Hey everyone, YOU KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS.

Tetris's "I think you want to know about me but I know you don't give a damn" post~! I'm not an active member, so I try to fit in with talking about myself.



Neways, just a few developments about life that may be interesting to some. First off, the internet is AMAZING (I assume you all are aware of this). Modern knowledge today is totally outclassed by what you can access from the internet, universities even, are obsolete because of the fact that you can literally learn what they teach with the vast resources the internet offers. Do get into a university that pushes you rather than one that just wants you to regurgitate X and Y, it'll pay off, trust me. Speaking of university, I feel that university, in general, is VASTLY overrated. The only thing that they have good going for them right now is the prestige that you get with the universities degree, that's it. It's a pathetic situation that wee need to pay thousands of dollars to these damn institutions to prove "what wee know." Dammit.

Also, to anyone considering taking Computer Science, do re-evaluate what you really want to do. Computer Science is a field easily accessed and explained, thus, universities aren't really needed when it comes to this. A smarter use of your university time would be doing something that is not easily accessible to the normal person, like chemistry. That way, if you turn out hating chemistry, you'll still be able to get a job because NOT MANY can do that science without the help of the resources that universities provide. If you want to take computer science in university, you're going to really, REALLY, want to do it. I mean, you're dreaming algorithms before going to sleep. This field will be SWAMPED in individuals who do it on their own time, even then, there will be individuals outside that will rape your spoon because of the nature of the the knowledge and practice pool associated with computer technology (programs can be written from any computer, books gathered online, forums, etc.).

It's all about beating the competition unfortunately, always evaluate your next move, and DO WHAT YOU LOVE!

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I'm really starting to love statistics, it's the only university course I feel that's worth my time this year, and I do strive to achieve 100% attendance in it, it's also fudgeing hard as balls as well.

Enough of that, some of the stuff I've been working on is website design. I know, it's really late to the party (19 years old and trying to figure out how to CSS, durr)but I have to admit, it's a lot of fun! Speaking of fun, it's also ridiculously easy to write up a simple (but snazzy) website, just goes to show that all those abbreviations and what not really just put you off from seeing that the knowledge background involved is like adding 1 + 1.

I'm still far behind anyone here though I assume, but I'm learning and the most important thing is that I'm having fun and abstracting ideas.

Learning should be fun, it's too bad that school totally rapes all the fun out of learning.

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Most important part of the post that you can take away with it, book reccomendations!

CSS The Missing Manual: This guy is a total casual and you can tell, but he really knows his spoon when it comes to web design. Obvious mac user that explains thing in a very babby sort of way, can be frustrating because of his redundancy. Overall it's an AMAZING book for starters, specially people like me, but you can easily just read the first few chapters and really get the hang of CSS. The latter chapters are just "doing stuff that's cool", you'll probably revisit this book when designing your site.

JavaScript the definitive guide: This book is not for beginners, the explanations are long and...just really redundant at times. I feel this author could've cut this book down by half, but at least you're getting anything and everything related to JavaScript. Do get acquainted with Object oriented programming and you can skip to the client-side javascripting. The first chapters are where he tries to teach you programming 101, but makes it ridiculously difficult to understand because conventions are skipped and introduced, if you go with this, you will become a very bad programmer for other languages due to the leeway you're given in java script, it's also fudgeing confusing!. Overall a good book IF you are already a programmer.

I would keep talking, but I want to get back to my books, too tired to type :/

P.S. As much as I strive for coherence, it'll only make my posts a lot longer, so I just jump from one chain of thought to the next, I think you'll appreciate it ;)

(This post was last modified: 19/02/2012 01:55 AM by Tetris999.)

(19/02/2012 01:41 AM)Tetris999 Wrote:  I'm really starting to love statistics, it's the only university course I feel that's worth my time this year, and I do strive to achieve 100% attendance in it, it's also fudgeing hard as balls as well.

How far are you into statistics?

If you still think that after going through some of the true mathematical statistics courses (I mean not the piss easy mean median confidence intervals shit for business students, also not regression modelling aka this-is-how-you-use-statistical-software), then you should really consider a career as an actuary.  It's like the good maths/stats job that pays shitloads (at least over here it does).

(This post was last modified: 19/02/2012 02:24 AM by Assassinator.)

(19/02/2012 02:21 AM)Assassinator Wrote:  

(19/02/2012 01:41 AM)Tetris999 Wrote:  I'm really starting to love statistics, it's the only university course I feel that's worth my time this year, and I do strive to achieve 100% attendance in it, it's also fudgeing hard as balls as well.

How far are you into statistics?

If you still think that after going through some of the true mathematical statistics courses (I mean not the piss easy mean median confidence intervals shit for business students, also not regression modelling aka this-is-how-you-use-statistical-software), then you should really consider a career as an actuary.  It's like the good maths/stats job that pays shitloads (at least over here it does).

It's an "introductory course" for engineers but it's a second year level, because of the integrals/other related math preps. I don't think it's one of the joke math stats either, there's so much that you need to know before coming into this course. It has a lot to do with probabilities and distributions, so I wouldn't know exactly where this lies.

Soul shattering occurrence, I got 50% in my midterm when feeling like I got everything right, very, VERY bad sign. Meh, I guess that's just the nature of the course. Class average was the same as well, double you tee eff.

I did make one mistake though that cost me 10 minutes, fudgeing examinations and fudgeing you over like that.

(This post was last modified: 19/02/2012 02:35 AM by Tetris999.)

(19/02/2012 01:41 AM)Tetris999 Wrote:  Neways, just a few developments about life that may be interesting to some. First off, the internet is AMAZING (I assume you all are aware of this). Modern knowledge today is totally outclassed by what you can access from the internet, universities even, are obsolete because of the fact that you can literally learn what they teach with the vast resources the internet offers. Do get into a university that pushes you rather than one that just wants you to regurgitate X and Y, it'll pay off, trust me. Speaking of university, I feel that university, in general, is VASTLY overrated. The only thing that they have good going for them right now is the prestige that you get with the universities degree, that's it. It's a pathetic situation that wee need to pay thousands of dollars to these damn institutions to prove "what wee know." Dammit.

That's pretty much the only reason I went to Uni.
I presume many Unis realise this nowadays.  With Stanford and MIT offering, not only video recordings of lectures for free online, but classes as well, I think they know well that people really attend for:
1) the degree (or some other esoteric issue like needing to study to have a student visa (this is common over here, may not be the case over where you are))
2) being able to ask questions [not a problem if you are resourceful]
3) like learning in a lecture theatre
4) lack motivation to self educate

(19/02/2012 01:41 AM)Tetris999 Wrote:  Also, to anyone considering taking Computer Science, do re-evaluate what you really want to do. Computer Science is a field easily accessed and explained, thus, universities aren't really needed when it comes to this. A smarter use of your university time would be doing something that is not easily accessible to the normal person, like chemistry. That way, if you turn out hating chemistry, you'll still be able to get a job because NOT MANY can do that science without the help of the resources that universities provide. If you want to take computer science in university, you're going to really, REALLY, want to do it. I mean, you're dreaming algorithms before going to sleep. This field will be SWAMPED in individuals who do it on their own time, even then, there will be individuals outside that will rape your spoon because of the nature of the the knowledge and practice pool associated with computer technology (programs can be written from any computer, books gathered online, forums, etc.).

Computer Science is perhaps more of a 'dry'/abstract subject, like mathematics.  You kinda have to enjoy it to take it, otherwise it gets really boring and difficult for most people.
I still don't think the internet has any serious importance for learning as of yet.  Most people still prefer to go Uni instead - so I wouldn't put something like Chemistry to be more desirable.
But self learning is usually best if you can pull it off, not only for Uni subjects, but for primary/high school, specialty schools etc, and you can learn a far wider number of things than what you could from Uni.
Hell, if you have contacts at a Uni, you could probably even ask the lecturers there questions that you're struggling with, without being a student.

(19/02/2012 01:41 AM)Tetris999 Wrote:  CSS The Missing Manual: This guy is a total casual and you can tell, but he really knows his spoon when it comes to web design. Obvious mac user that explains thing in a very babby sort of way, can be frustrating because of his redundancy. Overall it's an AMAZING book for starters, specially people like me, but you can easily just read the first few chapters and really get the hang of CSS. The latter chapters are just "doing stuff that's cool", you'll probably revisit this book when designing your site.

IMO, CSS isn't worth a book.  You just need a handy reference and you're set.
Syntax is basically

And you just need a reference for valid selector syntax, and a list of properties and corresponding values.
Play around with Firebug's inspect element on random webpages if you need a bit of a taste of what it's all like.

Haven't seen the book, but I'd imagine it just has more detailed explanations on properties/values, which I'd probably just look up a reference whenever I needed something specific.

(19/02/2012 01:41 AM)Tetris999 Wrote:  JavaScript the definitive guide: This book is not for beginners, the explanations are long and...just really redundant at times. I feel this author could've cut this book down by half, but at least you're getting anything and everything related to JavaScript. Do get acquainted with Object oriented programming and you can skip to the client-side javascripting. The first chapters are where he tries to teach you programming 101, but makes it ridiculously difficult to understand because conventions are skipped and introduced, if you go with this, you will become a very bad programmer for other languages due to the leeway you're given in java script, it's also fudgeing confusing!. Overall a good book IF you are already a programmer.

Sounds odd - I thought Javascript was entirely client-side. (okay, I know JS/ECMAScript has been used in some other situations but it's dominant on the client-side).  JS also isn't really that object oriented, though it steals some ideas from Java.
I agree that it's weird to start with some generic language - JS syntax isn't terribly difficult.