good advice

ze frank still makes me laugh. and sometimes he says some smart stuff that's relevant to technologists today.

criticism

stranger: "sorry. i was really bad at that"
me: "you weren't really bad."
stranger: "okay. well i'm sorry anyway."
me: "hmm. if i draw a line between good and bad, where is not really bad for you?"

stranger motions to right next to bad.
i push her hand towards good.
she smiles.

misunderstanding

me: "where are you from?"
girl: "perth."

excitement. it's a joke that's witty, inclusive and nerdy!

me: "great, i'm from earth too!"
girl: "so you know 'some perth suburb'?"
me: "oooh, Perth."

oh well.

refactoring

client: "what's refactoring?"
me: "there's a kind of pink sticky note over there. and it's sort of rectangular."
me: "or i could say"
me: "that is a pink, rectangular post it note"
everyone on my team except me: laughter

girls

i'm trying to learn a programming language with a collegue. she's a girl, and programming isn't her day job. it's called python. we have different goals.

she wants to make something that solves problems. i want to be fluent. how do we make it fun for both of us?

is this a recipe for fun?
1 interactive python shell.
1 xmpp client library.

incoming messages are sent to the python shell. a message is concocted in python. a reply is sent. it's like TDD, with people. i hope a conversation would look something like this:

dave>"hello."
sarah>"hello."
dave>"what is 2 times 7?"
sarah>5
dave>"no"
dave>"what is 2 times 7?"
sarah>14
dave>"yes!"

sounds fun to me. hoping the interactivity and the fact that it does something - ie. answers and asks questions, will be enough to satisfy us both. i'm going to try it on one computer without the chat stuff first to see how it goes.

bye.

bus stop

dancing teachers say bus stops are a good place to practise. just about anything goes at melbourne bus stops, swing wise. bus wise, much less goes. i found myself at this stop today. waiting. a lot.

dancing teachers were right. practising however, while having utility, has less fun-tility. for fun-tility, just add bus stop.

making moves that work with a bus stop pole is what i'm talking about. unlike doors, poles don't move. they don't swing. being round makes it possible for you to swing from them though. like the monkey you are. i haven't worked out how to make looking like a monkey cool though.

i did however, think hooking feet on poles had potential. at legs distance from a pole, turn sidways to it. hook your closest foot on pole. twist towards the pole and away, and hook the new hook onto the pole. you need to wave your arms about to make that work. it looks about as cool as a monkey on a merry-go-round, turned sideways.

but it's fun to make up stuff with bus stop poles. who knows, maybe that move would even work if you were hooking your foot onto another persons foot...

KN

take the stairs

it's fun to dance on stairs. i like the slightly dangerous descending charleston spin. that one's cool even when you think you're alone but people catch you in the act. that happened to me one time, and it was still cool.

the tension is always between having fun and getting to your stairway destination. that's because basic steps in dancing aren't always forward going. some people take the two steps forward, two steps back approach. which is good if you have some time. some people adapt their steps, so they are going forward all the time. kick step, kick step, etc.

there is also the tension between risk taking and safe stair navigation. dancing is more risky because i'm a beginner dancer, but a pretty advanced walker. the reward for risky stair climbing technique usually comes in the form of enjoyingny funness. i think it depends on the mood.

sometimes i like to use my newfound balance to go fast down stairs. zippy.

those bits of the stairs that don't go up, but connect stairs to other stairs are a great spot for expression. it's comforting to know where they are so when you do the miss-step, you won't fall too far.

stairs. yeah.