Kim Kardashians butt and other stuff

This is mostly about other stuff and not about Kim Kardashian's butt.

I've had about 7 days off from exercise due to my coming down with a cold. I loathe it when this happens but its actually quite good to take a break from something you do so often. I think psychologically as much as physically. This has meant that I've pulled back from the gym in the mornings and missed my long run on Wednesday.  I always wonder if there was something I could have done to prevent getting sick - could I have not been eating correctly, or was it that I didn't wash my hands enough or am I not sleeping enough? Can you really prevent being ill?

This does coincide with it starting to become colder and I think there is a theory that this helps in getting ill. I've not really thought about why but there you are.

I'm also thinking that when I go back to training, that I'll switch my training program.

I'll switch from what has mainly been a heavily resistance-orientated program to a more well-rounded program. This means that I'll be focusing on a balanced set of training exercises that improve the various areas in fitness, not just strength. So this will include Flexibility, Endurance, Skill, Stamina, Strength, Speed and Power etc. My usual routine is normally doesn't include power moves, agility and speed and it's these that I'll focus on. Currently, I do 3 days of 1.5 hours of resistance exercise and 20 minutes of running and on a Saturday I do around 2h of resistance training. Usually what I do is after my main training session, is to go for a 20-minute run which sort of helps me with my endurance(and helps me get home!)

The other things that have been on my mind are finishing my next assignments for Software Engineering and Continuing Professional Development,(CPD)  both of which have deadlines in December. I've effectively had to rewrite my one assignment which was a bit of pain. The reason was that as part of the CPD I have to study a theory of learning an apply it to past CPD activities I'd done. As it turns out, I wanted to reflect on my past software development activities and projects and work etc as I thought this would be a great way to assess what I've done. Turns out, that I had far too much stuff to reflect on and the Tutor was uncomfortable accepting so much work.

So I did a whole bunch of writing for nothing in this respect. In another respect, I actually enjoyed doing it but that meant that I had to do it again but this time on a much more narrower form of CPD - My degree. That being said, I was able to reference some of the other personal projects I did so all was not lost.

I've found some time to study Understanding how the Linq query syntax works because there is a difference in understanding how it works and just using it because it works. I also found an interesting use of an extension method on a nullable type which I describe in Nullable checking in the Wild-West which was interesting. And I've also been working on my Game Engine ideas with regards to Direct X programming.

I'm also looking potentially at rewriting my C library because I don't use it anymore which is mostly because I don't write as much C and C++ as I used to and because I don't like some of the ways I implemented it. For example, I don't need the threading layer now because C11 now includes a cross-platform implementation of threading. And I also don't like my naming conventions and I'd like to add more data structures like black-red trees which is heavily used in the Linux kernel. I also started thinking maybe I should write it in C++ which lead me to write about C++ in Complex or Elaborate

I've not been able to be as productive in my programming side-projects as I'd otherwise like to these days because of the studies, training and work but I'm getting there. I drew up some pictures of some of the concepts I'm grappling within Direct X mostly to do with the idea of defining vertex data, writing that to vertex buffers and having those buffers sent through the 3D graphics pipeline to have them interpreted by vertex and pixel shaders. Pretty interesting stuff but without pictures, my mind usually goes to sleep.

I ordered a 9-cell battery for my laptop because I find that a 1-hour session on the train in the morning to work and back tends to deplete me and my battery by about between Rayners lane and Ruislip. I got it on Friday night and plugged it in and my laptop almost fainted with its new-found power(it couldn't believe it!). I'm just wondering now if I can taking something that will revitalise me at around Rayners Lane too... Anyway, its now got a big, fat bum, (a bit like Kim Kardashian's butt) see here if you like (a picture of the battery, that is)

I also ordered a new SSD drive for my ageing tablet, which I think is so old that the SSD started to fail. After spending like 4 hours figuring out how to get into the guts of my tablet, I was able to see that the SSD was one of these mini-chip-like peripherals about the size of a watch face. I inherited this tablet from a colleague who got it for free by attending a Microsoft Build event - I used it at the time to research Metro and Windows 8 Algorithms for App-DNA back in the day. It's a bit old now but seeing that I can quite happily work on any machine with an SSH connection, it's just absolutely fine. 

So, I took down the serial and looked it up on eBay and found a supplier for a 128Gb card for around 30 pounds. This I thought was reasonable and it that would be double the space I had...bonus! Turns out, it works great, fitted it and installed Ubuntu 14. Not bad, so now I'm getting some good use out of it on my desk at home.

These two are the only computer's I own - the laptop and the tablet. Though, I do have a Rasberry Pi too, which now that I think about would be a perfect project to write a game for. It's a restricted environment so I'd have to use C++ and be careful with my memory and loops. Cool!

In other news, I watched Deadpool, Office Space, Idiocracy and I'm busy reliving my childhood and watching MacGyver which is pretty awesome. I used to watch that every Friday night at 7 pm when I was a kid. Someone at work brought in season 5 DVD for me to watch which I thought was very good of him. I didn't think much of Idiocracy however it was perspective-inducing I guess. Office space was quite enjoyable and Deadpool was OK. 

I've finished playing Fable II and this has been quite a bit of fun, but finding the time do anything apart from studying and work has been difficult which I guess is why doing them is so satisfying. I'll probably move so play Metro: Last light or Dantes Inferno, however, I think its unlikely that I'll have another good attempt until I've finished my assignments..or now that I come to think about it, take some time off.

I watched the new Wreck-it Ralph at the cinema last weekend and I enjoyed it - quite like the first one. It's nice to see how my early childhood fascination with technology is now becoming mainstream as shown in this movie: Its how Ralph breaks the internet and it's cool to see topics like YouTube, Amazon, Instagram, eBay are now embraced in everyday life. This is my life, these are my friends!

Also what I really need to do is find a way to use my Perl knowledge because I've not found a good use for it of late not ever since I finished reading the Camel book earlier this year.

I've also been studying more interesting math facts recently about how to interpret really large numbers like 3212345678998765. Which, is equal to 3 Quadrillion 212 Trillion, 345 Billion, 678 Million, 9998, 765 ! But why?

Legend for the table below:

TH = Thousands, H = Hundreds, T = Tens, U = Units

So it becomes obvious how, where and why occurrences of TH x TH x TH ...n form the named numbers Quadrillion, Trillion, Billion, Million appear in the decimal system and its the iteration of 1000x1000 ⁿ.where n is Bi, Tr, Quad etc... Pretty interesting.

The key that is missing for many students is how Bi(2) meaning 2, Tri(3) meaning 3 , Quad(4) meaning 4, relate to the number it represents.  For example, if you are told that a Quintillion(6) is 10¹⁸ , which you often are, this's not obvious that this is because of 1000x1000⁶ which is 10¹⁸!! I think its a failure of teaching, in general, to explain why certain things are certain things - like this video demonstrates which awesomely demonstrate this failure of teaching: A negative x negative = positive.

The decimal system, in general, is a brilliant system and its all credit to the Indians! Here is something I drew up which puts this system into perspective.

That's pretty much most of what I've been up to recently. Now back to essays and word counts...