Let's make a compiler

These past couple of weeks, I've been taking a game theory course https://class.coursera.org/gametheory/class/index

It's almost like taking a course at uni, except everything is multiple choice, styled with twitter bootstrap, and without the long commute. The course is winding up, so I thought I'd start another course.

As you may have guessed from the title, that course is about compilers https://www.coursera.org/course/compilers.

Compilers is one of the courses that post-Uni, I wish I had taken, so I'm pretty excited for the course. I am of the belief that understanding what goes on beneath the layer of abstraction you usually work at will make you write more effective code.

At the same time, I'm going to attempt the programming in C++. I've never written anything C++, and it's been a while since I last used a programming language without GC (C was my last one) so it'll be interesting to see how far I get!

If you're interested in taking an online course yourself, have a look here for something you might be interested in: https://plus.google.com/107809899089663019971/posts

Making unity useful

ccsm -> ubuntu unity plugin -> behaviour -> key to show the launcher = <alt><super>

Last One

This is the last post in my write a blogpost every day in January challenge. So I figure it's time to get meta. I started this challenge because I had previously tried to start this blog. Then I ended up with barely anything on this blog. Then I wanted to have something on this blog, because I told someone I would. Rather than one good post, it's a lot of small posts, though.

Starting this challenge gave me an excuse for the writing to not be great (actually, an excuse for it to be terrible). It's a lot easier to write something when you don't pressure yourself to make it too meaningful.

Writing these 30 posts has made me realise how contradictory I can be. In every post, I can poke holes in the things I've said.

New challenge starting tomorrow: 30+ minutes of cardio every day for as many days in a row as I can manage (first goal is getting through February).

http://www.ted.com/talks/matt_cutts_try_something_new_for_30_days.html

Little Things

It's funny the things we remember sometimes. A little detail - a phrase, a sight, a sound - will stick in our memories, when things we'd much rather remember - where we left our keys, for example - won't come back no matter how hard we will them to.

Sometimes, these things aren't important at all. But often, I wonder if this is really the case. I will reflect more on a particular tidbit of memory and draw connections with other small tidbits. Soon enough, the tidbits form a big tidbit, that I wouldn't have seen before without each of the small bits.

As things are in the large, so they are in the small. See what you can pick up from noticing the details, and you might be surprised.

Stressless

Stress less until you're stressless. When we are under stress, it can be hard for us to develop creative solutions. You're in fight-or-flight mode, engaging your basest instincts. Unless you're Leonardo da Vinci, your basest instincts preclude being very creative.

Is stress ever helpful? It can be. A little bit of stress can make you concentrate. A little more stress can get some adrenaline pumping.

But don't let stress ever be your baseline state. The more stress you start off with, the less excess capacity you have to handle stress when things go wrong (and things will go wrong!)

http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2011/04/04/a_hard_thing_is_done_by_figuring_out_how_to_start.html

Concentrate

It can be hard to concentrate, sometimes. Especially with a wide array of distractions readily available. And yet, to do anything more than habitual drudgery, we need to be able to concentrate. And not just for a minute at a time between searching tweets. So how does one concentrate in a world filled with distractions?

There are two options. Change your environment to minimise distractions. The second is to change yourself to be less distracted. Sometimes you won't be able to change your environment.

It would be nice to focus in a quiet park. Tuning into some radio (using earphones) could be the next best thing. If your work involves a lot of co-operation, however, this may be impossible. You're left with using your own brain to tune out the noise.

Have you tried doodling?

Tracking progress

If you're trying to improve something, you should track it. Tracking does a couple of very important things.

1. It forces you to have an idea of what you're measuring. If you're a writer and your measure is how long you spend with a pen in hand, you might find a pen in your hand walking down the street, but that doesn't exactly help you getting your book ready for publishing.
2. It gets in your face. If you're not putting the effort in, it's not hidden from you. You'll start to see a trend and notice when you haven't been hitting your targets.

If you start tracking, and you notice your metrics improving, but you don't notice any progress (over a sustained period of time) that's a hint that you're tracking the wrong thing.

I recommend tracking in chunks of a day.

Links:
http://calendaraboutnothing.com/
http://lifehacker.com/281626/jerry-seinfelds-productivity-secret?tag=softwaremotivation