tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44696650891782800502024-03-13T00:43:17.388-07:00Ava Goes to HackbrightOne geek's journey through Python, hackathons, magic, techsposure, and womentoring. Think Harry
Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone meets "Are you there God? It's Me, Margaret" meets The Jetsons.avahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13529404233422917372noreply@blogger.comBlogger33125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4469665089178280050.post-80333668239677905002014-10-18T21:19:00.001-07:002014-10-18T21:19:23.300-07:00Punch Card Night at the Computer History MuseumI <i>love</i> the computer history museum in Mountain View. If you get a chance to go there, <i>do it.</i> There is so much to see and it is really super interesting.<br />
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On Wednesday they had a Punch Card night. It was ridiculously fun. Photo time!!!!!<br />
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Punching in my name</div>
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Look Ma! I'm punching cards!! </div>
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Our punch cards </div>
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A print out in the punch card room </div>
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Sweet old men were running the demo</div>
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Flashy lights</div>
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Where the cards come flashing in to be processed</div>
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The IBM 1401 printed us each these cool banners. And yes, </div>
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I have a really cool new name: AVA ST 16H5!</div>
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Inside the museum </div>
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Lidar mapping </div>
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Why yes, we did spend a lot of time trying to locate a TARDIS on Google Earth.</div>
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Left to Right: Ezekiel, Eric, John, Linds, and my HB buddy Amy!</div>
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We left it there in the hopes of confusing the next person.</div>
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Avahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03026433134088809023noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4469665089178280050.post-40992811331391887872014-09-16T19:00:00.000-07:002014-09-16T19:00:21.615-07:00Wellness Day: A Massage, A Farmer's Market, and Purple SpitWellllllllll, it's been a while and I wrote this a couple months ago but forgot to post it. But it's fun, so I am sharing now. In July we had Wellness Day at SurveyMonkey. I walked into the office to find these enormous balloon sculptures:<br />
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The morning involved veggie/fruit juices from a juice cafe and circuit training on the roof. There was free biometric testing, which I opted not to do because I avoid unnecessary needles. There was also spin class taught by my engineering manager, which I also opted not to do because I avoid unnecessary biking.</div>
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Lunch was from Lyfe Kitchen and it was super yummy. Probably the best food I've had at SM so far. There was a presentation about sports medicine and physical therapy from a dude at One Medical. </div>
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The afternoon was my favorite. First, there was the chair massage. SurveyMonkey sponsors my membership at Massage Envy, and they asked Massage Envy to come in to do 15-minute chair massages. My masseuse was Christine, and she was just amazing. I didn't have to tell her where to put pressure or how much. She found the knots, knew just how to attack them, and even said, "You get headaches, don't you?" as she worked on my neck. I was like, "Yep! And you are working that spot that always kills me when I have a migraine!" </div>
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Then there was the farmer's market on our rooftop deck. I thought it would just be one stand or something. But it was more like 7 stands, with produce and local honey and locally made snack foods and desserts. I bought plums, cherry tomatoes, and mulberries! Side note: I had never had mulberries before. Brushing my teeth that night I found that I had immensely purple spit. Also, they gave us some awesome swag for our farmer's market experience.</div>
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And while I am sharing photos and talking about fruit, I might as well add this picture of the awesome fruit I had for a morning snack today courtesy of The Monkey.</div>
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If it sounds like I am bragging about SurveyMonkey, that's because I am. After a long post-college career search, working my ass off at Hackbright, and the incredibly stressful job search that I somehow managed to drudge through, I am really proud of finding my home at SurveyMonkey. Most of all, I am really excited to be yet another "success story" of Hackbright and to hopefully show that it actually <i>can</i> be done! </div>
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As I have previously mentioned, I plan to write a post (or several) on my job search and how I got through it alive. I especially want to write about it to hopefully help other HB alums who are still job searching and wondering what is wrong with them and why can't they get an offer and why is everyone else getting offers and should I just join a convent and be done with it?? (spoiler alert: no)</div>
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On an unrelated topic, I have to throw in this hilarious picture I found on twitter for those of my friends who have used Chrome/Mozilla Dev Tools. For my non-developer friends, just right click on your browser window and click "Inspect Element" for a secret window into the world of front end development.</div>
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Avahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03026433134088809023noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4469665089178280050.post-38615145701906771252014-07-18T18:38:00.002-07:002014-07-18T18:39:38.040-07:00My Little Pony and Salary NegotiationI have been meaning to write this post for some time. During Hackbright we did a salary negotiation workshop, in which they explained some of the reasons many women do not negotiate, gave examples of negotiation conversations, and had us act out simulated negotiations with our classmates in order to become more comfortable with the idea.<br />
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When I got my offer from SurveyMonkey, I was really quite happy with it. It was generous on its own, and furthermore came with some really fantastic benefits/perks as well as a potential annual bonus. But I knew the ghost of Liz Howard would haunt me to my dying day if I didn't at least try.<br />
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The next day, although I knew I was planning to negotiate my salary, I was not really thinking about it that morning as I got dressed. A reasonable person might have worn something that projected power and a sense of seriousness. I, without thinking, put on my Ponyville Public Library tshirt with a picture of Twilight Sparkle among some books. I love that shirt but it doesn't exactly scream "I am a professional, and please take me more seriously."<br />
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It was after I had scheduled a meeting with the HR person to negotiate my salary that I noticed this incongruence. At first, I got really nervous and embarrassed and I considered postponing my meeting. But I really wanted to get this over with.<br />
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I decided I would just embrace it. <i>Yeah</i>, I thought, <i>I'm just going to be me!</i> I power posed and thought about how Twilight Sparkle and her books were empowering and I felt pretty good walking into the meeting.<br />
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But somehow my confidence refused to enter that conference room. I felt very stupid and selfish and greedy and ungrateful and all the other things you aren't supposed to feel because salary negotiation is a totally normal and standard thing and because men do it all the time without hesitation.<br />
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I don't want to go into too much detail because I feel like a bad role model to future HB students. But here are some conclusions I drew from the experience:<br />
1. I should have done a role-play with a friend to practice my lines and to get more comfortable.<br />
2. SurveyMonkey did not rescind their offer or tell me I was a bad person for negotiating.<br />
3. I did not die. And more importantly, I did not cry.<br />
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I do not recommend wearing an MLP shirt to your future salary negotiation meetings. But I do recommend power posing and possibly having a drawing of a pony in your pocket for emotional support.Avahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03026433134088809023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4469665089178280050.post-64111038363601431312014-05-22T06:43:00.000-07:002014-05-22T06:43:07.133-07:00Banana Piano and Becoming a Real Monkey<div style="text-align: center;">
Fruity Music</div>
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First thing's first: I set up a banana piano at work on Monday. There is an empty desk behind me and I had just bought a <a href="http://makeymakey.com/" target="_blank">Makey Makey</a> from the Maker Faire last weekend and it just seemed natural for me to do this. For those unfamiliar with Makey Makey, it is a kit built on top of an arduino that allows you to create simple circuits with anything conductive (such as a human, a banana, or a bowl of water). You plug the Makey Makey into your computer and the circuits are programmed to activate your space bar and your arrow keys. So if you had a game of tetris open on your computer and you had the Makey Makey hooked up to a bunch of carrots, you could play tetris by touching the carrot that corresponds to the key you want to press.<br />
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Anyway, they suggested a banana piano, and they have a <a href="http://makeymakey.com/piano" target="_blank">sweet little webpage</a> that allows you to play five notes on a piano using the space bar and the arrow keys. So it is basically ready to go. I taped down a big strip of tin foil and hooked that up to the Makey Makey, and then I hooked up five bananas to the Makey Makey. So by putting one hand on the tin foil and using the other hand to tap the bananas, you complete the circuit and it plays a note.<br />
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I sent out an email saying that I had set up a piano made of bananas and that anyone who wanted to try it should stop by my desk. That was a really fun way to meet some people I hadn't talked to before. One person came over and said, "I'm going to have to start taking your emails at face value." I asked him to clarify and he added, "I thought you were using some lingo that I wasn't familiar with. I didn't realize you meant an actual piano made of actual bananas."<br />
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There are other things I want to do with the Makey Makey (at home, not at work), like play Adventure Ponies with bowls of water and make a piano out of five separate humans (each one being a different note). I heard one guy had his dogs sit on tin foil and he petted them to make music, but I haven't been able to make that work with our dogs yet. I have to play around a bit with their conductivity - like get them slightly wet or something. I'm a terrible dog mom.<br />
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An Offer I Couldn't Refuse</div>
<br />
In other news, and almost as important as the banana piano, I got a full time offer from SurveyMonkey this week and I just signed my offer letter yesterday!!!!!!!!!!!! I am a real Monkey now!!!!!!!!! It was a match made in heaven. SurveyMonkey has been a really great place for me and I was really really really hoping for a full time offer.<br />
<br />
This really is a dream come true. So I was very surprised that, much like <a href="http://avagoestohackbright.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-evil-voice-gets-name.html" target="_blank">when I got my acceptance letter to Hackbright</a>, I felt a wave of inexplicable panic when I got my offer from SurveyMonkey. It doesn't make any sense at all. I have gotten very positive feedback from everyone I work with, I've accomplished a lot on my project in the last two months, and I love working there. But still, I keep getting hit with rushes of panic that I can't do this, that I am going to fail. The weirdest part is that this is by far the most panic I have felt since I started at SurveyMonkey, largely to the credit of my manager, my mentor, and my teammates who have been really supportive from the beginning. The good news is that I know this nonsensical panic is temporary because I have experienced it before and because I know I am right where I am supposed to be.Avahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03026433134088809023noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4469665089178280050.post-23751408584153525672014-05-16T20:15:00.001-07:002014-05-16T20:15:25.428-07:00Hackbright Alums: Superwomen of Tech and FriendshipIn light of Ashley McNamara's recent post about her Hackbright experience, there has been a long discussion on the alumni listserv about the founders, the instructors, and the students of Hackbright to date. To my knowledge, there are about 140 Hackbright alums, and many of us use the listserv to share job opportunities, programming resources, events, career advice, and emotional support, among other things.<br />
<br />
Many of the alums, myself included, were very sad to hear that Ashley did not have a positive experience at Hackbright. I know she is not alone - Hackbright is not for everyone, and unfortunately some people do not do well in that environment. Later in this post I will highlight what I think makes a person a good fit for Hackbright, which will hopefully help prospective students make informed decisions.<br />
<br />
My experience was incredible, as you know if you have read my previous posts. It is hard to describe just how much I learned there - both as a programmer and as a person. My classmates were fiercely smart, caring, determined, and hysterically funny. I saw them master an insane amount of learning material, build phenomenal projects, and climb mountains of self-doubt like a bunch of badasses.<br />
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My post-Hackbright job search was really, really tough, but I never could have done it without my Hackbright education and the support of my classmates and Hackbright mentors. Nearly everyone in my class has jobs now, and those who don't are either really picky (which I think is a good thing) or don't interview well (which may affect how long their job search takes, but not how successful they will be at their job when they find the right one).<br />
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I am so glad that SurveyMonkey really gets Hackbright. They understand that any given Hackbright Alum probably has little experience but knows the fundamentals, learns quickly, is extremely smart, knows how to communicate, refuses to give up, and isn't afraid to ask questions. Not every company understands this, and the job search can feel really demoralizing when you come up against a company who dismisses you right away for not having a computer science degree. But more and more companies are starting to realize how incredible these women are and how worthwhile it is to invest in them as junior developers.<br />
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In addition, our community sticks together and helps each other out. As one alum said, "Help will always be given at Hackbright to those who ask for it." And on that note, here are some qualities that I think made my classmates and me successful at Hackbright:<br />
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<ul>
<li><b>Passion for problem-solving</b>: Sometimes I do sudoku, kakuro, hashi, or kenken puzzles in bed to relax before I go to sleep. Not everyone is into that kind of puzzle, but most of my classmates got a thrill from breaking down a problem and solving it. In fact, most of them were really stubborn and would refuse to give up on any kind of logic puzzle because they knew they could solve it and they desperately wanted to.</li>
<li><b>Desire to help others</b>: When someone was struggling, I did my best to help. Whether it was an emotional struggle or a struggle to understand a concept. A lot of the time, in the process of explaining something to someone, I learned the concept better. Many times I discovered that I didn't understand a concept as well as I thought I did, and was able to work through it with a classmate or instructor. Reaching out to my peers also created a very meaningful bonding experience with my classmates, without whom I could never have gotten through Hackbright.</li>
<li><b>Willingness to ask others for help</b>: I had to be vulnerable with my classmates, my instructors, and my mentors in order to get the help I needed. There were times when I felt so lost that I wasn't sure where to begin. I forced myself to ask questions - stupid questions, questions that had already been asked before, followup questions when I had just asked a question seconds ago. This doesn't come naturally to me, but I was able to force myself to do it. I still use this skill now and I don't think I could be a successful developer without it.</li>
<li><b>Open mind</b>: My mind used to be so closed off that it took me years to even give programming a try. But once I finally discovered how much I loved to code, I realized that I needed to be more open to possibility. I tried not to go into Hackbright with a lot of preconceived notions; I did my best to face each new frontier with an open mind, and I was pleasantly surprised many times. For example, I was blown away by how much I loved hacking hardware at a large women's hackathon put on by Hackbright early in our program. </li>
<li><b>Fightiness</b>: I'm sure there is an actual English word for this, but I like to color outside the lines now and then. Hackbright was an invaluable launch pad for me, but I had to fight for my success. They are a powerful set of resources, but they couldn't make me learn or make me get a job. I had to take ownership of my education, pour sweat and blood into my project, and get back on that damn horse many, many times throughout my job search. And that horse kicked me in the face on the daily.</li>
</ul>
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To be clear, you don't have to be a warrior princess in order to succeed at Hackbright. In fact, I was like a frightened puppy <a href="http://avagoestohackbright.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-evil-voice-gets-name.html" target="_blank">right before Hackbright started</a>. You do need to be able to, with a lot of support, take your education and career into your own hands. But the best part of Hackbright was that I didn't have to go it alone. My mentors, my instructors, my classmates, and the alums are all valuable resources on whom I continue to rely almost every day. </div>
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Hackbright changes a lot from one class to the next, and I don't know what its future holds. But I had an amazing time there and I now have a lifelong bond with this incredible community.<br />
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<br />Avahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03026433134088809023noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4469665089178280050.post-71348330097387893022014-05-03T07:45:00.001-07:002014-05-03T07:45:36.961-07:00Photos of the New Office!I feel like a tool walking around taking pictures of the office, so please forgive the poor quality of these photos - I tried to take them nonchalantly. Just going to dump them here because I don't have much time to write. Work is going really really well! I love SurveyMonkey!<br />
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view from my desk:</div>
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<br />Avahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03026433134088809023noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4469665089178280050.post-51512318666733126472014-04-28T20:41:00.002-07:002014-04-28T20:41:25.520-07:00New Office and My First Release!Today was our first day in the new office!! It's a gorgeous building with brand new interior/exterior design, brand new furniture, sit/stand desks for everyone, beautiful conference rooms, game room with ping pong/xbox/air hockey/pool table, and much more. I love my desk! When we arrived this morning, each desk had a pair of SurveyMonkey flip flops with a note that said "We are so flippin' excited to be in our new office and we hope you are too!" I have yet to break in the air hockey table, but I think it'll happen soon.<br />
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Also, there is a release this week for the internal tool I'm working on, and it will be my first release! Had my one-on-one meeting with my manager, David, this afternoon and I feel pretty awesome. David is a great manager. I feel like he puts exactly the right amount of pressure on me and I don't even feel like a dumb baby when I ask him really basic questions. He does a very good job of explaining things without condescending.<br />
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At the old office, they put me at a desk near my team but not really in the same little circle as the rest of the team. At the new office, since they actually have room for everyone, they put me <i>with</i> my team. So now I get to socialize more with my coworkers, which I really like. And it is also much more organic to communicate/ask questions/collaborate.<br />
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Ok, time for bed. Gotta get my sleep if I'm going to monkey around all day. EHH?? [elbows you in the arm]Avahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03026433134088809023noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4469665089178280050.post-37140324390501488932014-04-02T18:09:00.000-07:002014-04-02T18:09:45.104-07:00My Coding BirthdayOne year ago today, I reluctantly opened an account on Codecademy.com wondering if maybe this whole programming business that John and Lindsey were so obsessed with was worth a try. That night I had quite a shock: coding was not only fun, but thrilling! I laughed maniacally like an evil scientist every time I watched the words and symbols I wrote come alive.<br />
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One year later, I am a Hackbright alum, a contracting monkey of surveys, a teacher of JavaScript, a Woman in Tech, and one happy lady engineer! It took a LOT of help to get where I am, but I bootstrapped my career. I learned a lot, worked my butt off, faced my fears, and beat the odds. I will always keep learning - that is something all software engineers must do. But I intend to do more than just that.<br />
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The Women in Tech community is overwhelmingly supportive and giving. But the number of women who are just now discovering how great programming is (and how great they are at programming) is staggering. And they will need just as much support as I did if they are going to bootstrap their careers. I wish I could give every one of them what my instructors, mentors, and classmates gave me during and after Hackbright. I will certainly do as much as I can. More on that to come.<br />
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How am I celebrating my coding birthday? In bed, sick. It's ok though. I have a hot pink sherpa blanket, two fuzzy dogs, and a good book to keep me company until John gets home.<br />
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Have a good night, everypony!<br />
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<br />Avahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03026433134088809023noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4469665089178280050.post-37331608878262125932014-03-29T11:27:00.000-07:002014-03-29T11:27:42.215-07:00New Roller CoastersUnsurprisingly, my first day and a half of looking at actual SurveyMonkey code and trying to figure out how everything worked was a new roller coaster. It went something like this:<br />
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<ol>
<li>This is terrifying.</li>
<li>It's cool. It will just take a little while to get familiar with their code.</li>
<li>Look, curly braces and functions and stuff. I know how to do this. It's cool.</li>
<li>It's cool. There are only like 100 files that interact with each other and I have no idea how.</li>
<li>OH MY GOD there are like 100 files that interact with each other and I have no idea how!</li>
<li>What are all these weird functions that I've never heard of????</li>
<li>It's ok. We're just going to google some things and see what we can find out.</li>
<li>WHY DOESN'T GOOGLE KNOW WHAT THIS FUNCTION IS???</li>
<li>I thought I knew JavaScript, but clearly I don't.</li>
<li>I forgot how to computer!!</li>
<li>Ok, I will ask my mentor for some help.</li>
<li>Wait, you're telling me that a lot of this code is specific to the SurveyMonkey framework?</li>
<li>Wait, it would be super weird if I were able to figure this out on my own?</li>
<li>Wait, it takes all new people a while to learn the ins and outs of your MVC framework?</li>
<li>Oh, <i>that's</i> what that stands for? Oh, <i>that's</i> where that function is coming from?</li>
<li>Ok! I can maybe look at the code on my own and understand some things.</li>
<li>So what happens if I comment this out?</li>
<li>OMG IT RUNS!!!</li>
<li>Ok, so why doesn't this section work?</li>
<li>I am amazing. Look at me, coding and stuff.</li>
<li>WTF? Why doesn't this work?</li>
</ol>
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The rest was mostly me narrowing in on what part of the code was throwing an error. And then I went home for the weekend. Want to hear something really shocking? At no point this week did I cry or feel like crying. There were times when I was a little panicked or felt kinda stupid, but I didn't have any breakdowns. It's not because I am a good enough programmer that I am past those breakdowns. It's that I have learned that this is hard and I am smart and I have resources. I'm sure there will still be breakdowns, but I don't anticipate them happening regularly anymore. </div>
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Just like I felt at Hackbright, I feel like right now I am exactly where I am supposed to be. </div>
Avahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03026433134088809023noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4469665089178280050.post-29454747685056956782014-03-27T13:32:00.001-07:002014-03-29T10:47:36.480-07:00My First Week So FarI can hardly put into words how happy I am to be at SurveyMonkey. Here are some reasons in no particular order:<br />
<ul>
<li>The people are super nice and I have yet to meet a brogrammer who works here. Everyone is approachable, humble, and helpful.</li>
<li>They take the monkey theme to a level I am very comfortable with. On top of their employee directory, MonkeyBook, and the plethora of plush monkeys and plush bananas of various sizes stashed in every corner, they also named their conference rooms after fictional monkey characters such as Marcel (Friends) and Mr. Teeny (The Simpsons). Everyone's desk is labeled with a banana name tag, and in my case a "green banana" name tag because I am new (see photo below). But best of all, they name their projects after species of monkeys, such as Howler and Rhesus. </li>
<li>The project I'm working on is called Mandrill. I love mandrills. They are the most sexually dimorphic monkey, meaning that the males look very distinct from the females. But the most interesting fact about them, of course, is <a href="http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_do_mandrills_have_so_many_colors_on_their_face" target="_blank">why their faces are so colorful</a>, which I happily shared with my manager when he asked me what interesting facts I knew about mandrills.</li>
</ul>
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<ul>
<li>My mentor Sara is super awesome and amazing and fantastic. She has been checking in with me to make sure I'm not overwhelmed. It's even comforting just knowing that she is nearby, even if I'm not asking for help, because she is like my safety net.</li>
<li>The project I'm working on seems interesting. I haven't written any code yet, just looked through documentation and specifications. But it seems like it will be doable maybe. Maybe. </li>
<li>I discovered the SurveyMonkey freezer. It is full of ice cream. Don't worry, I'm not stuffing myself with treats all day long.</li>
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My green banana name tag</div>
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Hopefully I can report more this weekend. I am trying to get into the actual code right now so I may or may not have something interesting to share on my next post.</div>
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Avahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03026433134088809023noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4469665089178280050.post-12124941172018658412014-03-24T12:55:00.000-07:002014-03-24T12:55:37.833-07:00My First Day at SurveyMonkeyToday is my first day as an engineer at SurveyMonkey! When I got to my desk, there was a laptop, monitor, magic mouse, phone, and welcome packet. They set me up with all the accounts I need and everything was super organized!<br />
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My manager David is really great. He explains things clearly and non-condescendingly. I'm going to be working on an internal tool that helps the company keep information up to date. Today I'm mostly reading through documentation and getting my development environment set up.<br />
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As for the office itself, the people here are really nice and there are stuffed monkeys everywhere, which is exciting to me. I saw a photo of a mandrill and David seemed surprised that I knew what it was called. So I guess I have exposed myself as a primate enthusiast. Also, my mentor Sara works about ten feet away, so that is awesome!<br />
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Other pluses: tons of really great snacks and treats, and lunch on Mon/Wed. Today was mediterranean food. Can't wait to get my monkey swag. Going to go figure out how to obtain that.<br />
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More soon, I hope!Avahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03026433134088809023noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4469665089178280050.post-51173945464150629772014-01-29T20:18:00.001-08:002014-01-29T20:18:29.350-08:00Learning Objective-CI think the hardest thing about the job search is that it is almost impossible to learn anything new because I am jumping around doing various things that could make me a stronger candidate. These activities include: improving my HB project, practicing white-boarding, doing code challenges, reviewing concepts I learned but have forgotten because I have been jumping around so much. What's frustrating about these activities is that every company has a different idea of how they would like to measure my potential as a developer, so at any given interview, maybe only one of these prep activities is actually beneficial.<br />
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In the mean time, there are so many things I'd like to learn in my spare time because it is a fun challenge, such as making mobile apps, learning more hardware stuff, understanding how memory allocation works, playing with big data, learning fun data visualization stuff, etc. I think I am just really anxious to stop dabbling in so many different things and start learning one particular thing on a deeper level. But I don't feel like I can do that while I am searching for a job.<br />
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When I do get a job, I think I will be so heavily immersed in learning that I will feel really challenged and really satisfied with what I am doing. I am really excited to have that. I need to find a great company that supports my love of learning and wants to help me grow as a programmer and a developer. I can't wait to focus on learning rather than on job searching.<br />
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Aaaaaaaanyway, to make a short story long, I needed a break from interview prep so I spent all of today learning Objective-C. It's really not much more complicated than Python. JUST KIDDING!!! It's soooo much more complicated than Python. Holy monkey. But I really really want to build an iPhone app and I'm determined to figure it out. For my readers who haven't yet discovered how much fun programming is, here is a simple comparison of Python code and Objective-C code:<br />
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<i>Python:</i><br />
apples = 25<br />
print apples<br />
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<i>Objective-C:</i><br />
NSUInteger apples = @25;<br />
NSLog(@"%lu", apples);<br />
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Note that the Objective-C code looks like swearing. Coincidence? I think not. But code school's Objective-C lessons are really fun and I am almost finished with them. When I'm done I'm going to work on a Stanford class on iPhone apps and supposedly you get to build an app after the first few lectures. Yay! For now, I am enjoying feeling like a spy writing secret coded messages. And hopefully soon when I make an extremely simple thing work on my iphone, I will feel like a powerful evil scientist taking over the world. Man, I love programming :)Avahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03026433134088809023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4469665089178280050.post-45297249146856766932014-01-22T21:12:00.001-08:002014-01-22T21:13:38.072-08:00My Game is Deployed!My game is now deployed and in a condition such that people could actually play it! There are still <i>many</i> things I want to add someday, but job searching is a full-time job. I plan to continue working on this project once I get settled in somewhere. Please be patient if the game runs slowly. Enjoy!<br />
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<a href="http://fluffytrails.herokuapp.com/" target="_blank">Play Now!</a></div>
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Avahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03026433134088809023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4469665089178280050.post-49025581324705180332013-12-17T22:00:00.001-08:002013-12-17T22:04:03.822-08:00I Just Like Coding and Please Stop Judging MeThis blog post is for the benefit of no one because anyone reading my blog does not actually have the mindset that I am about to discuss. But I need to rant anyway because I am frustrated with the status quo and it is difficult to keep it from affecting my confidence.<br />
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I encountered a guy who claims to be a huge proponent of women in tech but insists that not just anyone can code and some people shouldn't be coding. I told one of my awesome Hackbright friends and she had this reaction:<br />
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He clearly thinks that he's above people that just want to try their hand at something they might not be amazing at and he thinks they have no business even ****ing trying and that's elitist and a serious problem in the tech community, and in society at large that he's just perpetuating and it's completely unacceptable </blockquote>
This conversation was one of many I have had in which someone implied that the problems I want to solve are not ambitious enough, or that having fun while learning to code means that I must not be learning rigorously enough, or that if I'm not coding 20 hours a day I must not be a "real" programmer. It's incredibly insulting and disempowering. And saying that not just anyone can code essentially means that you think there are two kinds of people - those who can code, and those who cannot - and that you are born one way or the other.<br />
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For the longest time I didn't want to give programming a try because I thought you had to be a certain type. Obviously there are some people who still think that. But I no longer do. This is really simple: I love programming and I want to learn more.<br />
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I enjoy the challenge and I really come alive when I am trying to solve a problem that is within my reach. I don't know whether or not I'll ever do anything super out of the ordinary or become an expert in some really impressive subfield. But I do want to code. Everyday. With awesome people. And keep learning. And have fun. And come home at a reasonable hour. And spend time on non-programmy things when I feel like it. And teach other people. And read books. And go swimming. Nobody is allowed to tell me I'm less of a programmer.<br />
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I will not let anyone make me feel small just because they are at a different level, or because they like to take on larger challenges than me, or because they personally prefer to spend more than 80 hours per week coding, or because they see themselves as part of an elite group of which they have decided I'm not a member, or because they have a CS degree, or because they went to an impressive school.<br />
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The most important thing to know about me is that I am a good person. In the context of a job, it is also pretty important to know that I am hard-working, collaborative, motivated, enthusiastic, and I have a sense of humor (plus I'm super modest).<br />
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It is totally legitimate for people to judge me based on my current programming abilities and how I solve problems in order to decide if they want to work with me or not. There is no need to put a cap on what I can do or tell me what my dearest ambition is. I will be the one who determines what I can and want to do. For now, I am looking forward to finding a great team of people who are passionate, supportive, inspiring, and fun to work with.<br />
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[power pose]<br />
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I love programming because I like to solve puzzles and when I'm coding I feel like I have superpowers. Let me know if you think you might like to have some superpowers. I would love to share the magic!Avahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03026433134088809023noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4469665089178280050.post-49340199852862976652013-12-08T16:59:00.000-08:002013-12-08T16:59:41.315-08:00I Gradumated and I'm Busy as Hell!I officially graduated on Friday but we are all still going in to HB every day for the next couple of weeks to practice white-boarding (technical interviews are very different from other kinds of interviews). I am busy as can be and I apologize that I don't have time to blog much. Just posting a few pictures and will try to update as exciting things happen. I have a few interviews scheduled and I am waiting to hear back from a few others. Very excited. Very tired. Love to all!<br />
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My diploma (the binary spells "nerd")</div>
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<br />Avahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03026433134088809023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4469665089178280050.post-17882091681427229622013-11-25T15:15:00.002-08:002013-11-25T15:15:56.973-08:00Ah! No Time!I have to get this to a point that I can demo it by Dec 4 (next Wednesday)! I spent some time polishing it this weekend, and although I am not done playing around with the colors and the styles, I am having a lot more fun with it now that it kinda looks real. I feel like a little girl would want to play this game. Don't have time to tell you much more than that. Here is a picture:<br />
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<br />Avahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03026433134088809023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4469665089178280050.post-31986223261918999582013-11-18T19:29:00.000-08:002013-11-18T19:29:02.190-08:00Help Me Name My GameIf you have read my previous posts, you know I am creating a game that is supposed to attract young girls and expose them to programming concepts. I wanted the game to focus on helping a pet get to its treat by giving it directions and then hitting the go button. These are the three pets I currently have available as a choice for the user:<br />
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What I am trying to accomplish in naming my game:<br />
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<ul>
<li>I don't want it to sound more exciting than the game itself (ex: Pet Bonanza! - that would be a huge letdown) </li>
<li>I don't want it to sound competitive or time-constrained (ex: Pet Race, Pet Run)</li>
<li>I want to trick the little girls into coding by luring them to my game with cuddly animals, so I don't want to let on that this is a puzzle game or that it's about coding. (ex: Pet Code, Pet Puzzle)</li>
<li>I don't want to use a name that is already a thing elsewhere (ex: Petly, PetGo)</li>
</ul>
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With those criteria in mind, I think my final candidates are:</div>
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<ul>
<li>Fluffy Trails</li>
<li>Fuzzy Trails</li>
<li>FluffGrr</li>
</ul>
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Please, please, please <a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1vkendtr-OYGYV4mkqwfZMbXbfTLMt32Z6YyyRskXPik/viewform?" target="_blank">click here</a> to vote and/or suggest alternatives to my final candidates. Don't be shy! I need as much input as possible, and no ideas are bad. Thanks!</div>
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Avahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03026433134088809023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4469665089178280050.post-10286477174078941272013-11-16T10:43:00.001-08:002013-11-16T10:43:32.133-08:00Second Week of Projects<div style="text-align: center;">
Anki Donates a Set to Hackbright</div>
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One of the Hackbright mentors has been working on <a href="http://anki.com/">Anki Car</a> for quite some time and they donated a set to Hackbright yesterday. You must watch <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnsR-kZUx6o">this video</a>. It is a very cool toy and I had a lot of fun playing with it. Even the tutorial is really fun - they got Sir Patrick Stewart to voice it. And we can now play anytime we want! Once Hackbright is over and after I decompress a bit, I will totally take guests to Hackbright on weekends to play with it if you want to try it out.</div>
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A Glimpse of my Project</div>
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I hesitate to share with you a picture of my project so far because I need to fix the color scheme/layout and not everything is working yet. But I have been working very hard on it and I am proud of what I have accomplished so far. I can feed my program a string of letters that represent the background map for any given game level, a pet type (choice of bunny, dog, or penguin), a pet name (the player gets to name their pet), and a list of directions, and the pet will execute those directions. Eventually, the game map, pet type, and pet name will come from my database - every new person who logs in will choose their pet and start playing at level one, and my app will update their progress in the database so that every time they log in to my site they can view their own account with all their saved data.<br />
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As I said, right now I am just feeding the bunny a list of directions and it executes those directions. Currently I am working on the "go" button and the arrows so that when you drag and drop arrows into the blue code bar and hit go, the bunny moves according to the directions you gave. I spent a lot of this week putting restrictions on where the bunny can go, what to do when it reaches the carrot, what to do if it doesn't reach the carrot, what to do if you tell the bunny to move to a spot where he isn't allowed to go, and how to make the bunny delay between each move so that you can watch him go from one square to the next instead of him moving instantaneously to the endpoint.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGZ8DlerSNzZXIxTsbsqTLfW76YNgUmJ9XcE6KhEXDaxlHCUP6ZCBpKQT97GUNWGoJGdVt7Iq-mlERzFFArZkp7h5Uq3b7SpS-OhEyXBsVd46jrjcnuFCB5KvPptPnabzxHqdxVXvDvkZs/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-11-16+at+9.59.13+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGZ8DlerSNzZXIxTsbsqTLfW76YNgUmJ9XcE6KhEXDaxlHCUP6ZCBpKQT97GUNWGoJGdVt7Iq-mlERzFFArZkp7h5Uq3b7SpS-OhEyXBsVd46jrjcnuFCB5KvPptPnabzxHqdxVXvDvkZs/s320/Screen+Shot+2013-11-16+at+9.59.13+AM.png" width="217" /></a></div>
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So far from this project I have learned:<br />
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<li>html5 canvas - that's the game board and the bunny</li>
<li>html/css organization - the arrows/buttons/code bar and their layout</li>
<li>a ton of javascript - the game logic</li>
<li>DOM - using javascript to tell html what needs to change on the page depending on changing factors</li>
<li>jQuery - a weird javascript library that allows you to do things like drag and drop the arrows into the code bar</li>
<li>how to use my amazing mentors to help clarify fuzzy spots (or gaping holes) in my understanding</li>
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Anyway, I have a lot of work to do and I am going to get back to it now. But I did want to show you what I've spent the last two weeks working on. Every little step is a new challenge, and although it's been very up and down, I am slowly making progress. Onward!Avahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03026433134088809023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4469665089178280050.post-90434442822634957842013-11-12T06:10:00.001-08:002013-11-12T06:11:30.785-08:00SuperheroesYesterday was a roller coaster, and I feel like I need to give a shout-out to two heroes of mine who were particularly heroic.<br />
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<u>The Husband</u></div>
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If anyone was ever uncertain, my husband is one of the most kind-hearted, genuine, caring, passionate, and compassionate people on the planet. He also happens to be very smart and ludicrously funny, but now I'm just bragging. In any case, one of my classmates needed help with a big data problem and was struggling to find someone who a) understood the problem, and b) could explain it to her. I told her to email John and see if he could help. John looked into the article she was trying to understand, studied it, got interested in it, discussed it with a coworker, and then explained it to her over skype. He is so passionate about learning, and he is passionate about helping other people learn too.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgra58btNwUJ9WzaSZ_aLpjNskbkYRQXi3Z82LTF7vSEU7vDYHeSFkhbjpGwKHgn0ZBWG5TBaBIm8gZBQycusbLBjkzpB0iHB3EswMzWhPoq6TxuC1MvLrpKG1I-wE7y74sPkMpiLs8PQD-/s1600/John.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgra58btNwUJ9WzaSZ_aLpjNskbkYRQXi3Z82LTF7vSEU7vDYHeSFkhbjpGwKHgn0ZBWG5TBaBIm8gZBQycusbLBjkzpB0iHB3EswMzWhPoq6TxuC1MvLrpKG1I-wE7y74sPkMpiLs8PQD-/s320/John.jpg" width="301" /></a></div>
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John St. John</div>
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Husband of the Year</div>
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<u>The Teacher</u><br />
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Furthermore, head instructor Liz at Hackbright makes miracles happen every day. I had broken my code and started over three times without success. I had gotten help from a couple of different sources and had googled the crap out of my problem but I felt like I was missing something and I was almost literally pulling my hair out. I told Liz I was having a Lizmergency and needed her help. It turns out there was a javascript function I didn't know about, and just knowing it existed changed the course of my day. After helping to point me in the right direction, she told me that my code is really well-organized and that that is what is going to get me a job. She said she was "pretty effing impressed" with how well I organized my code. Liz sure has a way of turning discouraged-insecure-lonely-me into empowered-understanding-excited-me. She is superhuman.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgggtIAL9lOhpKzSCSSMaeUETLQz3PJx7_bYmzIw734PG67gcuW3mb-c_grIJkaYErS59CvC6Qiogl8_GCod9t4RyvBowJI5iU2piuRt38YKUTlc3PijBHW9YYFSx9c35PUyhmhkIwrahfz/s1600/liz.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgggtIAL9lOhpKzSCSSMaeUETLQz3PJx7_bYmzIw734PG67gcuW3mb-c_grIJkaYErS59CvC6Qiogl8_GCod9t4RyvBowJI5iU2piuRt38YKUTlc3PijBHW9YYFSx9c35PUyhmhkIwrahfz/s320/liz.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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Liz Howard</div>
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Instructor / Badass</div>
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<br />Avahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03026433134088809023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4469665089178280050.post-32774432714560024382013-11-09T17:49:00.000-08:002013-11-09T17:49:27.306-08:00First Week of ProjectsOn Monday we officially started our projects. That means that the schedule is much more flexible. At 10am we do tech talks, and then we do a daily scrum. Then we spend the day working on our projects, meeting with mentors, and scheduling office office hours with instructors as necessary. We really have to manage our own time, which I am happy to do because I really like working at my own pace.<br />
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Daily Scrums</div>
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Every morning the members of my house, Ravenclaw, meet to briefly list our progress, our goal for the day, and any blockers we might have that could get in the way of further progress. The "scrum master" from each house then reports all that info to the instructors so that they know who needs immediate help and they have a sense of how each person's project is coming along.<br />
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My Progress</div>
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If you are interested in seeing what I've accomplished every day, I having been pushing my code to Github regularly (think Google Docs but for code), and if you look at my <a href="https://github.com/avastjohn/HB_Project" target="_blank">project folder</a>, you can look at my code or just scroll down and see my readme that shows the most updated description of what I have accomplished and what my next steps are. </div>
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If you do want to look at some awesome code I wrote, click on the static folder, and then the js (short for Javascript) folder, and then the canvas.js file. I am super proud of the work I've put into that file, which is the heart of making my game show up and do stuff in the browser. It's still got a long way to go, but I had a major breakthrough last night when my mentor Tim, from Zillow, helped me understand a bug in my code that had been making my life hell for a couple of days. It was a hugely victorious moment. There was a lot of shouting and jumping involved.</div>
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I mostly want to take the weekends off from my project because I need the break, but I coded a little today because I was super excited to work on the next part of my goal for Monday, now that I finally got past this hurdle. </div>
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The next three weeks will mostly be devoted to our projects, followed by one week of polishing, and then it will be career day. That's when representatives from about 35 Bay Area tech companies come to do a speed-dating-style interview process and we demo our projects. </div>
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<a href="http://leaena.com/" target="_blank">Lindsey!</a></div>
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As many of you know, my best friend Lindsey just moved down to the Bay Area to go to Hack Reactor, which starts on Monday. Last week I took her with me to Hackbright, where she coded, blogged, and helped me with my project because she is amazing. We also went to a <a href="http://bayareagirlgeekdinners.com/" target="_blank">Girl Geek Dinner</a> at Cisco Thursday night, which was a lot of fun. They had a photo booth with fun props, so Lindsey and I took advantage of that:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLEYnFtrNhZY5z4kWChZejfJNFQgqRYrd58Cm8c8U45KJJbzk1Dqeblbjn2QL49GrIQYKbwt0VoSVFZJEJAkS1cBnSWWo3Qi8WOM3Xo0pkHMC89H7EyNVDlXyTC5rSMvEN7axZwbb_mKby/s1600/CiscoGGD+with+Lindsey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLEYnFtrNhZY5z4kWChZejfJNFQgqRYrd58Cm8c8U45KJJbzk1Dqeblbjn2QL49GrIQYKbwt0VoSVFZJEJAkS1cBnSWWo3Qi8WOM3Xo0pkHMC89H7EyNVDlXyTC5rSMvEN7axZwbb_mKby/s320/CiscoGGD+with+Lindsey.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Lindsey's program is super intense, and it runs six days a week. So I am very happy that we will be able to ride the BART together in the mornings. </div>
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Looking forward to continuing my project, and I am hoping to blog every week for the remainder of Hackbright. I will try to post pictures of my progress soon!</div>
avahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13529404233422917372noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4469665089178280050.post-72974050065746192322013-11-03T07:47:00.001-08:002013-11-03T07:47:58.881-08:00Also at FacebookI forgot to mention a couple of cool things about our trip to Facebook.<br />
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1. They totally had a giant cooler full of Thai iced tea, among other fun and fancy beverages.<br />
2. There were a lot of people wandering around campus with a baby in an Ergo or toddler in a stroller.<br />
3. I liked that a lot of their artwork is done by people who work for Facebook. An engineer brought in his seven-year-old daughter to help him paint/draw this in the hallway of his building:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0OTwrHMDDKcJdk_FjrXU32Qs5y27gMOsEipfm2Sy1S3g5KKvLB22OfGyZq2GQhvDWv0el9Ez-gRJ6jy1DmmgyeoDf7F_C1_N8tYlJhhe_f5yBoXRKU2YYXshMXBN641OrEXHhX7GjEyfJ/s1600/fb+art.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0OTwrHMDDKcJdk_FjrXU32Qs5y27gMOsEipfm2Sy1S3g5KKvLB22OfGyZq2GQhvDWv0el9Ez-gRJ6jy1DmmgyeoDf7F_C1_N8tYlJhhe_f5yBoXRKU2YYXshMXBN641OrEXHhX7GjEyfJ/s320/fb+art.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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Also, apparently at one point Mark Zuckerberg walked right past us. I wasn't really paying attention but I probably wouldn't have recognized him anyway.<br />
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They posted a photo of our visit on the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/facebookdiversity/photos_stream" target="_blank">Facebook Diversity page</a>. At the time of writing this, it is the most recent photo in their photo stream.avahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13529404233422917372noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4469665089178280050.post-64606757544344921162013-11-02T11:43:00.000-07:002013-11-02T11:43:11.694-07:00Movie Ratings App, My Project, and Visiting Facebook<div style="text-align: center;">
Movie Ratings</div>
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We spent four days working on a movie ratings app similar to Netflix. My amazing partner Amy and I had a little fun with the design. Here is our homepage:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJoKAY863t_zlfOvIcQg2g1Rt5bLJCLaXqdNg_J49UP-oFvCEsCuQODC-67btqXcAdhRW3JsmnoSiJhMllM1mdNeIkr9hUQyA04wSLqrxl4zRD_fTaRVYzBalDahYveEGJR7bc0O6D2NVV/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-11-02+at+10.47.37+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJoKAY863t_zlfOvIcQg2g1Rt5bLJCLaXqdNg_J49UP-oFvCEsCuQODC-67btqXcAdhRW3JsmnoSiJhMllM1mdNeIkr9hUQyA04wSLqrxl4zRD_fTaRVYzBalDahYveEGJR7bc0O6D2NVV/s320/Screen+Shot+2013-11-02+at+10.47.37+AM.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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This is me adding a new account:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsGrgvpTkBz7U-YrBjNGDTsxn5SPxExeRm-DjbnsgFjoPHqMXrAGe-amystuzyU1Oc44_GIPqS_0LiNkoFe3hmqXGlZI7Lupwvjm0TLaJodIHKkdQt4RwKBySYSd-MIHGRFkAA91LVyXnq/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-11-02+at+10.49.29+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="277" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsGrgvpTkBz7U-YrBjNGDTsxn5SPxExeRm-DjbnsgFjoPHqMXrAGe-amystuzyU1Oc44_GIPqS_0LiNkoFe3hmqXGlZI7Lupwvjm0TLaJodIHKkdQt4RwKBySYSd-MIHGRFkAA91LVyXnq/s320/Screen+Shot+2013-11-02+at+10.49.29+AM.png" width="320" /></a></div>
These are all the ratings one person gave to a bunch of movies:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_nHdiTHI9iol9jpTqajybAM-vysF-FJd-hvP60awdByikZmMmCDa6tv5muUY21F3uXBLOf_0lSlv0y4DIEUVxik8DZGcI-rv_UQxj9AXvKP3lb4-BqZaWGgFUY90S5yGCUIENS-GH_woD/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-11-02+at+10.48.09+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="205" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_nHdiTHI9iol9jpTqajybAM-vysF-FJd-hvP60awdByikZmMmCDa6tv5muUY21F3uXBLOf_0lSlv0y4DIEUVxik8DZGcI-rv_UQxj9AXvKP3lb4-BqZaWGgFUY90S5yGCUIENS-GH_woD/s320/Screen+Shot+2013-11-02+at+10.48.09+AM.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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We also wrote a function that could predict how much you would like a movie based on your previous ratings and the way that other people rated movies (we were given user data from about 900 people). That was pretty cool, but I'm pretty sure I'm not into big data. I had more fun making it pretty and funny.</div>
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My Project</div>
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I am going to build a game for young girls to introduce them to basic programming concepts. I want to do something that's a bit of a combination of <a href="http://blockly-demo.appspot.com/static/apps/maze/index.html?lang=en&level=2&skin=0" target="_blank">Blockly Maze</a> and Cargo-Bot.</div>
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<br /> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHWiNnpfNlgDwxLlj8L-Bb3nmD8r0KRNyKSTaYAKi8XvAGJ9xW68xKlJ-EhcvINZRX06BOpFtgYGXLSlk8N6W4vy8Ar5ezmULl8OdSOzRGJgJkBK1__tD75pqwCm3tDcZcpcTaVi_dWPpD/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-11-02+at+11.07.45+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHWiNnpfNlgDwxLlj8L-Bb3nmD8r0KRNyKSTaYAKi8XvAGJ9xW68xKlJ-EhcvINZRX06BOpFtgYGXLSlk8N6W4vy8Ar5ezmULl8OdSOzRGJgJkBK1__tD75pqwCm3tDcZcpcTaVi_dWPpD/s320/Screen+Shot+2013-11-02+at+11.07.45+AM.png" width="238" /></a> <-- Cargo-Bot (addictive game on iPad)</div>
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I like the idea of using drag-and-drop arrows to learn about programming, but I really want my game to appeal to little girls in a genuine way, like <a href="http://vimeo.com/59876490" target="_blank">Goldie Blox </a>does. I am going to create something like Blockly Maze in concept and like Cargo-Bot in design. But it will be with a little bunny trying to get her carrot. The user will help direct the bunny to her carrot by dragging and dropping arrows and other simple buttons. I am going to map out a few levels to get a sense of where I am going with it. But I am really excited about getting started and it has been officially approved by both Liz and Christian.</div>
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Facebook</div>
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Yesterday we took a field trip to Facebook's Menlo Park campus. It's a lot like Disneyland there. You go through security and get special badges and then inside there's a weird, fake village. A 50s burger and milkshake restaurant, a sweetshop with gourmet pastries and ice cream, an arcade, a bar...It was pretty strange. The food was pretty healthy and extremely tasty. We met with several women who work with Diversity at Facebook, and one of them was a computer science dropout turned software engineer who has been working at FB for about two years. She works in "capacity," which means that she is trying to make sure all the photos you uploaded to Facebook five years ago never have to be deleted.</div>
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A tech accessories vending machine:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv7mzrlwZfAfLO21FLg-dur788sE2HTtjn2vlSKtTRdzm_THuRM-2qoOW4HmXXclRuilwc4kUE7Xqkzsvu-MpkhfC-OYDD1Fb3CQ-C7IChRKlr9VSspoPKt1pbz6hP_PHjDmoVUGeZD0V9/s1600/tech+vending+machine.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv7mzrlwZfAfLO21FLg-dur788sE2HTtjn2vlSKtTRdzm_THuRM-2qoOW4HmXXclRuilwc4kUE7Xqkzsvu-MpkhfC-OYDD1Fb3CQ-C7IChRKlr9VSspoPKt1pbz6hP_PHjDmoVUGeZD0V9/s320/tech+vending+machine.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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Their thumbs up sign had been dressed up for Halloween:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjbsCW9624HzCMSnaXbu6f_dTe5n0fSqJ79M_ygUqKzkBvbo_6FmnMLyvQX6tYhyphenhyphenMIkCRi7CDyBUQOWTCdUE7_JHZtmKO-i8AMvCkox_IkAfrREQO3ZGvfN_a6vUBUtQVTYLfA_4o5QTdT/s1600/ava+at+fb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjbsCW9624HzCMSnaXbu6f_dTe5n0fSqJ79M_ygUqKzkBvbo_6FmnMLyvQX6tYhyphenhyphenMIkCRi7CDyBUQOWTCdUE7_JHZtmKO-i8AMvCkox_IkAfrREQO3ZGvfN_a6vUBUtQVTYLfA_4o5QTdT/s320/ava+at+fb.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Going to pick up <a href="http://leaena.com/" target="_blank">Lindsey</a> from the airport in two hours! She starts at <a href="http://www.hackreactor.com/" target="_blank">Hack Reactor</a> in a week and a half! It's about to get magical.</div>
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avahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13529404233422917372noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4469665089178280050.post-55851194433985222062013-10-30T21:37:00.000-07:002013-10-30T21:37:20.364-07:00FutureStack and DevelopHer<div style="text-align: center;">
{Future}Stack13</div>
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FutureStack was a two-day tech conference put on by New Relic last Thursday and Friday. New Relic is a company that does performance monitoring, which means that if you made an app like Facebook or Pinterest, you would ask New Relic to monitor how quickly every part of your program is running so that if something is consistently taking two minutes to load you know you have a problem somewhere in that part of your program. New Relic is a sizable company and they have so far hired two Hackbright alums. Because New Relic loves Hackbright so much, they gave us all free tickets (normally $600/person).<br />
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Side note: We were all given business cards for the conference. That was exciting.<br />
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Thursday we registered and got our name badges, which were basically little Arduinos that sync to your phone and keep track of your information. This meant you could hold your name badge up to another person's name badge, your name badge would blink while info was being transmitted, and your phone app would now have that person's contact info. It also gave points for the number of "connections" you made and they had a running contest with prizes for the most points throughout the conference. At one point I was 14 on the leader board. That was cool. You could also hold your badge up against a board outside each room to rate the quality of the talk you had just seen. We were also given swag bags, which included a t-shirt, decals, a cord organizer, and a few other fun things, all in a sweet little tote bag with the FutureStack logo on it.<br />
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Thursday morning's keynote was by the CTO of New Relic, followed by an amazing talk by this woman named Hilary Mason, who works with big data. Then we spent the rest of the day going to several smaller talks. I really wanted to go to the Cake concert afterwards, but I knew I would be too exhausted for the hackathon on Friday if I stayed late on Thursday.</div>
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Friday's tech talks were also really fun and I learned a lot. Plus we were given awesome bento boxes with our lunch, and free wrap-up iPhone chargers. Also on Friday, I got my project semi-approved! Yay! More on that later. Liz high-fived me for promoting Hackbright a lot while I was at the conference. It was pretty fun to meet people and talk about what Hackbright does.</div>
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My Favorite Talks</div>
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Julia Grace from <a href="https://www.tindie.com/" target="_blank">Tindie</a> gave a fantastic talk about hardware and how <a href="http://www.arduino.cc/" target="_blank">arduino</a> and <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org/" target="_blank">raspberry pi </a> have lowered the barrier to entry for people to play with hardware and software. During her presentation, she showed a picture of my team at the hardware hackathon as well as a video of the LeapMotion-controlled robot that one of my classmates worked on at the hardware hackathon. She also gave an awesome shout out to Hackbright.</div>
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Another talk I really enjoyed was by Etan Lightstone of New Relic. He talked about <a href="http://mbostock.github.io/d3/talk/20111116/airports.html" target="_blank">data visualization</a> and <a href="http://mbostock.github.io/d3/talk/20111116/force-collapsible.html" target="_blank">design</a>. It was a very informative and (obviously) visual talk.<br />
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There was an awesome talk called Surviving the Offline Apocalypse by a guy named Joel Worall, who is the CTO of <a href="http://cure.org/" target="_blank">Cure International</a>. He talked about how to keep places like hospitals online that are in remote areas in developing countries. The work they do at Cure is really amazing.<br />
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I also particularly loved a talk called Nerd Life Balance by Nick Floyd. He talked about bringing your enthusiasm for tech home and teaching your kids, your spouse, your friends, and anyone who wants to learn. He has five children and they all play with hardware and enjoy hacking their xbox games so that they never lose. He also talked about being more productive and satisfied by allowing your work and personal life to be more congruent. After the talk I went up to talk to the speaker to tell him how much I enjoyed his presentation. When he found out I was from Hackbright he said, "Oh! Awesome! I have something for you." It turns out he had a stash of Rasperry Pis that he was giving out to Hackbrighters, and I got his last one! I was extremely excited and thanked him profusely. More about my awesome raspberry pi and what I'm doing with it later.<br />
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DevelopHer</div>
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I had to leave the conference a bit early on Friday to meet up with my mom so that we could make our way down to LinkedIn in Mountain View for their all-female hackathon, DevelopHer. I was super tired, so a lot of it is a huge blur, but basically we made an awesome game:</div>
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When the game starts, this is what you see:</div>
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After you pick up your poo and collect your bones to put in your dog house, you get stars:<br />
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The game logic was fairly basic: you can't pick up your poo unless you have a bag, and you can't go into your dog house until you have cleaned up your poo and collected your bones. It was super fun to build and we got to meet some cool people too. It was fun munching on LinkedIn's cafeteria food. They have a nice variety, but we mostly took advantage of their soft serve with hot fudge, chips, protein bars, peanut m&m's, fruit-infused water, soda, salads, and free breakfast/lunch/dinner/cupcakes. They also gave us weird shirts that we probably won't wear because they aren't t-shirts and I don't know how to handle it. We went home to sleep and returned the next morning, but most people spent the night at LinkedIn.</div>
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It was super fun presenting our project and people commented on how cool it was that we were doing this as a mother-daughter activity. I was proud :)</div>
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Raspberry Pi</div>
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I am really excited about my raspberry pi, and John and I are trying to make some cool things happen. I don't want to give away too much yet because I'm not done putting stuff together. But stayed tuned for more on this topic. All you need to know so far is that we installed linux on it and I can actually program on it and save things on it, which is pretty cool.</div>
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I Have No Time and There's So Much Going On</div>
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I'm sorry I was lame and didn't post for a long time. It's getting really difficult to keep my blog up to date. Many ups and downs, some more crying at Hackbright, a ton of high-fiving and cracking up, crazy weekend adventures, John being an amazing husband and supporting me through everything, and meetings with my mentors in which I flail about and they somehow turn that into meaningful units of understanding. I will try to post soon about our movie ratings app featuring grumpy cat, changes to my project design, and a giant-whiteboard heist that involved some major, real-life geometry and a small gash oozing blood.</div>
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avahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13529404233422917372noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4469665089178280050.post-46986231587928775632013-10-18T17:47:00.000-07:002013-10-18T17:47:07.545-07:00Too Many Things!!I am quickly getting behind in my blog because I have more and more to talk about in less and less time. I'm trying my best. Here we go.<br />
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I Built a Game</div>
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I did build a game, but it is not very easily shared, so you get to enjoy this picture and imagine playing it. The graphics were made by a dude who offers free graphics to game developers so that people don't have to spend tons of money on graphics in order to build a game.<br />
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Basically you are the little girl and you have to open the chest, which requires a key. But first you have to build a boat to cross the river, and then you have to move the dirt blocks and bribe the dragon to get to the key. Anyway, it isn't the most fun game in the world, but it is cute and I can see myself making a much more exciting game using these same graphics (more on that later).<br />
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I learned SQL, HTML, CSS, Flask, Jinja, Javascript, DOM</div>
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Holy crap. In a few days we learned a bunch of new languages and concepts. I don't have a firm grasp on any of them, and not many people in my class do. But Liz said that there will be plenty of time to relearn all this stuff when we are working on our projects. Then we will learn everything really well because we will have one-on-one help from instructors/mentors and we will have a real-life need for that type of coding. In case you are not familiar with the string of nonsense above, these things can kind of be translated thusly:</div>
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<b>SQL:</b> Building databases and getting info from databases</div>
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<b>HTML:</b> Putting words and pictures on the interwebs</div>
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<b>CSS:</b> Making the words and pictures pretty</div>
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<b>Flask:</b> A framework for Python (I don't really know what that means though)</div>
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<b>Jinja:</b> A weird language to be used inside Flask (or a red-headed ninja)</div>
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<b>Javascript:</b> Making things online be interactive (like buttons or forms on a website)</div>
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<b>DOM:</b> A tree. Or something. All I know is that I have to "get elements by id" and stuff. I don't really get it yet.</div>
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I kind of dig the SQL and the Javascript is ok, but I am not sold on everything else. I'm sure I will have to learn all this stuff when I start on my project, so I am not too worried about it yet. I do think it is becoming less likely that I will look for a <a href="http://skillcrush.com/2012/04/17/frontend-vs-backend-3/" target="_blank">front-end</a> job after this.</div>
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Feeling Dumb, Tired, and Hungry, and hating BART</div>
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This week and last week have been physically and mentally draining. There were a few times when I thought I was the only one who totally didn't understand something, but each time it turned out that most people didn't understand it either. It feels so good when you finally get something working, and you just want to shout for joy and high five everyone. On the other hand, it really sucks hearing someone else rejoicing over a coding victory when you have been banging your head against the wall about a stupid problem that you can't figure out. </div>
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What I'm trying to say is that I don't understand everything but I learned a lot and I am tired and I want to lay face-down on my bed for many hours.</div>
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Also, BART strike. </div>
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Mentors</div>
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I have three awesome mentors who I currently have no spare time to meet with. Tim works for <a href="http://www.zillow.com/" target="_blank">Zillow</a>, Zac works for <a href="https://handup.us/" target="_blank">HandUp</a>, and Sara works for <a href="https://www.surveymonkey.com/" target="_blank">SurveyMonkey</a>. They are all super nice and awesome, and I am looking forward to getting to know them better. Sara is a Hackbright alum, so she knows exactly what I'm going through. I talked to her at length about SurveyMonkey and it sounds like an amazing place to work. I am skyping with each of my mentors next week hopefully, but hopefully once we start our projects I will actually have the flexibility to meet with them at Hackbright, at their places of work, and elsewhere. More on this trio of awesome later.</div>
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FutureStack</div>
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Going to a conference next Thursday/Friday called FutureStack that is being put on by <a href="http://newrelic.com/" target="_blank">New Relic</a>. Because New Relic is super nice and they love Hackbright, they are letting us all go for free (normally $600/person). Also, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6cb4Q0-nGY" target="_blank">Cake</a> is playing at the kickoff party. Holy crap. I love Cake.</div>
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My Project!!</div>
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So in a couple weeks we are going to stop pair programming and start our individual projects. We will work on these projects for the remainder of the program, with some interview skills practice/negotiating skills practice. </div>
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The project I want to work on is based on my belief that anyone can learn to program if they 1) are empowered, and 2) have resources. There are plenty of people out there who have neither, and I think this is one of the biggest reasons that young girls don't get interested in programming. I want to build a game that particularly appeals to young girls, probably aimed at 11-year-olds, that provides a well-structured soft introduction to programming concepts. Basically I want to trick innocent little girls into giving programming a try so that they can discover how fun it is! [evil laugh]</div>
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I haven't decided too much about the details yet, but I have been thinking about making something similar to <a href="https://www.bloc.io/ruby-warrior/#/" target="_blank">Ruby Warrior</a> in concept - with simple graphics and levels - but I would want it to be much girlier and have a LOT more instructional support. My goal is that any little girl could play this game without any help from an adult and they would not walk away from it thinking they are not smart enough to learn to program.</div>
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Re: girlier - Obviously the main character would be a girl. I'm thinking at the beginning you get to choose a pet - a dog, cat, horse, baby t-rex, or cute little monster. And it would be very story-based.</div>
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Re: more instructional support - Each level would show an example of some code, then have the player do it themselves with help and then without help. I want it to take things very slowly and offer lots of help and examples that are relevant and interesting to a little girl.</div>
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I will trick all the little girls and build an army of awesome programHers! Muhuhuahaha!</div>
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avahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13529404233422917372noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4469665089178280050.post-62620605296159819572013-10-12T12:15:00.000-07:002013-10-12T12:15:27.745-07:00Hacking Hardware and Talking Tech<div style="text-align: center;">
The Speakers</div>
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Last Saturday and Sunday I went to Silicon Chef, a hardware hackathon for women. They provided each team with an <a href="https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11576" target="_blank">Arduino kit</a>, free t-shirts, food, lots of mentors, and tons of space at the startup <a href="https://stripe.com/about" target="_blank">Stripe</a>, which has a very cool facility. Before giving us our Arduino kits and sending us off to hack away, they had several speakers.</div>
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The current mayor of San Francisco, Ed Lee, is the first to create staff positions called Director of Innovation and Deputy Director of Education. Well, the Deputy Director of Education, who is a woman, presented a Mayor's Award to Hackbright for bringing more women into tech. Apparently it is not an award that is given out frequently, so that was very cool.</div>
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The other speakers were all awesome, but they kind of run together for me because I was so tired. But some of the topics they covered were about why manufacturing is so convenient in China (spoiler alert: it's not just cheap labor), how to create a product and then take it to market, and a slew of awesome products designed to get teen/pre-teen girls into tech.<br />
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Chaos and Unidentified Arduino Parts</div>
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After the speakers they distributed the Arduino kits and set us loose. Our team started going crazy with excitement and panic. We hadn't really discussed a strategy at all. Some people on our team really wanted to build something awesome. I just wanted to learn about hardware. Unfortunately, there wasn't really a way for us to accomplish these two opposing goals using only one Arduino. We were all trying to find out what the weird sensors and knobs and buttons and diodes were and how they worked, and we were disoriented/frantic as we tried to google the parts and find out what you could do with them. This did not work out very well and I spent a lot of the first day feeling kind of stressed and bummed out that I wasn't learning much. </div>
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The next day I asked Liz if I could use one of the extra Arduinos to just go through the basic instructions in the book and really try to learn how hardware works. Luckily Liz is super awesome and all about learning, so she let me do it. I went around and told people to come hang out with me if they wanted to learn about the basics of hardware together. I worked partly on my own but had visitors come and go. Some people had been working on much more complicated stuff than I understood, but I was still able to teach them a lot about the basics that they didn't understand. I earned 20 points for Ravenclaw for teaching people about hardware!</div>
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The world's cutest seven-year-old girl came over and pretended to be a cat while I was hooking up a circuit from the instructions booklet. I talked to her for a while, which was awesome. Then her mom came over and we talked for a while. I guess when she was in college her advisors told her not to take computer science because it is really hard and uses a lot of math. She was a little devastated but luckily she realized that her advisors were racist, sexist pigs and she took programming classes anyway. She's a software engineer and she takes her awesome daughter to hackathons all the time. She tries not to pressure her daughter at all. She just asks for ideas on what to do and her daughter is super creative. A few weeks ago this woman and her friend and this little girl made a game based on the girl's design at a hackathon and they won $40,000 for it! I don't remember what she said the game did but I think it had something to do with animals. She gave me her contact info and she is going to send me some info on getting involved with organizations for young kids/girls that are all about getting them interested in tech.<br />
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Deep Learning: Can Computers Learn?</div>
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Every student at Hackbright is required to deliver a lightning talk - a five to ten minute talk about anything related to tech - sometime throughout the program. I signed up for the first time slot so that I could get it over with.</div>
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My tech talk was on Tuesday and my topic was Deep Learning, which is where you try to set up a program that acts more like a human brain than like a robot. So rather than writing a program that tells a computer how to recognize a human face, you build a virtual "neural network" and then give it a ton of faces and see if it learns how to recognize a human face on its own, much like a baby would. Google recently made a giant neural network and set it loose on youtube for three days to see what it would learn. They didn't tell it what to learn - they just gave it a way of strengthening and weakening connections between "neurons" as information comes in that confirms or contradicts previous information. After those three days, this neural net could recognize cat faces, among other things. This is what that program now considers to be the ideal cat face:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK0lswk9FHVBYtZARJ1g2X4OQ9KbUilGufuXbsZUmaGzqENVzE-tNDR7JArRDjDS6gQ7BdjRQqMN40yGVy0kUpkqwLSXD6JBgRJKKIwJ6mPuiSp4_rE0cZh0mw4EyZnFK60ZP2A7omfFV-/s1600/google.machine.learningx296.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK0lswk9FHVBYtZARJ1g2X4OQ9KbUilGufuXbsZUmaGzqENVzE-tNDR7JArRDjDS6gQ7BdjRQqMN40yGVy0kUpkqwLSXD6JBgRJKKIwJ6mPuiSp4_rE0cZh0mw4EyZnFK60ZP2A7omfFV-/s1600/google.machine.learningx296.jpg" /></a></div>
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For a better explanation and more information on what Deep Learning really is, check out <a href="http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/06/google-x-neural-network/" target="_blank">this article</a> from Wired. </div>
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The other two tech talks this week were about <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAPTCHA" target="_blank">Captchas</a> and about <a href="http://www.google.com/loon/how/" target="_blank">Project Loon</a>, respectively. They were both super interesting and it has made me excited for everyone's tech talks in the next few weeks. We're basically learning about current events in the tech world while also getting practice giving short presentations. </div>
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Next post will be about: Classes, Games, SQL, HTML, and Other Strange Concepts. Stay tuned!</div>
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avahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13529404233422917372noreply@blogger.com4