Relocating
-
It’s Not a Disaster
→: It’s Not a DisasterTravel gives me a lot of time to think, the planes, the airports, the queues. And the jetlag – there’s no lonelier time than four in the morning, wherever you happen to be. Probably clear from my last post that I’ve had a lot to think about, lately. Still going to have to be enigmatic and elusive…
-
Losing Anchors
→: Losing AnchorsWhen I get stressed travelling, I have this mantra that I repeat to myself: Passport, wallet, keys, cellphone. Everything else you can buy. It doesn’t mean that losing/forgetting something else might not be expensive, or a giant pain to fix. The point is, that only the loss of some things is a genuine crisis. I…
-
On Having Adventures
→: On Having AdventuresThere are a zillion things to do in New York City, but my favorite thing to do is walk across it. Every kind of person, demographic. See people out shopping, walking home after a marathon, out with their kids. Overhear people speaking Spanish, Italian, Farsi, French, Chinese, Japanese, and, yes, English – American, and English-English,…
-
Time For Change
→: Time For ChangeAt the end of last week, I wrote that it had been “a mixed week“. And then on Monday, things went and got crazier. I’m still waiting for the dust to settle so that I can figure out what is actually going on. A friend is in town for a while. Last time I saw him, he…
-
Reminding Myself As To Why We Continue, Despite Everything
→: Reminding Myself As To Why We Continue, Despite EverythingIt’s been a mixed week. Some successes – Awesome Foundation! Girl Geek Dinner! Getting my visa sorted! And then a number of things that made me wonder why I was bothering. Mostly stupid things, and you could say that I shouldn’t worry about them – but that is easy to say, and hard to do.…
-
Stepping Down from Awesome Ottawa
→: Stepping Down from Awesome OttawaThe last few weeks, I’ve been thinking about what it means to be an Awesome Foundation trustee. Yes, it’s putting our money where our mouths are; not just saying “that would be a cool project” but putting the money on the table to fund it. More than that though, for me it’s been about being…
-
Simplicity and God Objects
→: Simplicity and God ObjectsThere’s an anti-pattern in Object Oriented programming called “God object” or “God class”. An pattern is a design to follow. An anti-pattern is something to avoid. A God class is a class that knows and/or does too much. Breaking a problem down into well-defined units of limited scope is part of writing good code that…
-
I ♥ My Kindle
→: I ♥ My KindleI finally caved and got a Kindle (Amazon). My friend showed me his, and it looked pretty cool, and then I packed up my apartment… and I have a lot of books. And it started to seem stupid that I was carrying around all these large, physical objects. Time to digitize. Ironically I had held…
-
Trading Off Inconvenience Now vs. Inconvenience Later
→: Trading Off Inconvenience Now vs. Inconvenience LaterI finished reading Dear Undercover Economist (Amazon) last week. It’s an interesting book, well I think so – but then I have an AS in Economics and briefly thought that’s what I should study at university. But, the idea of applying economics to life appeals to me. In economics, actors (people) are assumed to be…