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Showing posts from May, 2014

New blog domain: kula.blog

It's still work in progress but new posts will be published on  https://kula.blog/ Thanks to 11ty base blog RSS is working from the start so it should be easy to add to your reader if you still use any :) If now then I hope you can sign up to the newsletter where I'll be publishing new posts and interesting articles to it from time to time. Please use  kula.blog  from now on.

Book Review: The First 20 Hours by Josh Kaufman

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Pretty short and fun book about short skill acquisition. I recommend reading it as it's really short book and first part is really about method and rest are examples of using it so you can read only the ones you are interested in. Reminder for me: "Ten Principles" Research the skill and related topics. Jump in over your head. Identify mental models and mental hooks. Imagine the opposite of what you want. Talk to practitioners to set expectations. Eliminate distractions in your environment.  Use spaced repetition and reinforcement for memorization.  Create scaffolds and checklists. Make and test predictions. Honor your biology. I really like the idea of choosing one project for a month and learning new skill in the process. This is something I haven't tried and as an experiment I really want to finish most of my pending tasks and try it. Rating: 8/10  (but remember to not read it from cover to cover :)

Book Review: The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson

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If you prefer original cover: This is huge book. My edition have 1k pages and rather small font. Still I've managed to read over 3 days. That's ridiculous.  For sure it's one of best fantasy books. No wonder it have so high ratings. Things I like: story from the perspective of many people. Fantasy world that is rich, old and unlike every other fantasy. If you like good fantasy this books is surely for you :) Some stories are more gripping than others, it was especially annoying when I was really into "Kaladin" chapters ;) Rating: 9/10

Book Review: The Rise of Endymion by Dan Simmons

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It's final novel from Hyperion Cantos . For me it was really good. Especially the ending. I may be biased but I really like all books that have at least a bit of time travels and conflicts issues related to that. In "The Rise of Endymion" there is not much of that but there is something. As in all preceding novels it has a lot of philosophy and poetry. It may sound daunting. I'm not really fun on poetry but in base of "Hyperion Cantos" it really fits the story and style of writing. I would say it's hard sci-fi. You can read more about empathy, origin of artificial intelligence and so much more. If you liked previous books then just go read it. If now start with  Hyperion . Rating: 8/10

Securing Node.js Applications

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Really good presentation about security in Node.js and Express.js applications. What defaults you should change. Which tools from express.js to use. Really good stuff:  https://speakerdeck.com/ckarande/top-overlooked-security-threats-to-node-dot-js-web-applications

Book Review: Search Inside Yourself by Chade-Meng Tan

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I have read it because it was recommended to me as a way to raise emotional intelligence. You know, that thing that is more important that 'standard' intelligence measured by IQ tests. First I will admit that I haven't done all of exercises in the book. I barely started (and hope to have something similar at work as they had at google). But this book was insightful. Most important thing for me was learning about mindfulness and meta-attention. Of course it helps that all of this is backed by science ;). Meta-attention is being aware when your attention wanders off. Think about how useful it can be. You are trying to do some work but get curried away by facebook/email notification. Best thing is that it can be trained with only 2 minutes a day. The only thing you do is you try to focus on your breath. When your mind wanders it's not failure. It's most important part of exercise. You train bringing your attention back to breath. There is great metaphor for that...