Just a (Very) Quick Update

My stuff is sorted.
My stuff is minimized (well, kinda).

I really recommend Mari Kondo's method in her outstanding book "The life-changing magic of tidying up". I really like this book.

My key take aways:

1. Process by category, not by room.
2. Put everything on the floor. 
3. Keep only the things you really like. Or, as Mari put it: "Things that spark joy"
4. Store those items vertically.
5. Avoid "clever" storage solutions.

So long,

Lorenz

So, what to do in 2016?

I have a hard time deciding what to do.  There are so many options. Waaaaah!

Should I learn a new language? A new programming language? Some frameworks? An instrument? Juggling? How to solve the rubics cube?

The possibilities are nearly endless.

So, what is really important to me?

My family is. Getting better at things I love to do. Getting my shit together. Living a healthy live.

So, my priorities for the upcoming year:

• I want to live healthier than the passing year. I want to look at the mirror and not think about the beer belly I have to look at. Hence I want to lose weight. Not something too crazy. But by June 30th, I want to weight 75kg. (Last time I stood on the scale, it showed something like 86+ kg).

• I want to build stairs in my garden so that the front part is not just a piece of mud anymore. I want to finish that project by 30th of September. Wake me up, when September ends.

• I want to clean up my house. Yep. I want a clean basement. I want t clean living room. Yes, I know I have kids. Yes, I hate hate hate hate messy places. Anyway: The rules that seem appealing for me are:
• Nothing lies on the floor
• Every item I am responsible for has a designated place to "live".
• Cleaned up before 28th of February.

Actually, those are the first three items for this year. There's a lot more at my "to do later list". See last year's resolution. See my "watch later" playlist on YouTube. See "to be sorted" folder on my Desktop. It all can wait. First the things I wrote here.

2015. My year of unfulfilled resolutions. And my some thoughts on my new years resolution.

Sigh. I wanted to learn so much stuff this year. Exiting stuff. Great stuff. Of which I accomplished only a small fraction.

Let's take a closer look at all of those items I wanted to learn.

Programming languages:

• Python
• Rust
• Go
• Ruby
• Haskell
• Prolog
• Scala

Frameworks:

• Ext JS
• Spring
• Spring MVC
• EmberJS
• Express
• Ionic
• MongoDB
• Docker
• Node.JS

Let's look at the programming languages one by one. I have learnt Python a little bit. So much, n fact, that I was able to write DubbelVla. But not that much, that I would apply for a job demanding Python experience.

Rust, Go, Ruby, Haskell, Scala weren't touched by me at all. My progress in PROLOG resulted in writing some half-assed code failing to load contents from a file.

Now let's look at the frameworks. I haven't touched Spring. I wrote just a little bit code in Spring MVC, just enough to get some stuff done on the job. EmberJS, Express, Ionic, MongoDB, Docker I haven't touched at all. I used NodeJS to write some mini script for some special task I don't even remember any more. The framework I learnt best is ExtJS. I know ExtJS pretty good today. The others not so much.

So, how do I go from here? First, I have to realize, I was waaaay too ambitious. I thought: Hey, that would be cool to learn. I would be cool if I knew Docker. Perhaps comparable to some teenager boy who thinks he would be cool if he learnt to play the guitar.

The problem is, it had no real value for me. Being cool for the sake of being cool just does not cut it.

Another problem is: If you want to do so much, there's alway some shit that you don't do. When I learn ExtJS, I can't learn Docker. I completely lacked any priority.

But that's not enough of problems: My resolutions also completely lacked any scope. What the heck does it mean to "learn Ionic"? Read some shit about it? Surf their website? Create a multimillion code-line app with Ionic? I had no clue and I still don't.

So. Now What? Avoid all new year's resolutions? Nah. Don't want to.

I have to come up with some new year's resolutions. Some that are meaningful. Some that are scoped.  Some that are well chosen and not just a bunch of random items. I will do that tomorrow.

DubbelVla is ready for dessert

It feels great. I just "finished" my first Github project: DubbelVla.
It lists identical files in one directory.

I learned a little bit of Python for this one. Although I don't know much Python, those were the things, that made me like this language:

• Syntax. It just so beautiful. I wish, JavaScript had this great syntax
• OMG, it's functional. Did not expect that. Something more to dive in.
• Maps with JSON-like Syntax. Like. +1.

Update on My Learning

Hi there,

I'm going to specify more on the stuff I'm going to learn this year.

So, for the seven programming languages:

It's really tempting to buy just the book "7 Programming Languages in 7 Weeks" and do just that.
That would be sensible in many ways, and perhaps I'll do that.

So: These are the seven languages I'm going to learn this year:

1. Python
2. Rust
3. Go
4. Ruby
5. Haskell
6. Prolog
7. Scala

Currently, I'm learning Python. DubbelVla will be my the project to be implemented in this newly learned language.

For the other languages, I will decide when I finish DubbelVla. I will think about a new project to learn each language.
I don't know about Swift, about R and other cool stuff, that's on my personal hype list. It would be great and learn all of them but I don't think I have the time.


So, what about the seven frameworks, libraries, whatever?

1. Ext JS
2. Spring
3. Spring MVC
4. EmberJS
5. Express 
6. Ionic
7. MongoDB
8. Docker
9. Node.JS

Yup, now I named them. I can't decide which of them to take. Anyway, I will have at least learned seven of them.

Challenges for 2015

So, after an awesome year 2014, filled with interesting challenges, I have learned a lot.

• I did not know that I enjoy hot drinks that much.
• I did not know that you might get used to almost anything
• I did not know that drinking water each day was really good
• I did not know that not drinking alcohol was not really a problem
• I did not know that I am so incredibly lazy
• Sleep deprivation is an experience I do not seek again.

Nevertheless, I decided to take a new approach:

Instead of monthly challenges, I will have just some goals to be fulfilled this year.

These will be:

1. Learn seven new programming languages
2. Learn at least seven frameworks, libraries, whatever. This will be mainly web frontend related stuff
3. Finish seven projects and put them on GitHub. (some of them are already existent in my GitHub account, but no commits yet.)
4. Cook a new meal for my family once a month

Let's bring it on!

One Month Without an Smartphone

This month was sometimes weird, sometimes it just sucked and sometimes I did not miss a thing.

The Good

• Its easier to focus on conversations with the other person when you're not constantly distracted by some notifications and habit-shaping glances on your phone.
• It's easier to realize what's happening around you

The Bad

• I did miss an appointment because I did not take a look at my calendar that day. So I disappointed one person, who did need my help.
• My online communication via WhatsApp was nonexistent this month. So I might miss something urgent. But I think, if it might be something important (not to be confused with urgent), The people had plenty of other ways to contact me.
• I forgot my phone way more often at home than before. One time it resulted in a awful misunderstanding between me and my wife. This sucked so much.

The Ugly

• My wife uses Pintrest since yesterday. It did suck up about one hour on my life to stare on her screen.
• Writing text messages with T9 sucks so much, I will never miss it any more. I have to admit, I really hated it.
• I still wasted some time with playing a silly game (coded in Java for Embedded Systems, good old times).
• I tend to adopt an "better-than-thou"-attitude. "Hey, you still use a smartphone? You social outcast instant-gratification monkey!". That is a attitude I really had to watch out for and capture it, not letting any room to breathe.

How I see Others In my Month Without a Smartphone

As seen on Twitter.

Today I learned: Avoiding My Smartphone for One Months Seems Pretty Scary

I have decided, to set my smartphone aside for December.
This seemed pretty easy at first sight, but now it seems kinda frightening: I think, that some things will be more cumbersome.

I used to plan my day the night before on a smartphone. I wrote some articles for this blog on my smartphone. I used to make note on my smartphone. Almost all my appointments are made on my smartphone. Almost all of my ideas are captures on my smartphone. Much of my communication is run via WhatsApp, so almost exclusively on my smartphone. Much of distractions are also from smartphone: Reddit, messages, notifications. Sometime silly, but also fun games.

So, my smartphone is something I use everyday. More than I realized before.
And this step is now something frightening.

I will have to rely on my computer to plan my day (I need notifications for my tasks). I will have to take my notebook (not the computer, I mean the thing you write on) to make notes. I will have to rely on email (on my computer), and SMS for async communication. Feels a little bit like 2004.

Anyway, I'm glad not having to write anymore articles everyday. But somehow, I liked it. It forced me to reflect every day on what happened, what I have learned. It kinda rocked.

Today I Learned: Psalm 22 ist a prophecy fulfilled

In John 19 it is written, that the soldiers cut Jesus clothes into four parts and gambled for his tunic. This scene is explained with these words:

"They said therefore among themselves, "Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be," that the Scripture might be fulfilled which says: "They divided My garments among them, And for My clothing they cast lots." Therefore the soldiers did these things."

A wonderful example of explaining the scripture with the scripture. But where does this stand, what is fulfilled? You guess right: Psalm 22.

In my opinion (and luckily, not only mine alone) this Psalm explains how the Cruscofication of Jesus felt. From Jesus' point of view.
Just read some verses:

Verse 8: "He trusted in the Lord, let Him rescue Him; Let Him deliver Him, since He delights in Him!"
-- That's what some people shout at him when he is at the cross.



Verse 15: "My strength is dried up like a potsherd, And My tongue clings to My jaws; You have brought Me to the dust of death."
-- That's how you feel, hanging on a tree


"For dogs have surrounded Me; The congregation of the wicked has enclosed Me. They pierced My hands and My feet;"
-- Guess what happened to Jesus' feet and hands


"They divide My garments among them, And for My clothing they cast lots."
-- Guess why this is quoted in John.



Jesus himself quotes Psalm 22, when dying:
"My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?"



And last, and maybe least, but nonetheless interesting fact: These verses were written by David, who was King of the Jews. Jesus has been hung because the Sanherin said, that Jesus was King of the Jews.
Thing like these explanations are one point why I love the bible.

Today I learned: It's more important how you do it than what you do.

Today, I was pissed off. I kinda saw no point in what I was doing. Every thing I moved, annoyed me. I groaned. I was in really bad temper.

Later that day my wife told me, that she was disappointed in me. It used to be fun doing that kind of work, but today my bad mood created bad mood in her. This sucks. I was an idiot, once again.

So, I experienced today first hand, that what you say or do does not matter as much as how you say or do it.

If I communicated my feelings and my expectations better, without all that annoyances, without groaning, but with seeking of understanding for the other person.

If I would handle that situation in this way, it would have been a way better to spend the afternoon.

So, instead of being annoyed, think about what it could mean. I bet in most cases you are angry, because your standards or your expectations are not met. If this is the case, either reflect whether your expectations are adequate and if not, correct them. If you think, they are adequate, communicate them as soon as possible, immediately at best.

I think, that could work wonders.

Today I learned: JavaScript's continue is only allowed in loops

Reading through the basics of JavaScript, I wondered whether you could simulate a while statement with a switch statement. You might ask yourself: Wait, what?

Let me explain: I thought some crazy thoughts. If you could combine labels, a dynamic case statement, and the continue statement, you could fake the while loop. Let's look at an example:

Let's compute some Fibonacci numbers, the classical way.

var a = [0, 1],
    num = 10,
    i = a.length,
    result;

while (i < num) {
   a.push(a[i - 1] + a[i - 2]);
   i += 1;
}

And so I thought to myself, maybe you could do something like that instead of the while loop.

loopMe:
switch (i) {
  case i < num:
    a.push(a[i - 1] + a[i - 2]);
    i += 1;
    continue loopMe;
  default:
    break;
}

I was an idiot, and JavaScript told me so:

 Uncaught SyntaxError: Undefined label 'loopMe'

When I removed the label after continue, I still was an idiot, and JavaScript told me so:

Uncaught SyntaxError: Illegal continue statement.

So there was no way to get this to work. continue statements are only allowed in loops, as I remembered.
The only funny thing was, that JavaScript bitched about unfound labels at first. And then about the misplaced continue statement.

Glad, I used two hours of my life on that one. But at least, I have learned something.
And that is what it's all about, isn't it?

Today I learned: Gratitude is the antidote to fear

This saying is something I heard today.

If I think about the things I fear, then there are many things that may come to my mind: Being expelled from the company I work for, losing my job, not finishing the the love projects I have, not being accepted. But there may be even more drastic things, like losing my health, losing my family, being ignored by the ones I love, etc. The longer I think about this, the more frightening it becomes. Finally, my mind would come up with some super weird, super sick fantasy about something, that will never happen.

So why is gratitude the antidote to this? Because it helps you to focus on the good parts.
If I focus on what I am thankful for, not much comes to mind. One trick for me, that works is to focus on what I might be thankful for. Then events, that were fascinating, where I participated, come to my mind. My wonderful sons, as well as my beautiful wife. But also the little things, like that coffee this morning or being able to come home in a relaxed way (train riding rocks). Being able to breathe and being able to pray.

Out of this focus, it's impossible to focus on the possible negative outcomes in life.
What if I would really lose my job? Don't know. I would be sad probably. But I would find another one. Maybe that new one would be even better.

What if I would lose my family? Don't know. I would horribly sad, for sure. But after a time, I would get over it and go on with life. And who knows, probably I would value life even more than I do today.

Don't get me wrong: I do not wish any of those bad things to happen to anybody. But bad things will happen, inevitably, to everybody. The question I want to ask myself then: "What good can I get out of this? What can I be thankful for because of this?". I know, that's no a single magic button, that you press and everything will be fine, but a shift in thinking.

The bible says, that "We know, that all things work together for good to those who love God". This is an incredibly powerful statement. If you can believe this, there is nothing not to be thankful for and hence nothing to fear.

Today, I learned: Progress make you happy

Today, after some days of being sick, slacking, being lazy (hey, but sometimes, I enjoyed being lazy), I got a little bit back on track.

One hack, which works pretty well for me: Plan your day the night before.
When I wake up and think about what I should do today, it feels arbitrary. It feels not like a must an hence, not compelling at all. But when I take some minutes the night before to schedule my activities (not focusing on results but on work itself), it feels mandatory. I have to work on these items for that specific amount of time. And when I get to finish some of the items on my to-do list, it feels great.

And this feeling of accomplishment is incredibly motivating. I believe, that you should improve not only in one area of your life, but in every area of your life. This is challenging, but necessary.

If you focus on your relationship with your spouse, and do nothing else, everything else with go to the dogs. If your work life sucks and you focus on improving it, and you do not improve in your relationships as well, after a not too long time, your rest of your life will suck, too.

To keep it short, as Tony Robbins stated:

If you aren’t growing, you are dying.

Today I learned: There are still people in this world, who do not take JavaScript seriously.

I'm not sure on this one:
On one hand, it's sad. On the other hand, it's funny.

I watched a professional tutorial called "Advanced JavaScript". It's actually a couple of hours long course about advanced JavaScript techniques.

The first thing I noticed was, that the speaker compared JavaScript's lack of namespaces to "professional programming languages". Yeah, sure.

C#, Java are professional programming languages. JavaScript, the most used programming language in the world is not professional. Sure.

And further down the line, the speaker explains JavaScript's prototype mechanism to "real OOP". This is also great. In my opinion, JavaScripts OOP is superior to the classical OOP we all grew up with. Just because it's familiar, does not mean, it's actually better.

So, I ask myself why, even in 2014 there are some people, who teach other people JavaScript and apparently never saw Doug's "JavaScript - The Good Parts", which he semi-ironically calls the "most important discovery in the early 21st century".

On the other hand, I have to realize, that I, being as nit-picky as I can sometimes be, have to admit, that I can still learn a lot from this speaker.

So a small rant might be OK, sometimes, perhaps. Being a pedantic jerk is never OK.

Today I learned: I gain so much on lazy sundays.

So, today, I went to church.
That's nearly all I did accomplish up to 17:00. After that made some photos for my ebay sellings.

Neither my wife nor I did cook today. We just bought some french fries and some gyros and were enjoying our laziness.
At noon, my wife and me were laying on the sofa, sleeping, while two of my sons (the youngest one was sleeping) were taking cushions from the sofa, took blankets from upstairs and moved some of the chairs to build a "robbers' den".

After shooting some photos and taking some notes for ebay sellings, I read Winnie-the-Pooh to them and played with them. It was awesome. In all honesty, this was one of the best sundays for a quite long time. No phone calls. No visits. No appointments. No events. No obligations.

Just me and my family. A great wife and great kids.

Wonderful.

Okay, I did some ebay today. And, as usual, it took way more time than expected. This is the main reason I do not like ebay. But it's a great place to sink time and not gain much money from it. But it still feels a little bit better than just putting all the junk you want to sell into the trash bin.

So, I learned: Lazy days are not useless at all.

Today I learned: Give Up Your Goal For Something Better

Today, I originally planned to write something extremely boring about some stuff almost nobody cares about.

During a conversation, a friend said to me, that it's shortly before midnight. I should have written my article by now, but I haven't. My first thought, in the middle of something, that just got pretty interesting, was to rush to my notebook and scribble something down, just to get my article finished.

But then, I realized that this would be stupid. So I participated in this wonderful conversation. We discussed about thankfulness, how it affects your mind, why it helps you through the day, why it helps you in your communication with others. We discussed about thinking, how seeking the positive in everything, even in the negative.

It was a great discussion with wonderful people.

Something, I would have missed if stayed straight on my not-so-important self-chosen challenges.

So, in doubt, I would like to choose the action with people talking about important things involved.

Today I learned: My unsatisfaction feelings are because of unfulfilled expectations

When you asked me about how I feel in the last weeks, I would say: I am discontent. I often was angry about myself, about the world, about crappy programming languages, about computer equipment, just about everything, no matter whether it makes sense or not.

Today, I thought a little bit about myself and how my sadness, angriness comes. I think, a major source of my no-good feelings are: a way too high, way too many expectations.
So I have to change my strategy in approaching my tasks.

Instead of dealing with failures, that some things take longer than expected, hence not being able to check off each and every item on my personal to-do list each day, I will simply choose to for an amount of a fixed time on a specific issue.

Instead of "making that super new feature work", I note: "Work for one hour on super new feature"

Tomorrow, I will report how it worked out for me.

First Steps With Foundation

Today, I played a little bit with ZURB Foundation.
Although it's way too early to have a qualified opinion, I already recognized that I've made a major mistake: I've not used Sass.

My small hobby project is nowhere near completion (in fact, it's closer to not having started than to having something that's comparable to an mockup), so I think I'll start over.

What I like about Foundation so far:

• The Off-Canvas flyout menu. In my opinion, the bootstrap responsive menu is ugly as hell. Whenever I can avoid using it, I avoid it. Foundation's Off-Canvas Navigation is sexy. Heck, it even provides multiple levels of indentation. That's a great reason to love it.
• Another item I like is the integration of Joyride. You need something like that for your app, if your app is somewhat more complex than "Yo!". And I love if a framework makes something easy.
• And I like the fact, that it makes customizing easier than Bootstrap does. I look forward where I can deliver my wonderfully styled app to the world with foundation.

What I don't like so far:

• I have to learn it. ;)
• And I missed some classes like pull-left, pull-right or text-center.

Maybe I just oversaw them.

Nevertheless, Foundation is the way to go for the next projects.
And having to learn Sass.

Today I learned: Sometimes it's better to focus on work, not outcome

So today I tried out how it would work out for me, if I  would not focus on outcomes but one the work I do.

So I set up my calendar to the time I wanted to worked on those specific items.
And although I did not accomplish everything I wanted to, I feel way better than yesterday.

Why is that?
I simply did decide, that I don't want to focus on a specific outcome. I often entered some stuff like "Finish xyz" or "Get xyz to work".

And this resulted often in an emotional mess. Most days, I failed. Even on days, where I did accomplish much, I did not fully succeed, because there was still somewhere a item list, which has not been checked.

And today, I just decided: I don't care how far I go come with xyz, whether I finish it or not. I just don't care. I will work for one hour on that item. If I finish it: great! If not, no problem. There is still something left for tomorrow.

Realizing, that my to-do list will not be empty when I die, I can see my to-do list now in a more relaxed way. And the more relaxed I am viewing at my to-do list, the happier I can go to work. And the happier I go to work, the better the results I produce.

So, this small hack seems to work for me.