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The Fine Man technique

2022-09-20

4 minute read

Yesterday I felt very distracted, but it was good to type out all those tasks. I tackled:

cooking

I cooked the fish soup again, made heaps. It tastes good, only problem was I added far too much rice and ended up diluting it a fair bit. I'll add some msg when I next heat it up and see if that helps.

The groceries only came to $30, as I already had the spices and the fish was cheap. I'm using Freshwater Basa.

While I cooked I relistened to the Bill Wurst episode of HTML Energy

learning

Most of the time tacking the CS study task was spent looking into how to use Notion for study, and then how to study in general.

I've done so little actual study in my adult life, I feel a bit lost.

I chose to use Notion mostly because I already pay for it, but also because it's got good reviews from people for this, and I've used if for some other stuff already. It's likely I'll use it for a few months then just move back to markdown, but then again I moved my portuguese homework from markdown to Notion so who knows.

I'm following this course: https://teachyourselfcs.com/. First I'm going to go through the book in the programming section, Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs then I'll try going through the two books recommended in this quote -

If the idea of self-studying 9 topics over multiple years feels overwhelming, we suggest you focus on just two books: Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective and Designing Data-Intensive Applications. In our experience, these two books provide incredibly high return on time invested, particularly for self-taught engineers and bootcamp grads working on networked applications. They may also serve as a "gateway drug" for the other topics and resources listed above.

Self studying 9 topics over multiple years does feel overwhelming, I don't think it will hurt to try at least one of these two books first. I am doing the programming one first though because it seems easier to read, and I think I'll benefit immediately from the subject.

I don't know how I'll put it into a routine just yet, outside of how many hours I expect to do each week on it.

routines

I've found routines to be a more difficult beast to wrestle with than I expected when I began this break. I had this idea that all I needed was time and I could plan a "perfect" routine, then step into it like a magic suit. Those types of idealistic routines failed, they had unrealistic expectations for both my energy levels and how long it takes me to do anything. As I've slowly started to build an actual routine on my break, I've found it very important to as much as I can build it around the things I already do - to let the body lead the routine building. It's not that I have no agency beyond my physical impulses (up for debate), it's more that I need to work collaboratively with my body to not set unrealistic routines that make me feel worse when I can't meet them.

back to learning

I read about the The Feynman Technique

There are four key steps to the Feynman Technique:

  1. Choose a concept you want to learn about
  2. Explain it to a 12 year old
  3. Reflect, Refine, and Simplify
  4. Organize and Review

or (to practice what I preach): Take the topic you are learning about and explain it accurately, clearly and succinctly concisely briefly without jargon.

This would be a boon for me in general, I have really struggled over the last year feeling like I don't know anything, that all my knowledge feels nebulous. When ever I try to articulate complex ideas I get lost, I don't really know what I'm talking about. I believe this approach to learning will help with this.

what else

I've picked up some speakers and a sub from Troy, I'm going to try to set up a soundsystem for my room.

We have the property manager coming round later, I'm going to tidy up my room and make it presentable, just in case they pop their head in.

I've gound a go gui - https://wails.io/ - That I might try using to create the new forge.horse.

I went to the wall yesterday, my stamina has fallen off a little since last time I climbed.

Portuguese went okay, today I need to type up some vocab.

on weaving

I finished On Weaving by Anni Albers - it was great. The last chapter, Design as Visual Organization, has some really good lines about art.

Material form becomes meaningful form through design, that is, through considered relationships. And this meaningful form can become a carrier of a meaning that takes us beyond what we think of as immediate reality. But an orderliness that is too obvious cannot become meaningful in this superior sense that is art. The organization of forms, their relatedness, their proportions, must have that quality of mystery that we know in nature. Nature, however, shows herself to us only in part. The whole of nature, though we always seek it, remains hidden from us. To reassure us, art tries, I believe, to show us a wholeness we can comprehend.

listening to

The Weeknd

Questions

a plant in the sun, in the corner of a room