shawnmeanders | Shawn Meanders

Writing Challenge 2025 – 01 – The Experiment

This was written November 28th, 2025

The Experiment

1 – A letter

If this doesn’t work out, or maybe works out as intended, then you might be find this letter, and I must apologize to you. No, I did not hate life, nor have suicidal ideation. To me, it’s simply a scientific experiment, try to push the limits of my curiosity. Ever since I’ve learned about the concept, I’ve been obsessed. What if? And how to know? I don’t care about applications or anything of the sort, but I seek the truth…or at least get as probabilistically close to it as I can. And since it’s a purely subjective matter, based on your unique perception, there was no way to leave it in someone else’s hands, no matter the risks. I simply have to try it for myself, it’s the only way. And if it works, I might be able to share it with someone else, but obviously they themselves won’t be able to have such great certitude, unless they try it for themselves.

Phrasing it like this, it almost sounds like a virus that could propagate from person to person, haha. But no, I should keep a more appropriate and somber tone for this. Here I am, maybe the first person to ever attempt to get to the bottom of this, maybe not. Probabilistically speaking, it’s rather unlikely that I would be in the same universe as someone else who pushed it far enough to have high-confidence in the theory. Ah well, wish me luck!

If you find my corpse, I do sincerely apologize, but it is too hard for me to ignore this thirst for an answer, and I must quench it at any cost. In the end, know that I was happy and am satisfied with the life I’ve led. And I’m eternally grateful to all of you for all of your support and help, for your presence from the most minute to the most significant parts of my existence. I wish you all the best, and thank you sincerely. Sorry I didn’t discuss this with any of you before starting the experiment, but I couldn’t accept being dissuaded or impeded. It is ultimately the greatest regret that I can’t just come back after the facts to share the results with you, although from my own perspective, it’ll seem like I can. But ultimately, I’m familiar enough with the concept to know that I’m also leaving some of you behind.

Enough dilly-dallying, time to move on with it.

Sincerely, T.

2 – The first experiment

Well, here I was, finally trying to go through with my rather gruesome experiment. If I was mistaken, it would be regrettable, I would just die, and that would be it. What’s worse, I wouldn’t even satiate my curiosity, since I would be welcomed by a complete void. But it was pointless worrying about this, I knew I wouldn’t allow myself to get cold feet, nor leave any room for regrets. I just had to know, once and for all.

So, step one, get the gun out. I could definitely feel the trepidation. My heart starting to beat harder, my awareness shifting. Yes, I had been planning this for a long time, but it didn’t mean anxiety and anticipation could be completely avoided. A deep breath, time to swallow my saliva and load the gun. Ok, ready. And of course, I did not want to inconvenience others too much, so the basement was all covered in tarpaulin, limiting the ultimate mess. Deep inhalation. Gun to the temple. Hold the breath in. Remove the safety. Deep exhalation. Place my index on the trigger. I was starting to shake, but I was rea…

Ding-Dong. Someone at the door. I almost had a heart attack! The panic intensified, I couldn’t let anyone find me like that! I quickly ran to the cabinet to hide the gun, along with the letter.

What about the tarp? Fuck! I couldn’t let anyone find me in this state, they’d be sure to take me away! Welp, I quickly tried to roll it back and hide it in a nearby box, before running back upstairs to answer the door.

And what for? A simple prank from nearby kids. Ah well, with the rush of the situation, and adrenaline still pumping through my system, I wasn’t ready to move on with my experiment, so I decided to shelve it for the rest of the day.

3- More attempts

Well, here I was again, ready to re-attempt the experiment. The basement was once again ready, the weapon locked and loaded. I released the safety, and just as I was getting ready to bring the weapon to my temple, there went my phone! I got so startled that I actually pulled the trigger, BANG! Straight down into the tarp and the floor…this would be a hard one to explain. I looked at the phone and saw my mom was calling. I opted to shelf the experiment one more time, and answer the call, it would have to wait for another time…yet again.

Should I continue with the experiment? Of course I had to, I wanted to know whether there was a kernel of truth behind Quantum Immortality. But at this point, with two failures so close to the goal, and one with an actual discharge, I wasn’t sure I had the guts to use the gun anymore. Time for another tactic, but what?

Maybe drowning? But that sounded rather painful, so I quickly discarded it. Exsanguination? Similar concerns, too painful and too slow. Jumping off a building or a bridge? Well… it would be final, and there’d be no going back, but it actually wasn’t that accessible of a means anymore. I figured it might have to be pills or hanging myself. The former would probably be less traumatic for anyone finding me though.

Accordingly, I did a quick search online for the lethal dose for the sleeping pills I had access to as an insomniac. With the next refill, I’d have enough, so I went to the pharmacy and made up a story about having dropped all of my pills and needing my refill. Luckily, the pharmacist didn’t care much, and just acquiesced.

Now, time to get everything ready. I opted to do this overnight, so I first gave myself a great evening first, in case my hypothesis was wrong. An amazing dinner, followed by a viewing of one of my favorite movies. Ok, I was ready, so I set the scene. Prepared my letter, emptied the bottle in my mouth, sat back, and tried to relax. As much as I could with this nauseating taste permeating through my mouth…these were not pleasant whatsoever! Creeeeeek….

Wait…what? Someone was entering? Oh no, would my experiment be….

I’m pretty sure that’s when I blacked out.

4- Awakening

The next day was a rather weird jumble of things. My brain was a complete mess, and nothing would really stick much, just a huge haze. I remember the general events here and there, but no details. Of course, my friend who had my spare keys decided to come over. Turns out he’d been told about the gunshot by someone in the neighborhood, and had come to investigate. Not having heard from me in a few days, he’d been worried and opted to come in right away. Well, he found me on the sofa, labored breathing, in the midst of losing consciousness. He tried to wake me up, but no results, so the ambulances were summoned. Obviously, once I was in the ER and my situation was stable, he went back to my place to see if anything needed to be put in order. That’s when he found the letter, the pistol, the tarp and the hole in the floor.

Of course, I woke up in the mental ward. I couldn’t believed me, but they’d accused me of having lost it. Such erratic and uncharacteristic behavior, and hysteria in the letter, both concerning in its subject matter and tone, with somber and humourless joke. They were concerned and panicked, and so did what they deemed right, to lock me away, protect me from myself. And I was so frustrated, so upset, but what could I possibly do. I’d seemingly failed my experiment, and wouldn’t have any new shot at it for a while.

5 – Epilogue

This is the content of the interview I received from one of the most interesting patients I’ve met. I’ve rarely seen any ward patient allegedly coming from such a hysteric and mad pattern, that simultaneously felt so detached and rational. He was clearly in charge of his reason, yet his tendencies prevented him from being released. Allegedly, following this rationality and his good behavior, he’d been given more leeway, but each time, he yet again was found having either planned or attempted his own demise. Yet, with miracle luck, something always happen to bail him out. Now, no matter his behavior, he’s a permanent fixture of the ward, with no plan of any release.

After having interviewed him, I opted to research Quantum Suicide and Quantum Immortality myself, and can’t help but think he misinterpreted his results. What if his experiment was actually a success? After all, if it’s really a probability game, wouldn’t that be the most likely scenario in which someone like him would continue live? Agency being taken out of his own hands sounds like a good candidate.

Writing Challenge 2025 – Introduction

This was written November 27th, 2025

Time for me to finally get back to this blog. Let’s be brief, here’s my new goal: Writing daily. I’m planning to do this for the rest of the year, which means just over a year. Let’s get the parameters ready:

The primary goal is to write something everyday. Ideally in the form of fiction, in order to work on my creativity and style.
Every day should have a self-contained short story or poem. (I’m allowing poems, since I consider them less time-consuming, yes more challenging from their restraints, an acceptable trade-off in my books. If you’re unhappy, well tough luck, it’s my challenge after all ;P)
In order to align with the primary goal of getting something out, I do not guarantee or even plan to review it (Including this current outline of the challenge). It might still happen, especially if I feel particularly happy with or inspired by the story. So beware: Mistakes Galore!
I do not plan to control my inspiration, so it might be utterly boring or dull, it might be shocking, disgusting or even gory, it could be ridiculous or even in poor taste. My goal is not to offend, but this is a side-effect that tend to be unavoidable. Accordingly, be forewarned. (Note: I do not plan to have any sexual content. That’s not really something I feel comfortable sharing with people in general anyway.)
If I’m unhappy with or ashamed of the results, I might opt to not publish the results. I will hold myself accountable to writing something, but not to sharing it. The goal is to hold the habit and gradually improve, but the added stress of performance, at least at this level, would probably only get in the way.
None of these are meant to be a final story. If I think one of my stories has significant potential, I might decide to revisit it later in the future. If, on the flip-side, I think I could do something much better with it, and am worried about copyrights…I might just share it privately instead.

Well, there it is, my base rules laid out in a rather sleepy state. To be honest, I was initially planning to start writing today, and was not even sure I would write it here, but was extremely busy. This resulted in a choice: Either skipping today and “aiming to start tomorrow”, or push through and right tonight anyway. The former tends to result in endless delays, while the other felt a bit overwhelming. I thus compromised: Writing this outline, but not a story.

On that note, wish me luck for the remainder of the year. If I’m calculating this, there should be 34 days ahead. Feel free to reach out in person if you have any thoughts or comments (I’m sorry, but I don’t currently have the energy and time to filter all spam in the comments, so I wouldn’t advise commenting here for now).

Take care everyone, and hopefully this can inspire you to start your own journey too! The best time to start a habit is the past. The next best time is today! (Hence me finally doing this here). So if you’ve been thinking about getting starting with a new venture, habit or project, I urge you all to get started today, now, this very minute. Just close your browser and get to it! And stay curious!

Disconnected Sundays

This was written January 05, 2025

Introduction

Hello everyone!

As I find myself writing this, it is roughly 5:30pm Sunday evening, local time. It has now been a few weeks since I’ve start a new experiment, Disconnected Sundays, with varying degrees of success.

Disconnected Sundays

What are Disconnected Sundays? Simply put, I’ve decided to spend` the entirety of my Sundays without access to internet. Thus, as I head to bed on Saturday night, I disable the internet from my laptop and phone. Then, I go about my Sunday life as normal, albeit without access to internet.

But why? Having realized I waste a significant amount of time on the internet, (and I do mean waste) and that it affects my mental health negatively, I set out to find a solution. There are two main culprits for this negative impact:

I easily get consumed by passive activities online, such as watching videos or mindlessly browsing.
I spend all my time thinking and worrying about communication with others, idly waiting for responses or communications from others, and constantly thinking about what to write to others, which generates a ton of anxiety.

Therefore, I opted to investigate whether avoiding these for one day a week could negate their negative impact. Whatmore, this could also hopefully increase my productivity.

Part of the inspiration came from the Shabboth. For those unfamiliar with it, part of this Judaic custom involves not being able to actively interact with electricity (for example, you can’t turn on or off a light). It’s been my impression that for a lot of people, part of this custom also involves further devotion to the scripture, resulting in impressive results. It also seems like a lot of people generally use this as an opportunity to read, study or do what I’d consider more productive activities (including close-knit social interactions).

While I am not a practitioner of this faith, I still find it a rather inspiring one. And I couldn’t help but ponder over this custom and its benefits. I eventually concluded that there were important take aways leading to an opportunity to better myself. And so, I landed on this notion of Disconnected Sundays.

Why Sundays? It’s simple, it’s the only day of the week I neither work nor go to school, so it seemed like the only valid option. In particular, on any workday, it seems like I’m “duty-bound” to using my phone.

Results so far

As I’ve said, it’s already been a few weeks since I’ve started.So, how’s it going so far? Well, it’s a mixed bag. For starters, I tend to stay up rather late on Saturdays. Indeed, it’s the only day of the week where I can afford to, and it sometimes is necessary when I want to inteact with family or friends in other time zones. With a 12-16h time difference, opportunities for longer calls or gaming sessions are definitely rarer. Accordingly, it’s not rare on Sundays for me to wake up around 12pm or 1pm, a huge chunk of my day already having elapsed. I’ve also had 1-2 days where I was fairly sick, and simply spent all day in bed reading and resting.

However, despite these “setbacks”, I still consider most of those days to have be fairly productive. I find myself reading a lot more than on average days, I manage to make good progress on homework and studies, I even find time to work on some projects (such as writing this current post). So overall, I would label this a success. So much so I’m wondering whether I should try to implement this on Mondays as well, although it might be a bit more complicated, and inconvenient for others.

While this covers productivity, there remains my tendency to stress over communications with others. Well, I still find myself looking at my phone fairly regularly, or at the very least thinking about it, and then realizing that I don’t actually have access to this functionality. Still, as the day goes on, this tendency gradually wanes, which is a positive tendency. It’s just a shame that benefit does not carry on through the rest of the week, and nor to the next Sunday, but it is what it is. Better a temporary gain than no gain at all!

Of course, this does not come without its lot of inconveniences. For isntance, I’ve had a few instances where I went out and just couldn’t look up specific information online, nor use a map to find locations. But hey, that used to be the status quo just a few short decades ago, so there’s no reason I shouldn’t be able to adapt to it, right?

Lastly, I must also admit that I unfortnately often lack in the discipline department. There have been a few occurences of me re-enabling the internet around 9pmi and communicating with others or watching stuff online. Still, that does not invalidate any of the progress I make during the rest of the day, far from it. And it’s something I should still be able to improve.

Conclusion

Well, there you are. Disconnected Sundays are a new habit I’ve formed, which I believe adds value to my weeks. And although it comes with some costs, the benefits definitely outway the negatives. Although keep in mind this is according to my own goals and mindset. Your mileage may vary.

Still, I do think it’s worth trying for yourselves, if you dare. If nothing, it’s at least an interesting experiment, and you could be find yourself pleasantly surprised by the results.

On that note, thanks for joining, and take care everyone!

Sleep Improvement Part 1

This was written January 02, 2025

Introduction

As mentioned in a recent update, I’m planning work on myself through the implementation of better and healthier habits. There are many aspects to consider: how to track and complete tasks and errands, finding ways to consistently study and work on projects despite a more constrained schedule, having a better diet, doing more exercise, etc…

But in order to maximize my chances of success, I should prioritize what’s most critical. In this case, what’s more important than sleep? If you don’t sleep well, it impacts everything else. Energy is low, concentration is poor, motivation is lackluster, even health starts suffering. This is why I plan to first attempt to improve my sleep.

Improving my sleep

So what’s the plan? Well, there are a few avenues I can explore. The main areas I can think of are:

Sleep Schedule/Consistency
Sleep Hygiene
Sleep Quality

Sleep Schedule

While sleep quality is harder to approach in some instances (E.g.: If it’s a health issue, or if I need to purchase items), there are still many things I can do to improve my sleep.

Obviously, the first thing I can control is my sleeping schedule and its consistency. Currently, I’m often rather lazy when it comes to bed time, often procrastinating ad-nauseum before heading to bed, despite knowing what would be best for myself. Sometimes it takes the form of idling watching videos or shows, sometimes in the form of chatting with others, and sometimes it’s simply wanting to relax a bit after work. But most of it stems from a lack of discipline on my part. Consequently, I should institute a clearly defined sleep schedule I abide by. According to my work constraints (and the current iteration of my schedule), I plan on having the following bedtimes:

Sunday: Before 10pm
Monday: Before 10pm
Tuesday: Before 11pm
Wednesday: Before 11pm
Thursday: Before 11pm
Friday: Before 11pm

But what about Saturday? Well…I sometimes plan late-night events with friend in North America, since that’s usually the most sensible time (due to the time differences). Thus, it might be a bit complicated to have a reasonable bedtime on Saturday. However, if I notice that it negatively impacts the rest of my week, I’ll adapt accordingly.

Two additional comments. First, I do not plan to have fixed wake-up times for now. The most important thing for me is to go to sleep at a reasonable time and hopefully get enough sleep, depending on what my body craves. Moreover, it’s hard to plan for nightly disruptions (like needing to use the restroom). But once I have a more regular sleeping schedule, I’m sure my body will adapt and I’ll be able to plan accordingly.

Next, while I state I want to go to sleep by a specified time, e.g.: “Before 10pm”, my goal is to get to bed 30 minutes ahead of schedule, yet have a margin of error.

Sleep Hygiene

Other than my sleep schedule, I could also work on my sleep hygiene. First, one thing I believe plagues most people nowadays is phone usage in bed. I’ve gradually started away while charging it at night, making it inaccessible, although I’m not always too disciplined about it. Beyond that, I also have the terrible habit of putting on a tv show when I go to bed. This is in part to drown out my own thoughts, which tend to spiral while I’m trying to sleep. I will thus attempt to remove those bad habits from my life. For the phone, the approach is fairly self-evident, and simply requires discipline. As for television, it actually feels less straightforward. I often worry about changing that habit, especially when I have something important the next day (e.g.: an exam). Indeed, I worry it might negatively impact my sleep and that I might simply be unable to fall asleep.

Thus, I think I might want to take a gradual approach. In a first step, I would swap out television for music (possibly classical music, or at least something relaxing). Obviously, I’ll want to add a sleep timer to it so it doesn’t go on all night. Eventually, if this transition goes smoothly, I can finally move on to a completely silent approach…unless my environment turns out to be too noisy (e.g.: Neighbors or street noises).

Conclusion

Well, here’s the beginning of my new journey towards self-improvement. As a first step, I intend on improving my sleep. I also plan to document this in a “journal” format, logging the times I go to sleep, along with whether I relied on television or not. I will then try to share my results here. If possible, I’ll try to log my wake-up times, and how tired I feel during the day, although I can’t make guarantees on this.

On this note, I hope you tune in next time, and that I’m more refreshed from better sleep! Hopefully this also makes you reflect on your own habits and how you might want to improve upon them. Have a nice one everyone! Take care!

2024-12-29 – Return and Updates

This was written December 29, 2024

Introduction

Hello Everyone!
My apologies, I know it has been a while since my last post. Unfortunately, my life has been hectic lately. In particular, on top of studying Chinese, I’ve been teaching English. While the workload should be manageable, I have yet to adapt to my new schedule, where my days are bookended by school and work (I have class in the morning, and teach in the evening). Along with transit in the afternoon, I’ve been struggling to find the required time and motivation to accomplish anything outside of school and work. However, most eggregious of all is my sleep schedule, which has become a miasma of unhealthiness.

Well, enough complaining, it’s time to discuss what I’ve been up to, what I plan to do, along with potential improvements I would like to bring to my life.

Ongoing Projects

The first thing you might ask is, what about on-going projects? Am I going to complete them? When it comes to the programming projects, I do plan to complete the study app, and to create a blog post about it. I’ve even made progress on a working prototype during my spare time. However, it’s shifted to a lower priority lately, and so I’m not sure when I’ll actually get to it.

What about drawing? It’s been shelved indefinitely, though I would still like to return to it eventually. I might start by reading some material first, and learn the theory before fully diving into it. It’s relatively easier to find time to read, being able to do so almost anywhere. For example, I can read on the metro, whereas drawing isn’t really an option.

What have I been up to?

Over the past few months, the biggest change to my life has really been getting a job as an English teacher, and trying to adapt to it. My Chinese has also been steadily improving to a noticeable degree. And my social life has also benefited from meeting some new friends. But through it all, I’ve also been doing a lot of thinking.

What kind of thinking you might ask?

My future

One of the biggest things that’s been on my mind has been the desire to work on some larger projects, an endeavour I can be proud of completing. Yet, I haven’t really accomplished anything on that front. Friends and family have pointed out that learning a language and moving to Asia by myself actually IS a huge undertaking, but….

Yes, it’s definitely something big I’m proud of, and will grow prouder of as I get more and more fluent in the language. Still, it’s not quite a tangible, concrete thing. It’s an extra ability I’m acquiring, but it’s not a project per se.

Moreover, this past year, I’ve been feeling a bit old, having gone back to a school setting in my mid-thirties, surrounded by people in their late teens, early twenties. It’s not a bad thing, but it does make me ponder over my own future, and what I want out of it.

For this reason, I’ve arbitrarily decided that I want to get a bigger project underway, and get it completed by my 35th birthday. Overall, this gives me a timeline of a smidge under a year and a half. Will this be enough? Who knows! But if I don’t try, I’ll definitely fail.

But…what project should I consider? A programming project? Something to do with drawing? What about a video game? While I would love to dive into any of those, I don’t think it’s that judicious to start with something of that scale. Especially considering my current constraints. As I’ve said before, with school, work and transportation, I think it’d be best to choose something that I can work on from anywhere in small bursts. Thus, I think the first big project that I’d want to get off the ground will be writing related: I’ll be attempting to write a novel. I already have multiple ideas underway, along with a novel I’d started writing a few short chapters for last year.

I obviously have very little experience with writing, but I do have plenty of ideas (many of which I’ve been keeping track of). Moreover, considering I read every day, I don’t lack exposure. And once I start writing seriously, I’ll undoubtedly be looking at novels in a different light, (hopefully) absorbing ways to improve.

Unfortunately, due to copyright/leaking concerns, I won’t really be able to fully document my progress and experience with writing. However, I’m hopeful I’ll still be able to share some of the challenges I encounter along with potential solutions I iterate through during this journey. I might also have regular posts dedicated to my writing journey (E.g.: Every other week or every month).

What about the blog

Even though I have this new plan, I don’t intend to give up on the blog. For starters, I recently had renewed the hosting services for this blog, and it was roughly 150USD. While it may not seem that steep, in my current position (making Taiwanese money on a job with more limited hours, while not making any money through the blog), it still was a non-trivial decision. Therefore, I’m not going anywhere, and I’m definitely planning to pour more energy into this blog.

But then, what will I be doing here? For at least the next few months, I don’t expect to do any challenge posts, nor any big projects. Instead, I want to focus on things getting into healthier habits, both mentally and physically. I also want to figure out how I can become more disciplined and better use my limited time to accomplish what I’ve set out to, and maybe even more.

For this reason, I’ll open up a new section on my blog, which I plan to dedicate to this journey, along with discussing my past experience on that front.

Where will I start? I should prioritize based on important. First off: sleep. Currently, I have sleep issues, some which stem from self-discipline, some which stem from bad habits, and some from physical concerns. While the latter would best be handled by medical professionals, I can still focus on the first two. I’m hopeful that once I can improve my sleep, I will have:

More energy and better motivation
A better schedule to work with (E.g.: be able to use my mornings)

Once that’s done, I’m not sure what I’ll want to add. Maybe regular exercise, maybe a better diet, maybe improving my handling of “todo items”.

Conclusion

I’m planning to come back to the blog, altough it will be at a somewhat more moderate frequency. Moreover, I have big plans for myself for the upcoming year and a half! Though none of this is actually related to the new year, haha.

Hope you’re all doing well, take care everyone!

Handwriting Challenge – Introduction

This was written October 23, 2024

Introduction

Hello everyone,
It has been quite a while now, although not from lack of trying. Life has been hectic, but I think I’m finally finding some stability, albeit at the cost of a busier schedule. More on in a separate post!

Still, I will share a relevant update. I will soon start teaching English, which will involve writing on the board and correcting homework, both of which involve my handwriting. Currently, it’s no secret my handwriting is atrocious, whether cursive or manuscript. For this reason, I plan on improving it. And what better way than to set up a new challenge? As a bonus perk, I’ve read that handwriting and drawing skills are allegedly related, which means improving my handwriting could help with learning how to draw.

Plan

Obviously, I should highlight a plan of action. Starting tomorrow, I will practice my handwriting daily. However, I’ll limit how much time I spend on it to a session of about 15 minutes per day. I also plan to divide this into different stages.

First, I will work on my manuscript handwriting while writing on paper. For this, I’ll use grid paper (since I’ve already purchased some to write in Chinese, and can use the grids as guidelines) along with a fountain pen. I’ll need to work on both my pen holding technique, along with the actual strokes. Just as with drawing, I’ll need to build up “stroke confidence” and stability. Note that I will be working my way from individual letters to whole sentences, focusing on a mix of lowercase and capital letters. As for the duration, I’m arbitrarily deciding to limit this stage to one week. By the end of the week, I can evaluate whether it should be extended.

Since I’ll be teaching using a whiteboard, the next logical step is to work on my handwriting on a whiteboard. This will once again involve working on my writing implement holding technique, along with strokes. I expect this to be very similar to the previous stage, other than needing access to a whiteboard. Luckily, I go to a school with whiteboards in every class, and I should be able to access some classrooms during the day, giving me an opportunity to practice on campus. However, I won’t be able to practice on weekends or holidays. I plan to also devote roughly a week on this, subject to change on the basis of progress.

Once I’m satisfied with manuscript, it’ll be time to graduate to cursive. In my opinion, this is less relevant when it comes to teaching to children English as a second language. I therefore feel less pressed on time. I plan to mostly focus practicing on paper, although I might explore different types of scripts. I once again plan to dedicate one week.

Conclusion

And thus begins a new challenge. As of now, I do not know at what cadence I will be posting updates, since I have less opportunities to be on the computer. Additionally, I plan on writing significantly shorter posts than I have in the past. Nonetheless, expect more updates in the upcoming week.

Take care everyone, and I wish you success in your learning endeavors!

Webpages – Front-end introduction

This was written August 25, 2024.

Introduction

Ah, the web. It’s become almost ubiquitous nowadays. But although it used to be accessed mostly through browsers and webpages, it’s now often accessed directly through 1st party apps instead. Regardless, I think browsers and webpages still have a lot of value, and so does understanding them. For this reason, I want to dive further into how these actually work, so let’s get started.

Basic Architecture

First of all, most web interactions are broken into two components, a server and a client (Note that nowadays this isn’t always cut-and-dry, but it’s still often the case, especially for simpler situations):

The server is the remote machine that contains all the necessary information, and knows how to aggregate it and send it to the user.
The client is the user’s interface, usually the machine they use, whether it be a smartphone, a tablet or a computer.

Very often, the client will send a request to a server, and the server will send back the information to the client. It is then the client’s job to present it to the user. This brings us to the front-end.

The Front-End trinity

So what is the front-end? It is the client-facing code (hence “front”-end), is running on the client’s machine and is responsible for displaying content on the page. However, while the front-end IS running on the client’s machine, it is provided by the server. Nonetheless, the client can actually inspect it and modify it.

Most modern browsers have an option called “developer console”, which can usually be accessed with the F12 key. It allows you to see and manipulate a lot of information on the page. It’s definitely worth looking into and experimenting with it!
The main objective of web-extensions is usually to inspect what is on a webpage and either modify it or keep track of things.

As for the kind of code found on the front-end, it is usually a combination of three different categories:

The Markup language, which is in charge of the content of the page itself. It contains the different elements, such as columns, tables, text, etc… The main language used here is usually HTML.
The Style Sheet language, which allows you to define the appearance of the page, such as font, color, spacing, ordering, layout, etc… The main language used here is usually CSS.
The Scripting language, which is a full-fledged programming language that allows you to program behavior, modify the page on the fly, react to user input, etc… It allows webpages to be dynamic. The main language used here is Javascript (Although PHP is still used by some big corporations).

Note about the Scripting Language: most people will actually use a Framework, and there are many different Javascript Frameworks. The goal of a Framework is to simplify and mainstream the use of the scripting language, adding a lot of built-in functionality and libraries. Still, it’s possible to use Javascript without a framework, which is often called “Vanilla Javascript”.

The Back-end

So far, we’ve been talking about the front-end, and it might leave you wondering…if there’s a front-end, does that mean there’s also a back-end? Yes, there is: it’s the code running on the server. This includes, for example, the database (where all the data is stored) and API-endpoints that users connect to. The back-end, serving a different purpose, tends to be fairly different from the front-end, and is usually hidden from the user.

What’s Next?

This is but a basic overview of the front-end to give you a bird’s eye view of what’s involved, a simple starting point, yet an important one for anyone interested in understanding webpages and how to program them. In the upcoming weeks, as I work on my Chinese Study App project, I plan to release a few more guides discussing some of the elements highlighted here in more detail.

Chinese Study App – Introduction

This was written August 22, 2024 as part of theChinese Study App – Programming Project.

Introduction

Here’s my all new project, which I’m hopeful will not only be useful for myself and some of my classmates, but also to demonstrate how I approach programming projects, thus helping people learn how to tackle such tasks themselves.

Inspiration

I have been thinking about this specific project for a few weeks now. It started with a new exam introduced this semester: a timed oral presentation recorded on a computer. We were given some grammar patterns to use, as well as a topic to discuss. And while I was not a fan of this exam (in part due to the stress, stringent time-constraint and the fact this was happening in a room full of people simultaneously speaking aloud), I must admit that the more I thought about it, the more I was convinced it could be a great learning tool. Thus were cemented the foundations for this project. Moreover, I have since started a daily habit of writing in Chinese, and have been struggling with using/remembering more advanced vocabulary and grammar patterns, and thus realized such a tool could also supplement my writing.

Ideation and Planning

I have had this project in the back of my mind and have been having ideating for a while. But it was time to finally write down my thoughts and initial design for the project. Here it is in image form, with my terrible handwriting.

Chinese Study App – Breakdown of Project

Chinese Study App – Initial Prototype Design

A few notes on how I decided to write this:

I first wrote broad goals for what I want to be able to accomplish with it.
I defined the functionality I want for my program into different chunks.
I linked the chunks of functionality to related goals.
I defined the priority/importance of each functionality. There is only one I consider critical, (allowing the app to be “useful” and somewhat useable). There’s an additional one I consider necessary for the application to accessible. The rest I categorized as “Stretch goals/nice to have”, and will be disregarded for now.
I listed the basic tools/technology I want to use.
I sketched the design for my first prototype.

Goals

Practice speaking Chinese using randomly vocabulary and grammar patterns randomly selected from a list, and discussing a topic randomly selected from a list, within a specified time frame.
Practice writing Chinese using vocabulary and grammar patterns randomly selected from a list.
Learn and practice web development.

Functionality

[Critical] Input lists of elements (e.g.: grammar, vocabulary, topics) and randomly select a set number from each list.
[Important/Useful] Ability to export and import lists (or to save them).
[Stetch Goals/Nice to Have]Timers
[Stetch Goals/Nice to Have]Record Speech
[Stetch Goals/Nice to Have]Write and save text (Ability to write a composition using the randomly selected elements)
[Stetch Goals/Nice to Have]Customization of interface
[Stetch Goals/Nice to Have]Add definitions/examples to vocabulary/grammar

Tools

For portability and versatility, I opted to make it a web tool for now (which can in theory be used by both a computer and mobile device). Since it’s a learning opportunity, I opted to limit myself to HTML, CSS and “vanilla” Javascript for now. (If any of this intimidates you for now, you can disregard it entirely. For beginners, I don’t think knowing how to choose tools/technology is the most important.)

Design

Here’s once again an image of the design:

This design is very basic, and highlights specific functionality. The design would be broken into two pages: An editing/preparation page, where you prepare your categories and their elements, and a “practice” page, where you would be shown the selected elements from each category and would practice either speaking or writing.

For the editing/preparation page, each category:

Has a name that can be edited.
Has an input for a list of elements to be added.
Has an integer value that can be added to represent the number of elements to be selected.
Can be deleted.

There would also be an option to add another category, along with a “submit” button to choose the random items from each category and bring you to the “practice” page.

Meanwhile, the “practice” page would display each category, along with the randomly selected elements. None of this should be editable. Finally, there would be a “return” button, for when the user is done, to return to the editing/preparation page.

Conclusion

Above I presented my first ideas for the tool I want to build to help learn Chinese (Which really could be used for any language). I’ve also presented my initial approach to breaking it down, limiting the scope and initial design. Hopefully this can be helpful. If there’s anything that’s unclear, or you have outstanding questions, feel free to comment below. Take care everyone, and I wish you success in your own projects!

My Manifesto

This was written August 18, 21 and 22, 2024

Introduction

Let’s start it starkly, I’ve titled this “My Manifesto“. This might feel a little intense, but I think intensity is what I need (Even if it’s possible I’m misusing the term “Manifesto”).

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about my life, where I’m at, and what I want out of my future. For this reason, I’ve realized I should define what I care about and want to accomplish, and use those as guiding principles moving forward. Thus, I’m writing my personal “Manifesto”, guidelines on how I to approach things. I you could also call these commandments, or an equivalence of the laws of Robotics.

Rules/Axioms

strive to encourage people to learn new things, keep growing and become self-reliant, and to enjoy the process.
I strive to learn new things for myself and to keep growing.
I strive to create useful tools and techniques that will bring value to others.

Corollaries

From these three rules, I can derive some other helpful guidelines, which I’ll name corollaries.

In order to encourage people to learn and grow, I should inspire them, while also showing the inevitable pitfalls and growing pains, and how to approach them.
In order to encourage people to learn new things, I should cultivate their curiosity.
In order to help people become self-reliant, to myself learn new things, and to build useful tools, I must keep improving my own techniques, rigor and diligence, while documenting the process for others.

As time progresses, I will undoubtedly want to refine these axioms and corollaries, and possibly uncover new ones.

Conclusion

This is the current iteration of my personal “Manifesto”, which I will use to keep sight of my goals as I work on personal projects; a guiding light. Hopefully this proves useful to me, or maybe even to others. Though for now, I might create a condensed version to print and stick to my wall, as a personal reminder.

Condensed Version

“Manifesto” PDF

Learning to Draw Challenge – Day 26 – Shading – 2024/06/21

This was written June 22, 2024 as part of the 2024 Learning to Draw People Challenge

Introduction

After another long hiatus, it’s time to return to this drawing challenge. Today, I decided to learn a bit about shading, and so opted to try to draw an everyday object in the dark, with a single source of light. The object I chose was a mug (which definitely doesn’t count as a person). Here are pictures of the actual setup I was trying to replicate.

Before discussing the drawing, a quick note. I was planning to use a new tablet, but the app I’d chosen had annoyances. I thus opted to go back to my previous set up. I will eventually have to investigate a good android drawing app, please share recommendations. (Edit: While writing this article, I did some research online, and people seem to recommend “Clip Studio Paint”, although it’s apparently costly. I may give it a try.)

Drawing

Without further ado, here is my drawing:

A few comments about the experience:

First of all, I decided to add the source of illumination on the drawing itself: rays of light coming from the top-left, simply for reference.
I have no experience drawing real life objects, which hindered this shading exercise (I might eventually need to practice this, but it isn’t my primary goal with this challenge). I particularly struggled with outlining the general shape, which funnily enough, is in part due to the dark and reflective surface of the mug. That made it harder for me to properly evaluate the shape of the outline.
I really struggled with the handle and its proportions, especially the bottom part.
I eventually realized I should roughly measure(/estimate) proportions. For this reason, I tried to use my thumb to approximate ratios. However, I realized (unsurprisingly) that I need to keep the distance between my eye, my finger and the object constant (and similarly with the canvas). Finding such a distance was initially unintuitive, so I’ll need to work on this. But it should be useful.
While there were reflective surfaces, I did not want to draw them. This was purely a shading exercise.
At some point, I distractedly displaced the cup, which likely affected the results. One option could be to base my drawing purely on a picture I would take, but I feel like I’ll get a more vivid and visceral experience with drawing from the real life object, where I can also interact with the environment and see how things fluctuate (i.e.: experimenting).

Now, a few notes about the shading itself, which was the purpose of this exercise. First, my approach, which should be apparent in the drawing, was to first outline the different areas of shade, and then fill in the shade. I did the same for the shadow.

Here are the different elements I tried to recreate:

The dark and light area within the cup, which are both lighter than the other areas.
The dark and light areas of the cup’s shadow.
The dark and light parts along the side of the cup and the handle, which are fairly dark due to the dark blue of the cup.
Two light reflection spots on the rim of the cup.
Two light reflection spots on the handle.

Overall, as a first exercise in shading, I think this went relatively well. I’m pleased with the inside of the mug and the different tones of shades I achieved. However, there are a few things that could be improved:

The darker part of the mug feels off, because of it gets squeezed between both lighter parts. It’s hard to explain, but I think it’s an issue with the lighter area on the left. It is either due to the shape of the outline, or the inking technique itself. I will want to investigate different inking techniques for shading and see what works best.
The top of the handle does not look like it makes sense in 3d space, in part due to the shading.
The light reflection spots I tried to highlight don’t seem to be working properly. I might want to either drop that in the future, or research how those are handled by professionals.
The shape of the shadow is off. I decided to “wing it”, instead of doing it more carefully. But while I’m unhappy with the actual shape and proportions, I’m happy with the shading itself.
I will need to investigate the role of the orientation of the shading strokes (if I keep using this same technique). It seems to have an actual impact on perception. For example, aligning them vertically inside the cup seems to help suggest its depth. More research and experimentation is warranted.
The edge of shading areas should probably a little more diffuse and blurry than clear-cut.

But despite some of these faults, I’m still happy with this first experiment, and I think I’ve learned a few things, even having a direction for future investigations. Thus, I consider this a successful session.

Stats

The drawing took me a total of 44mins to complete. However, I neither recorded this session, nor timed any other parts of the process.

Conclusion

For this session, I did something fairly different for once, and it was interesting. As was my goal, I did learn a bit about shading, although it’s unclear how well it will translate into shading in the manga style (e.g.: shading a nose). Still, this is a fundamental concept of drawing, so it makes sense to dive in, even if only slightly. Moreover, I have some further directions to head into:

There are different inking techniques that can be used for shading. I’ve found a few on this website, and will want to experiment a bit with them. I’ve also found cross-hatching patterns here, and some hatching patterns and general exercises here.
I will need to investigate how to highlight shiny areas, which seems to be the dual of what we expect from shading.
With the hatching pattern, line orientation seems to have an impact on the perceived outcome.
I should start using my fingers at a distance as guides for proportions of different elements when drawing from a reference (like one imagines a painter doing).
I should experiment with different lighting setups (source, type, orientation, etc…).

Now that I have a direction for shading, I think I will want to have one more session where I focus on shading, and then get back to the main Challenge. Thanks for joining me on this exercise, and until next time! Take care everyone!