week six reflections

journey continues

idea

This week I stood before the statue to Carl Linnaeus. Grandiose. Inspiring.

I may have read about him in a book on Darwin, or I may have heard it told by my grandfather. Classifying animals and plants was a step forward in understanding how life came about.

My thoughts were on the value of this monument. Does it benefit Professor Linnaeus in any way? Who is the beneficiary if not him? The people? What is the memory of a nation? In what way does the memory of an outstanding person contribute to the nation? For a person who shares an identity with Professor Linnaeus, does it uplift the spirit?

words

This week I would like to mention a word that the Germans use to describe the ability to improvise on the basis of an understanding of the situation. The word is "Fingerspitzengefühl". I first heard it 5 years ago. It was a tip from my manager on how to behave in a meeting. I would get "the feeling of fingertips" if I tried to translate it word for word. The Duden dictionary translates it as "[s]ensitivity; empathy in dealing with people and things". Somehow this word keeps turning up in my conversations. If people use it, does that mean they tend to use intuition?

blogging

metrics

Google Analytics show that there was a spike last week when I published last post but as I am not publishing links in social networks, there is little traffic. The change with the GDPR pop did not change the picture yet.

On Telegram number of my subscribers did not change.

skills and knowledge

Last week I failed to solve a sliding window problem in the competition. So I decided to concentrate on this type of problem. I have solved one almost every day. What are the key concepts that I am missing? I would say that I am good at using sets and maps. This type of problem requires a mixture of two indices and a set or a map. Here I used the birthday present from the Jahongir - Neetcode account for the first type. The author has done a good job of consistently describing solutions to numerous problems and wrapping them into one product.

body and soul

What is the optimal level of stress? What if we are too soft on ourselves? What if we are always in the comfort zone? Who defined a comfort zone? I am even demotivated by the disproportion of how much people use the term "comfort zone" to what I now see on the English Wiki. The Russian version is even shorter, with a reference to the much-loved but outdated Soviet encyclopaedia. When I was in Samarkand, I always felt the aura of competition. Strive, concentrate, perform - that was my mantra at the time. In Tashkent, at Westinster University, I saw some slackers at university who managed to enjoy life and still study well. And finally, in Berlin, I saw people doing the bare minimum and enjoying life to the fullest.

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