smilingkenshi blog

[utwo]

[design-ideas]

[lli-design]

[smilingkenshi]

A BUFF DUDE protein brownie recipe. A bit more effort than the previous recipe I tried (more ingredients, more prep work). Still easy enough and yielded a more spongy texture.

[smilingkenshi]

I made this recipe the other day - it turned out well, much better than I expected. Another tool in the arsenal for GAINS!

[smilingkenshi]

Unix Command of the Day

The shuf command which is part of the GNU Core Utilities.

(Install on macOS via homebrew).

I'm using shuf to randomly pick files from directories, although as its man page states: shuf − generate random permutations

This Stack Overflow post has some salient details.

[robe-and-wizard-hat]

[smilingkenshi]

So the only game I've been playing lately is Quake 3 Arena via:

ioquake3

quakejs.com

I was always terrible at this game, and I think I am only slowly getting better at it.

It's a pure arcade experience, all intensity and action. Perfect for a quick break between coding sessions.

[thathomestar]

small appreciation post for quake 3 maps

[manaklyps]

Quake 3 Arena Deathmatch OST (von GamingOverDose)

[smilingkenshi]

Diet Score card

It was all going pretty well until I decided to make and eat pizza.

I ate a lot of pizza today.

I did do a leg day workout, but no cardio.

Need to start doing 30 mins on the bike every day I think - as a minimum.

[smilingkenshi]

Checkpoint: Node Docs

I finished going through the Node documentation (specifically the Guides section on the site).

The documentation is pretty good. I think it struck a good balance of showing you whats available, and not spending too long explaining concepts which experienced programmers are going to be familliar with.

The one thing I did find it lacking, especially compared to the Python docs, was the lack of non-trivial example code. I think this is more important for Node, because of its use of callbacks, Promises and async-await features.

I finished reading the docs, but I dont have a strong handle on what good Node code looks like or how it should be structured. The Python docs are very comprehensive about this.

Still not bad. Tomorrow I will look into Express and maybe look into Node School.

[smilingkenshi]

Letting Javascript into my heart...

It's finally happened.

I have decided to fully embrace the Javascript ecosystem. Node, npm all that jazz.

So far I've been impressed by the official documentation.

[smilingkenshi]

Evaluating Languages/Tech

After using numerous different programming languages/ecosytems over the years, I think I have crystallized some thoughts about choosing a language for getting projects done:

it doesnt matter how good a language is, if the tooling is unreliable/hard to install/weak.

it doesnt matter how good a language is, if the deployment story is complicated or troublesome.

If the tooling is bad, you'll spend time fighting the tooling. If the deployment story is bad, you'll spend time finding solutions for deployment problems.

Of course, you can spend the time doing these things. But would you rather spend your time solving those kinds of problems, or spending time actually programming?

I choose programming - even if that means choosing less powerful or elegant languages.

[smilingkenshi]

The personal productivity system I live by: the feature snowball method.

Much like the debt snowball method for paying down debt, the feature snowball method prioritizes momentum over everything else. The idea is that by getting quick wins and gradually reducing the things you need to do, you’ll be able to stay focused, motivated, and make progress towards whatever it is you’re trying to accomplish: whether that be building a product, cleaning your house, or working on passion projects.

If you’re working in a small team or on some sort of personal project/hobby, the feature snowball method can be a great way to “get over” the anxiety and productivity dips that many people (like me) experience when they’re overwhelmed.

[smilingkenshi]

Focus is about Saying No.

I started the year with too many open projects. Little toy projects and things I wanted to learn. One of these was to dabble with Python and Flask. I spent too many hours fighting the Python ecosystem (trying to get things like virtualenv, pyenv etc to work correctly on macOS). Then I did some basic Flask things.

The problem with web microframeworks is that they just remind me of all the things that you have to manually add or configure, that something like Rails gives you for free.

Also given the problems I have had with the Python ecosystem, I had already decided that I want to evaluate using Javascript on the backend or Go. So... I finally asked myself: why am I wasting time on this?

Needless to say, I killed this task, and also killed a few other non-essential tasks at the same time.

In the past I would have felt a bit bad about this. Maybe left these projects open for ages, and have them adding some mental overhead. And maybe I would finally have abandoned/archived these projects and felt bad about doing so.

Not today. And not this year.

Projects will be killed and archived with extreme prejudice, and these will rightfully be considered victories.

So: 2021 and multiple projects already completed. ✅⭐️🙌

[smilingkenshi]

Streamlining

Today I've been tryng to tame the many browser tabs I have open.

Most tabs I've assigned to a task or project, and organized as appropriate.

I extracted the contents of one tab into a simple script (tips.rb) that outputs random life tips into the terminal.

[smilingkenshi]

2020: Year in Code

2020: Year in Code Git Repos: Dropbox 2020 Code Sketches: ├── AutolayoutBookWork ├── BluetoothLab ├── CollectionViewTest ├── CombineLab ├── DataSourceCellConfig ├── NSSecureCoding-Example-Objc ├── QR-Code-Generation-in-Swift.playground ├── SimpleAPIClient ├── Swift-Hackspace ├── SwiftUI\ -\ Apple\ Tutorials ├── SwiftUI-Lab ├── SwiftUIPlayPen ├── WWDC2020-Code-Sketches ├── mac-SwiftUI-Experiment └── month-bar-prototype Dropbox/Code Runner Scratchspace: ├── AdventOfCode2020 ├── FunctionalBoardGame ├── FunctionalBoardGame.swift ├── GenericsSpace ├── GenericsSpace.swift ├── NSArray-First-N-Elements.m ├── OpaqueReturnTypes.swift ├── Output-Bytes-of-Data-Type.swift ├── URL Construction.swift iMac Code Sketches: ├── dearPyGui │   ├── README.md │   └── hello.py ├── deno │   ├── README.md │   ├── app.ts │   └── oak-rest-api ├── iOS │   ├── EmojiHunter │   └── TimeScrubberControl ├── javascript-lang-fundamentals │   ├── Promises │   └── string-interpolation.js ├── nodejs │   ├── exploreFileSystem │   └── simpleServer ├── rails │   └── imageserver ├── sapper-stuff │   └── babylon ├── stimulusjs │   ├── README.md │   ├── stimulus-starter │   └── stimulus-without-build-system └── svelte-livestream └── svelte-project iMac Code for Twitch: ├── Apple-Swift-UI-Tutorial ├── BigList-Catalyst ├── HackingWithSwift-SwiftUI └── SwiftUI-PlayPen-Twitch iMac Git Repos: ├── Athena ├── Brainshots ├── OnboardingScreen ├── Project-Healthboost ├── StreakEngine-deleteme ├── ToastLab ├── Wisdom ├── dailylog ├── dailylog-streaks ├── data-sources-in-memory ├── daystream-website ├── dot-plan ├── focus-app ├── <name>.github.io ├── playsounds ├── streakkit ├── streakkit-client └── yapdatabaseexploration MBP Code Sketches: ├── deno-lab └── go-lab MBP Git Repos: ├── Athena ├── Code\ Sketches │   └── emoji-detection-in-ios ├── FileSystemAccess-MacApp ├── PlaySounds ├── UIKitFundamentals ├── Wisdom ├── combine-lab ├── dailylog ├── data-sources-in-memory ├── dot-plan ├── focus-app ├── kidbits.html ├── streakengine-swift ├── streakkit └── streaks-r-d Dashboards: ├── Dashboard ├── Dashboard-of-Outcomes └── Dashboard-of-Tasks bitbucket daily-dashboard.git Dashboard bitbucket outcomes-dashboard.git Dashboard-of-Outcomes bitbucket projects-dashboard.git Dashboard-of-Tasks ➜ Tasks l _Archived-Completed Bluetooth Learning Learn-Docker Learn-Python-Basics ➜ Tasks l _Archived-Abandoned Automate-the-Boring-Stuff Dashboard-Projects-ScreenCapture Learn-Category-Theory-With-Haskell Learn-Rust Releases: Dashboards, scripts, Daily Log, Focus app? Tech: Python, Ruby, Swift, ObjC, Deno, Javascript