The pain of being multilingual.

 I last experimented with the LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP) about 2015. So, when I received a review copy of the book "Learning PHP, MySQL and JavaScript" (6th Edition)- and its sister title "Learning MySQL" (2nd Edition) I knew that I would have months of study ahead of me.

Being multilingual in computer languages and retaining that knowledge is difficult. One way to retain this knowledge is to have small pet projects in these languages.

That is OK. But what if you are learning a language from scratch? I am currently becoming acquainted with PHP 8.0 and the process of learning another way to handle variables and loops is difficult to retain that knowledge as you sometimes end up wanting to write stuff in the new language in the style of a more familiar language. It isn't an easy problem to crack but this year I bought some revision flash cards from WH Smiths. I started writing questions on the bash scripting language on some of them. When these books arrived, I was reluctant to make the effort to capture questions and answers on PHP - it is a tedious process, to say the least - things that will clarify "How do I do variable interpolation in a string literal in this language?".

I think this approach is going to pay off, with the Questions and Answers acting as an aide-memoire.

Spoons and Willpower

 Some people find life more of a challenge than others. Just simple tasks like getting out of bed, household chores, preparing food, socialising, holding conversations, working all drain willpower.

The idea of "spoons" is that the amount of willpower someone has is measured in spoons, at the beginning of the day. Some spoons are specialised - for instance there might be a limited amount of spoons available in the day for conversations. For more details, click here.

And, if you want tips on conserving spoons, click here.

 Well, I've had two doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine and I can recommend getting vaccinated.

The risks of taking medication

 For a long time, now, people with mental health problems have been faced with a dilemma: take medication that could have really drastic consequences or to forgo that and become extremely unwell.

Now, the whole population has a similar dilemma: take a Covid vaccine or not?

YouTube channel about schizophrenia and schizo-affective disorder

 There is a really good YouTube Channel called "Living Well with Schizophrenia".

Take a look at it here... Living Well with Schizophrenia.

Being mentally unwell.

 Being mentally unwell isn't a hobby or, usually at least, is not like the end of an episode of EastEnders. It is being chased by your demons. Feeling worthless or worse. You sit, lost in inescapable thoughts, time whirring on. Minutes feel like seconds. Crying dry tears. Or sitting, with eyes leaking. Hopefully, you will have retained enough of your sanity to employ coping strategies. Being patient. Eventually things clear. The intrusive thoughts evaporate. The voices go silent. Now you can face the world.

Effects of lockdown

 Well, it is now August. Contact is still closed and my only means of tackling isolation is the Internet.

I am having to use all the coping strategies I had to learn when I left Hospital. It isn't easy and even the smallest of problems seems a huge deal - resulting in anxiety, paranoia and hearing voices. So far I've been able to keep it together.... just. Here's hoping that you, the reader, is coping with this, too.

Well, the whole country is in lockdown, nearly everywhere is shut and Contact is closed as well (for the moment).

Been taking the time to do technical stuff. Finished a couple of C++ book reviews. Upgraded an old computer's memory (that took a lot of effort). The voices came back for a while - sometimes helpful, giving me technical advice, sometimes paranoid.

And my right heel has started to play up, making walking a bit painful.

Leaving the EU

Well, Brexit is continuing. I wonder what will happen in the future.

An update

Despite all the political and economic turmoil, I feel OK. Yes, there are things to worry about or plan for but, within myself, I am OK.

I spend a lot of time doing technical studying and, thanks to some generous book presents from family, will be refurbishing my low-level skills.

Here is a list of the old and the new that I hope to replace it with...

680x0, 80x86 assembly language -> x86_64 assembly language
QMON -> GNU gdb and ddd
GST macro assembler -> GNU assembler or NASM
C68 -> GNU C
Sinclair QL running Qdos -> Standard hardware running Ubuntu Linux
Qjump Pointer Environment -> GTK+

I will be studying the manuals for various tools (such as GNU Make and GNU gdb), will be using other technical books but it looks like Igor Zhirkov's book "Low-Level Programming" will be key in integrating the different tools to do something useful. For C programming there are the usual suspects plus Klemen's 21st Century C and Krause's GTK+ Development.

Awareness.

Imagine if your memory played tricks on you. That some events in the past you suddenly remember happening. And then that people in the present are conspiring against you. And only you are fully aware of what is going on. That is psychosis - at least my experience of it.

Then imagine you can remember not remembering those events. That you have a diagnosis of Paranoid Schizophrenia. And that there is a very real possibility that reality and you have parted company. That is what it is like when you have some idea that you've gone through a bad spell.

As anyone who knows me knows, I am dead set against Brexit. Because of this, I want a "People's Vote" on the final deal.

On the other hand, whilst life isn't perfect, I am getting help with my schizophrenia and, all things considered, life goes on.

The Curse of the Brown Envelope

Anyone on disability benefits will tell you that getting a letter from the DWP can be quite a stressful experience.

I had a letter this time last week from the DWP about ESA. I utterly panicked. Fortunately my CPN was able to have a chat with me, this week. Apparently most relapses these days are linked to benefits issues.

My brain went into crisis mode. The "good voices" were guiding me and pushing the "bad voices" out of my head.

After speaking to Welfare Rights and having a follow-up call from the DWP, I am not panicking any more.

Bibliotherapy

For years now, I have been studying technical books in Contact.

It was only about half a year ago that I got back into reading fiction at home.

Bibliotherapy is the practise of reading to preserve or improve mental health. There is a 20 minute BBC talk about it here.

A video you might find useful.

I've watched this video twice. As someone with Schizophrenia, I think it is a pretty accurate account.
https://www.rethink.org/get-involved/rethink-schizophrenia…

Of all the symptoms - "difficulty concentrating" - is the one thing I've been able to have some success with. One indicator that supports that is my review of the "Effective Ruby" Live Lessons video files in this month's CVu magazine. It took a lot of time and effort.

When you mix three of the symptoms together - difficulty remembering, paranoia and delusions - you have a potent mixture that can make day to day living a struggle - you are never quite sure what other people have said to you - did you imagine that someone is annoyed with you? - are they plotting something? - there must be a conspiracy against me. And you start to question your own behaviour as well. You then start remembering conversations that probably didn't happen, making things even worse. And eventually you realise your doubts are unfounded and just carry on.

A day in the life of a Womble - August 2017

Sometime back, Jean's computer failed. The Computer Wombling Project had recently been given a tower PC so that was tested, the hard drive wiped and lubuntu Linux installed and passed on to Jean.

Spent a good amount of time last night and today trying to prod Jean's old computer to work - resorted to scavenging parts today.

I have a device, which I call the "Octopus" - actually a "USB 2.0 to SATA/IDE adapter with power adapter" which I used to connect the scavenged hard drive and DVD writer. I gave the hard drive a new partition table and formatted the hard drive (ext4, of course).

The computer doing the formatting etc is a Dell Latitude CPx J650GT laptop. It is a 2003 era device (used sudo dmidecode for that info) and I use it to check devices I am not completely sure of. Waste not, want not and all that. Hostname is verne, user name is jules - so the command prompt reads "jules@verne".

I used GPartED on the scavenged laptop to create the new partition table and partition and as a result the new partition was owned by "root". I tried using sudo chmod and sudo chown and sudo chgrp. Eventually, after a certain amount of time, the laptop grudgingly agreed that a non-root user could write to the drive.

Monday night at St George's

Was at St George's on Monday evening. As I walked in I noticed a number (about 7) Police vehicles, with Police staff sorting out their clothing. Asked what was happening and they said they were sorting out their clothes. So I went into reception and started reading "The Ruby Programming Language" as usual. Later on I looked up and a group of Police in riot gear - stab vests and transparent shields - Roman style (rectangular) and Pict style (Round) flanked by Police with yellow hi-vis jackets on. They headed off to one of the wards so I resumed reading. After a few hours the Police vehicles disappeared so I presume it finished OK.

Political satire and disability.

I was watching last night's "The Last Leg".

I was wondering, what would be the right name for a similar programme that has people with mental health problems as presenters?

* The Last Neuron?
* The Last Synapse?
* The Last Med?

Employment

Many companies ask for people with vision. They are not too keen on taking on people who have visions.

If people want to experience what it is like to work whilst experiencing a mental illness, I suggest they take medicine with unfortunate side-effects - e.g. increased appetite - I once ate a cauliflower cheese meal in a hospital - despite hating cauliflower. And a sedative. Try getting in to work by 9am every weekday on public transport (because you can't take the meds and drive a car) and under the influence of said medication.

I.T. common sense

Hope you haven't been too put out by the WanaCry ransomware attack.

As ever, the cheapest ways to do this is:-
* Ensure staff are trained well. Especially the non-technical staff.
* Ensure all computers have their software regularly updated with maintenance/security updates (aka patches).

The term "patch" comes from the Open Source community on the Internet.

Software written as scripts (Basic, Ruby, Perl, Python etc) are provided in source code form and require another programme, an interpreter to run them. Here is an example programme in Ruby:-

#!/usr/bin/env ruby
require 'Qt'

# For info on using Qt from Ruby programs, see my file qt-notes.txt

app = Qt::Application.new(ARGV)

hello = Qt::PushButton.new('Hello World!')
hello.resize(100, 30)
hello.show

app.exec

So... if someone wanted to improve the above programme, they would edit the above programme on their system. They would then put the original script and the updated script through a programme called diff, that lists the changes that have been supplied. Then the original author can take those patches and make the changes by running the original script and changed script through a programme called patch. Hence the name "patch" :)

Software written in compiled languages (C,C++ etc) can be provided in source code form. Here is an example:-

/*
 Hello Concurrent World example program.
 This text here is part of a multi-line comment
*/


#include <iostream>
#include <thread>

void hello()
{
    std::cout<<"Hello Concurrent World"<<std::endl;
}

int main()
{
    std::thread t(hello);
    t.join();
}

You would run the above software by running it through a compiler, That takes the programme text - and compiles it into binary file(s) suitable for a particular hardware architecture and you run that.

Given the source code, however, someone can improve the software by making changes and again use diff and patch to provide the original author with their proposed changes.

Software would be shared by people on hardware platforms with wildly different architectures and operating systems.

When people talk about "patching" Windows systems they are typically referring to downloading binaries. Someone, somewhere, will have the source code, will have identified and fixed bug(s), compiled it into binary and made it available via Microsoft's Window updates facilities.