Weekly review: Week ending July 15, 2016

Posted: - Modified: | review, weekly

This was a good week for walks. Most days we made it out for two, even three walks, and we've started going to High Park too. It's a multipurpose activity. Either A- gets exposed to sunlight to help her eyes develop or she ends up taking a nap, and we get exercise (and sometimes groceries or books).

We listed the walk and a few dozen other activity ideas on a sheet of paper that we've stuck to the fridge door. This should help us cycle through different ways to engage A- instead of spacing out or settling into a rut. It's important for us to learn how to support A-'s learning and provide a stimulating environment. We got the sedation instructions for A-'s upcoming cardiology exam. In preparation for informed consent for that and the MRI that the pediatrician has also requested, I looked up the research on the risks of multiple exposure to anaesthesia for young children. There are mixed findings, but the statistics tend to be on the grimmer side when it comes to potential learning disabilities and developmental delays. Ah well. Top priority is health, so let's get that sorted out first. We'll deal.

I've been thinking about tech areas to explore now that I'm getting more used to the little projects I do for my consulting clients. On the data side, I'm curious about data analysis and visualization. I'm also interested in natural language processing, both in terms of conversational user interfaces as well as text analysis. It's a little harder to learn things in fits and starts. Even with W- focusing on A-, I did only three hours of work last Thursday. Still, that was enough time to get a couple more add-ons on the go, so that's something.

Anyway, back to tech learning. I spent a little time defining a few intents and entities with http://api.ai, and I tested it with text and with WAVs. Speech recognition is likely to be the weak link in the chain for me, but maybe I can start playing around with a more individually-tailored agent. It would be handy to have more customized cognitive support systems for reminders, routine checklists, scaffolding, and mental stack management… The hybrid button-/text-based trackers I've been building for my mobile device have been quite useful. I tweaked them to save more data to my database so that I don't have to pull in as much from the external site that I'm wrapping this custom interface around, although I ended up introducing a few regressions in the process because my unit tests didn't cover the functions that actually update the third-party site. Hmm, maybe I should just mock those out and test. Also, at some point, it might be nice to make the trackers better at handling fuzzier input, which is where those conversational user interfaces might come in.

So yeah, a little bit of coding. Drawing is higher on my discretionary time priority list, actually. I've been staying up late to draw more detailed diary entries. I did my monthly review, too. It's fascinating how dense the weeks and months are when I look back.

Next week is packed with health and medical stuff. The peer nutrition workshop on Monday might be a good way to meet other Filipinos and pick up some dietitian-recommended tips for helping A- gain weight. Starting Tuesday, A- will be fitted for her first ocular prosthesis, a scleral shell that will go over her small left eye in order to help her skull grow symmetrically. Thanks to a last-minute cancellation, we've managed to snag an MRI slot on Thursday. Taking it easy otherwise. So glad W- is here!

2016-07-19a Week ending 2016-07-15 -- index card #journal #weekly

output

Blog posts

Sketches

Focus areas and time review

  • Business (3.1h – 1%)
    • Earn (3.0h – 97% of Business)
    • Build (0.0h – 1% of Business)
    • Connect (0.0h – 0% of Business)
  • Relationships (4.7h – 2%)
    • ☑ Make a list of baby activities
  • Discretionary – Productive (7.8h – 4%)
    • Drawing (3.5h)
    • Emacs (0.4h)
      • ☑ [#A] Do another Emacs News review
    • Coding (1.7h)
      • ☑ Log unknown commands for later processing
      • ☑ Fix sleep tracking for baby
      • ☑ Fix sketches link
      • ☑ Fix save and load
      • ☑ Try api.ai
      • ☑ Try submitting WAV to api.ai
    • Sewing (0.0h)
    • Writing (0.3h)
    • ☑ Renew library card
  • Discretionary – Play (0.0h – 0%)
  • Personal routines (31.5h – 18%)
  • Unpaid work (60.2h – 35%)
    • Childcare (52.6h – 31% of total)
  • Sleep (60.7h – 36% – average of 8.7 per day)

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