A Post A Day Keeps The Procrastination Away

I always say it, right? I’m going to start writing things again! I know it’s a great idea, that it’s beneficial in all kinds of ways, and that it only takes a few minutes (depending on how pedantic I’m feeling). It’s a creative outlet that takes weight off the mind and in doing so shares that weight with others who might have a use for it. Blogging is a thinking person’s hobby.

But inevitably I don’t. Why?

Doesn’t matter. This time it’s for real. “Hah!” you may exclaim, and you may even be right to do so. However I have a comrade in arms now, a little Chrome extension called Blockr which doesn’t let you use the internet until you’ve written X words or made Y code commits for the day. In effect you’re buying internet time by achieving goals you set for yourself. Pretty neat if you ask me. I discovered it via Lifehacker, another neat source of inspiration I’ve been growing increasingly attached to (life is too important not to hack into shape).

Blockr reminds me of the Beeminder concept of TagTime, in which you’re occasionally and unpredictably accosted by a popup box asking what you’re doing right now. Over time, that random self-reporting will form a statistical picture of what you’re likely to be doing at any given time, and thus it can subconsciously (and occasionally actively) drive you to work on ‘the right things’ at the right times.

Well, I’ve decided time and time again that writing some words about what I’m working on (projects, challenges, technologies, general trivia) is a good thing to be doing, so let’s see how it goes. I’m doing so many varied and interesting things these days that I’ll always have something to write about, even if it doesn’t seem terribly exciting at the time. Story-telling is an art, and arts take practice.

So here we go. Wish me luck.

Oh, Hello!

So I’ve been away for a little while. I know, and I feel a little guilty, but hey, that’s what holidays are for. I’m now officially getting back to some degree of work, and to that end have created myself a goal with the pretty cool Beeminder to work for at least 20 hours per week on Piemaster-related stuff. Currently no pledge, but it’ll start going up if I start failing. Wish me luck!

So what am I up to now?

The main coding focus at the moment is Buffex, which I still haven’t written much about, despite promising to do so multiple times. Maybe I should write about it first to hash out the scope of the MVP. In any case, it’s coming along rather well, and I’m currently working on wrangling all the data.

In non-programming news, I’ve been spending a lot of time over the past couple of months cleaning up the garden (it’s been a jungle for years) into a presentable state, and performing some dedicated research into the wonders of aquaponics (see this Practical Aquaponics video for 12 minutes of introduction). I want to write lots about it because I’m kind of obsessed at present, but I’m afraid no one much cares. Once constructions starts in earnest (have to order a few more parts) I’ll get onto it.

I’m also heading back to uni this year and applying for a couple of jobs. One is pretty standard tutoring of relatively simple computing subjects, and the other is a pretty exciting engineering faculty project called MUtopia, for which I may be responsible for developing some kind of stakeholder feedback management system, rather than the actual simulation stuff. Still a cool project to be involved with (if approved), and the role sounds like a great experience (from what little I currently know).

Finally, I’ve had a request pop up to write a few sheets of drum tablature, for which I’ve resurrected the old Taboo! Talk about a blast from the past. Ran into a whole bunch of exceptions since I wasn’t a fantastic programmer back then, but it got me thinking again about my old plans to take Taboo to the web as a JavaScript application. Now that I’m actually using some JS in anger, I may give it a go when/if things cool down for a while.

So that’s me. I’ve been very busy with all kinds of things, but am now getting back to being busy with the right things (from this site’s perspective, anyway).