lazar-codes

[lazar-codes]

29/05/2025

Today was my personal day off from school, which was very much needed. This past week has shown me how hard it will be to do school and programming. I've been trying to do at least a LeetCode question a day, but that has definitely not been happening. Except for today! I was stuck on a LeetCode problem (Longest Palindromic Substring) for a few days, and one night I was falling asleep and my brain figured out the logic, and today I finally implemented it and got it! I don't think it's the most efficient way of solving it, but whatever, I did it.

I essentially had 2 for loops, where the outer loop starts at the start of the string and the inner loop stars at the end of the string. If the letters in both positions are the same, then create two pointers, one at each position of the string. Then, while the right pointer is greater than the left and the letters at both pointers are the same, narrow that window. If, at the end of the while loop, the right pointer is less than the left, that means that there was a palindrome, and you can create that palindrome by creating a substring using the indexes of the i and j variables. Comparison of the current palindrome's length with the old palindrome's length is needed too, of course.

I gotta be honest, I've super rusty with thinking like a programmer, but it's really rewarding having things work.

[lazar-codes]

24/05/2025

My summer semester started this week, and I decided to get back into LeetCode and studying programming concepts. I'm back to where I was a year and a half ago; applying for jobs. Now, I get to apply to jobs in 2 different countries, since my uni country has a lot of tech jobs, and my home country is, well...my home. Let me tell you, after 1.5 years of not touching LeetCode or any programming concepts, I feel extremely rusty. Good luck to future me.

[lazar-codes]

16/04/2025

Paired Actors - Log #4

I actually managed to do 90% of what I wanted to do today! I wanted to add a dropdown menu to select an actor, if the current one has the same name as other ones. I did this using the react-select component, because that let me add photos in the dropdown menu (it would be pretty pointless to do a dropdown menu of the actor names without any other identifiable features if the names are all the same). Because list of actors of the same name changes depending on the input, the options had to change dynamically too. That wasn't too hard.

The problem that I'm having now is that I sometimes need to hit the "search" button twice before getting results. I think I know what the problem is, but I'm not 100% certain. So...more debugging on the way. But I'm really happy I got this functionality out of the way! After this, I'll have to style it for mobile, but then I can upload this version and make it usable for the public!

[lazar-codes]

15/04/2025

Paired Actors - Log #3

The semester's ending soon, but my assignments won't stop me from doing my hobbies. That being said, I'm skipping out on my usual Tuesday night socializing session to do a bit of programming. While I want to start other, more ambitious projects, I'm still not 100% satisfied with this web app, and want to at least do 1 more thing. Which in this case, is writing code to handle cases where multiple actors have the same name. Ultimately, I want a small dropdown list to appear if multiple actors have the same name, and the user can click on the specific one if the default actor isn't who they meant.

My first task was to get all the results from the API call into an array, which proved to be harder than I thought, but the solution was so simple. There's a field for each actor object called "known_for_department", and I basically filtered the result from the API call by this field, and only stored the objects whose field was "acting" (aka no directors...sorry). This was my solution after trying to add new objects to an array for about an hour, but without success. So...10 lines of code ended up being just 2. Yay!

The second task was to get some temporary text to appear if there is more than 1 actor with the same name. This wasn't too bad, I just had to check the length of my array of actors and display the text if the length is greater than 1.

The third task was to fix a bug in my code after implementing task 2, where the message "Not the XYZ you're looking for?" remained on the screen when the user typed in a new name (before hitting "submit"), and then when rewriting the same name without hitting submit. After some string manipulation and finally a boolean variable, the message appears and disappears when I want it to.

Next up: add that dropdown menu...I'm not excited for that.

[lazar-codes]

09/04/2025

I spent around an hour trying to fix the background, where it gradients to black instead of stretching out the image if the resulting list is long. I can still kinda see the line dividing the image from the background, but that's ok, it's subtle enough.

I also decided to be kinda to myself and get rid of many repetitive lines of code within an already-long function and just write a function to deal with changing the CSS of the input fields to show there's an error. Now I don't have to repeat the same lines of code thousands of times...instead, I can call the function thousands of times.

Next up; working a little more on error-handling. But so far, I'm enjoying the task of polishing off this project.

[lazar-codes]

6/04/2025

Hi, I'm kinda alive. My semester's nearly over (I have 4 papers due at the end of the month/start of next month), so naturally now's the time to be creative. I was showing off this project me and @codemerything worked on back in 2023, in which you can find the films and shows 2 actors where in together. However, as I was showing off this project to a friend, I found a bug and naturally I had to fix it. And now that I've fixed it, I feel more motivated to get back into programming. After 1.5 years, I finally have an error message for when there are no results. Implementing this felt like it took 1.5 years...I was struggling these past few days but I eventually got it! And now I just want to push all of my papers aside and do some programming...we'll see how that goes. But first, I think I'm gonna tackle some small bugs in this current program, while I've got it on my mind.

Also, I'm so mentally done with school and I just want to find a job. Hopefully it'll be easier to find a job in this country than back home.

[lazar-codes]

14/01/2025 (ignore the fact that I'm posting this after midnight)

My goal for this week was to finish the desktop version of my portfolio website, but I was in the zone and am nearly finished both that and the mobile version! I'm really happy with how it's turning out! Soon, I won't be ashamed to show people my portfolio. Also, once this is finished, I can start creating stuff for practice/fun again.

[lazar-codes]

13/01/2025

Here I was thinking that I'd "quickly" work on my portfolio, since I want to get the desktop version finished before the semester starts again in a week, and, well...I got sucked into the process:

However, I made some solid progress! I have most of the stuff done (the "art" tab is empty for now, and I still need do draw a photo of myself). It took me ages to get the tabs on the top right to change the colour depending on the active tab, but I finally got it! Also, those modals were tough, but I'm glad I finally got them (mostly) finished. I'm really happy with how I did the information in the modals, and I was able to add the information dynamically, given the current project being open. Plus, you can test the project directly in the modal (using the iframe tag), or click the link that'll take you outside the portfolio. I still need to properly style the inside of the modal, but I'm happy with the progress!

[lazar-codes]

08/01/2025

So, funnily enough my dad uses my little Wordle replica quite regularly (both for himself and for his students learning English), and he reached out and asked for me to change the colours so they don't appear dark on his projector. So...I made a dark-mode toggle. It took me about 2 hours, and I actually learned something while doing it; using [data-theme] in CSS and manipulating it with JS. Basically, this lets me declare my desired colours for dark mode and light mode as variables with the same name, meaning I don't need to copy and paste the exact rgb values for every corresponding element, and I don't have to separate each element by "light" and "dark" mode. I can declare my variables and their corresponding colours just twice (one for dark, the other for light) and I can toggle between them using JS.

I also added the functionality of storing the status of "dark mode" in local storage; that way, if the user clicks on the button and refreshes the page, the page will remain the appropriate colour scheme. Yay.

There's a part of me that's wondering whether or not I should add the hidden word to local storage, so it doesn't change on refresh, and instead only changes when the user clicks a button...it's weird to think that I'm touching this project again 1.5 years later.

I also worked a bit more on my portfolio, and this time working with modals. I can open and close them now, but I still need to figure out how to close them by clicking outside of the modal...that's a tomorrow problem. And I still need to re-format the modal.

[lazar-codes]

07/01/2025

I spent nearly 3 hours programming today after not touching VS Code since last March or so. I decided to re-work my portfolio (for the 3rd or 4th time) to make it more professional-looking, and I'm really liking how it's turning out. I spent a good amount of time googling the basic CSS stuff, because naturally I've forgotten a lot, but it was still fun!

[lazar-codes]

New Year, New Update!

Here I am, sitting in my living room a day after the New Year, and I'm suddenly bursting with inspiration and motivation! Ironically, I had no motivation yesterday (on Jan 1st) to do anything or set any goals, but I suppose one day late is no problem.

Edit: It's now Jan 6th and I have been falling asleep at 3am every night because my brain is on fire with new ideas for projects, both with regards to art and programming. Literally, last night I was dozing off (at 2am...shh...) and I got a programming idea that I can so clearly visualize. It took all the strength in the world not to open my laptop and start coding, though I did sketch it out on my iPad. Maybe that'll be the project that gets me back into programming. I can't promise that I'll be posting updates here, because I'll be honest, sometimes posting here feels like a chore rather than something fun. I'm also just doing things as I feel like it, now that it's my winter break and the next semester starts on January 20th. It's been very freeing to just do whatever I want.

[lazar-codes]

Why did the programmer quit his job? … .. . He lost his drive.

[lazar-codes]

I submitted my final assignment for this semester (a literature review on Generative AI and its impact on artists), and I'm flying to Scotland for a few days tmr with one of my housemates. I'm exhausted, and I already can't wait until I'm back to just rot in bed

[lazar-codes]

reblog with a book that you have read this year and would like to suggest 📚📖📗📑📔🍵☕

[lazar-codes]

Random Rambles, part 2

It's nearly 10pm on a Tuesday, and while I'm supposed to be doing school-work, I have some thoughts. So here we go!

School

I'm nearly done with my first semester of my Master's in Human Computer Interaction, and I'm excited to complete it. This semester has been tricky, and it's mostly because lectures usually start at 3pm. Sleeping in is really nice, but my sleep schedule is super messed up because I do schoolwork after class, and I want to have some time to do things for myself (read, Netflix, or draw), so I end up staying up until 1am. I did do some volunteer stuff this weekend and so far it has fixed my sleep schedule (working in a festival for the weekend ensures that I'm wiped out by 11pm), but that can easily get messed up again.

My classes themselves are alright, they just require a lot of reading. A lot of the content of my classes is what I covered in my undergrad as a health science student, which is odd. Although, while I took a UXD course in my undergrad, it focused on "task-centred system design", whereas now we're doing "user-centred design". In fact, my group project involves building an app to its hi-fi prototype stage. We're finishing up the low-fi prototype and I'm happy with how it's looking. I might even take it a step further on my own and program it...we'll see. It's a little intimidating to work on this project, mostly because all of my groupmates have industry experience with graphic design and I don't. But hey, I'm learning.

Related to school news; I'm taking a class called "Data and Society" and it's the most depressing class I've ever taken, but I really like it. The themes of this class are essentially that big corporations are taking our data and using it for advertising purposes, or for targeting people, or for separating people. Basically, our data is being used for bad, and rarely for the improvement of society. And the more papers I read on this topic, the more tired I am of being in this type of world. I'm already taking a step back from social media and such (I basically only use it to post art), but there's a part of me that now really, really, wants to live in the mountains away from it all. Of course, I'd still like my Netflix, but the rest can go away. 

That being said, my classes have certainly made me want to look into stuff like data/media preservation, and ethical data collection and such. Does it feel like fighting a losing battle? Yes, but I still want to try. 

Coding

I finally logged onto Github after months. Will I get back into programming soon? Probably not, though I'm tempted to do Advent of Code to dip my toes back into it. Or maybe I'll get into app development...we'll see. Like I said, I have a project for school that I can code in the future, so I might do that. 

Ok, I need to get back to school-work. Those papers aren't going to read themselves.

[lazar-codes]

I love that now that I'm back in school, I have the motivation to do everything except for school. Read a book (or 3)? Draw so many pages/illustrations? Learn how to use gouache? Learn how to animate? Continue watching that tv show I've been putting off? Finally finish the video game I really only place once a week? Yes to all. It's like I can't go out and do stuff in public, because I feel like I should be at home doing school-work, but since I'm home I can do all these other things, right...?

[lazar-codes]

It feels really weird to be back in school after a little over a year. What do you mean I have to continue to do schoolwork after coming home? Or that I can't do my weekly extracurricular activities because I have to do schoolwork? Also, why am I so tired when I literally just had 1 class for the day and woke up at 10, when 2 months ago I woke up at 6:30am for 4 days and worked 8.5 hours, yet didn't feel tired then? Anyways, being back at school has been interesting, to say the least