Starting Somewhere

My name is Allen and I graduated from the University of Washington on June 13, 2009, and this is me on starting out in the world.

[hawkal]

Day 4473

i live.

[hawkal]

The nature of prioritizing, and declining requests, and even conversations.

[earthlynation-blog]

(via 500px / Snowy Aerobatics by Kate G)

[travelingcolors-deactivated2020]

Spritz app lets you speed read books at 1,000 words per minute

Designed for integration with operating systems, wearables, and online use, Spritz has developed an application that allows users to read books at up-to 1,000 words per minute. The technology has been designed to enhance reading on mobile devices by streaming individual words using an ‘optimal recognition point’ (ORP) technique in a display known as a ‘redicle.’ This method essentially makes communication faster and more effective by removing inefficient eye movements associated with traditional reading. Spritz streams content in single word bursts, aligning text with your line of sight, which as as result, allows you to read without having to move your eyes.

[hawkal]

designed with a savage economy, like the words in a short story that slivers through you and leaves a melon-size exit wound.

http://grantland.com/features/anthony-gatto-juggling-cirque-du-soleil-jason-fagone/?2

[hawkal]

You need a newline in front of your bullets for them to work: * This won't work

This will

[hawkal]

Day 1645

Haven't written here in a while.

That last link is directly relevant to what I've been considering: the nature of a senior engineer. More and more it looks like there are a large number of soft skills required, though I wonder if these posts assume a certain level of technical expertise already present that I may need to develop.

Here are some items to work on immediately:

Context: My manager pointed out to me that frequently I do not provide enough context into a conversation. I'll launch immediately into whatever is on my mind, forcing whomever I am communicating with to scramble for clues as to what I am referring.

Attitude: I definitely have an ego problem sometimes. Especially when dealing with non-technical teammates, I am too often impatient with them, and I know I adopt a somewhat arrogant air. Humility and empathy are key.

Estimates: I need more practice breaking things down, and creating time estimates. I also need to do more post-mortem reflections on missed deadlines, to see how to better approach problems and/or identify points of failure/difficulty to work faster/create better estimates.

[hawkal]

I think that there’s a lot of institutional knowledge in our field, especially about what makes for a productive engineer. But while there are a good

[ecantwell]

[hawkal]

You are to me not numbers but what numbers substitute for: the effects of gravity, all the permutations of a leafpile. A hundred hundred, and counting. You would be all increase, if increase could substitute for what can be nothing but itself. You are of numbers not their counting but their countless permutations. 

Maybe you lose something by cutting away the first half, but what remains calls to me. I ponder the resolution of improbable probabilities that resulted in... you; sitting there, across the vastness, perceiving... me.

[hawkal]

Day 1464

Tomorrow begins a new adventure.

In the past 6 months, I've been volunteering, then living in San Francisco. I finally moved here yesterday. Somehow, I feel as though a chapter of my life has concluded. I like to think that my time as a volunteer opened my eyes to new things, set my priorities straight, and generally changed my trajectory, but I am uncertain. All I know is that right now I have a renewed focus on learning. I want to make senior developer within two years. Here we go.

[hawkal]

Day 1240

The whole company was fired yesterday, hahaha, waaaat?

[hawkal]

Day 1233

So glad we aren't heavily concerned with data integrity for some of our tables, otherwise this would have been ridiculous: http://www.bluebox.net/about/blog/2009/07/mysql_encoding/

[peternixey]

I have a friend, a designer, who’s convinced she’s not very good. She doesn’t believe her work is anything special. She doesn’t even believe her discipline is anything special and prefers to assign credit to her environment or to the pressure of others’ expectations.

[hawkal]

Day 1231

INSERT... ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE I was doing something crazy: INSERT INTO table (unique_key, value1, value2) VALUES ("maybe_unique", "value1", "value2"), ("maybe_unique2", "value3", "value4") ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE value1 = (CASE unique_key WHEN "maybe_unique" THEN "value1" WHEN "maybe_unique2" THEN "value3" ELSE value1 END), value2 = (CASE unique_key WHEN "maybe_unique" THEN "value2" WHEN "maybe_unique2" THEN "value4" ELSE value2 END) Apparently, this can be replaced with: INSERT INTO table (unique_key, value1, value2) VALUES ("maybe_unique", "value1", "value2"), ("maybe_unique2", "value3", "value4") ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE value1 = VALUES(value1), value2 = VALUES(value2) Boo.

[nevver]

Basic Fear Groups

[hawkal]

Day 1227

ActiveRecord::Base.sanitize Holy crap.

[hawkal]

Day 1221

Ambiguity This is a topic that deserves a serious blogger's writing. As I haven't spent the time to find links: You will never know enough. Ambiguity is part of the real world. The key is recognizing what you know, getting to a point where you will probably make the right decision, and making it. Sometimes you will get unlucky.