A personal wiki

A while ago I read in many places that you should write down what you learn, and that the best way to do it is by having a personal wiki.

So I started doing that, but at the time the options I had were:

• Install a local server and then use MediaWiki or something similar
• Install a standalone application that worked as a wiki
• Use a public service to create a personal wiki

But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get use to it, I worked most of the time offline, and I didn't like to be doing configurations over and over (since I still use a variety of OSes).

But during the last year I've been working on personal projects with Fossil SCM, which is a great-scm created by the mind behind SQLite, the great Dr. Richard Hipp, you should listen to his talks, he's quite something.

And with this standalone SCM that comes with an embedded wiki, I started creating content, of everything I had in mind:

• Vim shortcuts
• Daily logs
• Small shell tweaks
• Docker commands

snapshot

And I'm having fun, this is great, the full-scm is a single binary, I don't need an environment, and is all versioned. I can rewind some things I did and restore old things. It's immensely useful for writing, fun for reading, and really concise.

If you are thinking on starting a personal wiki, I would strongly suggest you to consider Fossil-SCM, you won't regret it.

This is where I work

Disclaimer: Draft from a long time ago.

Back in December of 2009 I was preparing my thesis work for my graduation, and somehow a very funny guy called me saying that we have talked a while ago about a job offer in a software development company.

At the beginning I was thrilled, I hadn't worked in a professional way by that moment, I couldn't talk nor understand English properly and I was very insecure about my skills against the European standards.

But then I found out something, these guys were really interested in personal values above all, they might need skillful people, but it wasn't (and I dare to say it still isn't) the most important thing.

We were a very small group, now a little bit larger, doing things I found challenging. There are several goals I have set for me in this workplace, I like working there, I enjoy the work I'm doing and the people whom I working with.

Perhaps you want to take a look at the website to know the company a little bit ;-)

About the joy of reading, and getting older

During the last few years I've started reading many books in all areas I'm interested on. Not only technology related, but also drama, history, and even comics.

Reading was not pleasant for me for a while. I tried and tried during my teenage to be interested in books, because my brothers were avid readers, but I couldn't. I couldn't share their taste or interest for books, not even the intensity they have for them.

But after a while I began to try something different, reading at my own pace, try to not compete with them. This is not a race, it doesn't matter how many books you read and how fast you do it, reading is reading, the more value you get out of them the better for you it is.

I don't appreciate people having a huge cabinet full of books in his main room, we know, you are a reader, don't be so arrogant. I believe that an author's goal is to be read and understood, many times the message will be misinterpreted and even changed, but that depends on the reader.

Reading is now a pleasure for me, I read slowly, very slowly. Sometimes I had to go back and read again because of my messed up memory, but is worth it. The message gets stuck in my head forever, wrong or right, doesn't matter, the message is there, and because I took so much time to read it I do care about understanding what I read.

Now that I aged a little bit, it's hard to know what to read, there are some many things, so many ideas and stories, so many, so little time. A stupid problem when living in a society that needs more work than ever, but a problem after all.

I'm trying to read and read, to understand and do it with things that I think are interesting, not reading because a boss requires it, not reading because everybody's reading it. Read because you care about, if not, go watch a movie, there are multiple forms of storytelling right now, you don't have to be limited to a media. Go listen to some podcasts, watch some movies, listen to the radio, talk with people, listen to them, learn... that's the real joy :)

My father was a professional - part 2

Sequel from My father was a professional - part 1

Things I'm ashamed I didn't learned from him

Even though I knew my father was really skillful in almost any kind of job, I learned very few things from his craftsmanship. He was a great mechanic, but I didn't learn anything related to cars from him (I'm still very ignorant in that subject). He was a great electrician, I learned some stuff of that from him, but I dare to say ...not enough.

Besides the technical skills I could have gotten during my childhood there were other things he did that I just realized were really productive and he did them without having read anything, he just realized it by himself:

• Pomodoro, my father worked in that style during his entire life, measuring everything while working on it.
• Design by Components, I'm making an analogy here with the technique used to design components, but he did it. I now see it clearly when he was working in several iron-related jobs, while he worked with other people he always knew what to expect from them and viceversa.
• Agile, indeed he was agile, he adapted and progressed as soon as changes came, and they were quite a lot during his working hours.

I could list many more but mainly those are the things I can recognize now (a part 3 opening?). There are lots of things my father did write and did wrong, many things that have taught me not to concentrate too much in some things and leave others behind.

Even though my father was a great technician, he wasn't the best salesman. He built wonderful structures and products, but sadly that's not the only thing you need to sell a product. He failed in that for many years and when he finally realized how things should have been done, he ran out of time. 

Sadly for him his work depended on his body, his eyes, and mostly his hands. Health was never in my father's side, during his entire life he fell over and over sick and got involved in several accidents that reduced his capabilities as a craftsman, and the age didn't help neither.

As he became old we all knew he was an expert, but teaching or mentoring was not the best of his skills. He lived to be a great worker and leader, but when the time came and he needed to move to some other thing, he was blocked by his peers because he didn't have a degree or some paper to 'certify' that he really knew what everybody claimed. It's a shame to live in a society where papers and certifications are more valuable than empirical experience, where families and friends can make more than real skills and knowledge. Where it is more valuable to have influences than being the best at your work.

That's what I'm trying to avoid, if some papers and certifications are required, perfect, I'm gonna get them. I can get knowledge, I know that. I like to be an apprentice, to learn, but I also like to apply what I learned, that's why I would never look for a scholarship that bans me from working while studying, if it's not applicable it doesn't have value. Make whatever you do valuable, don't waste too much of your time.

Those are some lessons I learned from my father's life, I hope to be as good as he was, but the trip is long :-)

My father was a professional - part 1

I recently spent some time at my hometown checking some old pictures and notebooks I've got from my childhood, and then spent some time thinking about all my father did for a living, for us, and for all the people around him during his life time. This is a short story of what I know about him that makes me declare that he was an engineer, in the best meaning of the word.

His childhood

First of all a little bit of background, his father was an empirical-mechanic that fought in the war, his mother a school teacher. During his childhood he had to work in order to help his family, so he used to make toys with empty cans: cars, dolls, tools, figures, etc.

Then sold that stuff or trade it for some groceries. During these years worked with his father fixing cars or doing maintenance, you have to understand that cars back didn't come with a manual, books were not accessible and knowledge about mechanics was almost impossible to get.

So he learned on his own, by inspecting, analyzing, figuring out about all the components and how they fit in this system. He learned a lot during this period and created a reputation around him, he could fix things that no one else could, and learned fast about new things.

Teenage years

While still working and studying, he started buying manuals and equipment from stores far away his town, everything by mail, making himself the only person able to get parts and also the only one capable of assemble them.

University

Eventually, he made it to the university, with the little resources he could save while he was working registered in one of the best universities in Bolivia, but his trip only lasted a few months since a military dictatorship closed all universities that were not complaining with their 'patriotic' vision.

Then came back to his town and got the chance to go study in a different country, but sadly he couldn't finish that course because he had to return to help his family, because his father fell into alcoholism and there was no point on trusting him any kind of job or money.

He came back and bought the equipment for a complete workshop, the first one in town. Then managed to avoid taxes on the equipment by making it look old or by splitting it into parts. And I'm talking about big machines, as they were in those days (60-70s in South America).

Professional career

Once in home, started working with his brother in the workshop, working with lots of people and doing everything on his own. He managed the budget, schedules, resources and planning. Planned everything and had a notebook registering all he did and how much he spent doing it, when something went wrong or outside the plan, he planned it again, updating the original plan according to the current scenario.

Among the things he did, these are ones I remember:

• Adapted a car for a disabled men (his legs didn't work), so he could use only the wheel and the gear shift stick to accelerate, slow down, switch gears.
• Designed and installed the electrical installation for his shop, as he needed different voltages for the machinery, and the electrical company didn't know how to do it, he did by himself.
• Built all the infrastructure for a car washing shop, this structures needed to support a lot of weight and be generic enough in order to support several kind of cars.
• Built his own sewer system, using reserve pools in order to improve water's use.
• Designed a pressure-based water system for the car wash shop (using Bernoulli's principle), so he could use very few energy in order to make the water flow through a hose.
• Created his own door-security system, not a big thing, but it managed to keep the doors closed in even with the strongest winds blowing.
• Built a small car for us using and old washing machine, pretty cool.
• Built a car for the family using parts of broken cars, pretty cool also.
• Learned armory on his own, and fixed weapons for the military men that once tried to arrest him.
• Adapted race cars, this was huge, because all racing cars were always in his garage, pretty cool.
• There are more things....I'll be listing them in the future....

Practices I've learned from him

My father was very good in empirical situations, he knew a lot, and if he didn't know, he was really quick in learning. These are some things he did I really appreciate:

• Planned everything, and kept planning if anything changed.
• Made a budget for everything, scheduling everything based on the real time he needed.
• Was truly honest about his work and progress, this didn't always was well taken.
• Never worked overtime, he kept this discipline until his dead.
• Treated his coworkers and employees with respect, and payed a fair salary, even when this meant that he wouldn't get any income.
• Taught his workers, shared knowledge.
• Checked for prior art about anything he involved into.
• Kept his workplace always clean and ordered.

Things he did I disliked, or things he didn't do at all but should have

Even though I loved my father, he had some things that neither I nor my family liked that much.

• He was hot-tempered when he failed.
• He didn't like to read anything that wasn't technical.
• If something went wrong, it took a while for him to recognize a mistake.
• He made things for his coworkers if he knew that it will take them longer to do.
• He avoided discussions and because of that, lost lots of deals.

Things I'm ashamed I didn't learned from him

This will come on part 2 (including my justification about the title)....

Just for the joy of writting it down

I must admit that I'm being sleeping for a while, in my personal life, in my career and left behind the goals that inspired me just a year ago.

But some things changed during the last two months, I started doing things that changed my life. Small things that I thought were lame and not worth doing, here is a list of them:

• I got high rates on my masters degree when I started losing interest on it.
• Improved my jogging-resistance to 40 minutes just by practicing 3 times a week.
• Solved very difficult (difficult for me) software-related problems at work, things that I never imagined that I could do.
• Recover my reading-habit.
• Found the way to drink enough not to get a killing-hangover, and also started enjoying these gathering events more and more.
• Improved my personal relationships at all levels :-D

And many other things that are just too lame to list...seriously. But after all I'm just doing what I used to do back in 2009, somehow I got lost in the way without even noticing it. I got too much comfortable with my situation, I couldn't think on getting my life to that frenetic pace again.

But I was wrong, that frenetic pace kept me awake and living, I think now I recovered that energy that I always had.

I will try to do the best I can with my life, I will make mistakes and be a total fool sometimes, but I'll learn from it. Because that's the only thing I'm sure I'm capable of...learning.

I still have tons of things to do, to improve, to correct. So much things that I just started wrapping my mind around them, so expect more activity from now on.