Learning things 1: Coding (Part 1)

“It can’t be that difficult, right?”

Sitting in a bar in East Belfast, amongst the lackluster turnout for a comedy open mic night, the idea of learning how to code seems like a no brainer. Sitting beside me, giving me a knowing look, is my friend Paul, a student at Queens University studying computer game design. He’s just finished telling me about a promotion at Microsoft, “If you make four apps for Windows 8, they’ll send you a free tablet.” At first, the promise of free electronics was what drew me in, this was it, I was going to learn how to code. I don’t know if this had been his plan, but if it was I was falling for it. See, I’m a serial learner. I have a habit of becoming obsessed with things, of trying to learn everything I can about the last subject I heard about. This is why, in my room, you can find books about music theory, multiple magic books and dvds, books on stand-up comedy, psychology, and lie detection, to name a few. I’m like the physical embodiment of the saying ‘Jack of all trades, master of none’. I could spend hours online just learning things I will never use. And so here our story begins, at the start of my next journey into apprenticeship.

Day 1:

Starbucks. I know people do it all the time, but I always feel ridiculous pulling out a laptop in public, even in a coffee shop where everyone either has a laptop or a pretentious moustache, rarely both. It’s about an hour until closing, not many people in, so we pull over another table and get to work. The red light blinks ominously on the audio recorder sitting on the table. “So how much do you know about coding?” I think for a second. “I made a website once”, “So nothing then?” This is the first time I realise I’m probably in over my head. “Do you know what a method is? How about a parameter? A variable? A class?” The pain in my neck from vigorously shaking my head ‘no’ is telling. “OK, what does this do?” I look at a piece of code on the screen, more foreign to me than any other language I don’t know. The next hour flies by as terms are bandied about the place, as coffee is drank, and I start to learn. By the time 9:30 rolls around, the stares of annoyed baristas looking to sweep the floors and get home bare down on us as we begin packing up to leave, but I’m not finished learning. We head back to my house where Paul sets me a task, using what he’s just taught me, to write some simple code. One embarrassing hour later and I’m done, both in terms of coding and in mental capacity. My words are beginning to slur, the steady tempo of the drip-drip-drip sound made as my brain slowly leaks out of my ears and crashes to the tiled floor is driving me insane, and the creepy clown standing in the corner, taunting me, isn’t helping much. But I’ve finished, and with only a lot of help from my student-tutor. I feel ecstatic, like I’m ready to take on the world. There is something extremely satisfying about writing lines of code and seeing it create something on the screen. It takes awhile for my brain to wind down but eventually I fall asleep, knowing that tomorrow I will learn more, because, hey, coding can’t be that hard, right?

 

                                                     My first foray into writing code

 

Day 2:

The next day, I’m sitting on my laptop, safe and secure in the knowledge I am now an ace programmer, all this information from the day before is now in my head. With all the smugness I could muster, I open microsoft visual studio, the program I am learning to code on, reopen the same task from the night before, the blank screen a perfect match for my mind. How can this be? How come I can’t remember a thing of what I learned just the night before? I send a distressed message to Paul, arranging an emergency meeting that night again in Starbucks. This has never happened to me before. I don’t mean to blow my own trumpet, but I’m normally really good at learning. Like, tell me something once, it just sticks. This is the first time in years I’ve felt truly challenged in learning something. I mean, learning how to juggle and learning card magic were difficult, but purely from a physical standpoint, getting my fingers to manipulate cards the way I want them to, or teaching my brain how to keep three balls in the air at once. Again, I’m not saying I’m the smartest person, I’m just saying I know how to learn, and I’ve never had this trouble before. It’s strange, but it’s a nice feeling which I’ll come back to later. That night, we meet up again, same starbucks, same tables, different baristas though, thankfully. We go over what I did the day before, making notes as I go, and he sets me another example. Things are making sense now, I’m understanding the terms when he says them, I’m remembering the way things can be combined, and it only takes me forty-five minutes this time with less help. Everything is right with the world again. Once we reach closing time, Paul isn’t content with just going over what we’ve already done, he wants to teach me something new. Back to my house again and we cover ‘if’ statements, essentially the building blocks of programming. He sets me another example, but this time it’s homework, to do when he’s not around. The initial nerves this inspires is soon replaced with the thrill of a new challenge.

Day 3:

Day three was spent working on my new challenge, alone. It was more complex that what I had done before, inspired by the announcement of Black Sabbath playing at the Odyssey I was tasked with creating a ticket system for the event, combining what I’d learnt in ways I hadn’t really done before. It went surprisingly well, still taking me quite a while to write but without needing any help. Now, at this point, I should point out I’ve only talked about one aspect of programming, actually writing the code, but there is another side of it which is testing what you’ve written. To do this, you have to write more code in a separate file which accesses the first code to make sure it is doing what it is supposed to. This is the part I was struggling with. It just didn’t make sense to me, something wasn’t connecting. That night, completely stumped, I decided to leave it, I’d just have to ask Paul about it the next day. Somewhat annoyed with myself, but still fairly optimistic, I went to bed. A whirlwind of insane dreams of boxes and machines later, I woke. Something was different.

                                                      My second assignment

Day 4:

Something had clicked. I woke up with knowledge I didn’t seem to have the day before. Suddenly, testing made sense, something connected in my head and I could just do it. I pulled my laptop from its resting place, furiously typing in lines of code. I ran it.

‘Booking successful’

Success! I had done it! I’d successfully written some code and tested it without help. I practically danced to my preferred email client to send the results to my student-tutor.

‘“Good. Ready for more?”

That night, shunning the coffee shop, we head straight to my kitchen. After another night of learning, Paul reveals I am about one more lesson away from completing my first semester of a computer science course at university.

“So do you think I’m ready to make my first app?!” I ask enthusiastically.

“Hell no”.

"Don't be afraid to talk to your art"

I was watching a TED talk today by Elizabeth Gilbert who wrote "Eat, Pray, Love" in which she talks about the nature of genius. She talks about how the ancient Greeks and Romans didn't say that someone WAS a genius, rather that they HAD a genius. You know how sometimes an idea just pops into your head and you have no idea were it came from? That, they would say, came from a genius, some sort of strange, fairy like creature that would hang around writer and whisper some hint of an idea for the author to work with. Then she mentioned someone who I would call the most creative person of our time. Someone whose music can creep me out and relax me at the same time:

Tom Waits. She mentions that she interviewed Tom once and he talked about the moment music changed for him. He was driving in LA one day when a part of a song popped into his head. He was getting frustrated that he couldn't work on it at that moment and was worried that he'd forget it, at that moment he looked up at the sky and said, "Excuse me, but can't you see I'm driving? Does it look like I can write down a song right now? If you really want to exist, come back at a more opportune moment or go bother someone else, like Leonard Cohen." From that point on he realised it's ok to talk to your work. He has been known to walk up and down in the studio when a song just wont come saying things like "Look, all the rest of the kids are packed and in the car ready for vacation, if you're not ready to go in 10 minutes then we'll leave without you." The strangest thing about this whole talking to your songs thing is that it actually works. Elizabeth talks, in an interview I heard on the radio, about how she had to sweet-talk the name "Eat, Pray, Love" out of her book. She sent an email to her friends asking them for ideas for the name of her book saying, "My book wont tell me it's name so I'm asking you for suggestions". One of her friends replied "Well, I wouldn't tell you my name if you were talking to me like that". That night she talked to her book all sweet-and-tender-like and the next morning she woke up with the title in her head.

The best thing about this idea of having a genius rather than being one is, she says, that it leaves you always feeling somewhere in the middle. If you write a best selling book, you don't have a huge ego because you don't feel like you can take full credit for it, but also, if it fails, then you don't take all the blame.

Here is the whole Ted Talk:

Coming soon...

This is more of an advert for (what I hope to be) next week's blog which will take the form of a vlog! If it isn't next week it'll be the week after. Look forward to it! It's a presentation that I am doing for college that I'm going to record and it'll be interesting and stuff...

The darkness once again sweeps over the land

A couple of days ago, I was delighted to hear about the reunion of The Darkness, a band I never cared much for while they were together but in recent months I have come to appreciate.

Fact: The decline in sales of tight-fitting clothes after The Darkness split up was a direct cause of the Recession.

The Darkness, I have come to realise, were essentially a sleeper cell. In essence, they are a glam rock, almost borderline power metal band only with less dragons and voices that were pitched higher than those guys on the Pakistani Cricket team who were paid to pitch the ball too high.

And better facial hair

They managed to make this kind of music yet still exist in a mainly popular light. In fact, I think you'd be had pressed (whatever that means) to find anyone who couldn't finish the sentence "I believe in a thing called _____".

This is all that's really been on my mind recently. Yup, that's how exciting my life has been. That, and the fact I  want to be a radio producer in a land that has no good radio stations. It would seem I either have to start my own radio station/podcast or move to London. Either way, I don't mind.

Also, be careful on Saturday, it's apparently the end of the world, something about the moon being close to earth.

P.S. I started a sound cloud account yesterday and I be's starting to make music. It's not great but here's a wee preview for y'all.



Stuff and things by Crimsai

Microblog #2! Things and other stuff

I cannot guarantee the length or quality of this post because I am watching Mike Tyson racing pigeons.

Speaking of racing pigeons, I want to start a messenger pigeon service, if anyone would be interested in helping out, let me know.

And now onto the main event!

I just decided this is going to be a Microblog since I can't think about what to write but I don't want to not write anything this week.

Lately, I've been working on a trailer for my games design assignment and it's really confirmed for me that I prefer working with audio than video.

That is all.

P.S. I'll upload the final trailer for my game.

*Insert blog title here*

Today's blog is a three-parter!

First, I was just listening to the radio and someone was talking about going on a cruise or going on holiday and reading books. I have to say, and feel free to quote me on this, "Don't go on holiday to read books, read books to go on holiday!" It really works, too. If it doesn't, you're doing it wrong.

Second, a friend of mine is doing a fund-raiser to raise money for cancer research. They are doing a sponsored "give up facebook for 40 days and 40 nights", something I'm sure most people would find hard to do. If you feel like sponsoring but are thinking "But I don't know her, how can I give her all my monies?" Well, look no further! THIS website allows you to donate your money! Give generously, the internets are watching you...

And finally, the main attraction!

I've been thinking recently about conversations and I thought, with the help of four people I know, that I would describe my findings on "ways to be really bad at communication and how to improve". Also, by writing this stuff, I am in no way saying (or typing) that I am a great communicator, all I am saying is this is stuff I've realised I've been doing or other people around me have been doing.

My first case study:

This first person, I wont name names but I'm sure you all know someone like this. It is the person who always needs to say something but never says anything anybody needs to hear (and not in a good way). The problem with this is, however, that if you ever do have something useful to say, it will just be mixed in with all the rubbish and nobody will hear it. In the words of Thumper from Bambi, "If you don't have anything good to say, don't say anything at all." If more people did this, we'd all have far better conversations.

The second person I have noticed, and the person I was at one point, is the person who doesn't talk and doesn't listen to the conversation. You can't sit there wondering "Why don't people talk to me? And why am I not involved in conversations?" if you don't make the effort to listen to what people are saying? Just listen! It's not that hard.

The third person is a lot like the first one. This is the person who thinks they are hilarious but, no matter how many people tell them not to, they keep trying. This problem is far too widespread amongst our communities. If thinking you were funnier than you are was a symptom of swine flu, we wouldn't have to worry about water shortages.

The last person is possibly the most annoying of them all, and it's the person who is afraid of silence. I recently had a situation where I was around a person for a whole bunch more hours than I normally would be. This led to me having this issue. I'm sure there are people out there who, like me, require a bit of silence every now and then in which they can process their thoughts and chill out. People like this person don't seem to realise that conversation, like the tide, comes in flows. Sometimes conversation flows and people can talk freely and, at other times, there's just a bunch of dead starfish and jellyfish lying on the sand. Wait, what? I meant sometimes there is a lull in conversation. If people don't respect the lulls, conversation doesn't flow properly.

So, in conclusion, I was never very good at conversations. I'm pretty sure I have been every person mentioned above at one point, except the last one. And I'm still horrible at one on one conversations, by the way, However, in group conversations, what I did was to listen. Observe the conversation, see what makes the conversation continue, see how other people keep conversations interesting then, after a while, start adding in the odd comment, but only when it's something that needs said. Another useful tip is to remember who you're talking to, and remember that self-censorship is a good thing. If you're talking to Gordon Brown, he may not appreciate your "Your Momma" jokes. I think a lot of people think self-censorship is the same as being fake, something you should avoid at all costs, but it really isn't. It's one of the most important things to remember in a conversations.

So, what do you think? Do you think I'm accurate? Do you think I've missed something out or got something completely wrong? Lemme know!

Harry Potter and The Reason Films Will Never Be As Good As the Book They Are Based On

Raise your hand if you've ever read a book?

Raise your hand if that book has been made into a film?

Raise your hand if that film was any good.

Didn't think so...

I have had this problem recently and I've been trying to figure out the reason for it. Some books can be really interesting yet the films end up being about as fun as worm soup. The case study I will be using to show my points is, you guessed it, Harry Potter! I never read these books while growing up, and I never watched the films either, until a few months a go. I have always enjoyed reading and upon running out of books to read (I had just finished "The Hambledown Dream" by Dean Mayes, which I couldn't recommend enough!) a friend told me I didn't know what I was missing by not reading the Harry Potter books. So, probably about 10 years too late, I embarked on a journey into the magical world of Hogwarts for the very first time and I have to say I was very surprised by what I found. For roughly the first five chapters of the first book I remember thinking "yup, this was written for kids". After that, however, I was hooked. Since then, I've been reading the books and then watching the film afterwards and each time I can't help but get my hopes up, onto to have them bitterly smashed in front of me.

It's hard to explain what, exactly, draws people to this series. It certainly isn't the lovable characters, has anyone else noticed how Harry has all that money in the bank and so far (I'm on the fifth book) there hasn't been one mention of him giving gifts to anyone. In fact, the Weasley's are broke as a toaster but he still scrounges off them for a place to stay and eats their food. And he can't claim ignorance because at the start of the fourth book Harry gets a letter from Hermione telling him it's her birthday in a couple weeks. Still, nothing... But before I get too annoyed at a fictional character, lets move on to reason number one:

Reason 1 - Films are too short:

This is my biggest problem with book-based films. It is impossible to have an accurate retelling of any book and keep everything in there. The issue with this is all those small, insignificant parts of the book that have nothing to do with the plot? I'm pretty sure they're called "character development". Without those bits, Harry is just a guy who goes to school that messed up stuff happens to. I personally feel if a film is based on a book I have read, it's near impossible to connect with the on-screen versions of the characters.

Film versions of books are, to me, like if you read through a book and just decided to skip every other chapter. You wouldn't have a good idea of who the characters were by the end of the book, would you? Which, somehow, leads me to my next point.

Reason 2 - The majority of most books take place internally:

If I could be bothered with the hassle, at this point I would have found a page from a script of one of these films and compared the length to about four pages from the book. The reason for this, as indicated by the sub-title, is because most books take place mostly in the readers brain or in the characters brain. There are (very limited) options in films for dealing with a characters internal monologue, mainly have them talk to themselves or have a voice-over. There is, however, no way I know of in a film to depict the viewers internal thoughts, it leads to pages or even chapters being left out or rewritten. At that point, the book and the film are no longer the same entity. This leads to far less personal involvement with the story from the viewer than in either a book or a regular film: It's like media purgatory.

Reason 3 - There is no better casting director than our own imagination:


Something I have discovered about myself recently is I don't really see people in my imagination when I read books. It's  hard to explain but the majority of the time I see the concept of the person (unless it is a particularly visual scene) so when I watch a film based on a book there is now a picture associated with this concept of a character. This may not seem like a big deal but it reduces our need for imagination by, at least, a boatload.

In conclusion...


Stories for films are written for film, and book stories are written for books. In my opinion, and in the words of the ghost busters, "Don't cross the streams!". I don't think any book I read will ever make a good film, simply because books are too detailed. And you may say "What about Lord of The Rings?" but anyone saying that probably hasn't read the book before. Of course, I could be wrong. Maybe it is just books such as the Harry Potter series because there are so many special effects used? Maybe books that require less imagination work better as films? Cause, lets be honest, who really needs imagination when the box in the corner of the room can do it for them?