What I'm up to.

What I'm working on

Primary Focus

A longer term project I'm not ready to share yet but it's nearing the end! Every morning I'm up before the sun, polishing, removing, cleaning. Like a statue, it'll be ready when there's nothing left to take away.

You'll know about it when it launches. To make sure it gets shipped, daily articles have stopped. My stance is: lifting 1kg per day for 120 days (1 article per day) isn't the same as lifting 120kg in 1 day (launching a larger project). I'm taking some of my own advice. Less but better.

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A beginner-friendly machine learning course!

One of the questions I get asked most often is "I want to learn machine learning, where should I start?". And most of the time I'd reply back with a list of resources. This time I've built my own.

I designed it alongside Andrei Neagoie, one of the highest rated instructors on Udemy and it's live and ready to go. If you're new to machine learning, the Complete Machine Learning and Data Science: Zero to Mastery workshop is for you.

Course update: We've hit 21,000+ students! This is phenomenal. I'm in the Discord chat/forums every day answering as many questions as I can. If you're interested in getting started with machine learning, I hope to see you there.

Working out from home/the local park

The Jiu Jitsu gym is closed due to Coronavirus so bodyweight workouts, kettlebells and hill sprints have been my staples. Here's an example of this weeks movement plan:

  • Monday: Hammer swings (sledgehammer into tire), tire flips, kettlebell swings
  • Tuesday: Gymnastic ring dips, pull-ups (push/pull), handstands, 20-minutes stretching
  • Wednesday: Garage weights at Justin's
  • Thursday: Animal movements, mobility, flow
  • Friday: Morning: flow, Evening: same as Monday
  • Saturday (sunrise session): Hill sprints, gymnastic rings, broomstick game, cold water swim
  • Sunday: Walk, rest

One thing's for sure, I'm coming back to BJJ a savage.

What I'm learning/reading

  • Preparing for the TensorFlow Developer Certification Exam – Sometime in the beginning of June I'm going to get TensorFlow certified. A certificate isn't needed but I find I work best chasing after something. The skills are what I want. So I setup a curriculum for myself to go through during May. I'll write about how it went when I pass.
  • Swift code and app development – For the third time, I've come back to learning app development. Why? Because I've got something I'd like to see in the world and I figured why not build it. I'm going through Hacking with Swift's 100-days of SwiftUI (how iOS apps get designed) and it's phenomenal. Why Swift (iOS only) and not something like Flutter or React Native (cross-platform)? I prefer to focus on one thing. If what I build gets traction, I'll hire another developer for the other platforms. I'll release it when the prototype is about 70% done.
  • Food Fix by Mark Hyman (yes, still) – Our food system is fucked. It's making us unhealthy and destroying the environment. Unacceptable. This book lays out the problem (it's bigger than I thought) and solutions we can work towards to fix it. It's reinforced my idea of one day owning a farm. If I want to play a part in helping fix the food system, I've got to do it from the ground up. In the meantime, I've got an idea to try and do it top down with technology (see above). That'll be my next 42-day (probably more) project. Stay tuned.
  • Improv Wisdom by Patricia Ryan Madson – Some of the most sage advice on life I've ever read. All learned from 40-years of teaching improvisation at some of the world's top schools. One of my favourite things to do is take the knowledge from different fields and apply it to my own. And at the end of the day, we're all improvisors. Figuring out things as they come. My favourite so far is right on the front cover. Don't prepare, just show up.

Experiment I'm trying

30 days with zero social media (no browsing, only posting). I started at the beginning of May. So far, so good. I think I'll keep the tradition going, at least once per 6-months. Unless my works require it, I'm off the grid.

Last update: 26 May 2020