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Do it anyways

I've been following this guy for a while, always admiring his accomplishments having worked at big techs, and then went on exploring his new career choices.

But then the very thing that made me start following him from beginning is that he does not (just) brag about his big tech careers, but he also shares his failure, and especially how scary it can be when starting to do something new.

So here we are again, learning how to write. Publicly!

#learning #social #writing

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Sunday Morning Bliss

Each morning holds its own value, especially when greeted with an early start. As the day stretches ahead, there lies the potential for meaningful accomplishments. Yet, there's a recurring struggle: waking early, only to surrender to the temptation of endlessly scrolling through my phone until both my mind and eyes are fully awake.

Recently, I've made a commitment to return to my running routine. Just 20 to 30 minutes of putting one foot in front of the other each day—yes, every single day—will undoubtedly benefit my body as I navigate my mid-30s to early 40s.

While physical exercise is crucial, I also aim to keep my mind sharp. One way I do this is by organizing my thoughts into coherent pieces of writing. And what better time to do this than during the serene Sunday mornings?

Once again, I'm determined to fully dedicate myself to becoming a better version of myself by this time next year.

Persist until success is yours!

#morning post #self improvement #me time

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Daily chores as short break from work

During the pandemic, and since I started working from home full time, cleaning the place has become my everyday habit. I  take a 5-minute break every hour to move around, and to keep myself from doing nothing, I usually choose to do some chore: washing dishes (put dishes into the machine, in fact), tidy the dining table, the couch, and so on. I swear I'm not the tidiest person in the world, I'm kind of in a mess most of the time, but I have to admit that seeing things in their right places, soothes me really a lot.

#work from home

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Perhaps that's how it actually went for me.

“You don’t always realize it, but sometimes you aren’t in love with a person. You’re in love with the way they make you feel. That’s what makes it difficult when they leave. You begin to miss the way you felt, as if nobody could make you feel that way again.”

— ekta somera

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Undergoing a heartbreak...

Summer 2019 has been hectically bringing you a plenty of changes. Good news is, you've got lots of refreshing changes, good changes: a new company, a new job, new colleagues, new friends, a new computer, a new car, a new phone, and, a new life. Bad news is, some of them are not that good. Your fate never ceases to create surprises, and this time it is evil enough to make your life upside down. What. A. Surprise.

And there comes it: An end of something which never really truly got started. You shut your emotions off years ago, and when you think you can revive it, it gets hit hard. Brutally hard. And it gets wrecked. Then you feel bad. Just terribly bad. You can't function properly. You don't (want to) sleep, eat, socialise or to do anything else but filling up your own mind with a haunting past. Your hopes are shattered, your heart is broken, your joy of life is simply torn apart. You're unable to cope with the feeling of loneliness. Of loss. Of broken dreams. Of incomplete plans. Of failures. Of mistakes you can't forgive yourself. Of problems you are not given even a single chance to fix (maybe you don't deserve one). It never felt this way before. You've probably reached lowest point of your life till now. You feel the bitterness. You feel the pain. You are emotionally devastated.

You tell yourself, it's gonna be okay, I can do this, I can get over this, nothing can break me. That sounds powerful. Sure, but it's not always easy for words and actions to converge. And it's even more difficult to do it alone. Then, you find yourself surrounded by your friends, whose attentions and loves are needed more than ever. You don't even know if you can survive the days without talking to someone at any moment literally. Some of them can offer good advice. Some hang out with you, be sure that their presence can cheer you up. Some simply listen, whole-heartedly. They become your heros/heroines and save the day. Needless to say, you'd like to express your profound appreciation.

This is not something a 32yo should waste his time and energy worrying about. Still, bad things happen, life does suck sometimes but in the end, it's you who chooses how to live it. You get beaten, then you get up, that's it, simple. After all, you own a pretty positive mind, and you see all of this as a life experience. You like to experience things, don't you? This heartbreaking incident simply adds a new entry to your collection, one that you should be proud of. More than that, you learn from it, grow from it and become a better version of you.

"- Everyone needs a hobby... - So what's yours? - Resurrection."

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AI Superpowers

One of the most interesting and entertaining books I've read. It's scarily admirable how China can get what it wants by mobilising any resources needed. By pouring its virtually unlimited money into tech startups and R&D, it's been able to disrupt the the technological world, the digital world, and ultimately the real world.

It's likely that the author is somehow a bit biased praising what China's been doing. Many of the dark sides are overlooked, with regards especially to humanitarian issues, sure. With heavy-handed government intervention, free market sounds like a joke, that's how western analysts used to see this phenomenon, and some of them might still be thinking so. And companies might be spoiled leveraging too much of their motherland's milk, yeah, but those are stories of a much longer term. For the time being, this government money acts like doping that boosts up the innovation-led growth and brute-forces a faster transformation. In this race, Europe is probably a third world, which sadly has already been, or soon will be, knocked out.

https://www.amazon.com/AI-Superpowers-China-Silicon-Valley/dp/132854639X

#book #weekendreading #notes #tech #china

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10 Steps to become a Senior Software Engineer

What

Software engineers go through several stages in their careers. They start from a Junior role, then they move to a Mid Level role. Then they become senior. This blog post has 10 steps that help you to become a Senior Software Engineer.

Why bother?

Get paid more! Your salary grows as you level up

Advance in your career. Senior Software Engineers are moving towards Architect, Team Lead, CTO kind of roles

Take on bigger challenges. As you grow you make a bigger impact

How

Software engineering is hard. The industry is always changing and you need to keep up with it. You need to put constant effort and time. There is always more to learn than you can possibly absorb. Many engineers who finish a several month boot camp don’t realize how much more they need to learn on top of it. No worries, there is a clear path to becoming a senior software engineer in almost any area of software development.

Step 0: choose your path and stick to it!

do one thing and do it well - Doug McIlroy : Unix Philosophy

I can’t emphasize this enough! It is really important to choose a specialty and a technical stack that you will be working with. Sticking to it and not getting distracted is what will make you a specialist.

It’s an important choice to make. Here is how to do it:

Choose your specialty. It’s what you want to do. For example: Web development or Mobile development or DevOps etc.

Choose a technical stack within your specialty. For example: if you chose web development, you’ll need to choose between Ruby on Rails, Python and Django, JavaScript and MEAN etc. If you chose mobile, you’ll need to choose between iOS or Android, etc.

Stick to it and master it.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t get familiar with anything else outside of your main specialty. A well rounded T-Shaped Software Engineer knows about other aspects of programming too. Although he/she knows their main specialty extremely well.

Now that you’ve chosen your specialty, you have a lot of things to learn. Take your time. It will take you several years to read all these books and practice necessary skills. Get through this challenge one skill at the time.

I’ll be using the following technical stacks going forward: Ruby on Rails for web development, iOS for mobile development. It is just because I have experience working with it. I can speak to it personally. At the end of the says it’s just a matter of taste. If you choose some other stack, you’ll need to find different books.

Step 1. Lay the foundations

Read The Pragmatic Programmer book. It’s a good starting point on the path to software mastery. The book summarizes best high level practices. It’s language / technology agnostic. It doesn’t matter which tech stack you choose, the main principles stay the same.

Step 2. Master your programming language

You’ll be using many languages day to day depending on the technology stack of your choice. Although, majority of your code will be written in one language. For example: a Ruby on Rails developer uses Ruby primarily. An AngularJS developer uses JavaScript most of the time. Identifying the language of your choice and mastering it is crucial for your career. Learn it, master it! You’ll be using this language every day. Choose your language and read an advance book on it.

For a Ruby Developer - Programming Ruby

For an iOS Developer - The Swift Programming Language

Step 3. Learn your framework

Choose one, learn it:

For a Rails Developer - Rails Tutorial by Michael Hartl

For an iOS Developer - iOS programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide

Step 4. Become a master of your text editor / IDE

Again. Choose one, master it and stick to it. If you chose VIM, stay with VIM and become a master of it.

Step 5. Use your Version Control System like a pro

I recommend using Git. Here is the resource that I like: Pro git - free online ebook with a complete breakdown on every aspect of git

Step 6. Commit to doing Test Driven Development

Choose a book specific to your tech stack, learn it. Get into a habit of doing it every day. Quality code comes with writing tests.

For a Ruby on Rails Developer - Rails Test Prescriptions

For an iOS Developer - Test Driven iOS Development

Step 7. Refactor as a habit

The codebase grows in complexity as you add more functionality. In order to keep your codebase manageable you need to refactor. If you don’t refactor as you go, you’ll soon come to a sad place where even a small change is hard, bugs are inevitable and nobody wants to deal with your messy codebase. Just make your life easier. Don’t delay your refactor. Get into a habit of refactoring. Here is a good book on how to do it: Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code by Martin Fowler

Step 8. Learn software architecture

Depending on the stack you choose, find a good book on architecture. Here is one that I recommend by Martin Fowler. It’s called Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture

Step 9. Unleash the power of the command line

The command line can feel intimidating at first. Although, as soon as you learn how to use it, you’ll become a lot more efficient in performing basic tasks. That alone makes you a better developer since you are able to achieve more in less time.Then you can take it to the next level. Use shell to automate common tasks and build your dotfiles. If you’re working on a Mac or any Linux distribution, learn shell. Here is a good book on it by Mark Bates: Conquering the Command Line

Step 10. Code code code!

Every single day. Like in any sport, you need to practice what you learned in order for knowledge to stick.

Takeaway

Yes, becoming Senior Software Engineer is hard. It takes a lot of time and commitment. Different people learn at different speed, but on average, it takes about 10 years to become a solid senior dev. It’s a big investment in time for a big return.Software Engineers have the bright future. They are in high demand on the job market. Their salary grows proportionally with their experience. It’s a rapidly growing and a relatively new field. Every day of a software engineer is a challenge. A challenge of changing people’s lives. Go ahead and take on this challenge by becoming a Senior Software Engineer one skill at the time.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/10-steps-become-senior-software-engineer-alexander-tamoykin/

#softwareengineer #roadmap #goaltoreach

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Different states of a docker container.

#learning #devops #docker #book

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Lessons learnt

I guess Asia was treating me well enough, for which I should definitely be thankful. My clumsiness, laziness and stupidity, however, didn’t miss their chance to join force and glamorously show off their very selves, taking away my wallet, along with my driving license. Forever!!! (most likely, I don’t really expect Thai police would send it back to me one day). For this incident and some others, following painful notes have thus been taken, while they’re still fresh in mind:

Wallet should go strict with cash and/or frequently used payment card. ID documents should be hiding somewhere else. Somewhere safe.- Money, of course, matters. And in many places, money means cash, not cards.

Internet is crucial. Grab if possible a SIM card before or on arrival. Leave some pennies in a VoIP account.

Planning, planning, and planning. Spontaneity or last-minute magic might work once in a while, but planning does help and can usually bring save-the-day moments. Friends of friends of friends can, too. A lot! So, try to know who’ll be there. Also, think of some urgent contacts.

Have backups and don’t put all eggs in one basket: I brought 4 payments card. 2 lost. Lived well with other 2.

Eat a lot, travelling needs energy.

Spend money wisely: Either stay well-equipped, spend the early money. Or suffer the service price. Or spend nothing, and willing to lose some of the best experience. Oh, I’m talking about just the waterproof bag for the phone :/

See something, and feel something? Write it down while still hot and fresh.

And learn to do proper photo-shoots. I probably have missed some of the most precious moments of the trip

There’re probably still some other things :/

Afterwards, retrospect, learn from what happened, and grow up :)

#asiantrip #lessonsLearnt #retrospection #noPainNoGain

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Landed almost 20’ earlier than scheduled, 1’ at border control (with a super cute police guy) and 1’ for baggage claim. Unsurprisingly a little rainy; still, this is unusually smooth how Belgium welcomes me back lol xD ###lalala #

#hetTet #holidayIsOver #back2Eu #back2work #lalala #newTripsComingSoon

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Farewell, again

Just some note before the air plane takes off...

Here I am again saying goodbye to my country after 3 amazing weeks. The trip lived up to my expectation with the planned part and exceeded it with the unplanned. The now-gone 2018 did play its role nicely: Lots of painful lessons, but no regrets. Only things learnt, and fun. Most importantly, it succeeded to end in the best way possible: The last month was tough but led in the end to a start of something new— something good. This special trip allowed me to really reconnect with my family, especially to my own brother. Lots of laughs and beautiful moments were shared when we were doing things together. I guess it could feel the same when I was with some of my best friends after all these years. Primary and planned objectives done. Checked. Life can’t go wrong with spontaneous moments, and I am lucky enough to have had plenty of them this time. From Hanoi, all the way down to Saigon, then Phuket and Bangkok and finally ended up in Haiphong with my family. The journey almost completely jumped out from nowhere and came realised at last minutes. Those moments are emotionally so joyful that I’d rather try not to think about them. Beautifully cruel or painfully happy, doesn’t matter how it’s called. Only matters how it feels. And only Measure what matters.

2019 is here, and I can already promise there will be more amazing things ahead. The so-called OKR to start with...

“Every time we say goodbye, baby, it hurts..”

Goodbye, once again!

#tripEnd #farewellVietnam #moments #asiaTrip #Thailand #Vietnam #wunderlust

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https://danielmiessler.com/study/url-uri/

#network #uri #url #random note

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HATEOAS

HATEOAS, or Hypermedia As The Engine Of Application State, is one of the principles/components of REST in which some hypermedia (i.e. hypertext, link) is used to uniformly represent the actions that a user can take at a certain state of the application. Within HATEOAS-enabled application (basically a RESTful backend service), users can simply explore all of its resources by visiting the provided “links” at any state of the application. This principle puts the interaction between a user and the application into the simplest form, essentially focusing on what the user can see and can do (i.e what options there are to go for), instead of how (clicking a button, moving an image, typing a text). The how part would then be up to different client applications that interact with this backend service (say, CLI client, a mobile app, a web, etc).

Example 

If a user sends the following request:

GET /accounts/12345 HTTP/1.1 Host: bank.example.com Accept: application/xml

The response would look like:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK Content-Type: application/xml Content-Length: ... <?xml version="1.0"?> <account>    <account_number>12345</account_number>    <balance currency="usd">100.00</balance>    <link rel="deposit" href="https://bank.example.com/accounts/12345/deposit" />    <link rel="withdraw" href="https://bank.example.com/accounts/12345/withdraw" />    <link rel="transfer" href="https://bank.example.com/accounts/12345/transfer" />    <link rel="close" href="https://bank.example.com/accounts/12345/status" /> </account>

So, in this case, the how could vary on different types of clients, but the what always remains the same: At this particular state (e.g. the home page), what information is displayed, and actions can be taken by the user, represented by the 4 links provided.

This HATEOAS is meant to “promote software longevity and independent evolution”

Reference: Wikipedia

#rest #software engineering #selfnote #learning

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#learn #nodejs #rest #api #software engineering #web

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#learn #nodejs #software engineering #restarted #javascript

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This kindle keyboard is turning into 8 years old. It’s always been treating me well-- a sincere e-reader. And today it suddenly got frozen, and I thought its time’s arrived... But no, after I tried to do a “soft” reset, it was brought back to life. All thanks to some amazing guy on the internet. The steps are as follows:

Hold the power switch to the right for 20 seconds.  Release.

Press the Home button for 60 seconds.  A “Reset” screen will appear.

Hit the DEL key on the keyboard.  This brought my unit back to a stable state, as if I’d done a reboot or a soft reset of the device.

I’m told that if this doesn’t work, you have to do a hard reset of the device, which is the equivalent of wiping & resetting your Kindle.  This procedure will wipe out all your books and require you to re-download them to your Kindle which, while not disastrous, will take time.  It will also lose your bookmarks & settings. To do a hard reset, type the word “reset” in the above screen after following step 1.  Warning:  There’s no turning back from this once you type the entire word in and there’s no “Are you sure?”

Credit first goes to this post: https://kurtsthoughts.com/2013/01/02/howto-softhard-reset-your-kindle-3g-w-keyboard/, then to whoever the hell originally knew this trick and shared it.

Oh well, I’m going to have a new kindle paperwhite soon, but this buddy will probably stay with me a little while more-- as long as he is able to do the job ;)

#kindlekeyboard #8yearsold #still alive #thankstotheinternet #Ithoughthewasdead

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I’m thinking nonsense again about the past

It's been a while I haven't stayed up this late, burying myself into getting things done, which would please both myself and my company. Perhaps I've been feeling good today, driven by the fact that things, eventually, start to get back on their right tracks: career opportunities pop out, performance in the French class have been decent (so far), and my dust-covered guitar suddenly lures me to get my fingers on it again. And now the code is running. At least, once in a while, life is good, eh?

Dated back to more than 6 years ago, me working till the morning was a norm for a stupid reason: everyone else was doing the same thing. A crazy 1.5 year. But on Oct 11 2012, I, with utmost deliberation, finally took my one-way flight back to Vietnam and ended that nightmare.

"For what I've done

I start again

And whatever pain may come

Today this ends

I'm forgiving what I've done

I'll face myself to cross out what I've become

Erase myself

And let go of what I've done"

This LinkinPark's lyric closely expresses my mentality at the time. That's the day I will never forget: The day a bold decision was made to change my life forever...

#night thoughts #working late #korea #flashbackmemories