Virtually impossible

"I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive. I am not young, and I..."

Wed, 16 May 2012 16:40:27 +0200

“I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive. I am not young, and I love life. But I should scorn to shiver with terror at the thought of annihilation. Happiness is none the less true happiness because it must come to an end, nor do thought and love lose their value because they are not everlasting. Many a man has borne himself proudly on the scaﬀold; surely the same pride should teach us to think truly about man’s place in the world. Even if the open windows of science at ﬁrst make us shiver after the cosy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing
myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigour, and the great spaces have a splendour of their own.”

- Bertrand Russell, What I Believe (via philphys)

moneyisnotimportant: Samuel Beckett

Sat, 12 May 2012 10:54:23 +0200

moneyisnotimportant:

Samuel Beckett

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness."

Fri, 11 May 2012 14:08:30 +0200

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.”

- Mark Twain

skeptv: The Higgs Boson Explained by PHD Comics HT Cosmic...

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 11:48:20 +0200

skeptv:

The Higgs Boson Explained

by PHD Comics

HT Cosmic Variance.

Some dearly needed perspective.

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 09:21:10 +0200

Some dearly needed perspective.

The rollercoaster is getting ready to take off and I find myself...

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 16:01:27 +0200

The rollercoaster is getting ready to take off and I find myself not entirely trusting the safety straps. That is how I’m feeling right now.

No better way to learn how to swim than to be thrown into the deep water, I guess.

Sometimes, there are some things in life I am sure about. Usually, though, I second guess most, if...

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 23:51:00 +0100

Sometimes, there are some things in life I am sure about. Usually, though, I second guess most, if not all decisions I have made in my adult life so far.

I was happy at some point in the past couple of months, and it was when I had the feeling I was going somewhere that wasn’t the here and now. It was crazy and exciting and adventurous and it was going to change my life in an incredible way, whatever the outcome.

I want to grow and learn. I want to excel at whatever I’m doing. It’s like I have an insatiable hunger for knowledge. About everything. And I look around the world and I throw myself on top of everything I can find, but it feels like swimming against the current, because there is just too much stuff.

I need direction, a purpose. I need a goal.

"My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it..."

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 23:13:31 +0100

“My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.”

- Stephen Hawking (via philphys)

Photo

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 23:04:29 +0100

There is something magical about old friends, a packed Bar des Amis and alcohol. #lifeisgood

Sat, 03 Dec 2011 14:36:19 +0100

There is something magical about old friends, a packed Bar des Amis and alcohol. #lifeisgood

Working at the current home office (aka the couch), waiting for 3 cubic metres of wood to be...

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 10:45:41 +0100

Working at the current home office (aka the couch), waiting for 3 cubic metres of wood to be delivered.

RT @dotBen: A DBA walks into a NoSQL Bar. He looked around and didn’t find any tables. So he...

Sun, 27 Nov 2011 13:54:51 +0100

RT @dotBen: A DBA walks into a NoSQL Bar.
He looked around and didn’t find any tables.
So he left.

Photo

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 10:42:27 +0100

Nerves

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 20:54:44 +0100

No really, you guys, I have a big issue with nerves getting the better of me all of a sudden.

At work, I get thrown from one stressful environment into the next and I just cruise on through, never letting it get to me: Just staying focused on the task and being careful not to make mistakes.

In the past few weeks I’ve been made to talk about myself and my knowledge in a way I’ve never encountered before to achieve a goal I am really incredibly personally motivated to achieve.

And it’s almost like my brain just falls out and I lose all grip on what I’m usually quite comfortable with and start yapping like a headless chicken. It’s awful. I have never felt this way before. It feels like those dreams where you are shopping for groceries and you suddenly realize you forgot to put your clothes on.

Anyone have some suggestions on how to grow a thicker skin?

Working on location @indie_group, to help them create a comprehensive stresstest methodology for...

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 18:37:26 +0100

Working on location @indie_group, to help them create a comprehensive stresstest methodology for their software platform. Nice place! :)

Well, at least I didn’t lose my VM’s. #smallvictories

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 11:22:54 +0100

Well, at least I didn’t lose my VM’s. #smallvictories

Photo

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 09:28:06 +0100

Trying to achieve #inboxzero is a glorious sunday morning goal. Been at it since 7.

Sun, 06 Nov 2011 18:45:21 +0100

Trying to achieve #inboxzero is a glorious sunday morning goal. Been at it since 7.

Humbled

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 10:25:02 +0100

I haven’t felt the way I’m feeling right now in a very long time.

There’s this feeling of invincibility you get when you’re in a job for a couple of years. You get quite secure in your knowledge, you’ve built confidence over the years. You get into this comfortable zone where you’re pretty sure you can handle whatever gets thrown your way. It’s possible you lose motivation to do the best job you can at what you’re doing, but you increase your reliability and, most of all, your efficiency.

As soon as you get thrown into another environment, though, that feeling of security fades, and the higher the stakes, the harder it gets to feel comfortable in your actions, even when you’ve performed them hundreds of times before.

Yesterday, I did a very important test that might decide (in part) where my life is headed for the next couple of years.

I prepared for it quite well, going through all my resources again, setting up a test environment that let me experiment and refamiliarize myself with tools I hadn’t used in a while. All in all, I don’t think I could’ve prepared much better than I did. I was resolved to do this right, it was of the utmost importance.

When I received the assignment, I read through it and thought to myself “Awesome, this is very doable”. I felt incredibly nervous, though, and as I got started began to doubt myself very heavily. I got sloppy, second-guessed myself constantly and made mistakes I would never make in my comfortable work environment, where I perform exactly the same tasks.

In my opinion, I messed up quite badly, and I didn’t deliver the quality of work I would want to deliver a real customer.

But it’s out of my hands now, there’s nothing I can do to fix it anymore.

I needed this reality check quite badly, I realize now. It’s really dangerous to get too comfortable in your job, lest you lose the ability to adapt to changes.

If I could do it over again, I would do a much better job. But I can’t. That’s life.

Live and learn, Liz.

Can’t complain too much about Howest being closed today,...

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 10:50:38 +0100

Can’t complain too much about Howest being closed today, forcing me to work from home…