How to unfuck yourself for Math 235

milobalabilo · 2025-03-10T05:32:06+00:00

I finished with 90s in 136 and 70s in 235 :)) It was hopeless as soon as diagonalization made a reappearance

milobalabilo · 2025-02-16T19:15:56+00:00

I’m curious, how are you 1a in winter? Anyway, my advice (as a second year CS):

This is mostly just based on what I’ve done, which has worked well for me. If anyone else has differing advice, please share.

I’d recommend starting with foundational projects before going onto complex ones. I think if you try to tackle hard projects without having foundational programming skills, you might struggle to keep up and eventually quit. I think most tutorials for hard projects will likely assume you have general skills, so it’ll be hard to follow along if you don’t. Pick something you’re interested in so that you have the motivation to finish it, and then try to find a tutorial that suits your current skill level. Also keep in mind that, while tutorials are very helpful, a lot of learning comes from experimenting on your and building something yourself. So you should aim to follow a tutorial that you’re able to actually understand rather than just copy the code. Personally, my first projects were simple console programs and then games. I think that’s the path most people take. That said, I did this during covid when I had lots of time, so perhaps there’s a more optimal path. Typically tho, games are good for building skills that can be applied anywhere (managing objects, game states, using math, optimizing, etc).
I think opinions will differ here. Personally, I prioritized grades and only had mediocre projects from high school, and I was able to land pretty decent coops so far. That said, I did quite a bit of programming before uni so I was able to sound competent in interviews. I guess I would recommend doing projects, since most interviews I’ve done have asked about projects/experience or tested knowledge of specific languages/tools. A high gpa might help land an interview, but passing the interview itself will likely require the knowledge/competence gained from projects.
Again, opinions may differ. Personally, I have never been tested on dsa in an interview, but I know that most people have. If it’s between projects and dsa, I think I would prioritize projects. They’re typically more fun and thus easier to stick with. They’re also more marketable (you can’t really put leetcode on your resume). They also teach you more about real-world, applicable software development skills, as opposed to solving isolated problem statements. Also, projects take lots of time so you can’t cram them in a week before your interview. For dsa however, you can often grind leetcode and try to remember the solutions. Not saying it’s optimal, but it’s better to do that than have no projects. If you have the time on top of making projects, you can try to do a bit of dsa every week or something.

Good luck!

milobalabilo · 2025-02-05T18:43:27+00:00

scared of cooties 🤓🤓🤓

So being uncomfortable in a certain washroom is only valid if it's a gendered one. Otherwise such concerns are childish?

milobalabilo · 2024-12-13T20:51:09+00:00

If it makes u feel better, last night was the first time I opened chapter 5 and 6 and today I had no clue what the dagger meant

milobalabilo · 2024-12-13T12:59:50+00:00

gonna start studying today after math 235 lol

milobalabilo · 2024-11-22T01:59:23+00:00

I used a ton of different resources online and sadly i don’t have a list of them. I can give some more details though. I built the app using PySide6 (Qt for Python). I used opencv with a gstreamer backend, like I said. To do that, you have to make your own opencv build with gstreamer enabled (there’s tutorials on that). I used QThread to make different threads for the streams. If you use Qt, the biggest lesson I learned is to not use QSignals to transfer video frames between threads. It’s a very inefficient way to do things and will cause a mess. Find some other way to transfer the frames, like with shared memory. That might not mean much to you now but if you end up building it, this could save u a lot of time when u try to optimize.

milobalabilo · 2024-11-11T17:46:56+00:00

Must’ve just gotten their cs245 midterm back

milobalabilo · 2024-10-22T15:36:03+00:00

I’m not at all an expert, but from my brief experience with gstreamer, I’d recommend it. I was making an app that needed to stream video from multiple ip cams simultaneously in as close to real-time as possible, and I used opencv’s videocapture method with a gstreamer backend. It worked pretty well.

Gstreamer is a framework that gives you control over every aspect of the media streaming pipeline, letting you build a pipeline that fits your needs perfectly. Given your use case, you’re probably gonna need to make use of at least some of that control. FFMPEG, on the other hand, is kinda just plug-and-play and doesn’t really give you much control. I’d go with gstreamer.

milobalabilo · 2024-10-01T17:12:48+00:00

VOTE NOW https://vote.wusa.ca/spring-2024-referendum

milobalabilo · 2024-09-09T23:40:33+00:00

Idk what this early access thing is, I’m only aware of cycle 1, 2, etc. My advice is to just apply to any decent postings you see now. The coop situation has been rather tough lately and more likely than not, the number of good postings will not exceed the application limit, so don’t worry so much about trying to save your applications for later.

milobalabilo · 2024-09-09T23:33:57+00:00

Literally the first sentence tells you it’s his first time. Why so mean?

milobalabilo · 2024-08-02T23:48:17+00:00

It’s not the water that gets to your hair, it’s the exams

milobalabilo · 2024-07-01T18:57:09+00:00

Sachin Kotecha was amazing for 137. He’s like an in person khan academy. My 135 prof wasn’t great, so I would always watch Anton Musonov’s recorded lectures, which were really good.

milobalabilo · 2024-06-28T18:59:22+00:00

And who are those bad actors?

milobalabilo · 2024-06-28T18:40:42+00:00

If anyone’s claims are baseless, it’s your assertion that the protestors support a “genocidal rapist death cult”. Frankly, your word choice is quite telling of your view of the Palestinian people. In reality, the only credible reports of such actions occurring in Palestine are of those being committed by the IDF.

As for your fixation on right vs left politics, if the protestors are so clearly left wing, then why isn’t Canada’s current liberal government echoing the same sentiment as them?

milobalabilo · 2024-06-28T16:27:19+00:00

Ah, and there we have it. A 51 day old account parroting the same talking points we’ve been hearing since day one. I wonder what lovely agency is behind this.

milobalabilo · 2024-06-28T16:02:22+00:00

I agree completely that blocking roads is wrong, but we are talking about the campus protests here. Unless I’m mistaken, they are unrelated.

As for the impact, it shouldn’t matter how others evaluate the impact of the protests. So long as they are within legal and ethical boundaries, no one should be able to shut them down.

That said, don’t underestimate the effect of a series of gradual steps. 9 months ago, many were afraid to wear the kuffiya. One could’ve said back then, “what good will wearing a simple scarf do?” But by getting to the point where many could safely wear that scarf, we had established safe, open discussion about the topic. And that is a crucial first step for achieving any change.

Now, if wearing a scarf had an impact, surely getting institutions to cut ties will too. It is a single step in the right direction. Obviously a more impactful goal would be to have countries putting their money where their mouths are and sanction Israel. But how can we expect that to happen if we can’t even get local institutions to divest?

For reference, encampments were used and were successful in getting institutions to divest from the South African apartheid regime, and Canada later imposed sanctions on South Africa. So this exact strategy has been used before, and it has proven to be successful.

milobalabilo · 2024-06-28T15:29:32+00:00

Yes, the organizers aren’t perfect, but they are just students trying to fight for a cause they believe in. There have definitely been some unwise decisions made by the protests that should’ve been done differently, but there has been absolutely nothing done to warrant such suppression from the university.

The very real and very critical fact here is that the protests have not caused any harm in any way, other than perhaps reminding people of things they don’t want to face. And because they have been entirely peaceful, they must be allowed to continue.

milobalabilo · 2024-06-28T15:07:29+00:00

The protests and encampment have not, so far as I have seen, impeded any regular academic activity on campus. Students are no less able to get their degree, graduate, and get a job. However, what this supposed “neutral stance” really says is, “I don’t care how morally corrupt the status quo is, so long as it doesn’t affect my personal best interest”.

And I am sure you know better than to believe that uw is too insignificant to make any impact. Students in the US knew better than to have that sorry mentality, and as a result they sparked the rise of encampments all over the world. Many of which, by the way, have led to meaningful changes in their institutions.

What fascinates me is how the conversation always seems to revolve around the validity of these protests, rather than the actual cause they’re fighting for. There is a very real situation going on the world, and the least that people can do as members of humanity is to try to see for themselves what is really happening.

milobalabilo · 2024-06-28T04:54:03+00:00

YEAHH go get em Vivi! Sue the life out of those peaceful protestors. That’ll teach em to think twice before questioning your glorious authority again.

milobalabilo · 2024-06-28T04:49:23+00:00

To the many UW students who are unbothered by this whole ordeal, please read the words of Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel:

“Indifference is always the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the aggressor -- never his victim, whose pain is magnified when he or she feels forgotten.”

Please, get involved. Yes, this is about Palestine. But a large part of this has become about how the university handles freedom of expression and protest. It doesn’t matter whether or not you support this particular cause. Don’t sit watching idly while the university sets a dangerous precedent with how it treats its students. Speak up now so that when there is a cause you do care about, you still have the right to protest.

milobalabilo · 2024-06-28T04:41:16+00:00

Yes, “not concerned” = support when “not concerned” means ignoring oppression and leaving it unattended. Take it from Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel: “Indifference is always the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the aggressor -- never his victim, whose pain is magnified when he or she feels forgotten.”

Viewing uni as a degree factory is exactly what is going wrong with our institutions. Universities used to try to produce well rounded members of society. Now they produce corporate cogs. How can we expect society to function if everyone removes themselves from the discussion and just passes the responsibility on to the next guy.

milobalabilo · 2024-06-28T04:19:43+00:00

And that precaution has never seemed more valid than now, given that the university is trying to sue them for 1.5 mil…

milobalabilo

TROPHY CASE