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Showing posts from October, 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.

Go-Lang First Steps

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Installation Easy tutorial:  https://golang.org/doc/install Official How to:  Tutorial:  https://golang.org/doc/code.html Available also as a video: Github I have noticed that  TJ Holowaychuk  is creating a lot of projects with "go-" prefix. I thought it might be a good idea as well. The thing is you can't use such packages out of the box. Default import looks like: import "github.com/tj/go-debug" But you can't do: go- debug.debug ( "sending mail" ) In Go, last folder name and package are the same things so you cannot even write: package go- debug If it is so hard, why to do it? For me, most important thing is to easily see which projects are written in Go. You cannot use this project in the folder with the same name as the repository name. So how are others dealing with it? How to use projects on Github with "go" prefix? 1. Create a directory in the repository to be used as the namespace nam

Course Review: Learning How to Learn

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I have finished the "Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects by Dr. Barbara Oakley, Dr. Terrence Sejnowski"  and I can assure you that it is great! I really hope that everyone else watch videos from the course. My own TLDR: When you read or learn - user recall. It is super effective! Use Pomodoro to focus Use Pomodoro breaks to go to diffusive mode to make more creative connections in the brain. Exercise - it helps your neurons survive and learn. It is good to trigger diffusive mode as well. Create your own metaphors and analogies (especially visual ones) Test yourself, reading everything like a novel is not enough (at least use recall). It is ok to learn something, drop it and go back to it after some time. Next time it will be easier.  Process over Product Two biggest takeaways from the course are: Stop reading books like novels, at least use recall after each page or chapter. I was reading books without recall and

Book Review: Mastery by Robert Greene

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One idea from Creativity Inc.  was with me most of the time I was reading Mastery. Notice advices that are general and make sense the moment you hear them. There is a good chance that they are useless. I have also heard a term TBU which means True, But Useless that is connected somehow to being more critical about general ideas and advices. In my opinion, there is a reason why I was thinking about them so much while reading. Stories of master are really interesting and most of them are inspiring but advises that you get sound good but it is really hard to decide what to do with them. Book is strongly influenced by 10k hours of deliberate practice rule, but I am not so sure if it really is true. There is an interesting article that can give you more context how this 10k hours rule is just average and you can learn things faster or longer  http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2014/09/malcolm_gladwell_s_10_000_hour_rule_for_deliberate_practice_is_wrong_gen

Finished "Advanced Vocabulary" course on Memrise

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I have finished the course I started more than a year ago . I would probably finish it earlier if it would not extend from 26 to 32 levels in the meantime, and now I hope it will stay at 32 :) What is good about it is that many of the words were completely new and alien. Good thing that after learning them I started to see them in the books so my comprehension improved a lot. Of course best thing is that the pronunciation is coupled with the words so I could familiarize myself with it and hopefully even spoken communication improved. So if you want to learn some new words check it out: http://www.memrise.com/course/3093/advanced-vocabulary-2/  Or you may be interested in the new one I am starting right now:  http://www.memrise.com/course/197810/audio-advanced-vocabulary/ . This one has 4144 words so it could take me ten years to finish :) If you do not know Memrise , the idea behind it is the same as for Anki . Both of them help you with  spaced repetition . In practice, I

Learning

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Yesterday I have started a new course at Coursera. This time about learning.  Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects by Dr. Barbara Oakley, Dr. Terrence Sejnowski One of the most interesting ideas come from a short list that is in the center of reading materials:  10 Rules of Good Studying . Idea that was also one of most important one in the newsletter of Scott H. Young . What is it? Use a recall. After you read a page tell to yourself what it was about.  When I think about it I know that I used this method at school at it worked wonders. Bad thing about graduation is that I lost most of the context, deadlines and subjects to learn that were given to me. Even after I went back to learning I forgot about my most important methods. Another simple and great idea form the course is Pomodoro. This simple technique makes it super easy for me to work. Without it, I procrastinate a lot. There is always email to check, RSS, Twitter y

Book Review Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull with Amy Wallace

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Book about Pixar. Whole history of the company and Ed Catmull president of Pixar. Book is really good and it gets better after about 60% (I read it on Kindle). The Book is about creativity and sustaining creative culture in the company. One of the most interesting things for me were that an author tells a lot how creativity is filling blank pages, creating completely new things while his most creative people DO NOT use this model. Most of them have the idea of discovery something that was waiting for them. Even author reminds himself that what works is more important than what he thinks but still he really struggles with this idea. Really inspiring part of the book cover culture of Pixar and of Disney Animation. It was great to read about culture of motivated and happy people of Pixar. In my opinion, this book is a must read for all managers of all levels. Culture of a company is not something that you can create and forget about, you have to think about it all the time. For me,

Book Review: The Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson

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Really nice a short for a Sanderson book in the universe of Mistborn series after 300 years. Plot was interesting and I liked the characters. In comparison to other Sanderson books I did not though all the time how those characters were stupid as was often the case in other books. Rating: 8/10

Finished Duolingo English Course

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Today I have finished learning last level of Duolingo English Course for Polish speakers. Of course I cannot not just leave it. We all forget pretty fast so I am going to refresh it every day as I used to learn it every day. As I stated previously Duolingo is best for for learning grammar and use of whole sentences. I highly recommend using it. I do not really know how exercises 'translating articles' work in Duolingo but right now I want to focus more on learning more words on Memrise. I have a couple of courses that I am trying to learn for nearly a year.

September Updates - Mindmap

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Finished: Remote NoSQL Distilled Praktyczna Improwizacja Mistborn The Well of Ascension The Hero of Ages Corporation Reading Club , September 10 Failed: I planned vacation with my wife. It did not happen unfortunately. Plans for October: Creativity, Inc. : Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull, Amy Wallace Game Programming Patterns by Bob Nystrom Refresh Healthy Programmer Buy Mac Buy device (to read programming books) eg. iPadMini. (this probably has to wait for another month) Progress: Memrise - 24/32 levels (last month it had 26 levels) Duolingo - almost finished Guitar - I bought new acoustic guitar and hope to start proper lessons this Saturday. iOS Programming - 12/29 chapters (I hope to buy Mac this month to speed it up) Swimming - once a week (right now it is on hold due to back ache) Events: ReadingClub - October