O3M 78 - VHS
My fuel at work. Heavily inspired by the 80s, which I never experienced.
PL SQL - Declare an array of objects and loop insert statements
While gathering informations about how an array with objects can be declared in PlSQL and the processed by aa for loop, I ended up with very different results. Some people created temporary tables and other defined complex new types. It was difficult to see through. By prioritizing simpler and more common approaches, I ended up with a suitable solution.
Before we have a look at the the PlSQL script, let me introduce you to the scenario I had to resolve.
Ai Weiwei Sunflower Seeds
Recently I remembered the sunflower seeds art installation by the social activist Ai Weiwei and was curious how he managed to produce those 100 million seeds. I ended up with at a documentation by the tate collective:
Quote by Richard Thaler
People Aren’t Dumb. The World Is Hard.
– Richard Thaler
Richard Thaler won a nobel prize for showing that humans tend to make irrational decisions. He is the founder of behavioral economics and took an unlikely way to success.
In the latest Freakonomics podcast Steve Dubner interviews Richard Thaler, clears some misunderstandings and gives insight on how Thaler deals with lazyness and his efforts to fix the world.
I love this quote because it emphasizes my personal view point. As an individium we feel obligated to know everything and strive for perfection in every domain of live. In contrast the world has become more complex and only through collaboration people can achieve anything at all.
Hugo Soundcloud shortcode
The Hugo templating system is very flexible. Even when markdown falls short you can add simple snippets inside the content files. Hugo created shortcodes to circumvent the limitations. For my blog I have create a custom shortcode for embeding Soundcloud playlists into my markdown posts. Creating custom shortcodes is very easy. I will show you how it is done and moreover provide a tool to convert existing Soundcloud set urls into the custom Soundcloud shortcode.
Another Wordpress to Hugo migration
Using Wordpress to run this blog has become an overkill. It was time to change. Static site generators, no database content management systems and JavaScript based tools make Wordpress an deprecated blogging platform. I had the idea of moving away from Wordpress for a while and decided to take a chance two weeks ago. This post is about the migration process and the design decisions made in preparation of the migration.
From the title you can tell that I chose Hugo as my next CMS, but why Hugo? First of all, I only have had a look at Jekyll and Hugo. Jekyll is written in ruby and Hugo in go. To make it short and simple, Hugo does whatever Jekyll does, but based on newer technologies and a lot faster. And also remember it doesn’t really matter. Both Hugo and Jekyll use markdown files and have almost the same format to store posts and data. So no big difference except speed.
O3M 77 - Sleep tight
It’s been a while since I posted one of my playlists.
Git branch typing completion and other useful stuff
Recently I was looking a way to have auto completion with git when checking out a branch. The solution was kind of obvious. The github git mirror repository has a folder containing experimental tools. One of these tools is a shell scripts that enables completion for various git sub commands. Exactly what I was looking for.
Struggle with arbitrary knowledge
This post is about a thought I wanted to process and thus wrote it down.
At work I often find myself to be exhausted from dealing with intensive thinking patterns. In my definition intensive thinking patterns are caused by issues which occur often, cannot be solved easily and require a sustainable solution. This sounds very broad, let me give you an example.
The digital bookshelf
Two years ago I’ve started to read books on my mobile device. I have skipped the whole e-reader thing and went straight from hard covers to e-books. Many doubt that you can read a book comfortably on the smart phone, but I can tell with certainty that it works well. It is only a matter of changing your habits. However, there is one thing I miss. A hard cover in a bookshelf also represents an association with your memories of the book. Whenever I see a book cover I remember the story. This does not work with virtual book covers. Memories of books I’ve read on my e-book reader fade as they move beyond the display on my phone. To solve this issue I’ve come up with a simple solution. I want to create a bookshelf poster and pin it to my bedroom wall. With this idea in mind I’ve started creating a list of books I’ve read. Now I would like to present you the tool I’ve built to create beautiful post from this book list.