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2009/05/15
2009/03/15
CTo'W
Hey, it's been a few weeks! What's happening?
I thought I'd stop by and drop you a link to this interesting article about work, hours, and the seemingly odd statement that "counting hours doesn't make sense". Even if you don't really have the option to simply work when you like, and not when you don't, there are some valuable insights about activities that can help increase your energy.
Short post for today. That's all for now!
AC
I thought I'd stop by and drop you a link to this interesting article about work, hours, and the seemingly odd statement that "counting hours doesn't make sense". Even if you don't really have the option to simply work when you like, and not when you don't, there are some valuable insights about activities that can help increase your energy.
Short post for today. That's all for now!
AC
2009/02/12
CTo'W and a personal project
Hello again! I am back. This week, I'll be talking about LaTeX, XP-Dev, and a personal project I'm working on.
LaTeX is a programming language used to typeset documents. Instead of a WYSIWYG editor like Microsoft Word, it's a WYSIWYM language to describe elements of what you're writing and let styling rules decide how your document should look. This is nice for a few reasons; notably, once you're familiar with the language, it is very easy to create documents. You can write it in whatever text-editor you like, set up your document information (which paper size you're using, whether it's a report, an article, a book, etc.) and go. Whenever you have a section, you just say so:
\section{Section Title}
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet...
and LaTeX (or one of its slaves - I'm still pretty fuzzy on what happens behind the scenes) will make it look nice for you. The Wikipedia page has some example LaTeX code and the corresponding output to check out. I'm trying to move to LaTeX for future documents - probably my work term report this term, for example - because I don't enjoy dealing with Word to try and get my document to look just right.
Next up: XP-Dev.com! In an earlier post, I mentioned Subversion. XP-Dev is a free Subversion host that includes project tracking capabilities as well. I'm really enjoying it so far - I had a minor problem the other day with something, so I reported a bug. The issue was dealt with in four hours, complete with a friendly, "Hey – should be fixed now :)" I'm working on a couple different projects we're hosting at XP-Dev; for one of them, there are five of us on the team and the forums are proving to be a very useful way to discuss the project. We can also create and assign tasks, so it's very easy to see what's been done and what is left to do. This brings me to...
My personal project! I haven't been making much progress on it lately, but my plan is to write an audio visualizer, like you can see in Windows Media Player or foobar2000 or Winamp or Amarok or whatever else you like. Since I've been using XP-Dev lately, I decided to track the project with its utilities, and create this wiki page describing the project in a little more detail than I'll do here. There are still a lot of details to work out, but I'm looking forward to it! I might wrangle a programmer friend or two into helping me with it over Reading Week... (Not that I have Reading Week while I'm on co-op, but they do.)
That's it for now. Cheers!
AC
LaTeX is a programming language used to typeset documents. Instead of a WYSIWYG editor like Microsoft Word, it's a WYSIWYM language to describe elements of what you're writing and let styling rules decide how your document should look. This is nice for a few reasons; notably, once you're familiar with the language, it is very easy to create documents. You can write it in whatever text-editor you like, set up your document information (which paper size you're using, whether it's a report, an article, a book, etc.) and go. Whenever you have a section, you just say so:
\section{Section Title}
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet...
and LaTeX (or one of its slaves - I'm still pretty fuzzy on what happens behind the scenes) will make it look nice for you. The Wikipedia page has some example LaTeX code and the corresponding output to check out. I'm trying to move to LaTeX for future documents - probably my work term report this term, for example - because I don't enjoy dealing with Word to try and get my document to look just right.
Next up: XP-Dev.com! In an earlier post, I mentioned Subversion. XP-Dev is a free Subversion host that includes project tracking capabilities as well. I'm really enjoying it so far - I had a minor problem the other day with something, so I reported a bug. The issue was dealt with in four hours, complete with a friendly, "Hey – should be fixed now :)" I'm working on a couple different projects we're hosting at XP-Dev; for one of them, there are five of us on the team and the forums are proving to be a very useful way to discuss the project. We can also create and assign tasks, so it's very easy to see what's been done and what is left to do. This brings me to...
My personal project! I haven't been making much progress on it lately, but my plan is to write an audio visualizer, like you can see in Windows Media Player or foobar2000 or Winamp or Amarok or whatever else you like. Since I've been using XP-Dev lately, I decided to track the project with its utilities, and create this wiki page describing the project in a little more detail than I'll do here. There are still a lot of details to work out, but I'm looking forward to it! I might wrangle a programmer friend or two into helping me with it over Reading Week... (Not that I have Reading Week while I'm on co-op, but they do.)
That's it for now. Cheers!
AC
2009/01/28
CTo'W, round 2
For those of you just joining us, CTo'W is my "Cool Thing of the Week". It may or may not actually be weekly; we haven't figured that one out yet. For those of you still with us, welcome back! Glad to have you here. Huddle up and let it snow (preferably from the right side of a nice, thick, well-insulated wall), because here we go!
This week, I decided to share an article I read at defmacro.org called Taming Perfectionism, by Slava Akhmechet. I liked this article because it corresponded so closely with what I've been feeling lately - unmotivated to start anything because nothing I do will live up to my own expectations or standards. When I conceive of something, I have a vision in my head, and when I try and implement it, it either disappoints my vision or it falls by the wayside, incomplete. When either of these things happen, I end up frustrated and unhappy, and less likely to pursue another project in future. Slava writes about Wabi-sabi, a Japanese school of thought centred on the concept of beauty as it applies to things that are transient or impermanent. I really enjoyed the article and it helped me understand my own behaviour a little better. I'm going to have to pick up the Book of Tea he mentions... if I ever get around to reading the half-dozen books or so I already have piled up and waiting!
That's all for the CTo'W for now. Work has been interesting lately. I am very enthusiastic about it, and I'm looking forward to see where we get by the end of the week! It's very motivational to be working for my boss; he's an enthusiastic, intelligent guy, and his enthusiasm for work, life, and everything else is highly contagious. Maybe I'll write more about the work I'm doing in a later post.
Cheers for now,
AC
This week, I decided to share an article I read at defmacro.org called Taming Perfectionism, by Slava Akhmechet. I liked this article because it corresponded so closely with what I've been feeling lately - unmotivated to start anything because nothing I do will live up to my own expectations or standards. When I conceive of something, I have a vision in my head, and when I try and implement it, it either disappoints my vision or it falls by the wayside, incomplete. When either of these things happen, I end up frustrated and unhappy, and less likely to pursue another project in future. Slava writes about Wabi-sabi, a Japanese school of thought centred on the concept of beauty as it applies to things that are transient or impermanent. I really enjoyed the article and it helped me understand my own behaviour a little better. I'm going to have to pick up the Book of Tea he mentions... if I ever get around to reading the half-dozen books or so I already have piled up and waiting!
That's all for the CTo'W for now. Work has been interesting lately. I am very enthusiastic about it, and I'm looking forward to see where we get by the end of the week! It's very motivational to be working for my boss; he's an enthusiastic, intelligent guy, and his enthusiasm for work, life, and everything else is highly contagious. Maybe I'll write more about the work I'm doing in a later post.
Cheers for now,
AC
2009/01/17
Cool thing of the week, round 1
As suggested by Abe, I will start posting a cool thing once a week, with arbitrary regularity. This week, it is the List of common misconceptions. There are some interesting things in there - for example, "eyestrain" from reading in low light or playing video games does not explain myopia. Also, black holes do not somehow develop a stronger gravitational field than the stars that formed them. If our Sun was immediately compressed into a black hole, it would have the same mass as it did beforehand, and (hypothetically) the same centre of mass; the Earth would continue to go around it as normal, only without the usual sunlight. (This also explains why the miniature black holes theorized to form at the LHC are not a threat to the planet. You can look up Hawking radiation if you want more information about why they're not a threat.)
I feel that hoarding "cool things" so that I'm assured to have something each week would be silly - I'd rather post everything as I find them and force myself to find something else cool if I run out. On that note, I've been meaning to set up a Subversion (SVN) server for a while now, to take care of versioning schoolwork and my programming projects. This past week at work, I got started setting one up for the job - it turns out it's much easier than I've been expecting, and I'll definitely be using it from now on. The Wikipedia article might be a little technical for you, but it's really cool stuff. Some people say that even artsies should use it to take care of their papers and so on. I'm personally using TortoiseSVN (a Windows shell extension standalone SVN client); I think Visual Studio 2008 probably has its own built-in plugin, so I'll be seeing if that connects to my server as well. If you're one of my less-technical friends, and interested in setting up Subversion for yourself, let me know and I might be convinced to lend you a hand.
I feel that hoarding "cool things" so that I'm assured to have something each week would be silly - I'd rather post everything as I find them and force myself to find something else cool if I run out. On that note, I've been meaning to set up a Subversion (SVN) server for a while now, to take care of versioning schoolwork and my programming projects. This past week at work, I got started setting one up for the job - it turns out it's much easier than I've been expecting, and I'll definitely be using it from now on. The Wikipedia article might be a little technical for you, but it's really cool stuff. Some people say that even artsies should use it to take care of their papers and so on. I'm personally using TortoiseSVN (a Windows shell extension standalone SVN client); I think Visual Studio 2008 probably has its own built-in plugin, so I'll be seeing if that connects to my server as well. If you're one of my less-technical friends, and interested in setting up Subversion for yourself, let me know and I might be convinced to lend you a hand.
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