Education
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In Pursuit of Awesome
→: In Pursuit of AwesomeMy coolest title right now is “Instigator of Awesome” at Awesome Ottawa. So what’s Awesome Ottawa? It’s a group of 10 trustees and a Dean of Awesome, and every month we give away $1000 to enable something awesome. So far, we’ve funded an art-flash-mob, a living-evolving installation, a 350-org climate change event. When Levannia asked…
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The Waterfall Method is No Way to Plan Your Life
→: The Waterfall Method is No Way to Plan Your LifeI have a new mentee, her name’s AY Daring and you should check her out because she’s awesome. The other day we were talking about what she wants to do with her life, and she has this great stuff that she’s doing with respect to LGBT youth, and I said, “sure, that’s great but will…
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Chaos
→: ChaosLast week, I returned to Canada and signed and sent in my offer letter from Google. Then, 3 days later I rushed off to Kitchener to find an apartment. Because I didn’t get a TA at uOttawa (stupid union, and yes, I have noticed the irony and hilarity of – offer from Google, no TA…
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On Leadership
→: On LeadershipThey call Extreme Blue a leadership development program. I didn’t get it at first, but by the end I did. I also started to see why I had been picked out as someone “showing leadership” – though I have so far to go there. It’s around that time of year when I re-read 7 Habits…
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Finding Your Cognitive Surplus in Grad School
→: Finding Your Cognitive Surplus in Grad SchoolImage via Katie Weilbacher It is a truth universally acknowledged that graduate school will take over your life, if you let it. The trick is not to let it, but if that were easy the biggest drug expense for student insurance would not be anti-depressants (I have it on good authority that this is the…
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I am an IBMer
→: I am an IBMerTomorrow is the last day of Extreme Blue. At the US Expo in New York last week, I stood 6ft from Sam Palmisano, and listened to him talk about IBM’s vision for a smarter planet. He spoke about why we need to build a smarter planet and how IBM is trying to engineer this vision.…
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“Must Not Be Used for Evil” and Other Things CS Students Need to Know About OSS
→: “Must Not Be Used for Evil” and Other Things CS Students Need to Know About OSSI have spent a ridiculous amount of time this summer reading software licenses. Ultimately, a lawyer would have to be the final judge about what I can and cannot use, but it’s helpful for me to know when it is worth taking to the lawyer at all. Depressingly, a little knowledge can often tell you…
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When Excellent is Adequate, Nothing is Ever Good Enough
→: When Excellent is Adequate, Nothing is Ever Good EnoughI have the dubious distinction of being the intern, who on my self evaluation, had the biggest (positive) different between how my team rated me, and how I rated myself. I gave myself all average marks, bar one (initiative, +1). My 3 teammates evaluated me, and I only had one average mark, total, so I…
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Geeking Out and Getting Happy
→: Geeking Out and Getting HappyYou might have noticed that last weekend, I overhauled the design on my blog. I felt that it was time for a change, and it’s one that is related to a change in attitude that I’ve had of late. One of the things I’ve changed is my tag-line. It’s now: Cate extends Human implements Programmer…