RLJ (2)021 - Year in Review

Posted on January 15, 2022  •  8 minutes  • 1544 words

Welcome back into another RLJ 2! It’s been a while since I did one of them, this time I’ve decided to structure it in a really different way: what I’ve done in the entire year couldn’t be summed up in an article. For this reason, I will leave a bag full of links, hoping to stimulate your curiosity.

On life

⁉️ Dunning-Kruger effect

The effect of a person believing themselves to be superior and putting themselves on the same level as an expert, even if they are not very experienced. The opposite also applies: people who are very knowledgeable about something find themselves underestimating themselves.

Yes, COVID is bad, and people taken from social or “the magic university of street” who thinks to know everything about COVID are bad as well.

🤔 Focus

Focus on something or someone, has become really difficult these days, due to having a world where everything is always connected.

I’ve attended a talk about it , but here it is some cool stuff I’ve encountered along 2021:

• Focus mode vs. Diffuse mode : we have two different kind of working mode for our brains, “diffuse mode” and “focus mode”. “Diffuse mode” is our natural mode, and it comes when we analyze and make connections, while in “focus mode” we focus on details. The key is understand how to combine the information we acquired in both modes.
• Sleep on it : sleep is related to rest, it means better productivity, especially on creative tasks. And by sleeping, we remember things.
• Tips for studying at university, by Alessandro Concimi :
  • monastery rule: talks about everything to everybody, but don’t talk about university, unless you want some anxiety.
  • when we talk to someone about something, we do nothing more than amplifying the perception we have about that thing we are talking about
  • study alone
• Mark Manson - Guide for basic meditation : empty your mind and relax
  • Honestly, I tried, didn’t enjoyed it so much. It’s not because it’s conceptually wrong, I think it’s related to how I spent my time. And those 10 minutes could be spent in another way.
  • However, it’s been a key concept, because it helped me sometimes to “just relax” by not doing and thinking anything.

📔 Notes

I’ve tried to use PARA , I did it in a wrong way, so I have organized my notes again.

A clear example of Dunning: I thought I’ve understood PARA, but I didn’t.

In general: do whatever let you feel more comfortable.

This is my graph, updated to 2022.01.15:

💻 Technology

Obviously it couldn’t miss the section related to computer and technology. It would have been a shame!

• An awesome video by Computerphile on How Blur Filters Work in Computer Graphics.
  • This year I’ve done some Computer Graphics Homework and I needed to implement this. It was fun, and I’ve really appreciated that way of explaining things!
• K&R : the best C Book on earth. After all, Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie created C Language, why not follow his official guidelines?
• venv in Python : one of the most incredible things in Python
• Django framework and the tutorial by DjangoGirls : Django is an awesome framework in Python to create backends. It is a little bit complicated at the beginning, but it is not hard
• the rubber duck: IT people often keeps a little rubber duck on their desk and while debugging line per line, they explain her what are they doing.
• TWRP can save your devices if you have a broken screen. Do yourself a favor and give it a try!

🔒 Backup and encryption

I’ve always been very reluctant to use encryption. All it takes is for the slightest thing to go wrong or for a file to get corrupted and there you go, goodbye files and documents.

Nevertheless, I decided to use Veracrypt , an open source encryption and decryption software.

The container file got corrupted, so I would have lost all my documents on Obsidian. I was able to recover my entire vault from Windows using ShadowCopies I will write a guide on it, promise! (even if it isn’t hard)

A backup is not a “deposit” where to put all your files. It is replicating your data in multiple drives, eventually by locking all your data with a password.

Always have a backup of important stuff!

🎵 Music

• Harmonic V Melodic Scales: Harmonic: the notes are played at the same time (they are written on the same space) Melodic: the notes are played one in front of another one (they are written on the same direction)
• Andrew Furmanczyk a music channel where you can learn music theory. Thanks Andrew, I’ve watched some of your videos (especially the one about firth of fifths) and they’re awesome
• Fundamentals of Piano Practice : highly suggested if you’re trying to learn piano

📚 Books

Some of the books I’ve read, could be found in my last Random Learning Journal

• 📚 Revolution Rag: The story talks about Sandy, a journalist that was fired from the newspaper he founded. The co-founder hires him again because he wanted Sandy to write about a misterious unsolved case. It turns out that this case involved a band called Nazgul, that Sandy has interviewed many years ago, because the person was murdered with a damn loud music (Nazgul was playing in the background).
• 📚 Alice in Wonderland: I won’t write a word here. Believe it or not, I never have read this book until 2021.

💰 Money

I’ve talked about tracking things: Monefy is a wonderful app that helps you to track your incomes and expenses. Works great for a little budget and have ton of options.

Or maybe you want use a spreadsheet system: in this case take a look on reddit . That link contains a lot of tools and spreadsheet to use. I am more comfortable to use an application, but there is no a right or wrong method: feel free to use whatever you like more!

Tracking expenses it’s really important: I’ve surprisly found myself in spending a lot on eating outside.

📺 Movies and TV Shows

• Queen’s Gambit : story of a prodigious girl who became a chess’s champion, by simply watching with her eyes when she was 9. Even if it is a little bit slow, I enjoyed so much the lights, the scenes and the main actress.
• Soul : I think this movie is something really beautiful: not only the soundtrack is made up with jazz sounds, that makes me crazy, but it talks about the sense of life. It seems a movie for kids: the hard truth is that it is not for kids only, it is for adults, looking for a better life. It’s worth to link it to designing your life , because it talks about happiness and being happy in what you do in everyday life, and deals with death and God topics.

I’ve seen other movies and tv shows for sure, but these are the ones I remember more.

📐 Projects

• PyDBHelper : a tool written in Python to find out 3NF in a relational schema and much more. I’ve written this to train myself in doing exercises in a correct way, but I haven’t spent time by writing high quality code. Then, the code could be really messy.
• JSQuizee : an engine for your quiz, written in Javascript in two days (or so). I’d like to make a better version!
• I attempted to modify a Game Boy by installing backlight and bivert modules, using some guides available on the internet. However, I’ve failed. I hope I will recover the main board a day…

All my other stuff is available on Github !

🎮 Videogames

I’ve played and (tried from friends) a lot of videogames. Because I started to track everything, I could safely say that 2021 has been the year where I played videogames more in my entire life, even if I have no memories of my precedent years (only a period).

I’ve played many titles, but the honorable mention goes to Shiren The Wanderer .

I love dungeon games like Shiren, they’re hard, with a pure exploration and strategy backgrond, and they have a story (more or less defined).

If you have some extra money, you could think about the Shiren for pc on steam I didn’t know they did a version for pc too.

🔗 Closing Links

When you are faced with two decisions, tosses a coin. Not because it will make the right choice for you, but because the exact moment when the coin is in the air, suddenly you’ll know what you’re hoping. - Bob Marley

• Constant Renewal - The knowledge illusion
• More To That - The Nothingness of money
• More To That - The Many Worlds of enough
• Vincent Van Gogh’s The Starry Night: Great Art Explained
• A Map of the Internet 2021 : definitely one of the best incredible pieces I’ve ever seen
• XKCD - Inheritance
• InsaneInTheRain who quit from being a content creator this year. Carlos was one of the best cover maker on Youtube. Wish you the best!
• A lot of videos from this italian youtuber, Nova Lectio - who talks about history and geography, about China, Thailand, Cuba and a lot of other interesting topics.