klog

I’ve been thinking recently that my life should reflect my coding.

With my coding, I like to write an application out in “full” (ie, no shortcuts), then look over the code I’ve written, and try to abstract out as much as I can, which helps to simplify the code, making it easier to understand and to extend.

As some people know, I’m a diagnosed depressive, which means that I tend to get overwhelmed by things pretty easily. I came to an understanding recently that this was partly because I had been living my life “in full”, where it was now time to abstract out as much as possible.

One example is my books and media. I have a very extensive library, with hundreds each of books, VHS videos, and DVDs. Whenever I need to find something, I have to go digging through all those things, which are scattered around my house, crammed wherever they will fit.

It is that “scattering” which I think is an apt description of how my life is at the moment - I have too many different types of bill, there are too many projects I’m trying to keep track of, and in general, my attention is too scattered to be able to progress with anything.

So, it’s time to abstract it all. I’ve started, by calling up almost every company I have a bill from, and organising direct debits with them. Next, I need to convert all my media into one single format (divx), and pack away the originals (in computer terms, the divx files might be considered an “abstraction layer”). Then I need to prioritise my projects, and cut myself off from those that I have no time for.

Then, I can sit down again and see if my life is still complex. If so, then there is more pruning to do. If not, then I can finally progress with my life.

This post may seem a bit whacked, as I am suffering the side-effects of anti-depressant withdrawal.

As an example, I closed the last paragraph by typing “</P>”, looked at that in confusion, turned the caps lock off and tried again, then realised I had turned on the caps lock, turned off caps lock and tried again, this time tutting to myself as I caught myself pressing the caps key (or “shift”, as some silly people call it).

By the way, the caps lock is called that because it locks the caps key. If the caps key was called the “shift” key, then the caps lock would be “shift lock”. It’s not, so stop calling caps shift.

You know?

Good news, everybody! I’m having a baby. Actually, my wife is. We have a load of plastic laid out on the sitting room floor, and we’re waiting for the midwife to arrive.

Other good news, everybody! KFM grows yet again. Hubert Garrido has donated a French translation of the project, which brings the number of languages now up to …many! Thanks, Hubert - the language will be available in version 0.5, which I hope to have in beta either tomorrow, or the day after.

I took the plunge and splashed out on a laptop to replace my broken one. I can now code from the comfort of my couch again, which will raise my productivity to no end!

Sitting here, listening to Johnny Cash singing The Mercy Seat (fantastic version). Bronwyn made a list of tunes she asked me to make some CDs of, to listen to while birthing. Here they are:

CD 1

1. All About Eve - Infrared
2. All About Eve - Outshine The Sun
3. Bjork - Joga
4. Cocteau Twins - I Wear Your Ring
5. Johnny Cash - The Mercy Seat
6. Massive Attack - Teardrop
7. Snow Patrol - Run
8. Tangerine Dream - Crystal Voice
9. Tori Amos - Hey Jupiter (Dakota version)

CD 2

1. Smashing Pumpkins - Stumbleine
2. All About Eve - Freeze
3. Blur - Battery In Your Leg
4. Kate Bush - Breathing
5. David Bowie - As The World Falls Down
6. Lacuna Coil - Veins Of Glass
7. Sneaker Pimps - How Do
8. Jane Siberry - It Can’t Rain All The Time
9. Enya - The Memory Of Trees
10. Tori Amos - Bells For Her

By the way, for those of you who are wondering what side effects there are to coming off Effexor, here are those that I am noticing:

• At random times, nerve impulses are annoyingly enhanced, for a few tenths of a second. This means that sometimes, for example, sound will increase in volume, or a small movement will turn into a jerk, or the feeling of fingers typing on a keyboard will turn into mild electric shock.
• Random body jerks. Perhaps related to the above. It feels like Tourette’s syndrome for the body. Watch that guy Pete on Big Brother. The way he jerks every now and then is how I feel. Usually, its quite contained, though, and ends up as a tensing of the body and an audible in-drawn hiss through my teeth.

Snow Patrol’s Run is playing now. That’s the only one I suggested for Bronwyn’s CDs. I love that song.

I’m feeling cautiously optimistic that I am getting a handle on my depression.

Last week, there was a massive crisis in the office, when our server was suddenly flooded with 1.6 million junk emails. This slowed down our email throughput to basically a standstill, for two days, causing huge headaches in the company, and lots of anger from our poor clients, who had to suffer with us.

Some of the symptoms of my depression is a feeling of responsibility for everything, and massive paranoia when things go wrong. Last week was a real test for this, as I was put under a lot of strain while we tried to get this sorted.

Thankfully, we finally got through it all, with the help of our good buddy Brian of Synergy Int, but it left the whole company in a state of strain.

The reason I say I am optimistic that I’m getting a handle on my depression is that, even though I felt at many times during the week that it was time that I took up my life-long dream of becoming a farmer, I recognised the hopeless despair as simply a response to the stress that I was under. Also, when I felt extremely paranoid that fingers were being pointed at me, I recognised that this was also stress talking.

I am very proud that I managed to recognise these symptoms for what they were, and to continue working despite them.

In total, I lost about two days work last week, but was able to start up again very quickly after the crisis was past.