training – Observations from Uppsala

“100 Ways to Improve Your Writing”

Just before Christmas I stumbled on a most excellent little book: “100 Ways to Improve Your Writing” by Gary Provost. I wish I found it earlier, as it has been available for almost forty years. It is a little gem of good advice on how to write better (and how to communicate better general).

Blog – Damn the Torpedoes, Full Code Ahead!

I have recently got back to developing training labs for the Simics simulator (and related technologies). During the process of developing a new accelerator model using as many of the latest frameworks and APIs as possible, it was basically guaranteed that I would hit some bugs and unexpected behaviors. That is a natural part of and benefit from creating training materials in the first place. It also provides a good illustration of two fundamentally different ways to look at software development. One is to play it safe and get things done in known ways, and the other is charge ahead, try the unknown, and see what happens. Damn the torpedoes, bugs are a benefit. No bug reports, no glory. In this post, I will share some recent examples of just coding ahead and breaking thing.

Adjusting to Work-from-Home: Remote Live Simics Training

In the current world-wide lockdown due to Covid-19, many things that were done in-person in the past have to become virtual. The Simics® New User Training that we run at Intel and with our customers and partners is no different. In normal times, we run in-person classes around the world, but that is not an option right now. Thus, we shifted to running remote live classes as a substitute for the time being. This blog shares some of my experience from running remote live classes.

We changed the cover page of the Simics training to symbolize the change.

The Benefit of Live Teachers (Applied to Myself)

I have been spending quite a bit of time in recent years developing training materials and doing trainings for Simics. There is always a discussion on how best to do training, in particular between live sessions with actual trainers and offline video and other self-study resources. I am a firm believer in the value of live training, and during our recent winter vacation up in the Swedish mountains I made myself provide a perfect example of the value of a teacher. I took a skiing lesson.