Blog for June 2019
Another month, another day that I set aside to type up some of my thoughts and whatnot.
Reflection
Since I wrote my last post, I did try to write another one on the fact that I turned 25 and what that actually meant for me. Each time I went to though I couldn't really come up with anything. I'm not sure if that's the headspace I was in at the time (woo for a quarter life crisis) or if it was just I didn't actually have anything of worth to say, some might say I still don't, but we'll ignore that niggling feeling at the back of my head for now.
I still have the problem where I don't give myself time, I move from one thing to the next, even when I should be idle, or focused on what's happening in front of me, I have other things going on in the back of my head. I am getting slightly better though, Wednesday night I took about a half hour just to stand out in the back yard and let myself centre again. I don't believe I've done that since I lived down south. I guess it's kind of a form of meditation.
I'm not particularly a spiritual person, nor do I really believe in positive or negative energies, or anything along those lines, but what I do believe in is the power of thought, and inhaling "clean" air and exhaling negativity and stress does make me feel better and at ease, at least for a little bit.
One thing I do when I write up these is that I look back to my most recent entry, I usually just start a fresh and not bother really going into much that I talked about before, but I feel like I should address something, in my fourth paragraph I avoid being idle not because it's unpleasant, just that it's unproductive - that's an outright lie I tell myself, I outright don't like it, I have my doubts on how much thinking about it would help, but I'm sure there's probably some value.
If I remember correctly I mentioned in some earlier blog that I wanted to keep this thing mostly light in this whole endeavour, but I'm not rethinking that somewhat, I mean, I'm not going to go into super deep and personal stuff here, I'm not about that hanging dirty laundry in the open air, the url is literally my name after all, but I think I'm going to try and be a little more open here, I mean it is supposed to be a kinda diary and I'm not important enough for this to really matter I suppose.
I guess we'll see how much I stick to that.
Work
Work has been the same as always, more jobs to get done than I have time in a day. In the spirit of being more open here, I've half been grappling with a form of impostor syndrome. The product recently crossed over some 20 thousand lines (I think - either that or 15 thousand) I've still got a good 8 or 9 months on my current contract, and I am leaning towards renewing when that runs out, but either way I've started to make a concerted effort for everything to be commented and be much more maintainable.
I've also been spending some of what spare time I have reading. I might put together a list of one's at some point that covers all the design principles and project management etc that is something I personally struggle with.
Books & Reading
So, I'm one who strongly believes in reading for entertainment, I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before on this blog, but it's true. My main problem is I start reading about 4 books at the same time and as I work through them I pick up others, to give you an idea I've been reading the first book of the lord of the rings series since about January, sneaking a couple of pages during my spare time when I can, but being much more into the "joy of computing" than I am hobbits (don't get me wrong, hobbits are my jam, just computing in the abstract draws me more).
The first I'm going to mention is: Lauren Ipsum: A Story About Computer Science and Other Improbable Things. It's pretty clearly written for a parent to read to their child to introduce them to the fundamental ideas that programming deals with. It's been incredibly charming and enjoyable to read, and when I do have children it's definitely one I'm going to read to them... the hard bit for me is when to read it to them. For example It introduces the idea of a heuristic through a character "Hugh Rustic" who presents the idea that you don't need the perfect solution, all you really need is a good enough one where a perfect one will take far too long to work out.
The second I've been reading is: Algorithms to Live By. This one is much more those who are older, but it again, doesn't even touch on code, and is much more focused on how algorithms are just a list of instructions which result in an answer, I'm not usually one to recommend youtube videos but this one more or less summarises the first chapter. If the video peaks an interest, I strongly recommend reading the book, there are a lot of the same beats she touches on, but in the book they go much more into the juicy details, but not in a boring way.
The last is one I'm yet to actually start reading in earnest because I only discovered it today: Blown to Bits. From what I've seen of it so far it appears to more concerned with the effects of the digital explosion, maybe a bit like the hacker crackdown (another excellent computer related book) as this one isn't so much about computers, or even algorithms, but more like society. Again, I'm yet to read it so I can't comment properly on it so far, but the reviews I've read seem very positive.
Socialising and Game Night
I'm in an interesting spot with game night currently. The two most developed characters have had their character arcs, and now I need to come up with more for them, I guess for this one I'll just talk about my Only War character I play on Sunday during the day. ~~Radar~~ Sonar (longish story) from the characters inception as an npc was obsessed with Jetbikes, when my character came to an untimely end, I was offered the chance to pick them back up and play them, which I did, embracing this character quick much to the parties chagrin on many different occasions. 2 sessions ago now, they finally got one (I try to use gender neutral naming for them as they kind of switch between being a female and male, there's no real character based reason behind that, it's purely a bit of flavour, they're more often a male though just because it's easier seeing that I'm a male myself). Anyway, in the 40k universe Jetbikes (basically motorbikes that use jets instead of wheels) are incredibly rare, unless you go to the chaos side of things and get one from the Dark Eldar (which Sonar has done by proxy) So this is quite heretical and they're going to be running the risk of just outright being killed for being involved in the ruinous powers. If they live long enough though I think they're going to go down the path of where they just slowly become despondent. I mean, when your entire life has been about getting a jetbike, and you get one, what do you next?
Closing comment
Anyway, I've been writing this for a a couple of hours now, I had dinner during it but either way, I think that'll about wrap it up for this post, I might try and write more often, but no promises.