Non-practice

I have a TikTok account, but I don’t actively use it.

I rarely watch TikTok videos and haven’t posted on TikTok other than some reposts of other people’s videos.

My main issue with TikTok? You can’t fast-forward in a video. If a video is 30 seconds long, you can’t watch the 10 seconds at the end.

This might be minor for a single video, but if I constantly can’t jump ahead in videos, I prefer not to use the platform.

I also don’t like Facebook. They have some unskippable notifications and invitations, and if I am to read the posts in my Facebook feed, a lot of it is not something I would like. And, of course, there are the ads.

But I keep saying. Facebook is not about the platform, which I might like or not; it’s about the people who are there.

I follow some Facebook accounts that only post on Facebook some pieces of information.

When someone says “I don’t use Facebook”, what they generally mean is that they don’t like the Facebook feed.

But how about doing things like I do – just visiting some Facebook profiles. I have some bookmarks, and I visit, daily for some, weekly for some, and monthly for some, Facebook profiles.

I use Facebook quite a lot for posting and for one thing only – for consuming content exactly as I need it.

The best part? While the Facebook news feed is generally filled with Ads, if I visit a Facebook profile (page/user), they generally don’t have any ads.

So, to me Facebook is not about “This is about a poorly-made news feed”, but “Person X and Entity Y can only be found on Facebook. For them, I use it”.

Perhaps TikTok also has its influencers and great content, but I’m too annoyed by their system to actually use it.

Citește mai departe

I think I read in a book by Derek Sivers that if you want to change the world, you’re better off working for a company and financing an NGO, rather than working at an NGO.

Also, I think you need a system that scales. That “system” can be either other people or a very good personal productivity.

I like this quote by Google AI:

To “change the world,” you need to build or improve systems that enable widespread, sustainable, and positive change, rather than relying solely on individual actions or grand pronouncements. This means creating organized structures, processes, or networks designed to solve problems, allocate resources, and empower people to achieve collective goals. Focusing on systems allows a single person’s efforts to multiply and create lasting, large-scale impact.

I would like to change the world a little. Perhaps, I don’t know? Start with myself?

Citește mai departe

În copilărie, cu aventurile din primii ani ai lui ’90, am supărat pe cineva foarte tare.
M-a așteptat cu fratele lui să mă bată. M-a lovit, etc.
Am vrut să plec, știam că vrea să îmi facă mai mult rău.
La un moment dat, după câteva secunde, fiind strict cu spatele, m-am aplecat brusc foarte mult.
Deasupra mea a trecut un bolovan, o piatră de câteva kilograme bune, aruncată direct asupra zonei gâtului/capului.
El l-a aruncat cu convingerea că nu mă uit. Nu mă uitasem.
A fost una din situațiile în care știu sigur că aș fi pățit ceva foarte grav.
Intenționat când am mers am mers în așa fel încât să dau impresia că nu mă uit, și să fie sigur și să dea.
Dar sincronizarea cu bolovanul a fost la secundă.

Citește mai departe

I did some coaching training, years ago, with dr. Cătălin Zaharia, PhD.

Years passed, and at some point I told him I had realized something – “Look, I understood X”.

His reply was nice (approximate quote):

“If you don’t do a thing you wish to do for a change, it’s just information.”

Implementation is everything; you have to apply what you said is important to you.

Citește mai departe

At some various times in life, I was told I say boring, simple, obvious things. This happened both offline and online.

Of course, most people would likely be boring at some point, while at other times less so.

Another “of course”, sometimes I would actually say something boring, not a clever idea, just some form of a thing which, although true, everyone knows already.

I recently read that online people tend to go to extremes. They pick a point of view, while others take an opposite one, and what’s lacking is the middle point, the crossroad of various opinions, the melting point of opposing thoughts.

Online, people tend to be either A or non-A, but not in the middle of those views.

In this case, perhaps the observation I got, “you’re boring!” might not be so disheartening.

This isn’t a way to start saying boring and simple things.

There is a case, though of saying something less obvious, but not in extremes.

Citește mai departe

Năvodari expanded in the previous years. Houses got built. I got to walk through its streets and found some disturbing facts: the houses’ gardens are small (1), the roads are not wide enough for my taste (2), there is little emphasis put on parks (3), everything is crowded (4), there seems to be no general design rules in architecture – everyone builds their house however they see fit (5).

At one point, there was a piece of news stating that some fire trucks couldn’t enter some streets due to not following street width requirements.

Suppose you think of a communist-era neighborhood block of flats, things like “crowded” come to mind. But at least they followed a few principles and rules.

There is a game called Caesar III. In the game, you could expand a city. If you did so, people would move into a specific neighborhood.

There was a catch, though – you needed to keep the people happy. It was not enough to just build some houses; you had to think about things like entertainment, safety, public health – things like that. If there were a larger area without any means of amusement, people would become unhappy and move out of the buildings.

It keeps surprising me – who would want to move to a neighborhood that is crowded, has no entertainment, each house looks different than the other, and there is a general little emphasis on the Quality of Life?

Citește mai departe

What would you do if you met a person you fell in love with, but there’s a catch – the person doesn’t love you back?
There’s a saying that:

“All is fair in love and war” –  John Lyly’s Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit

If you insist, you would say something like “Oh, but you are wrong, you didn’t get the situation properly, let me explain things to you”.

I prefer a different approach – consider that the person thinks properly, there is no fault in the person’s logic, and do not insist. Avoid insisting, pushing things, and trying to make things work. Get the message and put the other person, like you say you already do, on the first rank. Adjust the situation to her perspective, don’t force your view on the world.

Citește mai departe

I recently took part in an event about start-ups.

One of the mentors told me one thing that stuck with me – it’s important to dedicate full-time to a project.

It’s not easy to create something big without a full-time dedication.

Citește mai departe