#the future engineer

[thefutureengineer]

Visit Original Link

Hey, here is the first episode of my women in STEM podcast, I hope you like it.

PS: My inability to talk does improve by about episode 4, 5, I'm working on it :)

Shownotes

[thefutureengineer]

What counts as a person in STEM?

Is it someone who works in STEM in any capacity, management for example? Is it someone with a STEM related degree that works in STEM? Or someone with a STEM related degree regardless of where they work?

[thefutureengineer]

Summer of self inflicted pain

This coding business is soooo much harder than I had anticipated. It has taken every inch of restraint not to throw my laptop out of the window.

All the websites and blogs and articles talk about the benefits of being able to code and how anyone can pick it up and blah, blah, blah. I myself was sucked in by the amazing possibilities that being able to code would bring me but now I wish I never heard of it.

Okay, not really, I’m exaggerating greatly, but it is significantly more difficult than I thought. It requires my full attention and even after hours of trying things and Googling, not much progress has been made. It took me three days to make a header where things were in one line, and as it is, I’m not sure how well it would work with a different screen size.

If I didn’t appreciated Google before (which I did) I appreciated it 1000 times more now. As well as Stack Overflow where people seem to have already asked and answered my questions, although a more complex version of them.

From this past week’s experience and talking to my dad I realised I really need to make sure my foundation is solid. So before I continue with this “theme”, I need to know HTML and CSS like I know my favourite TV characters.

[thefutureengineer]

Give It 100

Last week I was talking about Lift.do and another website similar to that (in fact I found it from lift.do) is GiveIt100.com

The founder Karen X. Cheng made the news when she taught herself how to dance in a year and uploaded the video to YouTube. After receiving emails and messaged from people inspired to the same thing as her, she founded her website GiveIt100.com

Every day you record yourself doing whatever it is you set out to do and by the time you are finished you have a video time-lapse of you doing just that.

You have 10 seconds of video time, each day for 100 days. The idea is that we don’t notice our day to day improvements. When we see someone we view as successful we only see the end product. We don’t see how bad they were at the beginning. We also don’t see how far we've come to get to where we are.

I truly like the idea, and while I myself haven’t used it yet, I fully plan to (skateboarding...I really want to learn how).

[thefutureengineer]

Delicious

Listening to Entrepreneur on Fire I am always directed to various online resources. Some incredible, some okay. One of the sites leaning more to the incredible side of the scale is delicious.com (mmmmmm.....)

links. Links. LINKS!

When you come across a fascinating article you naturally want to share it with any of your friends you think would be remotely interested. Sure you could share it on Facebook but to be honest your feed and everyone else’s is already cluttered up, and truthfully most of them won’t read it.

Even then, sometimes you come across something you want to save for yourself but it’s just not bookmark worthy. You may have a word document or something with the link in, or you could save it as a draft on your phone. Either way you want to be able to keep it and come back to it somehow.

Enter delicious.com

It allows you to save links and share them from anywhere. And if you tag them it makes it easier for you to 1. search for them in the future and 2. find articles on similar topics. Either way it is superb and I love it.

[thefutureengineer]

About.me

It’s no secret I that I spend far too much of my time online but every now and then (realistically about ten times a day) I come across websites that make me so excited. While exploring something or other some days ago I came across about.me

It does what it says in the name, it’s your own personal about me page that you can use to link to all your social media accounts, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, ect. It’s “your personal homepage”.

People have used it as an online CV, a way to market themselves, a homepage and just a central point of contact.

I really love the idea and think the concept behind it is fantastic, and while I’m a bit late to the game (it was founded in 2009), I will definitely be spending several hours on this site.

[thefutureengineer]

Hour of code

Ages ago code.org launched HOUR of CODE.

I remember when I first came across it I thought it was a great idea and I promised myself that in the summer I will fully dedicate my time to learning how to code.

But I didn't.

Everything is so much more exciting when you "can't" do it for whatever reason and when you do have time there is always an excuse. 

Today I was listening to James Garvin's Entrepreneur on Fire interview and they said two things that really made me think, both quotes, both along the same lines;

“A year from now you may wish you had started today.” ~ Karen Lamb

"The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is today" ~ Chinese Proverb

I always say I will do things in the summer or in the holiday or anytime in the not so distant future. When that future becomes the present, I'm nowhere to be found.

Back to the HOUR of CODE. With the amount of time I spend online, on social media sites and catching up on TV I could easily fit an hour of code into my weekend.

Instead of waiting for a tomorrow, which frankly is unlikely to come, I think I'll do what people are always telling you to do, and I'll start today.

Do you have something you've been meaning to start? Something that you are always putting off? You tell yourself again and again that sometime soon you'll do it. Have you done yet? If yes, then good for you and pat yourself on the back. If no, do it now, you are the only thing in the way (unless it is illegal, in which case I'd wait).

So, what is it that you've been meaning to do?