Sleep: A Biased View Of Life

Sleep. Its such an essential part of the human way of life that we tend to overlook its importance.

Why do we sleep? What makes it so important that we spend one third of our life sleeping?

Sleep is a way for the brain to focus on passive maintenance of the body. When we are awake, our brain can only focus on the current activities that need to be addressed. When we sleep, the brain has its resources freed and can therefore use them for other vital activities such cell regeneration, healing, relaxing stressed body areas and so on.

Research has shown that sleep deprivation is extremely detrimental to health. Here is an awesome video that shows the effects of sleep deprivation on facial appearance.

But many don't take this so seriously. We feel that sleeping less is synonymous with having a busy life, and having a busy life is a sign of working hard in this socially fast-paced world.


An Excerpt I found from this article Bring back the 40-hour work week - Salon

Research by the US military has shown that losing just one hour of sleep per night for a week will cause a level of cognitive degradation equivalent to a .10 blood alcohol level. Worse: most people who’ve fallen into this state typically have no idea of just how impaired they are. It’s only when you look at the dramatically lower quality of their output that it shows up. 

So had some good sleep lately? If not, you definitely should. There are so many benefits of getting a good night's rest. You will be more active through out the day, and will have soaring energy levels. Your body will relatively be more fit, and you will most likely be in a better mood. Your concentration levels will be better, thus decision making skills and memory skills will also be better.


Have a wonderful sleep time ;)

The Life of a Techie: A Biased View Of Life

Half the screen in white. The other half in red. A head just half a foot away from the screen. Motionless.

"What in the world are you talking about!" you might exclaim. No, nothing horrifying here.

Welcome to the life of a software professional.

"What's with the red, white, and motionless stuff?" you might wonder. Just the average day for a techie who churns out many bugs and errors as the lines of code exponentially pile up - then stares at the screen as all hell breaks loose and wonders what just happened.

According to Google,
techie (noun) - a person who is expert in or enthusiastic about technology, especially computing.

A Techie is synonymous to any technologist. Or a Developer. Or a Tester. Or an Entrepreneur. Whoever dons the role of a techie, however, will get used to one thing: trying out new stuff and utterly fail, only to try again and again. Until Success. (Maybe.)

This infinite loop of developing new stuff, then maintaining it, especially in software, is termed as the software development cycle. Of course this cycle is applicable to any stream of technology. The thing to remember: this cycle is endless. Create and Maintain. The moment one stage is broken, the cycle breaks and the product fails. Period.

A Techie must have exceedingly high patience and determination. Why? The simple answer is he has to live through multiple iterations of the development cycle. A techie needs determination to finish what he starts and patience to see through the maintenance.

But come to think of it, aren't all humans techies in their own right? Every person is the architect of his/her life, and go through the development cycle of their lives. Everyone fails at some point in life until they learn from their mistakes and succeed. It all seems to be part of a bigger picture, the grand picture of Life.

Cheers!

First Post: A Biased View Of Life

Life. We tend to exaggerate what we really don't understand. Humans have such good imagination; we probably over-use it a lot.

But its our imagination that has brought us this far. Civilization, technology, everything we see is the result of humans' ability not only to imagine but to bring that imagination into reality. Scientists, Inventors, and Entrepreneurs have dedicated their lives to the betterment of mankind in some form or another. 

Life. It's an extraordinary something that's just beyond description. Can we really justify a definition for it?

Many throughout the ages have tried to find the answers to our existance. We have so many philosophical teachers, to whom we should be extremely grateful for. They have tried to justify the meaning of our existence in this universe. And they have done an excellent  job explaining it to us in a language we can understand.

Life. To Live.

(These were thoughts that just popped up in my head while eating tomato soup)