beat distraction with Pomodore method

When I first started using Twitter years ago, I realized that it took more time than it should and actually became a problem, as if I didn't already have tons of other means of distraction.

So I found an interesting solution which included Twitter, too. I started twitting and announcing the world that I would completely devote myself to the project at hand for the next one full hour and won't allow anything to distract me. And it pretty much worked.

One hour undistracted working time turned out to be too idealistic, and almost impossible to achieve. And this time, no it was not me, it was the world outside. Well, one hour is actually a very long time and it is very likely that someone will come and ask you something - especially if you've just announced that you'll be completely working.

So I searched some online tools to help me, and I think I found one.

Enter the Pomodoro method. 

It is basically the same method but with a shorter interval, and it comes up with a helpful tool, too, that's of course, if you're using Chrome browser. Pomodoro method assumes that a person's average focus time is 25 minutes. So, you hit the button and it counts down from 25 minutes. When your time is  up, you hit the short break button and give a small break of 5 minutes. Then, you work for another 25 minutes and then give a long break. The recommended time for the long break is 15 minutes but you can adjust it as you like. 

Now of course, this is not a miracle soulution and it depends on your own will to succeed. And of course, you don't need a browser tool to start a stopwatch, but it is fun to use it. The only downside of this method is that, 25 minutes is actually too short for me. It is short because I really can't do much of a work in 25 minutes and I usually need more time to feel that I'm doing just fine. So I usually keep working for a little more time when my 25 minutes are finished. So I wish I could've adjusted all the time intervals for my needs. 

39

I am oficially 39 now, and I am too tired to write something  obscure enough to make me look like a wise man. I am just getting old. And old is old, not wise. I am sorry, the 38 years behind me didn't leave me any keys to share with  you. I still don't know why on earth we exist, but at least learnt not to think about such matters and just try to enjoy it while it lasts. Hmm, maybe I am not that dumb, even though this still does not make me a wise guy. So happy birthday to myself.

chicken translators

This picture was circulating online some years ago, helping our day with a great stock of laughter. In case you don't know Turkish and wonder what possibly the sign in English is trying to say, it is trying to say: "Grilled Chicken". Lost in translation? Well, you can say so.

Other than being mocked by the entire nation, the owner of this sign probably has another problem: i bet he still wonders why this big sign hasn't affected the number of visitors, especially foreign ones, even though he paid a handsome amount of money for it. So you see, there's also micro economic crisis going on here.

So, assume that you are taking some fancy class in college and your professor asked you in the exam: "Considering the fact that, this sign and all the alike are not isolated incidents but a clear sign of business going bad, what would be your suggestion to solve it?"

Now assume that one of your classmates answered: "We should teach everyone perfect English," and another friend of yours said: "We should make sure that business owners understand this very simple notion that hiring a professional service is not loss of money. Instead, it will help you boost your business."

So who do you think will pass the exam?

The author of an article I read almost six months ago seems to believe in the first answer.  She complains about the diminishing quality of English being spoken in her country.

At first, I thought that she was right. They and we need a better education for our children to learn better English. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. But then, I started to feel that there's something wrong with the article which disturbs me somehow.

Then I figured.

Did I tell you that she is from Malaysia and the she complains about the quality of English being spoken in Malaysia? Do people who say "Let's makan" insted of  "Let's have a lunch," or some school kids who say "Let me pass away" while in fact they  wanted to say "Let me pass through", or a businessman who tries to attract tourists with a sign shouting "chicken translate" while in fact he simply meant "grilled chicken"  indicate a serious education problem?

I don't think so.

Why does a public figure say something like "Let's makan"? Why doesn't he say it in his own language if he is already surrounded with people who understand what "makan" is? Or, why do some school children even try to speak English in a non-class environment in a non-English speaking country?

Of course it is a good thing to know a foreign language well enough to make sure that you are giving the correct message. Or, it is even better if you hire a professional to do that for you, but why does it have to be perfect? Why are you supposed to speak English or any other second language as perfect as possible? As a matter fact,  is it even possible?

If you want to read the article I mentioned, it is here.

And if you wonder why the hell i laughed at the sign if i totally advocate not being perfect at English, well, I didn't laugh because the guy used wrong words. I laughed because he dared to think he can do the job himself if only he finds a dictionary.

So what I am saying is, let's learn a foreign language, actually, let's not stop there and learn a second foreign language, even a third one, yay, but let's not let it dominate our domestic education.

don't mix milk with the orange juice

In a typical sunday morning when i have proper time to have a proper breakfast with my wife, i pretty much love to mix different flavours. I mix honey with cheese or egg. And I find it pretty delicious. Interestingly, I met many people who just can't understand how delicious this is. It is a taste bomb for me, and yet, many people think that it is rubbish.

My enthusiasm to mix different flavors is not actually limited to breakfast only. For example in a typical lunch time in the office where they serve all the dishes at the same time, i usually take bites from different plates in random order, rather than finishing one dish and then starting the next one - as most people would do. But I would like note at this point that I don't do it as much as I used to do in the past, simply because I restricted most of the stuff I eat. For example, I never eat bread  (at least) in lunch time, or rice, or pasta, or any kind of desserts. So, my options to mix things is pretty much limited.

I also would like to note that I am aware of the fact that there are a lot of people like me. But let me not digress.

The point is, I am open to experimenting with flavours. More than most of the people, actually. I tried to make latte with sweet melons for god's sake - which was a disappointment, but at least i tried. 

Yet, there are things even I know that you should not mix. Like milk and orage juice. I love them both, but mixing them is not a good idea. They're both delicious in their own way, but their chemistry don't get along.

AND I WONDER WHAT THE F** K METALLICA WERE  THINKING WHILE THEY WERE MAKING THAT STUPID ALBUM WITH LOU REED.

Ok, don't get me wrong. I love them both. I mean, I'm a loyal Metallica fan. I didn't abondon them even when it was a cool thing to abondon them especially right after their Black album. I'm naturally not a fanatical fan as I used to when I was a teenager, but I still adore them.

And I like Lou Reed, too. I'm not a big fan, but I like him and I never switch off the radio if he plays, as opposed to many other performers.

But come on, the mixture of Metallica and Lou Reed is nothing but a freak. They're both good at what they're doing, but they're simply not in the same lane. Actually, they're not even in the same continent. And I thoght they all were good musicians to figure it out before trying.

And here is a sample of what they have done. Listen and decide yourself.

Poisonous Spoiled Watermelons

I read an article about a watermelon which was forgotten in a corner in the kitchen. So it got spoiled.

The bottom line of the article is that, there are things we tend to keep in a corner planning  to deal with them  in a more appropriate time,  but we totaly forget about them until they get totally rotten. So we should either do things at the exact time of initial intention, or we should just ignore them and focus on what we are really interested in doing.

The way i try to deal with my spoiled watermelons is to-do lists. Actually, I kind of build my life around them. You see, I'm kind of a guy who is interested in various and somehow unrelated subjects. And as a matter of fact, it is not a bad thing. Because, the way i see it, if you want to be very good at something, you need to work on every aspects of it. I believe in total-body workouts for a fit body rather than trying to improve each muscle separately. So, if you want to be a soccer player and you feel like your left kick isn't as good as you want it to be, it is a better idea to try to improve your overall game playing rather than just trying to improve your left kicks.

But to be honest, the subjects i am interested in are pretty much different than each other, and they don't feel like related. It's like playing voleyball most of the time while in fact you know that you should do something about your left kick. But trust me, they are actually very well related - and how they can't be? After all, they're the aspects which make me the guy who I am now.  

But who has the time to do all that stuff? I am talking about studying statistics (yes I do that) and read Shakespeare afterwards, improving my memory skills and trying to to code a computer software. And who has the time to do all of them, especially if you already have a very busy agenda in the office? So, to-do lists really help me because this way O can make sure that everything is sorted and I will have time to deal with them eventually.  But the problem is, the watermelon in the kitchen can still get rotten before I finally get a chance to touch it after finishing other jobs.

And I realized that it makes me really very angry when I am behind my own schedule, and unfortunately, I am almost always behind it. Well, it is kind of okay if i am behind the schedule,  but it realy drives me mad when i can't finish something i've started no matter what the reason is. So you see, my watermelons are poisonous because they are bad for my nerves when they are rotten.

And if you want to read the article where I got this watermelon idea, you can read it here.

learning from our experiences and adapting

We learn and we adapt. And that's how we survive. Or at least, this is how we tend to perceive ourselves.

But this might be a wrong perception at all, especially if we learn the wrong things in the first place. Sometimes we learn not to adapt. There are a lot of people out there who refuses to adapt without even thinking what they are actually opposing. Obviously, this is not a wise way to live. Unfortunately, the opposite of something wrong is usually equally wrong, so some people learn to adapt everything around them, which is not wise either.


Most of the cases, the human race is unable to see where we are heading. And to worsen things, those people who can actually foresee the coming events - not necessarily because they stuided the art of fortune telling, but because they have a clear understanding of what is actually happening - don't have a voice strong enough to make other people listen.

Because, we all learn ourselves, mostly from our experiences and really very few of us can truly analyze the past to derive lessons - even if they can truly access the information about past events. Past experiences of our forefathers don't really mean much to new generations, and their stories tend to be seen as some sort of past time actitivity. So we repeat and repeat and repeat the very same mistakes just to suffer the very same pains all over again and again.

I tend to find it really unfair that the salvation of our souls is an individual journey, especially when no one has the control of the conditions which we find ourselves in. Somehow it makes more sense to think that salvation is a communal achievement, and we either make it altogether or none at all. There is an Islamic thought that we are all a part of the same ocean, and when we die, our souls join to the ocean itself. So this ocean either goes to heaven or to hell, taking all of us to the same place. 

But the problem is, we can't realize that we are all connected to each other and to our past. We perceive the life around us as an individual adventure while in fact it is far from it.

Or at least it makes more sense to me when I try to explain life to myself. The funny thing about it, life doesn't really care if I can explain it to myself or not. Life is just life, and it goes on, no matter what it is essentially.

And I sometimes wonder if it would be a better world if we could somehow have a common experince pool, a pool of all the experinces of the human race -and even maybe beyond it - where we can actually access it. I am not talking about learning about the past through history books or anything of that sort,  but I am talking about perceiving the experiences of our ancestors as if it is a part of our own mind soul.

And when I think more about it, I think it is somehow better this way. Because even though the renewal of experiences has a risk of leading us to our own catasptrophy with each new generation, this renewal is also a blessing because it means we can forget. And if we can forget, then we can forgive, too, and perhaps it is better to start all over again with each new individual rather than passing all the grudges of the very long history. 

knight rider kids

In the month of Holy Ramadan, it is more likely that you will hear an elder person whining about the good old days. A typical lecture starts with "You call this Ramadan? You should have seen it when I was a kid." And of course it is followed by the festival routine: "So you call this a Bayram? You should have seen it when I was a kid."

Well, the world inevitably changes so as the way we celebrate Ramadan and the festival following it. And as a matter of fact, resisting this change might have some tragic consequences as we saw a couple of years ago when some kids were lost and presumed dead while they were knocking the doors of the neighbors to ask for treat. It is OK if kids go and knock everydoor in a village or a town where everybody knows everybody, but it is very dangerous when kids insist doing this in a big city. Perhaps this is a very extreme example, but it happened and it was tragic.

In the classical way to celebrate a Ramadan festival, or Bayram as we say it in Turkish, or Eid as Arabs say it, families visit each other in an hierarchical order, and honestly, no one can convince me that it is better than taking the time for a holiday. But no matter how I think, the elder people will always talk about the good old days. Whether they convince me or not is another matter, naturally.

On the other hand, even though I hate to admit it, I am a middle aged man now, and I have my own memories of celebrating the Bayrams. Ask a senior and they will immediaty dislike it, but actually I remember those days with a good smile on my face. And when I think about it, it is actually not limited with the Bayrams. The world was a better place when I was a kid.

But the real question here is: "Was the world really a better place when I was a kid, or did I just enjoy it simply because I was a kid." I think the answer is the latter one.

I am actually the last generation who had a semi-decent childhood before the computers hacked our lives. We had computers and computer games, and we spent some extraordinary hours in front of our home computers, as they were used be called back then. But they were not the center of our lives and we actually had a chance to go out and play - not in the shadow of ugly concrete buildings but in the open. We were the Knight Rider Kids. That show was a legend when we were kids. They were great days.

But they were great becuase everything was an exciting adventure for us when we were kids. Try to show the best episode of the Knight Rider to a kid today and he will die either because of extreme boredom or laughter. But we loved it back then.

Does this mean those were better days? Well, they were of course better but not because we had the Knight Rider on our TV screens. They were better days because we were kids and we were ready to enjoy life as it was given to us. And I guess what elder people miss is not actually those old days and how they used to this and that, but their own childhood as we all do, as a matter of fact.

this cool thing called triberr

I once met an interesting guy in a new year party one of my friends threw last year. The guy claimed that in this new era of connections, you only need 5 links to connect to anyone in the world. Meaning that, you might be a complete stranger to me right now, but if we dig enough we will see that you are a friend of a friend of a firend of a firend of a friend, at worst. People were joking "Oh, you are a friend of Obama then."


Even though this theory can't obviously cover every indiviual in the world, at least not in 5 steps, i think it is a true statement in general. Sometimes I come up people with interesting opinions in linkedin, and when I check out who wrote it, I see that we are connected in 3rd degree with most of them. Of course, a sample from linkedin can definitely not represent the world itself, but ok, i think you get the idea.

Now, the real question is: how effective is it? Let's assume that I can indeed find a link with anyone in 5 steps. Does this mean anything? Whatever personal advantange that I migt be after, can such a loose chain provide me that? Not at all.

On the other hand, Dunbar's Number suggests that a person can maintain an effective and meaningful social relation with 150 people at most. Do you remember the movie The Devil Wears Prada? Miranda character, portrayed by Meryl Streep in the movie had to hire assistants to remind her who the people were who attended to her party. Because, she had to look like she knows every one of them while in fact she had no clue who the hell they were. She had far reached her 150.

This 150 people can be called a tribe. Your tribe.

Now, this guy called Dino Dogan and his associates have created this system triberr which helps you to build effective and meaningful tribes in twitter. I am not really sure why they chose the "tribe" notion other than anything else, but I have a feeling that we all listened to Seth Godin while he was talking about his social tribe theory.



If you have a blog or an online business, or anything online that you want to spread to people, twitter is really a good way to do it. Well now, the follower numbers in twitter can easily override the 150 limit, but we (should) all know that twitter is not about building social relations but about promoting your message whether it is a groundbreaking idea or just a detail in your life. There are a lot of people who love to tweet when they go rest room. I didn't go that far, but I frequently tweet about what I eat or drink...  Mostly coffee as a matter of fact.

Triberr is a cool way to multiply the number of people you reach through twitter. If you are not a celebrity and don't have several thousands of followers already, your reach will always be limited. That's why most users rely on the power of retweets. Basically, you tweet about something and hope that other people will retweet it so your message will be heard by a much bigger crowd. And triberr lets you build a tribe, a group of effective twitters who will promote each other's blog posts on a particular RSS feed. If you post to a blog, all your tribe members will tweet it so the number of people you reach will multiply. It is indeed a cool feature.

to a liberal society through the reverse direction

In my previous post, i mentioned about my wish to live in a more liberal society. Perhaps I should reprhase it as "open minded society" because when I actually think about it, I am living in a liberal society eventhough it doesn't look so at the first sight.

This statement is particularly true for big cities who suffers from migration, but not villages, towns or even relatively small cities. But if you are living in a city as crowded and chaotic as Istanbul, you will amazed how liberal this city may be - yet again, not in the first sense you would think of. 

It is all based on the balance of power, or rather, lack of it. We are not really a open minded society, we just have to admit it,  and even those of us who seem like more open minded than the rest of us can hit to their walls much earlier than you might expect.  What's more, those walls don't usually confine the owner itself, and they attempt to confine other people too, when ever possible. However, nobody really has the power to achieve it.

Sultanbeyli, one of the most crowded
urban areas in Istanbul

This may not seem like a bad thing in the beginning. And for a lot of reasons, it is indeed better that people don't have enough power to intervene other people rather than they have it. Unfortunately though, this does not necessarily lead us to a more liberal society that I long for. Rather, it leads us to chaos.

I specified "big cities such as Istanbul" for a reason. These cities are suffering from a ruthless migration. Now hold on, I am not suddenly going to become the next fascist asshole who tries to get rid of aliens in hometown. Nope, that's not it. But you just have to see that these people are coming from villages or towns, or even smaller cities in which not-open-minded societes have an oppressing effect on them. And when they come to a big city where things already seem like chaotic, they get this impression that they are free to do everything they want because there will be nobody to stop them. And there will indeed be nobody to stop them. Because nobody wants to get into trouble, especially when they know that it might be extremely hard to get out of that trouble, if they can ever.  Because from an indiviual point of view, we are all powerless.

I am not saying that everybody suddenly becomes uncontrollable. But from a sociological point of view, only 5% of a society sharing a same pattern of habbits can easily dominate the rest, especially if the rest 95% prefers not to get involved. And you can bet that, we overreached that 5% barrier long  time ago.

So in a way, we are indeed a liberal society, because if you want to do anything, it is very unlikely that there will be anybody on your way. But is highly questionable if this is the right directon to achieve that liberalism.

the real deal

i used to think that even if there is heaven and hell, they should not be in he way they are described in holy books. i mean, it is pretty obvious that the most common heaven and hell concepts directly appeal the basic insticts of men (not men as in male, but men as in humans -  even though they are mostly male oriented). so i always thought heaven and hell should be about something else, and the average description is nothing more than a metaphor. and honestly, it is quite hard to understand why almost everything we consider sin here is going to be free and available forever in the afterlife.

but, have you ever played any virtual reality games? second life for example is quite popular.  and there is another virtual reality game whose ads i see all the time and i think it is pretty much sex oriented. in fact it doesn't have to be an alternative-to-real-life game. for example the game world of warcraft is a rather old but still very popular game which provides you an online complete universe with its own set of rules, full of orcs and trolls and dragons and such.

and of course lets not forget the legendary life-simulation game the sims. even though i never enjoyed the simulation system of the series, they allow you to create and play and enjoy a completely new life.


the thing about these games is, they still feel like a game and there is probably a long way before they start to feel like the real deal. but don't bet that they will never reach that point, because obviously, they are going to reach. and one day,  you will wear a helmet maybe and find yourself in a virtual world which is not so virtual any more.

at this point, i wonder what if this is all about a game? Perhaps, this is really a computer code and we are just shades in this world. what is worse, we may not even be closely related to the actual player who is playing a virtual reality game in a much more advanced world. well, if we can do it even today, why shouldn't somebody else with a far more advanced technology do it?

well, if this is really a computer code which started suddenly and created this universe right after a complete blankness as it is told in the holy books, then there is a big chance that everything we are told about after life is going to happen as they are told. because someıne designed it to be like that.

how singapore police uses social media to fight crime

do you how singapore police uses social media to fight crime? depending on your own field of interest, such a topic may concern you or may not.

what i actually wonder is, why is there a facebook ad on this topic? why does it look like a friendly news story instead of a facebook ad? and why does the link take me to a site full of freindly singapore police?

is it just a coincidence or is it a campaign to attract people especially the potential tourists who race to cancel their vacations in tunusia and egypt? and if so, i hope my country is not sleeping at all.

in case you wonder, you can click here to see where the ad is linked to. 

lack of planning (on your part) is not an excuse (on my part)

I came up with the phrase "lack of planning (on your part) is not an excuse (on my part)" last night while reading a book, and i was ike bam: this is my motto.

Ok now, to be fair enough, let me tell you that i am not good at planning either. in fact i seriously have problems with managing my own time. this very post is actually a proof for that, because i should really be working right now, and obviously, i am not :)...   but again, why i should be working non stop today and the whole weekend? Because a very important client of us has forgotten to inform us about the deadline of a project which i didnt even know it existed until yesterday. So that's why i have to be working instead of writing this post. 

Well now, this post does not actually belong to complaints deparment. I am not writing this to complain about the enormous work burden on my shoulders, but to praise this motto i read yesterday in a book. The motto is so true. I suffered more than enough (like probably everybody else) because somebody else did a lousy job before me.

For example there is this translator who has been coming to the office for the whole week. there is a very urgent job which needs to be finished even sooner than as soon as possible, but the thing is, the client can provide us the materials partially, meaning that, that poor translator has to come here everyday as the new materails arrive, because we dont seem to have enough time to wait until all the materials arrive here.

i really dont know why it must be us who have to work like mules because somebody out there has no idea about what the word "planning" actually means.

ordinary people

I am just an ordinary guy. Whatever classsification you choose, i will pretty much be somewhere in the middle.

• I am not poor, but i am not rich either and i really have to work hard to sustain the kind of life i have. 
• I am not dumb, but i am not  very clever either. 
• I am educated, but thats only good enough to know that i still don't know anything. 
• I am not unlucky, and sometimes good coincidences hit me too, but i don't really consider myself as a very lucky person either.
• I am not unhealthy but not fit either. I am obvioulsy overweight and trying my best to get rid of my excessive fat, but at least, i am not obese or anything. 
• I am good at what i am doing, but i am not the best guy in the field if only there is one.
• I love video games, and play them, but i am never the best scorer.

I don't know, i can't simlpy name anything that i am a true marvel at. I am just an ordinary guy. And i don't think this is going to change in this new year - of which the first da is about to end.

Anyways, i wish you a happy year for all the ordinary people out there.

back to my childhood

When I was a kid, I couldn't swallow pills. That was a big deal for me. I just couldn't. It was a good thing that i really didn't need much pills while growing up.

Later, I got over this problem. I learnt to swallow everything with a sip of water, which i later found out that was not the healthieast way to take a pill. But the the thing is, i could even take this pill on the left, and if you can't figure out from the picture, it is as big as your mouth.

Then, the thing started again. I don't know when exactly, but it became really hard for me to swallow the pills. I blame my nose on this one. There is a problem with my nose, and i can't breath as much as i should. That's why people think i get tired almost immediatly, because i mouth-breath heavily even right after climbing few stairs, but only because i cant breath enough from my nose. Unfortunately, i cant enjoy the scent of things around me because of the very same reason (but honestly, i dont think it is a bad thing because there are a lot things that just stinks around here).

So anyway, now i know it was not a child's caprice that i couldn't swallow a pill. It was a real thing and it is happenning again.

i actually pity her, you know

like 10 minutes ago, i heard a guy shouting in the other room. a fight maybe? then he rushed into my room to grab the phone. i think the one in his room was occupied. and i asked him what is going on.

he told me that he just received another SMS from his bank, saying that they have activated an insurance policy -which he had already cancelled once. so he was angry because the bank simply insisted on doing what they intended to do in the first place.

which reminds me: i hate banks.

they love to pretend as if they always follow the latest technology, and they work so hard to serve us better and better and...  well, this is bullshit. ask a bank to do something which is not in their regular work plan, and you will see how clumsy they get with all that technology they love to brag all the time. when i got married and moved to our own apartmen like 6 years ago, i remember that i had to visit the bank office at least 3 times just to make them send my credit report to my new address. yep, they can't even do that. each time the person i talked to said that she change it and made me sign a lot of papers, but reports were sent to my prior address anyhow.

so i hate banks, but of course i don't hate the people who work for them. in fact, my sister-in-law used to work for a bank and i pretty much know how a stressfull workplace they are. and even if i didn't know anybody who actually worked for a bank, i could have easily guessed that.

yesterday i got another phone call from my bank. they do that from time to time, mostly to let me know that i am eligible to receive a bank loan which i never asked for. and yesterday, a girl called me to inform me about a new credit card. i should have hanged the phone right at that moment, but you see, i am a polite guy and i can never do that. there are people who close down the phone before they click to turn off the connection and you hear a big bump echoing in your head. i never do that either. but some people do, not necessarily noticing how disturbing it is.

so anyway, the girl started to tell me about the advantages of their new credit card. i think there was a list in front of her and she had to read them to me no matter how hard i try to tell her that i am not interested: "We have a 5% advantage for blah blah.." - "I don't care." -  "I see sir. We have an option to make installments even if your bank and the shop don't have an agreement."  - "I don't care." - "I see sir. We also have..."  - "Please don't continue. I don't care and I will not buy your credit card." -  "I see sir. But we have..." - "F.U"

Ok, i didn't outspeak the last part. But finally i had to stop her from reading her list and hanged the phone down. it was irritating. but i was angry to the bank, never to that poor girl who was forced to politely read some shitty list in front of her no matter how hars responses she gets, and i am pretty sure that not everybody is as polite as i am.

this is not an accident but a murder

Last sunday, while the rest of Turkey was still enjoying a 5 day long holiday, 13 people were killed in a very tragic accident. Yet, i refuse to call this an accident.

Turkish laws suggests that a traffic accident is an accident, and the responsible parties are punsihed due to that. Meaning that, any moron who thinks that he/she is superior than the laws and violates the traffic rules can easily get away with a few years sentence even if he/she kills another human being.

Among all that shitty things i see in the news, such accidents are what drives me crazy the most. I totaly belive in zero tolarence in traffic, and anybody who violates the rules should be punished severely. This is not a joke. 13 people were killed last Sunday because a moron mini-bus driver thought that he could just "ignore" the red light. The truck driver is also guilty as far as i can see from the video, but i think the real responsible guy is the mini-bus driver. He also died in his own slaughter alike accident, and i hope he burns in hell for taking 12 lives with him just because he is an ignorant bastard.

ice cream at 10 pm

i pretty much complain about how hard  i work. well, i indeed work too much, that's a fact. but i guess, i finally reached that point in my life where i can afford giving small breaks and start to enjoy life. i know that in theory, everybody is supposed to enjoy this life no matter what happens because it is only a one time opportunity, but i think we all know that this is not the case in real world. unless of course you are not Paris Hilton or something.

When i say small breaks, i really mean small, humble breaks such as watching a movie with my wife and eating some ice cream. and i prefer this combination to any wild parties out there which i would have killed to attend 15 years ago. well, what can i say? people change.

But the reason why i am writing this post has nothing to do with me or my little breaks. well, it is somehow related to the little breaks and particulary to the ice cream in them, but the real reason why i am writing this post is the local grocery stores. you see, i went out to buy an ice cream at 10 pm tonight, and all the grocie stores in the neighborhood were open, waiting for the customers who forgot to buy something in their shopping list during their day time shopping from a big market.

so, i always complain that i work too much, and that is true, but it is also very true that these people are working much more haeder than i do. and im sure they dont make much money, especially when you consider that at least half of their customers are on credit. they always buy stuff but pay later, very later. and they are always smiling. they know that if they treat the customer moody, it very possible that he/she will never see that customer again. so i really appreciate them.

headscarves, flowers, and stupid rules

Headscarf is a highly controversial issue in Turkey. No worries, i will not bore you to death with the never ending political issues...  well, at least not now. But just listen to this.

At first there weren't any bans and girls with headscarves could study in the university as freely as anybody else (pun intended: universities are not free in Turkey but this is just another very boring political stuff). Then suddenly, in mid 90s came the ban: and girls with headscarves were not allowed in the universities any more. Internet is full of articles on this ban, trying to convince you whether this is evil or good, depending on who wrote it. Read them all, and maybe you will be as confused as i am on this matter.

Today, there is still supposed to be an headscarf ban even though the prime minister Erdogan had promised to lift the ban entirely before he was elected. He could not lift the ban, at least not officialy, but you can bet that the tolerance pitch against this ban is really very high.

So, in the early days of this ban, when it was applied pretty much strictly, some of the girls had invented a very interesting, a genius solution for themselves: they wore wigs. Yep, wigs. The purpose of headscarf is to hide your hair, because Allah says you so in Koran. But Allah does not say how you will cover your hear. So, what happens if you cover your original hair with a wig? Err, I honestly don't know. But you surely cover your hair and you surely enter from the university gate.

So, from techical point of view it is a great solution. But in reality, it is just ridicolous.

And enter the smoking ban

It has been like 2 years since there is a vert smoking ban in Turkey. Generaly speaking it is a good thing. But, there are also some extremely ridicolous almost impractical aspects of it, too. Just look at the picture below which i captured while watching the movie The Greatest Game Ever Played on TV.

Do you see that interesting blue thing on the face of the guy right handside? That is a flower added later on to the movie to cover the cigarette the guy is smoking, because showing people while smoking on tv is banned by laws.

It is just a very neat solution, but it is also absolutely ridicolous. What does it really matters as long as everybody knows what is under that flower. Then why do you even care?

I am sure there must be some sort of a conclusion, a lesson to be learned from this whole thing but i am not really very sure what it might be. So you are very welcome to enlighten me.

not the food, not water, but i missed my coffee

We are in the holy month of Ramadan, thats for Muslims of course. Muslims don't eat or don't drink anything during the day time. And this is called fasting.

I am not a religious guy, but i am fadting anyway. When people find out that i don't skip even one single day, they are rather surprised. My attitude in the office, or in society in general don't suggest that i am that kind of a guy. But here i am, fasting, with my kind of reasons.

Turkey is experiencing a very hot summer this year, probably just like the rest of the northern semisphere. And Istanbul is a particularly though city because of the extreme humidity. The weather is suffocating for most of the times. Even though today is a rainy and cool day, it is really hot for most of the time.

Most people find it difficult to fight with the thirsts. This is what i hear from most of the people. They can cope with the hunger, but it is much harder to deal with the thirst.

I think i am pretty fine with them both. When you don't drink or eat for long hours, it is totally natural to feel hungry and thirsty, but they are not really something i can't deal with. I do just fine.

With one exception: coffee. I can never completely awake without my daily dose of caffeine. I am always in a semi-trans state, always ready to fall asleep. So it is really not the food, nor the water, but i did miss my daily coffee.

the art of communication

back way when i was at university, i remember one single time while i was studying for a very important exam and realized that one particular question was constructed in a wrong way. i mean, literally.

i was both working in a full time job and trying to finish the school, so i didn't have the chance to attend all the classes. and therefore, i had to rely on the xerox of the notes other students took. to my surprise, nobody seemed to realize the mistake. what the teacher intented to ask and what she actually asked were different. and don't get me wrong, it was all in Turkish, in Turkey, where all the students were Turks.

the thing is, everybody knew what the teacher intended to ask. so nobody cared how she asked it. all they needed was the numbers given in the question so that they could immediatly start solving in the way they had already memorized.


just half an hour ago, i got an email from our client. and the mail made no sense at all. if i had taken  it literally, i should have started doing something in the completely opposite way i was supposed to do.
the good thing is, i know her for years so i can sort of estimate what she really means. so what she actually wrote didnt matter.

funny thing is, we had a similar conservation with my wife just last night. and she told me about a meeting they had with their clients. and at some point, the clients spotted a mistake which turned out to be their own fault because they messed up the mails. but while we were talking at supper yesterday, my wife said that "i should have guessed that there was a mistake because it said blah blah but in fact it was supposed to be blah blah." yeah, right. because she is some sort of a witch and she has to understand what the client actually wants even if they send the wrong mail.