aeolianblues

On isolation: One very helpful thing I’ve noticed is that it takes a week or two of not going out, not meeting people in your community, a few weeks of falling behind to become and feel isolated. But it takes a quick chat with someone you know to become reconnected. It takes going outside and accidentally running into a friend for that hole to become quickly plugged. You’ve got that going for you. Go outside, don’t fall into isolation and hopelessness.

Don't know what I plan on having for lunch tomorrow, don't know what I'm going to do in life, don't know how I'm going to find a job in this economy, but I've already planned out the next four months of guests I want to try and get a hold of for radio

(Picture literally from @/Canada on Twitter, but it's from Vancouver. They have... you know, a normal spring season. For the rest of us, read on below)

Spring in Canada is officially marked by the annual first sighting of the White Boy In Shorts. Some years, we have to wait until April to have our first sighting of him, some years, I dunno, maybe he forgets to wash his outdoor shorts in time.

Other times, it snows in May.

This year, sprightly observers of the ritual were blessed with an extra promising sight: White Boy In Booty Shorts and A Sleeveless T-Shirt.

Sure, the weather outside may only be 7 degrees when the wind behaves, but the foresight that comes to the mind of The White Boy In Shorts is not a phenomenon well-studied, unfortunately (though I imagine many volunteers to do the studying exist on this very site). We just go with his predictions.

Sunglasses firmly on nose, booty shorts flapping in the wind, a bright, neon green slip eliminating the need for any hi-viz gear, though his very sight would suffice to achieve the same, White Boy In Booty shorts jogged on, as other runners in jackets made way on the pavement, emanating a sound that could either be a gasp of amazement, or a sigh of relief, as the visions of WBIBS is only a rite of passage to spring.

Or not.

For the rest of us, "kinda not winter" may have to suffice for now.

I've been maintaining a notebook at my internship with things I've learned, work I've done, challenges, leadership stuff, etc. that have taken place because a goldfish would laugh at my memory and it just means I have less preparation work to do when the next internship/hiring season rolls around (usually in the bang-middle of a swamped semester, bonus points when it's around midterms).

March is coming to an end, I had the notebook open and a spare second so I decided to go ahead and make an April page already and it looks like this

Rightly it is a notebook titled Journal. With entries like "April 2022: Hoo boy. Another month cometh." who would think otherwise?

Hey. You all. Every one of you. Here's some work-related advice from my mum that applies to each of you: the spoken word is worthless. Always get it in writing.

Anecdotal sentences can be twisted in meaning, you can be blamed.

People will try and deflect, they will try and make you look stupid. "It appears you misunderstood what I said" (which is never an issue they will try and rectify before damage is done).

No matter how much they might say verbally that you can leave it to the; that they will be answerable for any consequences, as the person behind the idea; that they, as your higher up will speak for you or stand up for you; do not take it at face value. DO ask for it in writing.

Tell them to write it in an email cc'ing relevant people. Have it so that there are multiple people who can corroborate your position. And do not go ahead with stuff until there is written acknowledgement on those email threads. Have your witnesses in place.

The corporate world is fucked up as hell, take the time, cover your arse, have what you need in place, because the last thing you need is to be personally responsible for things happening at work. Let that be on them.

if you're in technical fields: for the love of god don't put yourself in the position where you can be held responsible for expensive equipment. If you work in physics or engineering labs, don't let anyone pin it on you to be responsible for experimenting with $20,000 sensitive, custom-order instruments. Software folks: yes I know. You make and break, it's the nature of your work. That's okay at the small scale. That's okay for software. If they ask you to fuck around with expensive hardware, give a loud, clear NO. You want someone to write a proper email saying they understand the consequences and you are acting under direction.

So on and so forth for other fields. Don't put yourself in the position where you are held personally responsible for a million+ dollar company's bruises.

Bob Vylan, once again being the most relevant band on the planet! New single called Health Is Wealth, and honestly, it feels like Bobby had a chat with my mum because this is exactly what she says all the time. Guess there was always going to be a first Bob Vylan song that came out that you’d hear and first think, “I gotta show this to mum”.

I can confidently say that there is not one person for whom [insert field of study] is "not made", there are simply people who a system left behind by making understandable things seem confusing, refusing to explain terminology, refusing or making access to accommodations limited and difficult, to the point where the person gives up and begins a self-perpetuating cycle of "this isn't for me".

I think about my own field of computer science often. It's numbers and sand doing what you want it to do, there are no inherent mysteries to it because *we*, people, made them. But you regularly have people dropping out of the field because it appears hard, confusing and strenuous. (However, long hours and strain in CS is a separate topic we'll touch upon another day. I suspect it's not unique to computer science though)

It may not necessarily be true, but it's so easy for it to feel that way!

Someone will use the word 'token', and instantly, the last sentence spoken just lost half its meaning to you.

There's a difference between thinking about a problem, and thinking about a problem in the way a computer would. Maybe you prefer to work things out the human way and then translate that into machine thinking. Maybe that takes you a little time! Mental block is an actual, studied phenomenon in psychology. Maybe you've been looking at a problem in one way for so long that you're simply unable to think of it in a different way. Maybe you're someone who likes to learn and then do. Maybe you like to do and then learn.

There are so many different ways to approach a problem, and so many different styles and preferences. But sometimes your method takes a bit more time, and no one accounts for that. You feel like you're racing against time and everything is stacked against you.

Sometimes there are things that just Do Not Make Sense to you. Pointers need you to concentrate hard! Files and streams suck! We all know they do. Sometimes you just need someone to explain it in a non-computer way.

There are people you can reach out to that you might not even be aware of. Universities don't always make it very obvious or sometimes, even easy, to access resources. (They exist! The other side of it all is that you'd have an empty room at office hours, TAs seeing maybe 3 students in their entire session, just a lot of resources that are available, somehow not talked about enough, just sitting there idle)

All of this is a long way of saying: A C C O M M O D A T I O N S ! !

They aren't talked about enough or used enough.

Fields aren't not made for you, you aren't "not up to it", you aren't "not smart enough". They aren't accommodating your needs, and they aren't making themselves accessible or reachable enough for you to ask for the accommodations that are already in place.

My best advice? Ask for them! Send that email, contact those TAs, go to those office hours, find a study friend, talk to someone sat next to you in class.

Most of all, don't be embarrassed of asking questions. You don't appear dumb. You are there to learn! Many (most!) professors are glad to have questions, because it means you're thinking about what they're teaching you. If you feel like a question would take too long to answer during class, stay back for a bit after class and ask it separately, or if you prefer, write an email. Ask to set up an appointment. (It's enough to just go, "hi, in your lecture today you went over [x topic] and I still have a few questions about it and want to understand it better. Could I meet you at your office hours or set up an appointment to go over this?" Most of them will say yes! Some might direct you to TAs. Send them the same email, they're usually picked because they know the stuff they're hired to teach. They're literally paid for exactly this too!) There are often relevant groups, workshops, clubs etc. pertaining to these areas as well, many of them will have drop in sessions, look out for those.

Most of all I'd re-iterate, don't be embarrassed. Train yourself to think this way if it helps you, but every time you feel that hot flush coming up your face as you think of asking a question (I know I have had it...), remind yourself, you're HERE to learn! This is new stuff! Your brain is literally forming new connections as you think. You're processing new information. You're growing. If you have a question, if you have a doubt, you're doing what you were intended to do. You're interacting with your new knowledge, and you're growing!

Don't be afraid to ask for something you need (or even 'would prefer'), and remember that nothing is inherently 'not made for you'! That would be an inherently ableist mindset.

[ID: A screenshot of a google search result. Title: Editor war - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Editor_war In Emacs, Vim keybindings are implemented via Evil mode, while in Vim, Emacs keybindings are implemented through the Vimacs package. Although Vim keybindings ...(it trails off)]

I spent very long trying to get a working command-line Emacs on Windows because I don't like Vim but there's more beef...

[ID: Article header: Editor war From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia For a type of conflict between Wikipedia editors, see Wikipedia:Edit war]

Oh. I just clicked the link. Is this how you end up in a Wikipedia spiral?

Guys, what the fuck, we'll check out the Wikipedia editors war later, catch a load of this:

[ID: The Church of Emacs, formed by Emacs and the GNU Project's creator Richard Stallman, is a parody religion. While it refers to vi as the "editor of the beast" (vi-vi-vi being 6-6-6 in Roman numerals), it does not oppose the use of vi; rather, it calls proprietary software anathema. ("Using a free version of vi is not a sin but a penance.") The Church of Emacs has its own newsgroup, alt.religion.emacs, that has posts purporting to support this belief system.]

They made a religion out of a slightly better version of Notepad++. Notepad religion.

There's more,

[ID: Regarding vi's modal nature (a common point of frustration for new users)[35] some Emacs users joke that vi has two modes – "beep repeatedly" and "break everything". vi users enjoy joking that Emacs's key-sequences induce carpal tunnel syndrome, or mentioning one of many satirical expansions of the acronym EMACS, such as "Escape Meta Alt Control Shift" (a jab at Emacs's reliance on modifier keys)[36] or "Eight Megabytes And Constantly Swapping" (in a time when that was a great amount of memory) or "EMACS Makes Any Computer Slow" (a recursive acronym like those Stallman uses)[37] or "Eventually Munches All Computer Storage", in reference to Emacs's high system resource requirements.]

Harsh, coming from users of an editor that can't type and backspace on the same screen. (Also, breaking Larry Tesler's golden rule of UI: absolutely No Modes!

I'll give them one thing, and that's that I do use Sublime Text... but only because installing Emacs on Windows is nigh-on impossible!

Here's the clincher though:

[ID: for fun, googling Emacs brings up the suggestion, "Did you mean: Vi" and vice versa]

Here's the whole article.

That mid-twenties solo dance in the kitchen to the songs you grew up on, dancing all the dances you couldn't in the presence of people.

What if I turned my IDE theme hot pink and turned in my code early and completely correct

Pumpkin month theme :)

Current mood: wanna be the local fluffy cat at work

Got some brilliant life advice on Duolingo recently: ‘It is important to get your priorities straight - first some chocolate, then some Welsh, and everything else will fall into place’ and so true bestiwr.