Not Any Price Would Do

29 January 2010 – 12:56 am by Felix Leong | ,

Just recently I took up a simple freelance project, which involves interfacing with a USB camera. Considering the fact this is my first programming related project and having no prior work to base on, I took the naïve approach by using a rough mental estimate on effort and difficulty and then picking a number that sounds just about right based on that mental exercise.

As soon I started this virgin project of mine, I realize one critical thing that I had overlooked: The work involved is not just the programming, but also making the initial setup to my development and testing environment. The mistake of my oversight is made more pronounced by the need to interface with a specific piece of hardware – I’m nastily surprised when Windows 7 crashes spectacularly due to the driver that came with it. That eventually led me to having to bring up another computer and have Windows XP set up as my testing environment.

What I failed to take into account is the “initial setup cost” – the fixed amount of time, money and effort needed to set the project up in the first place. This is one of the key variables that the manufacturing or product-based businesses needed to know as a matter of survival: failure to factor this cost in correctly could prove to be fatal.

Maybe it’s due to the fact that we programmers doesn’t deal with physical atoms, we may naïvely believe that our work involves us bringing up our text editors or IDEs, start banging on the code and expect that we can come up with our software after a couple of builds. But in fact we may overlook some setup costs until we hit into our first brick wall: things from finding SDKs, to checking dependencies; from doing page-fault learning, to setting up the testing environment, etc.

I consider myself lucky that my guesstimate of the price is about right. Considering the fiery hoops that I have to jump through  though, I’m starting to keep a journal to keep track what effort I had put into any projects that I attempted. I couldn’t think of a better reference than that to get a handle of things in the future.

Photo credits: abbyladybug [flickr]

Comments (0)

The 13 Centimetre Torture Chamber

19 January 2010 – 11:43 pm by Felix Leong | ,

Honestly speaking, I didn’t get the masculine appeal of DIY (do-it-yourself).

But recently when the tap of my bathroom sink had a crack, my morning routine is always greeted by some unwanted fountain gushing through the cracks (without the laser show and synchronous music). I’m not sure how I had that twisted sense of logic being too lazy to call a plumber, I ended up deciding to fix it up myself.

After having a mild testosterone rush visiting the hardware store (realization #1) and getting the tools I needed, I got down to work. Immediately the absolute difficulty of accessing the nuts within a confined 13-centimeter space (which no normal spanner would be of any use in this situation) had garnered enough hate that I hereby declare the inventors and designers of the bathroom sink were bloody evil sadists with a porcelain fetish. (realization #2) But I digress.

Getting the first nut out is easy actually with a basin wrench. It’s the top-most faucet nut which even the basin wrench couldn’t access to that makes it a bitch. I’m pretty much left with my bare hands to get it out. I really cursed out loud as I desperately trying to pry a really tight nut, something my feeble strength couldn’t really make it budge. (realization #3)

I really wished that I bought a hacksaw at the hardware store (realization #4).

It ended up taking me a whole three hours to have the tap replaced. After the herculean effort I had made to replace it, I had the strong sense of accomplishment that I could do it… as well as feeling like a real man. (realization #5)

Hmmm, I wonder what other project would I want to take up next? :LOL:

Comments (3)

Disconnect

12 January 2010 – 11:23 pm by Felix Leong | ,

I’m always under the impression that as each of us are unique individuals with varying experiences in life, we often have our own views, biases, understanding and assumptions when it comes to the world around us. And depending on our eloquence in expressing ourselves, we also have varying degrees of success when it comes to communicating with people. Especially when having two individuals from extremely divergent “worlds”, the demands of communications skills are far greater than one may be used to as compared to hanging around with really close friends.

It has been quite a long while ever since I had the habit of musing: letting my thoughts drift and experiment with philosophical ideas within the confines of my own worldview. And occasionally I end up gaining certain radical hypotheses in my worldview that I find myself particularly nervous to air such views when someone says something that I don’t quite agree upon at least on an intellectual level.

Maybe it’s just our own culture to avoid any sort of confrontation or conflicts as much as we could. Or maybe I’m just too self-conscious and not wanting to be perceived as argumentative, or even worse, a lunatic. But deep down, I really like some sort of a tribe of which we could engage in discussions and thought explorations without or minimal inhibitions.

It does made me wonder whether is just me feeling that way.

Comments (0)

Reflecting 2009

31 December 2009 – 11:34 am by Felix Leong | ,

Come to think of it, it’s kind of funny that we often tell ourselves to make sure that we live life and yet forgetting about that very advice.

— from Cliché about modern life

As 2009’s going to pass and soon enough I’ll turn 28, I find myself struck with a shocking realization — that I had transitioned into adulthood without even noticing it coming. It seemed mundane and people would have chuckled* if I blurted this remark in real life, but to be honest it’s pretty much until now I’m starting to noticing the full effects of being an “adult” in line to the expectations of my social circle.

Such a thought came to me as I started to see how life has unfolded around and within myself: having changed jobs and returning back to where I started, getting to know more people in different situations and environments as I entered into new territories, seeing close friends marrying one-by-one, having to understand and review my parents’ insurance policies… among other things. It’s the realization that as a child, I could get away with having other taking care of certain aspects of life; But as I grow up, I’m now required to take up a bigger role not only in my life but also in others. What used to be that I’m already provided with food, shelter and transport to becoming a more growing concern in my own daily life.

It really felt like I’d now married a person named “life” and in need to get to know and live with that person until the day I pass on to another realm.

Honestly speaking 2009 has been a year full of challenges, and every once in a while I’d face situations and possibilities in life which had a lot of parameters that I’m completely oblivious about. Having to face with life decisions with a lot of unknowns and uncertainties to its potential future impact is something that I’m still not used to: occasionally some would trigger strong emotional reactions — overwhelm, fear, doubt, helpless and with skepticism.

I really admired people who always viewed challenges with a twinkle in their eyes and take the leap to pursue full-heartedly: filling with curiosity, wonder, excitement, passion and a creative spirit. Also people who had gotten back to their feet with a laugh after they stumbled, tripped and fall flat on their face along the course of pursuing their passion. I do wonder how much inspiration and personal action I needed more to cultivate such a beautiful and strong spirit?

Looking ahead towards 2010, it signifies a move into a journey towards self-realization. It’s a time to seriously think about what I really wanted in life and work towards making them a reality. It’s a time to accepting the bigger role I’m offered to play in the world and expand my interest beyond myself and looking for ways to contribute to others. It’s an even critical phase that I needed to get in touch with my strengths to harness them into the manifestion of my life.

That’d be my vision to be carried forward into next year and beyond.

* Emotional reaction may vary. But I could imagine the amusement I’d get from that :)

[Image credits: Diverging Paths by _massimo_]

Comments Off

Public Diary: Is It a Good Idea?

25 December 2009 – 10:22 pm by Felix Leong | ,

This morning I finally took out my old LiveJournal backups and have them restored over to this site: that’s after a few months since I took the site down. That has always been the plan as I decided to consolidate my personal blog and website into one. But what really happened is that as soon as I took down the site on LiveJournal: I suddenly doubt whether I should keep them in online circulation.

At that time it suddenly dawned upon me on why I felt that way: The older post are more close to a nature to a personal diary; and despite the fact that I had no qualms making it public at the time of writing it, once I have taken those posts down, they are effectively private until I posted them up. And having that gap in between it being private to becoming public again had triggered some fear within myself as I start to recall what content I had written before. Despite the general positive and contemplative tone, there are also entries which are more personal and emotional in nature.

In a sense, what I fear is that parts that exposes my weakness and the ugly side of myself: thinking how those posts would reflect and/or affect me. At that brief lapse of time, I’m starting to question whether such diary-like blogs should even be public or not. And not to mention I’d adapted a more defensive style of writing in my later blog posts which shows a gradual disparity between my old self with my current self.

But, as you have witnessed, I posted them up anyway.

If you asked what had transpired me to go ahead with making it public, probably it’d be the following:

  1. There’s a lot of content that I believe is worth sharing
  2. I trust myself: I know that I’d always taken great care in writing all my posts and did not do any harm towards others knowingly
  3. There’s no point concealing parts that I don’t like about myself: I treasure my ability to express myself and I won’t be able to show just the good parts without trying deliberately to a point of faking
  4. Last but not least… in reality, nobody really cares :)

Having decided that, do I still think a public-viewable blog that acts as a personal diary a good idea? I wished I knew the answer: after all, my blog has always been experimental in nature — giving myself an opportunity to see how my writing would affect the social circles around me. And so far I have gained some insights through the discussions I had in the comments and had worked out my social behaviour in accordance to the subtle feedback I get from the real-life interactions of friends who read the blog.

But if there’s anything I have learned from my blogging journey, my take is that we have to treat blogging in the same way that we treat any interactions with people: always have considerations towards the person you are talking to and any person that you’re talking about, at the same time just being yourself and have fun in the process. Otherwise life would be just be too hard to live.

[Image credits: Secret Book #1 by Randy Cox]

Comments Off