Nduli's World - Random

Handling Noise in My Head

2022-11-30T00:00:00+03:00

I complain and anger myself a lot. I'll have an internal dialogue that loops over the same points, making me feel worse and worse. I'll sometimes write down why I'm so angry or anxious, and find out my thoughts aren't as important as I wanted to believe.

This is Chatter, where our brain gets stuck in negative thought loops, usually about a past event e.g. something someone told me (rumination) or about the future e.g. what will happen (worry).

I subconsciously like this feeling and sometimes catch myself looking for something to complain or be angry with. I'll look for someone to validate my feelings, having a one sided conversations about my problems and complaints. I won't notice solutions they suggest since I'm too fixated on my problems. Later on, when I reflect on what they said is when I'll see their solution and angle.

What seems to work for me is:

cycling. When I reach some point of exhaustion, I stop thinking and my mind calms down for the rest of the ride.
writing. This makes the fuzzy thoughts less so, and I see what the problem is, rather than feel them.
smiling: Forcing myself to smile makes me look at my thoughts from a different angle, and I've found myself laughing at some of the thoughts I had.

Other ways I've read that might work are:

distanced self talk, where instead of using I/me while thinking I use my name or other pronouns like you, he, she.
practice meditation and mindfulness
do something else that takes my focus from the rambling thoughts like color naming, count, recite, run, tidying up, taking a walk.
Talking/Writing. Thoughts tend to be abstract and unordered and verbalizing these helps generate meaning from the thoughts.
Practice changing my perception:
- Reframe thoughts (cognitive defusion), for example, "life is meaningless" becomes "I'm having a thought that life is meaningless"
- Train myself to recognize a negative thought I fall on, and consciously create a new thought that's based on reality to replace it (Cognitive Behaviour Therapy).
- Instead of trying to change my internal state, accept it with kindness. Change internal dialogue to 'Its hard to feel this way but I can get through this' instead of blaming myself for anxiety.

References

Asking For Help

2022-08-27T00:00:00+03:00

I get and send bad questions. To avoid this, I write my questions in my editor, review and then copy them to the platform e.g. slack, email. My questions are better, which makes me wonder if there are other changes that could further improve my questions.

A lot of great resources exist online, and here's a checklist I've made for my questions.

Before I consider asking a question, ask:

What do I want? Avoid thinking that the solution in mind is the problem. I can tack on the failed solution to the question if need be. This prevents the XY problem when I'm making the question.
Am I forcing my experience, knowledge or the technology I know to the problem (i.e. einstellung?
Spend time making the question before reaching out to someone. This prevents sending a hello with no context, since I have the question to add after the greeting.
Do my research, and note down all the findings I've got. This helps when adding details to the question.

For example, I built an image on a server, but failed severally because the server ran out of memory. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to limit docker memory, but this wasn't the goal. Following the above process could have helped.

What did I want? I wanted a custom image on the server.
Am I forcing the technology I know or the solution I've thought out? Yes I was. The server ran out of memory severally and I tried to find ways to limit the memory while building the image. I didn't even stop to consider that there would be another option to get this image in.
Spend time making the question before reaching out to someone. At this point I realized that I was solving the wrong problem, and decided to find other options for what I wanted.
Do my research and note down all findings. While researching the original problem, I found that I can load up a locally build image to a server by using docker load, which solve the problem, hence no need to ask.

Once I've done the above and the problem persists, I make and refine the question by:

Having meaningful subject headers.
Starting with the goal, then the steps I've taken, hence I ensure others will know if my steps were wrong or if there were other options I didn't consider.
Editing the question to be short but informative. I can include:
- the environment this occurred (if relevant)
- the symptoms in chronological order
- the research done
- a way to reproduce the error (if possible).
- screenshots if its a UI bug
Trimming down code snippets and test cases to the smallest bug-demonstrating version.
Avoiding open-ended questions by being explicit in what I want. The less effort my request needs the likelier I'll get a response e.g. 'Can someone explain X?' forces someone to create a detailed explanation while 'Can someone provide a pointer to a good explanation of X' means they only send you to a relevant blog post.
Writing in clear, grammatical and well spelled language.
Avoiding yes or no questions.

Once you have the question, then:

Look for a relevant public channel. Avoid private ones or personal messages since public ones ensure more people see the question and learn from it.
Follow up with a brief note on the solution to the thread. Upvote helpful answers and accept any that solved the problem.
Don't ask questions in ongoing threads since those not following the thread will not see it.
Be courteous, use please and 'thanks for your attention', etc.

References

My Opinions on expenses

2022-06-04T00:00:00+03:00

Cheap items

I read this article about buying the cheapest tool first, and if I use it until it breaks, then I can buy the most expensive one. I've tried to apply this to my purchases, and I've realized that I am sometimes okay with the cheap things I've bought

For example, I wanted a laptop, and saved up Ksh 150K for it, but chose to try out an older thinkpad model first. I bought a refurbished thinkpad t440 for Ksh 30K and I love it. It has most of the things I need and great linux support. The only gotcha is playing AAA games, but this led me to trying out niche games and I've found some hidden gems. If this laptop ever breaks, I'll get a similar one. I don't see the point of spending 5 times the amount on something that is marginally better (for my needs that is).

Sometimes the most expensive item is difficult to maintain, especially when parts need to be replaced. When we moved into our home, we bought the most expensive shower head our electrician recommended, and it worked for a year before the heating element broke. The electrician tried to find a replacement, but couldn't, so we bought a new shower head. But this time we got the lower priced ones that are more common. This also happened with my brother's laptop (an ultrabook), where he'd accidentally poured water on the keyboard, and it needed to be replaced. It took weeks to find a replacement, and it was costly.

I now purchase cheap items mostly because:

It provides a chance to see if I need it or not.
The cheap item are sometimes capable of what I need.
The cheap items are sometimes easier to repair.

I avoid cheap items that have too many features for the price though e.g. a convertible laptop, with a touch screen, support for a digital pen, light weight and more. At that price point, these features don't make sense and there are some shortcuts made e.g. poor build quality.

Impulse purchases

I sometimes get an urge to buy something I've seen, because seeing causes my brain to find uses for it. For example, I'll see a camera and start imagining all the cool photos I can take, while ignoring that I rarely take pictures on my smart phone. Being aware of this helps a bit, especially when it comes to places I avoid (ref: atomic habits).

Supermarkets and malls may be designed with this in mind. In malls, I easily get lost when looking for a particular shop, meaning that I see a lot more things that triggers the impulse. I try to avoid malls and look for alternatives. When shopping, I make a list and stick to it, avoiding cues from the supermarket.

I use leetblock and adblockers on my computers to block websites that provide these cues. This makes it really hard to visit them.

Experiences vs Things

I also liked this article on buying things not experiences, and learnt that there's a blurry boundary between items and experiences, in that there are experience like things e.g. owning a workshop, and there are thing-like experiences e.g. an instagrammable vacation. Experiences are preferred because of limits in our lives e.g. we don't have enough space for them, or it could be a way to show that we're better in a world of material abundance, hence the 'buy experiences not things' mantra.

This ignores that we can get things that can provide multiple life changing experiences over the course of their ownership, so long as they're carefully chosen. A naive example would be to purchase a gaming rig rather than making payments at a gaming shop. This provides multiple chances to explore games you enjoy, playing with friends and even meeting random people online. Another similar example provided is owning a large living room, which provides a change to host friends and expand your network.

So where possible, consider the experiences of making a purchase, rather than just brushing it off as materialism. This though means I should also be aware of the biases mentioned in the previous section, and I try to balance both of these.

PC Assembly and Motorola C Plus Fix

2019-05-26T00:00:00+03:00

I assembled my first PC this month. It took me a full Saturday for this, and I blame it on the case I got. I cheaped out on it, and ended up taking a lot of time setting things properly inside it. Here is the build. Some of the mistakes I made include:

Cheaping out on the case. This made it really difficult to add various parts. I also gave up on cable management.
Bought too many fans. The case only supports two fans (of which it comes with both).
I didn't have a proper monitor that capitalizes on the PC power.

I really like the build though, and I'm using it to play games and for some machine learning. I also got to find out that steam support on linux is really great (the PC runs linux btw).

I also did my first screen replacement this month. I own a Motorola Moto C Plus, and its touch screen had stopped working completely. I ordered one off ebay, and got around to replacing it. The process was surprisingly easy. For tools, I was lucky to have everything I needed, which was a screw driver set, tweezers and a heat gun.

Here is the video guide I followed:

Courage To Be Disliked: A Review

2019-02-13T16:20:00+03:00

Courage to be disliked is a book that explains Adlerian psychology. It does so in the form of a dialog, between a student and a master. Here are the various ideas I got from reading the book:

Etiology vs Teleology

Etiology is when someone focuses on the past, and uses past experiences and events to explain what has currently happened. The text is heavily against this, since it provides an easy way out of various problems that occur in life. The book however emphasizes on teleology, which is where one focuses on the now, and tries to find out why various things have happened. A good example of this is when one goes to the doctor, who doesn't try to figure out what past event caused some disease, but rather focusses on the current symptoms and treating the current ailment.

The biggest problem with etiology however, is that it can lead to self determinism. This is where one believes that how their life progresses has already been determined by events in the past, and that nothing can change this.

Teleology also provides a new insight into various events and reactions. For example, people tend to blame some reactions on their anger, as though it was a separate entity from themselves. However, anger is a tool that can be used to achieve some goal. A good example of this is when a mother is angrily scolding their child. If the mother receives a phone call, she'll put the anger away and calmly receive the call. Afterwards, she becomes angry again and continues to scold the child. This shows that the mother is using anger as a tool against her child.

Teleology also provides a means of understanding why changing one's lifestyle seems difficult. People tend to remain in their lifestyle because it's comfortable and easy to predict. Lifestyles may also provide good explanations for some decisions one has made. For example, someone who dreams of becoming a novelist yet their job keeps them too busy. A teleological explanation of why the novelist doesn't quit would be that s/he is using the job (instead of quiting and focussing on the novel) because he is actually afraid of criticism of his novel or that s/he may produce inferior writing. Later on in their lives, they will use the reason of old age for this too.

Weakness and Strength

Key emotions that tend to help people become better are the feeling of inferiority and the pursuit of superiority. They help support one's striving for growth. However, when these feelings become a hindrance, they develop into complexes. The inferiority complex occurs when one uses their feelings of inferiority as an excuse in life. For example, one can claim that they cannot be successful because they are uneducated, and therefore won't try to overcome this obstacle. The superiority complex is whereby one has the feeling of inferiority but doesn't have the strength to strive for growth. They compensate for this by associating with people or things they feel are superior e.g. some brands of clothes or some celebrities.

Weakness can make one strong and powerful. For example, the baby can control the parents because it is weak. Some people tend to cling to their weaknesses so as to get some hold of people. If someone tries to help them overcome their weakness, they use the fact that the other party cannot possible understand their feelings as a deterrent. However, in doing so, they become slaves to their weaknesses and end up unable to survive without this.

Going through life as though it is a competition is another form of weakness. This is because if competition is at the core of one's interpersonal relationships, one will start viewing people as enemies who must not be underestimated. This makes the world a scary place to live in.

Also when having a discussion with someone, the moment it becomes a power struggle, one should step down. This is because the conversation has derailed from that of providing information/opinion to that of winner and losers. Also, avoid criticizing the other party just because you think you're right, otherwise the conversation will degenerate into a power struggle.

Life Tasks

Another interesting concept introduced in the book is that of tasks. An individual has three main classifications of tasks:

Task of friendship
Task of work
Task of love

Separation of tasks is whereby one decides to what point one's own tasks go, and from which point the tasks become another person's. Once this is done, one should do their own tasks to the best of their ability, and only lend a hand to others when needed. However, one should be careful not to encroach on another person's territory. To help with this, one needs a good way of figuring out ownership of a task. An indication of this is who will eventually benefit if the task is done.

In interpersonal relationships, it is the individual's task to believe in the other party. How the other party behaves with regard to said belief is not the individual's task. So if the other party takes advantage of you, that is still their task. If one feels the relationship is becoming problematic, it should be severed (which is the individual's task).

It is also one's task to live one's life the best way one believe in. The judgement passed by people about one's life is not one's task. This therefore means one is free to do as one pleases. In fact, freedom can be defined as being disliked by other people. This is because being disliked by others is proof that one is living life as one would please, not trying to satisfy others.

Furthermore, if a task is beyond one's capability, one needs to accept this and move forward in doing what one can do (self acceptance) thus one avoids lying to oneself. This is counter to self affirmation, where one uses phrases like 'I can do it', when something is cleary beyond one's ability. A good example for this is in exams, where if someone fails they will either say 'I was unlucky this time' (self affirmation) or accept what they got and try to improve for the next exam (self acceptance).

People try to be special because they cannot accept their normal selves. They therefore equate being normal with being incapabale. However, with self acceptance, once accepts their ordinary selves. One should then have the courage to be normal.

The problem with aiming to be special (having lofty goals) is that one views life like climbing a mountain, where if they do not reach the peak, they have not reached their "real life". This means they are not living in the present. The greatest life lie of all is in fact to not live here and now. A better alternative is to view life as a series of moments, without a destination. This way, one ends up living their "real life" every day, every hour and every minute.

"Life in general has no meaning. Whatever meaning life has must be assigned to it by the individual."

Summary of 2018

2018-12-31T19:00:00+03:00

This year has been meh for me ;( The highlights for the year include:

Completing course work for my masters class
Starting research on Renewable Energy Systems and how best to size them and control this system.
Active participation in various communities I managed to join especially Urban Perspective and NaiLUG.
Achieved most of the fitness goals I had intended to achieve at the start of the year. Key amongst these is jogging at least 3 times a week.
I also started doing some investments this year, mostly passive. Part of my investment strategy had been in agribusiness (active invesetment) this year, but things did not go too well of that front. At least I achieved some level of financial literacy this year, and have a better strategy for the oncoming year.
I attended my first _ruracio_ this year. It was a unique experience merging traditional culture with modern expectations.
I had my first trip outside Nairobi. I managed to visit Naivasha and Elementaita on an unofficial class trip. I realised I like to travel (hopefully this will remain true) and will endeavour to visit more places next year.
Managed to sort out internet at home. This by far had the most impact on my life this year. Having to use the internet without limits (as had been initially the case with the bundles options I was having with Telkom) was really refreshing. I could now experiment more, play with more technologies and not have to think about effects of data on my wallet.

I also managed to read some really interesting books this year, like Deep Work and Lauren Ipsum. I didn't get to my goal of 20 books and I'm blaming this on my loose concentration. This is whereby I'll leave a half finished book if and when I get something more interesting. I hope to improve on this next year.

2018 So Far

2018-08-03T19:00:00+03:00

This year so far has been tough.

I thought I would have read around 10 books by now but I'm barely half that mark. Most of the books are mostly fiction, but at least I've got some variety this time. The books I've completed so far are:

'The Worthing Saga' by Orson Scott Card: This is a really interesting read, although I disagree with what I think is the core message of this book. This is that someone has to suffer so that they can enjoy life fully, otherwise their lives are empty.
'Deep Work' by Cal Newport: This has to be the best book I've read this year. It will be even better if I can manage to put the advice in this book into practice. It explains the concept of concentrating on one's work and the advantages it adds to one's life. This concept comes with various examples of people that have applied deep work in their practice to successful extents.
'The Princess Bride' by William Goldman: The feel-good-book of the year. The story just flows and its told in a weird way where the author occassionally adds commentary to provide context or sometimes give spoilers in the book.
'Lauren Ipsum' by Carlos Bueno: This book is aimed at kids but is really awesome. Its various puns and analogies to computers were really cool.
'The Great Hunt (Wheel of Time Book 2)' by Robert Jordan: This series does get really interesting in book 2. The first book was a bit dull but this picks up the pace to tell a great tale of the Dragon.

Some books I've started reading but yet to complete are:

'Professor Frisby's Mostly Adequate Guide to Functional Programming' by Brian Lonsdorf: This explains functional programming concepts using javascript. This has to be the book that got me interested in functional programming, especially when the author explained currying and composing. That was literally mind-blowing.
'LearnYouAHaskell' by Miran Lipovaka: Decided to learn a purely functional language after getting through some chapters of Mostly Adequate. I'm barely done with the third chapter and I'm reall liking this way of thinking.

I haven't blogged as much as I thought I would this year. Basically the idea was to blog on what I was doing so that it acts a means of documentation for my future self. I find it easier to read my own words especially when its from a concept I had forgotten about. The good thing is I have a lot of new things I've learned, so I really need to pull up my pants. Some topics I've really got into include:

Robotics: I'm thinking of making a javascript tool that will do the forward kinematics, inverse kinematics, robotic dynamics (Euler-Lagrange and Newton-Euler) and motion planning. I think doing this will cement the knowledge I've got a bit more.
Functional programming: Not sure of what to do, but I think I'll look for a pet project that I can implement using haskell.
Model Predictive Control and Advanced Control: These are some really dope units I'm doing in my Master's program. Its mostly theoretical, but I have to find something practical to use these in. I mean, just thinking about these concepts puts a smile to my face.
Hybrid Energy Systems: This is what I want to focus on for my Masters' thesis though I'm still looking for a gap here.

For the comic site, I just realized my art isn't that good. I think this has to do with self-bias, where immediately after drawing something, I looked at it and saw that it was good. But months later (when the feeling of achievement has waned), I look at them objectively and I'm shocked that I found them good. I've been looking at various videos and trying to practice. This is something I intend to become better at.

I'm also in my second semester for masters in Mechatronics Engineering. The course work is pretty interesting but difficult. The killer feature though is the research work, more specifically the research proposal. This becomes more impossible with every passing day especially finding a viable gap. I had some things I really wanted to get into, so I started digging in and reading papers. I ended up (still do) frustrated and angry at myself because I mostly couldn't understand these papers. And when I finally get a paper I somehow understand, I can't find any gap to fill. This has been going on for the past three months and its maddenning. I've thought that there must be a better way to do this, but this is the process my institution takes. I get my own gap, and write a proposal around it (with barely any feedback or help). So right now I'm just shooting in the dark and hoping something comes up.

For personal projects, Mradi is coming up nicely. Development has slowed down though in recent months. Hopefully I will manage to finish this product soon. I also started working on some financial tool called Staafu. It should basically help one plan for retirement by maximizing investments and reducing risks.

Summary of 2017

2018-01-01T15:00:00+03:00

2017 was an interesting year in my life. I achieved a lot during this time despite starting off on a low note. It started off on a low note because following my graduation(2016), I was abit confused with my life. Things however became better as the year progressed.

I got my first job as a systems engineer at Koko Networks. I learnt a lot while I was there: circuit design, firmware development, managing and motivating teams and engineering operations in general. The team at Koko was really helpful and great. For that, I am grateful.

I also made my first production circuits this year. The first was a simple LED multiplexing array that was used to display various texts. The second was a simple auto-agriculture kit for Aura Engineering. These projects made me learn a lot about Kicad and how to deal with PCB manufacturers.

I was also an active contributor in the GrabCad community. I uploaded a total of 20 models in 2017. I have learnt a lot about using Solidworks and Inventor for design. I've experimented on using FreeCAD in doing some design work and I'm impressed by the many features it has. I want to do a lot more using FreeCAD because I'm a huge open source enthusiast.

In development, my first ever "serious" open source contribution was accepted and merged to the main source tree. It was to add support for rstcheck to vim-ale. Vim-ale is a vimscript linting engine. I also made a comic site system in django that currently runs on my server at comics.jnduli.co.ke. For big projects, I started on Mradi (an organisation system) which is still incomplete. Mradi's tech stack uses: VueJS, ansible, django in the process.

As far as infrastracture is concerned, I got to learn and use ansible. Writing playbooks is fun, and automating steps is an interesting challenge. Most of my projects currently have an ansible config that helps in set up and configuration of various tasks.

Reading this year has been fruitful. The highlight of my year in reading was completing the Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov. It taught me a lot about politics, economics and society. I also have a huge catalog of unfinished books: Learn Vimscript the Hard Way, The Art of Unix Programming and Thinking in Systems. These are really great books that I should have completed.

My participation in Urban Perspective (a bookclub) and Nailug (Linux User Group) was also encouraging. I got to know so many interesting people, learn from them, critique some ideas and socialize.

Finally, I got the PAUSTI scholarship. This was a pretty trying moment for me because it meant I had to stop working and leave my colleagues at Koko. This was a tough decision to make and leaving Koko was a low point for me in 2017.

2017 was a great year. That was my summary of the year, and now I can see through 2018.

Zealot B570 Bluetooth Headset

2017-12-22T15:00:00+03:00

I got the zealot b570 a couple of months ago. I have been using it since then and it has not disappointed. In fact, I really like this headset. I'm also a bit clumsy, so it's been subjected to a rough time, and its still working well.

Pros

Bluetooth capable
SD card slot
OK battery life
I can listen to audio over mini usb and over 3.5 mm jack. I prefer using the mini usb option, so that's a plus.
Good audio quality
Really durable. I've never had a head set that lasted more than 3 months. But this was primarily due to the 3.5 mm jack getting cut / broken.
The control buttons are located at a good location.

Cons

The headset was really tight and painful to wear. To fix it, I stretched it for some days and it worked well.
The LED lights are really annoying. I wish there were an option to disable these.
I don't use the FM mode, so it kind of disappoints me when I'm switching modes and the noise from the FM mode comes up.

Airtel Money and Paypal

2016-12-20T20:50:00+03:00

Note: This article is outdated. I haven't used these steps in a few years.

Paypal is an online means of paying for goods and services. It is especially useful when working with sites like ebay, where some sellers flat out only want payments through paypal.

Airtel Money is a competitor to Safaricom's Mpesa. What makes me use it is that they have the Airtel Money card, which is really easy to get and use. They are also cheaper than Mpesa. Anyway, more on that later.

So I decided I wanted to use my airtel money card with paypal. I then registered on the Paypal site. Paypal then make a withdrawal from my account. The purpose of this transaction is so as to confirm that I am the owner of the card, that is, the money transacted is not lost.

So the transaction has a description with a unique 4 digit code. The only way to access that number is from a bank statement for the card.

Unfortunately airtel money cannot provide that information. They were rather unhelpful here and I had to physically visit their stores before they gave me that information. So you have to visit Chase Bank( in Kenya). Remember to carry your National Id and the Airtel Money card. They will print for you the bank statement at no charge and give it to you.

Once you have the statement, get the unique transaction number, complete your registration on Paypal, and wallah! You can now use your card through paypal.