an offer for help

someone on the internet posted an offer for help on personal projects. i'm interested in getting help, or at least engaging in conversation for conversations sake. i don't really have a project that i need help with. i mean, sure, i've got plenty of projects but none of them are ones that i really feel like i need help deciding direction or approach.  

On the other hand, none of them are getting done, so maybe I do need help.

Oh well

Killing Your Babies

I've been wanting to write an Erlang serial port library for a very very long time now.  I've probably talked about it, at this point, more than it will take me to *actually* write the thing.  But I've been stymied (forever it feels like) by mental blocks and knowledge-gap blocks and the general dis-ease of not knowing where to begin.

I was fortunate enough to be able to attend !!con this past Sunday.  (!!con is a weekend conference that features short, 10 minute talks on things you find fascinating in programming.)  Watching people talk about the things in programming that they had been geeking out about lately made me start thinking about what it was that I wanted to present about next year.  And I realized it was the serial port project I've been avoiding for years now.

So today, I booted up an AWS instance and downloaded the source tree and started compiling the Debian sources. One of the current Recurse Center batchees stopped by to say hello, and I outright asked them if they knew anything about kernel modules -- turns out the answer was very much yes!

In less than 20 minutes we had a "hello world" working kernel module! Pris (the Recurser who was helping out) asked me what it was that I was trying to do with a kernel module -- and when I explained the bigger project (getting Erlang interop-ing with C code), Pris explained that since I was using serial, there was no need to write a kernel module -- I could just write "plain" C code as my driver for an Erlang API.  And actually, a project that does exactly this already exist, and if I wanted to I could probably just use them.

Boy do I feel silly for telling so many people about how I was going to write a kernel module.  And even more silly for avoiding setting up a VM that could do kernel things on it. (I thought it would be hard!)

I'm not as motivated to write all this code as I was, but I might do it anyway because I am still curious about how the serial API works.

I've been carrying this project idea around with me for such a long time; it's nice to have killed so many hangups and misconceptions about the amount of work that would be required all in one go.  This project seems so much more tractable now.  More importantly, it's amazing how much mental energy has been freed up from worrying about how hard this would be to finish, or if it would even ever be finished.  Guilt and unfulfilled desire finally deflated into an actual, tangible body of work that I know how to start.  Or not, since it kind of already exists.

I just wish I hadn't deleted all that Erlang code a few weeks back.  Oh well. :)

Cocoas First Responder, an irl investigation of terms

List of terms/sentences from an article on the Responder Chain that I don't understand yet.

- In fact even Apple often employs delegate protocols to have a view controller communicate to its superior.
-

@protocol FlipsideViewControllerDelegate

- Now we can get rid of the delegate protocol

Oh interesting.  There are 2 ways to assign the receiver for an action (like a button click).  One is to assign it to the "File's Owner".  No idea who this is yet, but sort of get the idea that it may be something called a "Controller" class.  Or something.  The other option for an action target is that you can put the action (the click) in a 'queue' of sorts, to be processed by the "Responder Chain" (whatever that is).  The chain goes up a list, sort of like the View Hierarchy in Android, until it finds a receiving method (I don't think that's what these are called but whatevs) that is registered for that action (the click!).  That method is then called.  

- Any selector can be used for the action parameter of the sendAction method 

What's a selector?  If I had to guess, I'd say that it's a view?

Since the app delegate has been promoted to a UIResponder as of iOS 5

Who's the app delegate?  This seems like the first Activity from an Android app.  Or like an Application subclass, but more easily accessible than the Application subclass is. 

Further Interface Builder questions:

There are three items listed under Placeholders: File's Owner, First Responder, and Application.  What is Application good for?

What's the difference between the Placeholders objects, and the Objects?

unsure where to start

sitting in this project space that I'm renting space in for a month. (or two?).  it's my first day here, so there's a lot of pressure to be good and productive with my time.  I'm not really sure what that means, on a Saturday.  I mean, if I wasn't here I'd be at home reading the novel I'm currently working my way through: Capote's In Cold Blood.  Or boring my dog to death with more interval practice.

Conquering intervals is my current frustration.  I've been focusing on perfect 4ths & 5ths.  The generally accepted way to memorize an interval is to map it to a favorite song.  A perfect 4th, for example, is the first two notes of "We wish you a Merry Christmas".  The idea being that if you hear two notes that sound like the beginning of the song, you know, instantaneously, that that is a perfect 4th.  The key notes that I'm using for a perfect 5th are the first two notes of the Star Wars theme song.  Duhh, dahh, dahdahdah dahhhh dahh.  You get the idea.

These notes go north and they also go south.  As in being able to identify a perfect 4th both ascending and descending.  It's a bit of a night mare, especially because my short term memory is so horrid.  Or maybe it's just that my listening skills leave a bit to be desired.  Either way just being able to accurately recognize (and, more importantly, differentiate) perfect 4ths & 5ths is a current struggle.

I went to ear training class on Thursday.  In class we focused on rhythm training and singing scales.  The scales that we covered were normal (all the same pitches), a normal (?) minor scale (raised 3rd, 6th & 7th) a harmonic minor scale (raised 3rd & 6th) and a melodic minor (raised 3rd).  I still don't really understand coming back down on the diatonic and melodic minor scales.  It seems to be that they go back to being the same as the "normal" minor scale.  I should look this up, but it's kind of more fun to just grouse / write it out.

There's also 4 sets of triads:  A normal triad (tonic, M3rd, M5th). A minor triad (tonic, m3, M5th). A diminished triad (tonic, m3, d5). An augmented triad (tonic, M3rd, a5th).

Another current frustration: figuring out what language to write side projects in.  Getting outside of the mobile app infrastructure land is so hard *whines*.  I'd really like to switch my blogging over to a static site, but I'm currently trapped in indecision station with regards to what engine to pick.  There's a Java one, but I'd have to figure out how to jar things.  There's a zillion in Ruby or Python but just ew, ok?  There's one in Erlang that looks dope but I'm not sure that my Erlang skills are good enough to figure out how to get it up and running.  I'd also like to write my own (the existing projects up on Github seems small enough to make this a doable project), but that doesn't solve the problem.

Can I write an Android static site generator?  That seems real dorky but also super useful.  I'd definitely use it all the time. o.O lol.  Turn your mobile phone into a web server with this one weird trick!

Ruby and Python are out because we HATTES them we HAATEES them.
Java, eh.
JavaScript? meh.
... what else is there?
Scala? fffuuuckno.
Kotlin? Groovy? meeehbe.
Dart, Go? no thank you.
Smalltalk? Prolog? Erlang? when do you need this by?
bash? what are you a masochist?
C?


Yeah. Maybe I'll do it in C.

new new new new new

The new year bears down with a slow creeping insistence.  It moves closer, one day at a time, the same pace as always, but closer such that you can feel the wind from the void of 2015 just beyond the bend.

I met a talented woodworker in Nashville but a few weeks ago, and in the way that full hearted artistry does, I've been inspired. Everyday there's a new photo in my Instagram feed of a spoon he carved that day. We're but 5 spoons from the end of his project. I wonder if the time passes the same for him now as it did in the first five. (How much of mastery is of yourself, not your craft?)

I've been thinking about year long projects for a while now. What would I dedicate a year to studying? Julia Childs dedicated six months to learning French cooking (which became a lifetime). A Nashville carver made spoons. An artist and dear colleague at Etsy drew cats.

It's not a resolution. It's a project. I've had much success in the past by throwing myself into new things. The 5 day a week veganism. Portuguese. 750 words of writing a day, for a month (I made it 40 days straight before quitting, cold turkey one hungover morning in July.) Taking singing lessons.

But what to dedicate myself to? There are many things that I'm interested in getting better at, or exploring more deeply. Picking just one and sticking to it for a year is daunting.

Commitment is a hard problem.

I've already narrowed the list of options a bit. I'd like it to be an output project, such that by the end of the day I have something that didn't exist at the beginning of that day. That leaves out any "consumption" projects - read an article a day, listen to a lesson in French a day,  eat an apple a day... et cetera.

It also needs to be tractable. Something that no matter where I find myself in 2015, I can do this thing. Nothing that requires an inordinate amount of equipment or tools. If need be, Id be willing to take a break during a trip (backpacking, rafting). It needs to be doable within the time frame of a single day. Repeatable, but with room for improvisation.

Current ideas include:
- sew a pocket a day
- bread making
- short story writing
- a photo of the sunrise or sunset
- a problem from SICP
- a new knitting stitch
- ???