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January 18, 2021 8:11 PM

Highlights of my vacation

Well, more like highlights of my time-at-home-with-family

• Playing Merv with my cousins after spending an hour reading the instructions and another half hour explaining the rules to them
• Gambling my money on "Fish Prawn Crab" with family and seeing my grandpa laugh
• Getting sucked into watching Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist
• Teaching my cousin how to solve a Rubik's Cube, and seeing her make a story to help her solve the second layer
• Listening to my co-workers talk enthusiastically about 3D printing
• Making a meal for my dad
• Having arguments with my mom and aunt that turn into heart-to-hearts

January 17, 2021 9:26 AM

How to not work so much

This past week at work, I felt like I was running around like crazy. And I mean literally running. I've been working at my aunt's house, so I don't really have a designated working area. Sometimes I have a meeting where I need it to be a little more quiet, and I don't realize it until a minute before the meeting starts and I'm like "Shit!" and I run from room to room just to make sure I'm set up correctly.

So, it was Friday afternoon, probably around 5:30pm, when my friend pings me:

friend: you work too much

me: i know i do

This is not the first time she has told me I work too much. I tell her the same thing all the time. But it hit differently this time. I always have a reason for why work is so busy. But you know what? Work is not going to get any less busy. I told myself I would work less this year. It was even in my end-of-year performance review that I'm always swamped and have too much on my plate. But with the way things are going, I don't see 2021 going any differently than 2020.

I told my mom this. Her reaction? "You like work! Nothing wrong with that! That's just life!" Okay, not helpful mother. But then again, my mother also works a lot. My father works a lot. I am both my mother's and father's daughter. And so is my sister, and we're all a bunch of sleep deprived workaholics. I honestly don't know how to work less. Yeah, I could take vacation, but that only helps when I'm on vacation. I get back to work and I go from 0 to 100 almost immediately. I need to achieve work/life balance again.

So, I needed real, practical advice. I asked friends and other family, and this is what I got:

• Have a hard cutoff time at the end of the day.
• Plan to do things outside of work.
• Keep a checklist of things you need to do.
• Delegate.
• Find a way to take your mind off work. Take more walks.

Okay. A lot of this was easier before the pandemic. But it's still going to be a socially distant 2021, so I gotta make this work with the pandemic.

January 6, 2021 9:12 PM

Rubik's Cube

A few weeks ago, one of my coworkers told me he learned to solve a Rubik's Cube. I learned how to solve one in middle school, but I was never able to get really fast. One day, after I was kind of exhausted from work, I decided to pick mine up again to see if I remembered how to solve it.

I think it's like riding a bike.

              .-'`'-.                                  .-'`'-.
        .-'``'-., ,.-'``'-.                      .-'``'-., ,.-'``'-.
   .-' `'-., .-'` `'-., .-'``'-.            .-' `'-., .-'` `'-., .-'``'-.
  ("=. ,.-'``'-., ,.-'``'-. ,.=")          ("=. ,.-'``'-., ,.-'``'-. ,.=")
  |    |"=., .-'` `'-., .="|    |          |    |"=., .-'` `'-., .="|    |
  |    |    |`"=.,.="`|    |    |          |    |    |`"=.,.="`|    |    |
  |`-.,|    |    #    |    |,.-'|      .   |`-.,|    |    #    |    |,.-'|
  |    |`-.,|    #    |,.-'|    | -----|`. |    |`-.,|    #    |,.-'|    |
  |    |    |`-.,#,.-'|    |    | -----|,' |    |    |`-.,#,.-'|    |    |
  |`-.,|    |    #    |    |,.-'|      "   |`-.,|    |    #    |    |,.-'|
  |    |`-.,|    #    |,.-'|    |          |    |`-.,|    #    |,.-'|    |
  (    |    |`-.,#,.-'|    |    )          (    |    |`-.,#,.-'|    |    )
   '-. |    |    #    |    | .-'            '-. |    |    #    |    | .-' 
       `'-.,|    #    |,.-'`                    `'-.,|    #    |,.-'`
             `'-.#.-'`                                `'-.#.-'`

          Was this tedious to color? Absolutely. But it was
          a little better since I used my colorizer tool.

So, I suddenly decided on a new goal for the holidays. I would try to get a lot faster at solving the Rubik's cube. The method that I already knew is a layer by layer method that goes like this:

1. Make a green cross
2. Solve the first two layers
3. Make a blue cross (2 possible algorithms, possibly performed twice)
4. Orient the blue corners (1 algorithm, possibly performed twice)
5. Get all blue on the top (2 algorithms, possibly performed twice)
6. Fix the top edges (1 algorithm, possibly performed twice)

This beginner method works in a way such that you don't have to memorize too many algorithms. Some algorithms need to be performed multiple times to make this work, but it's easy to learn. I was able to solve the cube in just under 2 minutes this way. There are a lot of websites out there that teach this (though most go white -> yellow instead of green -> blue).

So, how was I going to get faster? Learn more algorithms and take less steps. When I was younger I wanted to learn the Fridrich method, but it was way too much for my 11 year old brain to handle. I would have to learn 53 algorithms. That still sounds like too much for my 28 year old brain to handle. But, I started with the most common algorithms and slowly started adding more to my brain.

I first had to go and learn all 13 last layer permutations. Except it's more than that because some of these you might have to perform backwards or flipped. There were actually 19 permutations that I needed to learn. But I just started with the most common ones and slowly added more to my memory. I also realized that this was a really good use for utilizing Anki flashcards. Once I got this down, I was able to completely remove step 4.

I also wanted to change step 5 from "possibly 2 actions" to "only ever 1 action". It was actually pretty common for this to require 2 separate actions. When I get to this step, I definitely have the blue cross. Looking at all the orientations, there were only 5 other patterns that have a cross on top. I don't know if it was because I had flexed my memory muscles with 19 algorithms already or because the orientation algorithms were just simpler, but adding 5 more patterns to my memory bank was actually really easy.

So at this point, I've shaved my Rubik's cube time down to about a minute. I think I've learned enough patterns to satisfy myself, and I'm just practicing it every day and logging my times in a spreadsheet to see if I can get faster.

January 6, 2021 12:02 AM

A colorful side project

So, I was in the middle of writing a blog entry. And then I started making some ascii art. And then I started coloring that ascii art. And then I thought "Wow, this is annoying", so I started making a tool for myself. More to come on that later.

December 30, 2020 11:34 AM

Roald Dahl

As a kid, my favorite author was Roald Dahl. I was just really into his weird, kinda gruesome sense of humor. I had mentioned in a previous post that I wanted to read more, and I decided that [re-]reading all of his books would be on my lifetime TODO list.

I'm also trying to read them in the same order he wrote them. The first book he wrote is called The Gremlins. Apparently he wrote this in partnership with Disney to make a movie, but the movie never actually got made. It was alright. It certainly read like a Disney movie.

The next book I read is a collection of short stories in Someone Like You. I don't think I'm really a huge fan of short stories. Some were kind of interesting, some kind of dragged.

Overall, not that exciting yet. I'll start getting into his bigger hits next.