do you know what bolito is?

Do you know what Bolito is?

You will.

Well, it is some kind of a gadget designed to kill you. It is simply a steel thread with a powerful motor and when someone puts it to your neck, you can't take it off or stop it. So you die.

Now of course I can't tell it as elegant as they do in the movie The Counselor. But I have to warn you, the trailer video has a spoiler.




By the way, I'm not sure if this Bolito thing is real or not. But I know something, this movie is so boring that it might have a Bolito effect on you.

2 year old syndrome

As our son grows up, we hear more and more about this situation which can safely be called: 2 year old syndrome. People warn us to be preapared for a more rebellious child. He won't listen to us and he will try to do what he wants to do.

Actually, I can observe the early signals of this syndrome at the age of 1,5 -especially when we call him to have his meal. Sometimes, if he is really hungry, he listens to us and comes to have his meal. But more than sometimes, he keeps what he is doing and completely ignores our calls. But I know that he understands us. He just won't listen.

People say that this is a typical situation and kids try to prove that they're individuals too, as they develop more and more self cognition. This sounds like a very reasonable explanation but a TED video I just watched made me wonder. There might be some other parameters working in this phase, too.

In the video Mrs. Rebecca Saxe talks about the region of the brain where we judge other people. And this region develops as we grow. Her subject was actually about moral judgement, but what she showed was that, how we evaluate and understand a situation differs as we grow up. There's a 5 year old boy in the video who can understand a story and derive a more conclusion, and there's a 3 year old boy who can't grasp and evaluate the sitution properly and sticks to what he thinks is right.

So perhaps, this 2 year old syndrome is not about trying to be individual. Perhaps the child doesn't intend to rebel against his parents, but simply can't properly evaluate the situation. The kid is playing and enjoying his time, and then this guy he calls dad comes and interrupts his game for what - for this boring activity he calls eating. Duh! He can't understand that the food thing is not for his dad's pleasure but for his own good.

If you can't see the video, you can watch it here.

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. 

My Bit Of Contribution to the Turkish Advanced Democracy

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan never misses an opporturnity to remind us that Turkey is now in the advanced democracy phase, as opposed to archaic regime the Republic used to have before their time.

It is so advanced that it is clearly beyond the scope of the minds of a lot of people who can't make sense from the words: "There're male and female students who live in the same apartment. I'm democratic and conservative, and I can't allow such a thing. We will make the necessary regulations."

It is such an advanced democracy that my archaic mindset can't grasp the mentality behind the police raids to students' apartments right after the PM's statement, wtihout even caring to wait for the mentioned regulations.

Yet, this is such an advanced democracy that, the government actually makes a survey to find out that 90 something% of the people would never allow their daughters to live with a boy - which is of course more than enough to justify the  deeds of our most democratic prime minister and his army of the most elite police force.

However, since PM Erdoğan also loves to remind us in every opportunity that he is the protector of everybody's rights, even the atheists,  his last statement about this boy - girl thing might sound like a little bir controversial to his own self.

I hold the key to this dilemna and it is actually a true win - win formula.

We also know that PM Erdoğan and his co. just love to demolish everything they set their eyes to, to build malls and residences and more malls and more residences.

So, why don't we demolish everything in this country and make malls and residences and more malls and more residences everywhere, every nook in this country?

Evey  mall-residence complex will be a seperate entity. And every single one from the hard core Islamists to gorgi practicing students will find a dome to live as they wish. Nobody has to see the other, nobody has to know about the existence of the other.