Firstly let us discuss what this is - essentially I saw a post somewhere on the internet that presenting updates every two weeks made for somebodies most productive year. Clearly this is anecdotal evidence, but it resonates with me: some of my most productive times were where I self reflected the most (which was more friend orientated at the time, i.e. peer feedback).
There are several ways to describe what this presents:
A regular update about progress since the last update. In this way we can meaningfully compare my expectations vs reality.
An opportunity to present my level of productivity over regular time intervals. It’s good to keep track of your own progress.
The ability to set regular goals to be achieved within the next time frame. Clear and regular goals should help maintain focus.
These updates should be fast and can be rough around the edges, hence being in the “blogs” section despite possibly being a report in nature.
Why?
There are several reasons for this recent idea:
Updates on this site have been lacking. Why have a website if it serves no purpose, even if that purpose it to rant about relatively random topics that nobody cares about? I do need to somehow justify its existence!
My progress has been slipping (or remained slipped) since Christmas. I need to get myself back on track and get the productivity back up.
I have an exceptionally large number of things that need to be achieved in the coming months and very little time to achieve them in. I need to bring some mental clarity to my life.
When?
The plan is to create an update every two weeks and have something tangible to discuss. If two weeks of your limited human life span can go by without any significant happenings - that’s kind of sad. I recently thought about this myself and have come to the conclusion that I’ve spent too long working on things I don’t really care about and don’t really help. I used to reflect more but find myself much more busy these days, this is a project to try and attempt to be become better through forced reflection.
Update
First update, have been quite busy and need to be even more busy to get through this month.
Progress
TODO: Discussion on progress since the last update.
There hasn’t been a previous update, but recently I have achieved:
PhD: A very drafty draft of the second paper. This still needs tonnes of work.
RoboCup: Our team was fully qualified.
RoboCup: We have secured a few avenues for funding.
RoboCup: The debug server system is very almost there.
TODO: Reflect on these points.
Goals
In the next coming update I plan to have done:
PhD: A strong representation of my PhD project in a formal paper format with annotations (for the purpose of explaining it). This shouldn’t take more than two days and goes towards the upcoming paper regardless.
PhD: Final changes made to the experiment and have the results run. This could take a week due to some bugs and the complexity of the system.
PhD: The second paper (a clean-up and advancement on the second paper) ready as a complete first draft. Again, this could take a week because of some large changes that need to be made specifically in relation to the background section and writing up the results.
PhD: Consider additional avenues of funding encase the project overruns. There is a possibility that there is too much to do in too little time and I need to fund an additional year.
RoboCup: Debug system implemented for changing configuration states and motion states. Other people are now waiting on this to be completed as it allows them to work on the robot without needing to SSH into it or attach a screen/keyboard.
RoboCup: WRC proposal finished (if its even possible). We need to get funding before the end up the month in order to get the competition.
RoboCup: Funding secured. In order for our team to compete, we need to begin paying bills in order to get early rates.
RoboCup: Torso redesign locked in to a final revision. Currently the innards don’t fit within the outtards. This requires a reasonably complex redesign in order to get everything in, including the components we have mostly avoided so far.
RoboCup: Legs locked into a final revision. We need to do some major re-work to the screw mounts, ankle positions and hip positions.
RoboCup: Electronics ordered, tested and sent off to a PCB manufacturer. This is the project of another team member but will require some help as its a hand off between a previous member they never really interacted with.
Personal: Lose 1 stone in weight. This should be achievable as I’ll both lose much through water retention and also there is a lot to lose.
Stretch and reach goals:
PhD: Submission of half-yearly project update. This is something that should happen before the end of the month, but we do have the option to push back on if we think we need to.
RoboCup: Game controller networking completed. This is an open source library to be incorporated and tested.
RoboCup: Team networking completed. Again, another open source library that it should be possible to implement.
Website: Get comments system running over HTTPS. Currently the comments are broken for most web browsers due to “security” issues.
Website: Clean-up old controversial articles. Some of the articles no longer represent my ideas and could possibly end up causing me problems in the future.
Website: Clean-up gaming website. Currently it doesn’t work well and is seriously out of date.
Website: Move coffee-archive to this site and re-plan the work to be done. This project has been long neglected.
Random: Build an open source checker for super permutations. This is an interesting problem to sink ones teeth into. Some of the impacts of this research is highly related to TSP. Would be cool if it was browser based and people could easily check their own solutions.
Random: Build out simplified compressor algorithm for super permutations. Without considering the consequences of our actions, compress a series of permutations based on some simplistic assumptions.
Next Update: The 26th looks like a good point for this.
Coffee Space 
