Tips on Patrick Lam

Leverage deadlines for action

Tue, 28 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This week’s tip is kind of a meta-tip. When you want someone (possibly yourself) to do something, set a deadline for it. Marketing experts know this. This is why there are “limited time offers”. People have intentions of doing something. But if they can do it anytime, sometimes they never do the thing.

The deadline for the survey is Wednesday, though I guess I could have been more explicit about that.

Be aware of boundary conditions

Tue, 14 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This week’s observation is about boundary conditions. As programmers you have surely run into off-by-one errors. They’re hard to avoid! Somehow New Zealand systemically seems to fudge the issue, as you can see on this sign on Kapiti Island restricting access to the tower. Perhaps one can parse this as being “if you put eight plus one people on the tower it will fall down”, but that’s not consistent with the top display. (As an engineering exercise, you can also think about the safety factors built into the tower’s design).

Be an expert tool user

Tue, 07 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This week’s tip is about tools. I’ve attached a picture of a replica of the ice axe that Sir Edmund Hillary used on his first ascent of Mount Everest. This was at the North Egmont Visitor Centre at the base of Mount Taranaki, a prominent cone-shaped ex-volcano in New Zealand. Sir Edmund’s original ice axe is in a museum in Auckland, and one can buy replicas of it on the Internet. [1]

Explore local

Mon, 30 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Since I last wrote, New Zealand moved to alert level 4 on a 4-point scale. Only essential workers may go to work, and “essential workers” is narrowly defined here: mostly supermarkets, pharmacies, and gas stations. Since I’m not going anywhere, I thought I’d send a picture from the archives. I took this picture close to home, in Waterloo Park, September 2019. I have to admit that I prefer being farther afield, but that’s not always an option, for various reasons. But, one can always explore one’s backyard. (Please do so safely!)

Be intentional about your time

Mon, 23 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Derek’s been doing a great job of keeping in touch with you all. My specific schtick in these emails has been travel-related tips, and that doesn’t work great right now. But let’s start with a picture from the archives. From simpler times (February 15!), here’s a tuatara photobombing a kakariki (NZ parakeet) at the Otoruhangu Kiwi House.

Something useful I’ve been doing in NZ is coarse-grained daily activity logging. Being on sabbatical is highly unstructured and, before all the recent news happened, I was concerned that my year might just slip away; keeping track of what I’m doing is a way to introspect about my activities. I’ve also been writing and posting monthly summaries based on the logs. You might try it to see if there’s a gap between how you would like to spend your days and how you actually spend your days. You do not have to work hard every waking minute. Instead, be intentional about your time and do what you choose, while also being self-compassionate.

Get Natural Sunlight!

Mon, 16 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I was thinking of this tip even before things got exciting, but it applies even better now in these times of social distancing.

This week’s tip: get natural sunlight!

It’s easy to be a nocturnal Software Engineering student. I don’t recommend it. As human beings, we do benefit from exposure to natural sunlight and the resulting Vitamin D. In Spring in the northern hemisphere, the associated extended daylight hours would normally be making it easier to do this. Even now, though, regularly taking outdoor walks with your family should be a safe and healthy activity. It’ll help with cabin fever and is a welcome change of pace.

Beyond Diet: on red pandas and doing better

Sat, 07 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This week I was busy writing code for a research project I’m working on here in New Zealand, so no travel pictures from me.

Here is a red panda in the Wellington Zoo (photo credit: Marie-Pascale Desjardins, as well as for suggesting this tip).

It turns out that red pandas and giant pandas are not related aside from both being cute animals. Giant pandas have a 99% bamboo diet, while red pandas are at 85% bamboo.

You also have to descend

Mon, 02 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Following up on last week’s tip, here’s a near-data-disaster from Rollen D’Souza:

I decided when I started grad school that I would always keep track of my research and general course notes in repositories. This wasn’t entirely just for backup purposes. It turns out that when you want to work on three different machines — work desktop, home desktop, surface laptop — making sure they are all synchronized with your latest work is non-trivial without some automated or manual tracking software. I use Mercurial (distributed vcs) because then there is an entirely cloneable copy of all my work on every machine I work on. (Why Mercurial versus git? Another story.) I’ve gotten into the habit of pulling, committing and pushing whatever I have whenever I work on a given machine.

What's Your Backup Strategy?

Sun, 23 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This week’s tip: have and execute a backup strategy for your data.

Here’s a picture of Mount Ngauruhoe (which stood in for Mount Doom). I’m sharing a picture from my phone (auto-enhanced by Google Photos) because the better pictures are on the camera that I spent an hour unsuccessfully looking for, and which my spouse was really unhappy about losing.

Devices get lost or fail all the time. While truly irreplacable data is rare, some data is inconvenient or expensive to replace. Maybe you can’t re-do the assignment in time for the deadline. Every so often this happens to someone’s PhD thesis, which represents years of work. Don’t let that be you!

Bring less stuff!

Sun, 16 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Happy Reading Week! This week’s life tip is, for now, most relevant to those of you not from the Greater Toronto Area, if you happen to be going home for the week. Experience shows that it will apply to many of you in the next few years.

Tip: Bring less stuff!

There is often a skill versus stuff tradeoff. With more skill you can often improvise for having less stuff. A technical example is being able to use vim versus having to use a heavyweight editor that is tied to a particular operating system. And I say that as an emacs user. But vim works in resource-constrained environments over flaky connections (use mobile shell, mosh, for such connections).

Look at the Details

Sun, 26 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This week, we went to the Rangiwahia Hut for a walk (“tramp”) and then to some caves with glow worms. We have seen glow worms at night in Wellington but we were here four hours before sunset, so no glow worms for us.

Today’s tip: looking closely at things can reveal unexpected details.

Don't be a weka

Sun, 19 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Kapiti Island is a nature reserve from which the New Zealand Department of Conservation has removed non-native predators (possums, rats, etc.)

Weka is not just a machine learning toolkit, but also a vulnerable flightless New Zealand bird. The bird will steal your lunch that is right in front of you on the table and run away with it if you don’t chase after it.

Life tip: Don’t be a weka. Cooperate generously with people. Good collaborations go two ways: make sure that both parties get something out of the collaboration.