Mjb-What-I-Learned

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. ...

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. ...

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. ...

A week in! Woohoo! Python Exercised with dictionaries today. Today was the first time, I could not solve my assignment, no matter what I tried. Lessons learnt: Stick to a schedule and do hard stops, since Python is only a small part of what I want to learn Learn to quit sooner. I’m like a dog with a bone, when it comes to problems. This approach may have helped me in the past, but it hinders me a lot, when writing code. Urdu Did the ‘re’ group of letters Exercised with the ‘re’ and ‘daal’ groups I’m learning the alphabet, using the wonderful Aamozish website, in case you folks have been confused about what I was doing with the language. Webdev Watched Webhooks for Beginners Sooner or later, I want to customise my dinky little Huginn instance to do a lot more. This’ll come in handy then. Physical Fitness Today was the first day, gym felt a wee bit normal. Hope this positive phase continues … Thoughts I seem to have got into a good work rhythm. Next step seems to prioritise my work and do more of what is needed, to get me a devops job. 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. ...

Slightly distracted day, today compared to the rest of the week before. Well, c’est la vie. Python Read about functions, key functions, and asterisks Practiced list comprehensions and dictionary lookups Learnt and practised some, about decimals and rounding up Devops Devops-ish? Upgraded the BIOS of my desktop to the current the latest available version. I was on v1.5, when I had last done it in July ’21. Now I am on v1.9 from November last year. Fixes plenty of vulnerabilities. While I got to know of it last eve, I did not upgrade then, because I wanted my mind fresh and attentive while I did this. I have bricked enough PCs and handhelds in my misspent youth and I cannot risk killing my daily driver to tiredness. What do they call it now? UEFI firmware?1 Urdu Learnt the ‘daal’ group of letters Today was also the first day, I realised reading right to left is becoming intuitive. I read “Daataa”2 in Urdu and went to check if I was correct by trying to read the English, and was wondering why they nonsensically called it “aataad”, until my brain switched back to Latin and reading left to right 😂 Physical Activity I hope gym gets easier, because I am getting crankier about the pain by the day. The better half says I sustained much more pain with physio and bore it longer and more stoically when I broke my back in 2017. Well, that was my body doing it to me and I had no control over it. Right now, I am doing this to myself, ergo the crankiness. I know this is good for me in the long run. Does not stop me from hating the process and its repercussions right now. I’m getting old and grumpy. 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. ...

Long day today1. I thought I got nothing much done, until I wrote this post. So, more incentive to keep writing these. Python Learning about how to make keyword arguments stick. And how to think about structuring programs Devops Deep dive into how to add prow job listings to the dashboard and viceversa; how to go about looking for the job from the dashboard Urdu / French Lots of practice with vowels and the ‘jiim’ group of letters. Since I know Hindi, Urdu progress is much, much, much faster than French. I think that is because, I am forcing my English grammar / vocabulary on another Romance language that has Germanic influences. This is leading to a lot of cognitive dissonance and slow progress. Much of my Urdu vocabulary comes from Hindi, which I learnt as a kid, and I definitely did not go looking for the “right” way to speak it. Better to just do French similarly as well. While I cannot do immersion, I can do what I want to do with French. Begin reading what I want to. Whether I understand it or not. I realise this will take me a lot longer than Urdu or Hindi, but that’s ok. Émilie du Châtelet, Montaigne and Dumas are not going anywhere, and neither am I :) My frame of learning now, after doing these two languages, as well as the rest of the stuff I am doing, is to just begin doing2. And figure out / learn the rules, the grammar, the conventions as you go. Physical Activity They call it chest and arm day. I presume, the exercises are meant to strengthen them. Right now, it’s just a stiff, painful mess. I cannot wait for this phase to be over. Books / Reading Finished reading, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy. It’s a hauntingly, beautiful book. A spiritual successor to the Little Prince and a Lindy book for sure. 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. ...