been told close friends for hundreds of times. But if you haven’t heard that yet, then listen!

Dovilas wrote me in Facebook that they give free food and drinks at the center of Hessen in Berlin, to commemorate the Independence of Lithuania. So I decided to go there, to have some Lithuanian conversations and fortify myself with non-junk food. He wrote me the address. I looked at the Google Maps where the place was located. And then I went there after work.

While going through security guys, I thought: “I see a lot of people inside. The party should be here”. I passed a hall full of seats where a conference or something had just finished. There were many journalists around with microphones and cam recorders. Further on I reached plenty of sedate-looking people standing at tables. They picked food and drinks from a buffet, went back to their tables, and had a bite.. But I couldn’t find any Lithuanians. Ehm.. Then I texted Dovilas asking where he was. While waiting for the answer, I took a plate of mutton soup to fill up my rumbling stomach. It was exactly what I needed. But somehow I didn’t feel comfortably. Everybody was suited and solid whereas I wore jeans and a hoodie. I was eating the soup, all the time searching for other Lithuanians and trying to avoid confrontations with security guys. Dovilas replied: “I am standing at the entrance and drinking wine”. But I was sure, he wasn’t there. Later we clarified I was in a different party. Lithuanians gathered on another side of the street.

Thanks to google maps that their search results by addresses are shown in the middle of a street instead of above houses.

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Spare time differently

Monday, January 5th, 2009

I’ve been a victim of a trend for the whole week in Vilnius. That was a trend that I like and which tends to be a unique phenomenon. I am talking about games in bars, clubs, and at friends.

I faced that for the first time two years ago in the “Baltic Sound” festival in a tent of the Play club, where a company of dizzy strangers laid pieces of Jenga; as well as on the second day of the wedding of Vika and Julius, where we played Twister, Monopoly, Alias, and some other games instead of old-fashioned alcoholism.

Last week I formed definitions in the “Funky Monkey” club (Alias), built towers in the “Play” club (Jenga), raised beans at Rimas (Bonanza), eat fish sushi (Sushizock im Gockelwok) and built districts (Citadels) at Julius. Every second bar or club offered table football which I don’t like personally, but I support its idea. And the old men pretending artists were playing checkmate at the CAC cafe.

Board games in public spaces are a cool way to start communication with strangers, keep relationship with friends and also that’s a perfect alternative to social alcoholism. We’ll see what games are waiting for me today. Are you playing something today too?

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