The Inconvenient Demeanor

We...come in different shapes and different minds on different days. Since our society is quite ethnic, we see different cultures and often hear about racism as well. Let's just put that aside, because me myself, I am not a good analyst of almost anything. I hugely lack people skills, but somehow put on with my day to day life.  Anyways, this doesn't abstain me from giving out an opinion about we being us and then, it might not make sense to most due to the fact I mentioned previously.

So here I do a small categorization of most of us using the similarities. It's obvious that me myself would fall into one or more but I'll be unbiased as much as I can. Look here, have you met someone with some hidden agenda? then there's your friends with benefits, instant friends, that good at everything fellow, the payback master, a cheap disaster, over sensitive, too immature, pretend to be immature, click collector, that guy who minds his own business, the don't care personality, those no talk misfits and so much more that I can keep on going. These are what makes us diverse and still gives us the feeling that our social research is not yet complete. I've picked up the nonsense attitudes as they are the most fun to discuss but as we know this only makes 50% of the whole picture, the other half? Obviously overflows with goodness!

Hidden agenda has a secret plan or a target to be precise that is being executed step by step. This attitude comes as an unknown character and identify what needs to be achieved. Then weaves the master plan to be executed and get it done over a period of time. Bless those who unknowingly come across this one's way only to be long gone before even getting the glimpse of what's happening.

Here we have the friends with benefits who will be there by your side as long as you got something to offer to them. Just be that loser and these will be miles away. These are quite commonly found and I've seen the other way round as well, the click collector and the click seeker who offer something to get people around and who offer something to be around some certain people. It's quite exciting to watch these attitudes behave because their intentions are obvious and publicly exposed at some point.

Then we have instant friends, those we knew in stone age and accidentally meet at a function in digital age. This might get disastrous if they are the only known people to each other there. They eat together, drink together, they are the bff's, just to be long forgotten on the next day. It's quite a funny theory though.

So there's this good at everything attitude. He's been the BOND until someone seems to be creeping in his turf. Then starts the battle for supremacy, often won by our protagonist, benefiting from his strong roots in the turf.

The payback master is quite a pain and often seen in most places. This attitude is self explanatory, you get a return for whatever you do to this person good or bad and mind you, they have a huge memory capacity, using much bigger than Einstein, remembering every small detail. A common question would be "you did this that day at that time with them, there! You wore this, you ate this, you spent this much, you said this bla bla bla".

The no talk misfits are so unfortunate. They get labelled with different names, "innocent", "egomaniac", "silent" and some more. They miss chances, they get forgotten, quite unfortunate indeed. A very similar person in line is the too immature misfit who usually manage only a single conversation with any person. His best friend is always, another too immature misfit!


The pretend to be immature attitude is quite hard to coop with as we have no idea when or to how much extent they behave immaturely or not. Some of them usually have split personality, being immature and normal time to time.

Cheap disaster is a disaster in itself. It's hard to go somewhere when we have this attitude and come without losing your wallet. Money matters are always hard to deal with. Quite selfish and speaks cheaply.

Over sensitive is quite complicated as they always expect a level of trust and get attached. They easily get depressed.

"Mind my business" attitude comes on time, gets whatever things that needs to be done, then leaves on time. Their interactions and involvements are limited and usually quite boring figures.

Don't care personality is very interesting  to observe as they usually do and then think. Their minds are are clean and usually becomes victims of verbal attacks, takes other's blames or end up being the bad person. They forget things quickly, starts the day fresh and keep on being don't care.

As a post script, I would like to add that it all comes down to being situational at the end. We cannot be that single person all the time. Even Robots behave much better than that! Still these are not factors to be judgmental or to decide upon. Like someone said, no one is perfect, there's always a huge good part like the "Sun" than the minor ugly part like the "Moon", but most of the time if you just look, the Moon eclipses the Sun, but if you see through, there's the beautiful Sun glowing brightly behind the Moon. Alas, how that small Moon manage to cover the Sun and trick our eyes!

Got your own Demeanor to share? Have you say below!

Autistic, the socially ignorant

This article is based on some articles I've read on Autism.

Autism, the word may sound strange to you, or even unheard of. But this is a definition for a behaviour of that everyone should be aware of.
Autistic behaviour, is and has been present in our social network all these years. Being educated on autism may help you to recognize an autistic and understand the reason for his/her behaviour that may seem strange to you.
Have you come across a person who does not express themselves properly, more silent, less friends and friend making, less eye contact, etc.. Well, you should be by now, because a considerable percentage in our country does suffer with different disorders of Autism and these are very recognisable characteristics of Autism.
Now wait, do you think that you sport all these characteristics? Do not suspect, just thoroughly go through the diagnose of Autism and you'll find out whether you are a sufferer or not. Based on the reading, autistics do not  know that their strange behaviour is caused by a disorder, some think that its just the natural way they are and think that the society should accept what they are. But the good news is that an autistic can overcome this disorder by going through a therapy session and understanding the real situation.
The most important thing is that everyone should be educated on Autism, what it is, its characteristics, and to recognise people who suffer with it and treat them with empathy. You've been living with autistics and never knew that a disorder caused them to close the doors on social interaction.

Are You A Copy & Paste Programmer?

This is an excerpt taken from a dream-in-code newsletter. It sounded important so thought of sharing.

As I've had the opportunity to interview developers for various positions over the years, I've noticed there are two distinct types of "programmers". Those that can actually program from scratch in an IDE/editor (or on a white board as we ask them to do in interviews), and those that can Google and press Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V very effectively. 
With the explosion of Q&A sites focusing on providing quick and ready to copy and paste answers and code, the Copy & Paste Programmer is alive and well. 

Unfortunately for the first group of developers who can actually write code and don't spend all their days trying to make someone elses code work, the Copy & Paste Programmer has created quite a problem. Taking away jobs, perpetuating a culture of unmaintanable, and undocumented code that the Copy & Paste Programmer never understood to begin with. 
At Dream.In.Code, we're often criticized for asking members to put forth a little effort and try to actually learn a little and understand what it is they are doing. This is apparently too much to ask for the countless lazy students and young professionals that would rather be handed 100 lines of code they can pass off as their own than spend a few extra minutes learning how to actually solve a problem. What's sad is, this used to be limited to academic settings, but as those individuals graduate and enter the work force, we're seeing more and more questions from "professionals" who need someone to write their code for them. This is disgusting, and it's being supported by other programmers who will gladly do their work for them.

While there is nothing wrong with doing some research and finding a snippet or two to help you complete an application, if you find yourself assembling programs entirely from code copied from forums, Q&A sites, etc. You are a Copy & Paste Programmer and you are not only hurting yourself, but you're hurting your entire industry. 
Dream.In.Code does not and will not support a culture in which programmers can not write code from scratch or complete basic troubleshooting and debugging. This is why we encourage discussion, learning, and a good faith effort from everyone receiving help. It may not be the easy or popular thing to do, but for those genuinely interested in having a successful career as a programmer, it's the right thing to do. 

Room for Debate - Space for me within a 7 Billion

The world population growth is accelerating in light years. Its so frustrating to admit that I'm losing my private space every day but now, in an accelerating motion.

Scary! Ain't it wouldn't be? The big question rises out of nowhere, can the planet handle this?

It is expected that the pop will reach 7B by end of 2011 as I heard and India and Africa are extremely proud of their unconditional reproductive capabilities. US never admits their largest contribution for environmental pollution. Everyone keep digging oil and heating the climate which is running lunatic these days and I'm having goosebumps because I'm losing my space of existence.

H A P P Y 2 0 1 1 !

I've started blogging again and plan to do it in a regular basis since I personally think I might have more things to share around in 2011 with significance.
I Will be continuing my personal blog here while starting a new blog at pub•débug for my profession related posts.

I was at the church mass last night and would like to share the wonderful message delivered by the preach. It was based on 2 stories from the
bible, The parable of Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32) and The parable of the vineyard (Matthew 20:1-16).

The message was about jealousy, comparison and unsatisfaction. The examples were the eldest son in the parable of prodigal son and the workers of earliest hours in the parable of the vineyard. We always have more than we need, but we are always concerned about the things that others have. Always step on someone's head and climb up. No matter how good we think of ourselves, each one of us have been in this situation more than once in our lives. We try to justify it, in the sense, the elder son's complain was logically correct, "Father I've always served you, I've never betrayed you, but you haven't given me a goat to be merry with my friends" and the early workers complain was true, "We worked more hours than them but why do we receive equally?".
However, in both cases, comparison, jealousy leading to unsatisfaction was evident. When you see someone getting more than you when you already have enough but still think that you should have gotten more, when it should be an innocent sin that leads to dangerous consequences. The father's reply was, "Son, everything I have is for you, your brother was lost and now he has
returned. So we should joy with him" and the Vineyard owner's reply was, "I gave you the price I promised and you should be satisfied with it".
Have a moment of thought, how many times have you eavesdropped even on your friends to compare, the be unsatisfied and get jealous finally leading to cracks in your relation?
Lets try to change ourselves and determine to give meaning to our lives in this wrapped out new year!

So let the year twenty eleven be declared as the year of promoting positive thinking and adding values to our lives +++++

GOD Bless You!

Hope Floats...

We all have goals in our lives. Even at this moment you and I have a few in goals in our minds that we want to achieve in future and might be working on them at the same time. Sometimes, there are situations where you start something, halfway through you get good results and then drives you off with high expectations that you can do much much better. Its true that in many instances the final result tends to be far better as expected, but at the same time it can be lower than expected giving you great grief and disappointment.

Life sucks sometimes, it rocks sometimes, but its in your fate to get stuck in life when it sucks or it rocks or when both happens at the same time. It happens at the same time, believe me and these situations are the instances that should happen in your life, to suck and rock at the same time cuz they bring balance to your life and gives you confidence with very little of disappointment.

I've been working on for a target the entire year 2010 and the results were received few days back (November 2010). I have achieved my target well enough but considering the mid year review I expected a far better result from myself towards the final evaluation. I didn't know the limits of my capabilities or the ability I had to clash with my peers to reach my goal. However, the point is, when you have this high expectations from yourself, you have to work much harder than earlier to achieve this goal. It is upto you to ask your conscience whether you have done upto that level or not. However, if you are aware that you had not done extra bit of work to achieve the high expectation, its good to expect less, than to expect more and get disappointed over the surprise fall.

A close friend of mine used to believe in this philosophy called "DO's = GET's". It looks very simple but its applicable almost everywhere. There is no ">" or "<" in life, its always "=". This is also parallel with the proverb in the Bible, "Reap what you saw". So we need to keep in mind to work hard as the results we are expecting from our investments.

I had in an earlier post about Nelson Mandela, and how the poem "Invictus" motivated his life. The poem itself summarizes to "I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul". So I earlier mentioned that fate decides whether your life suck or rocks and here we say you only can master your fate. Therefore, It is upto you to decide whether your life sucks or rocks. It depends on your Analytical skills, talents, determination, hard work and effectiveness. Also a senior teacher of mine used to say "Do your very best and God will do the rest". Therefore you are required to control yourself to perform better inorder to reach the goal in expected heights. Otherwise failure lies at your own hands.

A final word, "Do not be disappointed that you failed to achieve one great thing, there are thousands out there waiting for you to reach them"

I have not been conquered

Can't believe it took an year to come across Invictus and I've been inspired by two things, the way Clint Eastwood delivers powerful messages through the character of Nelson Mandela and the role that earned him a Nobel peace laureate.

This post is explicitly not about Invictus, this is a discussion on a single topic I picked out from Nelson Mandela in Invictus and I'm so glad that I have such a platform to share my opinion and let it be heard.
Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years and how he took revenge from his enemies? by forgiveness.

This might sound so freaked out, if I imagine myself in such a state, I would have gone around in a suicidal mission around SA after a prison break. but after some small researching, I found out that the mind set in Nelson Mandela created the heading for the 2009 movie itself, "Invictus" of course!
'Invictus' is an inspiring poem written by an English poet, William Henley. The verse is as below,

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Reciting this poem will not give you any meaning in the first glimpse. Just try going through it a bit thoroughly, you will find inspiration as well as of stoicism (the means of understanding the natural state of things, or logos, and as a means of freeing oneself from emotional distress).

As I see, the verse explains the well known fact that, "Do your very best, GOD will do the rest". This is something my class teacher back in school used to tell us occasionally as a motivational boost that I have to play my part true to lead to the succession. Praying to GOD with my own workload pending will be futile. Also emphasises on self control and understanding that you alone and alone are responsible for your life. 'I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my life', a line with so much of power and influence also spoken out by Morgan Freeman in his depiction of Mandela at the end of Invictus.

When I go through this, it gives me the feeling that the person who recites this must have gone through a series of depression and dismay, has suffered badly and is finding the explanations for reasons that lead him to that state of existence. And this poem explains to himself that no one but himself is responsible for that. This is not self torture, this is self control. Its quite evident how the life of Mandela reflects the meaning of the verse. In many of his popular speeches he conveys the message of forgiveness, unity and harmony.

'I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.'

In invictus (2009), when his bodyguard asks about "how is your family sir?" the reply is heart throbbing, "I have a very large family, 42 million".

The meaning of Invictus is 'I have not been conquered'.