Begin Again.

Time to begin again.

Here is a pass or fail goal. It is difficult enough that I may well fail. But it is this: write a tune-scrolling game using pygames this week. It needs to display a tune and scroll it across the screen. You have to keep up with it by pressing the names of the notes as they go by. It will speed up as time goes by.

SongPiper is important. Even if only for learning. We can learn to build and sell products. We can learn to work together effectively. We can learn to build a company. This is a great time because we all have the income we need from other sources and yet we are all young and ready to do and to learn. This endeavor can only open up opportunities for the future.

All the advice I've read says to make a simple product and release it soon. That way you get feedback before you elaborate on a useless concept. That makes sense. But I haven't really liked releasing something that I'm not too proud of. What good is feedback when what you release is imperfect in many obvious ways?

I do want metrics. I want immediate feedback on what I'm doing. I want to make this thing into a game with points so that I can know if I'm doing a good job. But there are no points. I have to figure out what it means to do a good job . . .

Goodnight.

I made a New-Years Resolution when I was 16 to start writing in my journal once a week. I wrote that resolution among others in my journal. That was January 2nd of 1993. The next entry was January 18th of 1993. I decided that once a day would be easier to remember than once a week. So I've kept nearly a nightly journal since then.

Anyway, I've now accumulated quite a bit on the history of one young man. I think that I write mostly for the benefits that come from the process of writing. But I also value the results. I've been trying to figure out how to preserve them. I want to gather them from the various booklets and hard-drives and bind them together. I checked out self-publishing options on the web and found a pretty neat (and well-publicised) company called Lulu.com. I may use them to do the honors.

As you may remember SongPiper is currently on hold from my end. Ryan's end too. I think Denis may be toying with the code a bit. I am optimistic, however. If we can get through the necessary paperwork I will move from full-time to part-time at LANL. That should reduce the time crunch a bit.

Slow Progress, Great Life

I am now hired full-time at Los Alamos. I love it. I love the environment, the people, and the projects that I get to work on. But it means a full 40 hours a week. And if I'm working on-sight (which most days is not the case) I'm doing a commute of almost 2 hours (each way). And there is a quantum optics course that seems to be taking a fair amount of time each week (15-20 hours!).

Anyway, between all of those things and normal home responsibilities I have been struggling to keep it all together. My one-hour-a-day may have to be put aside for a bit.

I see a future where I am taking no classes and where we live by the lab, eliminating the commute. Can you imagine being able to treat graduate school like a flexible 40 hr/week job? That may be what I'll be doing soon. So the hour-a-day can come back soon with a vengeance.

Regardless, life right now is awesome. I love this chance to enter into the world of information physics and quantum optics. I love working on real projects and figuring out what is going on.

Have a great week,

Doug

Pippen and Merry

What do you want out of life? What do I want out of life? Sometimes I just want to be able to settle down in a comfortable home with green grass, raise happy kids, and read as many books as I want.

Another part of me really wants to be questing. That part wants to preserve and even improve on our world through some kind of heroic activity.

Maybe Tolkien expressed the two desires as well as anyone with his portrayal of the Shire on the one hand and the lives of the hobbits who left on the other hand. I want the life of the Shire. In one way the life of the Shire is the point. It also seems to miss part of the point: can I live a life to myself if there is a way to make the world at large a better place? And what of Pippen and Merry? They grew in a way that those who stayed at home never would.