Category: Everything else

Haha! Happy Friday! :)

When I click on the full screen button on YouTube, I tend to lose all the built up video buffer. That can be pretty annoying when you’re on slower internet connections. Anyway, turns out the problem is because YouTube automatically increases the resolution when we click on the ‘full screen’ button leading to a restart of the buffering process.

This can be solved by signing into your youtube/google account and then making a change under ‘Account’.

Go to Account Settings>Playback setup and then choose (*)I have a slow connection. Never play higher-quality video.

See picture below –

—
Enjoy video watching!

Happy Thursday! :)

I came across a nice post by Paola Bonomo here.

She had a valid point – Choose how you use your social networks. She talks about how she differentiates between her facebook friends, LinkedIn friends etc.

I thought it was a point worth reflecting about given the amount of time we spend on social networks these days. When I gave this some thought, I realized my own social network rules (unconscious prior to reading this post) –

1) Facebook: I do not add people on facebook unless they are colleagues from work/close family friends. However, I tend to accept any friend request with mutual friends. The main idea here is that my blog is linked to my facebook and I see it as a way of ‘spreading the word’.
(Hope this will change once I transfer to the ‘alearningday.com’ domain that would enable the posts to be easily searchable. That change is scheduled to happen soon!)

Other subconscious rules for facebook are hard. I’m not an ‘active’ facebook-er in terms of activity except for the fact that my blogs are linked to it. However, I try to wish people I know on their birthdays, take as many ‘wall’ conversations to messages as I can and keep my facebook status activity to the minimum.

2) LinkedIn: The rule here is that I accept friend requests only of people I know well. (i.e. met more than a couple of times) Again, I’ve hardly ever used LinkedIn – so hard to say otherwise.

3) Twitter: Again, my blogs keep my twitter busy. I’ve gone for weeks without opening up my twitter and follow very few.

These are rather simple mental rules that I have around my social networks. I am not a fan of sharing everything I do on these social networks and hence, keep to these rules.

What are your social network principles?

No wonder openness to new concepts is so hard to come by!

Happy Wednesday all! :)

Our chief resource is not our time, but our energy.

I wonder if we give as much importance to staying in high spirits as we do to ‘staying busy’.

Today, I had an encounter with an ‘energy drainer‘. Now, energy drainers come in various forms – sometimes they are people, other times they are places but more often than not, they are a combination of people and the wrong place, leading to an environment that tends to constantly suck all positivity and energy.

(It’s not fair to say today. I felt it yesterday but didn’t act on it!)

In my case, I just decided to shift my environment and voila, everything changed. I had to make a few excuses of course, but it was well worth it. My day started looking up, I started feeling more energized and positive and already cannot wait for the day tomorrow!

Do you feel ‘drained‘ everyday? Run through the list of people you spend time with, and places you spend time in. And maybe you’ll find what you need to do differently.

Very inspiring! :)

Have a great day!

Have a nice day!

It’s a hello from Oman. :)

We always have less time than we think.

This might seem ‘to the contrary’ if you are stuck with something that you don’t like doing, or going through an ordeal (like exams, a tough personal situation) but either way, you and I have much lesser time than we think.

Because a year later, we will wonder how the time we had seemed to slip us by.

Add a few more years and we will look back at these days and say with a sigh ‘Ah! Those days..’

I just hope many years down the line, we won’t look back at these days and wonder if we did enough, if we lived life as we believe it should be lived. Most importantly, I hope we don’t look at these days with the harsh tone of regret.

So, let’s go out, learn, grow and have fun; for the time we have to define our lives is limited and very often, we let it flit by without realizing it. Let’s not let it flip by – let’s ‘live’ every moment.

—
Happy Sunday everyone. I’m amazed as to how soon my time with close friends and colleagues has flitted past. It’s time now to start packing and get set for a time zone switch, and very soon, it’ll be over to the hectic realities of an intense project. And as with most things that tend to change/define your thinking and perspective, I’m looking forward to it!

On aligning incentives: Let us take a common scenario:

Situation: Jake is trying to sell his house. The real estate agent has told him that a good price for the house would be 300,000 dollars.

Complication: Jake, like, any normal human being, would love to get a little more value out of the deal. And he constantly pushes the real estate agent who refuses to budge. At this point, Jake wonders why the real estate agent is not lapping up the deal in glee! It may be tougher to sell the house, but wouldn’t the extra 10,000 dollars be good for everyone?

Question: Would it really leave Jake’s agent better off?

Analysis: Let’s take a look at the numbers. For the extra $10,000 – the agent fee amounts to 5% or $500. This is split 50% with the buyer’s agent which brings the number down to $250. The agent then splits another 50% with his agency meaning he pockets $125 in return for the extra $9500 he has helped Jake earn. Hence, Jake’s real estate agent is much better off pricing Jake’s house such that the deal is done quickly so he can move on to the next.

This tends to sound common sense but I’ve found myself wondering (in many instances) as to why a friend/colleague doesn’t agree with me on the extra push or effort especially when the benefits seem ‘obvious’ to me.

So, the next time we feel friction or annoyance when asking a colleague or a friend for a favor, let’s make sure we check if our incentives are aligned.

—

Source: ‘Freakonomics‘ by Steven D. Lewitt and Stephen J. Dubner