the arya family » rajat

View From My Desk

rajat — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 19:17:57 +0000

On a bright December morning a quick shot of the view from my desk.

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Some Days in Seattle

rajat — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 19:08:02 +0000

Are beautiful in a way that only makes sense in the northwest.

(apologies for the lousy camera work.)

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Hiking Lake Twenty Two (Granite Falls, WA)

rajat — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 03:52:34 +0000

Who: Rajat (first solo hike)

When: Sunday June 5, 2011

Where: Lake Twenty Two (Google Maps)

More info available at http://www.wta.org/go-hiking/hikes/lake-22.

I took a couple pictures on the way up, but then decided it was more fun to run up the trail and stroll down taking pictures, so my pictures are somewhat in reverse order. I have uploaded them in a hodge podge approach below.

It was a fun day listening to ‘The Economist’ while hiking up the switchbacks to the lake. Can’t wait for the next hike.

Some of the pictures from the hike below:

See the full gallery on Posterous

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RFAK Benaroya Hall

rajat — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 01:53:07 +0000

See the full gallery on Posterous

Less than 4 hours sleep in last 48 hours but excited to be here.

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Why Snoopy Loves Oncall

rajat — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 21:56:58 +0000

He gets to sleep in my oncall bed the whole next day.

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Why Snoopy Loves Oncall

rajat — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 22:23:59 +0000

He gets to sleep in my oncall bed the whole next day.

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Online Learning Per Minute Ratio

rajat — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 07:51:18 +0000

What is your learning per minute ratio when online? By online I mean on the Internet. I deeply value learning, and spend most of my free time continuing to learn as much about many things as possible. This is why trying to measure how much I get to learn per minute when online is interesting to me

From my initial analysis here is a list of sites/applications I use, in order of my learning per minute ratio:

1. Google Reader – my RSS feeds themselves are probably worth their own post, but in general I can get a great glimpse of what is interesting by scanning my RSS feeds.

2. Twitter – the more time I spend on Twitter the more nuggets of information I find. I am not following that many people but following the trends is surprisingly effective.

3. Email – more and more things that are important to me are arriving in my inbox every day. Companies and products are maintaining a connection with me through email. So every minute I am reading email I am learning about people or things that are important to me.

4. The Economist – subscribe to the paper edition, but find myself listening to or reading the online edition quite a bit. The audio edition is fantastic for doing errands – you can get through half the magazine in three hours without even noticing. Even if my retention is less when multi-tasking while listening I am still picking up more than if I didn’t have the magazine or was listening to Pandora.

5. NPR – this is a super broad category, but for me it mostly means “Morning Edition” and “This American Life”. Both programs are available on the iPhone and are free. Listening to “Morning Edition” while getting ready in the morning is a great way to be plugged into the days news in a very passive and entertaining way.

6. Wikipedia – after weeding through lots of articles that are not entirely related to what I want to learn about, there is plenty of information that is relevant and I enjoy learning from the site.

7. LinkedIn – every time I come across someone I look them up in Linked In. I do this for companies too to try to see if I can find out more about the people that work there. Each profile provides insight into the company/person/etc.

Surprisingly what is not on the list: Facebook. I learn almost nothing when using Facebook. Facebook provides tons of information about people and things going on in their lives but I rarely feel that I am learning anything about them from using the site.

This list isn’t exhaustive but it jumped into my head. I find myself constantly trying to learn more and as great as the Internet is a tool I was surprised to realize how much value I derive from Twitter vs how little I derive from Facebook.

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First tomatoes from Shaily’s tomato plant

rajat — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 20:41:47 +0000

First tomatoes we will eat from Shaily’s plant. There were tomatoes before but we suspect the birds ate them.

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A day in the life of Snoopy

rajat — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 21:21:05 +0000

Following Snoopy throughout his Saturday.

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The microwave has left the building

rajat — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 21:32:42 +0000

In an effort to remember our roots I have removed the microwave from our kitchen. This way we can appreciate our meal even more and recognize the importance of spending time together heating and cooking it.

Or the microwave needs repair and I finally dropped it off today. One or the other.

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