Have you ever been in a situation where you have been doing something for so long and feel like it’s time for a change? This is it for me and how I have been handling my writing. It’s been over 10 years and the body of work that I have built over the years has had many different places to call home. Originally using Google’s BlogSpot, later using WordPress at tafakari.co.ke(no longer active), and finally this WordPress site. It is not just about where the content was but also how the content was generated. It started with general opinion pieces about various topics and as I grew more into tech, started writing basic tutorials in different tech spaces. But even then posts have been few and far between. Then last year, while attending Microsoft’s Senior software Engineer Apprenticeship program, one of the speakers mentioned something about producing more than you consume. This was an aha moment and as such inspired by Scott Hanselman’s newsletter of wonderful things, I will be publishing a newsletter of things that I have come across since the last newsletter and hopefully, these will be useful to everyone. Please do enjoy and subscribe to the blog.
Google’s Taskmate – Sometimes last year, Google released the Android app that allows users to earn money while doing basic tasks on their phone. Here is the description from PlayStore, “Earn money by completing tasks for businesses around the world on Google’s Task Mate app. Examples of tasks include taking a photo of a nearby restaurant, answering survey questions, or helping translate sentences from English to your local language.” . What’s even better is that one can withdraw money in their local currency. The app is still in development and only allows selected users to participate in the crowdsourcing venture. Unlike services killed by Google, we hope this one gets to see the light of day. More information about this can be found at http://taskmate.google.com.
The common voice project – The issue with machine learning is that we have a small subset of people doing the work and the associated assumptions by those people inadvertently creates bias. The common voice project is an initiative by the Mozilla foundation to teach machine’s how to speak like humans by collecting voice data samples from as diverse backgrounds as possible. You can donate your voice today. Check it out at https://commonvoice.mozilla.org/en/about.
Coding on the browser – What initially comes to mind is something like Jupyter notebook , but the challenge with Notebooks is, they are limited in how you access files. VS code, the desktop application is now available from the browser and allows you to open files right from the file explorer and code your way. If you have helped setup a development environment, you would understand how important this by reducing the amount of time it will need to get started. It is still in preview, but I trust Microsoft to not just make it permanent but add more features too. Try it out at https://vscode.dev/.
Baby Smash – Working and attempting to entertain a baby is quite a hassle. It’s even more frustrating since there aren’t quite fitting games on the internet that they can play providing some sense of adventure as they are too complex. Baby smash solves this problem by displaying coloured shapes, letters and numbers. What more, it locks out the keys that can exit the application accidentally. The baby is happy and you the working parent is happy. Learn more at https://www.babysmash.com/about.htm.
Things we never learnt at school – If you want your kid excelling at some of the non generic subjects like problem solving in a collaborative environment there is a platform just for that. Originally built for SpaceX families, now its open for communities all over the world. Check it out at https://www.synthesis.is/
Tech specialization – A lot of people I meet are pivoting from whatever they do into Tech. Most ask which area they work on. As it turns out, there is a personality test that one can take; a tech personality test. Go on and try it out at https://www.codecademy.com/explore/sorting-quiz
Alternative idea: Why use QWERTY keyboards – Do we still need them ? As the general consensus is around the internet, we still use these types of keyboards due to inertia more than anything else. QWERTY keyboards were awesome for type writers reducing rates of jamming and as such downtime due to servicing. This is not an issue any more and an alternative would be something like Dvorak keyboard. But who wants to lose their efficiency ? and hence the the QWERTY remains on the throne.
Code Idea: Binary tree visualizer – A lot of programmers are doing the 100 days of code. If you are a web developer in need of a challenge, how about a binary tree visualizer from an array, and the reverse too. Mostly when working on LeetCode question, I struggle with coming up with good testcases since it is complex mapping where the nodes fall. It would be great if I had a visualizer that displayed the tree as I typed the array. It would even better if there is a way to construct the tree in a drag and drop manner like Codility does.
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