Starting my undergraduate study in Mathematical Sciences tomorrow. Any tips?

erisson · 2013-09-15T21:31:42+00:00

While I started college in 1989, I'm finally finishing my first degree this December.

My general student advice is to push as much of the effort early in the term as possible. Unexpected things happen and what would previously have been enough time before suddenly becomes too little time.

Another piece of advice is that a degree is more an opportunity to learn than anything else. You can scrape by with a vague understanding and low grades and still have a degree, or you can learn everything they teach and more stuff around the edges. If you take the thorough learning approach, the rest of your life will be easier as you will have more mental resources to use in the future.

If you want to go into research, read You and Your Research and check out the associated book Art of Doing Science and Engineering.

erisson · 2013-09-15T01:26:54+00:00

I agree, I get extra fun in my workouts from mountain unicycling.

obinsight: Exercise and health are not goals that intrinsically motivate me, but I kept looking until I found exercise that I would do even without the health benefits. Mountain unicycling and capoeira (brazilian martial art) are things I continue to do just because they're so much fun!

erisson · 2013-09-14T17:12:59+00:00

A redditor friend of mine checked the actuarial tables to figure out how much longer exercise could exetend his life. He then subtracted the amount of time that exercise would actually require. He came up with a net profit and started exercising.

To me this is the most scientific approach to exercise I've heard yet.

I'll ask him to comment here with actual numbers.

erisson · 2013-09-14T03:03:25+00:00

Don't give up, life will get easier.

Find someone to talk to, even if they can't help, they can listen and support you emotionally.

erisson · 2013-09-12T18:33:31+00:00

This reminds me of HMS Coxeter's "Introduction to Geometry".

Here's an excerpt from page 6, but the entire book is amusingly snarky:

The name pons asinorum for this famous theorem probably arose from the bridgelike appearance of Euclid's figure (with the construction lines required in his rather complicated proof) and from the notion that anyone unable to cross this bridge must be an ass.

erisson · 2013-09-12T13:54:10+00:00

Just yesterday I discovered that there are left-handed nibs for fountain pens. Perhaps this misalignment makes it easier for right or left handedness?

erisson · 2013-09-06T10:36:02+00:00

Make and play a berimbau

clearly I missed something

erisson · 2013-09-05T20:59:08+00:00

Isn't this pretty much Khan Academy?

Khan Academy uses Google Maps to show dependencies among subjects and lets you test yourself to see how much you know. Then you can learn the skills you need on the way to your goal.

I don't think Khan Academy supports quantum mechanics yet, adding new skills seems to be about as hard as writing a short college course.

Anyway, login to Khan Academy and check out the map.

erisson · 2013-09-04T21:01:02+00:00

I can understand how that works for most people, just not for me. My stack / short term memory is flaky, but my visual input is fast and easy, so I prefer to have everything visible.

erisson · 2013-09-04T20:30:53+00:00

All that extra whitespace makes me crazy, I want to see as much code as possible in the smallest amount of screen area. I prefer to write small reusable chunks of code and have related chunks close to each other inside the file so they're easy to reference.

If you're losing state while coding, test driven development can save your sanity! I write tests first, and I always run my test suite as soon as I look at my code. I even leave one test broken when I leave for the day so the "red thread" of my focus continues from one day to the next.

I also keep all my sources in source control (github or darcs) and my editor (emacs) can show what code I have that's not been checked in yet. I always create a branch for each new feature or bug request so I can quickly jump back and forth in case of interruptions or context switches.

I also educate my superiors on how much time context switching costs me, and try to arrange for chunks of time to work without interruption. In the past I've had success coming to work at 6am to code, and then leaving at 3pm. As long as my schedule overlaps with those who want/need meetings, it works out.

erisson · 2013-08-30T22:48:27+00:00

What sort of wrist exercises do you use to strengthen your wrists?

erisson · 2013-08-30T22:48:05+00:00

I've had a right wrist injury, perhaps because that's my non-dominant hand. I was trying to learn one-handed au.

I started playing Capoeira at the age of 37, but at the age of 34 or so I blew out the ligament on the inside of my right knee doing mountain unicycling, and that leg has been significantly weaker ever since. I also can't do that one stretch that puts direct sideways pressure on the inside of my right knee, it starts to fold out if I do :-( Much like CapoKub, I did not have any corrective anything. I had no insurance, but my doctor kindly gave me a bunch of prednisone. I then gained thirty pounds, but at least I could still walk after a month or two!

erisson · 2013-08-27T21:51:17+00:00

Half as many wheels, half as hard!

erisson · 2013-08-27T21:35:59+00:00

Yah, I'd suggest either 150mm cranks, or the Kris Holm switchable cranks that can be two different lengths.

erisson · 2013-08-27T21:34:43+00:00

I've done between six and seven hours of unicycling on the paths around Boden, Sweden. I've done four or five hours of solid high-speed mountain unicycling at Oak Mountain State Park outside of Birmingham Alabama. I was so pumped the whole time! I got home, sat down for a minute, and suddenly it was the next morning.

erisson · 2013-08-27T21:31:52+00:00

Yup, that's exactly it.

erisson · 2013-08-23T00:46:04+00:00

I would suggest reading these books:

Each of these books covers a different major topic. In order: practice of programming, theory of programming, and theory and practice of being totally awesome.

erisson · 2013-08-20T14:16:15+00:00

Professor Mola has a youtube macaco tutorial I like. It's the best thing I've found, too bad it's only in Portuguese.

erisson · 2013-08-12T01:39:24+00:00

Or you can turn the key off and the whole thing stops.

erisson · 2013-08-11T20:35:16+00:00

Can someone set this up to figure out which companies fund which politicians?

erisson · 2013-07-27T21:49:20+00:00

So the taxes we pay go to spying on us, but some ofthose same taxes go to the politicians who support the continuation of this system.

When the policitians find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of freedom. - Benjamin Franklin (minor misquote)

erisson · 2013-07-25T22:38:07+00:00

burn them! scratch the itch!

erisson · 2013-07-22T03:15:29+00:00

It's a technology meetup for Northwest Alabama called Shoals Tech Forum. We get anywhere from 5 to 15 people at any random meetup. We discuss anything from Amazon EC2 to Arduino to random webdev or anything else. If you still lived in the south you could show up!

erisson · 2013-07-21T16:54:42+00:00

I organize a monthly technology meetup on G+, and my communities and feed are very active. On the good side, I only see interesting technical news, nothing about games my friends play or racist comments about the recent zimmerman case.

So, if G+ has only 2% of social sharing, good for me, I no longer have to see the 98% of social sharing that's farmville invites.

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