2024 update 13/52
Dangerous ideas
I am four chapters in reading Greager's "Debt: The First 5,000 Years". Reading anthropologists can be a dangerous exercise for me, can get too interesting. He's a good writer, some good frameworks in there.
I am not sure I will manage to read the 'Bullshit jobs' and still hold onto my job! But will attempt I think.
I also see he'd written a book 'The Dawn of Everything' - anyone read this?
Music
I am happy playing music with my multi-effect and recording this. Cakewalk is a DAW I am using, has got a built in metronome so I am training my foot too. These are very basic things for anyone having something to do with music. Gives me joy.
I want to learn to sing better, hunting for a microphone. When I have a microphone I can plug it into my multi-effect and use Sennheiser headphones as a monitor to listen to my singing from the outside (of my skull). I aim is to get to this feedback loop, then self-correction will kick in quicker I hope, will also be able to record.
I know Shure SM58 is a good mic on the cheap, new one is £100. I would prefer to get one for free or a cheap second hand, so am on the lookout.
Health
I was talking to my potential future boss of a boss. They were impressed with one data point in my GitHub profile which is that I do 201 burpees everyday. So we chatted more about it and long story short, now I experiment with adding a pull up in between the burpees. So the routine is
- when I do burpees, I do them with no break and
-- there are 16 sets of 12 reps (and one short set of 9 reps) where
--- each set of 12 reps is divided into 4 sets of 3 reps where
---- the sets differ in that my palms point (1) backward, (2) outward, (3) forward, (4) inward and
---- in each set of 3, I project my feet (1) backward, (2) back to the left, (3) back to the right
- in addition, every 30 burpees, instead of a jump I do a pull-up.
I tried adding a pull up on Tuesday and Wednesday but try not to overdo it so am not doing it now and see how it goes.
Otherwise, I am still doing moon salutations in the evenings. If one cycle is two sets (left-to-right and right-to-left) then
- when I go out in the evening to collect free food walking, running or cycling, I do three cycles of moon salutations
- when I don't go out in the evening to collect free food walking, running or cycling, I do five cycles of moon salutations
Coffee
After my coffee detox some week and a bit ago, I am now down to one coffee a day.
Hike and outdoors
Hike in the remote hills of Scottish West Coast last weekend was a blast. I am thinking or returning to Loch Lomond this weekend, running there on Monday, it is meant to be sunny. From my place to the shore of Loch Lomond there is a cycling path all along and the distance is just over 20 miles / 35 km I think. My idea would be to run there and catch a train back. The trains are every 30 min and cost £6.5, I can fork that much for the trip back.
DW and I neglected going outdoors together for quality time the last few months.
Raised bed and tools and bikes
I got in touch with a local charity and applied for adopting a raised bed in a 'croft' they had set up on derelict ground next to the park where I run everyday. I will hear in the next week.
The same charity organises a tool library where standard membership is £30 / year. After over a year of living in Glasgow and about half a year in our (and bank's until next year) flat, I am going to subscribe to this as it still seems like the best way to get tools on demand. Lifestyle inflation? No, I think investment.
There is a community bike shop around here, ran past it finally recently. On my incubator list whether to get engaged with this.
Job
I have been talking recently about sorrow of not getting promotion and looking for different opportunities. Now I am in touch with the head of department dealing with that job I mentioned earlier that is done in R or Python. They are trying to get me more money on a temporary basis arguing that I will be doing more complex tasks. I think even if that extra money does not come through, I will still try to move there for experience of building prediction models and maybe machine learning models. There is all the hype about Machine learning now, but when I read about it, this is often to do with principal component analysis for dimension reduction and clustering in some way, like k-means. Then applying the outcomes to a new set. I have done both for my MA thesis in Psychology over a decade back.
I should try to learn how to sell my skills. It is hard when things look real obvious to try to explain them excitedly to someone. It is a marketable skill these days to see it as obvious to be excited about things one is unable to explain - I think this is good for job interviews.
Studying / Maths
I am deciding what case study to conclude studying my applied computational mathematics module with. I can choose between
- Integer programming
Has many applications in management science and related areas, for example planning the best order in which to visit a number of locations, or scheduling the use of resources.
I think this could be useful for that job I might take on
- Signal analysis and the fast Fourier transform
This case study considers the fast Fourier transform, which is a powerful and widely used method for the analysis of discrete signals, such as digital music. The fast Fourier transform is related to Fourier series which you will have seen in earlier studies for the analysis of continuous signals.
I think this could be theoretically interesting as I studied sound engineering once
- Simulations of the Ising model
This case study considers the Ising model, which is widely used in theoretical physics to study situations in which some macroscopic behaviour results from interacting microscopic events.
I think this has been mentioned on the forum. Also thinking micro / macro economics.
Let me know if you have any good ideas to feed into choosing between these!
DW has sorted out a study plan for her. In a few months she will wrap up two courses she is doing now, then have a break to February 2025 when she will learn about PEN testing. Then from October 2025 to Sep 2026 she wants to do the last two courses and get a BSc in Cybersecurity.
- I have a feeling that notwithstanding ERE, DW is going to stick to this job. She is much less difficult a person (agreeableness) than I am and gets a lot from this work as well. It is more likely I will take times off work to do something else.
Citizenship(s) / International
After our trip to London a while back, DW received her renewed passport. HR people form DW's company are sorting out visa to go to Madrid. DW has learned that some people in her roles but in a different department go to NY or thereabout for 3 months. I see an avenue for DW to make her way to the US East Coast with this company, especially if she get the above mentioned Cybersecurity credential, will have 3-4 years experience doing what she is doing and still enjoys / wants to do it.
But I wouldn't mind moving to Spain either
Separately, next week the plan is to go to get certificates of citizenship of where we are at now, next will come passports.