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How to book - Search and book via a travel agent like Expedia.com or cruisecompete.com. If you have to ask something then these travel agents usually provide way better customer service than the ones employed by the cruise company. Deck - The cruise floors are called decks. Larger the number, higher the deck. Most outdoor activities (including pool, spa, nightclubs) are usually located happen on the higher decks. The lower decks are usually about indoor activities and restaurants. Bidding - If your cruise line permits, always bid for a better room within your budget. Formal Dress - Carry at least one formal dress, it can turn out to be useful for some formal events on the cruise. Diet - Popular dietary restrictions like vegetarian or vegan are not hard for them to meet most of the time. But if you have a more special requirement (like halal diet or kosher), let the cruise ship know in advance. Meals - Usually all cruise ships have a buffet restaurant and multiple dine-in restaurants. Former is quick and contains prepared food. Latter is fancier but takes its own sweet time. The buffet restaurant is usually on the higher deck and is included as a part of the cruise. Some Dine-in restaurants (high brow term: “Speciality restaurants”) are complementary, some are not. An advance reservation is good to have (but not required) for the latter. Beverages - While the standard food is free on the ship. Standard addictions like Soda (soft-drinks), carbonated water, and alcohol (hard-drinks) are not free. If you really need them, buy them in advance, buy them onboard (expensive), buy and consume them whenever ship stops at a new destination or look for a promotional package which includes them for free. Water - Carry a few empty water bottles to refill or even better a hydration pack. A hydration pack is really useful for the day trips at the intermediate stops (fancily called, “port of call”). Shore Excursions - Shore Excursions at the port of call can be booked via cruise ship or on your own. The cruise ship ones are expensive but are a safer bet. If you are adventurous then book them on your own. If you are not, just go with the cruise bookings. Guest service - If you need something from the guest service, catch them early in the morning or late at night. Every other time, I have seen a queue. I wonder if they give out some raffle tickets but I digress.

Some activities have binary outcomes while some have graded outcomes. Getting admission into a college is binary, either you get it or you don’t; how well you do in the college is graded. Clearing a job interview is binary, either you get selected or you don’t; how well you do the job isn’t that black and white. Getting a promotion is binary; while a pay raise is usually on a graded scale....

Day 1 We did Zion Narrows on the first day. The hike consists of walking in the flowing water, which is ankle to knee-deep. Therefore, getting wetsuits and water shoes is highly recommended. The views are marvelous, and since one has to return along the same route, one can decide how far one wants to go. Total hike length is 9.4 miles, starting at the visitor center.

Occasionally, my mac applications end up in a corrupt state where they won’t open. I recently encountered this with Deluge. The first step to diagnose is to open Terminal and open them in the terminal via Sh 1 2 $ open -a deluge # This name is same as the name of the app (minus the ".app" portion). LSOpenURLsWithRole() failed for the application /usr/local/Caskroom/deluge/1.3.12/Deluge.app with error -10810. Now, the error is more diagnosable but still cryptic....

I did the 23.4 miles rim to rim day hike through Grand Canyon during the last week of November (Thanksgiving weekend) 2017. Unlike most hikes like Mt. Whitney, the hard part (ascent) comes later, and therefore, it is easy to get trapped. Be confident of your fitness level before you try this.

The book presents an interesting viewpoint on the meaning of life, questioning traditional self-help gurus, consumerism, and over-obsession with positive thinking.

The book talks about randomness, associated maths, and the psychological biases which interfere with a more stochastic approach to thinking about life.

Java has fewer quirks compared to C++, but sometimes I do come across surprises. A code like following will fail to compile since you are trying to initialize a variable with an uninitialized variable. Java 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 public class Sample { private final String mField1; private final String mField2 = mField1 + " two"; private Sample(String field1) { mField1 = field1; } } But if instead of directly referencing mField1, you reference indirectly via a getter method code will compile, and mField2 will get “null” value for mField1....

Day 1 We started our journey with Templo Mayor, a 700-year-old Aztec temple, and took a guided tour of it. The ticket to the temple costs MXN 70 per person, and the guided tour in English was for MXN 300. It takes about 3-4 hours to explore the archeological remains and the museum. I would recommend this museum over other archeological museums in the Mexico city since this one had descriptions written in English.

The book provides a scientific perspective on the history of how humans came to dominate the planet. The book’s biggest focus is on the three revolutions the cognitive revolution which started 70, 000 years ago; the agricultural revolution which started 12, 000 years ago; and the scientific revolution which started 500 years ago and shaped the destiny of our species and the planet.