Miscellaneous

There has been a recent increase in the number of new vistors and RSS subscribers and I wanted to take a moment to introduce myself and welcome you all.

My name is Raam Dev and I’m a twenty-something searching for purpose and meaning to life. I’m an aspiring writer, runner, solo-entrepreneur, photographer, and geek. If you want to see what that guy on the left looks like as a three-year-old, see the about page. :)

I’ve been a landlord, software engineer, IT support technician, carpenter, business owner, and even a mad scientist. I love simplicity and minimalism.

Currently, I’m in the process of transitioning to a nomadic lifestyle and I invite you to follow my journey.

I’m still ironing out the details, but here’s the rough plan: I’m headed to India in about three weeks with nothing more than what will fit in a 30 liter backpack.

By the time I leave, I will have gotten rid of my pickup truck and nearly all my possessions. I will live a minimalist and frugal life, soaking up new experiences and sharing them here on my blog with the goal of inspiring and motivating my readers. Continue reading →

I’ve added an RSS widget to the sidebar of this blog that displays the last five posts on my tech blog, Solid State Raam. If you’re not already subscribed to the RSS feed or following @SolidStateRaam on Twitter, you can now see a list of the latest posts when you come here. :)

For at least half my life now I’ve favored military time, or the 24-hour clock, over the 12-hour clock which is much more common in the United States. When I was younger and learning how to convert the 24-hour clock into 12-hour time, I accidentally discovered an easy solution: Simply minus two from the hour, and then drop the first number.

For example, 18:30 (24-hour clock) = 18 – 2 = 16, drop the first number and we’re left with 6. Therefore, 18:30 is 6:30 on a 12-hour clock! It gets slightly more tricky when the 24-hour clock gets to 22:00, because 22 – 2 = 20. But now you simply replace the leading 2 with a 1. Therefore, 22:00 = 10:00. Telling AM vs PM is easy: if the time is greater than or equal to 12, it’s PM. Less than 12, it’s AM.

Once you’ve used a 24-hour clock long enough, you won’t need such methods of converting between the two types. For me, when I see the number 18 I now automatically see 6pm, and when I see the number 23 I automatically think 11pm. However, for those who are clueless when it comes to 24-hour clocks, this simple method of converting between the two might help. Of course, the only way you’re really going to get used to reading military time is to change all your clocks (at least as many as you can) to use a 24-hour clock.