The reason I’m behind with blogging, is because I’m currently working on three products. One of these is already being used by real live people (!!!), and another will shortly be quite intensively interacted with by quite a large number of people, if it doesn’t melt under the load that is. The third will hopefully soon also go live in some form or another.
I might currently be at peak Django people. Peak Django!
(It also seems that my lust for programming is unnaffected by all the deadlines. Estimation on the other hand… just eeuw.)
With the time I save by not blogging that regularly, I still get to hang out with friends, drink local craft beer, and scorch meat. Here’s a photo to prove it:
During a different pleasant encounter with a different old friend at Triggerfish Brewing, enjoying some super strong locally-brewed IPAs, abovementioned old friend somehow managed to convince me to try i3. i3 is a tiling window manager. This means that it forces you to think (mostly) in a single layer on the desktop, meaning no overlapping windows. After a false start (Unity does so many things right out of the box) I’m now the happy but conflicted owner of a finely hand-tuned i3 configuration. Here’s a screenshot:
This also means that my neckbeard is probably invading my brain.
On the more wholesome front, after reading this article on the creative benefits of walking, I’ve been taking more walks at work (often with a really great old friend I have the privilege of sharing an office with these days). I can report, entirely unscientifically, that this activity has made a huge difference, especially when performed in the middle of those painfully long afternoons when one’s brain starts to feel like slowly sloshing chunky peanut butter sauce in a skull-shaped dip bowl. (oh come on, you know the feeling)
So recently a picture of the Dalai Lama with the following quote was circulating on Facebook:
The Dalai Lama, when asked what surprised him most about humanity, answered, ‘Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.’
Now we all know the rule for pictures with famous people and quotes on them, and especially those circulating on facebook: It’s probably BS.
In this case I was conflicted, because I secretly liked what this platitude-in-sheep’s-clothing was trying to tell us: Remember to focus on the important stuff, remember to focus on the now.
However, that rule felt nothing for my conflict. It looks like the quote is not by the Dalai Lama, but by a fellow named Jim Brown, see here and here. Take that, you quotes on pictures of important people!
Fake quotes or not, focusing on the now fortunately is still real. Have a great week kids!