Intuitive AI

What do you get when you give a design tool a digital nervous system? Computers that improve our ability to think and imagine, and robotic systems that come up with (and build) radical new designs for bridges, cars, drones and much more — all by themselves. Take a tour of the Augmented Age with futurist Maurice Conti and preview a time when robots and humans will work side-by-side to accomplish things neither could do alone.

El Gringo

“We filmed this during the summer of 2015 in British Columbia. It was the second time that we as a group moved to BC, Canada in order to re-discover the trails and bike-parks in and around Whistler, the Sunshine Coast, and North Vancouver.” – Da”u Corporate

 

Da”u Corporate

Technical Interview Advice – Bryan Cranston

Stumbled across Cranston’s advice to aspiring actors. Just replace actor/audition with engineer/technical interview (or whatever goal you’re pursuing) and how you frame the game changes.

 

The decision of who might get a job is so out of your control that, really when you analyze it, it makes no sense to hold onto that.

 

Cognitive Coding: A Mindful Geek

Mindfulness in the world of Cognitive Coding has given me perspective in adversity and calm in a sea of chaos. In a program as intense as Turing, cognitive coding has become essential to my success as a student and software developer.

Cognitive Coding?

Cognitive Coding is the practice of taking back control of your thoughts, noticing opportunities that others miss, and actively choosing how you react to the world around you.

But, what is mindfulness? Although associated with certain spiritual practices, anyone can practice mindfulness without drinking a religious Kool-Aid. Various forms structure meditation or mindfulness around mantras while others focus on being present by paying attention to your breath.

Although my mindfulness ability is a work in progress, focusing on my breath has helped me tune out the surrounding environment in stressful situations. And allows me to get more in touch with my physical and mental being by living more in the present. Being present allows you to be happy and appreciate the great things going on in your life.

It feels awkward at first but quickly becomes a much needed break in a busy routine. Especially in creative and technical fields. Raising your awareness can take your professional and personl ability to the next level. Below are a few thoughts on the positive benefits from practicing mindfulness that I have found as a software developer.

Why should I care?

Picture this — you are working with a team on a two week project, building a multi-tenant ecommerce platform with so many models, views, and controllers that it makes your head spin. Everyone has put in long days and is exhausted.

Code quality is prime, test coverage is high, logic is contained, and expectations are exceeded. As you are about to present the product to the client, you remember it has not been pushed to Heroku yet (it doesn’t matter if it’s not live).

As you load “ticketly.herokuapp.com” you see that none of the assets are rendering and the OAuth callback is failing. Your stomach drops as the client is steps away, walking towards you.

How do you react?

Mindfulness might not debug your heroku logs but it will give you more control of your emotions and how you process the challenge. Keeping your cool in situations like this, which happen in various forms as a software developer on a daily basis, is a secret to success in this field.

Take Your Ability to the Next Level

It seems cheesy to rattle off the positive effects of raising your ability to control your thoughts, but they are real. It’s like eating healthy, regularly exercising, and being a nice person. Mindfulness can make your life even better.

Relationships take on new meanings. Hobbies are fulfilling in an entirely different light, and a healthy confidence is fostered. Mindfulness can allow you to take control of imposter syndrome, and find unique interests in learning challenging topics.

At the end of the day, software developers are paid to solve challenging problems that haven’t been solved. The roller coaster of doing so is why we love what we do. Dealing with these opportunities is stressful. That’s why I have turned to cognitive coding and mindfulness.

If not for your personal self, I hope you give mindfulness a shot for your professional self. To get started, it’s worth watching Dr. Ron Siegel’s recent talk at Google.

“Meditation leads to openness, to freedom, where a kind of intuition just comes through. You could step back and put things in perspective. It doesn’t lessen your emotions. The emotions are the same, but you can step back and say, ‘I’m not going to be controlled by that emotion,’ and I think it then helps to see things at a higher level.” – Ray Dalio, Founder of Bridgewater Associates

Optical Character Recognition (“OCR”) in a Ember & Electron App

A good friend and myself recently started a digital recipe book called Itamae. With an interest in turning Itamae into a desktop application and integrating Optical Character Recognition we decided to use Ember and Electron for the build. Because it was our first time using these technologies, we thought it would be helpful to keep track of the experience to help others to get started. The following is an ongoing reflection…

Itamae shell from day 1:

What the… Ember, Electron, and OCR?

Ember

Coming from a Ruby and Rails background, Ember offers a sense of comfort that has been lacking in the raw JavaScript and jQuery applications I’ve worked on recently. Creating a new project, generating models, writing an adapter for the filesystem, testing with Mocha and Chai, crafting templates, etc. is sooo much easier to reason through when you have a foundation to build upon.

But, what really is Ember? Per documentation, “A Framework for Creating Ambitious Web Applications“. Okay, I can get on board with that. From my understanding, the creators of the framework have made many decisions that allow developers to get going FAST. With these decisions comes the loss of flexibility gained from using other JavaScript frameworks such as Angular.

I view the choice as ordering from a fancy menu that provides an appetizer and dessert with limited substitutions to grazing on a all you can eat buffet. Sometimes I want the ability to keep going back for more Crab Rangoons. But most of the time I know I want Panang Curry and don’t really care to try everything else made by the Chef.

Electron

Electron is badass. Previously called Atom Shell, the folks at Github open sourced the JavaScript framework for buildingcross platform desktop apps. Companies using Electron for building their desktop applications include Microsoft, Facebook, Slack, Docker, Atom Editor, VisualStudio, WordPress, and many others.

It is perfect for Itamea because I want to upload, edit, and delete recipes from the filesystem on my laptop. Electron provides the ability to do so without the constant need for an internet connection to process data. I can also provide users with easy access to their recipes by storing the app on my local dock or menu bar and by integrating many of the key commands they’re already familiar with.

Similar to publishing iOS and Android applications built in React Native, I hope to eventually distribute Itamae on the MacOS app store so others can easily download. Below is a talk at EmpireJS by the brilliant Steve Kinney on Electron.

Optical Character Recognition

From the start, it was important to me to explore OCR technologies and integrate it into Itamae. A problem I’ve faced when cooking is remembering where all the class recipes are location. This frustration in searching through old cookbooks and half-torn printouts is why I want the user to be able to take a photo of a recipe and easily convert the image to text directly in the application. Think about snapping a photo of something you see in a magazine or on a menu, and easily adding the information to a new or existing recipe.

The three main types of text recognition include OCR for typewritten, intelligent character recognition (ICR) using machine learning, and intelligent word recognition (IWR) for handwritten notes. It is important to note that not all the technologies are bullet-proof and each one often requires some form of cleaning the image (cropping text, adjusting contrast) before results are accurate.

For our project, we decided to integrate a JavaScript OCR library built by Kevin Kwok called Ocrad.js. Integrating this library allowed us to leverage past OCR experience with the ability for the user to take a screenshot, picture from a webcam, upload directly, or draw directly on a tablet and have that text converted.

Creating a Electron-OCR Module

After deciding to use Ocrad.js for the application, we decided it would be more beneficial to put development of Itamae on pause and focus on understanding the OCR technology better. Base functionality for the app we felt should be upload an image directly so the user could snap a photo and easily transfer that information to the recipe book. So others don’t have to recreate the wheel in regard to Electron apps, it was decided to build a electron-orc NPM module that was easy to integrate.

Ocrad requires the image, photo or drawn, be on a HTML5 canvas element, a Context2D instance, or an instance of ImageData. Integration the canvas parallel to an existing recipe felt like the most logical choice so the user could see the raw image, crop and adjust the contrast for better conversion, and edit the converted text side by side.

The electron-ocr library was built in a empty electron shell to experience the functionality apart from other dependencies. The goal is for usage to be agnostic without other developers having to tweak major configurations. Although the Ocrad.js API is simple once configured, its documentation and other resources online are not the best.

A technical challenge we faced when integrating the API with the canvas was grabbing the correct image data. For hours, OCRAD kept returning “-” with little other feedback. An open pull request discussed others experiencing a similar bug, referring to the need to empty the canvas before passing data to be converted. Hours later, we found that the problem was not the canvas not being empty but rather the dimensions of image data being grabbed had to be exact to the image being passed through. If not, the library would return gibberish, an empty string, or nothing.

Above is a screengrab from the final steps of fine-tuning our integration. The library will dynamically adjust to picture size for upload functionality, but we hard coded the dimensions above to get a base working conversion. The end conversion was dead on for the image passed in. Needless to say, we were ecstatic to see the words come through.

With a working integration of OCRAD, we refactored the library to the most essential code that any Electron project could integrate. Users have the choice of whether they want to grab data from a canvas element, a Context2D instance, or an instance of ImageData. The library is tested using Mocha and Chai and supported with Travis CI. The goal for future iterations of the library is to add additional methods that allow the user to pass and receive data with less configuration (cropping, adjusting contrast, input type) of the environment.

If you’re looking to add optical character recognition in a Electron desktop application, then npm i electron-ocr. Please let me know your thoughts of the library and, if you experience bugs or have an idea for future versions please open a pull request on the GitHub repo. Now, back to build Itamae.

Back to Itamae

We are still working hard at getting version 0.1.0 of Itamea ready for beta testing. Thanks for reading about our journey in Ember, Electron, and Optical Character Recognition. Message me on Twitter if you have any thoughts on this post.

Check back soon for updates!

Sorting Algorithms – Bubble, Merge, Insertion

What are some of the balances and trade offs between different sorting algorithms?

Everything we’re dealing with is sorting arrays. Consider Speed vs. Space when deciding what algorithm to use.

Notes:

• Insertion: good for small data sets and sorting in the browser, stable (alex before adam, etc.), doesn’t take much space
• Bubble: looks similar to insertion sort, even if array is sorted we’re checking through every item (slow)
• Merge: recursively split array to sort then merge (divide & conquer), won’t work with a lot of data in the browser (memory constraint)

Pros:

• Insertion: low resources needed, fast for nearly-sorted data
• Bubble: easy to implement, cool name
• Merge: fast, stable

Cons:

• Insertion: slow when data is reverse order
• Bubble: slow, unstable
• Merge: needs resources for temp space and arrays from recursive calls

 

Turing Podcast – JavaScript, M4, and Job Search

Jhun and myself recently joined Brennan on the Turing School podcast to discuss Module 4, learning JavaScript, and the job search. Check it out below and let me know what you think.

jQuery Fundamentals

I recently worked through Bocoup’s jQuery tutorial. Highly reccomend taking a look, even if you’ve been working with the library for years. Every time I revisit the fundamentals of a topic my depth of understanding greatly improves. Here are a few notes from each section:

 

JavaScript Fundamentals

• Everything in JavaScript is an object, except the primitives: strings, booleans, numbers, undefined, and null.
• “this” refers to the object inside the function that was called
• .call and .apply let you pass arguments to a function
• Array literal notation ( var myArray = [ ‘a’, ‘b’, ‘c’ ]; ) is better than invoking “new Array”
• Most values in JS are truthy, only 5 values are falsey: undefined, null, NaN, 0, and ‘ ’
• Ternary operator is a cleaner way to write an if/else statement: var propertyName = ( dim === ‘width’ ) ? ‘clientWidth’ : ‘clientHeight’;
• Naming: “_foo” names with an underscore are typically private, “Dogs” names with an uppercase are usually constructors, and “$.ajax” names with a dollar sign are usually jQuery objects
• The double space surrounding a semicolon when setting properties (firstName : ‘Aaron’) seems weird to me.

jQuery Basics

• Interesting to look at the source code: https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.7.2/jquery.js
• Test the contents of a selection by using: if ( $( ‘#nonexistent’ ).length ) { // }
• $() creates a new element in memory. But it wont display until placed it’s on the page
• Getters retrieve info and are typicallly limited to the first element of a selection
• Setters operate on all elements in a selection

Traversing & Manipulating the DOM

• .end() allows you to get back to the original selection but should be refactored out
• .clone() copies an element but the copy must be placed. It is important to change or remove the copied element’s id attribute
• .remove(), .detach(), and .replaceWith() allow you to remove elements from the document

Events & Event Delegation

• Common event methods include: .click(), .keydown(), .keypress(), .keyup(), .mouseover(), .mouseout(), .mouseenter(), .mouseleave(), .scroll(), .focus(), .blur(), and .resize().
• These can all be used with .on( ‘focus blur’, console.log(“Hello”)). You can also bind multiple events at once with .on()
• .trigger() will trigger bound event handlers
• .off() will remove any event handlers that were bound to an event
• Namespacing events allows you to target specific handlers
• Event object properties include: type, which, target, pageX, and pageY
• Event bubbling allows you to use event delegation. This provides performance gains and consistency with handlers executing as planned.

Animating with jQuery

• Common effects include: .show(), .hide(), .fadeIn(), .fadeOut(), .slideDown(), .slideUp(), and .slideToggle()
• Use callback functions at the end of animation methods to specific what should happen next
• .animat() allows the use of custom CSS effects
• .stop() and .delay() are helpful when managing animations

AJAX & Deferreds

• Pass $.ajax() an option URL to apply same configuration across several routes
• Use JSON.stringify() and JSON.parse() to create and parse a JSON string outside of jQuery
• .then() and .always() allow you to attach callbacks on requests
• Specifiy ‘jsonp’ at the dataType to get around blocked XHR requests when calling API’s
• $.Defferred() allows you to manage asynchronous operations

Functions, Variables, and Objects in JavaScript

I recently read a few chapters from Speaking JavaScript. The digital book is a great resource that I plan to reference as I progress in JS development. Below are a few thoughts from chapters covering the nature of the language and it’s functions, variables, and objects.

Nature of JS

Chapter 3 was a gentle introduction to the basic differences found in JavaScript. I especially liked “the elegant parts help you work around the quirks… they allow you to implement block scoping, modules, and inheritance APIs—all within the language.”

Functions

Chapter 15 opened my eyes to the many uses of functions in JS. Functions have three main roles: normal ( id(‘hello’) ), constructor ( new Date() ), and method ( obj.method() ). They can also be declared or combined with an expression (var id = function…). Functions can be called with any number of parameters, independent of what was initially defined. This flexibility allows you to pass additional parameters as an array but can also expose an undefined element.

You can check if a parameter is missing by comparing the optional arguments to an undefined or false value. Or by checking for a minimum length on the parameters. To alter the value of a variable from a function, the variable must be wrapped (array, hash, etc). It is important to understand param structure when using functions and methods. Named parameters via object literals can clarify function and method use.

Variables

Chapter 16 discussed variables in regard to scopes, environments, and closures. Scope is where you can call the variable (local vs. global, inner vs outer). Variables in JS are function scoped, meaning only functions can change a variable’s scope. It is important to assign a variable otherwise it becomes a global. Similar to other languages, it’s best to avoid global variables (and global objects) when possible.

The data structure that stores variable names and values is called an environment. Related, a closure is a function and that function’s scope. Closures are examples of environments that survive after the program has executed a function and its variable(s). Because of closures the scope of a variable might be maintained longer than anticipated, creating unanticipated results when using loops. This is often experienced using event handlers with loops on the DOM.

Objects

Chapter 17 on objects and inheritance was extremely valuable. This chapter helped relate my understanding of object and class structure in other languages to JavaScript. It’s important to remember that all functions are also objects. Object oriented programming in JS can be split into two levels of “difficulty”, basic (single objects and prototype chains) and advanced (constructors as factories and subclassing).

It is important to note that you can create objects without the need of a class. Also, all objects are like hashes (maps of keys to values) but also involve inheritance and other added layers of abstractions. The dot operator (ex. aaron.age) allows you to get/set/delete properties and call methods on objects. The bracket operator “[]” allows reference to properties through expressions ( [“person” + “name”] ).

Interestingly, every object can have another object as its prototype (creating a chain). This allows the first object to inherit properties from its prototype object. Setting a property only affects the first object where getting a property looks at all objects in the chain. You can protect an object by preventing extensions, and sealing or freezing its properties. I think of this similarly to setting permissions on a file.

A constructor function allows you create multiple objects with similar properties and is invoked using the “new” operator. JS constructors are dynamic, allowing you to return a direct instance of the object or whatever quality you desire from that object. But using an object as a map can cause problems. It’s better to use a library like StringMap.js when arbitrary keys exist.

The Winter Within

“Skiing in BC is a full sensory experience. Nobody knows this better than Donovan Tildesley – a blind skier who’s been experiencing the mountains here since he was two years old. Discover his incredible story and the Winter Within that draws him to BC’s peaks year after year.”

Getting Started with Sketch

Below are a few slides from a session I ran at Turing on Bohemian Coding’s design software Sketch.

How to Contribute to Open Source

Notes from a student led session I facilitated at Turing.

How to Contribute to Open Source from Aaron Careaga

Snowman – A Life in the Mountains

Excellent story of how childhood friends Kevin Fogolin (avalanche consultant) and Mike Douglas (pro skier) followed their passion to live in the mountains and how they balance the risks and rewards that come with. Check out the full movie on iTunes, it was the best $10 I’ve spent in a long time.

Motivation and Overcoming Challenges

After spending 10 to 12 hours a day, almost every day of the first module, in the “dungeon” as some call Turing’s basement HQ, you start to form habits around motivation. Maintaining the motivation to keep moving forward seems to be the only way to get through a program as challenging as this. Below are a some thoughts on how I enter a flow state, what derails my momentum, and how I’ve stayed motivated through these first few weeks.

When do you hit your most unconscious flow, where your actions happen almost automatically?

I hit my most unconscious flow after I’ve had a solid rest, eaten a good meal, and am excited about what I’m doing. Usually when I have the option to choose what to work on and the time to explore the topic. Also, it helps me to play white noise or music in the background.

Are there any dangers, problems, or weaknesses with that flow state? Is it healthy?

It can be hard to enter given certain environments, schedules don’t typically allow for it. It can also be hard to find motivation or change mindsets after a long day of class or studying. In these situations, I find it helpful to get outside (bike, ski, etc.) or watch a short ski or mountain bike edit to prep my mind when shifting gears.

What motivates you to work? Why are you here at Turing, in the big picture, and why are you here today in the small?

I am motivated by a challenge and the opportunity to be creative. I am at Turing to challenge myself, learn a new skillset and way of thought, and combine my interests in technology, finance, and behavioral sciences. I am at school today to learn, practice my communication and pairing skills, and to work on our current challenge (headcount project).

What’s the purpose behind your motivation? We all have a need for survival, but you likely aspire to leave some kind of mark. What is it? Why?

I am driven by change, decision making and the human aversion to risk. I want to help people be more aware in their lives and better adapt to change. I want to help them improve their processes in hope of leading a more fulfilling life.

What undercuts your motivation? When do you struggle to focus or achieve? What excuses do you use to make it ok to fail or procrastinate?

Being tired, hungry, or frustrated (usually with outside expectations) undercuts my motivation. I struggle to focus in groups where one person has taken the lead and everyone, in a sense, blindly follows. Or in situations where I haven’t had time to think about the challenge myself. Excuses I make typically involve comparing my performance (or lack of) with others or the expectations being too large. I procrastinate when I can’t think clearly or I’m feeling unmotivated.

What helps you do your best work? Why not do these things all the time?

Having space to think through a problem. Listening to white noise and just getting started. Walking around outside or watching a clip of a ski, mountainbike, or SUP movie. I don’t do these things all of the time because many are situational, and not all situations allow for the activity.

Another important process I’ve found crucial to getting through this module is to make sure I understand the requirements of a project and to try not to get caught on issues irrelevant to the goal. Otherwise, motivation is quickly derailed.

I’m interested in learning what motivates other. How do you enter a flow state? Please let me know on twitter.

Skiers Who Code

Training season is upon us.

As many of you know, I recently began my journey into web development at the Turing School of Software & Design. It feels like every day has been a yard sale after yard sale. A pain similar to doing squats after a long hiatus. Where each step reminds you how out of shape you are. Yet, I find myself craving this pain. Even waking up in the middle of the night thinking about code.

Software development provides a creative outlet similar to that found in the mountains. Where only nature dictates how you might act, where you can go, or who you can explore with. It’s as exhilarating as ripping untouched powder turns in the Mt. Baker backcountry. I’ve found that pushing myself past the safety of what is known has often led to the most rewarding experiences.

It fuels my search for freedom, similar to being in the mountains. Even though this journey has just begun, I find comfort in relating my evolution in backcountry skills to the current pain of wrong number of arguments (see below) and NoMethodError after hours spent refactoring.

Check back in the following weeks for technical related posts. The hope with Skiers Who Code is to start a series around software development practices as related to experiences we’ve shared in the mountains. Some topics I’m considering are “TDD: the Pizza Wedge of Junior Developers”, “Pair Programming & How to Not Spend a Night in the Cold”, and “Boot-Packing Software, Setting the Trail for Success”. Until then, feel free to connect on Twitter and Github, and please let me know if you have any thoughts on the journey.

PS – I’m not a huge fan of the word code as a descriptor for software developers. As Jeff has mentioned, it implies code-monkeys or someone whose skills are easily replaceable. Learning best practices at Turing, true developers are far from such a role. But Skiers Who Code sounded better than Skiers Who Develop Web Applications.

Waking Up with Sam Harris

Below is an interesting talk by Sam Harris on consciousness and spirituality. It was the best five dollars I’ve spent in a while.

Flow, the Secret to Happiness

As a WWII POW and former head of Psychology at the U of Chicago, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has dedicated his career and life to understanding what drives creativity and happiness in humans. Mihaly’s research allows us to better understand the innate motivations behind traditional decision-models in society.

“A majority of Csikszentmihalyi’s most recent work surrounds the idea of motivation and the factors that contribute to motivation, challenge, and overall success in an individual. One personality characteristic that Csikszentmihalyi researched in detail was that of intrinsic motivation. Csikszentmihalyi and his colleagues found that intrinsically motivated people were more likely to be goal-directed and enjoy challenges that would lead to an increase in overall happiness.

Csikszentmihalyi identified intrinsic motivation as a powerful trait to possess to optimize and enhance positive experience, feelings, and overall well-being as a result of challenging experiences. The results indicated a new personality construct, a term Csikszentmihalyi called work orientation, which is characterized by “achievement, endurance, cognitive structure, order, play, and low impulsivity.” A high level of work orientation in students is said to be a better predictor of grades and fulfillment of long-term goals than any school or household environmental influence.” – Wiki

The Computer Revolution

Interesting perspective from Chris Granger on why coding is not the new literacy.

We don’t want a generation of people forced to care about Unicode and UI toolkits. We want a generation of writers, biologists, and accountants that can leverage computers… To realize the potential of computers, we have to focus on the fundamental skills that allow us to harness external computation. We have to create a new generation of tools that allow us to express our models without switching professions and a new generation of modelers who wield them.

Howard Marks: Origins and Inspirations

Warren Buffett said “When I see memos from Howard Marks in my mail, they’re the first thing I open and read.” Howard is the Co-Chairman of Oaktree Capital Management. He is known in the investment community for his “Oaktree memos” to clients which detail investment strategies and insight into the economy. He treats investing as equal parts psychology and finance, and his book The Most Important Thing provides “uncommon sense for the thoughtful investor.” – Google

New Music

Broken Back – “Halcyon Birds”

Ben Esser – “Love You More”

Vallis Alps – “Young”

The Electric Sons – “Ancient Sounds”

The Good Fortune – “Overdose”

Jai & Mocki – “Weekend”

Oh Wonder – “Technicolour Beat”

Boston Chery – “Heart Chakra”