Verba Peregrini

{cha:pandoc}

I’m using to type my blog posts here and elsewhere. However, as you can see in my previous post, I sometimes mistake markups. I couldn’t remember how to write in markdown, and I made a wrong guess to put them in between @@ signs. (A holdover from my PMWiki days, I think.)

I don’t like X(HT)ML style for markup, hence my preference of Markdown in the first place. However I don’t use Markdown’s much of the syntax and I can easily forget them.

So, I decided to write my posts in LaTeX and use Pandoc to convert them to. I already know AucTeX’s keybindings for fonts in LaTeX, and would be more than happy to generate PDF books from my wiki posts by collecting them in a master file.

I’ve used XMonad tiling window manager for several years in my previous laptop, until its fan died.

Then, I decided to go more mainstream in my next Debian installation and didn’t bother to change the default Gnome. Main reason was this: I was managing the wireless networking with custom scripts around @@wpa_supplicant@@ and I didn’t dare to do this another time to replace the crap called Network Manager. (I still don’t know and refuse to know how and why this thing manages wireless connections independent of @@/etc/network/interfaces@@)

To keep it short: My disdain grew so much that XMonad + sporadic wired connection looked better than Gnome + wireless. I had already an installation of XMonad, and removed Network Manager in a minute. I copied my older configuration file @@xmonad.hs@@ and @@Alt-Q@@ recompiled it in the same session, and whoa, without errors, I’m back to my beloved.

Then, I googled for a replacement for NM and found this tool called @@wicd@@ with ncurses interface and can work independent of window manager. It looks good. At least I can set a cron job to turn off the network after 9PM.

Keeping numbers about it could be seen against the very sanctity of human soul by some. I agree, to some extent, that numbers may hide what we like to reveal. When I feel myself a smart guy who could do much better in the exams (especially in the exams that I ask the questions), I don’t like the numbers. They are dumb.

But recently I’ve managed to put in yet another way to quantify myself (but not compare with others.) I’m measuring how long I walked, worked, or read pages and create a spreadsheet (using Google Docs) to give me points for these. I use a few tools along the way, like My Tracks to measure my walking distance and oDesk Team to track my work time but the principles can be applied without these.

Currently I’m measuring the work in minutes (W), number of times that I performed prayer (P), meters that I jog (J), pages I read or minutes I listen to podcast ®, Anki decks I complete (A), words that I write (S) and minutes I spent for the workout (O). Then I measure my daily raw score with the formula:

=(W / 10) * P * (J/100 + O) * (R / 20 + 1) * (A + 1) * (S / 100 + 1)

The gist is this formula is this: I multiply all factors after dividing them with some arbitrary number. For some I add 1, to keep the multiplication intact even if I do nothing for that task, for others that I see critical, I keep the number as is. So, when I don’t jog, or work, or pray (in the Islamic sense) in a day, my score is 0, but if I do these but don’t write, I get a score, albeit a bit lower.

The real points that I use is the seventh root of the resulting number. (It’s a numbing number.) There are six numbers that I multiply in the above formula, and I add another root to keep everything within a threshold. If I work 10 minutes, pray one time and run 100 meters, I get a score of 1, if I work 8 hours, pray all 5 salats, jog for 8000 meters, repeat all 4 Anki decks, read 300 pages and write 2000 words, I get 11.82. I usually end up in the 4-6 interval.

This is the income, then I have some expenses from this point: 1 point for playing a game for 1 hour, or eating a not-so-healthy snack or dish. I collect the remaining points and spend them to buy games or books, for $1 = 1 point. In a usual day, I spend 2 or 3 points if I don’t buy anything.

It may seem complex, but once implemented on a spreadsheet, it’s simply to write seven numbers at the end of the day. There might be several modifications to this as well:

• You can multiply the points remaining from previous day with a constant (like 1.03) for an interest. This may motivate you to not to spend your points and buy more expensive gadgets like electronics with these in the future. I’m currently testing this idea.

• It might be possible to calculate total points with multiplication as well, instead of adding them day by day. This enables to set a larger interval, (like 25 days) to accumulate points to push for habits. Instead of addition, if you multiply the last 25 days’ points and take 25th root, you can get a score for your habits. In this case, if you’re working to get a habit to walk daily but didn’t do once in the last 25 days, you’ll get 0 for the total score.

In summary, the procedure is something like:

• List the tasks that you want to (or should) do routinely. Identify at most three as critical. Focusing on a single critical task is usually the most effective.

• Think about measuring these: If you don’t have gadgets to measure your walking distance, you may measure the time you spend outdoors. If you can’t measure your time for work, you can think about an objective quantity (like lines of programming code, number of words for writing, number of slides in a presentation) for your work. Please keep this simple as you shouldn’t spend more than 10 minutes to measure your day.

• Bring forth a formula with weights. If something is critical for you, multiply as is, otherwise add 1 to the number to avoid 0s.

• You can also decide your expenses, the number of cigarettes you smoke, time spent in front of television, etc. You may need to play with numbers for a positive balance. If you smoke 10 cigarettes a day and your points vary between 3 to 6, and you decide to spend 1 point for each cigarette, you’ll get a negative balance from day one and possibly won’t have the motivation to write the numbers after a few days. We’re not trying to push ourselves for goals, just to see how we did for that day.

It had a positive effect on me, as I got only one zeros in the last twenty days. I still dislike to compare myself with others using bare numbers, but to measure my progress, numbers look like good friends.

I didn’t vote in the last election. I never have voted. Mostly because of a desire to keep myself as objective as possible in daily politics, exchanging illusion of control with an illusion of political sterility.

Turkish conservative thought has flaws, caused by the fact that there is not a model that blends Islamic and democratic traditions before it. A synthesis had to be created, as the society in general was well aware that it has lost the traditional way of conflict with the West and modernization. This synthesis was not in the sense of Kemalist top-down modernization but rather bottom-up, through teaching masses that traditional values may live together with Western Science and political goals.

One of the neglected aspects of this evolution was the constant flow of tales from Europe, as a wave of Gastarbeiters located mainly in Germany, had their yearly visits to their villages. When they came, they brought gifts, and they also brought stories that tell how everything works in Europe, how the state is respectful to its citizens, how the military is not visible, how they have to obey traffic rules. Dreams of a generation is shaped by those tales and it started to fire (for the first time since Tanzimat) a model of civil movement that’s not shaped by government but also tries to be modern. This modernism had its challenges, since not everything in Europe was desirable from a conservative POV, but rightist ideology confirmed that the financial and industrial development is the path to follow.

Gastarbeiters’ position in their new countries was telling to those in Turkey that their relatives, with skills similar to theirs was living far better than them, and it was evident that this was caused by the ruling class: Bureaucracy. These two dynamics, along with a new rhetoric spelling the West is living Islam unknowingly are the primary factors of this movement. It’s visible in their rhetoric about democracy, their views to EU, and also their amateur ways of dealing with the Kurdish problem and the social justice. Current views of AK voters’ about West is not basically different from a Gastarbeiter’s view of a European city, with all its shine in technology and industry. From this focus on infrastructure, there arises a contrast with rather more Westernized parts of the society, who understand the West more in a cultural sense. When AK talks about the West, it talks about industry and autobahns, when the party of Kemalist heritage CHP talks about the West, it talks about culture and art. It’s evident that Turkish society favors the former and those who are not genetically brought forward this development view can’t be successful in the near future.

Until it spins off its own opposition, which is likely to happen in the next five-to-ten years, it looks almost impossible to gain ground against AK movement with traditional ways of Turkish politics. Until then analysts will continue to be shocked with election results.

I modified the theme, changed blog’s name to Verba Peregrini which is coarsely the Latin translation of Wandering Words.

I would like to post about politics and Turkish culture, along with some geekish stuff that I find here and there.

Önceki akşam adı Ahmet olan amcam senelik mutad aramalarından birini yaptı, ben de bir süresidir farkında olduğum gerçeği somut ve soğuk hissettim. Ahmet Ferzan’ın Ahmet’i, bana ismi Ahmet olan peygamberi değil, soyadı benimkiyle aynı olan amcamı hatırlatacaktı…

Onun ismini başka bir fanide görmek istemiyorum. Yes.

B planı, Ahmet’i Ali’yle değiştirip Ali Ferzan yapmaktı. Akraba cinsinde Ali yok. Olabilir. Yalnız Ali Ferzan standartlarımıza göre kısa bir isim, annesi öğretmenliğinde uzun öğrenci isimlerini yazarken kaynaklanan duygu dalgalanmalarının getirdiği hassasiyetlerle kısa bir isim istiyordu, ama iki aydır evde yatmasının getirdiği gönülden ıraklık bu hassasiyetlerini hafifletmiş olacak ki başına bir isim daha eklemeyi kabul etti.

Babasının Freakonomics freak’i yüzünden A ile başlaması gereken bir isim. Açtık sözlüğü yeniden. Üç isim: Ahkem, Agah ve annesinin Internetten bulduğu Affan… Bunlardan biri Ali Ferzan’ın başına gelecek. Narsizmin doruklarında gezen haleti ruhiyem bir yandan kulağıma, bunların yerine kendi ismim İbadullah’ı getirmeyi üflüyor, arada sırada şakaymış gibi söyledim, hatta ben o ismin çok nimetini gördüm de dedim ama ne nimetini gördüğünü anlatamayınca insanlar (yani Mader-i Ferzan Hazretleri) pek muvafık bakmıyor. İbadullah Ali Ferzan güzel olurdu aslında.

Neyse. Restoran seçmek, film seçmek, bilgisayar seçmek, tatil güzergahı seçmek gibi çok önemli konularda uyguladığım bir kura yöntemi vardır: Seçeneklerden biri arka arkaya gelinceye kadar kura çekerim, kaç defa olduğunu meselenin ne kadar önemli olduğu belirler. Restoran seçerken iki defa arka arkaya bir seçeneğin çıkmasını beklerim, tatil mekanı için üç… En az tatil mekanı kadar önemli bir mesele olduğundan bunda da kağıtlara isimleri yazdım, Affan’ı annesi biraz daha istiyor gibi göründüğünden onu iki kağıda, diğerlerini de birer kağıda yazdım. Olasılık hesabına vurursak, 1/8 ihtimalle Affan, 1/64 ihtimalle Agah veya Ahkem olabilecekti.

Mader-i Ferzan buradan bir sonuç çıkmaz diyor, belli bir sonuç ihtimali 10/64, ama çıkana kadar devam ettireceğimiz için bir zarı, belli bir sayı gelinceye kadar atmak gibi bir şey. Eninde sonunda beklediğin sayı gelecektir.

Kağıtları bir bardakta toplayıp yatağa atıyorum, hangisi en ileriye düşerse onu seçiyoruz. İlk birkaç el çok heyecanlı geçti, ancak benim de beklediğim Affan değil, Agah kazandı.

Agah Ali Ferzan yani. Söylenmesi kolay, açık büfe gibi isim, hangisini istersen onu kullan.

İbadullah Emre ve Yasemin Zeynep gibi onüç harfli. Bugün de Haziran’ın onüçü nitekim. (MHP genel başkanı istifa ederse korkmasınlar, ben yeterli ölçüde hesap kitap biliyorum.)

Buradan bizim oğlana sesleniyorum: Yavrucuğum, bi doğacakmış gibi, bi doğmayacakmış gibi yapıyorsun, yani, olmuyor. İki hafta daha beklersen iki üç ismin daha olacak, sen de şaşıracaksın, biz de şaşıracağız.