2023-08-28 Emacs news

| emacs, emacs-news

Links from reddit.com/r/emacs, r/orgmode, r/spacemacs, r/planetemacs, Hacker News, lobste.rs, kbin, programming.dev, communick.news, lemmy, planet.emacslife.com, YouTube, the Emacs NEWS file, Emacs Calendar, and emacs-devel. Thanks to Andrés Ramírez for emacs-devel links. Do you have an Emacs-related link or announcement? Please e-mail me at sacha@sachachua.com. Thank you!

View or add comments (Disqus), or e-mail me at sacha@sachachua.com

Turning 40: a review of the last decade

| life, review

10 years ago, I wrote that I was on the threshold of even more changes and two wildly different paths, and that I was looking forward to learning, sharing, and scaling. Here's how that worked out:

  • Learning: I've been learning a ton about myself, life, and the people and resources around us, and skills that make our lives better. Drawing my thoughts out has been really helpful for untangling them. I haven't focused on tech as much, but sometimes I make little improvements here and there so that I can make the most of my limited screentime.
  • Sharing: Parenting's been keeping me too busy to create lots of focused resources. I'm not too worried about this, though, since lots of other people are making cool stuff for Emacs.
  • Scaling: Emacs News has been a really time-efficient way for me to help out with the Emacs community, and all the automation I've built around EmacsConf lets me squeeze it into the time I have. For consulting, I've been able to help other people learn by answering quick questions, and I continue to have fun making the client's crazy ideas happen.

Wow, 2013 to 2023 brought a lot of big changes to my life.

2023-08-13-03 Life in my thirties #review #longterm #life #decade.png
2023-08-13-03 Life in my thirties #review #longterm #life #decade.png

Text from sketch

Life in my thirties

Big changes:

  • Parenting:
    • I approached or hit my limits more than I used to, but that's part of what I signed up for, and it's a good opportunity to learn and grow.
      • Next: more patience, empathy, curiosity, and love
    • I have a deeper appreciation of W- and the people and resources available.
      • Next: use the inspiration to keep growing
  • COVID-19:
    • I have a deeper appreciation of W- and the people and resources available.
  • Consulting:
    • I have fun creatively solving challenges
    • Next: scale up by helping others learn
  • Emacs News, EmacsConf:
    • I found ways to help out even with the constraints on my attention. The Emacs community is thriving, and I enjoy being part of it.
    • Next: tinker & share more
  • Hobbies:
    • I'm more comfortable making things, growing things, preserving things.
    • Next: learn more skills, practise, organize

Looking ahead to my forties:

  • Parenting: From 7 years old to 17 years old is a ton of growth! This is the payoff from the last decade's setup, and the setup for decades to come.
  • As A+ becomes more independent, I'll have more time and energy for my own things. I want to work on the interests I share with W- as well as my own stuff: cooking, gardening, sewing, crafting, …

2023-02-14-01 30 to 34 #yearly #review
2023-02-14-01 30 to 34 #yearly #review
2023-02-14-02 35 to 39 #yearly #review
2023-02-14-02 35 to 39 #yearly #review

Text from sketch
  • 30 (2013-14): lots of drawing & writing, Hacklab, Emacs Chats, Google Helpouts, Frugal FIRE, self-publishing, trip to PH
  • 31: slow days, helped with new Hacklab, high-profile consulting project, sewing, laser cutter, Canadian citizenship
  • 32: library hackathon, A+! Sleep disruption, microphthalmia, lots of appointments, Emacs News, basement tiles, sewing for A+
  • 33: House projects, Royal Ontario Museum, conformer, lost shell, walking & talking, Learning Tower, cooking, Healthy Babies Healthy Children, trip to PH, de Quervain's
  • 34: Checking off medical questions, music, my dad died, dental surgery for A+, little books, city resources for kids, lots of trips to PH, babysitter experiments, bike trailer
  • 35 (2018-19): Why? more books, journal, Planet Emacslife, more consulting during the day, playdates, EarlyON, NL, PH, cousins
  • 36: EmacsConf, ReactJS, Docker, COVID lockdowns, tobogganing, gardening, Heroica, library card, allowance
  • 37: virtual school, exemption, reading, garden cage, sewing, steno, Pride & Prejudice, 11ty, Numberblocks
  • 38: cubing, Cinderella dress, pressure canning, glasses for A+, outside, house tweaks, skating, cursive, COVID vax, SuperNote, friend group, playdates, lemonade stand
  • 39: EmacsConf streaming, being outside, virtual grade 1, homework, learning to trust A+, semi-unschool, more cubing, swimming, Minecraft

Parenting will probably take up most of my forties. I think the biggest thing I need to practice is calm, appreciative curiosity: not letting my worries or reactions or shoulds get in the way of being present, enjoying what's there, and helping figure things out together. It's tough, but it's what I signed up for, and that skill will also come in handy as I learn to deal with aging and world weirdness.

It's been a good ten years. Looking forward to seeing what we can make of the next ten.

View or add comments (Disqus), or e-mail me at sacha@sachachua.com

2023-08-21 Emacs news

| emacs, emacs-news

Links from reddit.com/r/emacs, r/orgmode, r/spacemacs, r/planetemacs, Hacker News, lobste.rs, kbin, programming.dev, communick.news, lemmy, planet.emacslife.com, YouTube, the Emacs NEWS file, Emacs Calendar, and emacs-devel. Thanks to Andrés Ramírez for emacs-devel links. Do you have an Emacs-related link or announcement? Please e-mail me at sacha@sachachua.com. Thank you!

View or add comments (Disqus), or e-mail me at sacha@sachachua.com

2023-08-14 Emacs news

| emacs, emacs-news

Links from reddit.com/r/emacs, r/orgmode, r/spacemacs, r/planetemacs, Hacker News, lobste.rs, kbin, programming.dev, communick.news, lemmy, planet.emacslife.com, YouTube, the Emacs NEWS file, Emacs Calendar, and emacs-devel. Thanks to Andrés Ramírez for emacs-devel links. Do you have an Emacs-related link or announcement? Please e-mail me at sacha@sachachua.com. Thank you!

View or add comments (Disqus), or e-mail me at sacha@sachachua.com

Turning 40; life as a 39-year-old

| review, yearly

2023-08-10-03 Life as a 39-year-old - summary #yearly #review
2023-08-10-03 Life as a 39-year-old - summary #yearly #review

Last year, I figured that life as a 39-year-old would be about adapting to grade 1 and A-'s developing capabilities, and hoped to continue spending time outside.

We successfully navigated virtual grade 1, turning in the required homework every day. We mostly treated homework as practice in emotional regulation and figuring out how to work with our brains. A+ liked it when I took on the role of grousing about homework, broke it up into sections followed by Minecraft segments, translated the math homework into Cantonese, or set timers. Sometimes it was challenging to get through the work, but it helped to point out that homework was a way for us to stay out of in-person classes. I hope we'll be able to have a similar arrangement in virtual grade 2 next year.

Friendships were a big priority for us. We took advantage of our exemption from synchronous learning to spend most weekday afternoons playing with friends at nearby parks, even through winter. The kids loved playing dress-up, dolls, and kitchen, and they had plenty of special moments together. I like the grown-ups in the group, too, and we've been putting our heads together trying to help the kids learn about friendships and fun.

Thanks to A+'s friendships, we've been exploring lots of new interests. We let her explore Minecraft this year because many of her friends play it. She's really taken to it, and I'm slowly learning to have fun with it as well. I even set up Minecraft Realms Plus subscriptions so that we could play with A+'s cousins. Fortunately, it hasn't completely taken over our lives. Friends were also good reasons to go skating in winter and swimming in summer. (We started braving outdoor pools.)

A+ continues to be a bookworm, yay! She's watched a good number of videos and followed up with lots of book tie-ins, particularly around Minecraft and Disney Descendants. I'm learning not to worry too much about her eyesight and let her enjoy it, with the occasional reminder to check in with her body in between books.

As a result of A+'s growing independence when reading on her own and when playing with other kids, I've found a little time here and there to work on my own things. I wrote some code to recolor my Supernote sketches and extract the text, and that helped me write about more of my thoughts. I managed to figure out how to run multiple tracks for EmacsConf, which was awesome. I often bring hand-sewing projects to playdates so that I can work on them while chatting with the other grown-ups. I set up the sewing machine in the living room, and that made it easier for me to work on dresses, skirts, and even some outdoor covers.

I've been able to tend to the garden almost every day. I'm getting more comfortable starting seeds, propagating cuttings, and rescuing tomato branches. We grew lots more bitter melon and cherry tomatoes this year. The potatoes were interesting to experiment with, although that might be something I'll get from the grocery store going forward. I enjoyed eating lettuce, radishes, and beans from the garden. People have been stopping to take pictures of the zinnias, and the kids had fun making flower crowns with the marigolds.

I've been drawing daily moments on my SuperNote A5X as part of our bedtime routine. A+ likes to flip back through them, and they've made my monthly review process easier. I'm looking forward to building up a good archive of them.

It's been a good year for learning more about the world and learning more about ourselves. Thanks to all that practice dealing with homework and interactions, I've learned that I lean more towards sharing reflections and offering carrots rather than using sticks. I'm getting more comfortable with the idea that I can't just tell A+ everything. Some things she just has to experiment with for herself. I'm looking forward to getting better at keeping the long-term goal in mind without also catastrophizing and worrying too much about long-term effects. W-'s really good at thinking through things, and I'm glad I get to learn from his wisdom.

Let's see what next year is like. I hope we can work out a similar arrangement with A+'s virtual grade 2 teachers so that we can spend the afternoons outside. I'm looking forward to exploring more projects and developing more skills as she plays or reads. When she wants to spend time with me, I'd like to get better at playing with her, and Minecraft seems like a good avenue for that. Onward!

2023-08-09-04 Life as a 39-year-old by month #yearly #review
2023-08-09-04 Life as a 39-year-old by month #yearly #review

Text from sketch

Life as a 39-year-old

  • Aug 2022: Recoloring sketches, connect the dots, library script
  • Sept: Eye checkup ok, new scleral shell, EmacsConf sched, porch railing
  • Oct: Wonder Woman, OpenAI whisper, OBS in the cloud
  • Nov: Snowman, Ethernet, EmacsConf prep
  • Dec: Emacs Conf tracks, skating, campfire
  • Jan 2023: Twiddler, skating, forts
  • Feb: Party for A+! Skating, sledding
  • March: Minecraft, Mineclone, atropine, glasses, tooth extraction, taking turns
  • April: Minecraft caving, laptops, garden
  • May: Minecraft Realms, cavity, booster seat, loose tooth, sewing during playdates
  • June: finished grade 1! biking farther, Minecraft worlds
  • July: swimming, pizza, sewing covers

Compared to when I was 38:

  • Stopped/reduced: LEGO Technic, house organization, cubing
  • Continued: outside time, SuperNote drawing
  • Started/increased: Minecraft, videos, playdates incl. 1-on-1, skating, swimming, container gardening, EmacsConf

40:

  • Stopping/reducing: worrying
  • Continuing: outside time, play, moments, drawing, crafts, garden, EmacsConf, consulting
  • Starting/increasing: playing with A+

Sketches

93 sketches this year versus 43 sketches during the previous year.

Blog posts

104 posts this year versus 96 the previous year. I didn't do as many weekly reviews, so this was more learning and sharing. Yay!

Time

Category % 38 years % 39 years Diff % h/wk Diff h/wk
Discretionary - Productive 6.4 9.8 3.4 16.4 5.7
Personal 7.3 10.1 2.8 17.0 4.7
Discretionary - Family 0.5 0.9 0.5 1.6 0.8
Business - Build 0.2 0.1 -0.1 0.2 -0.1
Discretionary - Social 0.1 0.0 -0.1 0.0 -0.1
Business - Earn 2.0 1.6 -0.3 2.7 -0.6
Discretionary - Play 1.0 0.4 -0.6 0.8 -1.0
Unpaid work 4.6 4.0 -0.6 6.7 -1.0
Sleep 35.7 33.4 -2.3 56.1 -3.9
A- 42.3 39.6 -2.7 66.5 -4.6

Less childcare, because sometimes she's lost in a book and I can do something else like sewing, drawing, coding. Less sleep because I've been setting an alarm so that I can water the garden before I wake up A+. W-'s been doing more of the cooking because we're often out at playdates, although sometimes I shift things around so that I cook lunch. I feel good about how our days generally go, especially when we're out for playdates.

View or add comments (Disqus), or e-mail me at sacha@sachachua.com

2023-08-07 Emacs news

| emacs, emacs-news

Links from reddit.com/r/emacs, r/orgmode, r/spacemacs, r/planetemacs, Hacker News, lobste.rs, kbin, programming.dev, communick.news, lemmy, planet.emacslife.com, YouTube, the Emacs NEWS file, Emacs Calendar, and emacs-devel. Thanks to Andrés Ramírez for emacs-devel links. Do you have an Emacs-related link or announcement? Please e-mail me at sacha@sachachua.com. Thank you!

View or add comments (Disqus), or e-mail me at sacha@sachachua.com

2023-07-31 Emacs news

| emacs, emacs-news

Ihor Radchenko is organizing a new virtual Org meetup on Aug 9. Check it out!

Links from reddit.com/r/emacs, r/orgmode, r/spacemacs, r/planetemacs, Hacker News, lobste.rs, kbin, programming.dev, communick.news, lemmy, planet.emacslife.com, YouTube, the Emacs NEWS file, Emacs Calendar, and emacs-devel. Thanks to Andrés Ramírez for emacs-devel links. Do you have an Emacs-related link or announcement? Please e-mail me at sacha@sachachua.com. Thank you!

View or add comments (Disqus), or e-mail me at sacha@sachachua.com