Hello all organic and artificial life forms,

I admit that I forgot this blog and not stick with my goals -as always- Few days ago WordPress sent me an email about someone start to follow my blog and I remembered that I have a blog. This mail became a real wake-up call for me. As a result of this I decide to prepare a situation report of first 8 months of 2019. And if you’re reading this, special thanks for following,mate!

• I lost my 160-day learning Japanese streak in Duolingo.
• I couldn’t be a YGA volunteer.I couldn’t pass to third stage.
• I couldn’t learn Arabic. I know just a little bit daily talking.
• I couldn’t reach my coding goals. I wrote little useless programs for fun only.
• I almost didn’t read any medicine articles.
• I didn’t make amateur google glass or AI assistant or 3D printer or smart mirror. Situation worse than I expect it.
• I couldn’t won a prize from Harvard CS50 Puzzle Day because I can solved only 2 questions.
• I couldn’t successful in Google Code Jam
• I couldn’t achieve my writing goals.

Situation really worse than I expect it. Let’s start listing success and earnings to feel better:

• Finally I’m proud to say that I reached my reading goal. My goal was 24 books for all year and I read 32 books until now.
• I finished my first year in medicine school.
• I strengthened my social interactions.
• I think I improved my taking photos skill. I captured nice photos.
• I take photos of different insects this year. But I can’t find their categories and names yet.
• I learn to play the piano a little bit. I can play part of Fur Elise.
• I read good articles about computer science.
• I watched 41 movies in 8 months but I admit some of them really trash movies.

Interesting things that I learned

• about Ratio Club. I love how they contribute cybernetics. Reading the club’s evolution really inspired and encouraged me. Maybe next time I will be write about this.
• how invention of television change the way we learn. And this changes how to shape our culture. This changes of course effects the content we create, thoughts we think about. I really surprise when I learned how all this people read so much book before the television. And this led me think about how world will be if we continue to read like that. Maybe collectively we would have notice climate change more sooner and have done something about it. Also I think about how internet effects our culture right now. Is Internet take us utopian future or dystopian future? According to article that I read while ago technological inventions make us more healthier physically but especially social media isolate us real social interactions and this damage us psychologically. Issues to consider! Note: This brainstorm started from Neil Postman’s book Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. Excellent book!
• connectome projects not going well. If you ask what is connectome-according to Wikipedia: A connectome is a comprehensive map of neural connections in the brain, and may be thought of as its “wiring diagram”. More broadly, a connectome would include the mapping of all neural connections within an organism’s nervous system. In future I want to work on connectome projects. I hope this area gains momentum ’till I work on.
• of course little info about Neuralink. I love to think about where this project take us if Elon and his team will be successful. Think about it! If we improve this technology enough I can send another person what I smell, what I see, what I feel, what I think-we won’t need talking,we will just send thoughts each other. This ideas could feel like unrealistic…for now.
• a little bit about Natural Language Processing in Turkish Language. It’s harder than I thought so I stopped some of my projects because of this.
• about Heather Dewey-Hagborg’s project Stranger Visions. Project’s concept is very mind blowing. You can check out here.
• WikiArt. It is visual art encyclopedia. I’m really sad that I discover this site very late.

Best 3 Books That I Read 📚

In 8 Months

• Pia Mater by Serkan Karaismailoğlu : A neuro-novel that blow your mind. I don’t want to tell anything about it. Just read it. You don’t regret it.
• Her Hicret Bir İnkılaptır by Ali Şeriati: İngilizce anlatamayacağımı düşündüğüm için Türkçeye geçiyorum 🙂 Hicret kavramı üzerinde taraflıca düşünmemi sağladı. Çok sevdiğim bir alıntıyı da buraya bırakıyorum:

Hicret, insanın en çok sevdiği fakat Allah’ın dininin yaşanmasına engel olduğu zaman vatanın, milletin, ailenin, sosyal sınıfın, makam ve mevkinin Allah’ın dinine hizmet etmek için terk edilmesidir.

Ali Şeriati

• Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman: I talk about it’s content up there.

You can find other books that I read in here.

Best 5 Movies That I Watched 🎥

In 8 Months

You can find other movies that I watched in here.

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What I got from preparing this report?

It help me to see my failures and successes clearly. Writing all this especially “interesting things that I learned” part turn on new lights and ideas in my brain. As a result of this I made a little goals list for the rest of the year -again-

• I will write every day but probably I will be not publish in the blog.
• Continue to machine learning course prepared by Andrew Ng.
• Focus on NLP and try to push the boundaries.
• Make market assessment and budget plan to buy a 3D printer.
• When school starts focus on lessons and try to use space repetition and flashcard techniques.
• Until the end of the year read 45 books.
• Continue to learn Japanese

Attention Aech!

This list is incomplete and unclear right now. Aech, you will update this list in the future to set clear goals.

If any organic or artificial life form read this, sorry for this boring and personal blog post. Live long and prosper!