Showing posts with label Administrativa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Administrativa. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 20, 2024

The Blog - 2024

Um hello! I'd wish you a Happy Belated Blog End and Start day, but that was a while ago... Did anyone one get the licence plate of that August? I'll be picking calendar shrapnel out of my brain for weeks!

If you're new here, welcome, good timing. The next sentence I'm going to write is weird, but it'll be a whole year now before I write again. My rule is to never start a project without an idea of how it ends, so I never set out to blog for more than a year at a time and the beginning of August -- actually mid July, but honestly nothing here makes that much sense -- marks the end of the last year of blogging, and, since I feel like continuing on, the start of the next year.

I noted last year that I wanted to cut back on quantity in favour of quality. I've certainly achieved reduced quantity, quality isn't quite where I want it but you know, things are coming along. I guess my goal of this year is now to increase the quantity of the quality.

I'm proud of the two "Things about Games" posts I wrote (Sea of Stars and Unicorn Overlord) and I enjoyed the things I wrote about reading and rereading. I also had fun rebuilding the way I record the books I read and the games I play. Games especially aren't quite there yet, but my over engineered mail merge is fun. 

Do I know what I'm doing next? Nope. I might blog more. I might finally move off blogger/blogspot. I might just hang out and write another August post here next year feeling like I'm almost where I want to be. Still I'm working on getting the "shoulds" out of my life and just doing. 

I'll see ya'll for the New Year's navelgazing. In the mean time I hope we can have a little adventure. Hope you've found a nice seat. 


A view from a lawn chair of a bit of a messy yard, under a blue sky with a couple of fluffy summer clouds.


Friday, December 15, 2023

What I Did About The Books I’m Reading and What I Should Do About the Games I’m Playing

Back at the beginning of the year, I posted about wanting to change up the way I was keeping track of the books I read. Previously I posted a book post every few days with the new books in a big list. I was inspired by Sharon Lee who does that and it seemed like fun.

I wanted to make the changes for a few reasons. First off as technical task it was surprisingly frustrating to maintain a list over a series of posts and it was a bit redundant as my GoodReads profile is public and you can see the list there. The other reason was that the book posts were inflating the number of posts I was making in a month and taking time away from working on other things. I though, as a next step, making a monthly “infographic” update might be fun and interesting and maybe teach me a few things at the same time.

As someone who has worked in post secondary education for a while now, I can assure you that nobody (including myself) has any idea what an infographic is. So I settled on an answer that was high on info and maybe a bit low on graphics.

All of the posts are under the Books in 2023 tag and they look more or less like this:

A screen shot of the top of the Books of November 2023 post.
A screen shot of the lower middle of the Books of November 2023 post.

I’m pretty happy. As I said, it might not be as pretty as it might be, but at least for now I’m enjoying making it. I learned, for example that for some reason I haven’t read a single book published in 2023, which seems weird, but now I know.

More technically, I learned a bit about getting formatting to work properly. I also learned that books are almost never in a 2:3 ration. I mean, I shelved books for years, I knew this, but until I tried making a grid of book covers I hadn’t realised just how wacky the world of book cover sizes is. I also messed around with hand crafting a word cloud, mine is certainly not as pretty as some, but I kinda like it.

A word cloud of authors from June 2023 (listed fullin in that post). Tomohito Oda is very large in the centre and Elizabeth Bear is barely visible below her. Other authors include Charles Todd and Patrica Briggs a little bit smaller that Tomohito Oda.

I’m doing a very simple translation where the author’s percentage of the books translates directly to the font size the author. So in the June example above, Tomohito Oda represented 26.4% of the books I’d read to that point in the year and her name is in 264 point font. Elizabeth Bear only accounted for 1.6% at the time and so she’s in 16 point font.

From a production point of view, it takes me about 3 hours to put together the post and certainly requires more hand done portions than it might. When I set out that was fine but as the year went on, I hand wrote more HTML than I really enjoyed, especially when it came to keeping the two column tables balanced. There’s also still some book keeping that’s duplicating Good Reads.

So eventually, I want to either automate the process or make it more manual. I still like the idea of hand building my infographic, but also creating fewer points where I can get in my way seems helpful too. For the time being I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing because it’s fun enough and kind of meditative, without taking up all of my time.

I’m having enough fun with it that I’m thinking about how I can modernise my system of video game tracking. I think those posts are alright, but they have a few problems.

The top of my November 2023 in Video Games post (I do appologize for the low quality alt text for this post, I wasn't sure how to illustrate it and I'm just short of time to put all of the text from those posts back in).

I’ve had a lot of trouble this year keeping track of what I’ve played and when and so the data going into the posts is a lot worse than it was. This has happened before and I might get better about it again, but I’m also a spot right now where games are less important to me than they were. I’m not sure I need to be quite as granular about it as I have been.

There’s also a problem that a lot of games show up every month. If you read those posts regularly you’ll know that my nuanced view of Mario Kart 8 (Deluxe) is “Vroom Vroom Beep Beep” because I really haven’t had that much to say about it in the … almost decade since it game out (the first time). I don’t mind doing a new review for something new or a point about something interesting, but I think those posts are some of my worst writing and I want to put that energy somewhere else.

One of the things I’ve always meant to do with game tracking is build one of those theme river diagrams. At the moment for me capturing the very large things about what I’m playing is important. For example: “The summer of 2023 was the the summer of Tears of the Kingdom” is the kind of insight I’d like to hang on to (and I’m not sure is even that apparent in what I’m doing).

I’d also like to make sure that I have a picture in my head of what I played in a year, new and old. Like right now I know I played Hollow Knight at some point in the last year, and apparently a lot of that was in the winter, and then I played a little bit of Breath of the Wild just before Tears of the Kingdom came out.

Overall, it’s time for a change, I’m just not totally sure what the change is going to be. Writing it out this way makes me think something similar to the book infographic might be the right way to go. Here’s what my 2024 in games looks like at a glance updated each month, with a few insights to spice up everything else.

I think I can also dial back the tracking. I’m not sure at this point that it’s doing me any good and while I don’t think it’s doing much harm if I can streamline to “Here are games I played a little and Here are games I played a lot” that might be what I need. That’s going to be weird and I might end up continuing just because it’s an ancient habit by this point (and imagine all the data I won’t have if I want it later!).

Anyway, those are my Updates updates. Making infographics is fun, if a little bit tedious and even I, after doing something for seven years, can make a change. I don’t know exactly what you can expect in terms of my media consumption nonsense in 2024, but I, at least, intend to have fun with it.

Thursday, August 03, 2023

Ten and Three Years Blogging

Well, it’s August again and I get to wish you Happy Blog End and Start Day.

If this is your first Blog End and Start Day, welcome! This is the day when I “wrap up” my blog and then also the day when I start a “new” blog for a new year. This is the tradition because I always find it hard when long running projects fade away and so I don’t want to take on anything that doesn’t have a committed end date. So every August I start a new season (or edition, or volume) of the blog.

This is somewhat complicated by the fact that I tend to actually make changes to how I’m blogging in January, but I publish my first real post on … July 24, 2011… wait why do I write publish these these on August 1? Aaanyway, this is my yearly update to the Blog as Blog (writing about things, as opposed to project updates).

The biggest thing that’s different this year from last year is that the actual number of posts is way down. I’ve gone from averaging 5ish posts a month to more like 3. Most of that is changing how I keep track of the books I’ve been reading, and going from a list to a monthly infographic. This has generally made me happier because it cuts down on trying to keep track of the books and having a constant need to post and honestly making the monthly infographics has been fun. In light of all of the AI nonsense going on right now, doing things by hand feels worthwhile and entertaining and satisfying.

I’ve also been trying to put less stuff on the blog so that I can focus more on projects, be that [writing] or other stuff. I also want to write more better blog posts, I really want 2023 to be the year I set myself as a writer in my mind, and writing more meaningful posts is a part of that, so I’m trying to put less filler on the blog.

Since April I’ve given myself the objective of writing two meaningful blog posts each month. One is supposed to go on here, and the other is supposed to go on my professional blog Learning and Technology. I should be at eight posts so far, and I’m at five, but I feel like I’m moving in the correct direction. (It is the nature of blogging that all posts are made while moving in the correct direction because when you’re falling around not doing things, one of the things you don’t do is blog.)

Virtual stickies on two squares, one square reading 'General Update on Code Doodles', 'Most Memorable Mario Levels', 'and Station Mystery Process'. The other reads 'Using Good AI for Teaching' and 'Thinking more about AI - June 2023 edition'

I think I’m happy content wise with what’s up and I feel like I’m doing things I like doing in a way I like doing them.

What I’m increasingly less happy with is the platform. I’ve been on Blogger for a while and got very close to quitting a few years back when they suddenly modernised a bunch of stuff and it got easier to use. As a platform blogger is okay, but it isn’t exactly doing what I want. The biggest (and maybe dumbest) thing right now is that it still limits you to 200 characters of tags per post. That’s fewer characters than I generally need and it breaks the way I want to be using tags.

The other thing is it’s past time that I consolidated my digital footprint outside of Google’s infrastructure. Especially with issues coming up around AI, the time feels right to move on, but also just in general if I want to advocate for doing things the right way online I should probably do things the way I think they should be done.

So I’m going to start looking at moving the blog over to my own infrastructure. I’ll post lots of updates as I get things set up, but you may have to move your RSS feed when the change comes. A while back feedburner had a fit, so I took it off the blog, but then it started working again, so if you follow on RSS and have for a while, migration should happen automatically, but it may not. It’s 2023 never trust a corporation, or software, or anyone, or anything. Maybe move to the woods and help restrore the environment...

Cough. I’m not 100% sure what tech stack I’m going to go to, but figuring that out will give me more things to blog about, so it’s a win all around. At the moment, I might lean into wordpress, but I also think, given a lot of what I want out of the web, I may go towards Hugo and try to keep things as flat and dumb as possible.

Anyway, that’s your update for another Year of the Blog. Take care and I’ll see you in August 2024 (plus hopefully lots of days in between).

A sky split with clouds on the left and blue on the right over bright trees.

Monday, August 22, 2022

Project 1: Blog 12 - Update

Happy Blog End and Start Day (Belated)

A photo at golden hour, with a quarter of a rainbow reaching over a small garden.

I’m late. Later than usual, but I like to take the first of August as a day to wrap up what I’ve written on this blog in the year before and look ahead. One of my original ideas with the blog was that things shouldn’t go on forever, so this is my time to look at what I’m planning to do for the next year.

I suppose, as I always do, I should point out that I’m doing two things at once here (because I’m bad at being straightforward about things). The first thing is a project tracker, where I keep track of all the things I’ve worked on for myself. The second, one of those projects, is a blog where I … write … things.

This is my second attempt at writing this post. My first came out quite angry with myself and felt rather bilious when I looked back at it. In short, I’m a little frustrated that I haven’t been moving forward with creative projects, including the blog. I haven’t done a lot that’s really interesting with the blog this year, but I do have posts which I quite like on set similarity and Java Preferences. Also, while they may be deeply boring, I still enjoy posting the regular updates tracking the games I play and the books I read.

I want to do more creative things, and I want to give myself more grace that the things I do don’t have to be perfect. Maybe I'll write more here; maybe I won't. Maybe I'll write more somewhere else; maybe I won't. Maybe I'll dance the funky chicken; maybe I won't.

Thanks for following along and I’ll see you next August.

Thursday, December 30, 2021

Administrativa: Feedburner Feed Broken

 Just a quick note that Feedburner seems to have stopped working with the blog, so I've turned it off. Possibly "for now" or possibly "for ever". You will need to readjust your RSS reader (assuming you have such a device).


You can find the feed for all posts at the bottom of every page, or through this link.

Tuesday, August 03, 2021

Project 1: Blog11!! - Update

So, a decade of doing this blog thing huh. I may still not have any idea what I’m doing but I’m moving ahead so that’ll have to be good enough.

This year I’m not in the garden because 
  • a) the smoke is in the garden and I’m tired of the smoke and 
  • b) I’ve picked up a full time job and it does take up all those in the middle of the day hours. 

A rose with bright pink flowers in a small garden.
I may not have been out that much, but the rose is happy this year.



I started blogging in late July 2011 and usually take the first of August as Blog End and Start Day. I'm a little late, but I mentioned that full time job thing. You may also be looking at the list of posts (way down at the bottom of the page) and be thinking to yourself, but TJ, you started this in February and then sat on you butt for several months, and to that I would say, yes, but I’ve found a way to make it more complicated as that.

The “blog” is a project tracker where I’m supposed to keep “the world” updated on the things that I’m doing as a form of self-accountability. That doesn’t work as well as I’d like, but that’s the idea. The *trick* is that the first of those projects is a blog where I practice writing … and keep track of interesting metrics about my life, so Project 1 of the blog is a “Blog.” Other projects are updates, but for the “Blog” I also post the posts here.

If that’s not confusing enough, Blog End and Start day is the day where I finish writing the “Blog” for last year and start writing the “Blog” for this year. Clear as mud? Excellent. The basic idea stems from how frustrating it can be when a long-running project falls apart because the creator isn’t into doing it any more. This way if I decide I don’t want to blog any more, well you wouldn’t have expected me to do it past August anyway.  (If you were somehow sitting there with baited breath for a new blog post to come out.) Between now and next August is my 11th year of blogging.

By far, I’ve spent this last year using the blog to keep track of games I’ve played and books I’ve read. In fact, aside from last year’s Blog End and Start Day post and my new year resolutions posts I only wrote one in-depth post (on Paper Mario: The Origami King). This was more or less on purpose, because I wanted to focus my time on creating novel stuff (well, new stuff, not just the novel…), so I’m happy enough with the blog this year.

I like keeping track of what I’ve read and what I’ve played because it feels so easy at the end of the year to look back and have no idea where your time went. Instead I’ve felt like everything I’ve played and read this year has mattered. It’s helped me to read more and it’s helped me to enjoy the games I’ve played.

Looking forward, I want to write more. So, I’m going to try to write more. I’d also like to document more about my thoughts for teaching and the things I like about programming. My day job involves a lot of writing and not that much teaching, so this feels like a great way to build my writing skill while keeping in touch with my teaching. No guarantees, but I’d like to write two posts a month. I’ll update my other projects in a bit and I want to get some progress on them too (as I always do).

Google has managed to clean up enough about blogger that I’m content to keep the blog here for now. I am still considering options (and the day job calls for more word press), but moving the blog feels like a ton of work if I don’t have to.

2021 is definitely bringing new and different things for me. I’m learning and growing and hopefully another year of blogging will help with that.

A blue sky above green pine trees and a brown garden fence.
Once upon a time, the skies were blue and we were happy.




Saturday, August 01, 2020

Project 1: 10Blog - Update

Well, happy Blog End and Start Day again.

I've returned to my garden (actually I've been doing a thing called "vacation" for a few weeks so I've been here a lot of the time) and it's time for that annual end of the blog post. And as I usually do it's also time to start another year of blogging.

Small yard with a brown fence enclosing roses and raspberries.
The garden does not look nearly as good as it did last year, but it's a learning activity.

I generally prefer things with a defined start and end date (much as I'm bad at hitting them a lot of the time), so I find breaking the blog up by yearly volumes (sessions, editions?) helps keep it from feeling like it goes on forever. This is also traditionally the time where I reenforce my distinction between the blog as blog and the blog as project tracker. Effectively, I created this to keep track of projects I'm working on, but one of those projects is to practice writing and getting this out.

The last volume(?) of the blog covered an odd period of my life (I mean it included spring of 2020, so it's been an odd period in everyone's lives). I was fairly stressed in the fall and winter semesters with my day job, and trying to figure out how to live life when not doing a PhD. I'm slowly making progress on that front but honestly it's been a rough year in general.

For the most part the blog itself has been ticking quietly along on series of posts about the games I've played and the books I've read. I've been enjoying tracking those, so I'm happy enough with that. Aside for that I've written a few project posts and I feel like for the first time in a while I'm getting much better traction on the projects I'm working on. (Look for a project update shortly).

I am interested that the only thoughts on post I wrote was for Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival.

Overall a quiet year for the blog, but as I wrote in my update last year I wanted to focus my energy elsewhere, so I guess I've done alright.

My total posts per year, highlighted by month. You can see more on my Blorgress Page

Over the last few months I've wanted to improve my writing and I think my project focus for the last half of 2020 will be on writing the novel I've been thinking about and on writing a manual of interesting coding. That could also include more writing here, but that depends a bit on what I want to write about. I definitely have thoughts in mind on Ocotopath Traveller and on Paper Mario: The Origami King.

I'm also considering moving the blog itself off of Blogger/Blogspot. I've been generally unhappy with outsourcing hosting to Google as a provider for a few years now, as we've seen power on the Internet being consolidated and algorithmic filtering affecting how people are able to access information. I'm also exceptionally unhappy with the recent interface update which has really increased the length of time it takes me to make a post. The tag system has always been bad as well and finding a solution that makes me happier is becoming more important.

I haven't made a decision about what I'm exactly I'm going to do yet, but things muttered on the internet sometimes come true. I am planning to look at Hugo for Code Click and if that goes well there might be a change.

In the mean time, generally, you can expect to see a continued series of updates on books and games, with an occasional update on other things or thoughts I feel like I want to share.

With that, I hope you have a good August, a better end of 2020 and a much, much better 2021.

Monday, August 05, 2019

Project 1: Blog x 9

Happy August! Also happy blog end and start day (belated)!

As of August 1, I've completed the latest year of blogging and I'm going to lay out my plans for another year of blogging. Now, it's time to update the Blog as Project and the Blog as Blog again. Also it's time to sit in my garden and enjoy August.



I finally finished my PhD in 2019, which I hope will open up my time to work on interesting projects and write about them here. The last year was a little thin on those with the bulk of the posts being reading updates, with a few other posts sprinkled in. I'm starting to get some momentum up though and trying to use that to carry through and get things done.

Back in May I set myself a goal of writing 4000 words a month for the blog. This has been pretty largely a failure, but I think the tracking has been good for me. I've probably written about 2000 words a month and I think for now that's ok. My primary focus has always been to try to be doing more things, which means I think I should be putting my time to working on projects rather than writing about stuff.

So for the Ninth Edition of the Blog, I'm planning to get at least one project post out a month (which ties in nicely with my New Year's Resolution to finish a project a month). I'd also like to put in a few more video game thoughts posts, as I've been playing a lot of good games this year.

Let's go make something!



Wednesday, August 01, 2018

Project 1: Project Octoseason Blog*

Happy Blog End and Start Day!

via GIPHY

Yes, it’s time for that annual celebration where I remember that I started the Blog on August 1 (a long time ago) and should probably figure out what I’m doing with it. It’s also your annual reminder that not all things last forever, but this blog still might for another year.

Ahem, first, as tradition dictates, I’d like to remind you that the “Blog” here comes in two parts, the Blog as Project Report, and the Blog as Blog (which is itself a project). Effectively, my intention here has always been to get excited and make things - even if that’s not always as evident as I’d like it - and one of those things I’m excited to make, is a Blog where I talk about - well mostly the media I’ve consumed, but you get the idea.

Tradition further suggests that now is the time that I tell you I’m not done my PhD, but I’m close - and folks I’m getting ever closer to actually finishing the damn thing - and given that, that I haven’t done quite as much work on my own creations as I’d hoped last August. Still, here we are, I’m not going to beat myself up, I’m just going to celebrate what I have done.

In terms of projects in the last year, I’ve worked on four and I’m generally, pretty happy with how they came out. I started messing around generating floor plans for a game I’d like to make at some point. That only managed two posts, but I still had fun - and I’m still thinking about it, the Flurpins will be back “soon”. I pushed myself to read more, and set myself the goal of reading 12 books in 21 weeks. That was a nice project, in that it had a set end date, and ended at the end for 2017. I actually made it all the way to 18 books - what a stunner. I started on a program to help me with game tracking, and also to just get some general programming practice in. Finally I tackled #NaFYoFuThMo an effort to get me pushed across that finish line of that ever looming PhD.

A Flurpin ... an odd side effect of generating floor plans.


As far as the Blog as Blog goes, in the last year I’ve kept up with tracking my video game playing, which I continue to find interesting, even if it probably seems a bit repetitive. I dropped a little behind in the monthly posts, partly because I was fairly overwhelmed in the Winter managing teaching and the PhD. I’ve mostly caught up now, and you can expect to see the June and July posts in the next few days. 

Following on from the success I had in boosting my reading in 2017, I’ve tracked all of the books I’ve read so far in 2018. I think It’s been worthwhile, and I’ve boosted my goal for the year on Good Reads from 32 to 40 (but that’s mostly to accommodate the fact that I can read a volume of Saga in a morning, and I hadn’t planned to read Saga at such a rate).

I only wrote one “thoughts on” post this year. That was Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, last August. I haven’t really finished another game this year that I’ve had that many thoughts about - while I loved Into The Breach, I found I didn’t have a lot to say other than, It’s really good. I suspect that in the next little while I may write a “thoughts on” piece for Paper Mario: Colour Splash - where you can enjoy my chants of “The WiiU is not a 3D system!” - and I may write a follow up to Breath of the Wild, another hundred hours on.

It's ok, you just have to trust the game not to smack you in the face with a hammer ... which you can't.


For the first time I wrote a New Years Resolution post. I think it was good for me to write down what I wanted to do better, or differently, this year. Generally, I’ve been more successful than not: I’m *slightly* better at monotasking and much better if I don’t let stress build up. I think I’ve done an okay job of holding fewer opinions, although that also varies with stress. I do think it’s helped while teaching introductory computer science, where many people hold a number of *very* strong opinions which may not matter very much. I think I’ve also been better at acting and getting stuff done just by standing up and doing it - it’s easier than I think it is.

I’m going to finish my thesis, sooner rather than later. I think in a small way I’ve been better on Twitter and happier with how I’ve been on Twitter. I’ve definitely read more and enjoyed a lot of what I’ve read - and then there’s Eats, Shoots and Leaves. I’m not sure I’ve made more stuff, but I’ve done a lot of stuff around the house that feels similar. I’ve seen more things, but I’d like to see more and keep pushing past the boundaries of inertia. 

More or less, I’m happy with the Blog as Blog in its seventh season. It has mostly been bits of media I’ve consumed. I didn’t really mean for it to work out that way, but at the moment I’m feeling fairly happy with that. My favourite YouTube videos have fallen off, but I think given the state of that platform generally, I'm okay with that. I may bring them back in a different form in the future.

I’m going to do an Eighth Season of the Blog - surprise! I suspect it will look very similar to the seventh. Tracking media keeps me interested, and if I find I have something I want to write about in relation to that, then I’ll have a good space to do that. I am hoping that as I finally finish the PhD, I’ll be able to add in a few more projects - I have several in mind, which should be fun.

Thanks to all of you who read, I hope the fun I have here is at least a little fun for you as well.


*Yes, yes I did make a stupid reference to Octopath Traveller in the title, what of it?

Saturday, August 05, 2017

Project 1: The Blog - Season Seven

It’s August again. Which means it’s about that time that I decide what I’m going to do with the Blog again. So let me say “Happy (Belated) Blog Start and End Day


As a quick reminder this blog comes in two parts, the Blog as Me Talking About Stuff, and the Blog as Project Report. Every year, on August 1, I wrap up a year’s blogging and decide if it’s worth doing it again next year. This way, there’s some concrete point where an ending can come if it needs to.


Last year, from August to the end of September, I blogged in what I’m thinking of as my “standard mode,” which means that I mostly posted Favourite Youtube posts, and kept track of my video game playing. In January I felt like I wanted to get further ahead on my PhD (yeah, I’m still working on it) as well as increase my focus on other projects, so I tried to reduce the amount of standard mode blogging I’m doing.


Each month since January, I’ve tried to keep up to date on my game tracking and then post a favourite youtube video if there’s some extra time. I’m roughly planning to continue the same way for the next year. Ideally two “non project posts” each month.


I have found the game tracking interesting. By the end of last year I felt overwhelmed, and tired, and didn’t want to do it any more. In particular, I had planned to do a few more posts than I did wrapping up the year. Then in January, I found it hard to stop tracking my play and then found that  if I got off my butt and posted the update post quickly each month, they were not too much extra effort.


For the next, I’m trying to get some more other things up and going. By this time next year my PhD needs to be finished. At the same time, I’m trying to take my other project time to get a few other things done. I’m working on same light game dev stuff, mostly teaching myself stuff I’d like to know how to do. I’m also working on some SciComm practice, I think the way my PhD has gone, I’d benefit from spending more time thinking about how we talk about computer science. Both of those should float up to posts in the next few weeks.


I should also mention that I turned ads on for the first time. I did this mostly as an experiment. I was curious how it would work. Additionally I’m hoping to spend more time communicating in a professional context in the future and it feels like if there’s any chance to offset the time I spend on this then I’d like to take it.


But there we go. Season seven, more of the same. Probably an episode where I put on some masks and pretend to be a bunch of different dead gods… wait, wrong season seven. I’ll check in again on August 1, 2018.

Thursday, August 04, 2016

Administrativa: I Just Broke a Bunch of Links

Oops.

Sorry about that. I undertook to properly capitalize my labels/tags a couple of months ago aaaand I just realized that any link to those tags is now going to be broken. Tags themselves at the bottom of each post are unaffected, but any link in text will now go to a "there's no page for that".

I'll work on fixing this as I can, but it's going to be a while. I'm going to start on recent posts and work backwards.

Wednesday, July 13, 2016

Project Update: July 2016

So the last few months have been a pretty busy time for me. I taught a full course for the first time (by which I mean a full-half course, because my University is funny) and it took over my life pretty heavily. Beyond that I still have a lot of things that need doing for my PhD and I'd like to get that wrapped up sooner rather than late.

Can't say for sure that I feel excited, but I certainly would like to get the PhD made.

Projects have definitely fallen aside (include the blog-as-blog), but given the other things I've had to do I'm not that disappointed. Even if it's now taken me a really long time to write a few hundred words.

I'm at a point now that I'm going to get some free time. The keyword being some. I have quite a bit of work to do on my PhD and I've accepted another teaching gig for the fall (which will need to be done without me grinding to a halt on my PhD).  So given that I have some free time I'd like to get back to getting something creative done.

I also seem to have a problem where in I don't work on a project because I "should" work on another project, but I can't, or don't want to, work on that project so in the end, I do nothing. I'd like to get a handle on that if I can. Previously this is why I tried to have a lot of projects "open,"  but it's basically the same problem I tried to address in January by cutting back on the number of projects I was working on at one time.

So I'm going to try to reorganize a little bit again. My thought now is that at the beginning of each month I'll make a list of things I'd like to work on and then each day I'm going to try to do "one creative thing" that might or might not have anything to do with what's on the list. Each week I'll post an update to see how things have gone and what I've worked on. And I'll still keep the project updates to look at projects over all.

The goal is to get things done without stressing myself out and to keep working on things even if it's only a little bit each day.

Here's to getting excited and making things.

Tuesday, January 05, 2016

January 2016 Project Update

Somehow, it's been six months since my last project update. I've been pretty busy for the last six months, but mostly on things for the PhD and teaching. Around here I haven't managed to get much done.

As far as the "actual job" goes. I'm hoping to finish the PhD this year, although it'll be December if I do get it all done this year. I'm getting closer though and I've reach the point where I really just want to get it done and and get on to anything else.

The teaching has also been interesting, since my last update I've been working primarily on new ways to teach new computer scientist the basic tools that we expect them to be able to use (like text editors and the Unix command line). That has been a lot of work but I think may also lead to some things that I'd like to do in the future. You may even see me talk about it more here in the next little while.

As far as getting projects done, I haven't. I've managed to do a little work but really haven't managed to put anything to bed. Finishing things is definitely not my strength.

Granted finishing things is never easy:

The first 90 percent of the code accounts for the first 90 percent of the development time. The remaining 10 percent of the code accounts for the other 90 percent of the development time.[1]
— Tom Cargill, Bell Labs

(Stolen ... borrowed ... excerpted ... from Wikipedia)

I think I also sometimes distract myself by giving myself too many options about what to work on *looks at the two page todo list*.

I'm going to try for the next little bit to focus when I'm working on my project stuff. I'm also going to try to make sure that I put the bulk of my time into getting the PhD done.

To manage that I'm going to try to have one active project at a time (well two, but hold onto that thought). For now, I'm going to focus on finishing the sketch fiction first. I'll get to the perler projects (coasters and sprites) when I have a little time, but for now we can call them "on hiatus".

Also I have absolutely no idea what those other two and a half projects were going to be. I should really consider writing things down. On that note, if I come up with more brain crack*, then you might see a project post for a project that I'm not really going to start on.

The "other" project is going to be "blog as blog project". For the last year I really tried to get two posts out a week. Over all I haven't done too badly, but I feel a bit like I use the blog as an excuse to not work on other things (like my PhD and other projects). I'm going to scale back to only one "YouTube Favourites" a week (on Friday). This was always technically the plan with the assumption that I'd be filling Tuesday and the other days with other posts, but that hasn't been the case and that's okay.

I'm going to set the deadline for the sketch fiction for February 9th, 2016 and in the mean time you'll have a fresh batch of favourite videos on Friday.

* he says if as though he didn't have another page in the todo list of "long term" projects in the book with the todo list.







Tuesday, August 18, 2015

August 2015 Project Update Post

Once again I've been slow getting things done, although I did at least manage to take a vacation and am now involved in "serious business" redeveloping a course for my department. That's taken up quite a bit of time from everything in the last little while. So taking that into account it's time to reset the project goals and see where things stand. Mostly right now, I'm trying to keep my energy up and get excited and make things.


  • Project 5 - SNES Coasters
    • I still haven't put the backing on on the new, larger, test coaster. Once I get that done then it's just a matter of testing it out and seeing how it compares to the older ones. Getting the backing on will be a little effort but once that's done it's just a matter of using the thing for a while. Hopefully I'll be able to post a full update on October 2, 2015.
  • Project 12 - Chrono Trigger Sprites
    • I've done most of the planning for my next sprite. I need to check I have enough beads, and then it's just a matter of putting those beads together. Hopefully will be done the next phase on September 18, 2015.
  • Project 14 - Sketch Fiction
    • I haven't written much in the past couple of months. I'm going to try to push myself to write a little each day which should make it easy to push through 5 more quick sketches. Hopefully I'll have all five up by, October 30, 2015.

Tuesday, June 02, 2015

Project Update Post

As always I seem to get behind on projects, but in the last few months I've managed to start picking things up again. So I'm going to reorganize my deadlines again today and reorganize a few of the projects.


  • Project 5 - SNES Coasters
    • I have actually gotten as far as beading and fusing my new larger format test coaster. Now it needs a backing and then I'll give it a test for a little while to see if it develops the same cupping that the smaller ones. 
    • I'm going to try to get the backing on in the next week and then I'll test it for a month or so.  I'm going to set the deadline to see if I make more / bigger ones on July 17, 2015.

  • Project 12 - Chrono Trigger Sprites
    • I've finally made some progress. Last night in fact I actually spent about 2 hours beading the beginning of a 1x1 Chrono sprite. This is giving me a chance to see what works and how the colours look (little problem there, but I'll give a longer update once I get everything done).
Coming together.
    • Progress is happening so I hope to have the 1x1 sprite and update done by June 23, 2015.


  • Project 14 - Sketch Fiction
    • I originally was calling this flash fiction, but based on the lack of ... plot in the stuff I've been writing I wasn't sure if flash fiction counted. I ran across an article on "sketch fiction" which I'm repurposing as a term for what I'm turning out.
    • As you might have guess from the above, I have actually written a bit. I have one sketch done and ready to go an others "in the pipeline". I'm going to try to do six sketches in the next little while, rather than one a month like I'd originally posted. I'd like to try to have all six posted by August 1, 2015.

  • New Projects
    • I have two (and a half) new projects I've either started or would like to start. I'll put up proper posts for them soon. 

Friday, November 07, 2014

Project Update Post

I've managed to get behind on projects again, mostly due to having research and teach commitments that need to get done with a higher priority. Still I've managed to get a bit done and in this post I'm going to update my deadlines to give myself something to shoot for again.



  • Project 5 - SNES Coasters and Project 12 - Chrono Trigger Sprites
    • I've had to hold off a little on working on these due to house sitting and wanting to make sure that I'm using the same iron while testing.
    • The SNES Coasters have been holding mostly steady, but I've decided that I want to build and test one of the bigger size before making others since that way I don't waste quite as much if I don't like the size. 
      • I'd like to finish and start testing the test SNES coaster by November 15, 2014.
    • I spent a long time going through the Perler bead colours and discovered that I actually DIDN'T buy all the colours and I'm missing a few that might be helpful for the sprites. However I think I have enough on hand to make it through the small scale test.
    • I've also done all the colour matching and think I have a plan for which colour of beads I'll use for each of the colours in the Chrono sprite.
      • I'd like to finish a test block (just the colours) by November 15, 2014 and the small scale Chrono by November 30, 2014.
  • Project 13 - Bubble Puzzle
    • I haven't had time to start on this one at all yet, so I don't have much to report other than that I've decided to do a test with Unity that works well enough to shoot bubbles at other bubbles.
      • I'd like to finish this Unity test by December 31, 2014
  • Project 14 - Flash Fiction
    • I also haven't made much progress on this one either so I think given that I'm still fairly early in November, I'm simply going to slide this back a month and hopefully put up my first piece by November 30, 2014.

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Projects 4 & 5 Deadline Update

So I've dropped well past the deadlines I gave myself for both the Snake project and the SNES coaster project. This has been due to a combined effect of actually getting things done at work, having some catastrophic computer issues and not getting excited enough and getting things done.

Perler Bead Coaster
It's a coaster (or it will be)
On the SNES coaster project, I have managed to get excited enough to at least start making prototypes (as you can see in the picture). I still have a bit of work to do figuring out how I'd like them to work (in particular they need a backing for added table protection, plus reinforcement of the beads) and then I need to actually make a few and test them out as coasters. Ideally this should all happen in the next week so I'm giving this project a new deadline of November 24, 2012.

I've made less progress with the Snake project but am planning to jump back on it soon. I haven't actually tackled any of the items I discussed last time and given schedules for all the things that need to be done, I think I won't have too much time to focus on it. I'm giving this project a new deadline of January 1, 2013.

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Delays Delays

Sorry for the lack of posts in the last week or so. I've been suffering from the combined effects of a cold and the death of my laptop, which has screwed with my work setup. Posts should be resuming shortly.

Sunday, July 29, 2012

Yet Another Update


I've decided, given that this is about the first anniversary of the "Blog as Project" part of the blog, to make a couple of simple changes around here. Over all, I'm happy, I feel like I'm getting better and that things are moving along.

However I haven't posted as much as I'd like to and at least some of that is due to the way I have the projects structured. They feel a bit too big to me and like I should have something substantial before I do anything (which is why there are so few). I've also been busy, as you may notice up at the top this is the "productivity" journal of  PhD and that means that I actually need to get some of my school work done as well.

In order to manage the projects better I'm going to add two other categories. The first is "Mini Projects" in which I will include things that are quick to do and will be one or two posts (and I think a lot of "after action reports"). The second category is "Academic Projects" in which I may detail more of the things I do in relation to my degree, these may be quite vague, since most of my work is not yet published and there are quite a few things that I'd rather not spoil on myself. Still I hope that I can keep track of that part of my life on here, all be it in a fairly vague manner.

I've also changed the font for the site, since I discovered that I apparently don't like san-serif body text any more. Hopefully the site will easier to read.

Wednesday, May 09, 2012

Blog: That post about why there are no posts

So it seems inevitable that anybody writing a blog ends up missing a long stretch and then posting about why they were missing and how they're going to do better now.
This is that post.

It's been two semesters since the last time I managed to post and as far as getting excited and making things goes, I've managed to get enough things done to continue on in grad school. I've also made it through a period of low energy and stress, but I seem to be doing pretty well now.

The plan when I started this project was to use it to encourage me to stop sitting around and actually get the things I want done in life done. This has not been a huge success for the big projects (like the ones I've started here) but it has started to work for the smaller things that need to be done.

Now I would like to get myself organized to be more productive, even though there are several things related to my PhD that I will still need to focus on. Over the sumer my time can flex a little more, so for the next few months I will try to post at least one post a week here, either a blog post or a project update.

In the next few weeks I want to post some thoughts on a few of the video games I've played in the last while, particularly which parts are interesting when thinking about how to design the games I would like to design. I will also be writing a few other posts about things that interest me on the web, as well as some other software design things that have interested/bothered me over the years.

Hopefully this blog will keep being a useful tool for organizing myself and continuing to push myself forward.

Time to get excited and make something!

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