Koray Alkan

No Beach Photos

Koray Alkan — Tue, 25 Jul 2023 23:05:33 GMT

I was in a Greek island last week and I don’t have any photos from the beach. Neither does my wife. In fact, I wouldn’t have been able to even if I wanted to, because I decided to put a distance between my phone and myself during daytime, physically. A digital detox, as some say.

There’s no shortage of articles explaining how phone addiction is real, yet its impact isn’t immediately obvious unless you step back and consciously evaluate how much time you’re actually spending on your device.

My biggest concern was growing difficulty in having a hard time focusing on certain activities that require extended periods of concentration or immersion, such as reading a book or simply sitting quietly and "thinking".

Therefore making a conscious decision, I lately tried to reduce my dependency on my phone and part of it was literally putting it in the safe at the hotel room during the day last week.

It worked wonders. I slowly realized how long the days were. Coupled with my previous post, sitting and doing nothing but reading, I also realized how much time one can simply waste by constantly staying connected, which has almost zero benefits in the long run.

One drawback - I don’t have any beach photos this time. But that's okay. Cameras never capture the beauty of such places the way our own eyes can anyways. Still, below are some moments I captured during the evenings, when I had my phone with me.

Crete, Greece | July 2023

Serenity in Stasis

Koray Alkan — Mon, 10 Jul 2023 23:34:48 GMT

I think one of the underestimated or unnoticed side-effects of being an engineer is trying to optimize everything in life. A lot of times, for years, I have been asking the questions to myself:

How can I be more efficient in my daily life?
I need to walk for 15 mins to the station or this is a 40 minute drive, which podcast should I listen to in order to make the most of this otherwise useless time?
Oh, this task will take some time to complete. Can I do something else while waiting?

And so on.

But this got only worse in time, to the point whenever I am free for even 30 seconds, I will reach out to my phone to check my mails, respond to people, try to strike-through some kind of a task. I'm sure I'm not alone.

Absolute Stillness

I embraced doing nothing, staying still for the first time last year, during a two week vacation in southwest of Turkey.

I would sit & relax under the sun, next to the pool or beach. Let my thoughts wander, just observe them as they come and go. I didn't read a single page of book and I repeated myself:

It's OK that I'm spending time doing nothing. There is nothing wrong with it. I will let my body relax, pyhsically and mentally.

The result was incredible. I don't think I have ever felt that relaxed for a very long time. Since then, I have been practicing this randomly in life. I try to do nothing and stand or sit still, and purposefully try to get bored.

Don't read anything when traveling on the Tube.

Listen to nothing when driving.

Observe the environment when waiting for someone.

It is boring, but getting bored worked wonders for me to stay in the moment and ironically, has increased my focus, hence productivity.

Boredom is underrated.

Heroku and My Rental Agency

Koray Alkan — Tue, 16 Jun 2020 10:12:36 GMT

This is not a tutorial on Heroku or Python. Instead, it's a story of how software can be used for fun, escalations and getting results. All at once.

It's a Python app that takes an HTTP request to kick-off email reminders every 6 hours and the interval drops down to every minute after 24 hours, until it's stopped.

It starts with my rental agency and a recent change of UK regulations on deposit caps for rentals. My rental agency, which I will call them "Housy", sends me an email to refund partial amount of my holding deposit. It's a small amount but it's some extra money into my bank acount, so good news. This is what I receive on June 10th:

I reply back on June 14th with my account details after realizing they don't actually have my bank account details although there's a direct debit set. I find this interesting but continue:

So far so good – I expect them to return back the small sum in a day or two although it should take seconds to do a transfer nowadays. And I receive the following in a few hours on June 14th, very reassuring:

And I wait.

I wait for a month.

They send back a reply pretty quickly although I'm sure my name is not Koday. Also I admit getting a reply at 8:30pm is impressive – do they work 24/7?

July 18th, 4 days later, still nothing. I send another reminder to them and they tell me the exact same thing – that they will look into this as soon as possible.

Final "human" email

It's obvious – I need to keep chasing them to complete the transaction. It's also ironic that if I were to owe them any amounts I'm pretty sure they would keep harrassing me every single day. However I have more important things to do than to keep sending reminder emails. So the answer: automate it.

July 19th, 2019 Friday
I'm back from work, don't have any plans for tonight other than relaxing after a busy week. I have dinner and sit in front of my computer to hack a Heroku app very quick – takes an hour to do so. By 9:41pm it's ready to go live after some tests and I send my final "human" email to them:

That's it.

It's a Python app that takes an HTTP request to kick-off email reminders every 6 hours and the interval drops down to every minute after 24 hours, until it's stopped.

App is scheduled to start the process on July 22nd, 9am sharp.

And it does:

Conclusion

System turned out to be sending 2 notifications until I was able to see the funds in my account by the end of the day. If I consider the amount of time I spent writing the application I don't think it justifies the effort, neverthless I ended up getting my money back in a few hours, practicing my Python and Heroku skills, and more importantly having fun on a Friday evening at home. At least I have the infrastructure now if I face with a similar issue in the future – though I hope I don't have to use it again!

Preface

Koray Alkan — Sun, 05 Jan 2020 22:34:48 GMT

I kept asking myself, "Do people ever read the preface? Because I don't". Thinking back now, reason was it felt time consuming. If I'm holding the book in my hands I wanted to start reading it immediately, not give the extra few minutes to the author to explain to me why they had written it, what the motivation and the arguments were from their perspective. I thought, just give me the content.

For years this is what I had done, without any exceptions, but until recently. Doing some reflections I noticed the reason for skipping the preface was actually related to my obsession with productivity. Trying to get the most out of anything, as quick as possible. Chances are high that being an engineer had an influence on this approach as well.

Things have changed since then and my habits are being evolved accordingly, but this is quite a broad subject and journey; therefore this time I will not rush explaining them in a single post.

So – I'll take my time, go step-by-step to share my thoughts and ideas on a wide range of topics from engineering to music, productivity to life in general.

Lastly, preface is now the very first page I read when choosing a book. It's the elevator pitch of a writer – or a movie trailer: a chance to convince the reader to go ahead and purchase the book. I never skip that page anymore. It's as valuable as the rest of the book, if not more.