Old Man Learns to Code

 I thought I could keep two of my Blogs separate, namely, my " Old Man Learns to Code [in Python]" blog ( here ) and my " Old Man Learns about Learning" blog ( here ). I was wrong. It turns out that there is a common thread that inherently ties the two endeavors together. Actually more than one. More like a bundle of threads! First, the word, " Learns " applies to both. So they're inseparable right there! Second, both call for some " Fluid Intelligence ", especially  when dealing with solving novel coding or other kinds of problems (more on that later). Thirdly, both involve " Emotional  Intelligence " because various emotions surge to the forefront each time the code or learning doesn't work and we need to or sat least should know how to deal with those emotions. Finally, there is  the involvement of  the Limbic  brain section or emotions managing parts of our brains and how they provide both motivation and demotivation for...

  1. The first rule of DKE is that you don't talk about your own infection by DKE.  2. The second rule of DKE is  that you don't talk about your own infection by DKE. 3. The third rule of DKE is that the Duning-Kruger Effect (DKE) only applies to thee, to others, and not to me. 4. The fourth rule is ...   So here we go again.  ... I was just reflecting on how DKE struck me once more with respect to my Python coding skills in a previous post . Why was I going down the tunnel thinking funnel? Why was I so confident that my loop_name variable "had to be" formatted in just one way and no other?  Now I'm realizing that I am just as DKE-stricken when it comes to my  HTML  coding skills. (5) My newly adopted paradigm includes avoiding the launching of my default browser in the morning with a START PAGE pointing to some real time news or other AMYGDALA triggering content. (6) Instead, I'm asking the Browser to...

I've gotten into a habit of decorating my console output strings with c o l o r s , like highlighting some fragments in Yellow , Red or whatever and then switching back to White elsewhere. Each escape code sequence is relatively long (e.g. Ansi for Yellow = "\033[1;33m"). And, the pointer to the escape code has to be encased in curly brackets ({code}). Typing all that out becomes a pain. A "what if?" occurred to me. What if ... I insert a two character, shortened escape code (akin to a bitly url) in my text, for example, a delimiter that starts with a tilda (~) and is followed by selector character in the range A-Z, a-z,0-9? So a 2-character sequence such as , " ~ W" would be converted to the Ansi escape code for white text. Thinking some more on that initial what-if brought more aha's: The tilda (~) on the keyboard needs a press of the SHIFT key. And the cap "W" also  needs a press of the SHIFT key.  Too much work! H...

  This is a repeated problem for me. I start too many projects. Finish none. And get bent out of shape over the frustrating comprehension (the meta-cognition ) that this "spread too thin" phenomenon is what is happening. The question is how to gain control over this predicament? How to organize ? How to focus on a fewer number of projects and topics at any one time so that at least some things get finished? (1) The info capture phase -- too easy. I bookmark everything . My bookmarks bar includes the following folders in the following order (left to right):     (1a) Recents -- year and month captures get accumulated here     (1b) Current month -- example: "Feb 2026"     (1c) Current start date of current round of collections -- example: "<-- 02/04"     (1d) Top Topic -- example: "Python" stores marks directed to this topic     (1e) 2ndary Topic example: "Learning"  stores marks directed to Learning about Learning"   ...

  The s ame above  title ( skin the cat-snake ) still applies here, but as a post script edit to this post, I'm going to give it an entirely different spin  than originally planned. Here it goes: My current Py project has evolved into needing a customized data structure . Never mind its specifics.  (Maybe I'll come back to those later.) As I started formulating the ideas / concepts for the customized data structure, I recalled having vaguely seen mention of a thing in Python called " DataClasses " . Had no idea what it actually was. It intrigued me. So I started chasing after it (started searching for clues ) . Turned out to be a popular topic. Many, many tutorials about it. So should I pick just one lecturer? (e.g. Tech with Tim/other (TwT, TwX), Indently , Bro Code , Mosh , Nana , ... or any of the other many free Py tutors ) and stick with that one explainer? No. It so happened that jumping around allowed me to pick up different nuances about the stuff they we...

This  might demonstrate how new ideas can emerge from accidental insights you have about code you've written for a different purpose. So below is a function I wrote called randLE(), which picks a random element from a list and outputs that one randomly selected slice based on a randomly selected index within a range. The output can be of type string, or integer of float. The input list should be of the desired one type: ( Left click on image to enlarge, backspace to return to original size image ) That got me thinking. What if I had an input list that looked like this: [0, 10, 1, 1, 9, 9, 2, 2, 2, 8, 8, 8, 3, 3, 3, 3, 7, 7, 7, 7, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5] In other words the occurrences of the list elements are weighted. There are: six 5's, five each of 4's and 6's, four each of 3's and 7's, three each of 2's and 8's, two each 1's and 9's and one each of 0's and 10's. That tilts the probability distribution...