98 hours, 7days workweeks..

I got in to this programming hook and it’s really weird working on code for 10 to 14 hours. I hardly speak that much, frustrated when I can’t figure out the problem for hours, debugging for more hours, practically insane.

But why do I do it? I could try to seek an accounting job again and get a high paycheck again.. I could apply to a call center job and enchance my communication skills.. I can apply as a team lead or even try an executive job, for I could exude leadership in a lot of different working frameworks.

Why? There is a lot of easy options, why do I continue this drudgery of pain and the unknown.

In it’s truest form, what resonates with me is the results of the skills I acquire and projects I make is exponential. It gives me tremendous opportunities I never thought possible… And I believe I’m just starting to scratch the surface of the world of possibilities with technology. This is what I feel about the vast potential that I am trying to unlock within me.

I feel like there is tremendous energy waiting to be unlocked inside of me, and I should continue to dig myself into the world of my curiosity with technology.

Nothing can stop me, I’m pretty sure of it..

visit my website: https://migueldeguzman.github.io

The day before the Super typhoon

Super typhoon Haiyan (locally known as Yolanda) destroyed the middle part of the Philippines in 2013. I was working in Africa as an accountant at the time. It was the strongest storm (230kph) in our country’s history. It took all the ocean waters with it and killed thousands of people and left damages in billions of pesos. I felt hopeless at the watching its wrath. Because I’m really sure that it will happen again. I have talked about it a lot of people. What I feared at time is coming straight to the island of Luzon tomorrow. Typhoon Mangkhut will hit us really hard at 225kph.

I just knew that 7.7 billion of us had forgot our role in preserving the world. We accepted the norms of our forefathers, government and society to consume, cut trees, manufacture, use technology and maximize fossil fuels. The way we accept the need for food, plastics, rubber, petroleum, computers, smart phones, battery packs and infrastructures had led us to consume at an unprecedented rate considering our vast number in population. I have observed that as well in El Nido, Palawan. What was beautiful before became mediocre because of our greed for experience and consumption.

But now the daunting questions for me are:

• Did our country improve after super typhoon Haiyan?
• Is the government more capable of responding to the aftermath?
• Do all of us, citizens of the world accept the fact that we had contributed to some extent climate change? the garbage continent as big as France?
• Our population will increase for another 2 billion people in three to five years.. I wonder if we still have fishes to harvest and support 10 billion people?

As the storm is a thousand kilometers away from our country as of this writing. All we can do is prepare and be resilient…

visit my website: https://migueldeguzman.github.io

Why the Philippines haven’t taken off economically..

Cultural immersion. This culture that was created by the Government, schools and media have corrupted the minds of people.

Education systems halted creativity.

Filipinos lost their hearts and got pushed to working jobs that they’re not passionate about.

Many great ideas never got created.

Just destroyed dreams or never dreamt at all.

If you ask a kid if who he/she idolizes… 99% of the time it will be a YouTube star, a singer, an artist or a politician. This will be the downfall of future generations. Society will collapse as we have a weakened generation.

Mindless thugs for the factory of few. Built to consume and not create. Built to walk like dead people. Even though Filipinos are very resilient, the big failure is we always comeback to the same system of economy. We are consumers. We don’t speak truthful of ourselves. We focus on speaking the lives of some famous people from another country instead. This system will not bring greatness in a country divided by ideals and norms borrowed from the world.

The only hope I see is a catastrophic event that will pull us together to our senses. I’m not wishing for something to happen. I just believe that the hard times pull the greatness in people.

visit my website: https://migueldeguzman.github.io

If the work is easy, there is no value in it.

Coding 10 to 16 hrs 7days a week. The process looks like this:

1. Confusion.
2. Falling asleep while watching lessons or coding.
3. Anxiety.
4. Questioning yourself.
5. Becoming fearful of the future.
6. Realizing that fear is inevitable.
7. Finding strength in struggling.
8. Becoming comfortable with code again.
9. Debugging at a faster rate
10. Lesser headaches, finally understanding the error messages in the console.
11. Finish a section of the project or a project itself.
12. Eat rinse repeat the process the following day.

Coding is not easy. It’s a different language. The only thing I can advice people trying to enter this sector is nothing easy is valuable. There is a process and that process seems like what I have stated above.

Be strong enough to face fear, and find peace in struggling. That is the way then create momentum to reach the flow, your flow. Once you’re in the flow state… This force will lessen all the fear and anxiety to the minimum.. You will still feel it but it is insignificant enough to destroy your tenacity to code or create.

That is why I try so hard on my schedule. I’m in the flow.

visit my website: https://migueldeguzman.github.io

Call for code

Update: I decided to withdraw from applying to the code challenge. Upon seeing the circumstances, I will be sacrificing the time to learn and I have preserved for blockchain and web development and that I could not be doing. I learned of the program just yesterday and the time constraints won’t be favorable to the project. I’ll just join the next year’s challenge.😁

I stumbled on a YouTube video today that promotes a Global Initiative done by IBM referred to as Call for code. For 2018, the Call for Code Global Challenge asks developers to create solutions that significantly improve preparedness for natural disasters and relief when they hit in order to safeguard the health and well-being of communities. The competition will be judged on the following categories:

• Completeness and transferability
  How fully has the idea been implemented? Can it achieve an impact in the field? Can it be transferred elsewhere?
• Effectiveness and efficiency
  Does the solution address a high priority area? Does it achieve its goal effectively and efficiently? Can it scale?
• Design and usability
  How good is the design, user experience, and ease of use of the solution? How quickly can it be put to use?
• Creativity and innovation
  How unique was the approach to solving a long-standing or previously intractable problem?

I decided to join the competition. It is an opportunity to discover new ways of addressing our current problems in the Philippines in the field of disaster response. This is a great way to learn and grow my skills in blockchain technology and hyperledger while using this new found super powers to provide long lasting positive impact.

The deadline is September 28th, so I have 23 days to create a prototype. . I wonder where will this decision take me?😳

visit my website: https://migueldeguzman.github.io

Building a YouTube prototype

This project was included in my course on blockchain/ethereum/solidity and because I needed a lot of practice in Reactjs, I dived into it over the weekend.

It paid off.

It was a grear flex for my coding skills and nerd eyes(ability to read machine language, someguy named Stef from Canada calls it as that). I also observed that I improved on building projects from four to six days to a day and a half time. Though the mobile responsiveness still needs fixing, I am really proud of how fast I built the project.

I realized something after finishing the project. I think the YouTube app could be more faster. My version is a lot faster, but I do have theory that explains why YouTube is slower (kind off).

YouTube needs to run it’s “algorithm” and “ads” and it’s required to slow down the video stream. Asynchronous calls needs to be ran from the backend servers to front-end apps so that all data needed to be shown (in the form of videos) are readily available for the users. You can test my theory with the searchBar I made for the prototype.

https://migueldeguzman.github.io/youtube-react/

What should I build next….?

visit my website: https://migueldeguzman.github.io

A reactJs story. Coding robofriends four times.

Coding is like a high prison wall that you need to climb every day. But it’s not Why I focused on repeating the same project four times..

• I need to become good in Reactjs as it is the overlying environment recommended for coding on Ethereum.
• I tested my knowledge in JavaScript. Functions , objects, looping, arguments, instantiation, and destructuring are well distributed as practice sets throughout the project.
• To reinforce my knowledge on React. State, props, JSX.
• Become more and more comfortable with code.

React is a really good coding environment. It provides all the best modules node has to offer. It has it’s own document object model called React-DOM. It teaches programmers to think in components. I highly recommend this programming environment.

I try to focus on quality now, quality of learning. Build for legacy. Build for the future and not just create stuff for the sake of creating. It works. I think all coders should adapt this kind of thinking.

If you want to see this cool project, here is the link. https://migueldeguzman.github.io/robofriends/

visit my website: https://migueldeguzman.github.io

Cyberpunk 2077 and the future of gaming… Or reality?

The game is a well crafted render of what the future of gaming will be. Open world platforms have been capturing the awe of millions of gamers around the world. From games like Elders Scrolls Skyrim up to Witcher 3 and now this awesome intro got me pumped but also It got me wondering… What the future will be. Some of the tech that was shown in the game are real and is work in progress now. The rate of technology over the years have created the uprising of nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, internet of things, robotics, drone technology…even Singularity humans plus AI.

Enough talking, here’s the link to the game and it’s really worth watching.

visit my website: https://migueldeguzman.github.io

Flow state

I genuinely feel that the last five days was my most effective learning experience for coding. I was in sync. It took me a while to get to this state. This is what experts call flow state.

I guess I got into this sync after I pushed myself to code from 7am to 9pm everyday. My body resisted in the first two days and I find it normal that our mind doesn’t adapt easily to the discomfort of new actions or decisions. The third day was different, probably momentum started and kept on streaming for the following three days. I push myself to continue like this and learn everything I need to learn in web development and blockchain while extending it as well to developing great softwares and apps.

Credits to Impact theory and Gary Vaynerchuk. If not for them, I will not push myself to max out and exhaust myself to reach this upright curve.

visit my website: https://migueldeguzman.github.io

Sapiens and stable coins.

Though the book largely focuses on how us humans evolved and altered the existence of all living things all over the world (including our own), the explanation of Yuval Noah Harrari in on how us humans embraced the concept of money as a force of unification caused me to reflect on what is needed to create a stable cryptocurrency.

Money provided concensus in the ancient times. Traders of goods & services just need to remember the prices of each item and easily buy it with shells or silver. Money also allowed the convenience to farmers and they no longer need to carry sacks of rice or dragging cattles wherever they go. Money also allowed people to store value for future use, since it’s not perishable.

Stable coins should take into account the focus on adopting concepts Yuval explained:

1. Consensus
2. Convenience
3. Store value of wealth

History always repeats itself, slightly modified by technology and us. Reflecting on how money was key to the progress of mankind I believe will be key to unlocking the promise of a universally accepted cryptocurrency.

I also highly recommend that you read his book Sapiens. One of the best books ever made.