LOG ENTRY: SOL 1
Here I am going to post whatever I explored last week. Why you may ask? Firstly, because I want to push some content on the internet (because I want to; no reason needed). Secondly, this is a good enough reason for me to track my learnings; a trick I picked up from Atomic Habits.
I am going to keep the language casual and natural so it's easier to get through (for me and you both). I will talk about programming as well as casual stuff like Netflix shows because I don't want to restrict the learnings to a particular niche. So, let's get right on it!
Here are the 3 things I did last week that I am going to cover:
1. Vim; yes, the OG Unix-based text editor
1. The Martian; the book and not the movie
1. Web of Make Believe; Netflix's latest TV show on the side effects of the internet
Vim
Vim is that guy in school who everyone thought was dumb and stupid but ended up being a straight-A student who is also captain of the football team. I found it very strange whenever I saw someone mention tools like vim in the 2020s. I always wondered if they have not heard of VS Code or IntelliJ or even Sublime for that matter.
Although, I have to say that vim is one hell of a text editor. I put my mouse aside whenever I open vim; it is that effective. To summarize vim in a sentence I'd say it is a text editor stripped out of all the fluff, highly configurable through plugins and with god-level key-mappings. You just don't use the mouse at all in vim, which is a good thing for programmers. It makes you faster and more effective.
Vim is an old text editor; it was publicly released in 1991. It was not built with the mindset of a mouse, which turned out to be a fantastic thing. I say that because even though the mouse is intuitive and easy to use, it slows you down. A keyboard (with so many keys) is much more configurable than a mouse (with typically just 2 buttons). The founder of vim did not have arrow keys on his keyboard so you will typically not use arrow keys in vim. It sounds absurd when you hear it for the first time but arrow keys actually slow you down because your index fingers are on F and J when you type. So you have to move your right hand all the way to be able to use the arrow keys; that takes time and effort.
I've talked about why vim is good for you but I must uncover the other side of the coin as well. Vim does not have a learning curve, it has a learning wall. I did not just make that up. It's a common saying with vim. So, it's safe to say that vim is not beginner friendly. Rather, as a matter of fact, vim is beginner repellent. You will need a lot of patience and determination to become good at vim. But, as I've heard and read, it all pays off in the end.
I'm giving myself a year's time to become efficient with vim. I am hopeful that I should be comfortable enough with vim within a year to be able to delete all the other text editors from my machine. I am not deleting them right now because I don't want to brute force my learning; there is no rush. Also, I work as a professional programmer so I don't want to get fired from work because of my reduced efficiency and speed.
To all Windows users, I say use a real OS, please!
The Martian
I liked the movie when I watched it a few years ago. It was a time when I was watching other space exploration movies as well like Gravity and Interstellar. I'd say The Martian is unique because of its sense of humour. But, you will only appreciate it when you're reading the book.
The book is at least 10x better than the movie (I bet that's not the first time you're hearing this). But, seriously it is. Mark Watney's sense of humour, all the science stuff and even what was happening back on Earth: everything is much better depicted in the book.
The most significant difference between the movie and the book is that in the movie Mark is making video journals whereas in the book he's writing the journals. That makes a huge difference because there is a lot of creative stuff you can do with text (like this) that simply isn't possible in the video format. You will much better appreciate Mark's sense of humour in the book than in the movie.
The science bit is pretty interesting as well. I'm not going to lie, I didn't understand everything but it sort of made sense.
There were at least a couple of major events in the book that were just skipped in the movie. And, they were pretty much life-threatening events as well. Overall, it's a good read. I'd recommend the book to anyone who's an avid reader. You'll enjoy it.
Web of Make Believe
Netflix has come up with yet another brilliant documentary. It's a documentary on how the internet has managed to make our world a world of make-believe. Basically, it's easier to fool people in the internet era.
There are about 5-6 episodes in the entire show with each episode addressing a particular story. Stories are related to swatting, tax frauds using dead people's identities and neo-Nazis. Unsurprisingly, all the stories are based in the US (like it's the only country in the world).
It's an interesting take on what happens when idiots are handed a powerful tool like the internet. Idiots or brilliant folks. Both are depicted as extremely dangerous to society because both are not worried about the consequences of their actions. I would agree but I don't (or at least I think not) belong to any of these categories.
In one of the episodes, I saw an upside-down Superman version of Bill Gates. A guy who has been dwelling in computers since a very tender age. The only difference between him and Bill Gates is the background. Gates was raised in a protected comfortable environment where he was able to use his knowledge and intelligence for a good cause (Microsoft is still lame). Whereas the guy in this show was raised in extremely harsh conditions so he was only able to manifest his brain to do creative illegal stuff.
To conclude, it's a good watch for those who are already aware of the downsides of the internet. I'm not saying the internet is bad. I'm saying humans are stupid mostly for no fault of their own. You watch these documentaries to become aware of what is happening around you. For most things in life you just can't do anything about them. But, by being aware you at least ensure that you won't fall prey to obvious predators.
That’s it for now. I hope it was worth the read for you. Btw, if you have noticed the title it’s the log entries format from The Martian.
See ya later! 👋