What I Learned Today (10th of February, 2023)

Decided to play hooky today, because I got up reallly late and then I got stuff at home to do. Emacs Since I was playing hooky with my time and attention anyway, I decided to see, if I could tackle this little thing, I wanted to happen with my Org Mode. Everytime I move my TODO status for a task to IN_PROGRESS, I want Org to automatically clock in for me. And everytime I move out of the IN_PROGRESS state, I wanted it to clock out. This is because I want a one step process. I don’t want to change state and then clock in too. And I want it this way, because changing states and telling my program, that I’m going to work on this, here, task now is more natural to me, than clocking in and out. A whole day of reading and searching later, I stumbled across this gem on the Emacs StackExchange site which did exactly what I was looking to do. I stole it, twiddled a bit with the variable and function names and added it to the file that handles my Org config. This is it, in its entirety (add-hook 'org-after-todo-state-change-hook 'mjb/org-clock-todo-change) (defun mjb/org-clock-todo-change () (if (string= org-state "IN_PROGRESS") (org-clock-in) (org-clock-out-if-current))) And this works! For now. If something comes up, I’ll figure it out. Which brings me to the figuring out part. Doing this today has left me conflicted. In the old life, this is exactly how I’d do it. But ever since I’ve been learning to write code, I feel like this is something I should be able to do. But there’s only so much life and so much I want. I want the results today, and learning and writing Lisp is not going to happen in a jiffy. Right now my priorities are Devops related tasks. So I’ve just taken the pragmatic way out for now, and used code I found. Urdu Learnt about the “suaad” group. And also learnt that Urdu is just as crazy as English. There are three, count ’em, three ways of making the S sound and no particular rhyme or reason to them, save history :) ...

February 10, 2023 · Mario Jason Braganza

Books Saved My Life

This post was first sent to my newsletter on January 27, 2023. You really ought to subscribe :) From A Velocity of Being. Art by Yara Kono An extract from the page I read today from A Velocity of Being. ...

February 10, 2023 · Mario Jason Braganza

What I Learned Today (9th of February, 2023)

Regex Started doing regex exercises, so i don’t get bored doing only python. will alternate them for now Using Practice Makes Regexp. I have only the book though. It’s now expanded to include video solutions too. Highly recommend any of Reuven’s courses Set up environment and did one exercise which was to look up the user’s input in a dictionary (a word dictionary. not a programming dictionary) Linux Mint Yesterday’s work was for naught Devops Kubernetes, began doing some exercises Set up the environment today Spoke with a friend about practicing Ansible / Devops stuff Learnt about putting in environment variables into a docker compose file and then using them in a Django container Hugo Diddled with the code element font size on the blog, to make it look a little larger Urdu Learnt about the “tashdiid” symbol that helps add emphasis to a consonant Physical Fitness Nearing the end of my month long journey. Have gotten over the pain hump, but the personal trainer isn’t quite sympatico with my needs. He’s a good egg, but we seem to be talking past each other. Wonder what to do when my time is up mid week next. Did legs today. Went well. Jogged 10m after. Walked 30m after that. Feedback on this post? Mail me at feedback@janusworx.com P.S. Subscribe to my mailing list! Forward these posts and letters to your friends and get them to subscribe! P.P.S. Feed my insatiable reading habit. ...

February 9, 2023 · Mario Jason Braganza

What I Learned Today (8th of February, 2023)

Don’t know if it’s the gym or the regular work beat, but I seem to be waking up later and later everyday. I don’t know what to do about this. I feel a little anxious about not having enough hours in the day. Python Why use comprehensions? Because it reads better. Like I advice the young ones in DPGLUG on writing. Write short, choppy sentences. They read better. With my problem sets … I should stop trying to generalise in advance and solve the specific problem first. Read stuff carefully. Don’t do more than is necessary Solutions take time to understand too. Budget the time Linux Mint Nemo, the file browser in Linux Mint always opens the home directory, when I click on it and there’s no apparent way to change it to a preferred directory. I want it to always open Downloads A little bit of web spelunking led to an acceptable work-around. Right click the main menu button Click Menu => Open the menu editor => Accessories Then click Files in the items from the right and click Properties further right Change the command form nemo %U to nemo Downloads And that does it! Update 2023-02-09: Does not work. Will look for some other approach. Right now, with the workaround it opens a Downloads window alongside any other folder I click on 😂 Hugo Added a plain, hamburger menu to this blog, using Aditya’s helpful instructions over on the PaperMod Discord. With all the extra nav items, I’ve added to the header the menu would overflow on my iPhone (and probably on other folks’ phones too). So if this page scooches narrow enough, it will change the links on top to a plain menu. ...

February 8, 2023 · Mario Jason Braganza

What I Learned Today (7th of February, 2023)

Yesterday, took a lot out of me. Took it easy today. Python Got today’s assignment done well in time; and then went out looking for better ways to write it over again. Writing code is getting exciting now. Just like how I learnt to write in my teens. Write. And then go figure out, how I’d do it better. ...

February 7, 2023 · Mario Jason Braganza

What I Learned Today (6th of February, 2023)

Everything went to hell in a handbasket today. Time was short. I got up late. I forgot, I had physio. So most things got slightly abbreviated or dropped. Python Did not complete my assignment. Flunked it again. But on the plus side, those 45 minutes were some of the hardest thinking and iterating, I have done in weeks. So there’s that. And on the plusser1 side, I am proud of having stopped and then looked for help. That was my biggest learning for the day. ...

February 6, 2023 · Mario Jason Braganza