WarmShape

Wow, what a week! We are in a global pandemic that’s got most things shut down for the time being and we don’t know how long it will be like this. Might I suggest checking out a web application I made? I’m pretty proud of it; it’s only been two months since I started bootcamp and already I’m able to deploy a working application?!

Shuffle is a visual horoscope generator and even though it is in its infancy, I’m super proud of the work I did with my group. I learned a lot about working remotely and with new platforms. I also got to flex the soft skills I learned at Evergreen regarding collaboration, working across differences, personal engagement, linking theory with practical application, and of course bringing together a bunch of weird stuff to make a cohesive idea that is unique yet approachable and relatable.

I’m not gonna lie, this week of working on Shuffle (while getting used to being a remote student and using Zoom for EVERYTHING) was very tough. It was a group project so I was communicating with my team through Jitsi, Slack, Zoom, Trello, and Github. Our assignment was to come up with an idea (on the spot in class!), figure out which APIs we wanted to use (having just learned about APIs), and get an okay from the teacher to move forward. We had to fight a little for our idea because it doesn’t solve a “real world problem.” But during these covid-19 times it seemed ridiculous to make a “find a restaurant in your town” or local meetup app. I figured everyone would do a recipe app (two groups did). But more than anything I wanted it to be F-U-N and something lots of people I know would want to use.

I immediately took the lead on front-end, layout, and design. In four hours I got the look of it ready to go using HTML and CSS and some Javascript; and my awesome teammates made it functional. I had a blast making it and problem-solving the bits and pieces. I’m really getting somewhere!

Through this process we realized there aren’t many good horoscope APIs out there, or really many reliable APIs in general. Maybe we’re just bad at searching APIs? The exciting thing for me is that we’re going to learn how to build our own API in the next few weeks. I can’t wait. Gonna be brainstorming on ideas for that in the next few days.

More and more as I go along I realize that my actual dream job, or the closest I can imagine to it now, is in web design. There’s no way I’m just a logic-driven programmer. The idea of competing with tons of bootcamp grads to get a job in tech and then working in an office is not appealing to me. I want to blend all my strengths, skills, and passions into a unique position. Sometimes I think one will have to be created for me. I have no idea what it would take to get there, but here I am, putting one foot in front of the other.

I know I love design, color, texture, textiles/weaving, domestic life, illustration, percussion, and pipe organs. What does this add up to, LOL.

Female Orgasn

In other news, but somehow related to everything else I’m doing/thinking/making, I’m working on a series of music videos for organ songs that I’m making with my Roland keyboard, which has tons of organ sounds. The project is called “Female Orgasn.” Here’s my first one, it’s the intro and is called “Female Orgasn #1.”

This vid was shot on my dumb phone and I’m fine with it. The next one will surely be a thundering, minor-chords-only number, and the video will be of me weaving cloth. It’s already in the works, stay tuned!

Back to tech talk: part of me can’t believe I invested in this bootcamp when programming and developing might not *actually* be my thing, but another part of me knows this is a huge, powerful step my path, and that maybe it will be the hardest part? And learning Photoshop and Adobe and stuff later will be a breeze in comparison? Either way it’s a bold move and I’m sure to feel some sense of accomplishment and confidence upon completion. I don’t regret signing up for this at all, and besides, there’s no room to get fussy about that now. I just have to keep doing my ideas, stay excited about them, be diligent even when I’m not excited, take care of myself, and follow where the path leads. The only way I’ll know where it goes will be to look back at it later and see its twists and turns, and how far I’ve come.

I spent the morning working with an API called Hexbot, which contains all 16,777,218 hex color codes between #000000 and #FFFFFF. I am very new to APIs but color is my jam, so I thought it would be fun to try to render random color blocks in the browser on a button click. Although everything was logging to the console just fine, it took me all night and all morning to get them to display, and when they did I practically screamed with joy. I am now four times more excited to be a computer programmer! Here’s a vid of what my application does:

Here’s the repo for this project if you’d like to see it:

This is Ahree Lee. Her work is exciting to me; it explores the relationships between weaving, binary code, secret code, women’s labor, and domestic duty. Stuff I started really exploring in college.

For the whole article on the work of Ahree Lee, click here.

There is a global pandemic in its nascent stages in the US, and we are advised to stay at home. This is a sad state of affairs for many people. I’ve always enjoyed being at home and though I don’t like the circumstances, I do love being here and having time and space to work on things that I’d forgotten about or didn’t think I had time for. I’m thrilled to devote some time and attention to weaving again, and I got out my new, unopened gouache paints set and studied the color chart along with its “key codes.” I drank a lot of coffee this morning and got excited by the way my hexbot color generator, the color coding chart, and the weaving (binary code) all work together. Color is one of the most amazing things our reality has to offer. Ubiquitous and free for everyone with sight. Often times I think it might be what I’m living for?

Have you ever heard of “core rope memory”?

WELL.

Ever since my junior year at The Evergreen State College in 2014-15, I’ve been pretty obsessed with the “software as hardware” idea. For example, weaving as binary code/early computer, and “core rope memory,” a type of computer programming that acted as the read-only memory for Apollo space missions in the 1960’s and 70’s. Margaret Hamilton, dubbed the “Rope Mother” was instrumental in the software development of the six moon voyages between 1969 and 1972.

From https://airandspace.si.edu/ :

“In a male-dominated field, Hamilton became known as the “Rope Mother,” which was an apt description for her role and referred to the unusual way that computer programs were stored on the Apollo Guidance Computers. Like all digital computers, they stored information in binary arithmetic—as sequences of ones and zeros.”

Core rope memory is BEAUTIFUL.

“Women’s work” is ROCKET SCIENCE.

I’m so proud and excited to be an aspiring web developer. So grateful for the women who created the early path.

Part of me can’t believe I’ve begun going down this path but here I am, and I’m ready. What’s gonna happen??

Hello! This is my first Warm Shape blog post. I’ve heard that when you are going through coding bootcamp it’s a good idea to blog in order to reinforce what you’re learning, so here I am!

Very excited to be starting this path. It’s super challenging and frustrating, and I’ve definitely been near tears during class, feeling lost and maxed out, but something tells me that feeling is indicative of a real change, of real learning!

Above is a screenshot of one of the pages I’m working on for a homework assignment. It’s the contact page. I can’t decide if I love it or not. Gonna close this computer and get fresh eyes on it later. Thanks for visiting!

Linus