The Geeky Grower

Reading

Managed to get through 11 books in the year – 2 less than last year. I feel like it wasn’t very many but again, I did read a LOT of blog/technical articles. I also started some stinkers at the start of the year that I stuck with for way too long before giving up!

During 2020 I’d like to spend at least 30mins per day in the evening reading instead of watching crap on TV.

Writing

I only published 9 blog posts. Considering at one point I stated I wanted to write one per day that’s pretty poor! As an explanation, particularly around writing about my coding, last year I wrote a lot about the new things I was learning. This year, although I still learnt a hell of a lot I feel like I spent more time building useful things and the work I did didn’t lend itself so naturally as topics for blog posts.

I still want to continue blogging and I feel like I should/want to write more. I’m not 100% sure I can say why(!) but there’s no harm in doing it. I think I’ve proven to myself that writing daily at this stage isn’t acheivable. I don’t think I have found my voice yet so I don’t have enough to say. Maybe a target that will make a significant difference without overwhelming me is to aim to publish once per week. No set topic, just whatever I feel I can write about. Lets see what comes of it!

Coding

I feel really happy with the progress here. My knowledge and skills have grown into a decent toolset. I was really quite productive managing to build some interesting projects with some hackathon wins to validate this. I was stoked with my NuCypher Hackathon win as it felt like a genuine crypto project and had some big name judges. The Gitcoin Web3 World win was also very nice, I felt proud after reading the write up and I’m hoping that could lead to some more opportunities with Aave.

My work also resulted in me getting the oppotunity to partner with Balance Labs on a couple of really interesting projects. Its given me the chance to work on some projects with real life potential and I’ve learned a lot. Fingers crossed this relationship continues and grows.

The goal for next year is to keep growing as a blockchain developer, ideally working for or in collaboration with some more projects like Balancer. The work is so interesting and rewarding, it really doesn’t feel like ‘work’. I want to soak up all I can with one eye on the opportunity to do something myself one day. With other things on the horizon in 2020 spare time might be less available but moving into research full time may be the right option.

Watching

50 watched – which at say average of 2 hours each is 100 hours! Got a feeling it won’t be as high in 2020 🤣

• Mary Queen Of Scotts
• The Cured
• SplitIO – long and boring
• Sloane – enjoyed. Smart political.
• Polar – very violent but good.
• Velvet Buzz Saw – fairly original but not that great
• Fyre – Amusing and very close to the bone!
• Wind River – good. Awesome landscapes and impressive fight scene
• Triple Frontier – mmmh, bit unsatisfactory
• Free Solo – wow. Absolutely amazing, crazy, Impressive and puts my life in perspective
• Arrival – Really good sci fi. And romantic. Smart. Liked it a lot.
• Behind The Curve – Recommended by gbar. Boring. Haven’t even finished watching it yet.
• Dawn Wall – Awesomely crazy. Pursuing an obsession
• Silence – shite shite shite
• The Highway Men – why Woody, why?!
• Black summer – not a movie but best zombie thing I’ve seen in a while. Nice.
• War Dogs – decent and enjoyable
• The Domestics – enjoyable caper with lots of violence
• The Wandering Earth – was actually really well done but I just couldn’t get into it for some reason
• The girl with all the gifts – kind of ok but not amazing.
• The ruthless – one of the worst gangster movies I’ve seen
• The night eat the world – really good zombie movie. Would recommend.
• Bohemian Rhapsody – 100% worth a watch although not as great as everyone says
• Baby driver – average
• Katie – Femal boxer doc. Nice.
• Brawl in Cell block 99 – ooft that was violent! Surprisingly good.
• Mind the gap an American skateboard story – kind of boring really
• Now you see me 2 – mehhhhh
• Dark City – had high hopes but I couldn’t even watch it all 🙁
• True Story – good choice by Elaine
• The Big Hack – Good enough documentary
• The Favourite – Surprisingly really good. Very well done and original.
• Dirty John – meh
• Wine country – harmless but poor
• Knock down the house – good political one
• Once Upon A Time In Hollywood – very enjoyable
• Serenity – series was much better
• American Assassin – not good
• American Factory – Decent docu. Big differences in culture and where is the world going?!
• The Rezort – a not terrible zombie movie
• Farenheit 11/9 – Why is everything so fucked…
• In order of disappearance – Norwegian. Pretty good gangster/revenge movie
• Joker – dark, dark dark
• Terminator 4000 – Enjoyable as a terminator fan
• The Killer – Weird but not too bad
• The man who killed Hitler and then the Bigfoot – original but good
• Leon – Still good but also more weird than I remembered
• The Irishman – Epic. Not as good as Goodfellas but watchable.
• Crampus – Easyish watching but wouldn’t watch again.