I often feel like I internalize stress by putting limitations on myself. This is an attempt to channel my focus into something useful, to force myself to be productive. But it seems to only partially work, as I get frustrated with my own limitations. Example: during the day I may tell myself not to waste time doodling out ideas, but really if I just gave myself a little time to be creative it would reduce some stress and help unblock progress.
Review: Robotime Vintage Camera
For a holiday fun event this year our team organized a virtual build event. Each participant got to pick their own wooden puzzle to build. I chose the Robotime Rolife Vintage Camera wooden puzzle kit and really enjoyed building it.
Continue readingChurch Meeting Broadcast – improvement iterations
I blogged previously about the setup for broadcasting church meetings. And again about some alternatives. But in the interest of trying to make improvements, I am still working to make the church meeting broadcasts better. This is an update from February 2021 to catch some of the changes that have gone on so far this year, including adding a on-podium microphone.
Continue readingGame design and finding Signal in Noise
I just had a thought about this, so I better write it down so I can think about it a bit more. One thing I’ve noticed from looking at code for puzzle games (like Unruly aka. Tohu wa Vohu by Adolfo Zanellati) is that it is often easier to create a game by working backwards from the solution and adding noise or hiding information. In the case of Unruly, the game actually uses a solver to create the problem, thus ensuring that the result is solvable.
Or in the case of Bejeweled or similar match-3 type games. You can create a valid game starting board by first putting in a working solution in a problem space then filling in the area around it with empty spaces or ‘noise’ of randomly selected pieces. Then the challenge to the player is to find that solution, the ‘signal’ in all the random ‘noise’. This bit of inspiration came in really handy in one interview where I was trying to do something very similar.
Maze generation can be like that too. Start by creating a random path from start to finish, then randomly branch off in different directions to create noise and hide that solution.
This works for game design. I’ve often found in puzzle games I enjoy making order out of chaos. Think of how Tetris works by taking random pieces and fitting them neatly together in order. So finding that working signal in all the noise is satisfying.
Interviewing Resources for SW Engineers
I recently went through a big round of interviewing and job searching for SW Engineer roles. I wasn’t fully prepared, and don’t think I could ever be fully prepared. Interviewing is hard and strenuous and nerve wracking and I honestly hate it. But the preparation I did helped. So this post is to collect some of those preparation points, and I hope to do some other separate posts about particulars.
Continue readingAnecdotes of Telepresence Engineering
I thought I should write out a few more stories about my time working on a Telepresense product, including software and audio and streaming media. I worked on that project for many years, and it gave us many opportunities to apply good engineering practices.
Continue readingDaiso Petit Blocks are my new love
In October, we were going stir crazy. Disneyland is still closed and we have been delaying and delaying vacation. Since I had some to burn, we loaded up the family into the car and drove south, stopping at National Parks and time shares all down California to Palm Springs and back. It was a two week trip and we stayed as socially distanced and sanitized as possible.
In planning for the trip, we heard about Daiso as a “Japanese dollar store”. That description gives you a sense of the store, but it is way better than that. So many interesting small products and foods at low prices ($1.50 or more plus tax).
As you can imagine, my favorite spot was the Petit Block display. There were 20-30 different sets, all in small bags at the $1.50 price point. I bought about 10 that looked interesting on our first visit, but we had so much fun at Daiso that we went back two more times and I bought more sets each time.
The Petit Block is a nano-scale brick, like many of the Chinese brands (and they are made in China as well). The quality on them is really good – so far I’ve only hit one piece that was mis-molded, and the grip is solid.
So this post is a warning that I will have many more little builds to review soon. (Note the Sequoia National Park set is not Petit Block but rather from Impact Photographics as other Parks sets are).
Review: nanoblock Sydney Opera House
The Sydney Opera House is another iconic building in the Sites to See Series of official nanoblock sets. It is not new, and I’ve had the box sitting on my shelf for a few years.
This is another in my long list of nano-scale builds to review. I have a pretty big backlog, so expect more to show up eventually.
This is an interesting build, especially due to the challenge of having roof sections at odd angles. This is achieved through the use of ball and socket pieces at the base of each section. Additionally, the ball pieces are attached together inside two stacks of blocks that lay sideways inside the building. When I was first building this I was worried the stacks would just fall out, but the stacks are secured with some more overlapping building structure.
The result holds together fine, though there is some play in the roof angles and one side can slide back and forth by a hair’s width.
As typical for these nano-scale sets, you get some extra pieces. I counted 62 extra with this set, maybe more if I dropped one or two under my desk.
I really like this one. The look is immediately recognizable, the build technique is interesting, and it goes well with the other scenery on my self.
Book: Clean Code
I wanted to do some on-screen time (which I’ve been bad about for far too long) so yesterday I pulled down a book I’ve had for years but barely cracked. “Clean Code” by Robert C. Martin is usually wedged between Software Requirements fro.Microsfot Press and Extreme Programming Explained, and under Secure Coding. I don’t really read many technical books: I prefer a good reference book like the old Java in a Nutshell books. So we will see what I get out of this run.
Early impressions are that this seems like a thick book for some simple concepts. The first chapter is a lot of quotes and stories to motivate and give the reader a desire to read the book, but I just skimmed it, as I think most people who would read the book would have already seen bad code and know the need for clean code.
Church Meeting Broadcast Notes – Alternate Setups
So far we have two different kinds of meetings that differ from the “normal” meetings I blogged about. Our church once a month has special Fast and Testimony meetings, where members are encouraged to fast and pray for 24 hours on the first Sunday of a month and come to church to share their testimonies of the Gospel. We also twice a year have Stake Conferences where members from different congregations in the area get together for a larger meeting. I’m adding notes about them here in a separate post in the hope that they are useful to someone else.
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