For the past five and a half months, I have been working at Avanade, in their Seattle office. I was brought on as a Technical Writing Intern, but in actuality, I was given sole ownership of the documentation for ACA Accelerate, an enterprise-scale desktop migration automation platform.

From these humble beginnings, I began by researching the software’s usage and implementation at customer organizations of widely varying scales. I quickly built up my knowledge of the platform, as well as my understanding of the nature of desktop transformation projects. I took the initiative to acquire, learn, and use MadCap Flare, and I produced high-quality HTML5 documentation for the various roles and interfaces involved in the platform. (I also suspect that I have become one of the leading submitters of bug reports and feature requests in MadCap history.)

And then, suddenly, just as I had nearly finished settling into the perfect cadence, I was met with a surprise–in planning the next version of the software, the core architecture was to be revitalized, and the methodology revisited. And, of course, I was invited to participate in both of those efforts, front row center.

I had an awesome time brainstorming, voicing concerns, and sharing my perspective during the meetings, and I helped to collect and refine the feature list, putting it in the perspective of the project methodology and the user interface of the previous version of the software. I prepared supporting artifacts and RACI matrices, and helped drive key discussions.

And that is pretty much where I am today. I am currently working on finalizing a key element of what will ultimately drive the RBAC model behind the platform, and we are having a rather important meeting tomorrow to get the sign-off needed to move forward with the development effort. My next steps include offering my input on the core project methodology, an effort which I have approached with a strong focus on injecting rigor and specificity into the methodology and its requirements for our software. My biggest goal is to improve the quality and depth of interaction between the project personnel, who drive our delivery, and the development team(s), who create our product–and I am making some good headway.

Tune in next week when I share my experience as a member of the UX Subdiscipline group and developer of the SCS UX Design Pattern Library!

The post Where I have been for the past six months appeared first on Joshua Hutt.

They had nearly everything I needed at Safeway, except for garam masala, curry leaves, and, apparently, ground corriander. Thankfully, I remembered a small store a way up the road, from which I had purchased a few similar items for my mother sometime last year. I went there and purchased the items, in Ziploc bags, for considerably cheaper than any of the spices I had purchased from Safeway. The bags contain probably the same amount you would find in a large spice container–such as the plastic McCormick ones–and they were only about $1.50 each. Quite a good deal. I will have to check next time to see if they have the spices that I buy more regularly. I am betting they do.

Anyway, I jumped headfirst into the recipe, and I have to say that I feel like it went pretty well. I did not have nearly enough time to marinate the meat, but the Tikka sauce was fragrant enough to flavor it quite strongly, regardless. As for the Bhuna part–that went fairly well, too. There was also a lot of onion to begin with, but it was quite balanced out in the end, by the chicken. I would say that if I had it to do again, I would probably add just a little bit less cinnamon, and perhaps I would be more generous with some of the other spices. In particular, I would probably favor the cumin a bit more, as it smells delicious and really is my favorite spice. In my house, we put it on pizza, sandwiches, and pretty much anything else that needs a little bit of an extra kick. I would probably add a little bit of curry powder to the recipe, as well.

Without further ado, here are some pictures that I captured, of my own helping of Chicken Tikka Bhuna. They’re not the best quality, as they were taken with my phoneAlas, the Galaxy Nexus no Lumina 920., but they’ve been treated with some pretty nice filters, courtesy of Camera 360 for Android.

Reddit user pdaddyo shared the recipe in the comment section of the post:

Recipe:
“Tikka style” marinade:

• about 100ml of low fat natural yogurt (would probably use even less next time)
• 1 tsp garam masala
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground cayenne pepper – obviously tweak for heat (this was a medium curry i’d say)
• 2 tsp of paprika (this was mainly for colour)
• 2-3cm fresh grated ginger
• loads of freshly milled black pepper
• juice of small lemon
• juice of half a lime
• pinch of salt

Mix all that in a big bowl, and add even-sized chunks of chicken (EDIT: 3 chicken breast used), cover and leave in fridge for as long as poss (I did 3 hours, a day+ would be amazing!)
Then I skewered the chunks, discarded the marinade and grilled on absolute max temp for about 5 mins each side (until charring just a little mmmm)
OK that’s the “tikka” – mmmmm!
Then to make a garlicy onion Bhuna vibe I took:

• 3 cloves garlic crushed
• 2 fresh chillis (I deseeded) finely diced
• 1 knob of butter, guessing 10g? (needs to absorb spices)

Heated butter, softened garlic + chilli for 1 minute then added

• 1 tsp garam masala
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• few curry leaves

Cooked the spices for about 1-2 mins, then added:

• 4 small onions, diced and sliced various ways

Cooked gently for about 5 minutes, then added the chicken and loads of fresh coriander
I then added a splash or two of water cos it was looking very dry, and had it on super-low heat covered up for about 5 minutes to kind of steam + reheat the chicken mmmmmmm!
Bit more fresh coriander (cilantro in US) before serving with basmati rice.
That’s it kids!

If you try the recipe, leave me a comment and let me know how it goes! Also, feel free to recommend any other versions, or even different recipes. I am always on the lookout for new recipes! And, of course, don’t forget to share this post with your friends if you think they would like to give it a try!

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Anyway, now I know that the answer to my discipline problem is actually quite simple. It is especially easy to resolve when motivation is not an issue, so I recommend dealing with that first. Essentially, discipline is a result of training, by using a regimented approach and training ourselves to channel our motivation into focused, successful strategies that will maximize the results.

One of the top comments was a great example of one such strategy: a firm, regimented approach that I have taken in the past, which generally works quite well (although not if you have issues with motivation):

1. Make lists. My father used to say, “when I wake up in the morning, I make a mental list of the THREE THINGS I have to do today. Usually I end up doing more, but I start with those three things.” A list gives you a concrete, definable set of tasks that need to be done and a starting and ending point.

2. Subdivide tasks into manageable pieces. “Clean the apartment” is a nice task in the abstract, but it’s both daunting and nebulous. Instead, parse it into: put all clothes into the hamper, vacuum the floor, wash the dishes, dust the bookshelf, do the laundry, etc. Many people find doing small tasks much easier to do than a small list of very large and lengthy tasks. It also lets you start and stop if you get tired or bored.

3. If you’re really lazy, you might have to create your own reward system. After you finish a chore, you get to do something else you’d rather do. You get to go on one raid AFTER the clothes are in the washer. Then, play a game, and put the clothes in the dryer. Watch an episode of your favorite television show. Fold the clothes and put them away. Surf the ‘net for half an hour. Wash the dishes, then you play another game.

4. Get a timer. You’re not allowed to do anything for more than an hour, whether it’s productive or not. If you’ve been doing homework for an hour, it’s time to take a break so you don’t burn out. Go check out Reddit, but set the timer again. You don’t get to surf Reddit for more than hour, either. After that’s done, you get back to work.

5. Take a step back from your situation and ask yourself, “if I didn’t live here, what would I think of this place?” It’s easy to think that it’s your place, you’re the only one who lives there, no one else sees it, so who cares if there’s a pair of underwear on the lamp that’s been there for two weeks. If it helps, imagine that you have a lady friend coming. Would she be impressed or would she run away in terror? If it’s the latter, then your place is awful, and you’re never going to have company at your place if you don’t fix it.

I like that approach because it is exact, which makes it somewhat scientific. If you do it, you will be successful without fail, and it is even good at defeating a lot of the more common challenges to motivation that we experience. However, even though it is a successful strategy for achieving discipline, it is also prone to failure if used primarily to motivate. None of the steps are particularly difficult, of course, but they are easily abandoned, especially because they seem “external,” as if a productivity framework designed with a one-size-fits-all mentality was simply superimposed on top of one’s existing approach (complete with a lack of motivation). It works for a while, but it feels uncomfortable or unsustainable if you lack a strong motivation foundationHaha! That rhymes..

I believe that the best foundation is strong belief. One of the easiest and most effective things one can do in terms of getting motivated is altering their belief structure. The key belief that changes everything is concerned with the individual.

You have to believe that you are capable – that you are effective and can accomplish what you set your mind to.

My response to the original poster was as follows:

Hi,

I left a comment on your post, but I’m not sure if you’re going to get the chance to read it.

I just wanted to say that I believe you have to value yourself, and believe that you have the power and the sensibility to accomplish anything that you desire.

When you truly accept that, you will be able to think of any goal you want, and instantly pursue it.

There won’t be any struggle, or debates with yourself over the merits of the goal — you’ll simply be able to go to work, like a machine, with the sole purpose of making your goal a reality.

But you really have to believe in yourself. Believe that you are a capable, intelligent, and effective human being. Not that you “could be, if you only wanted to, or had a good reason.” No, just that you are, at your very essence.

Once you truly believe that, the only reason you’ll need for a goal is that you picked it.

Good luck, and let me know if this helps.

-Joshua

 

P.S. You might want to check out Tony Robbins’ work. What I wrote is inspired by his guide to personal change, which is founded on three beliefs: (1) Something must change. (2) I must change it. (3) I can change it.

I found it written down here: http://www.arinanikitina.com/anthony-robbins%E2%80%99-recipe-for-instant-life-change.html

I’m not sure how reliable that blog is, but it seems to have gotten the basics of Tony’s message right.

Again, good luck, and believe in yourself!

The post Motivation appeared first on Joshua Hutt.

If you look closely, you can see my little brother in the passenger seat. He had a fun time riding way up there.

My brother tries really hard to seem nonchalant and cool. He’s pretty successful, most of the time.

This picture helps illustrate just how jam-packed the moving van was. What you can’t see is the washer, dryer, and piano, crammed into the very back of the hold.

With the first day almost at a close, I snapped a quick pic of some pretty mountains. We continued driving for several hours after this.

We stayed the night at my mom’s ex’s friend’s ranch. It was quite a nice place, and even more lovely in the morning!

The weather was perfect for a road trip.

These are ever so popular on /r/buildapc.

I was really impressed with the NZXT Source 210. It was spacious, strong, and sleek. It also had some great holes for cable management, which I tried to take advantage of. I think I’ll use a white one in my next build.

After getting everything in the case, I pulled out the hard drive — only to discover that I had bought an IDE one by mistake! And so began the hours of getting Windows 8 to work on a flash drive…

We just got off the plane and decided to pose for pictures, since it was such a cute little aircraft.

Second time’s the charm! We made it on the plane and with minutes to spare.

Just shortly after taking off, I noticed a plateau outside of the left-hand window. I sneaked a picture, as it was too cool not to capture.

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Well, let me preface this post by saying I am smart. I have a sort of pragmatic intelligence. I am not necessarily quick-witted (although I can be, sometimes), nor am I a creative genius (though I do have my moments). In actuality, my intelligence stems mostly from curiosity. I am at my intellectual peak when I have a burning question in my mind. It could be as simple as how to make something happen in the CSS of my site, or a Java program that I am working on. Or it could be as lasting and profound as the foundation of my thesis topic, which is how the Chinese government has interacted with emerging communications technologies, and how they will continue to do so in the future. Will they stifle them? Will they appropriate and leverage them? Will they try to ignore them?

Open questions are great beacons for me. They make me curious, and they keep me attacking a problem without much regard for anything else. It is in this sense that I am intelligent. When I try to figure something out, I do not necessarily need a road map or even a plan–my curiosity is enough to keep me going until I can find an answer, be it exact, or otherwise. I am reminded of an episode in high school math class, in which I had forgotten the formula that we had drilled countless times in the hopes of automatically applying it on the homeworks and tests. Despite this, when I came across a problem that required it, I did not freeze up. Instead, I thought about what I knew, and I thought about what I needed to find out, and I derived the formula from the information available. I checked my process with a trivial case, and, finding that it was satisfactory, I went on. It is experiences like these that I look back upon with pride. That methodical, industrious, and practical student is who I believe myself to be.

Math is not so easy

And so, much to my chagrin, the nearly complete and utter lack of that quintessential experience in my college career has been sort of an awkward shift. Now that I am nearing the end of my first college tour, I think it is both fitting and regrettable that I have finally discovered the reason for this momentous change. In my math classes, I enjoy the concepts greatly, but I have felt since Calculus that I am not really the “math genius” that I suspected I had always been. That is, of course, because I exerted nearly no effort in my high school classes, and yet I enjoyed consistently high marks at the end of each semester. My reasoning for this discrepancy has been that I am just not really that smart, and although some people are cut out for math, I am indeed not one of those people. Of course, I am writing this blog entry right now because I know this to be ridiculously mistaken.

One, it is from that unseemly belief that at least half of my mathematical woes have emerged. By telling myself that “I’m just not that smart,” I have already begun to justify failure in my mind. Every time I get a mediocre grade? “Of course! I’m not that smart. What could I expect?” And then, when it comes time to study, I do what I can to get by, but I never expect to really master the material–only to know how to apply the formulas. What has happened?

Two, part of what made me really great at math in high schools (aside from it being exceedingly linear at that stage), was my fascination with it, and how I completely adored all of its idiosyncrasies. Yes, it was linear and predictable, but I was not exclusively so. There were many deeper things that were glossed over and others that just did not make sense, and I loved them. I thought that Mathematics was a very exact thing, that would always make sense in every case, as long as it was approached properly. The idiosyncrasies were like little passcodes–if you had them all, you could do any math.

I have since learned that neither of these things are true. I am not “not really smart,” and math is not “a very exact thing.” Much of it is, and most of what I have dealt with is, but the reality is that I can no longer approach it as I did in high school. I can no longer expect to figure out techniques that I have not mastered, in time to answer the problems on a test. I have to change my approach. So far, I have been going about it all wrong, trying to approach the math I am learning just like the math I learned in high school, and it has not worked.

What I have learned

I now know that college-level math is a complex and detail-ridden thing. And, boy do the details count. If you take nothing away from this post, at least take this: pay attention to the details. In the math classes I have taken lately, a mistake as simple as a missed sign can render three pages (or more) worth of problem solving useless. This is mostly because I find that combing through my work and finding the error is just as taxing as simply redoing the problem from the beginning. However, the point is that learning this stuff is no walk in the park, and it takes a great deal of curiosity and confidence to make it happen. I have to be curious about really understanding what is going on, and I have to be confident and believe that I can actually do it. With those two things, I have the drive to keep going until the question is answered. After all this, I finally know how to succeed at college math. I finally know the formula (at least for myself) to make learning an efficient and productive process.

Now, nearing the end of my last quarter of taking math courses, I have finally figured it out.

Part of me wants to say, “It figures.” But another part of me is extremely grateful for the early revelation. As I see it, I am a few classes short of being halfway done with all of the math I want to take and learn. It is likely that I will be doing the rest of the studying on my own time, for my on edification. I suppose that makes it even more imperative that I approach it correctly, with a plan that is designed to succeed. I will probably not have the benefit of professors, TAs, and classmates to fall back upon. I may not have much support at all. Regardless, I think that having learned this, and having already begun to make this mentality a part of me, my college education is already delivering its long-term rewards.

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Finally, we decided to build a Jenga bridge between our two tables. Construction began in a manner quite similar to how I imagine arch bridges are most commonly built—with a hand underneath, providing interim support.

Anyway, we got a structure together and then continued building, erecting a tower in the middle. When we ran out of blocks, we played the game much like any other:

As you can see, it was quite the monstrosity.Wow, I didn’t even mean to rhyme, but that was kinda cool!

Rameses, reckless as he is, began his turn by going straight for the bottom, taking out some of the supporting structure. Not wanting to be  bested by my old friend, I held down one of the sides and removed a critical piece, forcing the remaining pieces to precariously resettle. We continued like this for a while, the stakes raising with each turn. Eventually, it came back to Ramses. Uncharacteristically cautious, he began to feel around the midpoint. Selecting a piece, he pulled just slightly, and the tip of the tower came crashing down.

As a testament to our accidentally-sound engineering, the bridge portion stood strong.

Here’s the clip:

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In retrospect, I feel that it is sort of ridiculous. Back then, though, I could never get over the fact that his head was not very round. Rather, it had a cylindrical part on the top, which of course was evidence enough that his cranium actually extended much further into his ‘fro than one might be inclined to believe upon first glance. It bothered me then, and it still kind of does now, because it just seemed like a stylistic shortcut, and also because I could never really know for sure how tall his head really was. Not knowing the truth was frustrating.

I have, perhaps, come to terms with it now, as it doesn’t bother me so much anymore. That may also be because I realize that my own artistic abilities have not progressed nearly as much as my 12-year-old self had so carefully planned. As a result, I am much more accepting of others’ artistic choices, even when they disagree with my own.

But, then again, the setting of Hey Arnold! placed them in grade school, which means there was always ample time for his head to grow and his bone structure to develop. Maybe he just had a lumpy head, and maybe the persistent nature of the show’s characters and settings simply precluded the development of his character, in that regard. Or maybe, the character design was an outlet for a particular artist’s recreational interests?

I guess I will never know for sure.

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I’m just trying to get everything set up right now. Because it’s been nearly a decade since I’ve seriously looked at HTML and CSS, editing and modifying the themes and stylesheets for this blog has taken up quite a lot of time! For instance, I spent hours on the footer, searching the web for a way to make it stick to the bottom on pages with little overflow. The solution I have now is far from perfect, but I’m happy with it for at least the moment. Even though it wastes valuable screen real estate, I feel like it gives the site a more concrete feel.

Who knows, though? I expect that I’ll probably tire of it soon, and then I might try to devise a new solution. But at least there’s no unsightly whitespace.

Anyway, thanks for coming and taking a look around. I don’t have much to share at the moment, but I’ll definitely try to offer my share of original content.

Also, I think I’ll try to use a featured image that I’ve personally made for each post. That should help keep things interesting.

And finally, the heat equation that I learned today:

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