Do the Work on Janusworx

When a Book Kicks You Up Your Backside

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 08:56:29 +0530

Here I was, trying to laze away my day by getting lost in a book, when the book kicks my behind and tells me to go work 😂

‘The Germans have this lovely word, Sitzfleisch,’ Professor Playfair said pleasantly when Ramy protested that they had over forty hours of reading a week.
‘Translated literally, it means “sitting meat”.
Which all goes to say, sometimes you need simply to sit on your bottom and get things done.

— R.F. Kuang, Babel

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This Blog Is About to Get Real Chatty

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Fri, 20 Jan 2023 18:47:27 +0530

Warning: Slightly ranty post, with no aim in mind, other than putting thoughts to paper, and to excise some demons from my mind.

Several interviews and several rejections later, the one thing I’ve learnt, is that I’d be a good hire, if only I had a little experience. And also that ageism is a thing.
While there’s nothing I can do about the age bit, I can do something about the experience.

It took me a while to figure out what I want, in the first place.
I did have a job last year, doing web development with Python, and I did it for six months before I realised it wasn’t for me.
A little bit of soul searching, led me to DevOps as my next option.
I want to herd machines. I already did that with hardware. Now I want to do it with software.¹
I have all this muscle memory. All I need is that wee bit o’ learning. Surely an employer would see what I’ve done and won’t begrudge me the space to learn?
Turns out the wee bit is what every one wants to see.

So … chicken and egg?
The only way out, I see for myself to do that, to learn something that’ll get me hired, is to go build something in the open.

Which brings me to my blog.
I cannot learn, if I cannot write what I learn.
And for some reason, I always have had this mental stumbling block when it came to skills, programming related.
I always wanted to have something finished and polished; something that I had enough mastery or muscle memory in, that I could write about.
That does not seem to be happening any time soon, from the looks of it.

Ergo, the blog’s getting real chatty and verbose.
I have restructured my layout a bit, so that interested folk can go look (or subscribe) at the projects and longform section, to read if my efforts have yielded fruit.
Or subscribe to a tag specific feed, if that catches your fancy.

That should free my mind up to do what I want,
and blarf as much as I want to,
about what I learn and what I want to say or vent or just gossip about,
as I go about chopping wood and carrying water.

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What Cal Newport calls the Adjacent Possible in his insightful book on careers, “So Good They Can’t Ignore You.” ↩︎

Go Bonkers! Do The Work!

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Sat, 27 Jul 2019 13:44:15 +0530

— via Neil Gaiman

o0moxxie0o asked: Hi I just finished outlining a novel and now I’m worried it’s bonkers. Did you ever worry that something you wrote was too much, or just have second thoughts about what you’re planning? I’m going crazy over this thing.

I assume that unless it’s bonkers I’m not doing the work.