Young Hands Club

March 2, 2020

JFW review, week of 24 Feb 2020

Filed under: Jacob Welsh — Jacob Welsh @ 6:00 am

I did some initial moping about my failings of this week, but after jotting down some notes to get started I’ve been feeling more cheerful about the process. I take this as a promising start; may it grow into that healthy curiosity that I bring to bear in so many other areas.

First the good side:

  • Robinson and I completed a trade on the local OTC market to replenish cash on hand (though belts remain tight and we need to get more sales closed).
  • I made progress on wallet testing, getting a transaction confirmed and turning up a corner case in PRB network behavior that may inform a tweak to the spec.
  • Our Unix and management consulting exchange Monday turned up the priority of having a placement test, for which I implemented an initial version.
  • We celebrated Robinson’s birthday.
  • I provided some input to Robinson’s history presentation at a (sparsely attended) Junto.
  • I brought up the problem of allowing ourselves to be pushed around about meetings.
  • I met the prospect Robinson had been talking with at his office, where we all talked a while – probably too long really, we should have planned a limit – and finished with a couple games of ping-pong.
  • I ended up finding some simple steps to substantially unjam my email inbox. It turned out I’d set myself up well with segregated addresses and most of the spam was coming to ones that could be dropped. While email isn’t the greatest, I still much prefer it to the alternatives for semi-private textual communication with the uninitiated.

The bad:

  • I got little done relative to plan on the wallet and it remains unfinished.
  • I got very little writing done for the blog (again), yet lost time on …actively not-starting. I don’t know why. I should (again) speak up and ask for help, even just feedback on outlines, not like that’s only for Will!
  • I dropped the ball on my planned leisure reading, which skimping doesn’t seem to have produced even a temporary productivity gain.
  • I missed the simplest item from my plan of getting contact info on my blog. It would get stuck behind “what I really need is to write the article, then I’ll take care of that…”
  • I passed on a chance to try working my writing in a different direction with the Qntra lead I stumbled on, that I could have probably written up myself in all the time I otherwise burnt.
  • I mostly avoided or delayed self-improvement work such as considering Diana Coman’s feedback on last review, and journaling. I’m letting the valuable resource of her available insight go underutilized.

One simple change I can make is to firm up on my journaling time, and when not otherwise inspired, apply it toward the reflection assignments I’ve already been given.

ejb review of Feb 24-Mar 1 ; plan for Mar 2-Mar 8

Filed under: Eric Benevides — Eric Benevides @ 4:16 am

I’m going to try a tweaked format for this week. I partitioned my review/plan by areas I’m currently focusing on in my life, and I’m going to review-by-partition and include plans for improvement in each chunk. Let’s see how this goes..

Mp-wp bot delivery

I have the production server set-up and my test plan complete but I still need to… actually test! This weekend was not very productive for me; I slept in way too much both days and just didn’t get as much done as I wanted. Still I think I’m fairly close to ready with this bot at least. Definitely will be able to give it a shot next week and it looks like MP is back in CR so it should time out fine.

Still, this is a problem with me. I fought hard to escape what was a nice excuse for not being productive (my ex) but I’m still the main cause. My primary problem I think is I still am not waking up to TMSR work like I keep saying I will each day. It is too easy to get swept away in the 101 other things throughout the day. As for the solution I’m going to touch on that in the “General life organization” section below.

Saltmines

While speaking up did help ease my pain a bit at this mine, I definitely need to keep applying to other places. I hit my 5-applications-sent quota for this week, yet aside from automated responses I’ve yet to hear back from the others (from my past job hunting experience, this does seem par the course). Other than continuing to churn the sea of want ads I’m not sure what else I can do here for the time-being.

House clean-up

Going smoothly. Next up is the living room which I’m gonna aim to knock out by end of next week. It should only take a couple of hours anyway if the other room was any guide.

Note to self: need to hire a cheap landscaper before mid-March.

General life organization

Here’s where I haven’t been doing well; namely with waking up on time and sticking to my plans, etc. In terms of waking up / not sleeping in, my problem is going to bed at a decent hour. Now, I really hate going to sleep when I’m not tired / waking up when I am. Ultimately if I had a remote gig than this problem would be less pronounced so this has been good fuel for my new-saltmine search.

Nevertheless, I still have to live in the meanwhile and I haven’t been consistent with improving my sleep schedule so I need to make some changes. First off, I drink too much coffee late in the day so that needs to stop. Second, I set up this alarm clock in one of my rooms to go off at 11pm each night. I figure even if I ignore it I’ll still get that reminder often enough that maybe it’ll sink in. Finally, I need to “dial in” to thinking about my Republican work (aka actual work) before saltmine stuff. The quickest and most rational way I think I can ease myself into this is by doing at least one simple thing every single day: wake up with enough time to eat / have coffee while reading the logs / blogs. I used to do this back in the day but have recently fallen out of this habit.

Blog

My blog queue is getting backed up. I need to get my final penance article out, and I’d also like to get a Shinjiru write-up / HostOne write-up complete. I’m going to commit to at least 2 hours writing something for my final penance article next week.

RMD week 18 plan, Mar 1st-6th, 2020

Filed under: Robinson Dorion — Robinson Dorion @ 2:30 am

I took much longer on this than normal. The first impulse was to change the structure of the plan. I relaxed that because the problem is not the structure of the plan, but how I go about making and executing it. Instead I decided to get more detailed in allocating the available time on my schedule and exploring the opportunities to consolidate some regular tasks, e.g. I’m going to try doubling up my language practice with eating.

1. Things my Master assigned me:

  1. Draft of TMSR OS dependencies page. (AAC) Deadline : Wednesday, March 4th. ((I’ve been making this bigger than it needs to be, better to start small and publish already.))
  2. (5h) Work through the fabled outlines article backlog. 2.3 has been on the list for months. (Time Permitting)

2. Things I want feedback on/help with

  1. (2h) Draft of Bitcoin history 2009-2011 article Deadline : Thursday 19:00 UTC.

3. Anything else that takes up a significant amount of your time.

  1. (10h) TMSR OS
    1. February Report (AAC) Deadline: Wednesday, March 4, 23:00 UTC.
    2. Follow up Jacob’s messages to the musl list with a couple points that occurred to me from reading the interaction.
    3. What questions do I have about the clearsigning scheme for V patches ?
    4. At least one comment per day published upon reading/re-reading archives of The Tar Pit, BVT Trace, and Fixpoint.
  2. Dorion Mode
    1. (5h) There is nothing new in the world apart from the history you didn’t know. Friday should be achievable for publishing Part 1.
    2. (5h) The benefits of TMSR OS. Chip away likewise.
  3. (15h) JWRD
    1. Top priority is closing the sale on the table and acquiring and preparing the hardware for delivery.
    2. Improve Sales Materials : update sales presentation, start drafting a sales focused article for dorion-mode.
    3. Research to build out list of local private bankers and asset managers to contact.
  4. (2h) Business networking event Wednesday night, publish review of day prior to leaving for event.
  5. (15h) Following the forum and conversing when it’s my time. I’m planning to block off 14:00-15:30 and 19:00-20:30 UTC to properly eat and engage the logs and blogs.
  6. (2.5h) ((15 mins in morning, 15 mins before sleep)) Daily Review/Preview to start up, wind down day. Publish Review as Comment on Plan by 21:30 Panama time (UTC -5).
  7. (2h) Weekly review/preview. Deadline Friday, March 6, 23:00 UTC
  8. (5h 15m) 45 minutes of exercise each morning.
  9. (5h 50m) 20 min Spanish, 30 min French while I lunch.

Summary

I felt a bit overwhelmed by my backlog, which is proper given how I’ve let it grow. It didn’t accumulate in a week and it’s not going to get processed in a week. It’ll get processed putting in one solid hour at a time, knowing my role and using the available resources. This week the focus in on improving my process, being more present, abiding the Page Boy’s pledge and transmuting my competitive aggression/assertiveness from athletics to the present to man up already.

WH Plan For Week 21 (March 2nd – March 8th)

Filed under: Will Haack — Will Haack @ 2:06 am

Between the three days I have before my friends come visit for a week, I have one day dedicated to saltmines, antoher to taking care of miscellaneous tasks, and the last to working on TheFleet.

1. Monday 03/02
    Saltmines (8h)
    Revise What-Makes-A-Good-Tragedy Outline (2.5h)
    Outline an article that is based on a personal experience (2.5h)
    Plan full day trip for the next day.

2. Tuesday 03/03

   2.1 Full day trip to take care of various tasks: (print businesses cards, get a haircut, get a pair of backup reading glasses, get a new surfboard fin key, find and take some clothes to a dry cleaner, make an appointment with a doctor, open bank account with another CR bank (BAC), buy jumper cables + get the car washed, put gas in car, go grocery shopping, withdraw cash from atm)
   2.2 Daily Writing Exercise – Publish What-Makes-A-Good-Tragedy Article(2.5h)
   2.2 Publish Article on Personal Experience (2.5h)

3. Wednesday 03/04

    3.1 Investigate memory issue with TheFleet. Restart dead fleet regardless of results (8h)
    3.2 Pick up friends from airport in the evening.

03/05 => 03/11
    Entertain two friends visiting from the states / Paris. We are going to visit the nearby beaches, and then go see Arenal / La Fortuna. I will try to find time to get some writing or reading done while they are here, otherwise I will be away from my terminal most of the time.

WH Review of Week 20 (Feb 24th – March 1st)

Filed under: Will Haack — Will Haack @ 2:04 am

I do not have much output to review. Between derpage, dealing with the mechanic, and saltmines, ((Really, saltmines and mechanic fall into the derpage category.)) I had little time left over to publish on my blog / do tmsr work. I only produced a few reviewed outlines and two small paragraphs for ztkfg. I also read through 2/3 of Butcher’s translation of Aristotle’s Poetics ((The 90% of it that is still left on mit classics, that is.)) while taking notes. I will finish reading Poetics by tonight and get started on writing a What Makes For a Good Tragedy article.

The failure from last weeks plan is:

2.5 missed articles
Missing plan / action towards making a mirror of wot.deeedbot.org
Missing solution to thefleet crashing

I read dorion’s review and your suggested end of day questions. I understand that these are meant to be done daily, but for this week’s review I’ve put my general thoughts each question evoked below.

1. What did I spend my time on? (ie you’ll need there to end up with some timings listed so yeah, you’ll have to track time too as a prerequisite, which is as it should be)

– This reminds me I need to install jfw’s clock tool or something similar. I had this as a task before but ran into a problem with a dependency or something and did not complete it. I’ve created a folder ~/timesheet with its first file 1_3_20.txt where I will start filling out w/ time windows and what I did during them. I’ll do this manually until I have an automated tool for it.

2. Where did I ask smart questions? Where could/should I have asked *more* questions?

– A problem that comes to mind is I still depend on search engines for answers to questions despite having published articles about how search engines are misleading. Truthfully, I don’t believe that search engines are completely useless. For questions such as : where is this restaurant? I think Google maps is one of the better places to find an answer. ((I recall an article on trilema about how google maps had a bunch of outdated information . I don’t think I’ve personally experienced the problem of Maps having stale data.)) I also think Google is at least *okay* at being used as a grep on sites (i.e. site:trilema.com “a compendium of basic points” ..) So my first question is: is there a place at all for using search engines?

3. Where did I deliver on my word and where did I fail to deliver? What did I do to mitigate the fail and what do I need to do + who do I need to talk to tomorrow to sort the fail(s) out?

– The first thought that came to mind when I read this was I’ve been so inconsistent that until I solve problems with my work process the scope of promises I can make is quite small. I.e. to mitigate failing on keeping my word, I need to achieve a higher level of productivity.

4. What are the priorities for tomorrow? (those should include whatever you got from 3 above, as *first priorities* and then what comes from looking at the plan and at what you did + where you are).

– I discussed this issue with you a week ago about not even looking at my schedule for the day and trying instead to go off of memory. I will make a point to review the schedule for the next day the previous night.

5. How can I better use my available resources ?

I have a laptop with a fresh gentoo lying around. It doesn’t have enough space to be a trb node but perhaps I can purpose it for something.

6. What should I do *differently* for better results tomorrow?

Since my biggest derpage yesterday was wasting brain cycles messaging a lady I have turned off my phone ((Fwiw, I don’t actually message with my phone’s interface, the messages get routed to the whatsapp app on my tolietbox)) and placed it in a different room along with my tolietbox until I get my tasks done for the day.

AR Plan March 2nd – March 8th 2020

Filed under: Aaron Rogier — Aaron Rogier @ 1:35 am

Tasks

Qntra Management

  1. Continue the interative plan drafting process to completion and pivot to implementing the plans
  2. Work towards completing implementation of the crawler. Make the shell’s builtins work for me to get iterated curls over a list of urls working.
  3. Get AWstats set up so measurements are possible. Feed it Qntra’s log from the ‘anyserver’ liferaft. Target Saturday
  4. Attend to responsibilities in #ossasepia and #trilema

Qntra Editor In Chiefing

  1. Read, edit, and publish Qntra submissions as they come in.
  2. Follow up and publish on intersting leads coming across the desk.
  3. Assign and grade coursework for Qntra short course student
  4. Attend to the budding Workshop

Personal Management

  1. Take notes throughout the day and review them at the end of each day
  2. Tuesday Afternoon errands in Ciudad Vieja and Cordon
  3. Friday Afternoon Spanish Class
  4. Sunday review the week and plan the next

Time Budget

Except as noted these figures as being allocated as minimums. I expect to go over most days, but recognizing that not all waking hours are equal and the editing tasks demand some interruptibility, I have to make sure everything gets attention.

  1. Monday – Qntra Management tasks 3h, Qntra Editor Tasks 2.5h, Personal Management Tasks 1h
  2. Tuesday – Qntra Management tasks 2h, Qntra Editor Tasks 2h, Personal Management Tasks 6h ((Pessimistic estimate due to visiting a new office. ))
  3. Wednesday – Qntra Management tasks 3h, Qntra Editor Tasks 2.5h, Personal Management Tasks 1.5h
  4. Thursday – Qntra Management tasks 3h, Qntra Editor Tasks 2.5h, Personal Management Tasks 1h
  5. Friday – Qntra Management tasks 2h, Qntra Editor Tasks 2h, Personal Management Tasks 3h
  6. Saturday – Qntra Management tasks 4h, Qntra Editor Tasks 2h, Personal Management Tasks 1.5h
  7. Sunday – Qntra Management tasks 1h, Qntra Editor Tasks 2h, Personal Management Tasks 4h

Top Priority – Shift from planning to implementation
Special Attention – Improving the balance of time spent on different areas of responsibility, keeping myself open to improvement anywhere it is needed.

AR Review February 24th – March 1st 2020

Filed under: Aaron Rogier — Aaron Rogier @ 12:25 am

This week the examination and reflection were cranked up. Contrary to the plan I had initially drafted for the week, drafting and drafting again a comprehensive plan of action for Qntra came to dominate the week. This makes the week’s expenditure of time difficult to project forward from, but the reboot of Qntra operations emerging from the planning process is making it clear that future weeks won’t look like they did before this week either.

Of the tasks I had laid out in the plan I managed to complete several drafts without yet producing one ready to label final, I managed to take some notes through the day, ((The big observation is that without having started the week with a concrete time budget, I let the drafting of plans displace many other things. A smaller observation is that Friday, Saturday, and Sunday I had been finding myself getting exhausted disappointingly early suggesting that in budgeting time I can’t weigh all potentially productive hours equally. )) reviewed and delivered feedback on homework I assigned as part of the Qntra course consuming a bit more than two hours in doing so, handled Qntra submissions as they came in though I have one lead that’s drawn me into extended reading to address in my role as writer of last resort, attended Spanish Class, and begun reviewing this week and preparing plans for the next.

The growth of the scope of the planning displaced completing the portion I wanted to though I have a better handle on the shell’s builtin flow control tools to bring to the task, the errands I had scheduled for Thursday afternoon, and the Saturday block of time I had anticipated using to get AWstats to eat Qntra’s access.log. As disappointing as these misses could be, they highlight for me the necessity of opening absolutely everything I had been doing up to re-examination. The planning process for Qntra going forward has made clear that the project isn’t just some tweaks or a small shift in direction, it is a reboot of everything operations side while preserving the high quality of reporting. More importantly, I can see the necessity and that the only space for upside is in this structured, practical approach to reorganizing myself.

Reviewing this past week I found myself recieving more questions than I asked myself, and I’m grateful for it. What motivates me to do Qntra and attracts me to the Republic is a hatred towards the Pantsuitist system I grew up in. The US “higher ed” chumpatron chewed me up and I’m still very sore about that. However uncomfortable and unfamiliar these practical, structured methods I’m being shown may strike me on the first impression, I am grateful for Diana Coman’s attention in offering her time and attention to expose me to them. I am grateful for getting called out when I fall into the monkey habit of throwing shit to see what might stick to the problem in front of me.

For this coming week I’ve got to take this clarity, and actually budget my time like the scarce thing it is. I need to keep myself open to learning, remember the hate that motivates me, and ready myself to just fetch the damned arms when called to do so.

March 1, 2020

RMD week 17 review, Feb 24-29th, 2020

Filed under: Robinson Dorion — Robinson Dorion @ 7:18 am

I technically missed all my deadlines this week and only delivered a few of my deliverables : the outline on Tuesday (~25 mins late), WoT ratings (5 days late, dropped silently twice, the second after pm probing), updates on Wednesday for Monday and Tuesday ((after public probing and ffs, I’m only realizing now those were on last week’s plan. Derp)) and Wednesday after midnight. I allowed all the other deliverables on the plan fall by the wayside.

On the plus side, we have a request for a quote for our hardware, software and training package from the COO of the project with local presence that’s attempting to make a decentralized exchange. While a bit daunting, the placement test Jacob made was useful in verifying he has some Unix experience and won’t need to start from square one.

As far as a good match for us, there’s a bit of misalignment between his goal for project which is to bring ‘crypto’ to retail and our focus on the elite. Furthermore, they have a bit of a technology maximalist approach, i.e. bring in XYZ complex tool off the shelf instead of designing and implementing fits in head and hand. On the more positive side, based on what he has told us, he made a career from designing and implementing HFT systems for a wide range of fiat exchanges and instruments. He told us at one point he was paying $20k/month for leased lines.

With that being said, the approach Jacob and I have discussed is to deliver on our training ((Which will allow us to refine our processes further.)), generate the cashflow and develop the relationship. This should put us in a better position to a) receive referrals from him and b) show him why our approach, e.g. focus on elite clientele and Bitcoin, is more realistic. There’s also the possibility for further consulting work for his project, but it’s too early to tell if it’ll be a good fit, e.g. builds for various shitlangs would have to be done for Gales Linux for them to use it in a wider capacity. Them using Gales Linux isn’t the only thing that could be done with them, but it’s the main part we discussed.

Other positives were my Master’s help with showing us further how we sell ourselves short, causing us to rethink our approach in asserting our value in dealing with people. We also further developed a set of questions for information security auditing we can approach companies with as a secondary offering to generate cashflow and develop relationships by meeting companies more where they are now rather than where we think they ought to be.

As far as actually making my deadlines next week, it’s clear some substantial changes need to be made. I added the week to the title to help raise my awareness and appreciation for time. Back in November I was reading the Page Boy’s Pledge daily, so I’ll pick that back up again to start the day and, more importantly, act it out. The daily review has been a good anchor, how can I make it better ? First, 21:30 local time is a healthier deadline. The late timestamps on my communications these past weeks/months are not the rhythm I want, so stop pretending midnight is on the table. If I don’t like what the review says minutes before the deadline, tough, be honest with the dislike and understand why it happened and do better tomorrow. To set myself up better, instead of a blank page at the end of the day, answer the following questions :

  1. Am I proud of my effort today ?
  2. How well did I track my time ?
  3. Did I exercise my curiosity and ask smart questions ?
  4. How well did I deliver on my word ?
  5. What do I need to do and who do I need to talk to tomorrow to repair my word ?
  6. How can I better use my available resources ?
  7. What can I do to improve by 1% tomorrow ?
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