Ghurbat

Ghurbat maal o dolat se mehroom honay ka naam nahin hai, ghurbat bhari dunya main tanha honay ka naam hai. 

Poverty is not when you have no money, poverty is when in the whole wide world, you're all alone. 

— Dr Amjad Saqib, Akhuwat Foundation 

Prayer for son

https://www.nytimes.com/1964/04/06/archives/macarthur-leaves-a-spiritual-legacy-prayer-for-his-son.html

WASHINGTON, April 5 (AP) —General of the Army Douglas MacArthur is leaving a spiritual legacy to his son, Arthur —a father's prayer that he wrote in the Philippines during the desperate early days of the Pacific war.

According to the General's biographer and confidant, Maj. Gen. Courtney Whitney, the family repeated this MacArthur prayer many times during early morning devotions:

“Build me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak, and brave enough to face himself when he is afraid; one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat, and humble and gentle in victory.

“Build me a son whose wishes will not take the place of deeds; a son who will know Thee—and that to know himself is the foundation stone of knowledge.

“Lead him, I pray, not in the path of ease and comfort, but under the stress and spur of difficulties and challenge. Here let him learn to stand up in the storm; here let him learn compassion for those who fail.

“Build me a son whose heart will be clear, whose goal will be high, a son who will master himself before he seeks to master other men, one who will reach into the future, yet never forget the past.

“And after all these things are his, add, I pray, enough of a sense of humor, so that he may always be serious, yet never take himself too seriously. Give him humility, so that he may always remember the simplicity or true greatness, the open mind of true wisdom, and the meekness of true strength.

“Then I, his father, will dare to whisper, ‘I have not lived in vain.’”

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Staying Motivated in Fitness

 First, get the reasons for losing motivation out of the day. 

1. Not seeing results. 

Maybe you're not sticking to it, stick to it for 1-3 months. You will get results. 

Trying things and realizing something's not for you, it's part of the journeey. 

2. How much you care about fitness?

Decide for yourself, how much you care about it. 

Overweight happy people. They say they're gonna die somehow, so why not with disease. 

How fit do you want ot be?

How much do you care about fitness? If not much. Think about some fun things. playing Tennis? Badminton? Walking? Hiking? Take a look into VR sports. 

3. Lifestyle and Diet

Is your sleep and food in check? 

If you're sleep deprived and exhausted, how can you feel like exercising? Your body is telling you to rest, because that's what you need. 

If your nutrition if out of balance, you don't have enough nutrients to work out. Your body is telling you you're famished. 

A 30-second exercise to 3X your follow through by Steven Kotler

In the early 2000s at the University of Bath, a team of researchers led by Sarah Milne conducted a simple experiment with the goal of promoting exercise participation.

Two-hundred-forty-eight adults were randomly assigned to one of three groups:

Group one was instructed to read a few paragraphs from a random novel before working out.

Group two a pamphlet on the heart benefits of exercise.

But the third group received a different set of instructions.

In addition to reading the pamphlet, they were told to use the following sentence to formulate an exact workout plan:

"During the next week, I will partake in at least twenty minutes of vigorous exercise on [DAY] at [TIME] OF DAY in [PLACE]."

The results?

• 38% of participants in the first group exercised at least once per week
• 35% of participants in the second group exercised at least once per week
• 91% of participants in the third group exercised at least once a week

That wasn’t a typo.

Writing a single sentence nearly tripled the likelihood of participants following through on the goals they set.

Although more research is required to establish the true efficacy of implementation intentions––the scientific name for this process––the implications are profound.

By engaging in this 30-60 second exercise, we can increase our capacity to follow through on our big goals––and the daily action steps required to achieve them––by orders of magnitude.

For example:

• If you’re struggling to wake up without hitting snooze, you can use this tool during your end of day planning or bedtime journaling
  
  
• If you want to stay focused on an important project, you can take a few moments to write out your implementation intentions before beginning a deep work block
  
  
• If you want to be more present with your family, you can stack this into your end of day review before you leave the office

The point here is simple.

Tiny hinges swing big doors. 

Procrastination

Procrastination can be a difficult habit to break, but there are several strategies you can use to overcome it:

1. Break tasks into smaller chunks: Large, overwhelming tasks can be daunting, which can lead to procrastination. To combat this, break the task down into smaller, more manageable chunks. This can make it feel less overwhelming and more manageable.
2. Set specific deadlines: Give yourself a deadline for when you want to have a task completed. This can help you to stay focused and motivated to complete the task on time.
3. Prioritize your tasks: Make a list of everything you need to do and prioritize them based on importance and urgency. This can help you to stay focused on what needs to be done and avoid getting bogged down in less important tasks.
4. Use the Pomodoro Technique: This is a time management method that suggests breaking work into 25-minute intervals with short breaks in between. It can help keep you focused and prevent procrastination by creating a sense of urgency.
5. Eliminate distractions: Identify and eliminate distractions that might be keeping you from getting your work done. This could include turning off your phone, closing unnecessary tabs on your computer, or working in a quiet space.
6. Hold yourself accountable: Share your goals and deadlines with a friend or family member, or even a colleague at work. This can help to create a sense of accountability and make it less likely that you will procrastinate.
7. Reward yourself: Once you have completed a task, give yourself a reward. This can be something simple like a cup of tea, or something more substantial like a longer break or a movie night with friends.
8. Address the underlying issues: if you find that you procrastinate frequently, it may be useful to examine if the underlying reason is anxiety, lack of motivation, or some other mental health issues, If that's the case, you might want to consider seeking help from therapist or counselor, they can help you to overcome the issues and help you to develop some coping strategies.

It is important to keep in mind that progress takes time and effort, and that it may be difficult to overcome procrastination in a short period of time. Be kind and patient with yourself.

How to Find Happiness at Work in 6 Steps by James Clear

This article was published here originally. I copied it here for posterity. 

“Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.” ~Dalai Lama

A few years back, I worked in a medical practice.

I’d always been fascinated with medicine, and the position allowed me virtually free reign within the practice. I was able to sit in at the operating room during procedures, learn about the medical billing process, chat with patients in the physical therapy unit, and much more.

Basically, the position was a great fit for me, but I still wasn’t happy at work.

Even though I had exposure to many areas, I was rarely given the responsibility I thought I deserved. My opinions seemed to count for very little, and I only had a few friends within the practice—if you could call them that.

Even though I was in a good job in the field that I loved, I still left each day feeling a little less happy with my decision to work there. I didn’t hate my job, but was this really what I was hoping for? I would think things like, “Is this as good as it’s going to get for me?” Or “Is this job going to make me happy, or am I going to be stuck in neutral forever?”

It’s easy to fall into this trap of mediocrity. In the beginning, you might be excited to start something new. But pretty soon you fall into a routine, and then one day you wake up and feel like you’re sleep walking through each work day.

The good news is that life doesn’t have to be perfect for you to find happiness at work. Here are six ways that I turned the sadness ship around and found joy at my job.

1. Develop a social circle.

One of the key indicators of happiness is having a strong social network.

It’s easy to hate your job when you don’t know your co-workers. And it’s even easier to keep hating it if you continue to avoid them. The situation isn’t going to change if your actions stay the same.

In my case, when I came in, I was training with one person for the first week. They were nice, but they didn’t introduce me to anyone else. After that week, everyone was used to seeing me walking the halls, but they were also used to not talking with me. Before I knew it, I had been there two months and barely knew anyone.

When I finally broke the silence, I found out that many of my co-workers were great.

Don’t let another day go by without learning about your co-workers. Friends don’t just fall into people’s laps. You have to make an effort and get to know them. Reach out to your co-workers and be curious about their lives. Two people have never become friends without one of them starting the conversation.

2. Look for opportunities for growth instead of failure.

So often, we worry about protecting ourselves at work. We look at situations not as opportunities to grow but as a chance to fail. We view new ideas with skepticism. The thought that is always in the back of our minds is, “Will this make me look bad?”

The result is that we seldom take advantage of the opportunities before us.

If you feel like you’re always on the defensive on your job, then take a deep breath and look for an opportunity instead. Take joy in the fact that there is always a new project to start in the workplace. It doesn’t matter what you do or where you work, there is always something new that could be done.

Instead of punching the clock and settling in to the same routine, take some time to search for new opportunities. Constantly defending yourself is draining for everyone involved. You’ll find it much easier—and pleasant—to look for opportunities to grow instead of trying to protect yourself.

3. Help someone solve a problem.

When you’re feeling down, there are few actions that can help lift your spirits as much as helping someone else.

When I felt stuck, I reached out to a doctor in the practice who was working on some exciting new research. His study was interesting, but he was too busy (and thought he was too important) to do some of the grunt work.

I offered to do it for him. As a result, I worked on groundbreaking research and helped the doctor move forward with his project. After that, he became one of my biggest advocates.

Help someone else solve a problem and you just might solve some of your own.

4. Take on additional responsibility.

Becoming a more important piece of the puzzle is a sure fire way to improve your attitude at work.

It’s easier to feel excited when you know that your opinion counts. Taking on additional responsibilities will make you feel more respected and valued in the workplace.

If you don’t know where to start, ask your supervisor for suggestions on projects where you can help out.

5. Have enough courage to ask.

If you hate something about your job, then have the courage to ask if you can change it.

If you sit around and expect someone else to change your situation, then you’re going to be sitting for a long time. People are too busy with their own jobs to worry about whether or not you’re satisfied with your role.

Want to get away from a co-worker who annoys you? Ask if you can move to a different department. Want to work on a different project? Ask if you can help out with something new. Want a promotion? Ask your boss what you can do to start working towards it. Want a raise? Ask if you can take on more responsibility and prove that you’re worth more.

You can’t be overbearing or nagging, of course, but you’ll be surprised by how easily you can get what you want if you start asking for it.

6. Take actions that increase good will.

Most of us are happy when people say good things about us. When you do good things for other people, you create happiness for them and set the stage to receive it in return.

For example, compliments are so simple that we often forget about them, but they are so powerful that we should never take them for granted.

If you want to gain the respect of your co-worker, then send them a note about the great presentation they gave last week. If you want to receive the praise of your boss, then praise him first. If you want to catch the eye of the new CEO, then compliment her on the job she has done so far.

You can take this strategy a step further by not being as picky as well. For example, if you’re giving a presentation and your co-worker gets their part 80% right, then don’t worry about correcting them. In the vast majority of situations, it’s far more important to remain a united team than it is to correct every detail.

Try spending a day giving out compliments instead of criticizing people. Gaining respect and happiness in the workplace is easy when good will is abundant.

Finding happiness is as much about the decisions and actions you take as it is about having good things happen to you. And remember, if you don’t enjoy your life, change it! Doing the same thing today will create the same results tomorrow. Try some of these strategies and put yourself in a position for happiness.

A bunch of quotes

“In the midst of repeat failure, some self-delusion about your abilities ... comes in handy.” Bill Watterson

"The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or a hostile universe."  Albert Einstein


"It's OK to slip into advocacy now and then, so long as you do it tastefully. If it sounds high- or heavy-handed — or anything like nagging — you're doing it wrong. Just explain why you care about a particular value. The goal isn't to change individual behavior (at least not directly), but rather to cultivate a network effect. And who doesn't like a network effect?
...

Perhaps a metaphor will help. Delivering a sermon, I think, is a bit like planting a flag and setting up camp. It's an invitation to others: come, join me, it's safe and friendly around here. One strategy is to settle in with a big camp that will accommodate hundreds (or hundreds of millions) of people. Or maybe you'd prefer to huddle around a small campfire with a few close friends. That's nice too, as long as there's reason to gather.

Where do you want to hang your hat and lay your head? Is it good for others to join you? There's your sermon; let them hear it."
—Kevin Simler

14 Rules of working in Pakistan

I listened to this video when it was released, and I loved it. After having worked as an advisor to the CEO of a tech company for the last two years, I went back to this video, and now I am loving it even more, so much so that I am taking notes from it and writing them here. 

1. Don't care for credit. You will be rare, you will be valued like so. If you are heading an institute of your own, then it makes sense to care for credit, otherwise as an employee, let the credit go for those who seek it. You get things done. Everything is possible in Pakistan, if you don't care about who gets the credit. 

2. The cost of success is to be toleratent of envy, injustice and lies. You will constantly be bombarded with if you are on the path to success. 

3. Hamdardi → Khairat. You want to do charity for someone, give him charity, don't give him a job. IF he's eligible, let him apply on the basis of egligibility not victimhood.  

4. Qualified/Suitable → Job. If someone is capable for a job, don't withhold it. Don't get caught up in language, cast, creed etc. 

5. Relatives → Stipend. If your relative comes to you for financial help, don't give them a job, and also don't give them charity. Give them a scholarship. Pay their MBA fees, pay for their course, pay for their English language learning etc. Do muzarba with him in a way that their skills go up. 

6. Status → Friendship. If a person of status of influence cross path with you, befriend him. Don't give him job. He will help you get unblocked in life.

7. Paisa painkh, tamasha dekh Things that can get unblocked by giving "some money", get it done. (This is the author's point of view, I do not agree with it)

8. Be scared of people's Egos. People will tolerate everything, love you, care for you, but kill you if you hurt their egos. 

9. Value Intelligence. It's rare to find Intelligence and Hardworking together. Intelligent peopel are usually not hardworking. If you come across intelligent people, don't entangle them in "hard" work, let them do what they want to do. 

10. Save the person. One person cheats you, you make one policy, another cheats you, you make another policy. In the end, after working with 100 people, you're left with thousands of policies; an innocent sincere hardworking person comes to work with you, and he feels suffocated because of all those thousands of policies. If sincere people fail to follow rules, relax the rules, or ignore the rules, but save the person. 

11. Selfish Leaders. If someone comes to you, and says 'I don't care about your vision/mission/impact. Tell me what salary I will get, how much and what work I will have to do.' Value such people. They're rare. You can hand over the entire company to them, and since they're moving towards a goal, they will take your company to that goal. The person is here to make trade with you, not be your disciple. 

12. Don't be a critic. Do the work, stop critisiing other people and their jobs. And when you're criticising other people, you're not listening to anything new. 

13. Don't listen to appreciation. If a kam-zarf gives you appreciation, it's worse than humiliation. 

14. Honesty. If you're honest in Pakistan, you're a rare gem. Honor your commitments, if you do that, you will be valued like a diamond. Your quality should be with your name, and not with the compensation. 

Robin Sharma — 51 Ways Ordinary People Reached World-Class

Following is an article by Robin Sharma. I am copying it here for the sake of preservation. Original article was published here.

Hope you’re in hot pursuit of excellence on this gift of a day (you’ll only get this day once in your entire lifetime so I encourage you to use it well).

The reality is the great achievers + game-changers just did DIFFERENT (and seemingly strange) things.

So in my ongoing devotion to help you create a life you adore and reach rare-air success, I’ve distilled the unusual things the best performers do into this quick list. Read it now:

51 Ways Ordinary People Reached World-Class

1. Know what you want. Clarity is power. And vague goals promote vague results.
2. Remember that every problem has a solution. Maybe you just can’t see it. Yet.
3. In this Age of Dramatic Distraction, the performer who focuses the best wins the most.
4. Before someone will help you, you need to help them.
5. Become the most passionate person you know. It’ll be contagious.
6. Know more about your craft/the work you do than anyone who has ever done the work you do…in the history of the world.
7. Join The 5 am Club. Your most valuable hours are 5am-8 am. They have the least interruptions.
8. Devote yourself to learning something new about your field of mastery every day. Success belongs to the relentless learners. Because as you know more, you can achieve more.
9. Remember that when you transform your fitness, you’ll transform your business.
10. Don’t check your mobile when you’re meeting with another person. It’s rude. And rude people don’t reach world-class.
11. Every time you do what scares you, you take back the power that you gave to the thing that scared you. And so you become more powerful.
12. A problem is only a problem if you make the choice to see it as a problem.
13. Stop being a victim. Your business and personal life was made by you. No one else is responsible. To make it better, make better choices. And new decisions.
14. You can lead without a title. Don’t wait to get a position to stand for excellence, peak quality and overdelivery on every expectation.
15. Find your own style. Be an original. Every superstar differentiated themselves from The Herd. And marched to their own drumbeat.
16. Understand that when you play small with your success, you betray your potential. And the birthright you were born under.
17. Eat less food and you’ll get more done.
18. As you become more successful, stay really really hungry. Nothing fails like success. Because when you’re successful, it’s easy to stop outlearning+outOverDelivering+outthinking and outexecuting everyone around you. (Success is Beautiful. And dangerous).
19. If you’re not overprepared, you’re underprepared.
20. The only level of great manners to play at is “Exceedingly Polite”. In our world, this alone will make you a standout. And differentiate you in your marketplace.
21. Remember that the moment you think you’re a Master, you lose your Mastery. And the minute you think you know everything, you know nothing.
22. To double your results, double your level of execution.
23. Invest in your personal and professional development. All superstars do.
24. Get this year’s best Targets of Opportunity down onto a 1 Page Plan. Then review it every morning while the rest of the world sleeps.
25. You don’t get lucky. You create lucky.
26. When you push through a difficult project, you don’t get to the other side. You reach The Next Level.
27. Smile. And remember to inform your face.
28. Spend time in solitude every day. Your best ideas live there.
29. Debrief on how you lived out your day every night in a journal. This will not only record your personal history, it will make you uber-clear on what you’re doing right and what needs to be improved.
30. If you’re not being criticized a lot, you’re not doing very much. Ridicule is the price of ambition.
31. Develop a monomaniacal focus on just a few things. The secret to productivity is simplicity.
32. To get the results very few people have, be strong enough to do what very few people are willing to do.
33. Rest. Recover. It’ll make you stronger.
34. Buy a smaller TV and build a larger library.
35. Remember that the bigger the goal, the stronger a person you must become to achieve that goal. So goal-achieving is a superb practice for character-building.
36. Food fuels your body. Learning feeds your mind.
37. Don’t ask for respect. Earn it.
38. Finish what you start. And always end strong.
39. Breathe.
40. In business, don’t play to survive. Play to win.
41. Protect your good name. It’s your best asset.
42. Remember that words have power. Use the language of leadership versus the vocabulary of a victim.
43. Give more than you take. The marketplace rewards generosity.
44. Know that if it’s not messy, you’re not making progress.
45. Be a hero to a kid.
46. In business, aim for iconic. Go for legendary. Make history by how awesome you are at what you do.
47. Please don’t confuse activity with productivity. Many many people are simply busy being busy.
48. Your doubts are liars. Your fears are traitors. Stop buying the goods they are attempting to sell you.
49. The best anti-aging remedy in the world is working really hard.
50. World-Class performers have no plan B. Failure just isn’t an option.
51. You have the power to change the world–one brave act and one person at a time. Please use it.

Wishing you all success and epic performance.

You Must Try, and then You Must Ask by Matt Ringel

As a culture manager at my company, I have gathered a bunch of great resources that every employee is required to study so that they may learn the skills and values needed to excel in our culture. Following article from 2013 is one such article. 

I am putting the original link here, but I also have to copy the content of the blog, because the blogs sometimes disappear. I want to gather this content somewhere safe. 

https://www.mattringel.com/2013/09/30/you-must-try-and-then-you-must-ask/

I like working with grownups.

Here’s an example:

When I was a wee little New Hire at my current employer, one of the things that came up a lot was the “15 minute rule.” That is, if you’re stuck on a problem, take a solid 15 minutes to bash your brain against it in whatever manner you see fit. However, if you still don’t have an answer after 15 minutes, you must ask someone. I shorten this down to “You must try, and then you must ask.” It’s a simply-worded rule, which works something like this:

If you’ve hit the point of giving up, you have to push yourself for another 15 minutes. The pressure is now off. You know that in 15 minutes, you’ll be able to take what you found and talk to another person about it and get their help. For right now, all you have to do is step back and look at the whole problem from the top. Maybe you’ll find the solution that was sitting there all along. Maybe you’ll convince yourself it’s completely unsolvable. Whatever you end up doing, those next 15 minutes are where you look at the problem one more time.

During those 15 minutes, you must document everything you’re doing so that you can tell someone else. So, what does “look at the problem one more time” mean? It means taking notes. Lots of them. I’m a big fan of using a paper notebook with an excruciatingly fine-point pen, because I don’t need to move windows out of the way to keep writing in it, and I can fit a lot of words on a single page. Use what you like, but keep writing. Write down all the steps, all the assumptions, everything you tried, and anything you can do to reproduce the problem. More likely than not, you’ve now probably figured out at least one other way to solve the problem, just by getting it out of your head and onto paper.

After that, you must ask someone for help. Okay, you’ve decided you need help, and you’ve spent another 15 minutes looking at the problem again (and again (and again)), and you’ve documented your approach.

Now, stop.

Stop trying to solve the problem, if only for a moment.

Call for help. Even if you think that you almost have it, stop. Even if you think that an incarnation of the wisdom of the masters is perched on your shoulder whispering the answer in your ear, stop. Write that email or walk over to the office/cube/etc. or cast the appropriate summoning spell, but make sure that someone else knows that you need help. Request assistance, state the problem, and show your work. You may not get help right away, but now you’ve employed at least one other brain in helping you, and now they have a great head-start, courtesy of you.

So, that’s the 15 Minute Rule in 3 easy steps.

Here’s why it’s important:

Your paid hours are costing someone money. You can be in a Professional Services Organization, an internal IT organization, or an independent contractor, but it all works out to the same thing; someone is paying for your skills. While it may feel good to figure out the answer on your own, there’s no medal for wasting 3 hours worth of money on a problem that doesn’t merit that kind of time. In a sneaky way, this also helps you value your own time, if only by making you ask yourself “Is this problem worth this much of my time?”

Your colleagues will help you because they’re playing by the same rules. This means they’re used to asking and listening to informed questions, and they’ll be expecting the same from their peers. Needless to say, use your common sense… find someone that isn’t heads-down in a problem of their own; no one likes to have their flow interrupted. That being said, your colleagues will know that if you come over to ask for help, you’ll already have taken time to look it over and documented your findings so they can help you figure out the problem faster or point you in the right direction. It’s possible you’ll end up Rubber Duck Debugging the problem, and the act of talking through the problem will help you solve it.

Last but certainly not least, You have to interact with your colleagues because they have the answers you need. Building and maintaining an enterprise software platform (to choose something of appropriately fiendish complexity) is not a solo sport. Your colleagues have different ways of understanding problems and different ways of using the knowledge they have. This goes for many definitions of colleague and many definitions of knowledge.

This eventually turns into a virtuous cycle. People value each others’ time and their own, so they do their own homework before asking a question. In turn, people are more likely to answer questions because they know the person asking will give them the interesting part of the problem to solve.

Put another way: by explicitly taking enough time, everyone saves time.

The worst part about the beacon of positivity

 is that you have to tackle your demons yourself, alone. You report every positive news, share celebrations, and create love between people. When someone says a nice thing about someone else, you immediately report it. But when someone does a bad thing, a hurtful thing, and you're hurting, you can't share it with anyone. You gotta keep it yourself, bury it in the graveyard. You gotta be the bigger person, you gotta be resilient, you gotta move on. 

No one to console you big boy.

Copied: Novelist Cormac McCarthy’s tips on how to write a great science paper

Article from: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02918-5



For the past two decades, Cormac McCarthy — whose ten novels include The Road, No Country for Old Men and Blood Meridian — has provided extensive editing to numerous faculty members and postdocs at the Santa Fe Institute (SFI) in New Mexico. He has helped to edit works by scientists such as Harvard University’s first tenured female theoretical physicist, Lisa Randall, and physicist Geoffrey West, who authored the popular-science book Scale.

Van Savage, a theoretical biologist and ecologist, first met McCarthy in 2000, and they overlapped at the SFI for about four years while Savage was a graduate student and then a postdoc. Savage has received invaluable editing advice from McCarthy on several science papers published over the past 20 years. While on sabbatical at the SFI during the winter of 2018, Savage had lively weekly lunches with McCarthy. They worked to condense McCarthy’s advice to its most essential points so that it could be shared with everyone. These pieces of advice were combined with thoughts from evolutionary biologist Pamela Yeh and are presented here. McCarthy’s most important tip is to keep it simple while telling a coherent, compelling story. The following are more of McCarthy’s words of wisdom, as told by Savage and Yeh.

• Use minimalism to achieve clarity. While you are writing, ask yourself: is it possible to preserve my original message without that punctuation mark, that word, that sentence, that paragraph or that section? Remove extra words or commas whenever you can.

• Decide on your paper’s theme and two or three points you want every reader to remember. This theme and these points form the single thread that runs through your piece. The words, sentences, paragraphs and sections are the needlework that holds it together. If something isn’t needed to help the reader to understand the main theme, omit it.

• Limit each paragraph to a single message. A single sentence can be a paragraph. Each paragraph should explore that message by first asking a question and then progressing to an idea, and sometimes to an answer. It’s also perfectly fine to raise questions in a paragraph and leave them unanswered.

• Keep sentences short, simply constructed and direct. Concise, clear sentences work well for scientific explanations. Minimize clauses, compound sentences and transition words — such as ‘however’ or ‘thus’ — so that the reader can focus on the main message.

• Don’t slow the reader down. Avoid footnotes because they break the flow of thoughts and send your eyes darting back and forth while your hands are turning pages or clicking on links. Try to avoid jargon, buzzwords or overly technical language. And don’t use the same word repeatedly — it’s boring.

• Don’t over-elaborate. Only use an adjective if it’s relevant. Your paper is not a dialogue with the readers’ potential questions, so don’t go overboard anticipating them. Don’t say the same thing in three different ways in any single section. Don’t say both ‘elucidate’ and ‘elaborate’. Just choose one, or you risk that your readers will give up.

• And don’t worry too much about readers who want to find a way to argue about every tangential point and list all possible qualifications for every statement. Just enjoy writing.

• With regard to grammar, spoken language and common sense are generally better guides for a first draft than rule books. It’s more important to be understood than it is to form a grammatically perfect sentence.

• Commas denote a pause in speaking. The phrase “In contrast” at the start of a sentence needs a comma to emphasize that the sentence is distinguished from the previous one, not to distinguish the first two words of the sentence from the rest of the sentence. Speak the sentence aloud to find pauses.

• Dashes should emphasize the clauses you consider most important — without using bold or italics — and not only for defining terms. (Parentheses can present clauses more quietly and gently than commas.) Don’t lean on semicolons as a crutch to join loosely linked ideas. This only encourages bad writing. You can occasionally use contractions such as isn’t, don’t, it’s and shouldn’t. Don’t be overly formal. And don’t use exclamation marks to call attention to the significance of a point. You could say ‘surprisingly’ or ‘intriguingly’ instead, but don’t overdo it. Use these words only once or twice per paper.

• Inject questions and less-formal language to break up tone and maintain a friendly feeling. Colloquial expressions can be good for this, but they shouldn’t be too narrowly tied to a region. Similarly, use a personal tone because it can help to engage a reader. Impersonal, passive text doesn’t fool anyone into thinking you’re being objective: “Earth is the centre of this Solar System” isn’t any more objective or factual than “We are at the centre of our Solar System.”

• Choose concrete language and examples. If you must talk about arbitrary colours of an abstract sphere, it’s more gripping to speak of this sphere as a red balloon or a blue billiard ball.

• Avoid placing equations in the middle of sentences. Mathematics is not the same as English, and we shouldn’t pretend it is. To separate equations from text, you can use line breaks, white space, supplementary sections, intuitive notation and clear explanations of how to translate from assumptions to equations and back to results.

• When you think you’re done, read your work aloud to yourself or a friend. Find a good editor you can trust and who will spend real time and thought on your work. Try to make life as easy as possible for your editing friends. Number pages and double space.

• After all this, send your work to the journal editors. Try not to think about the paper until the reviewers and editors come back with their own perspectives. When this happens, it’s often useful to heed Rudyard Kipling’s advice: “Trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting too.” Change text where useful, and where not, politely explain why you’re keeping your original formulation.

• And don’t rant to editors about the Oxford comma, the correct usage of ‘significantly’ or the choice of ‘that’ versus ‘which’. Journals set their own rules for style and sections. You won’t get exceptions.

• Finally, try to write the best version of your paper: the one that you like. You can’t please an anonymous reader, but you should be able to please yourself. Your paper — you hope — is for posterity. Remember how you first read the papers that inspired you while you enjoy the process of writing your own.

When you make your writing more lively and easier to understand, people will want to invest their time in reading your work. And whether we are junior scientists or world-famous novelists, that’s what we all want, isn’t it?

This is an article from the Nature Careers Community, a place for Nature readers to share their professional experiences and advice. Guest posts are encouraged. You can get in touch with the editor at naturecareerseditor@nature.com.

Review: The Old Man and the Sea

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I heard first time about this book when my close friend Danish Gondal talked about it. He said he read it as a child, in Urdu, and it devastated him. Since then I was curious about it.

As it's a short book, and I am lagging behind my reading goal this year, so I picked up to finish it quickly. While I was reading, I was constantly telling myself to get too emotionally attached as any dark twist could come and devastate me too (Danish is a lot stronger mentally and emotionally than I am). No dark twist came. Hemingway doesn't play cheap-shots. It's not a thriller, but every bit as gripping.

It's a tale about an Old man who goes fishing. The old man is smart and humble, and poor, and skilled at fishing. And he's self-aware. He knows his weaknesses too.

I think it's a book about we we try our best to succeed in our missions, and in life, and we do too. Without giving much thoughts to the missions themselves. I think it's a novel about you have to be wise too, in addition to being clever.

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Book Summary: Seven habits of highly effective people

This is a work in progress.

Summary of first 22 pages:

Character Development is the primary way of being effective. Personality Development is also important, and the lack in any of them would result in failures, Character is primary, and Personality is complementary.

Author and his wife were being bad parents because they were seeings their son's failures in life as their failures as parents. Once they realized their mistake, they accepted their child for who he was, and stopped measuring him against society's expectations. As a result, their son, who was behind academically, physically, emotionally, soared in all aspects of life.

Review: Jub Zindagi Shuru Hogi / جب زندگی شروع ہوگی

Jub Zindagi Shuru Hogi / جب زندگی شروع ہوگی by Abu Yahya
My rating: 3 of 5 stars



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Review: The Master and Margarita

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

What a beautiful book! nay, astounding! Oh it was all of it. Beautiful, astounding, gripping, enthralling. I cannot tell what it was - I can try telling what it wasn't: ordinary.

You don't know till very deep in the book who the hero is, who you're rooting for, and where the story is going to go. It talks about everything.

It's like an old but energetic, eccentric but eloquent stranger telling you a story, that is unfolding as you're hearing it, while at the same time, he starts talking about things long past, but equally interesting.

No book has ever made me want to be a cat so bad!

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Python progression path - From apprentice to guru

I thought the process of Python mastery went something like:

1. Discover list comprehensions
2. Discover generators
3. Incorporate map, reduce, filter, iter, range, xrange often into your code
4. Discover Decorators
5. Write recursive functions, a lot
6. Discover itertools and functools
7. Read Real World Haskell (read free online)
8. Rewrite all your old Python code with tons of higher order functions, recursion, and whatnot.
9. Annoy your cubicle mates every time they present you with a Python class. Claim it could be "better" implemented as a dictionary plus some functions. Embrace functional programming.
10. Rediscover the Strategy pattern and then all those things from imperative code you tried so hard to forget after Haskell.
11. Find a balance.

https://stackoverflow.com/a/2576240/878451

Review: The Complete Guide to Fasting: Heal Your Body Through Intermittent, Alternate-Day, and Extended Fasting

The Complete Guide to Fasting: Heal Your Body Through Intermittent, Alternate-Day, and Extended Fasting by Jason Fung
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

As Dr. Fung says "The proof of the pudding is in the eating."

I lost 10 kgs (22 lbs) since January 1, 2019 (that's 19 days) following the guidelines in this book.

This book was so terrific, I used to stay up till 4 am reading it.

On Dec 31, I was 60 kg overweight, now I am only 50 kg overweight. Let's see how his advice holds up in the long run. We all know, the conventional wisdom does not.

Rating it 5 stars for now. Will come back and update the review in few months. Hopefully for the better.

Currently my mother is reading it, and she has already decreased her insulin more than 25 units per day while keeping her glucose in range.

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Review: Apology

Apology by Plato
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Writing a review for classics is almost useless. You cannot hardly say something that hasn't been said before. However, there are those that know me, to whom my familiar and inexpert opinion may matter more than the expert review of a stranger. For those I write. And for myself, for I am among those too.

This is an elementary text for people who need to learn the basics of Philosophy, which is everyone. Socrates not only does teach us how to argue, but also how not to plead innocent. He preferred death over unrighteousness, because he made it clear he was let to live, he would continue to do the same thing.

He teaches us about the importance of doing our duty, even if the cost is death. "For wherever a man's place is, there he ought to remain in the hour of danger; he should not think of death or of anything but of disgrace. And this, O men of Athens, is a true saying"

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Review: Al-Ghazali's Book on The Etiquette of Marriage

Al-Ghazali's Book on The Etiquette of Marriage by Abu Hamid al-Ghazali
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

People have been doing doctorates on the works of Imam Ghazali.

Imam Nawawi says if all Islam books were to be lost save the Ihya, it would be enough to replace them all. 1

Because of impact, and his unique Islamic journey, he has been called "Proof of Islam".1

Ihya is the most cited text of Islam, after Quran and Hadith.1

Ihya is divided in four parts, and each part is divided in 10 books, and this is the second book from the second part. I have been meaning to read this book for past eight years, and finally got around to reading it. It was an enjoyable read.

I cannot comment on the quality of the writing and the research and the knowledge in the book, as I am far too small for that. Like every other work of it, it's full of insights and arguments.

However, as people who are not concerned with rigorous scholarly arguments, and are looking for a book with applicable, practical knowledge should read other books on the same topic. However, if someone wants to dig deep into the philosophical important of Marriage in islam, then it's a very enjoyable and rewarding book. This should not be taken to mean that book is theoretical, no it's full of practical advice. But the state of affairs of today's world quite far away form then's. The moral corruption in men of today, is way more than of those times, and therefore, the people lagging in basics and fundamentals wouldn't do well to focus on etiquettes and intricacies. However, if someone wants to understand the beauty of Islam, then read on. It's only a few pages.

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Review: شرح العقيدة الطحاوية

شرح العقيدة الطحاوية by أبو جعفر الطحاوي
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Indispensable boook for people who want to learn the creed of Islam. Imam tahavi talks about what it means to be a muslim and what it means to be a sunni (ahl-e-sunnat wal-jamat). He talks about what beliefs we should have as muslims, what't the extent of our knowledge of Allah swt, and how to resolve some of the paradoxes we develop due to lack of knowledge.

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Unquote

Archmaester (to Sam): In the Citadel, we lead different lives for different reasons. We are this world's memory, Samwell Tarly. Without us, men would be little better than dogs. Don't remember any meal but the last, can't see forward to any but the next. And every time you leave the house and shut the door, they howl like you're gone forever.

From Game of Thrones – Season 7 Episode 1: ‘Dragonstone’ (7×01)

V for Vendetta

Evey Hammond: I don't even know what you really look like. 
[Evey tries to remove V's mask] 
V: [V stops her] Evey, please. There is a face beneath this mask but it's not me. I'm no more that face than I am the muscles beneath it or the bones beneath them. 
Evey Hammond: I understand. 
V: Thank you.  

V: The only thing that you and I have in common, Mr. Creedy, is that we're both about to die. 
Creedy: How do you imagine that's gonna happen? 
V: With my hands around your neck... 
Creedy: [inhales with hint of fear] Bollocks. Whatcha gonna do, huh? We're swept this place - You've got nothing. Nothing but your bloody knives, and your fancy karate gimmicks... we have *guns* - ! 
V: - Now, what you have are *bullets*, and the hopes that when your guns are empty, I'm no longer standing, because if I am... you'll all be dead before you'll reloaded 

Quora: Learning how to Learn

What are the most effective learning techniques you have experienced so far?

Barbara Oakley, Co-Instructor, Learning How to Learn, the world's largest online course

Answered Jun 3, 2016 · Featured on Forbes and 3 more

I’m becoming increasingly convinced that “chunking” is the mother of all learning—or at least the fairy godmother. Chunking is what happens when you know something so well, like a song, or a scientific formula, or a verb conjugation,or a dance routine, that it is basically a snap to call it to mind and do it or use it. Creating neural patterns—“neural chunks”—underpins the development of all expertise. We can use metaphors (another powerful learning technique!) to help us understand these ideas.

If you look at the above image, you can see that when you’re trying to figure out something new and difficult, it’s like a puzzle. As shown on the left, the roughly four “slots” of working memory go into a tizzy in your prefrontal cortex trying to figure things out. But once you have something figured out, (shown on the right), that understanding consolidates into a smoothly connected neural pattern. The pattern is like a ribbon you can draw easily to mind in one of the slots of working memory. Notice—the three other slots of working memory are left free!

When you are problem-solving or taking a test, if you have “chunked” the material well during your preliminary studies, you can easily draw a neural chunk—that is, a procedure or concept—to mind. Once you’ve got that chunk in mind, you can then draw up other chunks you’ve mastered, so you can put concepts together to solve even complicated problems that you haven’t seen before. (Here’s a video from Learning How to Learn that explains the concept of chunks in more depth.)

If you haven’t put enough of the right kind of effort into your studies, come test time, your little prefrontal cortex is like that of the lower left drawing—it’s going crazy still trying to figure out the basics. Sometimes people think they suffer from test anxiety when they perform poorly on test, but surprisingly often, they don’t. They’re simply experiencing panic as they suddenly realize they don’t know the material as well as they thought they did. They haven’t created neural chunks.

As a young person, I excelled when I used the Defense Language Institute’s approaches to learning language, which emphasized the development of well-practiced chunks that built gradually upon one another. Words became sentences became whole conversations. This helped me to learn Russian. At age 26, when I got out of the military and began studying the remedial high school algebra that led to my engineering degrees, I used the same “chunking” approach with studying math that had helped me be effective in language study.

For example, I didn’t just do a math homework problem and turn it in. Instead, particularly if it was an important homework problem, I would work it and rework it fresh, spacing the practice out over several days. I wouldn’t peek at the answer unless I absolutely had to. That ensured I really could solve the problem myself—that I wasn’t just fooling myself that I knew it. After I was comfortable that I could really solve the problem by myself on paper, I then “went mental,” practicing the steps in my mind until the solution could flow like a sort of mental song. I could perform this kind of mental practice at times people often don’t think to use for studying—like in the shower, or when I was walking to class. I found that this attention to chunking eventually gave me sort of magic powers—I could glance at many problems, even ones I’d never seen before, and know virtually instantly how to solve them.

Interleaving, deliberate practice, spaced repetition—all of these important learning techniques are important primarily because they help with the development of neural chunks. As “expert on experts” Anders Ericsson has pointed out, you learn faster through deliberate practice—the special focus on what you find most difficult.

See also What is the best approach for learning new things? What resources should I use? How should I retain the info that I have just learned? Should I use this info to write an essay or something similar as part of a long-term project?and What is the fastest and most effective learning process? Additionally, there’s lots more in our course Learning How to Learn, and in my New York Times best-selling science book A Mind for Numbers (which is actually a general book on learning, with plenty of metaphors—one of my favorite learning techniques!).

Unquote

“A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week.”
— General George Patton

Should I highlight/underline while reading?

Jordan Peterson says no. About everybody else says yes, you should. So this is what I am struggling with currently.

So far, the reading methodology picked up from the internet (Farnam Street/ Derek Sivers/ Motimer Adler/ AoM) says you should:

1. Do an inspectional reading (30 minutes per book)
2. Do a superficial reading of the book, marking all the passages you want to remember or investigate further. 
3. Then come back to the book later to really study the marked passages. 

But JP says reading and note-taking should really be separate activities. While reading, your focus should be absorbing. And if you really feel like note-taking, you should read as much as you can absorb/internalise, and then note that down in your words. What you have taken away from the book. And then continue reading. Depending on the density of the book, this could be small or large. This I think is somewhat similar to what Ryan Holiday also suggested. Writing it down yourself, with pen on paper. That helps in committing to memory. And therefore promotes better learning.

But my investigation hasn't ended there. I would like to know what Barbara Oakley has to say about it.

Review: Candide

Candide by Voltaire
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"Our critics are our friends, they show us our faults," in the same vein, I would say Voltaire is a necessary friend for every person who professes to follow a philosophy of life. A thinker who attacked not only religious people, be it Muslims or Christians, but also philosophers and monarchs, he mocks everybody who, in their pursuit of goodness, do bad.

As a religious person, I not only enjoyed Candide for it's story and characters, for it's sarcasm, it's twists and turns; but I also learned how a person can become self-righteous and oppress people while serving no god but one's ego. Consider the story when few righteous and gallant soldiers were stationed to protect women. How they let their morals guide their behavior:

The twenty Janissaries had sworn they would never surrender. The extremities of famine to which they were reduced, obliged them to eat our two eunuchs, for fear of violating their oath. And at the end of a few days they resolved also to devour the women.

Oh but wait, their prayer leaders wouldn't let them commit such cruelty. So...

"We had a very pious and humane Iman, who preached an excellent sermon, exhorting them not to kill us all at once.

"'Only cut off a buttock of each of those ladies,' said he, 'and you'll fare extremely well; if you must go to it again, there will be the same entertainment a few days hence; heaven will accept of so charitable an action, and send you relief.'

"He had great eloquence; he persuaded them; we underwent this terrible operation. The Iman applied the same balsam to us, as he does to children after circumcision; and we all nearly died.

"Scarcely had the Janissaries finished the repast with which we had furnished them, than the Russians came in flat-bottomed boats; not a Janissary escaped. The Russians paid no attention to the condition we were in. There are French surgeons in all parts of the world; one of them who was very clever took us under his care—he cured us; and as long as I live I shall remember that as soon as my wounds were healed he made proposals to me. He bid us all be of good cheer, telling us that the like had happened in many sieges, and that it was according to the laws of war.

Such off-hand descriptions appear to be jokes, they sound ridiculous until one looks deeply upon ones life, and then it hits. It's so easy to commit crimes in the name of following ones religious, one's morals, or society's established conventions.

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Most favorite fat-loss resources on the internet

http://physiqonomics.com/fat-loss/

Can't shake the career-woman tree and expect a homemaker to fall out.

Review: Siddhartha

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The book was amazing as long as it was taking me on the journey of Siddharta, it was engaging as it was instructive, in a way. However, the end was substantially on a higher level than the beginning and the middle.

Every man should read it once before becoming a man. And then read it once again, after becoming a man.

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Men are never loved unconditionally

“only women, children, and dogs are loved unconditionally,” whereas “a man is only loved under the condition that he provide something. I’ve never heard a woman in my life say, ‘You know, after he got laid off, we got so much closer.’” After all, when a man meets someone new, his friends ask, “What does she look like?” When a woman meets someone new, her friends ask, “What does he do?”

The value of a man is tied up in his work, Rock says: “What the fuck does that nigga do that can help you out? Can this motherfucka facilitate a dream or not?”

We value your privacy. The people we sell it to, value it even more.

"A government big enough to give you everything you want, is a government big enough to take away everything that you have."

Sometimes attributed to Thomas Jefferson. But one thing he did say was:

"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yeild, and government to gain ground."

That's what we're seeing now.

The secret to all success

Learn to front-load your pain.

That's it.

If you procrastinate, you're putting off more than your work. You're putting off the pain. Right?

But doesn't it always catch up to you?
source: https://www.reddit.com/r/getdisciplined/comments/4xwrut/advice_this_is_the_real_secret_to_successa/


What you have to do is front-load all those yucky crappy feelings. Go ahead and feel it now so you don't have to feel it later. And guess what? If you put it off, it gets amplified. Right now you're dreading doing your homework or writing an article or w/e, but what if you don't do it? And worse, what if you put that stuff off consistently?

That thing you feel crappy about? That thing you're dreading? That is exactly the thing you need to do in order to improve your life.

It's a sign post.

Instead of dreading it, go ahead and embrace it. Embrace the yucky feeling and all. If you can do this for three weeks consistently, you will change your life forever.

If you embrace all that yucky stuff with gusto, your brain will take notice. Your brain is not static. it changes depending on what you focus on. The circuitry in your brain literally changes over time.

Finally, think of your actions as alchemy. You are taking time and adding energy to it to create a result. If you take action haphazardly, you will have a meh kind of life.

You know you're going to end up feeling like shit if you procrastinate anyway, so go ahead and do the thing you're afraid to do. If you're going to feel bad either way, you might as well take the action that will improve your life.

Unquote

The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent upon it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.

–Galileo Galilei

Gardening is cheaper than therapy and you get tomatoes.

—Poster Slogan

Man—despite his artistic pretensions, his sophistication, and his many accomplishments—owes his existence to a six inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains.

—Unknown

The only moral lesson which is suited for a child–the most important lesson for every time of life–is this: ‘Never hurt anybody.’

—Jean-Jacques Rousseau

How others treat me is their path; how I react is mine.

–Dr. Wayne Dyer

I shall allow no man to belittle my soul by making me hate him.

–Booker T. Washington

I don’t have to attend every argument I’m invited to.

—Unknown

Hate is like drinking poison, hoping the other person will die.

–Rev. Marvin Wiley

Holding a grudge is letting someone live rent-free in your head.

–Esther Lederer

She was beautiful, but not like those girls in the magazines. She was beautiful, for the way she thought. She was beautiful, for that sparkle in her eyes when she talked about something she loved. She was beautiful, for her ability to make other people smile even if she was sad. No, she wasn’t beautiful for something as temporary as her looks. She was beautiful, deep down to her soul.

—F. Scott Fitzgerald

A book is made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts (still called ‘leaves’) imprinted with dark pigmented squiggles. One glance at it and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, the author is speaking, clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time, proof that humans can work magic.

–Carl Sagan

Bookmark? You mean quitter strip?

—Unknown

They condemn what they do not understand.

–Cicero

The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its own shame.

–Oscar Wilde

=CHANGE

It is not the strongest of the species that survive nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.

–Charles Darwin

A bend in the road, is not the end of the road…unless you fail to make the turn.

–Helen Keller

I cannot say whether things will get better if they change; what I can say is they must change if they are to get better.

–Georg C. Lichtenberg

=CHARACTER 

Character matters. Researches concerned with academic-achievement gaps have begun to study, with increasing interest and enthusiasm, a set of personal qualities—often referred to as noncognitive skills, or character strengths—that include resilience, conscientiousness, optimism, self-control, and grit. These capacities generally aren’t captured by our ubiquitous standardized tests, but they seem to make a big difference in the academic success of children, especially low-income children.

—Paul Tough

In Japanese schools, the students don’t take any exams until they reach grade four (the age of 10). They just take small tests. It is believed that the goal for the first 3 years of school is not to judge the child’s knowledge or learning, but to establish good manners and to develop their character. Children are taught to respect other people and to be gentle to animals and nature. They also learn how to be generous, compassionate, and empathetic. Besides this, the kids are taught qualities like grit, self-control, and justice.

—novakdjokovicfoundation.org

You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.

—Malcolm S. Forbes

The 12 Principles of Character: (1) honesty, (2) understanding, (3) compassion and empathy, (4) appreciation, (5) patience, (6) discipline, (7) fortitude, (8) perseverance, (9) humor, (10) humility, (11) generosity, (12) respect.

–Kathryn B. Johnson

Get to know two things about a man—how he earns his money and how he spends it —and you have the clue to his character, for you have a searchlight that shows up the inmost recesses of his soul. You know all you need to know about his standards, his motives, his driving desires, his real religion.

–Robert James McCracken

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

–Martin Luther King, Jr.

The measure of a man’s real character is what he would do if he knew he never would be found out.

–Thomas Babington Macaulay

=CHILDREN

Children are the messages we send to a future we will not see.

–Neil Postman

At some point in your life your parents put you down and never picked you up again.

—Unknown

When a child gives you a gift, even if it is a rock they just picked up, exude gratitude. It might be the only thing they have to give, and they have chosen to give it to you.

—Dean Jackson

Computers are incredibly fast, accurate, and stupid. Human beings are incredibly slow, inaccurate, and brilliant. Together they are powerful beyond imagination.

—Albert Einstein

It is as unforgivable to let a student graduate without knowing how to use a computer as it was in the past to let him graduate without knowing how to use a library.

–John Kennedy

I have a spelling checker, It came with my PC.

It plainly marks four my revue

Mistakes I cannot sea.

I’ve run this poem write through it,

I’m shore your pleas too no

It’s letter perfect in it’s weigh,

My checker tolled me sew!

–New York Times