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diff --git a/site/posts/12-nondaily-update.md b/site/posts/12-nondaily-update.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..42f461e --- /dev/null +++ b/site/posts/12-nondaily-update.md @@ -0,0 +1,202 @@ + + title: 'Non-daily Update' + permalink: '12-nondaily-update' + date: {m: 5, d: 31, y: 2017} + categories: + - 'text' + - 'dev' + +--- + +# Non-daily Update + +I made myself a text file for storing a log of the things I do in a few days +ago. It's kind of shocking how huge it is; I really feel more productive when +I can write a paragraph or two about all the different things I do in a day. +I might release the whole file somewhere, at some point; meanwhile here's a +bunch of excerpts from my log so far (it's ~2000 words long in just four days, +haha). + +(This really is just an excerpt, though; I cut out a fair amount of videos or +school that I didn't have much to comment on. Think of this page as a 100% +quote of the interesting things in my log.) + +(I added a bunch of links for context; all the content was written by me, +generally not long after I did whatever I mentioned in each paragraph.) + +## May 28th + +* I did a quiz on the general topic of waves in physical science. I started + writing proper notes (as I do for my geometry); they’re helpful, but it’s + a bit annoying that I didn’t start earlier. Oh well. + +* I merged Broadcast Vars into [Scrap][scrap]. Scrap is pretty much finished + at this point. + +* I looked up [Baiyon][baiyon] after a [PixelJunk Eden track][pj-eden] + randomly played on iTunes. Apparently he collaborated with [C418][C418] to + make the track [185][185]! What a small world. + +* I discovered Eden Obscura, a new PixelJunk game. This is being made RIGHT + NOW, so it'll be something to keep an eye out for! + +* I learned not to use the `fs-promise` NPM module anymore, since it's + deprecated. Opt for `mz/fs` instead! + +* I read [a blog post][introspection] by [eevee][eevee]; it's quite + ridiculously relatable (..though I haven't tried to do all the things I want + to, yet..) and worth reading in general. + +* I read eevee's [weekly update][weekly-update]. "I'm feeling pretty good?" is + generally the way I'd describe the days that go well for me, too. — This was + a comforting little paragraph to read: + + > I was held at gunpoint by glip and forced to help them design my own + > characters, which is, extremely cool and good. I’m starting to think they + > like doing creative work with me and think I have interesting ideas??" + +## May 29th + +* I read a few old stories I made and published on a blog I don't use anymore. + They weren't that bad, considering I was around five when I wrote them. + +* I did a section on electromagnetic waves (and the electromagnetic spectrum) + in my physical science course. I don't feel like the course teaches it very + well; they never seem to give explanations on WHY anything works the way it + does. I guess since this is essentially an introductory course, I'm not + really supposed to expect much of that, but.. it'd be more interesting if + they explained why things work the way they do at least a little, you know? + + While doing that I also wrote a few paragraphs on the math behind some + behaviour of waves; I think that it'll be helpful, considering I've been + having a bit of trouble totally understanding the actual logic behind how + waves work. + + Also, the questions for my science always feel a bit.. stupid? They're + pretty much always a matter of "can you remember all the facts we threw at + you in the lecture?" or "did you take enough notes? - did you catch that + one detail?". Of the five questions on the section, three of them were just + "which is true?" questions on the positioning of different types of waves + on the EM spectrum. + + (I mentioned that I'm not really satisfied with what they teach, right? + Like, they didn't even explain what the difference between electromagnetic + and non-electromagnetic waves are.. just that some waves fall on the EM + spectrum, and some don't, and that the ones that do are EM waves.) + +* I watched [a video][smw] on a jailbreak for Super Mario World. It's a bit + crazy to think that people are still discovering incredible bugs and tricks + for ancient games like Super Mario World. + +* I worked on my Raspberry Pi music player a bit. That included improving + the reliability of the iTunes/`python3 -m http.server` crawler; there + shouldn't be any more missing albums or artists. I also added a few options + to the command line interface for it; you can now keep and ignore specific + groups. It's not technically more powerful than iTunes itself, but I'd say + it's a lot more comparable, now, and potentially easier to use. + +* I watched [time mop][time-mop] by [bill wurtz][billwurtz]. I wonder what + makes the part where it goes past zero so funny? Maybe it's just the fact + that it's doing something so *obviously* intuitively right ("it's already + going down, why stop at zero?") but also entirely unexpected (countdowns + usually do stop at zero), combined with the happy, fun music in the + background. + +## May 30th + +* I did a bunch of geometry and learned about transformation matrices. Well, + it was mostly the topic of adding and multiplying matrices; that's not too + surprising, though (and fine; it was interesting anyways). I wrote a bunch + on multiplying matrices, but it only works in one case (when multiplying AxB + \* BxA matrices), which doesn't help much when the other case (multiplying + AxB \* BxC matrices) is also valid. I'm pretty sure the lecture skipped + glossed over that case. + +* I worked on the HTTP music player and added a fair few number of new + features. The most important one is that it now preloads tracks while one is + already playing; basically, it does all the work it needs to do to play a + track while one is already playing, so that you don't notice it doing that + work, and there's no significant pause between two tracks anymore. I also + made it possible to play tracks in order rather than shuffled, fixed a bug + or two, and cleaned up a bunch of code. + +* I read a few forum threads on the old Scratch forums (pre-2.0). They seem to + have been a nicer place back then. + +* I worked a bit on my algebra on KhanAcademy and got to a point where I + mastered 500 skills. That's nice. I also 100%-mastered a few earlier grade + levels (third and fourth), as well as arithmetic; though they were all + pretty much already mastered. + +## May 31st + +* I wrote a bit on [an idea][grandia] to make Grandia III have competitive + battles. I don't actually know how, though, and probably nobody on that + subreddit does either, but whatever. The idea's still there. + +* I read an (adapted) article titled "Will Technology Make You + Healthier?". It's relatively self-descriptive, but it did touch on + less obvious subjects like the controversy around future possibilities. + (Is it alright to take from a human embyro to help someone, if in the + process, the embyro will be destroyed?) + +* I watched ["The Speed of Light is NOT About Light"][speed-of-light], by + [PBS Space Time][space-time]. + + It generally explained how the speed of light really doesn't derive from + the speed that light travels at (rather it's the reverse), but I didn't + find that it explained HOW particularly well (essentially they said that + the universal constant, which the speed of light is equivalent to, must + have the value that it does because of various other universal rules; but + they didn't really explain the math that leads to it actually having the + value it does). + + Particular topics I'd like to know more of include how the Lorentz + transformation works, the difference between that and the previously set + system, what Maxwell's equations actually mean, and why they require a + specific constant value for the universal constant. + +* I improved the style for `<code>`s on my blog. I think code looks nicer now; + hopefully other people do, too. + +* I worked on my Raspberry Pi HTTP-based music player a bunch. For me, the + person who programs it all, I split it into a bunch of different files; that + was done over the course of a series of messy git commits and computer-swaps. + I also made it so that the temporary song download now use actual tempfiles, + rather than hidden files that are semi-automatically deleted by the play.js + program - so now things are in general a lot cleaner. Before, pressing ^C + wouldn't get rid of the WAV for the currently playing file (nor the WAV for + the up-next song), so you'd end up with tons of leftover WAVs, quickly eating + up hundreds of megabytes (two new files every time you run the player!). + That's fixed now - *real* tempfiles, which I'm now using, are automatically + deleted by the system! + +* I made my music player use `util.promisify` for `fs` methods. So much for + `mz/fs` being relevant. + +* I read a short story about a kid who broke his leg and got it fixed, all + without getting any donations or funding from family friends (or others), + and his not-particularly-rich family didn't even have any financial stress, + period. I won't spoil the trick - [read it yourself!][one-free-solution] + + Okay, but seriously, it's kind of interesting to think about not having any + sort of fund-raiser needed. I never really thought of the stress that must + come, you know, financially, in places where healthcare isn't free. I guess + it's kind of taken for granted until you've got experience with a place + that doesn't have free healthcare. + + [scrap]: http://towerofnix.github.io/scrap-mod/ + [baiyon]: http://baiyon.com/en/ + [pj-eden]: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB0A37E2F550DB027 + [C418]: https://c418.org/ + [185]: https://c418.bandcamp.com/track/185 + [eevee]: https://eev.ee/ + [introspection]: https://eev.ee/blog/2017/05/28/introspection/ + [weekly-update]: https://eev.ee/dev/2017/05/28/weekly-roundup-in-flux/ + [smw]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ixu8tn__91E + [time-mop]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DofhF-2sg1o + [billwurtz]: http://www.billwurtz.com/ + [grandia]: https://www.reddit.com/comments/6een02/ + [speed-of-light]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msVuCEs8Ydo + [space-time]: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7_gcs09iThXybpVgjHZ_7g + [one-free-solution]: http://www.upworthy.com/when-her-5-year-old-broke-his-leg-this-mom-raised-0-its-actually-inspiring |