Developing Inner/Emotional strength on top of character.

You start off in life with Inner Strength - aka Character. Then if, you are lucky, you develop one or two out of Emotional Strength or Intellectual Strength which in turn wrap themselves around Inner Strength – like vines around a pole. The inner strength is drawn from childhood experiences (nurture) and sheer luck (nature). Different people have different iKnowledgenner strengths. One everyday experience for one person, might be an epiphany for someone else.

I was temporarily introduced to the theatre and history by my paternal Grandmother. This showed me there was a lot about the world that was beyond my then current set of experiences. And it created a kernel of intellectual activity.

My parents encouraged me to learn stuff. When I was about 7 or 8 they bought “Tree of Knowledge” magazines. While I didn't understand it, it told me that there is a very big world out of there. This was helped by reading various comics – 2000AD, Commando etc. Later on, in MH the boarding school, I read someone else's copy of Look and Learn. Mainly for the cartoons.

When I was about 8 or so, my Dad started working abroad. He told me I was the man of the house and that I had to look after everyone else. I tried to do so.

In Oman (the Middle East) I used to climb mountains near my home. Nothing but camel-thorn, the bones of long dead goats and baked rocks. A bit like Wordsworth in the Lake District. I also had interests in archaeology and geology but they weren't developed. At one school I tried to attend voluntary geology classes but was asked to leave because my handwriting wasn't fast enough.

At boarding school I was showing a certain level of enterprise – for example setting up a school newspaper in N.I. But still being quite naive in my trust of other people.

Boarding School instilled the strength to carry on with normal life even when my life was falling apart. Strength comes from frequent exercise. In my case, the emotional highs and lows of holidays with my parents (leaving boarding school for the holidays – a high, returning to boarding school at the end of the holiday – a low). This was probably encouraging emotional strength by fire. For years I relied on emotional strength, later on, while working, I developed some intellectual strength.

University – buried myself in course work and running and playing Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D). When things got too much for me in the real world, I referred to it as “reality poisoning”, something I avoided by reading sci-fi books or playing AD&D.

Working after University - About £60 left to me in the 1990s by my Aunt E was spent by me in a postal book club (TSP, I think) while I was living in Berwick. I bought various books – philosophy plus Edwin de Bono's “Book of Wisdom”. This was the first time I'd been introduced to thinking about thinking (call it meta-thinking). Meta-thinking has given me the tools to realise that my thoughts have been disrupted by psychotic episodes – this is called insight. Insight can't stop the psychosis but it makes you easier to treat.

First post-graduate job – LiBRiS Computing, Berwick Upon Tweed. I used to be a bit of a Software Engineering fire brand. Simply must use source code control systems (so I wrote one myself – SCHOLAR – Source Code Held On-line Archival and Retrieval). Simply must not reinvent the wheel – so introduced the use of SCHOLAR and shared modules. And was not particularly tolerant of people who didn't share this vision. The main project I worked on was the LiBRiS (public) libaries search engine, delivering a family of search engine products, supported by a makefile and a source code control system. Other programmers worked on these systems as well so I acknowledge their work here but don't name them for privacy's sake. I left an Easter Egg in the last version of the LiBRiS search engine. Go to enter the password on the main menu and type in credits – it lists the programmers – from 1993-1999 who worked on that software.

Later on, in 2001, I came to the attention of the local NHS trust and I've been with them ever since then. I am much calmer these days and instead of writing search engines I help Contact, a local mental heath charity ( http://www.contactmorpeth.org.uk/ ) in the day to day use of its computers, the use of its internet suite. and work in the workshop where we refurbish old PCs and give them away to Contact's members. In particular we are a heavy uses of FLOSS – Free / Libre Open Source Software. See http://contactmorpeth.wikispaces.com/SoftwareToolkit Contact is given stuff that other people don't want any more. Some of the donated PCs come with obsolete versions of Windows so we've a few options 1) buy a Windows XP license – can't do that 2) scrap the PC for parts or 3) if acceptable to the end-user, install a long term version of Ubuntu Linux.

Different end-users have different needs. Regardless of whether or not we use Windows or Linux, the Software Toolkit page listed above shows we can provide the software at no cost to the end-user.

Still doing computer stuff. Trying to get an old PC working again instead of scrapping it. Looking for a way to use an ipod with Ubuntu Linux - apparently the smart money is on Banshee.

I have scrounged an old PC from Contact - bought some replacement hard disks for it from Joe's. I like it. Have christened it "berners-lee".

Still playing Traveller. Currently running a 10-parter campaign and its quite a demanding commitment.

My life is like Java - the garbage collection is slow :) I've been tidying up the PC workshop, giving away unwanted stuff, been tidying up my house, likewise.

I recently found out a friend from Otterburn ward died recently. My sympathies to her family. They will be playing Radiohead in heaven tonight.

Adopting F/OSS
Here's a thought about the adoption of Free/Open Source software from a Gandhi quote:-

First they ignore you
Then they laugh at you
Then they fight you
Then you win.

Progress
After a lot of effort, I'm getting my concentration back. I still have to pace myself, I still have to sleep a lot. But it is a start.

3rd June 2010

Learning programming languages.

In some job interviews, the candidate is asked “given a rating from 1 to 10, how do you rate yourself given that Bjarne Stroustrup is a 10?”

Here is a breakdown of that scale:-

0 No knowledge

1-3 Novice

1 Done a “Hello World” program from a magazine/web site article.

2 Novice/Tourist – relies on “phrase books” (e.g. O'Reilly's books).

3 Novice – less reliant on books.

4-6 Practised

4 Gaining confidence – books / man pages used for reference.

5 Average – knows the ins and outs of the language/topic.

6 Fluent – above average, becoming an expert.

7-9 Expert.

7 Expert.

8 Lead Programmer.

9 Mentor.

10 Guru. (e.g Bjarne Stroustrup for C++).

Am learning Perl – an old language but a good language to know when doing Systems Administration on Linux systems. At the moment I'm a 3, going on 4.

Role Playing Games.

Traveller books are my self-indulgence at the moment. I'm not running Traveller games at the moment but I hope to do so once I've eventually moved house...

Moving house.

Want to move house but its pretty much a work in progress.

Contact.

Still working on the PC refurbishment project. Most people only know how to use a variant of Microsoft Windows. Am increasingly coming to the belief we should be using Ubuntu Linux instead of Microsoft Windows.

Nintendo DSi

The Nintendo DSi's camera is being helpful as I can show people different parts of my life. The DSi itself is really good. I bought a second hand copy of “Travel Games for Dummies (Sudoku / Solitaire / Chess)” with practice modes and help as well as the games themselves.

I'm still running a Traveller RPG. Just finished one campaign book - Project Steel. We're quite short of players.

I bought a new Traveller universe / supplement book and a campaign book. Its the "Judge Dredd" RPG which builds on top of the Traveller core rules. And the adventure book is "Bad moon rising".

On the computing side, my (7 year old) PC started developing reliability problems. I thought the motherboard was going. Someone from the LUG recommended checking to see if everything that should be firmly plugged in, is firmly plugged in. The network card wasn't in properly. Fixing that seems to have fixed that problem. I use Windows XP to run the itunes software. I use Ubuntu 8.10 the rest of the time. Ubuntu is much more efficient than Windows XP - its easy to say that but look at it this way:- if I was only using Windows XP, I would have had to completely replace the hardware by now.

After much humming and hawing I eventually bought a Samsung NC10 netbook from Argos. I use Ubuntu Net Book Remix on the NC10, mainly for wordprocessing to support my Traveller stuff.

Right now America is arguing over health care reforms. Some of the opinions voiced criticise the NHS.

Well, as a long time user of the NHS I would like to state that while the NHS isn't perfect, I would rather be an NHS patient than a patient in America.

Unsuccessful slogan from the 1990's:-

Go to work on an egg-head.


Unsuccessful love poem from the 1990's:-

Men are from Mars
Women are from Venus
We could have had the stars
But fate came between us

Today, after months of preparation, I ran a game of Traveller using a pre-release of "Book 2 : Prison Planet". It is quite an achievement to get my thought processes going - enough to run a RPG.

Thanks to changes at Contact, I am about to become a (volunteer) Linux Systems Administrator.

2008 was the year of the Babylon 5 : A Call To Arms tabletop wargame.

Been learning a programming language - Haskell - Quite Interesting.

I hope 2009 will the the year of Traveller, a science fiction Role Playing Game (RPG)

I am no longer a vegetarian - limited diet, too much cheese and sauces.

New Year's resolution - eat properly, exercise more.

We'll see what happens.

Google.
Still having problems with Google’s front end to blogs. Think I’ve worked it out for this post.

Cognitive function.
I’ve noticed that compared to some people that my thinking isn’t as rigorous as it could be. This has been going on for a good year or so. I’ve been referred to a specialized clinical psychologist. She interviewed me once a week for three weeks and then produced a report about my thinking skills. I’m now working with my main clinical psychologist to discuss and react to the report.

As an attempt to get some thing going, I’ve bought a Nintendo DS Lite with a copy of “more brain training”. Its proving to be quite addictive. And my thinking seems a little clearer these days.

Fun stuff – Babylon 5 style.
For years now, me and a social worker (call them ASW_RPG for now :) have been knocking around the idea of running roleplaying games. Nothing much came of it. Then I bought some Babylon 5 (B5) RPG (Role Playing Game) stuff along with the core rules for the B5 wargame. We’re going to play it at Morpeth Gaming Club, at the hospital

On closer examination, it is less demanding to play a wargame than it is to run a RPG. Later on, ASW_RPG and I may play the RPG. I’m getting hold of the gaming books and, hopefully one day I will have enough concentration to run a RPG.

I've had a bit of trouble updating my blog, now that Google has taken over. We'll see how well this turns out.

Anyway, take a look at the history site of St George's Park, http://www.stgeorgeshistory.org.uk/site/ - it is quite revealing

Back in the 1980's I had (an almost workstation class computer) called a Sinclair QL. It could multitask (via an operating system called QDOS, later on superseded by Minerva by QView), network and came with a set of free, bundled business applications (the Psion Xchange) had a vibrant user group (Quanta) which had a regular newsletter, a vast library of software available to Quanta members for free.

It took a while (about a 15 years) but I have finally replaced my QL stuff. These days I use Linux, OpenOffice, read Linux Format (and I've started reading some of the tutorials and typing in examples into my PC) and am a member of a local Linux User Group (LUG). I've decided that 2007 is going to be the year in which I learn the OpenOffice suite - get to grips with fancy formatting in Write - maybe even get mailmerge going, get used to Calc and learn some of the commands that are now common in spreadsheets since I learnt Abacus and learn how to do databases in OOo Base.

Emotions.
I didn't realise this until recently but... when you're not too hot emotionally, it can impair your ability to do things and think things through.

Pixies.
I've been put on Risperidone to get over a rough patch. It turns me into a pixie:)

Literature - the opiate of the intellectual.

When I was 20 and going through relatively minor, undetected, psychotic episodes while working at Grand Metropolitan Brewing (Systems), my coping mechanisms were 1) reading and 2) running Dungeons and Dragons games based in the World Of Greyhawk and 3) computing on a 68008 based computer, the Sinclair QL. At weekends, isolated and hundreds of miles away from my family, I would bury myself in my books, writing and computing. Some weekends I would read two novels in a weekend.

Losing and regaining intellect.
2001 saw me at the height of my programming abilities. I was making good progress in learning things that were new to me – C++, STL, generics, ODBC, VCL and the sky (or at least Boost) seemed the limit. I'd been a C++ design geek for some time – reading books and asking questions about what was not only what the language features were but also how to deploy them. So I was well placed to start using C++. About April 2001 saw the beginning of what is either the end or a major power cut in my programming career. I was made redundant and within weeks I was admitted into a psychiatric Hospital with a major psychotic episode. At the time I figured I was safe from those people who had conspired against me and that no-one would look for me in a psychiatric hospital – I was safe. I was put on anti-psychotic medication (Olanzapine)

Do you remember the Jack Nicholson character at the end of the film, “One flew over the cuckoo's nest”? Well, that was me in 2002. A cocktail of medication, schizophrenia and lack of intellectual stimulation meant my intellectual abilities took a nose-dive. Since about 2003 I've been working to regain my intellect. It started with small steps, while on rehab (East Loan) – reading the Daily Mirror, reading Bridget Jones' The Edge of Reason (in about 3 months). I've taken to frequenting local libraries, reading New Scientist, Scientific American, The Economist in the journals section. And I've been reading books and, on occasion, reviewing books. Thanks to New Scientist, Scientific American and some library books, I've got a rough recipe for genius:-

1% inspiration
15% Mentorship
4% Lifestyle (good rest, diet, pacing, planning)
80% perspiration

Thanks to my concerted efforts, I now have the reading capacities I had as when I was 21 years old. That's an encouraging milestone. But there's more to come. I've got to regain my programming abilities by learning new tools. I'm going for a Linux based approach because 1) lots of new things happen there and 2) its cheap. If I can work with the Linux stuff, I can work on the proprietary stuff at a later date. There's a new version of C++ due out before 2010. I want to regain my abilities by then, possibly by working on free/open source software projects and building up a portfolio of work.

A city at war
Schizophrenia is like being a city at war. No matter what hangs in your art galleries, no matter what is debated in your universities, a well aimed bomb (schizophrenia) can bomb you back to the stone age.

Christianity and Science
Some of my friends are scientists, some of them are Christians. Will the two ever reconcile their differences? Taking the science thing further, take a look at
Scientific American Mind I have a courtesy copy of it and have already used it in my fight with schizophrenia.

Conditioning
I am continually striving to get my concentration back. I have discovered that certain environments (like a library) can make it easier to concentrate.

Anniversary
I have been discharged from hospital for two years.

Contact project
I started a project at Contact where we take in surplus computer equipment and pass it on to in-patients, out-patients and their carers.

Holiday
Been to Windermere for a short camping break with the outreach team. It was good to go back to old haunts.

Stigma and lazy reporters
If a person "with a mental health problem" attacks someone, a few things aren't disclosed by the media. 1) They don't say *what* kind of problem they have and 2) quite often the person has not been taking medication for months, they haven't been keeping up with appointments and they haven't been seen by caring staff for months, either.

I'm working hard to avoid DFCFing (Departing From Controlled Flight). People see a thoughtful, rational person but, like when watching a swan glide by, they are unable to see the webbed feet paddling frantically away.

A couple of weeks ago, the new hospital staged a visiting day - before the patients were transferred - on a Saturday.

The new hospital is a big improvement on the old one, even if I recall correctly it cost about £27m via PFI.

However nice it is, it is still a hospital and I will be working hard to make sure I remain out of the hospital rather than in.

Thursday 4th May 2006

I am a creative. It took a while – reading books and writing articles – for me to work that out for myself. At school the *only* subject I was any good at was English – at least until Computer Science came along :)

So what now? I'm laying down technical and story telling foundations.

I've been trawling through Morpeth Library's reference section. In it I've discovered a series, “The elements of fiction writing”. Courtesy of Amazon UK, I've bought 8 books from that series, with a view to developing & running a “Vampire : The Dark Ages” campaign with my social worker, RB.

For technical stuff, I've built up a library of Linux and programming books. I'm working my way through them, reviewing them for the ACCU.

For personal development stuff, I'm reading books about thinking (edward de Bono) and memory.

So I'm just getting started. Who knows what I'll develop in the next 3 to 5 years?