Things I learned in 2011
- I had something my children won’t have — analog childhood (rotary phones, cassettes albums, VCRs with tracking problems, 8-bit games consoles and all). It was beautiful. In it’s own ugly way.
- I am taking a hiatus from this “always available anytime” culture. I remember when you had to be home to answer the phone if you wanted to talk.
- Still, we are living in the most interesting time in human history. Everything is amazing right now and nobody is happy.
- English is the language of the world. The language of the Web and wider communication. The language of science, literature and art. The language that unlocks opportunities. It is time to stop calling it foreign language or second language.
- Watching my friends write in English makes me want new friends.
- The London rioters were protesting violence with more violence, and that was the most stupid thing I ever heard.
- Every time Facebook or Twitter releases the new design everyone curses the hell out of it, then they get comfortable with it, and then Facebook or Twitter releases the new design.
- My Android phone takes longer to reboot than my laptop do and the battery lives two days. Instead of fixing that they are increasing number of cores. Who needs multi-core phone? Are you sending humans into space or what?
- Reading C system headers is difficult, but educational. Reading C++ system headers is torture.
- If it is possible to be in love with a book, then I’m in love with this one. Matt Doyle has written the book that is probably the single best book for the person who’s just getting started with PHP, and programming as a whole.
- Web programming is the science of coming up with increasingly complicated ways of concatenating strings.
- The American consumer is somebody who bought something — they’re not sure why — but it was five dollars off, so they bought it.
- Don’t make the mistake of thinking that something or someone will always be around. Never chase love, affection, or attention. If it isn’t given freely by another person, it isn’t worth having. It’s funny how quickly someone can go from being the center of your life to someone you don’t even want to know about anymore. So long, fairwell, auf wiedersehen, adieu to yieu.
- You can’t force yourself to treat well someone who put you through shit. I believe it was Charles Bukowski who said “the way to end a poem like this is to become suddenly quiet.” No matter what he meant by it.
- When I hear a song that fits my current life situation, I listen to it 24/7.
- There’s no such thing as a hopeless situation, just hopeless people in situations. Two things in life are infinite: the universe and options.
- The only person you need to compare yourself to is who you have been. And the only person you need to be better than is who you are now.
- If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room.
- You’re gonna get judged with whatever you do, so keep doing what you’re doing.
- Life is about proving your parents wrong by making them proud.
- Every moment counts. Excellent people know that time is highly valuable. There’s this quote by Donald Trump which I read in one of his books, and I absolutely love it. He said that time is more precious than money, because you can earn back money, but you can’t get back time. That is absolutely true.
I hope you all had a safe and fun New Year. Even those who TL;DR’d.
My New Year’s resolution is the same as last year’s — 1366×768.
