A bit of sporadic work over the holidays. Mostly logistical stuff. I really wanted to make a dent in some software tasks, but alas when you sit in front of a computer, a sea of other items come flooding into your plans. Looking a bit at office space today.
Whoa - taking me two days to get this small entry typed and onto blogger. Indicative of my focus trying to get some work done over the holidays. I'll stop now and submit!
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
The Time-Accomplishment gap
An xmas break quick blog. It's eve of the big day, but I'm not nearly ready. Sounds like I need to go get more gifts so will need to dig out AGAIN. Snow continues to make me miserable. Also need to get wiper fluid as it sounds like a big freezing rain day, and driving to inlaws tomorrow will probably be messy and treacherous. We've delayed our intended departure from today 'til tomorrow.
I'm wracked with miserableness due to the number of things I need to do, and the fact that time has pretty much run out. My project needs another day or two of effort still this year, plus some proposal writing.
I do not look forward to mall transversal today. This will be a most miserable day. Funny how days that are supposed to be cheery and bright thereby impose a tyranny of expectations into which we are railroaded, making them the most miserable of days.
Such is life of the under-resourced visionary :)
I'm wracked with miserableness due to the number of things I need to do, and the fact that time has pretty much run out. My project needs another day or two of effort still this year, plus some proposal writing.
I do not look forward to mall transversal today. This will be a most miserable day. Funny how days that are supposed to be cheery and bright thereby impose a tyranny of expectations into which we are railroaded, making them the most miserable of days.
Such is life of the under-resourced visionary :)
Friday, December 19, 2008
Brief Start to the Morning, Interrupted by Sausages
Just getting the morning starting... but immediately leaving to walk somewhere in the cold for breakfast...
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Diverse Goals for Today
Need to jump straight into it this am. Had decent success at stabilizing things yesterday, but now I need to resurrect the javascript side of the project to fully demo. I'm using django, and the addressing for shifting from the dev server to apache is a bit challenging. Do I always need a prefix to trigger apache, otherwise I'd need to update apache configs for specific page structures. Hmmm.
That's where I'll spend my next 2hrs, then off for a lunch demo and some volunteering time this afternoon. But hey, the latter will involve making a batch of beer.
Researchinator managing the software to beer transition...
That's where I'll spend my next 2hrs, then off for a lunch demo and some volunteering time this afternoon. But hey, the latter will involve making a batch of beer.
Researchinator managing the software to beer transition...
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Pushing Ahead
So is that the kind of year its going to be again? Another morning to dig out. Last winter was like this - constantly digging snow. Lost a good hour or so again, plus its a migrainey morning.
I had good progress yesterday. Was porting a routine from ajax to python, and also have to rework the flow based on local data versus client/server approach. But it's roughly working now, though some additional feature enablement is required. This work allows my backend people to scrutinize stuff that would normally be sent to users on the web, so it should be a good productivity feature to quickly do what would normally take some setup.
Plus it's a good check for browser side guys to verify performance and behaviour.
So push ahead and try to overcome the challenges of the day.
Researchinator has wet ankles...
I had good progress yesterday. Was porting a routine from ajax to python, and also have to rework the flow based on local data versus client/server approach. But it's roughly working now, though some additional feature enablement is required. This work allows my backend people to scrutinize stuff that would normally be sent to users on the web, so it should be a good productivity feature to quickly do what would normally take some setup.
Plus it's a good check for browser side guys to verify performance and behaviour.
So push ahead and try to overcome the challenges of the day.
Researchinator has wet ankles...
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Economic Conditions This Morning
Taking stock of the world this morning, the first issue that comes to mind, on a local perspective is that our city remains paralysed with a transit strike. This makes me cite again those words that so often one hears in the context of city government: 'what a bunch of idiots'. Usually its quoted in reference to the quality of 'leaders' that take up residence at city hall, but in this case you can throw the transit union in there as well.
I'm amazed with all the unions pushing hard on their employers to get big raises and 'job security' as the world economy goes into a spin. There seems to be a brazen disregard for their own future as they try to drive their own organizations into the ground.
And let's not forget other folks as well. Every morning the radio news is full of the hardship being caused by this strike, as the most vulnerable sectors continue to suffer the most - all (apparently) because the workers want to be able to pick and choose which shifts they work. Well nobody else does that in the world. Oh wait, yes they do. "You want me to work at a 7-11 from midnight to 6am? I think I'll work elsewhere." There, someone just chose their own shift.
One finds the work that matches their abilities, and its proportional to the skills and effort they've put into their own future. However, too much of our society is full of this concept of entitlement. "I'm 22 and have finished my MBA, so I'm ready to run your billion dollar company. I've no experience or knowledge, but hey, how hard can it be?"
We don't teach the concept of repercussions for your actions. If you don't put the work into learning skills, you can't get a job requiring skills. If times are good, and you're raking in better pay than most of the people of your background, it's probably a good time to develop skills for when you don't have that position. As the auto-sector falls apart, I've seen lots of interviews with auto workers facing the loss of their jobs, singing sob stories. Then it comes out that three generations of the guys family have worked on the same mindless assembly line. You'd think the first guy would have said, "Hmmm, maybe my son should get some skills to do better than this." But I guess humans become complacent too easily.
Kids should be encouraged to first develop interests then find skills and education that support those interests. Too many people seem to have no interests at all. That must start at childhood when their parents fail to be encouraging and support expressions of interest.
My sense is that the average adult male, given $10k to pursue an interest, would basically get a bigger TV and maybe put a gaming console in each room of his house. TV - yeah, that's my hobby. "I want to develop skills and confidence in my ability to watch TV. And those bastards are going to lay me off too, or take away my right to choose the shift I work in my job."
Well, I think those things might actually be related.
Researchinator turns toward the skills and interests that currently consume the hours of the day...
I'm amazed with all the unions pushing hard on their employers to get big raises and 'job security' as the world economy goes into a spin. There seems to be a brazen disregard for their own future as they try to drive their own organizations into the ground.
And let's not forget other folks as well. Every morning the radio news is full of the hardship being caused by this strike, as the most vulnerable sectors continue to suffer the most - all (apparently) because the workers want to be able to pick and choose which shifts they work. Well nobody else does that in the world. Oh wait, yes they do. "You want me to work at a 7-11 from midnight to 6am? I think I'll work elsewhere." There, someone just chose their own shift.
One finds the work that matches their abilities, and its proportional to the skills and effort they've put into their own future. However, too much of our society is full of this concept of entitlement. "I'm 22 and have finished my MBA, so I'm ready to run your billion dollar company. I've no experience or knowledge, but hey, how hard can it be?"
We don't teach the concept of repercussions for your actions. If you don't put the work into learning skills, you can't get a job requiring skills. If times are good, and you're raking in better pay than most of the people of your background, it's probably a good time to develop skills for when you don't have that position. As the auto-sector falls apart, I've seen lots of interviews with auto workers facing the loss of their jobs, singing sob stories. Then it comes out that three generations of the guys family have worked on the same mindless assembly line. You'd think the first guy would have said, "Hmmm, maybe my son should get some skills to do better than this." But I guess humans become complacent too easily.
Kids should be encouraged to first develop interests then find skills and education that support those interests. Too many people seem to have no interests at all. That must start at childhood when their parents fail to be encouraging and support expressions of interest.
My sense is that the average adult male, given $10k to pursue an interest, would basically get a bigger TV and maybe put a gaming console in each room of his house. TV - yeah, that's my hobby. "I want to develop skills and confidence in my ability to watch TV. And those bastards are going to lay me off too, or take away my right to choose the shift I work in my job."
Well, I think those things might actually be related.
Researchinator turns toward the skills and interests that currently consume the hours of the day...
Friday, December 12, 2008
End of the Week
Friday - feeling sleepy in spite of being up for hours... or maybe because of? Anyway, digging into the next steps after a reasonably productive day yesterday.
Researchinator not feeling very verbose...
Researchinator not feeling very verbose...
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Garbage day and associated tasks chewed up my first hour this morning, just like snow removal yesterday. Man I hate winter. That's a sign I'd better get out skiing or snowshoeing or something soon to stave off the despair. Plus the darkest days of the year are well underway now, and how I hate that crap. I type away at my desk all day and occasionally glance over my shoulder to discover that it's dark already, and it's only 4:30.
Today, more work on the app. Collabguy1 wants to meet tomorrow. He's still gainfully employed, so I don't expect much in the way of spare MIPs. But I'm happy to just have his thoughts on my project in general as a background task until or if the opportunity to join in comes about.
Plus it will be nice to catch up over lunch.
OK back into the tough slogging.
Researchinator turns to the challenges of realtime XML parsing...
Today, more work on the app. Collabguy1 wants to meet tomorrow. He's still gainfully employed, so I don't expect much in the way of spare MIPs. But I'm happy to just have his thoughts on my project in general as a background task until or if the opportunity to join in comes about.
Plus it will be nice to catch up over lunch.
OK back into the tough slogging.
Researchinator turns to the challenges of realtime XML parsing...
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Chorey Day with UI-ish Overtones
We are really buried this morning, and my SO comes home from the UK later today, so I do need to get out and move some snow around. Looks like about 30cm out there at least. Shades of last year.
I suppose there's a bit of cleaning up to do around the house too :) Anyway, it's not looking good for productivity today. Luckily yesterday was fruitful at getting lots of the pieces in place for the tougher coding job today.
User Interface design is a challenge for any company, but it's also tough to start from a blank sheet. My experience is that its important to think before coding, yes. Think about programmatic structure as well as UI organization. I think too often companies depend on non-programmer UI designers who don't have a good sense of how the code comes together. Yet other companies think that their programmers can design the UI. Both are mistakes.
A UI designer has choices and sometimes two different approaches are both viable, yet one may have substantially different impact on both effort and resource cost/complexity than the other. Having the understanding to pick the right direction is the challenge there.
I think a good approach is to understand the coding constraints, and 'toolbox' of whats available, then craft a walkthrough, then implement a first draft approach, test that for efficiency and usability and evolve it. You may need to rip some stuff out, but it avoids situations where UI's are designed without code awareness, and some programmer spends 50% of the effort on trying to get a pulldown list to work when a radio button would have met the UI design intent just as well.
Anyway, that's well underway, and I see some changes that will be necessary, but I'm persevering to get through to something functional so that other development can proceed before trying to make the app look pretty and perfect.
Plus it's easier to find people with the skills to criticize and fix than it is to find ones who can visualize and implement.
Researchinator seeks to find a balance...
I suppose there's a bit of cleaning up to do around the house too :) Anyway, it's not looking good for productivity today. Luckily yesterday was fruitful at getting lots of the pieces in place for the tougher coding job today.
User Interface design is a challenge for any company, but it's also tough to start from a blank sheet. My experience is that its important to think before coding, yes. Think about programmatic structure as well as UI organization. I think too often companies depend on non-programmer UI designers who don't have a good sense of how the code comes together. Yet other companies think that their programmers can design the UI. Both are mistakes.
A UI designer has choices and sometimes two different approaches are both viable, yet one may have substantially different impact on both effort and resource cost/complexity than the other. Having the understanding to pick the right direction is the challenge there.
I think a good approach is to understand the coding constraints, and 'toolbox' of whats available, then craft a walkthrough, then implement a first draft approach, test that for efficiency and usability and evolve it. You may need to rip some stuff out, but it avoids situations where UI's are designed without code awareness, and some programmer spends 50% of the effort on trying to get a pulldown list to work when a radio button would have met the UI design intent just as well.
Anyway, that's well underway, and I see some changes that will be necessary, but I'm persevering to get through to something functional so that other development can proceed before trying to make the app look pretty and perfect.
Plus it's easier to find people with the skills to criticize and fix than it is to find ones who can visualize and implement.
Researchinator seeks to find a balance...
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Plodding and Pushing Forward
A decently productive day yesterday. Today, it's snowing in a big way, and I have nothing on my schedule except pushing ahead. Oh, I guess I do have to get some stuff mailed and there's that constant concern about xmas shopping.
Oh well, lets get some acheivements under my belt for the morning anyway. Then maybe out to shovel snow, and mail some stuff at lunch time.
Researchinator sets to it...
Oh well, lets get some acheivements under my belt for the morning anyway. Then maybe out to shovel snow, and mail some stuff at lunch time.
Researchinator sets to it...
Monday, December 8, 2008
Battling the Expected Boogieman or Boogiemen
My productivity is waning a bit under the pressure of a) the onset of winter b) more awareness of competitive projects out there c) lack of a peer group.
But these are all boogiemen I expected, luckily, having been through them before. The work at home curse.
The good thing is that I'm financially stable for a good year anyway, so I should be able to the keep the pessimistic worries at bay. Of course, there is an inverse relationship between my ability to stretch my salaryless existence out perpetually and my ability to invest in my company to any great extent.
But I'll keep pushing on these things and see where I end up. I think if I can end up with a roughly workable application on the one side of the package, I'll get enough of a boost that I will be able to push through to the next milestone.
My biggest 'ugh' feeling is the pending Xmas period. I need to do a bunch of shopping and I really don't feel like I have the spare time. Then again, I don't have time to do a bunch of blogging, so lets put this to rest for now and get something done before lunch.
Researchinator squeezes the clock to get an extra few minutes out...
But these are all boogiemen I expected, luckily, having been through them before. The work at home curse.
The good thing is that I'm financially stable for a good year anyway, so I should be able to the keep the pessimistic worries at bay. Of course, there is an inverse relationship between my ability to stretch my salaryless existence out perpetually and my ability to invest in my company to any great extent.
But I'll keep pushing on these things and see where I end up. I think if I can end up with a roughly workable application on the one side of the package, I'll get enough of a boost that I will be able to push through to the next milestone.
My biggest 'ugh' feeling is the pending Xmas period. I need to do a bunch of shopping and I really don't feel like I have the spare time. Then again, I don't have time to do a bunch of blogging, so lets put this to rest for now and get something done before lunch.
Researchinator squeezes the clock to get an extra few minutes out...
Friday, December 5, 2008
Hand Candy
Oh the world of distractions I've opened up for myself. I am currently syncing an iPod touch. Candy for the eyes, ears and with that sleek package, for the hand too.
It's an impressive package, and implementation is quite good. I'm a bit disappointed that the syncing process is poorly handled, in that there's just a flickering hashed-progress bar, rather than an actually functioning progress bar. I always held out apple as the company that understood progress bars, but this seems to be an exception. Sure there are a few gigs of data move, but really, couldn't the progress bar reflect some sort of, well, progress?
Apparently not.
Oh - spoke too soon, it seems to have figured it out after 10minutes and is now showing progress allong with how many songs are being loaded.
But alas, a new issue - oops, that one is being addressed too. I was going to say it's on "copying 15 out of 250:" while I know I have upwards of 900 songs. But nicely, it is copying before it knows how many songs there are to copy.
That's a good thing. This purchase is rather venture related, so I'll have to write it off, so I don't feel too back about doing this when I should be coding my system software. Plus it's got over 800 songs to copy still, so I think it will be a while.
Meanwhile, I think I'd best try to clean up my code before the end of the day. I hate to leave something half-coded.
It's an impressive package, and implementation is quite good. I'm a bit disappointed that the syncing process is poorly handled, in that there's just a flickering hashed-progress bar, rather than an actually functioning progress bar. I always held out apple as the company that understood progress bars, but this seems to be an exception. Sure there are a few gigs of data move, but really, couldn't the progress bar reflect some sort of, well, progress?
Apparently not.
Oh - spoke too soon, it seems to have figured it out after 10minutes and is now showing progress allong with how many songs are being loaded.
But alas, a new issue - oops, that one is being addressed too. I was going to say it's on "copying 15 out of 250:" while I know I have upwards of 900 songs. But nicely, it is copying before it knows how many songs there are to copy.
That's a good thing. This purchase is rather venture related, so I'll have to write it off, so I don't feel too back about doing this when I should be coding my system software. Plus it's got over 800 songs to copy still, so I think it will be a while.
Meanwhile, I think I'd best try to clean up my code before the end of the day. I hate to leave something half-coded.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Refocus Attempt, Still a Bit Blurry
The afternoon brightened up yesterday, so I suppose I should have just blogged later. And I did get out for a brief power walk, and that felt better. I talked to an alternative patent guy, one from my distant past, though it sounds like he will be too expensive. Plus he has a bit of a habit of telling me the obvious sometimes, which isn't stacking well in his favour.
This morning though, I'm migraining again that's twice in three days. Crap. At least I had several good weeks prior to that. So my productivity will perhaps suffer today. I did a fair bit of patent searching yesterday, and was unable to find anything close to what I'm doing. I came across one that briefly scared me, but upon closer reading got a better sense that it was doing something completely different, which was reassuring. There was a big sinking feeling there for a moment.
So far so good. Hmmm, wonder if I can maintain focus enough to do a bit of coding now, in spite of my head and my challenges.
Researchinator tries again...
This morning though, I'm migraining again that's twice in three days. Crap. At least I had several good weeks prior to that. So my productivity will perhaps suffer today. I did a fair bit of patent searching yesterday, and was unable to find anything close to what I'm doing. I came across one that briefly scared me, but upon closer reading got a better sense that it was doing something completely different, which was reassuring. There was a big sinking feeling there for a moment.
So far so good. Hmmm, wonder if I can maintain focus enough to do a bit of coding now, in spite of my head and my challenges.
Researchinator tries again...
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Miserable Entrepreneurs Unite
This isn't feeling fun today. I'm tired of slaving away in oblivion. This feels like a rut day.
Snowing too, so walking it off is going to be a tougher proposition.
Better load up on the tea.
Snowing too, so walking it off is going to be a tougher proposition.
Better load up on the tea.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
One of Those Mornings
A brief visit to University and an interesting presentation attended which was rather related to my venture. But alas, a migraine kicked in last night and lingers into the morning, robbing me somewhat of my morning initiative.
I rebooted my computer, but it didn't seem to help.
Yesterday I made some programming progress, but not enough. It's been a couple of weeks since I had worked on that element of the system, and getting back into it is always somewhat challenging. My migraine headaches often end with a period of positivity, so I'll have to be poised and ready to make use of that when it shows up - probably early afternoon or late morning today. Good to make the best of a miserable situation.
Meanwhile I still need to find a suitable networking opportunity around the city. I guess I'll have to start digging some more.
Researchinator says hello to Mr. Google....
I rebooted my computer, but it didn't seem to help.
Yesterday I made some programming progress, but not enough. It's been a couple of weeks since I had worked on that element of the system, and getting back into it is always somewhat challenging. My migraine headaches often end with a period of positivity, so I'll have to be poised and ready to make use of that when it shows up - probably early afternoon or late morning today. Good to make the best of a miserable situation.
Meanwhile I still need to find a suitable networking opportunity around the city. I guess I'll have to start digging some more.
Researchinator says hello to Mr. Google....
Monday, December 1, 2008
Goal Setting Becomes Graphically Gratuitous
Launching into my week with a desire to move things forward substantially. That means these goals
1. A clean set of slides for presenting my premise.
2. Incorporate any bizplan feedback
3. Add another name to my collaborators
4. Move the application side ahead substantially, based on workpath
5. Work plan for people added - incl a list of prime questions for each to solve
6. Patent resolution - need to deal with the illness of my patent guy somehow.
Lets see where these stand at the end of the week. I figure with some clearly enumerated goals, I should be able to move things forward more measurably. Can I keep up on that process - listing goals for the week and scoring myself against it on Friday or Monday? We'll soon find out. Those of you joining us late can probably just skim ahead to future blog posts to see how it all turned out.
Cool - I'm writing messages to people of the future, where there are flying cars and robot maids and stuff.
Researchinator gets to work on the future stuff, like a full turkey dinner in a pill...
1. A clean set of slides for presenting my premise.
2. Incorporate any bizplan feedback
3. Add another name to my collaborators
4. Move the application side ahead substantially, based on workpath
5. Work plan for people added - incl a list of prime questions for each to solve
6. Patent resolution - need to deal with the illness of my patent guy somehow.
Lets see where these stand at the end of the week. I figure with some clearly enumerated goals, I should be able to move things forward more measurably. Can I keep up on that process - listing goals for the week and scoring myself against it on Friday or Monday? We'll soon find out. Those of you joining us late can probably just skim ahead to future blog posts to see how it all turned out.
Cool - I'm writing messages to people of the future, where there are flying cars and robot maids and stuff.
Researchinator gets to work on the future stuff, like a full turkey dinner in a pill...
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