I've been an insomniac for most of my life. The first memory I have of it being a thing for me was in my first or second year at boarding school when my housemaster remarked on it. He said it was a condition that affected bright people. Of course, I took that. :) Left to my own devices on school holidays, I would stay awake long past midnight. I would read the latest Harry Potter until I finished it, say at 6am in the morning. I would then wake at …
To paraphrase Jocko Willink, Decisiveness Equals Freedom
The legendary Jocko Willink says that Discipline Equals Freedom. I take this to mean that accepting and embracing discipline and structure in your life will take away the need for willpower as well as paralysis by analysis and procrastination. In recent days, I’ve been feeling good and I think it’s down to making decisions, quick decisions and good decisions about things big and small. Deciding yesterday in a Waterloo pub that I’d book us in for …
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Which are the best Python courses to take when you’re starting out like I am?
I’m a big believer in learning from multiple sources to accelerate learning. If you just picked one book, the writer might not teach the concepts in the same way as another writer and different writers might click with you on different sub-topics. Just pick multiple sources when learning anything. I’ve picked a few courses and sources to learn Python from: The first one is from Udemy called The Python Bible™ | Everything You Need to …
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Should we self-censor what we consume?
When I was at uni, I took an Aesthetics class. The Philosophy of Art. I don’t remember much from that course except for a couple of essays on Plato and Tolstoy. Plato was keen that when educating the young men of his Republic that their art be censored and that the youth should only consume art that promoted nobility. So poetry shouldn’t be about loucheness and hedonism, rather they should be about promoting bravery in battle and moral …
What is the future of mobile phones?
I saw this question and I thought I'd try to answer it: First off, I don’t think that mobile phones will become obsolete, even in 50 years. Whilst many functions of a smartphone might one day be available through a chip in your brain, I think that it would be difficult to replace the convenience of a screen when interacting with your smartphone. Phone size will remain handheld as that’s the most convenient size for portability and for …
Why I’m learning Python and CS at the age of 38
I’m 38 years old which means that I have probably about 30 years of working life left. That’s AGES. Think about what working life was like 30 years ago. That was 1988. I think my computer at home was an Amstrad CPC464. It ran a tape deck and took 20 mins to load Double Dragon. That’s if it successfully ran and you didn’t need to restart the whole process. Now, we have smartphone computers in our pockets that are thousands of times more powerful. Think …
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