alex chiang: web 6.0

At work, I’ve got all these great new books piled up that I want to read (like IA-64 Linux Kernel: Design and Implementation, Itanium Architecture for Programmers, and Linux Device Drivers (my definition of “great” and your definition of “great” may be two different things)), but no time to read them. What to do?

I am reminded of my extremely smart college buddy, Dan Tu. Dan had a special penchant for “insane hot” wings from (the now defunct) A. J. Wingers and quantum mechanics (and electricity and magnetism and physics and etc. etc.). Dan’s favorite place to study was the throne, on the 4th floor of the Taft-Van Doren dormitory. He’d grab a textbook, simulatenously announce, “I gotta take a dump,” and disappear for an hour. I would fumble my way around a problem set, wait for him to come back, and then get him to explain the solution to me. At one point, I asked him about his odd habits, and he stared at me while stating, “Shit goes out, knowledge comes in”. I never questioned him again.

And so, in honor of Dan, I have adopted his strategy at work. New economy multi-tasking at its finest, I can eliminate (har har) two problems at once. It turns out I can usually read at least an entire subsection of a chapter while dropping a deuce, and in this manner, should be able to finish at least a few technical books a year.

That’s me — getting smarter, one dump at a time.

Update: there really should be an acronym to describe this behavior. In a play on the old GIGO (garbage in, garbage out), I suggest GOKI. Thus, you would be able to construct a sentence such as, “Later. Gonna go pull a GOKI” or perhaps “Time for a GOKI”.