Bursting with GLEE

Saturday, July 25th, 2009 11:46 am
afuna: Cat under a blanket. Text: "Cats are just little people with Fur and Fangs" (Default)
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I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS FOR YEARS STOP I AM SPEAKING IN ALL CAPS STOP I CAN'T STOP STOP I LOVE DREAMWIDTH STOP

I have been sitting on this news all day, excited but trying not to let anything slip before the big announcement. Made it without any leaks! And now it's starting to sink in.

Suddenly, I can feel everything shift in my head, as I realize that I can get rid of some of the more tedious categorizing and bookmarking and tagging workarounds, because I can just run a search. This is only the beginning. OH MY GOD.

(no subject)

Saturday, July 25th, 2009 12:31 am
afuna: Cat under a blanket. Text: "Cats are just little people with Fur and Fangs" (Default)
[personal profile] yvi wrote me some impromptu IRC fic, about Gwen (who is AWESOME AWESOME CHARACTER).

Glee!
afuna: Cat under a blanket. Text: "Cats are just little people with Fur and Fangs" (Default)
Ate at John&Yoko, at Greenbelt 5, fusion Japanese food, to celebrate my dad's and my brother's birthdays. The gindara steak was amazing, rockefeller oysters were pretty yum, and I highly recommend the shrimp and enoki (golden/straw mushroom?) pizza -- slightly cheesy, slightly sweet, very very good. One of the appetizers, thin slices of toasted bread with tuna and salmon sashimi was pretty good, too.

Hmm, the spider roll (soft-shelled crab). The teppanyaki was salty but otherwise not memorable; I'd give it a pass. Chawan mushi was so so; steamed egg + giant prawn, and it looked good, but didn't taste anything close to how it looked. Tea was... ergh. They used Lipton fruit tea, not any form of green tea or rice tea; disappointing.

I ordered some cherry blossom sake instead. Now that was nice! Slightly sweet, with no bitter undertone/aftertaste, and it didn't make me red or itchy! So that was interesting, and sweet.

Talked about stuff at the table. Some things I need to think about still. Went home in one car with my brother and sister. My parents were in the other car, leaving us free to talk about our respective dating lives, etc.

Settling into a pattern

Thursday, July 9th, 2009 12:24 am
afuna: Cat under a blanket. Text: "Cats are just little people with Fur and Fangs" (Default)
Life has settled into a pattern: work in the mornings and afternoons, gym thrice a week in the evenings, daily IRC chats/email conversations with the ones I love. Work itself is a bit less settled; lots of changes that will affect me personally. Will see how it settles down.

Not much time for reading, but occasionally I drag out a paperback for the treadmill. Have finished a couple of books that way, and I actually seem to run longer with books than with music -- pacing of the book balances out against the rhythm of my running. Evenings, when it gets late and I force myself off the computer, I try to find a little spare time to go through Programming Perl (makes me happy, so happy ^_^)

As for DW, when I'm tired or when I know I am working with a limited timeframe, I go on a commit run. It's more bite-sized; don't need to worry about getting into, or regret having to break out of a coding zone. When I have more time or energy available to invest for that evening, I code.

Weekends are for planning/hopefully starting on a new big project if I finished whatever I picked up the week before.

So far it's been working out well. My days are falling into a pleasant rhythm; I rather like it. (Have a few things I need to do; just need to gather the focus/energy to give them the love and attention they deserve)

Two screens!

Friday, June 19th, 2009 11:18 pm
afuna: Cat under a blanket. Text: "Cats are just little people with Fur and Fangs" (Default)
I finally remembered to dig out the power supply cable, so now I have my brother's old 15-inch LCD monitor on and connected to my laptop.

I'm trying to use the laptop as my primary point of interaction, and moving things that I rarely switch over to, or that I want to keep on in the background on the secondary monitor.

IRC is now over there to my left *points*. So is the PDF/ebook I occasionally flip to when I want to read something briefly in between tasks.

TV shows may go there as well, though I'm still thinking about that. On balance, the screens *feel* about the same size? It could be because my brother's old LCD only supports up to 1024x728, whereas my laptop can do a higher resolution. It may also be that my laptop is only 13 inches (13.3?) but is wider, whereas my brother's old LCD... no, my new LCD monitor is just 15 inches.

I wonder if this will make me more productive? Seems worth a shot. I should try coding something...

And should I move some of the coding stuff to the left, so that I don't need to alt tab between coding windows? So much to figure out. So exciting!

ETA:
One thing that's helping me transition, and is helping me switch between applications, no matter which monitor I'm currently in, are the global hotkeys I set up using Quicksilver.

f12 for IRC
cmd+f12 for Terminal
shift+f12 for Firefox
alt+f12 for Twitter

I've mostly been using the first two, but I'm now finding much greater need for / much greater value for the last two as well :)

Backlog cleared

Friday, June 12th, 2009 03:49 am
afuna: Cat under a blanket. Text: "Cats are just little people with Fur and Fangs" (Default)
Tonight, I finished the last two of the bugs which had been hanging around in my queue, taunting me for weeks. This means that of the seventeen bugs assigned to me, fourteen have patches which are now awaiting review, one (mood themes) is a placeholder where I'm taking no action at the moment, one is awaiting discussion or a final decision so I can either patch or resolve WONTFIX, and only one is actually awaiting investigation/patch -- and that last one I just picked up tonight.

Bugzilla has no reason to whine at me anymore. Except for how I signed up for Zilla to email me my outstanding bugs every Saturday. Feel so light!

Hmm, I should pick up something new soon.

Also, also, I'm finally making some headway into my backlog at work -- enough so that I had energy after work to spare to go to gym (making up a bit of what I owe to my body).
afuna: Cat under a blanket. Text: "Cats are just little people with Fur and Fangs" (Default)
I love my grandpa <3 He's a bit of a gadget geek. Up to now he's focused on cameras and phones, but today he got his first computer. He saw Dad's iMac in my room when he visited during our last family reunion, grew envious, and decided to get one of his own.

My brother took care of buying a 20-inch iMac (gorgeoussss) and setting it up. Right now, grandpa's reading Chinese news on it. HE CAN READ NEWS WITHOUT HUNCHING OVER A NEWSPAPER WITH A MAGNIFYING GLASS GUYS THIS ROCKS.

Okay, so he might have turned his computer into the world's most expensive magnifying glass *laugh* But he rocks and is pretty cool at it. There are a few other things I know he's interested in, and I might be able to show him them once he gets used enough to using a computer to do something other than reading.

PS. Guys, translating geek to English for my parents is hard enough; geek to Chinese for my grandpa is so much harder!

PPS. Would just like to tell you guys that [personal profile] rb is sweet and gorgeous, and that she linked me to her series of simple accessibility hints on ATMac and it is amazing!

Productive weekend

Monday, June 1st, 2009 01:58 am
afuna: Cat under a blanket. Text: "Cats are just little people with Fur and Fangs" (Default)
Productive weekend! Have 18 patches by me in the review queue, though some of them I did earlier last week. Focused on the blocking-launch bugs this weekend; picked up nine of the ones that were yet unclaimed (one of them I will need to submit a second patch for). A couple of other things caught my eye in the process, and I filed a bug for those, and submitted a patch for a couple.

Also asked a few questions to clarify some things that were confusing me, and they're all answered now, so I may be able to do a second run-through through the blocking-launch queue and pick up a couple more bugs (or someone else can pick them up, that works for me!)
afuna: Cat under a blanket. Text: "Cats are just little people with Fur and Fangs" (Default)
I am excited. My mom is going to the US to visit my grandmother and see some of her sisters, and this means that I can order technical books and have her take them home. I thought about it a bit, and I really want these three books:

* Programming Perl
* Mastering Perl
* Perl Best Practices

I would have been happy with one, but O'Reilly has a promo where you can buy two and get one free, and my resolve cracked (THREE IS MY HAPPY NUMBER). I also briefly considered switching one out to get the Perl Cookbook but the cookbook is of the more expensive variety, and also, I could not decide which of the first three I could bear to switch out. [personal profile] denny assures me that the knowledge I have absorbed of Perl from poking around means that I can skip Learning Perl, which is good -- one less book to need to buy. I am sweating at the thought of the price, as it is. It's... urgh. It's a lot of money.

But guys, guys, I just bought books. Eeeeh. I hit the buy button and everything and they're now on their way!

(I've been tempted to buy these books before, and have them shipped to my country, but the price of world-wide shipping for three books is $39.48, almost as much as another book! "Almost", here, being a difference of 50 cents)

Anyway, anyway, I'm just so happy and excited. It's the first time that I've tried to order a book from overseas. I have a few technical books which I scavenged from a sale (also my textbooks that I bought for my university courses *grin* I should go look at the Unix Network Programming one again, for kicks), but on the whole I have too few books related to my field. This is the first time I'm buying a technical book that I actively hunted for/want/need, instead of just stumbled upon.

My face right now: ^_________^
afuna: Cat under a blanket. Text: "Cats are just little people with Fur and Fangs" (Default)
Bugs like Bug 820 make me think: "goodness, but I love [personal profile] jadelennox and [personal profile] rb"

Green counts like
5 green (0 unanswered, 5 SNH) :: 5 in import (0+5) :: 0 in crossposter (0+0) :: 0 in comms (0+0) :: 0 in styles (0+0) :: 0 in entries (0+0) :: 0 in general (0+0) :: 0 in web (0+0)
make me think: "goodness, but I love [site community profile] dw_support"

And life, in general, makes me think: "my, but I love [personal profile] pauamma"

Proud of myself!

Wednesday, May 20th, 2009 12:09 am
afuna: Cat under a blanket. Text: "Cats are just little people with Fur and Fangs" (Default)
I worked from home today; spent approximately 14 hours doing work, but I finally managed to finish the big task that has been preventing me from touching any of my other tasks these past two weeks. FINALLY. YAY.

Tomorrow should be less stressful, as I get to start clearing out the backlog of tasks that have piled up. I thought about starting tonight, but uh... I think I'll go to sleep instead.

Also, I'm getting a new laptop. Sadly, it's because the previous owner resigned from my company, but on the other hand, it means that I have a laptop whose screen does not wobble backwards and forwards! (I have several times applied tape to it, which works, but only temporarily). It may be faster, too, with more RAM. I'll probably still use my now-old laptop tomorrow, while I download and install Ubuntu 9.04. I am excited!

Oh, and since I was working from home, I was able to turn to my other laptop and commit DW stuff while waiting the ten minutes or so each time I started the build *halo*

Random love

Thursday, May 14th, 2009 01:23 pm
afuna: Cat under a blanket. Text: "Cats are just little people with Fur and Fangs" (Default)
I really love, about #dw, that I am not made to feel socially awkward when I bring up technical stuff. Even via text, the feeling of blankfaced uncomprehending silence comes across very clearly, and it's very uncomfortable.

I also love that others bringing up issues in a non-technical manner is also welcome. (Though I sometimes worry that when someone says something in a non-technical fashion, I reply too-technically, using terms that are unfamiliar with the other person. )

It's hard, sometimes, to gauge where someone else is, technically, but for the most part, it seems to me that things have worked out both ways. I've had to worry before about potential mistranslations from geek-to-normal and normal-to-geek, and potential alienation on either side, and it feels so good to not have to worry about it here.
afuna: Cat under a blanket. Text: "Cats are just little people with Fur and Fangs" (Default)
I find myself utterly in love with the creativity of people who can use CSS. Because, hey, I'm happy with black on white and everything in outline form and utterly utilitarian myself, but that doesn't make for gorgeous. (My heart flutters every time I see someone take a Core 2 style, and make it really pretty, because that's what they're there for.

My heart also bounces with glee whenever someone mentions that it's easier to customize styles here than they are used to, because that's what all we did was for. Seriously, ba-dump-thump.)

Styles still not done, though. On my list, once I'm no longer focused on open-beta-blockers and the styles usability bugs being reported to us, is, in no particular order:


  • sticky entry module

  • custom text module

  • hooks to let layout authors easily insert custom modules

  • segment and arrange the wizard properly (subheaders, etc)

  • pulling in information that's already available to us in other places, to be accessible using S2 (la la la la)



The one thing that I'm finding out is how easy it is to manipulate the S2 backend. Perhaps too easy. I find myself wondering whether my methods are hackish/messy and will cause problems down the line later on.

(I'm already trying to stop myself from trying to redo the grouping stuff as hashes with lots of automagic rather than arrays. Imagine being able to do property string{} module_customtext_group { grouptype= "module" }; and have it pick up the title/name/opts automatically instead of having to do a set module_customtext_group... Feel like I missed my chance on that one, now I have to do the grouping manually all the time. Bleeeeeh. (but it works, I'm happy with it))

But before that, business statistics, which I am working with, with [personal profile] pauamma. We've got some kind of framework hashed out, now just need to figure out how to do the selects for data collection (I say "just", but since that's the entire point of what we're doing... hah!).

The biggest problem with the SQL is that we're basically going to go through all the user accounts for data, e.g, account types. How to do this without bringing the DB to its knees? Suspect I shall need to talk to friendly neighborhood database administrator soon-ish.

Stuff like -- group by looks the easiest syntax-wise, but has to load everything in the database in one go, and that probably won't be pretty. bin/maint/stats.pl splits users into blocks, and iterates over each of the rows a block at a time. Or could you combine the two, split into blocks, and groupby within that block? Ponder, ponder, beard-stroke, etc. (Thinking out loud, will wander over to IRC and try to find a good time to talk at some point).

It's April 20. I'm so excited. Also, feeling the lack of time. (I do wish it was faster to get into the zone, though. I usually sleep Saturdays away, which leaves only part of Sunday to do code, and there's so much to do. Grr)

WHOOOO

Thursday, April 16th, 2009 12:09 pm
afuna: Cat under a blanket. Text: "Cats are just little people with Fur and Fangs" (Default)
Moving on to my next task. YAY
afuna: Cat under a blanket. Text: "Cats are just little people with Fur and Fangs" (Default)
New batch of codes came in (part bounty, part just being part of the site). I just went through the comments in my last entry, and gave everyone who asked an invite. I think that almost everyone else on my friends list who is interested in moving or checking things out is already there, and um, I still have eight codes one code all out.

Will give them out to anyone who is interested. Comment with your email address, please, so I'll know where to send them to!

PS. Still accepting bribes of love.

Codes :O

Tuesday, April 7th, 2009 11:50 am
afuna: Cat under a blanket. Text: "Cats are just little people with Fur and Fangs" (Default)
I got some codes from the code bounty!

Now trying to tempt people over.
afuna: Cat under a blanket. Text: "Cats are just little people with Fur and Fangs" (Default)
And I have been scared to learn, so I am determined to do so at some point in this next week.

So far, I have:


  • cut carrots (it looks easy! I did not realize it was possible to do it horrendously badly! But I did it anyway! (both the cutting and the horrendously badly!) )

  • cut chicken into chunks (across the grain. or the, the, whatever you call the texture. I think I scared people with my knife. BUT. I did it anyway ahaha )

  • mixed chicken in the thing you coat it in before cooking (in this case, dab of rice wine, black pepper, sesame oil, soy paste. Then some corn starch afterwards, to keep it tender, I think (sesame oil on my hands smells so very good) )

  • rejoiced over not yet wrecking dinner \o/




PS. Have not yet touched the stove.
afuna: Cat under a blanket. Text: "Cats are just little people with Fur and Fangs" (Default)
And I have been scared to learn, so I am determined to do so at some point in this next week.

So far, I have:


  • cut carrots (it looks easy! I did not realize it was possible to do it horrendously badly! But I did it anyway! (both the cutting and the horrendously badly!) )

  • cut chicken into chunks (across the grain. or the, the, whatever you call the texture. I think I scared people with my knife. BUT. I did it anyway ahaha )

  • mixed chicken in the thing you coat it in before cooking (in this case, dab of rice wine, black pepper, sesame oil, soy paste. Then some corn starch afterwards, to keep it tender, I think (sesame oil on my hands smells so very good) )

  • rejoiced over not yet wrecking dinner \o/




PS. Have not yet touched the stove.
afuna: Cat under a blanket. Text: "Cats are just little people with Fur and Fangs" (Default)
[livejournal.com profile] zvi lays out all your options for getting a Dreamwidth account:

http://zvi.dreamwidth.org/504277.html

(I am excited. And must put up my squee-entry soon.)
afuna: Cat under a blanket. Text: "Cats are just little people with Fur and Fangs" (Default)
So today, I:


  • ate at a sushi buffet (was good. Seven plates *thumbs-up*. Got some old favorites, tried new dishes. I ended up organizing the plates by color because it bothered me to leave them unordered)
  • hung out with friends (my old group from highschool, all of us somehow grown up, how did that happen? We made plans to hang out more)
  • bought a book (first book of Clive Barker's Abarat. I bought the second one ages ago, but could not read it... until now!)


This week, I also:

  • celebrated my first anniversary with Pau (more on that soon)
  • worked with the styles team, and got one new style ready for commit!!! (omg)
  • got a lot of tasks done for work (after a frustrating, longish period of not being able to pick up enough to do. Was beginning to feel restless, but now it's all better)


Life is good.