I can only assume that that professional setback and personal tragedy heaped upon myself and my loved ones in the last year was inteneded to make 2008 seem like good times in comparison. I have never, in my life, been as sick/anxious/financially distressed/ isolated/ restless as I have in the last 12 months.
So fuck you, 2009. Fuck you right in the ear.
Considering where we started, should I even be surprised we ended up here? As several people have already pointed out, 2009 was merely the [toxic] cherry on top of an orphaned decade we’d otherwise like to forget.
There’s only one thing left to do. Laugh about it:
Traffic lights are coordinated for cyclists. Lights turn green for cyclists before they do for cars. In the busiest bicycle street in the Western world ..
I’ve been studying up on discrete mathematics for a few weeks now and not really understanding most of it. The experience is bringing back memories of middle-school algebra. And then I found this:
Worse, the perpetuation of this “pseudo-mathematics,” this emphasis on the accurate yet mindless manipulation of symbols, creates its own culture and its own set of values. Those who have become adept at it derive a great deal of self-esteem from their success. The last thing they want to hear is that math is really about raw creativity and aesthetic sensitivity. Many a graduate student has come to grief when they discover, after a decade of being told they were “good at math,” that in fact they have no real mathematical talent and are just very good at following directions. Math is not about following directions, it’s about making new directions.
If you’ve ever had one, you already know. There still isn’t anything that
comes close to the build quality and ergonomics of a ThinkPad.
Sadly, I’ve finally put mine out to pasture.
I learned how to use Linux on this laptop. Even after seven years, it still runs like when it was new. But it is finally starting to show its age, and can no longer keep up with the virtualization options
I have on my newer Macbook.
If only Apple could build hardware like this …
So goodbye to the BEST DAMN KEYBOARD EVER.
Let’s face it. I was never that into you to begin with. Our entire relationship has been unrewarding work.
I can’t get through the week without hearing a new story about a violation of my trust.
In the year and a half I’ve been using Facebook, I’ve been careful to upload as little information as I could usefully get away with because I was never sure when Facebook would start selling my personal information to the highest bidder (or accidentally let it slip from their grasp). If Facebook’s business model continues to scare away users from using their service, they’re not going to have much of a future.
But even if I didn’t have to deal with any of this silliness, I’d still be closing my account. I really have tried, but I just don’t see the point of being on Facebook.
It’s been reasonably good for networking, especially finding old friends. But LinkedIn is better for making connections, and unlike Facebook it’s designed for grownups.
I have liked getting short, real-time updates from my friends and colleagues. (These days, I seem to demand that everything be short and concise. I’m either getting old or impatient.) But Facebook still doesn’t support Atom or RSS feeds, and I’ve got enough to do without remembering to visit my homepage throughout the day.
And let’s not forget that Facebook’s default privacy settings are complete crap. I shouldn’t have to devote a weekend to fine tuning that labyrinth.
And then I finally joined Twitter. It’s simple. It’s powerful. It supports syndication. (It makes me wish I had a decent smartphone.) It’s everything I ever wanted to get out of Facebook that was never possible on Facebook.
This week I completed a major stage in my career transition. I’ve finished the first two years of computer science curriculum, as well as some extra material not covered in college courses. Not bad for a year and a half of work.
I still have a lot of work to do, but at least I can pause and enjoy a momentary victory, knowing I’ve covered the fundamentals. But really I’m pleased because I’ll be able to change the way I work and learn from now on. It’s finally time to stop drinking from the fire house and start applying what I’ve been studying.
I got serious about learning to program in late summer of 2007. I was briefly enrolled in a college-level computer science program to get a second bachelor’s, but I had to drop out due to time constraints (among other things). But I kept at it, following their curriculum and exploring topics on my own. Despite the amount of work it’s required of me, and even in spite of the time I’ve spent working in tech support, I remain a techno joy kind of guy:
I’ve invested a lot of time, some of it wasted, just trying to figure out which subjects I needed to cover and which books were worth my time and money. The list below doesn’t cover everything I’ve worked on- just the stuff I found useful. Hopefully this list will help someone else later on. Or maybe I’ll just look back and laugh.
Python Programming: An Introduction to Computer Science
This is the book I started with. It’s a good introduction to computer science concepts, with lots of hands on examples, which I like. I’ve spent too much time reading long books on abstract topics without getting to do anything. Programming is all about getting your hands dirty. If you don’t get to build something, what’s the point?
Python is also an excellent first language. Actually, it’s simply an excellent language, regardless of where you’re coming from.
Big Java
This is the first book I read after briefly going back to school. It covers introductory material on just about every major topic in computer science, and is much more comprehensive than Python Programming. And of course, all the examples are in Java.
In the wrong hands, such an ambitious range of topics could only end in disaster. This book is quite excellent. Cay Hortsmann does a fantastic job covering the material. It’s well written (in a field where far too many books are dry and academic), clear, and concise. Plus, all the examples work!
Learn to Program
I wish I had found this book earlier, when I was still trying to figure out where to start. It’s a compact book, just like Ruby- the language it covers. All the basic concepts of how to program are there, but the author doesn’t waste any time with lengthly explanations. From the very beginning you’re building fun little Ruby apps and then learning what you’ve done.
There’s an updated version coming out soon, but the original is still available for free online.
Head First Object-Oriented Analysis and Design and Head First Design Patterns
People either love or hate the Head First series. There’s no middle ground. The trick is to recognize what this series of books is good for. For high-level concepts, like software design, they’re an invaluable, gentle introduction to a difficult topic. I read Head First Object-Oriented Analysis and Design fairly early, and it helped me unpack some difficult concepts that, at the time, were still brand new.
About a year later I read the Design Patterns book, and I thought the endless repetition and cute diagrams were very irritating. I should have just gone straight to the Gang of Four.
MIT Mathematics for Computer Science
Since my college education jumped from Euclidean geometry straight to calculus and Einstein, a little remedial work was in order. I’ve got some other books I still plan on reading, but this was a good place to start.
There is a lot of good stuff available from MIT’s Open Courseware. And it’s all free.
The Pragmatic Programmer
You need this book. It covers important topics I haven’t seen mentioned anywhere else, never mind collected in one place: documenting your code, version control, using a text editor, learning new languages, and even working with other people.
This is destined to be a classic. Actually, if you consider the way this industry measures time, I think this book is old enough to already be a classic.
HTML & XHTML: The Definitive Guide
This book was dog-eared before I even realized I wanted to learn to program. (Well, not that bad. I take good care of my books.)
I think HTML is the gateway drug to get people interested in programming.
Code is not natural language, which makes the barrier to entry rather high. But then the idea of natural language is rather artificial. English is not natural, but if it’s what you’ve used as a primary means of communication your whole life, it sure feels natural. English is just a code; it has a meaning in the context it constructs for itself. So do all languages, like music, mathematics, and even computer languages.
If it walks the walk ...
Markup languages are easy to start with because they bridge the gap between human and machine language, and web browsers provide WYSISWG instant gratification. And if that clicks, it’s only a small step to discovering what else you can do with a computer.
Anyway, back to the book. You’ll definitely want to have a copy around, but it’s not beach reading. Get your hands dirty writing HTML and CSS, and use this book as a reference.
Android
It’s a Google project, so the documentation is excellent. Even before Google released the source code there was a freely available development kit. I installed the SDK last summer, read through the docs and built the demo apps.
I think I found it at just the right time. I was tired of writing textbook applications that didn’t do anything and eager to build a real project. It’s a really great framework, with everything done in Java and XML.
The Art of Unix Programming
Not to be confused with other how-to manuals, like The Art of War, this book is actually a history of the origins and development of Unix. Even a non-techie shouldn’t have a problem getting through it. The only major flaw, mostly due to when the book was published, is that it misses the emergence of OS X as a Unix desktop.
Programming Ruby and Agile Web Development with Rails
Ruby is a wonderful language on its own; Rails put it on the map. These two books, the project docs, and some curiosity are all you need to get started with one of the most powerful frameworks written in a modern, elegant language. (Am I gushing too much? Sorry; I just really like Ruby.)
New versions should be out next month.
Linux Administration Handbook
I’m still reading this book, and probably will be for quite some time. Although it’s aimed at system administration and covers a lot of topics Linux end-users will probably never deal with, it’s still a great book for anyone who wants to learn more about using their computer.
It’s easy to read, and even funny in some places. There’s lots of good practical information, like how the Linux filesystem works, creating good passwords, differences between the major Linux distributions, and backing up your system. There’s lots of general info that’s just good to know, such as how TCP/IP works. And there’s more admin info than you’ll probably ever need to know, like how an email server works.
Algorithms
There are several good books on algorithms (so I’m told) and I plan on reading more of them soon. I started here because I was looking for a good introduction. The book is actually a collection of lecture notes given over a few years. The notation can get a little dense, and it’s not clear how to go about applying most of it. But this is a subject I’m definitively going to need to spend more time on (probably Knuth next) so I’m hardly an expert.
Unix Programming Environment
This book is a hands-on guide to the Unix philosophy. While The Art of Unix Programming explores the origins and influence of Unix, this book is a show-and-tell guide to the application of the Unix design philosophy: “the power of a system comes more from relationships among programs than from the programs themselves.”
The examples in the second half of the book are all in C, so it’s not a good book to start with. And since its release in 1984, there are parts of this book that are hysterically out of date. And yet so much of the original system, and the design philosophy that built it, is still in use today.
Journalists live very unglamorous lives. That’s why shareholders editors and publishers are doing journalists a favor in laying them off.
With the thousands of layoffs of late, the percentage of journalists leaving the industry is, for the first time, higher than the percentage of readers leaving newspapers.
In fact, editors, publishers, senior editors, managing editors and deputy managing editors have been so busy lately laying off journalists, they can’t even find time to think about strategies of ways to save the newspaper business.
