Month: December 2012

Life

Counting down to the next

Post author By Gergely Imreh
Post date December 31, 2012
No Comments on Counting down to the next

Since living in Taiwan, the Western style new year feels a bit arbitrary for me. The Lunar New Year is at least tied to something, it is easy to define, even if it’s more complicated in its own traditions. Nevertheless, I like the New Year, and it’s good to have some periodic semi-forced review time. When it’s cold, it’s even better (sorry Southern Hemisphere).

This year felt a bit like growing up. I was grown-up before (can’t afford not to be at the age of 31), but my way of thinking have matured a lot, and it feels like that happened because of all the limitations and stress and projects and winding path I took on.

In 2012 somehow extended on the projects I worked on, like building a certain portfolio. Ignite Taipei is still there (maybe the main drive behind my experimentation), while it got company in the form of Future Shorts Taipei, the continuation of the Geek Dinners, later OpenHack Taipei and the (preliminary) Taipei Hackerspace. They seem to have a common theme – building local events related to technology, innovation and art. I hope I can continue with this theme, and see where it takes me. Kickstarter, social networks helped a lot to expand my world in these directions. Not sure if all these projects will survive next year (at least not with me at the wheel), but will definitely learn from all of them.

There were some really good books this year, discovered Pynchon, Tolstoy, and Calvino, as well as many smaller ones. Keep rediscovering Tolkien, Asimov, Murakami, Vonnegut, Beckett. Had a lot of brainy-books too. My shelf is still totally full, I can be sure, that the next year will be just as busy in terms of reading and just as mind-blowing.

In research I wasn’t that successful, though I have learned a lot. Will see what can we do in the next year in the lab. We were building a new experiment and it is not a real surprise that the results are still ahead. Whether my true way is down on academia lane or not, that remains to be seen.

I have a lot of startups related influence around me, and for years I’ve been hatching plans without any results. Next year supposed to see me set some hard deadlines for decisions (different visa for Taiwan, that lets me do more, for example).

There were some great travels this year, a big European tour for the first time since I moved to Asia, and in Japan for the first time ever. No plans for travel for the next year yet, maybe more within the country and more purposeful choices of destinations? Though I like quick changes of plans and surprises. And visitor friends from countries are good too.

This time it feels strongly that I’m in “in-between”, with choices ahead. The Sun is already setting on 2012 here, let’s make 2013 count.

Tags projects, review

Programming

The Gift of Code

I like advent calendars a lot. They can bring a lot of surprise, preparation, focus, and joy. They can come in many shapes and forms, and they encourage DIY – make your own calendar, count the things that are important.

This year, I got to play with a very interesting “advent calendar”, called 24PullRequests. It is the kind of thing that I don’t understand why people haven’t done it before. The mission: help out open source projects by submitting enhancements and fixes (i.e. “pull requests“), and do that for 24 days counting down to Christmas.

I had to take part in that one, and while the result wasn’t as successful as I wanted, it was so far my best contribution to open source.

My pull requests

Instead of 24, I managed to make 4 enhancements that were ready to be sent off. That’s not consoling me that it seems nobody managed 24, but never mind. Here are the things I made:

SmoothieCharts: make the charts use newer browser animation technologies that have better performance, and save on battery as well. This one was prepared somewhat earlier than December, but the final version was pushed within the right time frame. Being tested, not merged yet.
OpenHack: I’m organizing the event in Taipei, and noticed that some other place has broken image link. Hunted down the same pic from Google Cache, and set it up again.
Python Guide: added some info about installing certain Python packages in Arch Linux and Ubuntu. This is embarrassingly tiny fix, there’s so much more to do here
AngularJS: this is fixing that one couldn’t run the build script if the system Java can’t run in 32bit mode. I didn’t know that this was a Google project, until they sent me a request to sign some contributor agreement. I feel strangely humbled.

Lessons learned

Four contributions were already a lot of experience, because all of them were so different. Here are some lessons learned:

Write good pull requests – that starts with writing good commit message! People keep saying that, but seriously, no excuse not to do that.
When the changes have been sent in, don’t mind that they are not accepted yet. Every project have their own pace. Keep working on whatever you like
I was looking for ow hanging fruit, but one has to go in there still to make some meaningful contribution.
The issue tracker is a good start to see what to fix, but not always helpful, as it can be difficult to understand what propblem the others try to describe, if you are new to the project. On the other hand, try to use the code, I’m sure you’ll find some pain points right away (that was AngularJS). Also, the busiest issue trackers are not the best, they are full of things that would side-track you for a long time. Projects with a medium count are good for such an improve-and-run contribution.
Don’t be afraid to do things, but still do them the best you can. Your contribution doesn’t always feel meaningful, but still a little improvement is more than most people do. (just like PythonGuide was)
Keep things simple – easier to do, easier to pull. Even if sometimes that takes longer to write (the AngularJS contribution srunk to the quarter of its size while I was trying to figure out the simplest way to achieve what I wanted)
If interested, don’t worry if the project uses programming language you don’t know. You can pick up new things easier than it seems. Also, many projects give you feedback on your contribution, to help you improve it.
This project don’t encourage to work on your own stuff, but that doesn’t matter, there are another 11 months for that, or every day after these contributions are done
How to do this for the whole year? Bug squashing day in general? Still need to get deeper in projects, but go and explore. Can also see CodeTriage and ContribHub, linked from 24PullRequests
If stuck in the fixing, but the problem is interesting, don’t worry if it doesn’t fit in the 24 days. Keep working on it, the recipients will be happy any time (I have have 1 or 2 such patches)

Now let’s be a better coder in 2013.

Tags github, open source

Life Thinking

My 40-by-40 plan

A while ago I was reading someone’s 30 by 30 plan, 30 things to accomplish before the author turns 30 years old. Since I always liked lists, it got me interested. Since I’ve just turned 32 a few days ago, that other ship has sailed a long time ago, but then I can set my even more ambitious list: 40 by 40.

It took a 2 or 3 brainstorming sessions, here are the results, not any particular order, just numbering it to keep track, and a bit of explanation here and there:

Travelling to: Chile, Africa (somewhere), Southern Hymalayas, a desert, Hokkaido (because seeing new places always open new dimensions)
Create a new programming language (programming so much, maybe can make something new, which would me to appreciate the other languages even more)
Become professor (that’s the science career path and working this long for other professors, I wanna see how I can be in their place)
Publish a book (reading so much, writing quite a bit, can I really write something others want to read?)
Start a company (the independence and creativity it would give me is hard to overestimate)
Travel to space (unlikely, but let’s just set the goals high)
Learn to play a musical instrument, current candidates: piano, trombone, or guzhen (I’m listening to so much music, want to be able to create something myself)
Have an art exhibition (creativity knows no bounds, and interactive art is awesome, would be great to collaborate too)
Be in a film (I’m a terrible actor, but still want to see what work goes into all the movies I like to watch so much)
Sail on the ocean (adventure time, real travel, real toughness)
Go skydiving (that must be a feeling impossible to describe, have to see it myself)
Send my parents travelling somewhere where they wanted to go (I was lucky to have travelled more than most of my family, let’s pay back some of that while possible)
Set up a foundation for some good cause (I was thinking about this quite a bit, I wonder how can I help the most?)
Learn to swim properly (being a frong is just not enough)
Run a marathon (I guess I’m already doing this wrong, but want to see what does it feel like)
Do a defensive driving course (haven’t driven for almost a decade, but the way people drive in Taiwan, this would be a very important skill to learn)
Write to my inspirational people (though first really have to figure out who are they, have some but need time to think)
Learn to meditate properly (have tried it a few times with guidance and it is simply life-altering experience, too bad single times fade, I want to have the habit)
Create a high traffic website (can’t read Hacker News day in and day out without having this ambition)
Become fluent in Chinese and one other language: Japanese, Spanish, French, or something else (languages are awesome, love to communicate with people)
Long distance bicycle trip to somewhere (many people do that around Taiwan, and used to cycle much more than these days, is a great way to get around)
Learn to brew really good coffee (these days I do drink a lot of coffee, but very few places make it such that it stands out, I want to see what it takes)
Learn the constellations and other important object on the sky, be able to navigate by night (used to do much more astronomy as a kid, have to rediscover the universe)
Get to know a traditional profession deeper, like carpentry or pottery. (there’s an awful lot to geek out about those)
Build a building, or renovate an old one (break the mystery of the places where I stay everyday)
Grow a tree (tried many times, and they have failed very early)
Learn to be a technical writer (that’s the influence of my advisers from Oxford)
Bring traditional Taiwanese food cooking back to Hungary, and Hungarian back here to Taiwan (cooking is a lot of fun, and dinner parties with people are even more)
Overcome helplessness about the issues I see around me everyday (stray animals, homeless people, poverty, all could be improved upon if I can face them)
Give away at least half of my stuff (I have too many things, need to simplify)
Get back in touch with my childhood, teenager and uni friends (I have burned so many bridges by inaction)
Learn to mix cocktails well – and come up with a new one that people actually like (cocktails are playground, and even though I can’t drink, I was reading a lot about them)
Attend the Nobel prize ceremony (preferably when someone I know won the prize)
Do something concrete for science education (also inspired by my high school friend who’s doing an amazing job at that)
Write up our family tree and as much of our history as possible (I love history, and very interested in my family)
Have a patent of an actually useful invention (then give it away)
Have a radio show (had some small stuff before, just feel like doing it)
Figure out how to donate blood again (they wouldn’t let me here because of being grown up in Europe)
Learn to fly helicopter (somehow much more tempting than aircraft)
Overcome the fear of heights (that would be very useful)

While making this list, though, I was thinking: this is all good and nice, but I care much less about it than I thought in the beginning. These would be nice, but I actually have 1-by-40 plan: be happy.

Let’s see how does that go. :)

Tags lifeplan