update

the past few weeks have been rather hectic - with migration work, new algorithms to be designed, experiments to be made, scripts to be written, bugs to be solved..

to make it more interesting, quite a few of my colleagues became parents (or got married), so the department is running at sub-optimal efficiency at the present time.

the only plus to all these is the continuous influx of books which I've purchased. I think I've had 100 book purchases since then. Since I'm a fast reader, I read about 2 books per week - so you can calculate how long these would last me.

Thankfully, not all books are thin: some are thick and full of abstract points which have to be re-read and digested. Unthankfully, these books are also heavy, and lugging some of these around can be murder.

Why do i have an attraction for books? well. it seem to run in the family: my dad has an extensive library and I seem to do quite well in following in His steps. The main difference is that I'm reading my books and he no longer does that.

Another reason is that books teach. Imagine that we have the opportunities to gather some of the finest teachers in the world across all ages. Imagine that we could get them all in one room, and we can take private lessons from them and see the world through their eyes. How would our world be recoloured then?

of course we can't gather such an assembly (though perhaps, we could in the afterlife, in heaven) but here's what we can do instead: we can gather great books. Books that teach us to look at the world as they did. Books that teach us about life. And we can apply these thoughts. Even if we do not agree with the views, the very act of analysis has already developed our minds: do we agree with this view? why do we agree/disagree? could there be another way of looking at the situation?

of course, this way of reading means that you test all you read, not because you want to doubt, but because you want to have a broader perspective..

have a good weekend, everyone!