Hi guys. Miss y'all.
I was gone for a while. Reason: politics, and the disagreements that stemmed from such. It's a pretty stupid reason. Especially since I like many of y'all so much, and don't infrequently check this place (and steal links to impress my friends). But crazy ideas, I trys them on.
As a token, and since I haven't been posting all the cool things I've read in the last few months that would normally warrant a hubski post, here's a recent list of things I found enjoyable.
Biggest update: finished Lambda School and am three months into a new job as a data scientist. It's fucking incredible. I'm getting paid an absurd amount to wake up, make coffee and, essentially, solve brain teasers all day. With the remote job, and flush with agency, I moved to Austin, Texas. It's pure zeitgeist here. And it's been the most incredible seven weeks.... of my life? I'm intense in my feelings, so take with a grain of salt, but it feels true. And I owe all of it towards this weird proclivity I have of making friends out of internet strangers and meeting them across country (see: hubski #meetup 2014 and on)
I'm a relatively unprivate person. Ask me anything!
Veen! It's great to be a part of the club. I'm essentially a python developer using natural language processing frameworks and libraries. I'm building a medical records search platform. I turn unstructured medical data (a bunch of .txts) into indexed metadata that's made searchable by downstream business users. The systems guy works on the back end and we have a few web developers. Something like a hundred million records will pass through my machine learned model and entity attributor. I didn't know how to code 13 months ago. How do I stay fit?? Funny you should ask: I have a twitter thread and a fitness instagram with highlights. Right now I'm doing the 10,000 kettlebell swing challenge; 500 per working day. My first set took 36 minutes. I broke 18 minutes just the other day, and I have two more days left. How are you?? How's the turning code into money going? How are transportation reform efforts? How's the young and beautifully in love going?
Sounds great! Python is lovely if you ask me. Did you dive into other languages too? I can't recommend mastering SQL enough after you've figured out how scripting works. It's frustrating at times, but also lifesaving at times. Holy fuck that's a lot of kettlebells. I thought doing 50 was a lot. Are your gyms open still? Or some of the time? The most sportive I've become is by picking up running after corona hit. I'm doing 3 to 4 miles at a for-me-decent 10 minute/mile pace thrice a week, which is better than I've ever done. Hit 7,5% body fat percentage at 151lbs this summer briefly, whoops. Doing better now. My SO's still with me, we moved in earlier this year and it's been nothing but wonderful. My paper's online and open access! All it needs is final typesetting and printing. These past months I've done almost no programming, as I've been quite succesful in moving from coder to (mobility) data expert. If all goes well, I can helm a project to get more research related to my paper into practice at a big dept. of transportation here.
SQL, eh? I've the barest experience. I don't wind up using it for work, although I know it's something so many developers, data scientists, analysts use, so it does seem eminently useful. I do most of my workouts at home, although I went to this gym and quite like it, feel good that it's largely outdoors. I'm at ~11% bodyfat percentage per Amazon's Halo and am considering going all out and hitting 5 or 6 percent, just to have done it once in my life in peak shape. Take some pictures, eat ten burritos. It's a vanity project, and it's so hard. We'll see. Congrats on the paper. Do you have a website? I'm curious, how much different a style is it written in than, say, the style you'd write it in if it were a blog post?
500 kettle swings per day sounds like a neat winter project to go along with my other winter project, (exercise) biking the length of lake superior in the past, after about a hundred kettlebells, i would have a little lower back twinging. so i tapered off. if i bring it back 5x i'm really going to have to get the form down, i guess.
Now that you mention it, I do have some lower back pain and it might be from that. I thought it was from the weird positions I get into when I sleep, but the swings sound more likely. Good thing I only have 1 set of 500 left.
55 pounds. Time has gone down from like 36 minutes to sub 18 last session. Have one more session left. But I'm ok with not doing more swings for a while after this.
Flattering, and I know all about the instagram scroll. Hope it was positive and not anything like the doom scrolling that I sometimes do
Shit. blackbootzis FIT! Been also working out loads lately (to manage my stress at the end of this PhD). Still recovering from my ACL surgery last year. I am happy if I manage 3x 10 squats
There's nothing like exercise to reset, induce the hormones and preferable body feedback loops, break up the monotony of a day job, boost the flow of feel good endorphins. I pulled my MCL day 3 learning jiu jitsu. It sucked, I stayed off it for 6 months. It gets better!
I recently got back on as well. Good to hear from ya buddy.
You as well. How goes it? How has the last quarter or two treated you?
I'm in Oklahoma at the moment with a burdensome amount of free time. Been taking courses on UDemy for fun to prevent brain erosion.
Edit: Welcome back! :) One of Hubski's chief political offenders, checking in. Apologies. Politicking will be tapering off drastically in the coming months. I'm just down the road in San Antonio, you could practically forward-handspring your way here. Maybe take 281 instead of IH-35, though. But seriously, after the pandemic ends, I usually make it up to Austin a few nights a year. I'll bother ya. And if you come down here, let me know, I'm usually down to clown.
It's on. I don't have a car and, shockingly considering that I'm in Texas, have managed to not need one? Austin is dense and walkable and the odd times I need a ride I uber, but so far I've managed well without one. But those longer trips to San Antonio will be tougher for now. But a hit a brother up and come north! Austin is a jewel
Austin is definitely something special, despite so many haters. Easily the best city in Texas. No contest.
Welcome back, bootz and congrats on all of the progress! It sounds like you are in a good place both professionally, and physically (Austin rules)! Go to the Hotel San Jose, sit in their courtyard and have a Michelada for me. Onward!
Denver is still the shit. It so happened that the Twitter mutual that invited me to meet him was in Austin, and the visit turned magical. A ranch out west isn't out of the cards.