Essential Feature of a Great Speaker

Essential feature of a Great Speaker is Great Content. This idea came to me today as I was thinking of the last SANEA lecture and Brian Stratham presentation. He kept my attention for the whole 40-50 minutes of the lecture. I wanted to make so many notes, but was too scared to miss out on what he was saying. Only wrote down a few sentences after the lecture. And even these few sentences are full of meaning still.
Was his speech perfect? Not at all. Did he have a perfect clear voice? No, again. But the content was brilliant.
So the bottom line - if you have nothing to say - rather shut up. No beautiful words, perfect tone or immaculate language will save a speech without a meaning.

Sustainable Society

Met my supervisor on Monday - looks like my research is going to take a serious sustainability angle. I think it is great :) I keep thinking about that article I've read in UAE embassy last year. It was talking about how current economy model is not working - because of environmental damage that it causes and very unequal goods distribution. Further to that I've heard another discussion of the same topic, but in that case the underutilisation of the current youth was mentioned as a symptom of the economic model problem.
I certainly do not understand what is economic model in general and what is the current one exactly, that's why my thinking is so vague. But I think that is something that I must look into in my research as well. Economically sustainable society should also be able to function without environmental damage and allowing all its members to reach decent level of living..
It's getting more interesting :)

Sunday Mornings..

I am not only getting old, I AM old! Second time I start my Sunday morning with a cup of coffee and Financial Times...My only excuse that it happens during the break on my 23 km morning run (I stop at the gym at 17 km to buy coffee and read newspaper).

PhD = Active Process of Changing Yourself

I think I came up to the root of the difficulty of writing a PhD. It is not so much in writing or learning - it is actively forcefully changing yourself from inside out. You might end up changing everything what you are standing on. Scary - who will you be at the end?

Registration..

So I wrote this post 3 years ago - I see nothing changes in my life, I still see the registration at the university as the worst nightmare. Time to get to the new level? Probably. I FEEL STUCK!

Passion vs Experience

Contemplating on my life experience: all that I've achieved was done with passion. Experience has nothing. In fact the more experienced I am in anything, the worse I perform in it. I need to pay more attention to my passions if I want to achieve more in life...maybe I should learn that zulu ;) And the biggest secret - coding is so-so-so boring! (that's I am getting in touch with my emotions). I really can't do what I know how to do already :(

"But man does not create... he discovers."

Quote by Antoni Gaudi.

Another Version of Proposal

Yes, and finally - I've managed to fix a few issues, noted by my supervisor and re-submitted it again. Please, can I go to the panel now? :)
Anyways, yesterday, I was reading some very serious government regulations about electricity saving, and was quite unipressed with the mistakes and typos in them. How can it be, that we, students, are demanded to write perfectly, not only in grammar, but in style, whereas the government can't bother less?

On a side note: accordding to internet (ha!) technical writer is one of the most highly paid professions. I wonder why? Do people really like to read that much? But I guess I'm not going that way again. It really sells your brains...

Relativity of time

Most of the work is done in a tiny percentage of time. The rest of it we do nothing. Probably don't even think.

Journeys and Destinations

I was thinking today (yeah, I still do sometimes, for practice) of the futility of human life. Probably, the result of hearing on the radio that NASA managed to take photographs of back side of the Sun. I mean, cool, why do we need to see it? As the radio DJ said, if we will actually see it, it will mean that the things went really wrong! But we can see it on the photographs when the things are still ok.

But it's very inspiring: somebody came up with the idea that we need to see it, spend LOTS OF money on it, and I'm sure all the participants severely enjoyed the project. And now the whole world can see our greatest Star in its full glory:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/feb/06/first-panoramic-view-sun

Obviously, we are all excited and happy about it.
And I am...ahh - soo envious!!! How do people come up with these ideas! I mean all these big dreams... Imagine how fantastically interesting the life can be when it is filled with all this journeys to fantastic destinations???