proggrkim

[proggrkim]

It’s never too late

Writing has never been my cup of tea. However, I’ve realized that writing is the essence of communication with others how I reason and feel. As I become interested in writing, I become more aware of how important vocabulary is. There are so many words which describe things and situations just perfectly, and concisely. I found those austere, yet concise words very charming. I’m jotting down today getting a bit closer to my future better writing.

[proggrkim]

What day is it today

Sort of randomly, I got curious about two sentences while learning python datetime library.

* What day is it today? -> Tuesday!

* What’s the date today? -> November 9th!

The first one is asking what day among the seven days in a week is today’s day. And the second sentence is asking what today’s date is in a year.

[proggrkim]

An App for preventing eye strain.

My eyes have been experiencing extreme fatigue lately. Searching for good habits for eye health, I found the 20-20-20 rule, which goes like this: look away from computer screen every 20 minutes, look at something at least 20 feet away, and continue looking away for at least 20 seconds. 

Sure, sounds good. But... the challenge is notifying yourself every 20 minutes. So I searched for an app, and found an app called “Time Out”.

It is a macOS app that grays out your screen every X seconds/minutes/hours, and displaying an image of palm trees(I think you can configure the image). It also shows a timer telling how much your break time has elapsed. It’s a pretty neat app. If anyone is interested, check it out at https://apps.apple.com/us/story/id1446914963

[proggrkim]

사랑

“가장 근원이 되는 이웃사랑은 나로 인하여 누군가가 아름다워지는데 있다. 모든 사람 속에는 선과 악의 ��능성이 공존한다. 우리는 어떤 의미에서는 사람들의 숨겨져 있는 것을 끄집어 내는 마중물이다. 그 사람속에 있는 선하고 아름답고 순수하고 정겨운 것들을 끄집어 낸다면, 내가 뭘 해서가 아니라, 나의 있음 자체가 이웃사랑 하는 존재이다. 그러나 내가 살아가는 모습이 누군가의 속에서 욕심이나 거친것을 끄집어 낸다고 한다면 나는 이웃사랑에 실패한 사람임이 분명하다.”

청파교회 김기석 목사님 설교 발췌 (https://youtu.be/EU9yIHiC7RY)

[proggrkim]

Morning person

I listened to an interesting story on NPR radio today, about becoming a morning person. If you are interested listening, here is the link. https://www.npr.org/2021/11/02/1051553451/how-to-wake-up-early

It argues that everyone has their biological clock inside. The biological clock determines our circadian rhythms. Some people have it close to 24 hours, some have it a bit longer than 24 hours, some have it a bit shorter than 24 hours. Those who have the biological clock a bit shorter than 24 hours tend to be a morning person while night owls tend to have it longer than 24 hours. However, a few habits can help make waking up early less of a chore.  

To summarize what it says,

Light

When we are exposed to sunlight or bright light, it shuts sleeping-regulated hormone “melatonin” production off telling your body to wake up. So, when waking up, it’s good to expose yourself to sunlight or an artificial bright light in the morning. Conversely, at night you would want to avoid a bright light box.

Movement

Exercise, or jogging is another way to tell your body, it’s time to wake up.

Consistency

Consistently waking up or going to bed at a same time helps your biological clock. Even eating at a same time helps your sleep cycle.

Nap

If you need a nap, take it for less than an hour. 10 minutes of nap is also enough a lot of time. Also do not take nap at a time close to bed time.

Caffeine

Do not consume too much caffeine, and cut it out within 6 hours of going to bed.

Melatonin

If you need to adjust to a different timezone, taking a small dose(between 0.5 and 3 mg) of melatonin supplement two to three hours before bed time can help fall asleep.

[proggrkim]

An interesting word learned

I’ve never been one, and I’ve actually never met any misanthrope in my life. Those people only seem to exist in some kind of novels. Is it true?

My reasoning led me to think what if people around me are doing a very good job on hiding if they are the ones. Is there a way to know if so?

Perhaps, all humans, to a certain degree, have some aspects of being a misanthrope. We have a tendency to judge circumstances by our own way of thinking. If a circumstance is created by other person, they are inevitably subject to be judged. Depending on the outcome of one’s judgment, the result could be disliking them or looking down on them.

So, not to be a misanthrope, understanding others and circumstances from different perspectives will help.

[proggrkim]

Thinking About Next Car

My Scion is still good, after being with me for more than 10 years. It’s a small little car that can carry a lot more than what it looks like it’s capable. I have a lot of memory with this car. It's my first car in the States. We did cross country from Los Angeles to Upstate New York, then we also drove this car from New York to St. Louis. I’ve never had a serious breakdown with this car. It’s pretty well-built.

I’m considering to find a new owner for this lovely car in two years and buying an electric vehicle. I did some basic research about EVs, and due to the budget limit, I think we will go with something less than $40,000. Tesla Model S and Canoo's Lifestyle vehicle are popped out to me among those within the price range. It’s going to be hard to decide between the two, because Canoo isn’t launched yet. It will be on market sometime in late 2022, according to its website.

Tesla Model 3 has got good customers’ reviews, and I love the fact that it has the autopilot mode. It’s hard to argue the fact that Tesla is the biggest player in the EV market as of today, whereas Canoo is an infant company that hasn’t been tested by the market yet. It, however, has got the cute, unique and futuristic looking and, more importantly to me, it has large space in the back. We don’t really care about loading 5 more people in the back, but we prefer to have enough loading space in the back.

So, to summarize...

Pros of Tesla Model 3

It’s Tesla

Autopilot mode

Pros of Canoo Lifestyle vehicle

Looks

Big space in the back

It's always better to think about options before hitting the time. So I'm glad that I have two more years to research more and look for any news or information popping up on those two automakers.

[proggrkim]

My New Habits

A randomly played YouTube video inspired me today. It was about 12 habits of successful people. I’m going to list them and jot down my thoughts.

Waking up early I believe it’s true that most successful people wake up early. I’ve tried it more than several times in my life, but I wasn’t able to sustain it. I think the trick is not to break your sleep cycle, which is not so easy. No matter how hard it is, I’m going to give it another try. Starting tomorrow!

Treating failure like gold, learn from failure I tend to give up when I face a failure. I get mental break-down and loose confidence. I need to learn how to learn from my failures. Failure from a job interview, failure of personal projects, failure in financial investment, etc. I know I wasn’t fully prepared for interviews, but hoping to get by. I just need to study hard so I’m well prepared. I know I need to study more strategically and concentrate more when studying. For the project failure, it’s usually because I’m not equipped in what I’m trying to make. So, I really need to spend time learning those skills that are needed for projects. For financial investment, I lost some in some stocks, because I didn’t have enough information about those stocks. Next time, I should be more careful, and learn a lot about a company before investment.

Ignoring conformity Innovation emerges when I think I’m unique. When I conform, I loose that ability. Think for myself!

Reading every day I used to read quite a lot. I believe I started not reading because the field I study and work in. It makes sense that reading not only gives you knowledge, but also stimulates growth and fends off neurodegerative diseases like dementia. I’m going to read an hour day from today. In fact, I already started a book as you can see at the top.

Spending money to make money

Making sacrifices Time between Family, Love, and Work

Creative writing This one is something I’ve never tried. I honestly don’t know where to start, but I will make a note of it and try.

Mild procrastination with purposes I understand this suggestion as, ‘thinking important stuff in background’, which actually helps not to make hasty decisions.

Self improvement Successful people know learning never stops. I’m well aware of it, so I love to learn. The part of the reason is that there are so many things in the world, that I don’t know at all!

Networking Networking is probably one of the hardest among these 12 habits for me. I have never been good at networking. It’s not so easy for people like me who gets uneasy sometimes in social setup. I’m fine with people I feel comfortable with. But I have to admit that I get anxious when I have to meet a group of strangers, not knowing what to say. Overcoming it by exposing myself more in social setup is on my agenda.

Exercising consistently I love exercise, so I just need to make it more regular.

Daily meditation Easy one! I started meditation a year ago, and now it’s becoming my everyday ritual, although I still need to improve the quality of my meditation.

[proggrkim]

How to link custom domain to your tumblr blog

After my first ‘Hello World!’ post, I linked my personal domain name with this tumblr blog. It’s a fairly easy process, so anyone shouldn’t have problems setting up. 

Prerequisites:

1. A tumblr blog

2. domain name, such as awesomeblog.com or google.com, that is your own domain which you pay for annually(usually). There are several good domain registrar vendors out there, such as Go Daddy, or Namecheap.

How it works:

When creating a blog in tumblr, I set up a domain name as proggrkim.tumblr.com. I own my own domain, proggrkim.com. The end goal is proggrkim.com to redirect to proggrkim.tumblr.com. To do so, we will need to let the both parties, the domain registrar and tumbler, know about each other.

How?

First, log into namecheap.com, go to your dashboard. From Domain List, select ‘manage’ button within the domain of interest as shown below.

Then, select Advanced DNS from the tab. Add A Record and set Host to @ and Value to 66.6.44.4 which is the tumbler hosting server’s IP address for blog traffic.

This is all you need to do on the domain registrar’s side. Now Namecheap knows what to to when someone types proggrkim.com in their browser. It will simply direct the user to tumbler server. If you think this is simple, taking care of tumbler side is even simpler.

Go to the blog’s Edit Appearance, then click the little pencil button within Tumblr URL. Enable Use a custom domain, and enter your own domain name, then click Test domain to test. If there is no problem, Save your change. 

Since this change will take some time to sync, wait for sometime, and try your own domain name in the browser. In my case, it was almost instant. I took 10 minute break, then it just worked!

Now the Tumblr blog is accessible via proggrkim.com!

Thanks for reading my post and I hope it was helpful. :)

[proggrkim]

Hello World!

This, my very first blog post, shouts out the notorious ‘Hello World!’. The only difference is that I really mean it this time! I’m nervous and excited about the first post. I’m going to post about anything capturing my days, ranging from daily coding to tips on meditation practice.