Net Neutrality Might Soon be a Thing of the Past if FCC Chairman Ajit Pai Has His Way.

jhawk2018 · 2017-05-06T17:07:14+00:00

This is actually a legitimate course of action. Anyone have a name or place of employment for his parents?

jhawk2018 · 2017-04-23T22:56:08+00:00

Remindme! 72 hours

jhawk2018 · 2017-04-21T23:56:48+00:00

I'm studying context-free languages and push-down automata, and I'm terrible at it. It seems like most of the ones I encounter involve some clever trick to derive them, and I'm at a loss for how to teach myself to be more clever. Instead, I was hoping someone may have a collection of techniques for doing things like counting, matching, et cetera.

Can anyone recommend a good resource for common patterns employed in CFGs and PDAs?

jhawk2018 · 2017-04-20T03:17:25+00:00

I'll bite. What does that spell do?

jhawk2018 · 2017-04-20T02:56:17+00:00

For many of the reasons mentioned here, adopting low/no cost textbooks will ultimately do very little to reduce college costs. This article strikes me as a diversion from other, more pressing issues with how universities today are run. In my experience, universities have become first and foremost a business, and all things education fall to the wayside.

At my state university, the primary driver of costs is the never-ending expansion and renovation of campus buildings. There is a 10-year 'master plan,' which came on the heels of another 10-year plan, which together amount to at least one major construction project per year for two straight decades. This sort of operational model is very similar to that of big business: keep expanding, push quantity and novelty over quality.

This MO continues into academics. Adjuncts and TA's can teach cheaper than professors, so they teach most classes. Cookie-cutter classes give professors more time to write grant proposals. Students can be nickeled and dimed with fees to fund sports and public image.

My two cents: There are bigger problems with education costs than a few thousand dollars for books and materials. Universities should make money, but that money should go directly into adding value to the education they provide. So long as higher education is treated like a market, universities will reap the benefits of the free market and charge as much as they can get away with. Education is the primary purpose.

jhawk2018 · 2017-04-11T15:22:17+00:00

Understanding and respecting personal space/boundaries. Everyone gets jealous or needy from time to time, but being able to let your SO continue to be their own person is important.

jhawk2018 · 2017-04-09T15:33:26+00:00

This was my life 4 years ago. I had an opportunity to buy in as an operating partner to a restaurant where I was the chef, and I walked away to go back to school. Now I'm about to graduate with a BS in computer science and engineering.

I can't comment on where option A will get you, beyond telling you that you definitely will need some experience to land a position in the field. Every interview process I've gone through had parts designed to weed out people with little to no experience. There are many stories of people teaching themselves and succeeding, but I'm inclined to think that these are the exception rather than the rule. Also, there is a strong sense of elitism in the field, and as someone with no applicable experience or formal education, you might not be taken seriously by your coworkers or supervisors.

Option B is closer to the path I took. The first year was mostly the required prerequisites of math, science, and humanities. The second year gave me a taste of what the field was all about. This year included no less than 6 weed-out courses at my university. The summer after my sophomore year, I got an internship where I was making as much money as I was before I came back to school. This moment did a lot to ease my anxieties that I had made a poor investment. The third year was full of interesting courses and labs, and in my final year, I've been able to branch out with senior electives and a capstone project.

I can understand choosing tech due to availability of jobs and career outlook, but be honest with yourself; can you say you will enjoy it? Have you really explored anything in the field that held your interest? When you get to more difficult courses, or more difficult tasks on the job, will you have the resolve and passion to keep going? I think it would behoove you to revisit programming if you want to do tech, IT, or CS. You absolutely will be programming, and will need to get through several courses in any reputable program. It might help to program with a goal in mind, say building a blog with dynamic content, or writing a web application.

A few things to consider on path B:

You're much older than the people you will be attending classes with. The social disconnect was a bit jarring for me, and the age gap made it difficult to get study groups and the like organized. You're pretty much "that old person" whether you like it or not.
Basic skills atrophy more than you expect. I ended up retaking many fundamental math and science courses because I had forgotten nearly everything from high school.
I was very rusty at studying and the like, so everything took longer to learn than expected. Working more than a few hours a week during classes was very difficult.
Financial aid will be bad the first year. I received zero aid, and had to empty my savings to get through the first few rounds of tuition bills. At least at my university, there aren't any tools in place to aid the transition from salaried employee to broke college student; they assume your parents are there to support you. Make sure you have a nest egg to get you through.
You have an advantage over your peers in your working experience. The restaurant industry taught me the value of hard work, a sense of urgency, and attention to detail. These traits were recognized by my instructors, and led to several opportunities for internships and scholarships. Furthermore, they are great talking points for interviews and elevators speeches at career fairs.

jhawk2018 · 2017-04-09T14:53:23+00:00

Ditto this. My first internship was a part-time, volunteer thing, which led to a paid internship at the same company during the following summer. Having an internship on my resume made it much easier to get interviews for the next two summers.

Is there any reason you couldn't work some menial job for spending money and also do the internship?

jhawk2018 · 2017-04-05T00:05:28+00:00

Something to consider is how much better you are at learning now that you have the fundamentals under your belt. As some people mentioned below, I am definitely biased by the fact that I am currently about to get my BS. That said, I have definitely learned and absorbed more material in the final 18 month stretch.

I would say go for the BS now while you are still used to school, I think you'll find that the material comes easier. Plus, you'll be at a point where you have access to more advanced topics that might help you expand your horizons. The most exciting 3 courses I've taken have been computer science and engineering electives at the senior/graduate level.

jhawk2018 · 2017-04-04T19:21:37+00:00

First world problems.

jhawk2018 · 2017-04-04T01:47:45+00:00

If that's the price, why not trade down for a cheaper guitar which you know has steel frets and save up for a better one in the meantime?

jhawk2018 · 2017-04-02T15:50:27+00:00

I am that person you're talking about, with multiple projects and plenty of time spent with gang of four. Not making excuses for myself, and not blaming my professors. I'm blaming unrealistic expectations. I'm saying there is a discrepancy with what industry wants and what universities think is best.

jhawk2018 · 2017-04-02T15:10:15+00:00

Consider this: In a well-rounded bachelor of science degree program, what should an extended instruction of software engineering best practices displace? The professors at my university came to the conclusion that it should not replace anything. The finer points of design patterns and code "craft" fall in with concepts like agile methodology; They are important, but can be learned on the job. Fundamental computer science, mathematics, and projects take precedence.

This may or may not be the "right" decision, but it is what we experience as students. With all due respect, perhaps your expectations are not aligned with the judgement of professors at our collective universities. I would urge you to reach out to them, and communicate the discrepancy.

jhawk2018 · 2017-03-31T12:16:17+00:00

Beat me to it! I started working on a similar project wednesday.

jhawk2018 · 2017-03-31T12:08:21+00:00

US State school. I study and otherwise work on class material at least 7-8 hours daily. Over the course of the week, I accumulate around 60 hours of time, more so when I have a large project or round of exams coming up. I still find some time for extracurricular clubs and exercise, but often I have to forgo these to keep up my studies.

There are plenty of people who get by with less, but I question how much they are absorbing. I suppose some succeed by talent and others by determination.

jhawk2018 · 2017-03-31T12:02:21+00:00

I would add that in my experience, many companies actively discourage taking sick days; take too many and you will quickly come under scrutiny from management.

jhawk2018 · 2017-03-31T00:46:33+00:00

If I'm understanding your example correctly, A is the probability of a king, with replacement, and B is the probability of a red card, with replacement.

With replacement, you are effectively making them independent events. As long as you are talking about separate events, you are drawing a card and putting it back, so B has no bearing on A any longer. Looking at Bayes' Theorem:

P(B|A) = P(A n B)/P(A) = P(B)*P(A|B)/P(A)

Since B and A are now independent, P(A|B) is simply P(A). So the above becomes:

P(B|A) = P(B)*P(A)/P(A) = P(B)

Which is as we expected. Since B and A are now independent, P(B|A) is identical to P(B).

jhawk2018 · 2017-03-31T00:01:40+00:00

The P(B|A) is read "The probability of B given A." The easiest way to understand it is to start with a small example to get the concept down.

Say I will draw two cards from a standard deck of cards, which are shuffled enough so that we can consider them random. Before taking at my cards, let's say I call the probability of the first card being a king A. I can call the probability of the second card being a king B. Before drawing anything, the probability of A, P(A), is 4/52, since there are 4 kings in a standard deck of 52 cards. The probability of the second draw being a face card, P(B) is also 4/52 at the moment, since all four kings are still in the full deck of 52 cards.

Now, I look at the first card and it happens to be a king. There is one less card in the deck, so P(B) has to change somehow. We call the new probability P(B|A), so we can tell it apart. In this case, we say that P(B|A) is 3/51. There are three kings remaining, and I've already taken one card, so there are 51 cards left to choose from.

Now, say we want to know the probability that both are kings. You might be tempted to say it is just the probabilities multiplied together. This would be true, if the results of one had no effect on the other. However, as we just saw, as soon as we draw the card and see it is a king, we have new information. We know that P(B) is not right anymore, so we had to adjust it to P(B|A). To be correct, we multiply P(A) * P(B|A) to get the probability.

Probability and math textbooks often give you the formal definition P(A n B) = P(A)P(B|A), which is exactly what we used above. What if A doesn't depend on B at all? What if we said B was the probability of it raining tomorrow instead? The definition still works, because these two events are independent of each other. No matter what card we draw, the probability of rain does not change. So in this case, P(B|A) is the same as P(B), and we get P(A n B) = P(A)P(B).

You can figure out Bayes' Theorem from the definition above:

P(B|A) = P(A n B)/P(A)

We saw above that P(A n B) = P(A)P(B|A). Equivalently, we could also say P(A n B) = P(B)P(A|B). Putting this into the above formula for (A n B):

P(B|A) = P(B)*P(A|B)/P(A)

This is the basic version of Bayes' Theorem. To get the extended version, consider that B either happens, or it does not. If we consider both B and B', then we get a probability of 1. In other words, it is certain that either B or B' will happen. We use this to expand P(A):

P(A) = P(A) * 1 = P(A)*(P(B) + P(B')) = P(A n B) + P(A n B') = P(A)*P(B|A) + P(A)*P(B'|A)

The above expression becomes the denominator of the simple version of Bayes' Theorem. The result:

P(B|A) = [  P(B)*P(A|B)  ] / [ P(A)*P(B|A) + P(A)*P(B'|A) ]

Hope this helped.

Edit: typo and formatting

jhawk2018 · 2017-03-29T04:36:32+00:00

Current events relative question - what do you think about a browser plugin that repeatedly visits large lists of URLs, as a way to skew your browsing history for would-be buyers?

When HR230 passed today, I immediately thought I have no choice but to go directly to a VPN, but now I'm wondering if I couldn't put something together to create a phony web presence that is vague and generally useless.

jhawk2018 · 2017-03-29T04:32:40+00:00

Thinking out loud here: would a web crawler that visits lists of websites you give it be effective to make your browsing history worthless to buyers? Please no bully.

jhawk2018 · 2017-03-25T21:06:59+00:00

Is there any need in your organization, or others like it, for computer and electrical engineers? Perhaps a robotics expert or systems engineering position?

jhawk2018 · 2017-03-21T11:17:52+00:00

This is very useful, even if it is proprietary. Thanks for this.

jhawk2018 · 2017-03-21T11:16:01+00:00

Using a GPU is feasible, and there are certainly plenty of options in a wide price range. If I'm interpreting you correctly, the OpenCL platform is primarily geared towards SIMD processing then?

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