Apr 25, 2021 -
Feb 14, 2021
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What did you get done this week?
Justin Mallone
More like past couple of weeks:
I've been continuing my Simply Scheme project.
I read Between Planets by Heinlein and Have Spacesuit, Will Travel as well. Re: Between Planets, I thought the perception of Mars and Venus and how relatively easy to settle they might be was interesting. That's something that apparently changed since the 1950s due to additional scientific information becoming available.
BTW one thing I've been doing is reading plot summaries after I read a book to check if I missed or forgot any important plot points. Sort of a reading comprehension check. Wikipedia summaries are good for that.
I've been continuing my Simply Scheme project.
I read Between Planets by Heinlein and Have Spacesuit, Will Travel as well. Re: Between Planets, I thought the perception of Mars and Venus and how relatively easy to settle they might be was interesting. That's something that apparently changed since the 1950s due to additional scientific information becoming available.
BTW one thing I've been doing is reading plot summaries after I read a book to check if I missed or forgot any important plot points. Sort of a reading comprehension check. Wikipedia summaries are good for that.
Farouk
- Completed project of week one of my course(css & HTML)
- Worked on my second project (a simple app)
- Finished reading Leonardo DaVinci
- Read We The Living
Farouk
- Had my first coding sessions with my new coding partner(cp).
- Began a project for practicing the subjects my cp is teaching me.
Justin Mallone
- Have continued watching BoI vids and enjoying them.
- Made some more programming posts/vids. Sorted out some computer performance issues I was having that was making things difficult.
- Finished Witcher series.
- Started Have Spacesuit, Will Travel. Fun so far. You can tell it was written in the 1950s btw. Like there's a certain tone to it - a certain innocence and earnestness or something like that - that seems very much from a different time/culture/country.
- Made a bit more BotW progress. I've started finding the map towers in places I've been cuz I didn't like having tons of the map dark. It's also fun to jump off towers and try to get far with the glider
doubtingthomas
Nothing
Justin Mallone
- Been watching Elliot's BoI videos. I am enjoying them :)
- Made more progress in The Little Schemer. You can follow me working through the book here: https://justinmallone.com/the-little-schemer/ I may try making videos again although I've had enough problems with Screenflow in the past that I'm not sure if I want to deal with the overhead. Maybe I'll resub to Descript and try using that.
- Almost finished last Witcher book.
- Tiny bit of BotW progress.
doubtingthomas
Nothing much related to FI. I read Justin's answer and realized I watched the first BoI video too and watching that started some very interesting chain of thoughts in my mind but I didn't write them down or tried to pursue them to conclusion.
Farouk
I finished an idea tree.
Got myself a coding partner/tutor.
Began my small projects project on basecamp.
Got myself a coding partner/tutor.
Began my small projects project on basecamp.
Justin Mallone
- I watched curi's BoI vids while reading along with the book. I am enjoying them so far.
- I started a new book related to my learning programming project. It's called The Little Schemer. I like it a lot. I have already done a couple of blog posts about it. A reasonable subtitle for the book might be "How to Not Skip Steps". The book's method is very big on trying to avoid skipping steps. It's the first in a series of books, which I was happy to learn :)
- I finished the seventh and started the eighth and final book of the Witcher series. I've enjoyed listening to them enough that I may finally play the big expansion for Witcher 3 just to experience more of the world/story.
- I completed my first divine beast in BotW. I beat Waterblight Ganon with literally my last arrow, which seemed like a kind of dramatic ending to a boss fight, and so I was amused by that. 🏹
Farouk
Began my new web-dev course and finished the first-week module.
Introduced myself on the Facebook group of the course.
Introduced myself on the Facebook group of the course.
doubtingthomas
Understood the role of planning and organized learning.
Justin Mallone
- Made some trees on Zelda BotW, not getting stuck, and programming
- Made some progress in Simply Scheme. Currently on Chapter 19 and have a few problems towards the end that I haven't been able to solve yet.
- Finished the sixth book in the Witcher series and started the seventh (of eight).
- Made some progress in BotW. I got to Zora's Domain.
- Made some progress on working on joint pain issues. My current pattern is that I spend some time doing stretches/exercises I've already committed to memory while listening to an audiobook. Then if I run out of stuff to do or those exercises don't seem effective, I watch a YouTube vid or two from a list of vids I've saved for more ideas as to what to do. I have found that, on the one hand, if I try to do an entire session of exercises at full attention, I find that a bit tedious and might not finish. On the other hand, if I try to do full autopilot, I might stop early or not give due attention to making sure I'm doing the exercises correctly and in an effective manner. But the mixed/fluctuating attention level thing seems to work well for me.
Anyways, I've been working on the exercises pretty diligently for a couple of weeks and have already noticed some significant improvement. 💪 - Upgraded to Big Sur (finally!). It seems faster :)
Justin Mallone
- Wrote some thoughts in a thread on here about dealing with too much complexity.
- Got unstuck in my Simply Scheme project and wrote some more for my next blog post about it.
- Read some more Witcher. I'm now working my way through the sixth book chronologically, which is the third book of the main Saga (there are 2 books of short stories and one book that is a single story but not part of the main saga, and they all precede the Saga).
- Watched an episode of a documentary series "How To Get Ahead", which talks about what the courts of various leaders are like. I watched the episode on Louis XIV. There are also episodes on the courts of Medici's Florence and Richard II. It was a light/entertaining watch, might try more. One thing I thought was interesting was the importance of very minor social rules details. E.g.: if you knocked on a particular door instead of gently scratching it or something, that'd mark you very badly socially. Or if you picked the "wrong" chair to sit in, that could be another black mark. I watched it on Amazon Video cuz it had higher resolution than the version I found on YouTube.
- Oh I played Breath of the Wild a bit.
Farouk
Finished my first demo store on Shopify.
Began reading Leonardo Davinci
Began using idea trees to solve code wars challenges.
Began reading Leonardo Davinci
Began using idea trees to solve code wars challenges.
Dface
I've been reading varying amounts the past week. Im reading Starship Troopers by Heinlein. I sometimes read 5 mins a day or 2 hours a day. I read really slow so I have 1/3 of the book left to read.
I only posted once on project steps last week. I know I should do more. I just find it easier to go to pdf viewer and read Starship Troopers.
I only posted once on project steps last week. I know I should do more. I just find it easier to go to pdf viewer and read Starship Troopers.
Anne B
- Wrote lists of project steps and posted them here. Then wrote about why I was stopping that project.
- Started a project about exploring the idea of micro-projects.
- Wrote several short posts here as suggested in this Write Quick Tiny Replies post.
- Decided to start my project on learning about html and css over again from the beginning, incorporating more practice, so I remember things better.
- Did some thinking about how to improve my karate practice so that I remember more of what I work on. Wrote up a project idea related to that.
- Reviewed some of Lifespan, by David Sinclair. Started reading The Selfish Gene, by Richard Dawkins, and taking some notes on it.
- Followed my exercise plan. I’ll stop writing this one down each week because I always do it and because it’s not a learning activity, which is what I think this Basecamp is for.
Farouk
Continued with my Shopify course.
Finished my portfolio site ( as part of the course)
Began reading The Most Productive People in History.
Finished my portfolio site ( as part of the course)
Began reading The Most Productive People in History.
Farouk
- Finished at least 5 landing page templates by myself.
- Began a new course on Shopify store set up.
- Finished reading "The Powers of the Earth".
- Participated in the FI basecamp, I had to think about sources of organization.
Justin Mallone
mostly worked a lot. watched some Ruby vids.
mostly finished cleaning up my Github and previous blog posts for my Simply Scheme learning project (github was messy and blog posts had some formatting errors. Just a couple of chapters left to fix). Planning on resuming Simply Scheme project in next week or two.
finished "Season of Storms". Last non-main-saga Witcher book. Now begins main saga.
made delicious steel cut oatmeal in my instant pot.
mostly finished cleaning up my Github and previous blog posts for my Simply Scheme learning project (github was messy and blog posts had some formatting errors. Just a couple of chapters left to fix). Planning on resuming Simply Scheme project in next week or two.
finished "Season of Storms". Last non-main-saga Witcher book. Now begins main saga.
made delicious steel cut oatmeal in my instant pot.
Andy Dufresne
Set up Trello for detailed tracking of land business work items
Sent offers on 5 properties
[And some job transition activities]
Sent offers on 5 properties
[And some job transition activities]
Anne B
- Watched more videos about html and css and took some notes on them. Matched up some of the stuff I learned about with some of the files that my website theme uses.
- Wrote several posts on this Basecamp about project planning, including a list of steps for washing the dishes and the beginnings of a plan to do some back exercises. Wrote a few short posts about other things.
- Finished reading Rare Earth and taking notes on it. Finished listening to Lifespan, by David Sinclair, and taking notes on it. Ordered a hard copy of Lifespan from the library so I could see the spelling of some of the substances he talks about.
- Practiced karate at least 15 minutes each day and wrote down what I did. I have now done this every day for a year.
- Followed my exercise plan.
Farouk
- Began learning to use a new Shopify app for theme design.
- Continued reading The Powers Of the Earth.
- Cleaned my Spotify playlists, explored to find new music, and added new songs.
- Finished a Udemy course on Shopify.
Anne B
- Posted an answer to SICP Exercise 2.42. Worked on SICP Exercise 2.43.
- Watched lots of videos about html and some about css, took some notes on them, and tried some things in them.
- Changed some of the color scheme on my GitHub website (see the link above). I was excited to figure this out. Made the banner at the top shade from blue to purple instead of blue to green. Changed the colors of the headings from green to purple.
- Installed and started using Visual Studio Code.
- Continued reading Rare Earth, by Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee, and taking notes on it. I succeeded in skimming/skipping some of it but I think I should have skimmed/skipped more of it.
- Successfully skipped an entire book I had ordered from the library and downloaded, because I decided it wasn’t worth my time to read it.
- Did some of the steps here for Doing a Project. I wasn’t very good at brainstorming goals and solutions.
- Posted about overreaching in the Basecamp Campfire.
- Practiced my karate at least 15 minutes a day.
- Followed my exercise plan.
Andy Dufresne
Completed initial data gathering and organization for 2020 taxes (most of the work)
Sent offers on 3 properties
[and progress on some job projects]
Sent offers on 3 properties
[and progress on some job projects]
Ritesh Chibba
I worked on my posture and doing longer warmups before exercise. I tried to maintain a standing up straight and shoulder back posture while standing, walking and sitting. I went from 15 min warmup to a 30 min warmup before doing upper body exercises, the goal was to make sure my shoulders were ready for the workout.
Anne B
I made a website on GitHub. I am still confused by GitHub and by how websites are made, but less so. I have some ideas for learning more. I worked on making two of my SICP exercise solutions more clear and posted those on my new website.
In my karate practice, I decided that when I isolate a move or two to work on, my goal should be to do it correctly at least six times. I had been doing fewer than that and it didn’t seem like enough.
I realized that I have been choosing what books to read based on hearing about them somewhere and having them seem interesting and on whether I can get them at the library. I’d like to be more particular in what books I read, so I bought Goldratt’s *The Goal* on Kindle. I read it before but I’ve been meaning to re-read it to try to understand the ideas in it better. Books that I read or listened to parts of this past week: Rare Earth, by Peter Ward & Donald Brownlee; Such a Fun Age, by Kiley Reid; Island, by Aldous Huxley; 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, by Yuval Noah Harari.
I continued to work on not beating myself up (figuratively) for not doing more “learning activities”. I’m not making much progress in improving my attitude.
Justin Mallone
I went through two chapters of Simply Scheme and posted my answers and analysis:
https://justinmallone.com/2021/02/simply-scheme-chapter-17-lists/
https://justinmallone.com/2021/02/simply-scheme-chapter-16-example-pattern-matcher/
I reviewed the brief list of goals for my Scheme project I wrote in my first post:
https://justinmallone.com/2020/10/simply-scheme-ch01/
https://justinmallone.com/2021/02/simply-scheme-chapter-17-lists/
https://justinmallone.com/2021/02/simply-scheme-chapter-16-example-pattern-matcher/
I reviewed the brief list of goals for my Scheme project I wrote in my first post:
https://justinmallone.com/2020/10/simply-scheme-ch01/
Practice overall learning methodology stuff like writing thorough explanations, brainstorming, using trees, and going step by step.
Review previous learning efforts of mine, along with other people’s learning efforts, and compare and contrast, reflecting on differences, mistakes I made, things I can do better, etc.
Gain some subject-matter specific knowledge I can build on for later learning efforts and ultimately for some specific projects that I’d like to work on.
Avoid getting stuck, and work on quickly and successfully getting unstuck if I do get stuck.
I judged myself to be doing extremely well on 1 and 2, fine on 3. Still have trouble with 4 although I haven't gotten permanently stuck and experienced project failure, which itself represents progress, so that's something.
With regards to 2, I find it extremely fruitful to find one high quality answer from a skilled person and analyze it. Sorting out someone else's confused messy program is much less fruitful.
I read a tiny bit of Reisman's Capitalism.
I did some short private writing about some issues I'm having that I might share privately.
I made a variation on this tasty food with my instant pot https://www.coffeewithus3.com/stew-meat-beef-and-broccoli/
Alisa Zinov’yevna Rosenbaum
I worked on:
- improving my time at SMB1
- delivering version 1 of the curi.us reply/quote JS
- reading Capitalism
- reading Thinking as a Science
- learning Japanese
- practicing strength training
- learning calculus
- learning precalculus
- experimenting with ham radio