This post comes from the middle of CodeMash. It is my first year speaking and second year attending. Unfortunately, my talk isn’t until the last slot on the last day, so I feel distracted from the rest of the conference in anticipation (/anxiety) for my talk. It’s a bit of a shame for a conference hosted at a hotel with a water park.

Despite my nervousness, I’m excited and honored to be a speaker.  My talk is about the history of programming languages focusing on the following: C/C++, Haskell, Python, Java, Javascript, Ruby, and Go. Due to this opportunity, I’ve had the excuse to research the history of programming languages and learn how different languages evolved.

One of the highlights so far has been: “Data Science: Zero to Hero“. It was in the format of a four hour lab, so a deep dive into statistics was possible. I recently submitted a phD application for Computational Linguistics, so it was nice to get a refresher in Pandas, NumPy, and Python. New classes and libraries I was able to learn about were Matplotlib.pyplot and scikit-learn.

Tomorrow the main part of the conference begins, so the calm of the conference will soon be gone. *^*p

I seem to pick this blog back up whenever a big new thing is happening in my life. Last time, it was pivoting from contract work to a standard job; this time, I’m in the midst of applying for graduate school for a PhD.

There’s a lot happening right now. I’m working a full-time job, moving apartments, volunteering at a local high school, and trying to get all my application in on time. I think the only thing that has helped me keep everything in order throughout the last few months was picking up bullet journaling. My journal is not instagram worth, but it’s a good depiction of me and what needs to get done.

I’ve been reading a lot on what to expect from a PhD and how to be a successful PhD student. I’m incredibly grateful for all the resources that exist; they make it feel more viable instead of a goal in the distance future I’ve been working toward for months and might not result in anything. Fear wants to seep in, but there’s no point. Failure happens in life, and avoiding that failure out of fear won’t help me at all.

One of the strangest parts of applying for graduate schools has been imposter syndrome trying to creep in; however, when I objectively look at myself, I see that I’m just as qualified as anyone else and shouldn’t be doubting myself. *^*p

Next time I write here my applications will be submitted and I’ll be working on my presentation for Codemash in January. I’m really excited not only to give the talk, but also to do the prep work for it. I submitted a history of programming languages talk with a focus on seven languages-three of which I knew well at the time of submitting the proposal. Since then I’ve been doing a coding kata every week in a different language to familiarize myself with them. It’s a nice to have an excuse to experiment with programming languages not in my day to day life.

My love of languages and interest in learning new things is part of why I’m applying to graduate school. I’m applying for a PhD in computational linguistics with an interest in machine translation. Moving from industry to research is going to be a major upheaval in my life; however, it’s time for a new adventure and chapter of my life. I’m looking forward to the future!

What did I expect:

Not getting to read or watch shows as much as wanted because people would talk to me. The dining car food would be mediocre (but not bad), and the scenery would be beautiful.

What actually happened:

Pretty much exactly what I expected. I was surprised by the amount of creeps on the train, but that just means next time, I wouldn’t try to talk to people closer to my age. There were a lot of older folks and they were fascinating and extremely sweet. I gave several my contact info. One man is a rare art collector and gave me tips on how to tell if art is old/might be valuable and then how to follow up. Another used to be the stage manager for the Academy Awards and General Hospital (and trust me, he had plenty of pictures to prove it).

The dining car was interesting, but as to be expected, was not particularly delicious. Everyone recommends going to the dining car for one meal, and I would too. There are different people than you’ll find in the observation deck.

For any ladies out there, there’s a women lounge bathroom which I would highly recommend. The sink and toilet are in different rooms, so you can wash your face and change without standing an inch away from the toilet.

Overall, it was enjoyable. I brought my own food, pillow, and blanket. The first night got a little cold even with my blanket though, so I would suggest dressing in layers so help. One traveler’s meal that I randomly experienced with was a packet of tuna I brought and the cup ramen from the cafe car (which they can make for you). It was hot, filling, and inexpensive. The trifecta of travel food.

I would say it was like a 7/10. I would do it again, but hopefully next time they’ll have internet in the train.

Why am I rooting it? <– Why Not?

Actually after I let my tablet from 2012 update to Lollipop, it’s really struggled. The processing speed halved and it freezes a lot now. The poor thing can’t handle it.

So I’m following this tutorial, and installing Cyanogenmod. Step one was move any data off. Check.

Okay. I don’t currently have abd and fastboot set up, but I do have the sdk and tools installed. It looks like I should just have to add something to me ~/.bash_profile file? Doesn’t seem to be working.

The internet says something about not using ~/.bash_profile and using ~/.bashrc instead. Research time.

Side note- “This prompt is produced by a program called getty(8) which runs on the tty (terminal) device” Now the program PuTTY makes more sense. You’re getting and putting a terminal. How literal. Wiki for reference.

Continuing. This is the simplest and overarching explaining I’ve found. Profile is when you log on and rc is when you open a terminal (except in terminal in Mac OS X…) So I guess it doesn’t matter which I do! I’m actually going to do the recommended rc in profile though.

Exceptttt I don’t have a .bashrc file. So I guess that answers the question of whether iTerm is different than Terminal. Nope they still just use bash_profile every time.  Still doens’t work though. Oh I have to source it-which loads the new configuration.

. ~/.bashrc

or

source ~/.bashrc

These are both working now, whoo! Looking like I’ll need Google Apps as well.

Just realized I skipped an entire paragraph. This is why multitasking is bad.

Accidentally skipped the meat and potatoes, but everything was pretty straightforward after that. I used Sideload to install the OS and Google Apps.

Finished Result (although it needs some configurations and such still) It has the look and feel of Lollipop but not the lag it was giving me, so I would call it a success!

Leave if it feels wrong. It’s okay.

As my previous posts say, I’m taking a train across the US and preparing for that has been time consuming. However, not all encompassing. So what has been? Well I’ve been working on a contract job! Whoo money.

Okay, but why is the name of the post ethics? Good question! It’s because I’ve found myself in an uncomfortable situation. I’m not going to go into any details since I don’t need any company secrets exposed claims or nonsense. Long story short, I signed up for a contract job without fully understanding the legal and ethical undertones. I knew it was in a grey and not encouraged area, but it was the first time I took a contract job and I was trying to not let myself make excuses for not taking it. So I wrote up a project plan, and set phases. Note: I said explicitly I could only commit 30 hours over 2 weeks and then would be completely done, so it couldn’t just evolve into a never ending monster right? Well let’s continue.

After diving into the project, I found errors in other parts of the code. Parts that were not part of my job. I also found some data that should’ve been getting pulled and that my client wanted to get pulled. Now in hindsight, I should’ve said, “That’s not my job. I’m here to write __ and integrate it into the system” However, being young, I didn’t know better and listened to what my client wanted. Well believe or not, this extra part took around 12 hours, and now I’m extremely behind schedule for my actual project deadlines and already far over the estimated or the committed hours. So lesson one learned. Stick to what you’re there to do.

Ethics though. Well also as the project continued I started to question a portion of the project that had been added due to the new information. Without detail, it’s both in contract and in contract if that makes sense. Well around Thursday, it started to nag, Saturday I feel guilty, and Sunday I felt so uncomfortable I couldn’t sleep. Now, this was supposed to be a 28 hour tops project, but even wasn’t working on it, it nagged and bothered me. It wasn’t until Tuesday (Project finishing Friday) that I finally got the courage to say something. Well. It seems the client didn’t mind and semi-shamed me for feeling the way I did. I left conversation (Wednesday now) feeling confused and bullied. I’d gone into it confident and sure of myself. I wasn’t even sure what I was supposed to do. Even if he wanted me to do the extra part, I didn’t have time for it anyway.

I’m sure anyone reading this would love to hear that I took a stand and said no, quit the job, etc. But I didn’t. I did send an email saying I wouldn’t have time for it. That’s about it. I’m supposed to have this done by tomorrow. I’m 37 hours into this now and just doing I was supposed to do and cleaning up is going take at least 8. But either way, I’m not working on it anymore in about 30 hours. Screw everyone else. All the life lessons.

Another useful thing I’ve heard people saying-I scoured Reddit and the internet for tips- is to spend the day on the observation deck so then it’s easier to sleep in your seat. After all no one wants to sleep in the same seat they’ve been in all day. This makes sense, but I don’t understand if you just leave your things at your seat or take them with you. I’m sure it’ll be obvious when I’m on there. Note: I will be in a coach seat not a sleeping room through this trip.

Also, free hot water is available so oatmeal, instant coffee, tea, instant ramen, etc are great idea. I’ll probably grab some jerky, protein/granola bars, apples, and pb for the trip. Someone said “they can’t heat things for you”, so I’m assuming microwaveable stuff is not a good idea. Other food recommendations are tuna packets, bread, crackers I’ve seen I’m not planning on bringing alcohol, but it seems like as long as you’re not blatant about it, the staff doesn’t really care. After all they sell alcohol themselves.

An $8 Amtrak sleeper pack with pillow, blanket, eye mask is available, but I’ll just bring my own pillow and blanket. Should be fine.

Uh just found this tip: “In place of that rule, however, is this: you must always WEAR SHOES, preferably hard-soled, when moving about the train. Apart from the obvious sanitary reason, having a toe sheared off in the vestibule between cars is something you’d like to avoid.” Apparently that’s an amtrak rule. I’ll make sure not to wear flip flops since I like my toes.

Posts I found and enjoyed. I read this entire woman’s blog about her travels. She took 30 days and traveled around the US. Super Kudos to her. Since I read them in reverse, I felt the pain when she raved about her pillow she loved knowing she would lose it one week late. Sorry for your pillow loss. Her post about the dining cart and rail pass are the most USEFUL, but I just enjoyed listening to her stories. I think we’d be friends if we met. Also, kind of feel like I should check out the hostel in San Diego she talked about. So many things to do in San Diego before leaving.

This seems like a good post, but it’s long so I scanned. But seems useful to be able to look at later!

Unfortunately, this woman had a bad experience. I’m on the upper level which of course I was thrilled for, but thinking about it, it might be less popular due to motion sickness. Well at least I don’t usually have that problem, so I should be fine.

Eep! This is happening. The more I read, the more I want to just get a rail pass in the future and bum around. Well let’s not get ahead of ourselves. One trip at a time!

First thing I found was this. Now the most useful thing I got from this is Amtrak is about the only train system in the US-which I knew, but no harm in double checking. The map showing train services at a glance was helpful for figuring out what would be the best way to get from San Diego to Detroit. It was instantly obvious that I should actually look for LA to Chicago. On the site I found this gem. This allows you to search through the different routes across multiple days! Super helpful. They didn’t bother making pretty but it works well so who cares. I found a train from LAX to CHI for $135. Total time on a train will be 43 hours. After looking at the actual Amtrak site, I found out that there will NOT be internet on this. However, it’s supposed to be one of the most beautiful routes. It sounds bad, but I honestly don’t think I’ll have time for all the things I want to do. With so many interesting folks around, I hope to make it through a movie or two (potentially a season of GoT) and a book! *^*p Ganbaru!

Note: For safety reasons, I will not be listing the date I’m leaving-because the internet. Also, I’m poor and trying to not waste too much money doing this.

For the leg from Chicago to Detroit, I’m probably going to use Megabus, because I love Megabus. They even provide free wifi even though the buses are dirty cheap.

Expect another of these very soon!

This is partially for reference for myself and by partially I mean mostly. But this morning, I spent some time comparing some background noise things! (Source: Reddit)

For working, I love the sounds of coffeeshops, and Coffitivity has a variety of coffeeshop sounds and can give a few different atmospheres. Works well as background or combined with music for just setting the tone of work.

As writing this I’m listening to A Soft Murmur which I think is my new personal favorite since I can combine coffee shop sounds and rain.  Add in to that option of Fire-usually use this– and the separation of thunder and rain. It’s the the most customizable in my opinion. There is an android app, but you have to pay $1 for the coffeeshop sound, which is what I like the most, so that’s useless.

A similar site is Sound Drown, with the added bonus of trains, but moving among them is slightly awkward. If you want a combination of sounds it’s more difficult to customize them. Also, they only have rain, and I like the sound of thunderstorms over straight rain. This allows for different levels of thunder versus rain, but then nothing else.

If I just want rain or white noise to sleep or relax then Rainy Mood is the best choice-simple and clean (which is a fantastic song to work to as well!)

End notes: Maybe I just haven’t heard of it, but I wonder why there’s not a workplace mood soundtrack. There are lots of people who work from home or remote that would probably enjoy that, or maybe they already have their system completely worked out.

Honorable mentions: Winter Sounds, Two minute relaxer, Forrest sounds, This kid’s attempt to combine some of these, and last You are listening which is pretty awesome.

Concept: App that auto sets alarms based off of when user needs to get up.

Use Case: User J is going to bed and needs to be at work by 8am, and she needs to be out the door by 7:30am. J tells the app what time she needs to leave by and checks off a list of user defined morning activities.

She wants to:

• go for a run (30 minutes),
• take a shower (20 minutes),
• get dressed (20 minutes),
• have breakfast (15 minutes),
• and pack up her laptop bag (15 minutes)

So the app will calculate that she needs to be up at 6:20am. So it will set an alarm for 6:10am 6:20am, and 6:30am to make sure J gets up when she wants to! The number of alarms set can be customized by the user but defaults to three, one 10 minutes before, at the time, and one 10 minutes after.

Possible future features:

1. Put events from google calendar to see when the user needs to be somewhere instead of inputting it
2. Do a puzzle to disable all alarms for that day after showing properly awake<- intended for those like myself who often set 5+ alarms in the morning.
3. Tell the user if they don’t get up what they will be missing. Eg: “You don’t get to shower if you don’t wake up!”

Implementation:

Well after looking into it a bit, I realized that creating an actual alarm that works flawlessly and does all of this might be reinventing the wheel a bit. The alarm app on Android is not open source and none of the FOSS alarm clocks I found really worked the way I wanted. As it seems to be there’s an Alarm Clock that allows you to set but not destroy alarms on the alarm clock. I think this might be the best way to go about it and already found a related stackoverflow post. I won’t be working on this today but am just talking about the next steps.

Scheduling alarms the night before seems simple enough but disabling them might prove to be a little more complicated. From first glance at the Alarm Clock, it says that if an alarm for that time already exists it will modify that, otherwise create a new alarm. One option would be to ‘disable’ the alarms by setting them all to silent, but this seems a bit too ad hoc for my taste and confusing for the user since they would see active alarms that would not make noise. The other option I see if to only create new alarms if the user hasn’t disabled future alarms yet. I believe I would want to use the Alarm Manager for this to know when to set another alarm if certain conditions are set. Alas, that is a future feature I want to add so may never get to it, but it is the most likely for me to implement. I have no idea if anyone else has this much trouble getting up in the morning so I’m honestly tailoring the features to myself a bit since I know at least I will use it!