I tried a bunch of framework and other language and I usually feel overwhelm when its time to do something real with what I've learned. So that why I created this site, to write my progress and help some noob like me that stumble into the sames problems.
Back when I started using google doc (2008?) I made a doc of ideas that pop into my heads that either would be cool to try or at least see the light of day. In 2014, I think I’ve stopped updating it because I’ve reached more than 365 ideas and later made a part two that included cool shit I’ve found on reddit or HackerNews. Then in 2016 I started another one, but didn’t took off like the other one. Turn out not sleeping because your kids have trouble sleeping, doesn’t help you find news ideas.
Some of them are silly, others not suitable to be published or just story ideas for fiction, but some were almost ahead of their time. Well not really, but profitable apps (and non profitable app too) have popped up after I’ve written the idea. Sometimes, I just didn’t know the service existed.
They say ideas are cheap so I’ve decided to give them to you for free. Since most of them are already implemented elsewhere or stupid so it’s not that big of a gift but I’ll try to do some research to see if they already exist and how it came to be.
So join me on this journey and let’s see what will come out of it. Maybe you can tell me about your idea along the way.
Jerry Seinfeld popularized the “don’t break the chain” (streak) productivity hack. In an interview, Jerry explained how he came up with his joke. By writing a joke every day and by keeping a streak of how many days he did.
“Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You’ll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job is to not break the chain.”
Productivity guru went bonkers on the tips and now many suggest it. There are even daily tracking sites that are built around this idea (like joesgoals.com & tdp). And Seth Godin mentions it in his latest book The Practice.
As I’m writing today I’m on day two of a chain of writing for 10 minutes every day. I previously broke a chain two days ago of 67 days. This tip is a good one considering the number of people recommending it. Yet, there is a dark cousin to this tip that we should be worried about, the no streak streak or the chain of doing nothing.
The common mistake when you stop a chain is to not pick up a new chain. You see, you’re most likely going to give up or become inconsistent after breaking a pattern that you’ve been doing for so long. If seeing all those X on the calendar excites you, not seeing any should be a cue to do something about it, not let it slide.
I’ve talked about the law of 100 in recently. The #The100DayProject take it to the next level by including a consistency and an accountability component. What is the 100 day project?
The 100 Day Project is a free creative project that takes place online. Every end of January, thousands of people all around the world commit to 100 days of exploring their creativity. The idea is simple: choose a project, do it every day for 100 days, and share your process on Instagram with the hashtag #The100DayProject.
While there is no hard required accountability, having to share it every day create an expectation from your peers and if you miss a day everyone will see it. It also helps you by being consistent. We all know that being consistent can bring wonderful things to the world. Take for example Seth Godin, who is blogging every day since he started his blog.
Here some example of creators that took this project and their wonderful creation.
The concept of this project really ring a bell with me because it everything you need to get yourself going. It gives you a reason to do it every day, public accountability, a tribes different from your own to share your art, small incremental step toward a bigger goal. I haven’t tried it yet since I found it harder to apply to what I do (writing and coding), but I’m sure I’ll join eventually.
You don’t have to wait for the project to start to do something similar. It is a great template to create your own. Challenge some friend to do a similar change with you. You can use app like Beeminder, StickK or HabitShare to follow through on your goal.
The name of the law is self-descriptive, you need to do something one hundred times to know if it worth it or if it will get traction. Doing it a 100 time give you the opportunity to experiment more, learn from your mistake and get better with time. And if you’re doing it every day its remove the decision, you got to do it 100 times before you can think of stopping. Depending on how you phrase it can provide you with a tangible goal to reach that not out of your control (doing 100 video vs making 100 bitcoin)
Noah explain 9 step to make it work. 1-Pick your time (day)
There is an old saying if it’s not on the calendar it’s ain’t happening. In the video, he talks about a day, but I would push to at what time you will do it. In the morning? At 8h?
2-Reduce the friction
Want to shoot a youtube video? Have your camera ready so you don’t worry about it. Want to play more guitar? Have your guitar out in your living room. I remember Ramit talking in one of his post or interview how he made it easier to go to the gym every day by having his gym cloth ready for the next day.
“I realized I needed to put my gym clothes right near the floor with the shoes right there, so when I got out of bed my feet hit the shoes. Once I did that, my gym attendance went up.”
3-Have accomptability buddy/partner
Having someone that can call you out on your shit is great, you can even put a bet on it with beeminder or stick it.
4-Join a community
Having a community of like minded people is great. It motivate you and you can talk to other that have or had the same issue you’re having. You can check the 100days project (LINK), which is a project where creative must post a creation on their instagram every day for 100 days. If your goal is more business oriented checkout Noah group at okdork/group.
5-Take a break
This one is a bit counter-intuitive. If you’re not feeling it, maybe you just need to take a break go for a walk, take a nap and come back refresh to work on your task. I would push it a little and plan for a break. Sure someday you feel like going forever, but doing that every time without any break you will eventually burnout from what you’re trying to accomplish.
6-Notice what working
Notice what doing well and do more of that. That feeling of making progress will motivate you even more.
7-Have a clear why
Remind yourself daily of why you’re doing this, maybe your learning a language to impress someone or meet a special someone.
8-Make it fun
If it’s not fun, take a step back to see what part aren’t fun and what part are. Focus more on the part of what you’re doing that are fun or change a bit the not fun part to make it fun. Can you outsource the part you don’t like? Can you change the time of day you’re doing it to make it more interesting? Can you track something that might give you a sense of progression to motivate you?
9-Reward yourself
Have a reward at the end of you 100 to look forward too, it can be a trip, in can be going out. Something that will give that extra motivation to keep going forward.
I’m trying a mini law of one hundred, which is to write something, anything, for 100 days. The goal is to at some point take it to another 100 posts on this blog. Next step would probably to publish one a day for 100 days, but let not get too much ahead of ourselves.
Awhile ago, I’ve decided to read 100 books before I hit forty. I’ve already read about 34 books in the last two years when I’ve decided to do this challenge and I think four years are remaining before the dreaded forty. Now that I have forty I just wanted to post the list out there 😀
Why read more books why not something else. I think reading is great to help structure your mind, discovers new word, and expand your imagination. I’m not the only one, look at Ryan Holiday on how and why you should read more or at Ramit Seti saying book being the best investment. I think reading make you a better reader too, you read faster, retain the information faster. Personally, I tend to read more non-fiction that fiction and read fiction faster. I managed to reach the fated 100 book before forty and even read a few more.
Here is the list of book from when I’ve started this to when I’ve finished it:
Don’t make me think
4 hour work week 2st edition
Art of start
Nudge
Sway
I will teach you to be rich
100$ startup
Montley Fool: The million dollars portfolio
Back of a napkin
The dip
Getting things done
59 seconds
Linchpin
Rework
Game frame
Smart couple finish rich
Travailler sans y laisser sa peau
L’art de negocier
Les bon couples font les bon comptes
Influence
Predictably Irrational
How to win friend and influence people
Le grand voyage 1er partie
Crowdsourcing
The game (neil strauss)
Game of throne (audio)
Clash of Kings (audio)
A storm of sword (audio)
A feast for crows (audio)
Dancing with dragons (audio)
48 laws of power
Les Chevaliers de L’emeraudes: Feu dans le ciel
Choose yourself
Hunger games I
Prior 2015 (34 books 8 fictions 26 non fictions)
2015 (26 books 13 fictions 12 non fictions)
(I realized here the in the last year or 2 I’ve read 34 book so I decided to make the push to 100)
Hunger games III
Brave new world
1984
The first 20h
L’or ménager
How Children succeed
Hitchhiker guide to the galaxy
CE – Les dragons de l’empereur noir
Lean Startup
Bird by bird
Restaurant à la fin du monde
La nuit des temps
The Flinch
Mastery
World war Z (audio)
Divergent
The martian (audio)
Geisha
Letter to a fiction writer
A la recherche du mouton sauvage
Principle 80/20
La vie, l’univers et le reste
The art of seduction (audio)
Moonwalking with Einstein
Warren Buffett, l’homme le plus riche du monde
Salut et merci pour le poisson
2016 (12 books, 4 fictions, 8 non-fictions)
Globalement inoffensif
Né pour gagner – Zig Ziglar
Déclin de la république romaine
Thirty million word
AC Underworld
Just do the work
Ego is the enemy
Je suis ton père
Zero to one
Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance
The obstacle is the way
The war of art
2017 (20 books, 4 fictions, 16 non-fiction)
Deep work
Whole brain child
The subtle art of not giving a fuck
Fahrenheit 451
Nobody read your shit
Dale Carnegie – the 5 essential people skills
Instinct de survie
La mort d’Ivan Illitch
This will make you smarter (audio)
How to talk so kids will listen …
Money, master the game
Your first dollar
The daily stoic
Peaceful Parent, Happy kids
Barking up the wrong tree
Le horla
Your move
Celtes et gaulois
Vercingétorix
La véritable histoire de Marc-Aurèle
2018 (12 books, 3 fictions, 9 non-fictions)
Sapien
Digital Fortress
Essentialism
Ready player one
Unshakeable
No drama discipline
Da Vinci Code (FR)
Recession Proof Graduate
Love yourself (59 pages)
Perennial Seller: The Art of Making and Marketing Work that Lasts
Principle by Ray Dalio
Factfulness
Total: 104 books, 32 fictions, 72 non-fiction
All these 104 books were read cover to cover.
These following were just skim and taken on out of curiosity:
L’affiliation (Affiliate Marketing book)
How to web comic
Power of habit
The now habit (I don’t remember reading it)
Dangerous women (Only read GRRM story)
4 hour body
4 hour chef
Play for a living
SPQR
Tools of titan
Programming and Software engineering
I didn’t include programming and software engineering book since I usually jump around the book to read stuff I want to improve.
Effective java
Hardcore java (prog)
Hibernate recipe (prog)
Clean code (prog) (Note: I did read it cover to cover, twice…)
Sometimes the deadline is yesterday or sometimes your boss wants the change now. Maybe the clients have an important feature that he thought he could do without dev but realised one day before the big marketing splash what he wanted to do is not working.
These changes are easy, no problem. I will do it in a flash. By now you probably know the story, it’s not easy to simply go fast, we forget basic things or completely forget (or even worse forgo) testing a critical part of the system that change might have an impact on.
Fast forward today I relived that exact situation and honestly it’s not my first time, but I get caught every time. Recently I made a simple script that updates some content in the db. Easy peasy, worked fine in my local db. I put up the PR and then fixed for some part the others have commented on and then merged on the main branch. Once the service was pushed to dev, it was in a crashloopback. It was because the dev db had way more data to process than my local db. The script would still be running when the health probe would check if the service was running and would stop the service since it wasn’t responding.
I made the fix then pushed it after running around to find someone to approve off-hour. Once the fix was pushed, it crashed again, but this time because the dev db had some corrupted data that would stop the script. I fixed the script to cover that edge case to then released it again. Beyond and behold, someone else merged right after so the server restarted before finishing the script. I’ve republished the script and finally, after three days, it was running and working on dev environment.
Notice that if I had backup the dev db and restored it on my local one I would probably have found all these problems. Perhaps in the initial pull request if I waited a bit for more dev to review it the problem would have been noticed earlier and fixed beforehand. If I’ve checked if other pull requests for the same service are ongoing there wouldn’t be a merge right after the script is merged.
That’s why when you need to go faster you must first go slower. You want to quickly deliver that api to the client, give them an example of the expected json first before starting any code. Do pull requests with only the change in the swagger file so others can review if everything makes sense. The time you take before will be time you save later down the line.
There is a 70 M lottery draw this week plus 70 one million prizes, I know this is no powerball, but here in Canada we are pretty excited. Even my wife is like: “We need to buy a ticket”. And she bought one with her father because 35M is still an insane amount of money. Well when the draw was 50M or “just” 30M it was still an insane amount of money, enough to change your life (sometime for the worst).
I usually don’t buy lottery tickets, but when I do, it’s for the fuzzy feeling of what I will do if I win the jackpot. I would probably try to figure out what I need from it to generate a decent income each year to live a good life. From there, the rest would be to give away to family, friends and charity and maybe some upgrade (my beat up toyota definitely needs an upgrade). What weird we almost always imagine ourselves what it would be like to win the jackpot but never think about the secondary prize. Winning a million is nice too, but not life changing like 70M.
While putting money in the stock market may seem like playing in a casino, you are still buying an asset (except if you bought Theranos) and while it may go down in value, its value is likely to be higher than your lottery ticket the day after the draw.
Now back to work! I wish you all good luck and if you win don’t forget to give some back to your communities.
Note: There is no tax on lotteries here in Canada, because let’s be honest, lotteries are already a tax on the poor.
In the previous post, we discuss own we change from using mongorepository to using directly mongodb method to access and modify directly the object in db. In this posts we look at code that was deleting with mongorepository and change it to use directly mongodb method with MongoTemplate.
Using MongoTemplate is faster and less likely to have error due to concurrency.
Here a example of the code original code with mongorepository:
@Autowired
private MongoContentRepository mongoContentRepository;
private void removeStudentFromSchool(final Student student) {
Optional<School> optionalSchool = mongoContentRepository.findById(student.getSchoolId());
if (optionalSchool.isPresent()) {
School school = optionalSchool.get();
List<Student> students = school.getStudents();
if (students != null && !students.isEmpty()) {
Optional<Student> optionalStudent = getStudentInSchool(students, student);
optionalStudent.ifPresent(studentInDb -> students.remove(studentInDb));
school.setStudents(students);
mongoContentRepository.save(school);
}
}
}
We had at work a piece of code that was using mongorepository and updating the arrays of the object on a collection instead of using mongodb method directly. The way it was coded had a big issues with concurrency and we were losing update because of it. The problem we had with the way it was updating the array and saving using mongorepository and we are going to fix it using directly mongo queries with MongoTemplate.
Example of code with mongorepository
@Autowired
private MongoContentRepository mongoContentRepository;
private void addStudentToSchool(final Student student) {
Optional<School> optionalSchool = mongoContentRepository.findById(student.getSchoolId());
if (optionalSchool.isPresent()) {
School school = optionalSchool.get();
List<Student> students = school.getStudents();
if (students != null && !students.isEmpty()) {
Optional<Student> optionalStudent = getStudentInSchool(students, student);
optionalStudent.ifPresentOrElse(studentInDb -> {
if (hasStudentChanged(studentInDb, student)) {
students.remove(studentInDb);
students.add(student);
}
}, () -> students.add(student));
school.setStudents(students);
} else {
school.setStudents(List.of(students));
}
mongoContentRepository.save(school);
}
}
There are a lot of things wrong here. It saving the whole object each time, which means if there a student is save in mongodb while another one is being save in a longer transaction, it will override the first update.
Using MongoTemplate
You can prevent that problem, by using directly mongo queries with MongoTemplate Reference: https://docs.mongodb.com/manual/reference/operator/update/positional/
What does that look like in Java : If we take the first query and convert to the equivalent code with MongoTemplate:
public void addStudentInSchool(String objectId, Student student, int index) {
mongoTemplate.updateFirst(
Query.query(Criteria.where("_id").is(objectId)),
new Update().set("student.$[" + index + "]", student), COLLECTION_NAME);
}
For the second query we get:
public void updateStudentInSchool(String schoolId, Student student) {
mongoTemplate.updateFirst(
Query.query(Criteria.where("_id")
.is(objectId)
.andOperator(Criteria.where("student")
.elemMatch(Criteria.where("_id").is(student.getId())))),
new Update().set("student.$", student), COLLECTION_NAME);
}
Note: WP code block seems to mess up the indentation.
End result
If we take our initial code and use our mongo template code we get the following end result.
Let’s update addStudentToSchool with MongoTemplate instead of mongoContentRepository:
private static final String COLLECTION_NAME = "schoolCollection";
private final MongoTemplate mongoTemplate;
public void addStudentInSchool(String schoolId, Student student) {
mongoTemplate.updateFirst(
Query.query(Criteria.where("_id").is(schoolId)),
new Update().addToSet("student", student), COLLECTION_NAME);
}
public void updateStudentInSchool(String schoolId, Student student) {
mongoTemplate.updateFirst(
Query.query(Criteria.where("_id").is(schoolId).andOperator(Criteria.where("student").elemMatch(Criteria.where("_id").is(student.getId())))),
new Update().set("student.$", student), COLLECTION_NAME);
}
private void addStudentToSchool(final Student student) {
Optional<School> optionalSchool = mongoContentRepository.findById(student.getSchoolId());
if (optionalSchool.isPresent()) {
School school = optionalSchool.get();
List<Student> students = school.getStudents();
if (students != null && !students.isEmpty()) {
Optional<Student> optionalStudent = getStudentInSchool(students, student);
optionalStudent.ifPresentOrElse(
studentInDb -> contentCollection.updateStudentInSchool(school.getId(), student),
() -> contentCollection.addStudentInSchool(school.getId(), student));
} else {
contentCollection.addStudentInSchool(school.getId(), student);
}
}
This worked fine for us and we stop having our mongdb update disappearing due to concurrency.
Why did it solve the concurrency issue ?
All $inc $set $unset $push $pushAll $addToSet $pop $pull $pullAll $rename $bit operations are atomic. This mean if multiple $set or $addToSet are done in concurrency all the operations and lock that entry.
For more information on mongodb concurrency: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6997835/how-does-mongodb-deal-with-concurrent-updates https://docs.mongodb.com/manual/faq/concurrency/
At the beginning of 2020, I wanted to read more than my abysmal 2019 three books total. I’ve already read my 2019 total before the whole 2020 ‘situation’ hit. This made it harder for me to read since I was stuck at home most of 2020 and I usually read in my commute. Nonetheless, I managed to read 12 books last year. Here is the rundown of all the books I’ve read last year, I think I might do a full reviews of some of the non-fiction books later this year, we’ll see.
Stillness is the Key
This is the third installment of Ryan Holiday books on stoicism, the two others being Obstacle is the way and Ego is the enemy.
Sometimes when everything seems to get faster, more stressful and even crazy around us. While some philosophy might say to go with the flow, stoics show us that deliberately slowing down is what you should do. By slowing down, you will notice what usually goes unnoticed and, in a Matrix like slow motion montage, dodge what is unimportant and focus on what truly matter.
If you’re into stoicism or like the obstacle is the way or ego is the enemy, then is book is definitely for you. If not I would recommend reading the Obstacle is the way first, I found that some idea are repeated and Obstacle made more of an impact on me. Note that I say this and I’ve read Ego is the enemy first.
Piège au royaume des ombres
Piège au royaume des ombres is the third installment of the FrenchFantasy Fiction ‘’Les Chevaliers d’Émeraude’’ series. Kira has finally reached an age where she can show what she is capable of and set on an expedition with Wellan, her master and other fellow knights and squire.
I tend not to review too much fiction because the fun of it is to discover the story and reviewing quickly enters spoiler territory whereas non-fiction having a review will help you decide if the book talks about subject matter you want to expand on or not.
Everything is F*cked
From the author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck comes a counter-intuitive guide to the problems of hope.
I really liked The Subtle Art of NotGiving A F*ck with his gritty writing and mind opening view so I was really excited when I’ve heard that Mark Manson was writing another book. While I liked the book, I would recommend reading first book before this one, they’re not mutually exclusive and can be read on their own. However, is first book is more packed with information and reflection than this one.
The Power of Creativity
A small book I bought a while ago seems to be part of a series by the same author. It gives some good advice even if it’s mostly stuff I already knew. Advice that is always good to revisit like what your audience demands vs your craft and that you should invest in your side project.
If you follow Seth Godin or read Steven Presfield non fiction you will know most of what he talks about in the book.
Dividend Investing for Everyone
It’s been awhile since I haven’t read a book about investing and I was looking for a way to invest that could create recurring revenue from investing. This book is short and sweet if you already know a bit about investing in general. However, the lack of a table of index is a bit annoying for this review though. He goes on explaining what is dividend investing and how it will generate more money for you that bond and saving account. The most interesting part of the book is when he shows how he picks his own dividend stock, what are his criteria and what type of dividend stock there is.
The Lost Symbol (Fiction)
Note I’ve read this one in french, Le symbole perdu by Dan Brown.
The sequel to the famous Da Vinci Code, we follow again professor Robert Langdon, this time involved in a plot linking the Freemason and the founding father.
I won’t spoil you much, if you liked Da Vinci Code you will like this one. I follow the same formula of his last book, a little too much in my taste. I had the impression that in some part of the book I was just rereading Da Vinci code, but except for being in Paris we’re in Washington.
Conspiracy
Another book from Ryan Holiday, this time not really the kind of book we are you to get from him. Holiday dissects the involvement of Billionaire Peter Tiel in helping bring down publisher Gawker by helping Hulk Hogan in his trial against them without Hogan knowing it.
Tiny MBA
When I saw one of stackingthebricks author wrote a book I immediately ordered it. Unfortunately it didn’t live up to the level of their amazing long form post they usually do. It’s more like someone was following every business thought leader and CEO and collected all theirs insightful tweets then put them in a book. While some can really be inspiring and insightful, you kind of eager to want more after going through it.
Stop People Pleasing
Stop people pleasing is about how to balance helping other people and not being a yes man that other people don’t value your time. I think I got this one through a newsletter that sells books for one dollar and sometimes gives freebies.
The main takeaway of the book: is to learn what you want to say yes to and no to, common phrases to use to imply a no without saying it and stay away from manipulators.
Live of the Stoics
A third book from Ryan Holiday this year, this one is more in the vein of the Daily stoic I’ve read through in 2018 (http://cjacques.me/the-20-books-ive-read-in-2017/). He goes through the list of all the major stoics from the founder of stoicism Zeno to philosopher king (emperor) Marcus Aurelius. I’m kind of a sucker for this book because it’s a mix of things I like to read about, Roman history and philosophy. If you’re interested in one or both of these subjects it’s definitely a good read.
The Art of Learning
Josh Waitzkin, former chess prodigy and martial Tai Chi World champion, walk us thought is life and how he learned to master those two disciplines in this self-help memoir. While Waitzkin can kinda sometime sound like a d*&k and that can be off putting at time, he goes deep into what was going in his mind in different key learning points in his life. While being world class might not be your thing, understanding what got them to that point can definitely be useful.
Learn Like a Polymath
I got this one on a kindle sale. It might be a good idea to do the same. There are some tips and tactics that I’ve probably read in other books like space your learning, deconstruct what you learn to a manageable piece. However, instead of focusing these on the broader concept of learning the author apply them at connecting knowledge between disciplines.
If you’re interested in learning in general or searching for a way to connect knowledge between your field of interest you will probably find some good nuggets here and there.
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