Friday, September 19, 2014

Want to learn anything faster ?

 We are in a world with lot of learning opportunities. But how many stuff do we really learn ? What holds us back in learning new things faster?

Learning how to learn is the greatest learning of all. I happened to read interesting reading from this blog [1] which had an amazing link mentioning about a guy who learned MIT 4 year course within 1 year.

It starts with

"My friend Scott Young recently finished an astounding feat: he completed all 33 courses in MIT’s fabled computer science curriculum, from Linear Algebra to Theory of Computation, in less than one year. More importantly, he did it all on his own, watching the lectures online and evaluating himself using the actual exams. (See Scott’s FAQ page for the details of how he ran this challenge.)"

http://calnewport.com/blog/2012/10/26/mastering-linear-algebra-in-10-days-astounding-experiments-in-ultra-learning/

When i was going little bit deeper in the subject i found another useful resource in one of the ted talks about the time it takes to learn a new thing. Amazingly it is only twenty hours :). Yes it is less than a day to acquire a new skill.

But...

You need to do it in four steps. Four simple steps to rapid knowledge acquire.

1) Deconstruct the new skill.

     divide and conquer small chunks of skill in new skill. Because most of the big skills are set of smaller skills

2) Learn enough to self correct.

 He depicts the most common error we do in learning which is trying to learn everything and start practicing later. But Ideally what you should do is to learn the essential or more obvious things so you
can self correct your self.

3) Remove practice barriers.

The most common barrier i can think of is "Facebook" ;)

4) Practice atleast 20 hours.

"The major barrier to learn new thing is not intellectual it is emotional"

So start practicing what you love to acquire..!!!




[1] http://kkpradeeban.blogspot.pt/2012/11/optimism-is-selection-of-nature.html

Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Cabo Da Roca - Western Most Cape of Europe


 It is a new country for me and it is full of new places to travel. Luckily we have one friend at the apartment who knows the area pretty well. So we did not have much trouble in locating the places to visit but if you travel by public transport following information would be useful for you.

  If you are near IST you need to travel from Alameda Metro station to Cais do Sodré station which is at the end of Green line. Then you need to get the Train from Cais do Sodré station to Cascais. To travel up to Cascais you can obtain a travel card from Metro station which covers all 4 forms of transportation including Bus, Metro, Train and Ferry. You have different options but it is better to buy  a viva via gem card if you are a non frequent traveller. It is reusable and reloadable card.


source :http://www.metrolisboa.pt/eng/customer-info/viva-viagem-card

Loading this card with 10 Euros would be enough as we experienced and you can top up it from train stations or metro stations conviniently. It is advisable to keep 5,10 Euro notes as sometimes it will issue receipt for balance which you should claim at train stations if you try to recharge from a train station. Believe me it is a hassle :(.

 You should spend some time at Cascais as it is a beautiful area with lots of tourist and local activities. We stayed there before moving to Cabo da Roca.



                  This was truly a beautiful beach...


From Cascais you need to get 403 bus operated by scottrub. It is usually has one hour frequency. It will go via Cabo da Roca to Sentra and you have to get down from the Cabo da Roca on the way. These buses does not have display boards for the stops but Cabo da Roca is a special stop and you know once you arrive there and just enjoy the breathtaking views out side on the way from the bus. (Believe me it is a special stop ;) )

Cabo da Roca is the western most point of the Europe mainland. You will be surely amazed how picturesque the view is. You will lost in your thoughts for a moment when you reach the top. But make sure not to fall out from the top to Atlantic ocean while taking selfies.. Cos' it is a shame that you cannot tell how magnificent it was to you friends :P












New window just opened ...!

  It has been a week since i have became a student once more in my life. I like the experience of recreating the feelings that i had when i was a student ago two years back. Since now this blog is full of technical content and i did not have much time to blog much about my other experiences. But now this is a new life so thought of doing the same to my blog. Lets see how the new story unfolds...

I am an EMDC ( European Masters in Distributed Computing) student at IST (Instituto Superior Técnico) and KTH (Royal Institute of Technology) in Sweden. This offering is great not only because of the content it offers but the cultural experience you will gain. It is a bonus..

During the first week I was fortunate to visit some of the very beautiful places in Lisbon. I should say the coastal area is really fantastic even though i am coming from a place with full of beaches covering my beautiful island Sri Lanka. I will post more about that place in another post with more details.. and of course with pictures. Till then Just relax with the view out of my apartment...