So I've had a few interesting, perhaps notable things occur. 

Firstly I've taken about 2 weeks off the gym and only today have I gone for my usual Wednesday long run, which was fairly arduous due to the break of activity.

On the run,

I ran past this one runner who was casually running at his own slowish pace and after a while, I noticed him in my peripheral vision gaining on me. It was interesting.

I thought that perhaps he'd just seen me, felt that I was a good target to aim for and tried to keep up with me. He did. It was amusing because at one point I thought I'd just test him a little... I ran a bit faster.., then a little bit faster and I would see how he might cope - He coped remarkably well. At this point, I was running at about 4min pace which for me is pretty fast and he kept up with me the whole time. I then decided to veer off course behind a car park and then planned to come back into the main route part way through to see if he'd slowed down perhaps thinking that I'd left.

I rejoined his route about 2 or 3 minutes after losing him, only to join up with neatly behind with him as I wedged myself in behind him and I tailed him. This was a bit of a role reversal and at this point, I was fairly sure that he hadn't got a surprise or an inspired 2nd wind when I passed him earlier and that he was quite a challenge!

I let him notice that he was now setting the pace, he was in control and he was the one that needed to shake me off. This continued to my surprise for a lot longer than I thought, we ran a long way at about 4 minute pace and it wasn't until about 2/3 of my way back that he signalled that he's going to stop and climb some stairs, while I just thundered on through - hoping that I'd see him on the other side (he went up over the bridge and I went under it) but he was nowhere to be seen after that.

Half of me thinks he ran out of steam (in which case I'd won!) and the other half thinks that he merely had to detour as his route was different from mine (and that I'd met my match!). Either way, I ran a lot faster than I'd planned to on my first run in 2 weeks! 

It turned out that I ran 4:28 average pace for the 12km route that I do and I got 4 PRs - which is much better than my last runs which were quite casual, in at around 4:30-5 minute pace. I really really enjoyed that, though it perhaps wasn't the smartest thing to do on the first day back.

The reason why I've let my routine slip prior to this is twofold: I started developing a pimple inside my nose(haha!) and for me, this is the early indicator that my immune system is not on par. It also, as it happens, coincided with me having to work almost every spare moment I could in the previous 2 weekends on my coursework. The course work is quite rough at the moment and I've spent a lot of energy on it. In fact, it's been bothering me and as such, I've rather studied and prepared for my assignments in these past two weeks than go running or to the gym.

Interestingly enough, when this would otherwise be unbearable for me to do - I quite like exercising and running - I felt quite good about pouring my time and effort into something of almost of equal importance to me - my studies. This has helped me get over not sticking to my exercise regime and it has also afforded me great opportunity to make good progress in my upcoming assignments(hopefully).

This is a good compromise but I'll not do this again in this way. Basically, I left things too late and as a consequence, I've had to lose that balance between health and education and work which is so important to me.

Prior to this frenzy of work, a week back I came up with  A strategy for systematic thinking in light of some feedback I got from my tutors recently which I wrote about in Zero point four - perhaps this is what inspired me to pull up my socks in that department of late! 

To add to this, I've been fighting with some code at work which is like a self-modifying book, that morphs while I'm busy trying to read it. Along with this is the fact that I managed to miss-book my upcoming planned holiday by 2 months on non-refundable flights! So much for planning. So things just seem to be happening all at the same time. So I'll be having to write another assignment while I'm on holiday...that wasn't in the plans. Anyway, thankfully the ill-effects of this mishap aren't dire(other than my embarrassment in making the mistake - lesson learnt!). I still need to make some alternative arrangements around transport and accommodation(which I reminds me...).

So being ill actually helped - I skipped exercise for studying and in hindsight, it worked out because I'm feeling a lot better due to the physical rest and well, I've exercised myself mentally so perhaps a fair trade.

I also managed to set up my investment management app to use Postgres SQL to back the entity framework database layer on my machine at work(we use Postgres while I'm traditionally used o MS SQL) which was incredibly simple and rewarding. Oh yes, I remember how - I was running tests at the time and needed a distraction! I also managed to fix up my relationship node graph with the right configuration of elasticity and charge between the related nodes and it looks pretty cool now. I also made the graph a bit bigger so you can see more of the relationships between the entities in the graph. I'll show a picture of this later perhaps.

When I was writing Python scripts to upload data to our API at work I came across tqdm in Touring with Python(which is something we use routinely now in our scripts) to simulate a progress bar during long-running operations. I found a .net equivalent and was hoping to use it but as I have already mentioned, time seems to be evaporating from my grasp these last few weeks. Its something I'll look into next, however - its called ShellProgressBar. 

A few weeks back I started writing a mini 4 part series of articles about how I feel about functional programming. I started with my interpretation, my attitude and how I was introduced to the concepts - which I must say wasn't very elegant, to say the least - Not that these articles are elegant in themselves but rather form a bit of self-reflection on the whole situation culminating in Bind behind the scenes

 I don't know...Its all been a little bit hazy to be quite honest these past few weeks, I'm not quite sure what to make of it - I've also been quite drawn-in and detached from the world somewhat. 

Still, a little bit hazy really.

I've had to re-evaluate how I deliver my papers to my tutor due to the feedback I've received recently.

Particularly that my writing is not structured and analytical enough. Taking these points on board (and the penalty in my last submissions) I've put some ideas that are leaning toward a model for academic thinking.

Here are some general ideas:

• We want to be in the process of the discovery of essence.
  • To find the real problem, which is hidden behind concrete solutions and already chosen and discriminated implementations.
• Need to establish/generate abstractions, which are ideas that represent the essence that underlies something.
  • This is devoid of implementation details, technology or anything that can become outdated.
• Use a work context diagram to understand the WORK now.
• Consider the whole end-to-end process that something makes up
  • Its likely that it lives within a category (which is an abstraction)
  • Consider the effect something has on other parts or components in the process.
  • Consider the wider scope of any particular thing, put it into context within the process it lives around. Step back and consider why the component/detail exists as this might release the shackles that constrain the properties of the current components.
• Identify solutions or decisions already made.
  • Solutions contain implementation details
  • These identify the acceptance of assumptions or choices of ideas and disregard others.
    • You can reverse engineer a solution into its essence by removing its detail, stepping back and looking at it systemically.
• Generalizations and ideas that are not constraint to a particular constraint last/live forever.
• The idea is to start off with a blank canvas and then add abstractions the cover the spectrum/ecosystem of subject to establish an objective, clean and transparent representation of the subject under discussion or analysis.

Good ideas 

1. Produce a model as structure + strategy to guide your thinking and reasoning
2. Objective measurement criteria represent an easy way to determine the "value
3. Value of something can be broken down into 3 parts
   1. The reward for achieving
   2. The penalty for not achieving
   3. Cost of implementing
4. Convenience, pleasure and prestige drive people in wanting things.
5. If you’re looking to innovate, identify and remove constraints

My preliminary strategy for establishing a structured piece of academic writing currently is:

1. The idea is to start off with a blank canvas and then add abstractions the cover the spectrum/ecosystem of subject to establish an objective, clean and transparent representation of the subject under discussion or analysis.
2. Set the objective or purpose or claim of the writing
3. Set the intended strategy/means how I'd like to model the claim or delivery thereof
   1. Develop a model
4. Set the context, background briefly but accurately
5. Decompose the strategy into higher-level themes that serve as container ideas or headings
   1. When deconstructing, consider the whole spectrum in which ideas fall
   2. Order by the determined value (Importance)
      1. Determine how to determine what is more valuable than something else - this might be a calculation or a constraint imposed upon you by the request for this writing
      2. This can be used to help balance points potentially - to ensure objective measurement
6.  Layout the delivery of ideas within the themes determined previously
7. Reason systematically about ideas, connecting ideas with evidence
   1. Merrit and usefulness of idea/abstraction (why is it worth considering?)
   2. Use Evidence to back ideas, logic etc
   3. Draw conclusions based on previously established content(which is already backed by evidence)
      1. Use only content already backed by evidence and logic to derive other content/reasons/ideas

 A preliminary strategy for analysing already written matter:

1. Remember that content is within an ecosystem or spectrum of abstractions - determine it completely.
2. Establish what are the main ideas of the content and into which component/abstraction/idea in the full spectrum does it fit
3. Look for solutions as they have made choices to formulate the solution that disregards other choices.
4. Piece together a context diagram that identifies the context/work from its adjacent components, identifying events.
   1. Consider the influence components have within the context diagram

 In Summary:

Start With a blank canvas and aim to fill it up with the objective representation of the subject under discussion.

Establish the full spectrum/ecosystem that represents the subject.

Establish the components of the spectrum - Work Context Diagram

Establish a model to represent your delivery.

Establish what value is to the article and order by it.

Make it easier for your reader to follow.

Reason upon interplay and merit of evidence-backed generalisations.

I didn’t want to get up to go to the gym on Saturday morning - I’m not exactly sure why but I was unusually tired. I did go to the gym later that morning after I woke up more easily. I did my usual back and bicep training and felt quite strong on the pull-up bar.

Had to adjust my routine somewhat because there was a couple working out together who used the Smith machine for most of their workout. I’m surprised they weren’t taking selfies of each other or snapchatting. It’s the January crowd – I guess they should be gone within a couple of weeks.

There are far too many people in the gym that late in the morning on a Saturday. I’ll try not to repeat.  I’ve picked up some weight and my runs are a little slower but that’s to be expected however I’m doing pretty good otherwise. My midweek run was quite enjoyable because I just took it easy and enjoyed the process. Sometimes I can force myself to run a certain way and then the whole run is just about that. This time it was just about a comfortable momentum – but decent sub 5 min/km pace where otherwise I’d be aiming for 4’30 pace.

I’m still reading more about software engineering and professional development learning theories as part of my coursework. There is a lot of stuff there and sometimes It seems like is the only thing I’m ever doing. Sometimes it’s, well, just stuff that I’ve got to write about and I wish it was less theoretical. What I like about ‘theory’ is not what most other’s like about theory: Report writing, simulating being a project manager etc…

My tutor thinks I’m dyslexic because the presentation of my recent assignment was so mixed up, she said that she had to check the university system to see if I was officially registered as Dyslexic. I’m not, but perhaps my motivation in the last assignment made me a bit sloppy, I don’t know. I passed by the skin of my teeth. I also passed my other assignment but again, it could have been a lot better.

I’ve put it aside in last week because my interest has waned somewhat and instead, I spent the train journeys writing extensions to my investing application. I’ve added a few noticeable improvements.

For one, I’ve successfully implemented a framework to handle two classes of errors – JavaScript (like ‘function is not defined’) and server errors – like 404 and 500s. This feature, or lack thereof, while not critical has been annoying me for a while, I’ve just endured with not having it. The upshot of this work is that I don’t have to inspect the JavaScript console to find a logged error message – it goes to is very own error page – very nice. Also, errors could be missed in the console if they weren’t causing any noticeable issues in the program. It’s useful to now see your errors explicitly. Anyway, this basically entailed implementing and ErrorHandler class in Angular.

The other thing I’ve implemented is the ability to define the datatype of a custom entity, this is with the view that later on when defining a new or interpreting an existing custom entity, I’ll be able to determine if it’s a number, a string, a list etc. This makes it easier I think down the line when I want to write analysis queries that interrogate an investment’s custom entity. That query/analysis feature, however, is still currently in the clouds of my mind, forming and desperately trying to be defined.

I’ve also implemented a notification service whereby I can issue notifications throughout the applications and they then all manifest the same way – as a popup at the top of the applications that disappears after a set time-out or is acknowledged with a tap. That’s a pretty cool I think anyway.

I also finally figured out how to populate a drop-down list from enum values in angular (surprisingly not easy) as well as implement paging for some of the data views that are getting a bit too long. 

I’ve also implemented a ‘switch views’ in the investment details page that alternates viewing all the investment’s details in either a compact view (with tabs) or a ‘by headings’ view.

I have realised that my CSS is not as good as it could be and this is something, I’ll invest some time in the future. For now, bootstrap is covering my ass big time

I went to the doc the other day and got a referral to see an ENT specialist, which I’ll probably do. Apparently, I have asymmetric hearing and a difference of 40db around the 4kh frequencies range in the right ear.

I’ve written some theory about my experiences learning functional programming in C# using Language Ext specifically from a point of view of never really needing it and being asked to use it. I worked on it mostly on Friday at work. A lot of my readings and experiences about it have been from this perspective. Kinda like trying to figure out not the merits of it, but how they actually translate into actual C# and into my thought processes as a developer.

I watched Blade Runner again today.