Full-time Computer Science student, reader, and gamer with a comics addiction.
121 posts
Latest Posts by programmingravenclaw - Page 2
The thing about programming is that it teaches you that you can flip-flop between feeling like a genius and an idiot considerably faster than you ever expected.
(via fyeahcode)
The thing about programming is that when you finally find that stupid mistake that cost you the last four hours, you’re never sure whether to be happy, upset, or if you should just punch yourself in the face.
… and it’s not even a Monday. (via thethingaboutprogramming)
How can it be such a stupid error if I had to search three hours to find it?
Probably every programmer ever (via fyeahcode)
Consider going into a classroom and looking around, and you’re the only man there. Even if you’re totally ok with that (heck, you expected it), you notice. You feel all the women in the room notice you and see that a lot of them are glancing over at you or making comments about your presence. Ok, you knew that might happen. A woman next to you says, “Hey, cool, a guy in a CS class, good for you.” When it comes time to form a study group, half the women in the class don’t want to work with you because they assume men aren’t as good at CS. The other half jockey to work with you, some for the novelty (“Hey, I’m in a group with the guy, ”) and half because they want to ask you out. When you go to apply for an internship, a lot of companies seem really interested in you, but you’re not sure if it’s because they like your resume or just because you’re a guy in CS and they want to look open and forward thinking by having lots of male interns coding. You meet up with a group of female interns and one makes a slightly sexual joke. Everyone freezes and looks at you - are you one of those guys in CS that is serious and can’t take a joke, or will you be one of the girls? At your job after you graduate, it’s naturally not ok for a woman to say outright that she’s prejudiced against male coders… But maybe your boss gives you slightly different work, or it takes longer for you to get a promotion because they need more proof that you are good - you don’t get the benefit of the doubt the way the girls do. When you express a strong opinion about a tough problem, the women write it off as you being sensitive and emotional - men often are, you know. When discussing your career ambitions, your coworkers often ask you how children play into that - I mean, you’re probably looking for a wife and plan to have kids since you’re in your late 20s. Everyone knows it’s a safe bet that kids are going to derail your career at least temporarily, if not permanently. You frequently police how often you mention family at all for fear people will assume you’re expecting a kid soon… … Does this begin to explain it, at all? Even when a company is open to women working in all areas and no one is a dick, there is still a lot of pervasive bias that affects how women are treated and perceived. Why would you notice? It doesn’t affect you.
Electrostaticrain (Reddit)
My life :(
People think coding / debugging means highly concentrated furious typing, but mostly it’s just angrily staring at the screen for long periods of time waiting for the problem to solve itself
Don’t let your idea of who you are become a prison.
Meet yourself anew every morning.
Allow change.
Allow growth.
Allow yourself to become.
The first guy who heard a parrot talk was probably not ok for several days.
envision yourself exactly where you want to be. what motivates you? picture that, and never let it go. keep it in your mind and heart as you construct a plan to achieve what you want. with discipline and some confidence, you will reach your goal. you will.
by Nathan W. Pyle
i want "Elle Woods getting into Harvard Law" level determination
Recently, I read a research paper by Professor Manu Prakash from Stanford who has been working on a computer that works on fluid droplets and it is extremely fascinating.
Manipulating Matter
Inspiration: The computers that we have at our home are capable of manipulating Information, but they cannot manipulate Physical matter per se! Ergo, build a device that could process both information and physical matter simultaneously.
The setup is actually relatively simple to understand but the working is a bit tricky. They use a ferrofluid as the droplet and control the way it behaves with a circular magnetic field.
Through the coupling of magnetic and hydrodynamic interaction forces between droplets, AND,OR,XOR,NOT and NAND logic gates, fanouts, full adder, a flip flop and a finite state machine is implemented.
If this is the sort of thing that you are interested in, I strongly recommend you read their paper.
The bigger goal
“We already have digital computers to process information. Our goal is not to compete with electronic computers or to operate word processors on this,”
Prakash said. “Our goal is to build a completely new class of computers that can precisely control and manipulate physical matter. Imagine if when you run a set of computations that not only information is processed but physical matter is algorithmically manipulated as well. We have just made this possible at the mesoscale.”
Have a great day!
- part of ‘Fluid Friday’ series
What’s Up for March 2017?
What’s Up for March? The moon hides red star Aldebaran and crescents dazzle after dusk.
On March 4 the first quarter moon passes between Earth and the star Aldebaran, temporarily blocking our view of the star. This is called an occultation.
The occultation begins and concludes at different times, depending on where you are when you view it.
The event should be easy to see from most of the U.S., Mexico, most of Central America, the Western Caribbean and Bermuda.
Observers along a narrow path from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Hartford, Connecticut, will see the moon “graze” the star. The star will disappear and reappear repeatedly as hills and valleys on the moon alternately obscure and reveal it.
As seen from Earth, both Mercury and Venus have phases like our moon. That’s because they circle the sun inside Earth’s orbit.
Planets that orbit between Earth and the sun are known as inner or inferior planets.
Inferior planets can never be at “opposition,” which is when the planet and the sun are on opposite sides of Earth.
But inferior planets can be at “conjunction,” which is when a planet, the sun and Earth are all in a straight line.
Conjunction can happen once when the planet is on the opposite side of the sun from Earth and again when it’s on the same side of the sun as Earth.
When a planet is on the opposite side of the sun from Earth, we say it is at “superior conjunction.” As the planet moves out from behind the sun and gets closer to Earth, we see less and less of the lit side. We see phases, similar to our moon’s phases.
Mercury is at superior conjunction on March 6.
A few weeks later, the planet emerges from behind the sun and we can once again observe it. By the end of March we’ll see a last-quarter Mercury.
On April 20 Mercury reaches “inferior conjunction.”
Brilliant Venus is also racing toward its own inferior conjunction on March 25. Watch its crescent get thinner and thinner as the planet’s size appears larger and larger, because it is getting closer to Earth.
Finally, look for Jupiter to rise in the East. It will be visible all month long from late evening until dawn.
You can catch up on solar system missions and all of our missions at www.nasa.gov
Watch the full “What’s Up for March 2017″ video here:
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com
Never make fun of someone’s passion because that is the thing that saves them from the world.
(via kluah)
me, the motherfucker with over 50 abandoned works in progress: i have another idea
Keeping The Same Tabs Open For 9 Days Straight Because They Contain Information Relevant To Tasks You’re Too Lazy To Complete - A novel by me
For anyone in need of some life advice:
Live every day of your life in a way that brings you closer to becoming Iron Man.
The honest confession :)
concentrate on becoming your best self rather than trying to be somebody else