You're asking the wrong question. Programming isn't an end in itself, it's a means to an end.
"But what do you want to DO?" THAT is the correct question, IMHO.
Followed up by the correct statement. Computers are there to quickly and accurately do the repetitive donkey-work that we humans don't have the time or patience to do. Programmers enable computers to do this tiresome work.
Since I last got made redundant from an engineering job I've busied myself on two little projects for myself, because I've always loved to code and get stuff to work that others would have no idea about, even though I got sick of doing it for others.
Project 1 - software that gets kicked off by cron on my server every night, to send me by email reminders to do stuff on time. Works really well, the way I want it to.
Project 2 - to take a (sometimes cleaned up by using gpsprune) GPX format track file from my Garmin and analyse it to determine the exact distance I've walked or cycled, altitude gained and lost, and estimate the calories I burned during the exercise. This one is also working well, but I'm not certain of some of the parameters I built into it so I'm trying to find somebody knowledgeable about exercise science who can advise me on this.
So, what I'm saying is, find something that you do in everyday life that does or could generate a significant quantity of data to crunch and raises in your mind a "what if" question. Or, as somebody else suggested, do something with an arduino that you're curious about. I've always thought it might be nice to build an accurate outdoor thermometer, possibly using four terminal measurement with a platinum sensor. This would involve the use of hardware timers and interrupt service routines to take readings at regular intervals, and perhaps operate a multiplexed LED display.
If you find something like this to work on, that interests you in the first place and will perform a useful function after completion, the motivation will be there and success more likely.
It's high time we stopped using the term 'password'. Those in the know realise by now that a word or words is no good.
I'd like to suggest replacing the term with 'passcode'. For those who still use passwords, it might encourage them to cease and desist. Or maybe not, but it would surely be worth a try.
Wouldn't we have Microsoft's own incompetence with Windows Vista to thank for that?
No, just Microsoft's determination to exclude others from the computer market.
The other thing I just remembered, was that XP was already being shut down at the time. Retail copies were no longer available. The only way you could still buy XP was to have it pre-installed on a tiny portable that was incapable of running any other MS product.
I can remember the first of the small, low power netbook type computers coming on to the market - the EeePC type machines? And they all ran Linux because they couldn't run Vista.
So, if MS had terminated XP at that time they would have put themselves out of that market. Of course they were not prepared to do that at any cost, because it would have put Linux directly in the hands of consumers, so they extended XP and unfortunately Linux disappeared from all the netbook computers.
So, we have Linux to thank for the long support for XP, not charity on the part of MS.
A couple of years ago I donated my Acorn System 1 to the Museum of Computing in Swindon. It was on their Most Wanted list! I learned rather a lot with that machine, hand assembling machine code.
Each and every day that I read/. I become even more relieved than the day before that fate smiled on me by not making me a citizen of the USA, and not giving me any compelling reason to visit.
This netbook I bought nearly two years ago arrived with windows 7 on it. I tried it out, just for fun, and oh boy what crap it was. I seem to remember it being so sluggish it was a bad joke to ever install it on this computer. Today, I'm running Linux Mint Maya 64 with Mate on it, which has turned it into a truly excellent, very portable, responsive little computer. It even fits inside a hotel room safe. I just can't think why anybody uses Microsoft.
I believe it's because of the proliferation of ANPR and other cameras that I had a major reduction of my motor insurance premium this year. Society pays for the crimes of the minority, so using technology to take the crooks off the road pays dividends to all.
Exactly what I was logging in to say. It just wouldn't work.
But, if you were to put your "little retro rockets" on BOTH SIDES of the space ship, you could blow on the asteroid with the rockets on one side to deflect it and keep the ship on station with the rockets on the other side. That might work.
Or, if you could use the other idea I've seen somewhere to hit it with a laser from a distance, and make the laser powerful enough, you might be able to knock chunks off it and get the same action and reaction to cause a deflection. If this could work the big advantage is you don't have to go chasing after the damn thing just shoot straight.
According to an article in Popular Mechanics (page 60, January 2013 issue) a company called Molycorp is running a re-opened rare earth mine in the Mojave Desert, forecasting "By mid 2013 the mine will have the capacity to produce 40,000 metric tons anually".
Given that we have already over populated planet Earth, WHY THE HELL DOES ANYBODY WANT TO COME UP WITH A WAY OF MAKING MORE OF US? Are they bloody stupid? Can't they think of something useful to do with their ingenuity?
Which is exactly why, when I splashed out about 4x more cash than I've ever paid for a camera before, on a Pentax K7, I bought the battery grip at the same time. Now, if I can't find a replacement internal battery, I can power it with AA size NiMH cells. Yes, the battery grip makes the camera rather bulky, but at least I can continue to use it so long as I can buy AA cells.
Japanese whalers are also of a species that is nowhere near endangered. So, why not just shoot them and hang them out to feed snow leopards, or any other carnivorous species which IS endangered because of US?
I bought what was apparently a fairly standard, reasonable quality HiFi setup when I left university - Dual CS-505 deck, Acoustic Research speakers, NAD 3020 amplifier. The deck still works perfectly but is now gathering dust on a shelf in the garage. The cone suspensions of the speakers fell apart a few years ago to be replaced by a pair of Mordaunt Shorts, which I reckon produce stunningly good sound for their small size.
Now, in praise of NAD, the old 3020 was still going strong after nearly 30 years and sounded great, but it had long since run out of inputs. I donated it to my son's school who gratefully accepted it, and bought a NAD C326BEE as its replacement. I don't think there's a great deal of difference in sound quality, maybe a bit more punchy bass but that's about it as far as I can tell.
I've always been of the opinion that if you want great sounding HiFi there's no point in going out and spending thousands on it without first providing a room with great acoustics, because that's exactly what the HiFi store does for the demonstration room - unless you do this it will never sound as good when you get it home. Maybe the best you can do for a sensible budget is go for decent separates like NAD, then have plenty of soft furnishings and thick carpet.
I wrote to my MP about this a while back. They acknowledge the fact that population is a problem but as far as I can tell none of them has the balls to do anything about it.
After nearly 30 years working in electronics and software, getting made redundant for the fourth time, losing the missus, being sick, fed up, pissed off with working for idiots who sign any old spec to get the contract even if it is approaching impossible to meet, I decided I'd had enough. Next month I take the Part 2 driving instructors exam. I still enjoy writing some software - I did some C++ for myself only a couple of months ago to run on my Linux server but so far as doing it for anybody else is concerned they can all go take long walks off short planks. I don't care any more.
I want to thank you for your comments which are a great comfort to me.
Last year my wife was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease, and in March I found myself having to have that awful conversation with the hospital registrar, to tell her that my wife had suffered enough and that she was to be allowed to pass away with whatever dignity she still had.
Along with her family I then had to sit with her, talk to her, hold her hand and try to comfort her while they took away the ventilator and pumped her full of morphine.
This horrible disease takes away a person's ability to control the muscles of their body yet leaves the brain and consciousness completely intact, so she knew exactly what was about to happen and I have worried for months about what the hell she must have been thinking while we were watching over her as she died.
Knowing from your personal experience that the morphine takes away the fear of death comforts me more than you can know.
I am now in a similar situation to you, out of work but trying to get back on track and find a new partner to share happy times with.
Slashdot Mirror
You're asking the wrong question. Programming isn't an end in itself, it's a means to an end.
"But what do you want to DO?" THAT is the correct question, IMHO.
Followed up by the correct statement. Computers are there to quickly and accurately do the repetitive donkey-work that we humans don't have the time or patience to do. Programmers enable computers to do this tiresome work.
Since I last got made redundant from an engineering job I've busied myself on two little projects for myself, because I've always loved to code and get stuff to work that others would have no idea about, even though I got sick of doing it for others.
Project 1 - software that gets kicked off by cron on my server every night, to send me by email reminders to do stuff on time. Works really well, the way I want it to.
Project 2 - to take a (sometimes cleaned up by using gpsprune) GPX format track file from my Garmin and analyse it to determine the exact distance I've walked or cycled, altitude gained and lost, and estimate the calories I burned during the exercise. This one is also working well, but I'm not certain of some of the parameters I built into it so I'm trying to find somebody knowledgeable about exercise science who can advise me on this.
So, what I'm saying is, find something that you do in everyday life that does or could generate a significant quantity of data to crunch and raises in your mind a "what if" question. Or, as somebody else suggested, do something with an arduino that you're curious about. I've always thought it might be nice to build an accurate outdoor thermometer, possibly using four terminal measurement with a platinum sensor. This would involve the use of hardware timers and interrupt service routines to take readings at regular intervals, and perhaps operate a multiplexed LED display.
If you find something like this to work on, that interests you in the first place and will perform a useful function after completion, the motivation will be there and success more likely.
It's high time we stopped using the term 'password'. Those in the know realise by now that a word or words is no good.
I'd like to suggest replacing the term with 'passcode'. For those who still use passwords, it might encourage them to cease and desist. Or maybe not, but it would surely be worth a try.
The UK Cabinet Office was proposing this a couple of months ago:-
http://standards.data.gov.uk/p...
Everybody who commented was in favour. I've no idea what happens next.
Wouldn't we have Microsoft's own incompetence with Windows Vista to thank for that?
No, just Microsoft's determination to exclude others from the computer market.
The other thing I just remembered, was that XP was already being shut down at the time. Retail copies were no longer available. The only way you could still buy XP was to have it pre-installed on a tiny portable that was incapable of running any other MS product.
I can remember the first of the small, low power netbook type computers coming on to the market - the EeePC type machines? And they all ran Linux because they couldn't run Vista.
So, if MS had terminated XP at that time they would have put themselves out of that market. Of course they were not prepared to do that at any cost, because it would have put Linux directly in the hands of consumers, so they extended XP and unfortunately Linux disappeared from all the netbook computers.
So, we have Linux to thank for the long support for XP, not charity on the part of MS.
There's already far too many humans on the planet. If we stop dying there'll be nothing to eat and nowhere to stand.
A couple of years ago I donated my Acorn System 1 to the Museum of Computing in Swindon. It was on their Most Wanted list! I learned rather a lot with that machine, hand assembling machine code.
We all know what magnetic levitation is good for, but using loudspeakers to float a tiny object in a small box?
Are you a typical USA resident? It would explain a lot.
Each and every day that I read /. I become even more relieved than the day before that fate smiled on me by not making me a citizen of the USA, and not giving me any compelling reason to visit.
Not an idiot, but being an idiot is way better than being an offensive git.
This netbook I bought nearly two years ago arrived with windows 7 on it. I tried it out, just for fun, and oh boy what crap it was. I seem to remember it being so sluggish it was a bad joke to ever install it on this computer. Today, I'm running Linux Mint Maya 64 with Mate on it, which has turned it into a truly excellent, very portable, responsive little computer. It even fits inside a hotel room safe. I just can't think why anybody uses Microsoft.
Let's get the facts correct:- The King of England lives in Australia, and presumably doesn't want the job any more than his father did. Can't say I blame him! See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Abney-Hastings,_15th_Earl_of_Loudoun
I believe it's because of the proliferation of ANPR and other cameras that I had a major reduction of my motor insurance premium this year. Society pays for the crimes of the minority, so using technology to take the crooks off the road pays dividends to all.
Exactly what I was logging in to say. It just wouldn't work.
But, if you were to put your "little retro rockets" on BOTH SIDES of the space ship, you could blow on the asteroid with the rockets on one side to deflect it and keep the ship on station with the rockets on the other side. That might work.
Or, if you could use the other idea I've seen somewhere to hit it with a laser from a distance, and make the laser powerful enough, you might be able to knock chunks off it and get the same action and reaction to cause a deflection. If this could work the big advantage is you don't have to go chasing after the damn thing just shoot straight.
According to an article in Popular Mechanics (page 60, January 2013 issue) a company called Molycorp is running a re-opened rare earth mine in the Mojave Desert, forecasting "By mid 2013 the mine will have the capacity to produce 40,000 metric tons anually".
Given that we have already over populated planet Earth, WHY THE HELL DOES ANYBODY WANT TO COME UP WITH A WAY OF MAKING MORE OF US? Are they bloody stupid? Can't they think of something useful to do with their ingenuity?
Which is exactly why, when I splashed out about 4x more cash than I've ever paid for a camera before, on a Pentax K7, I bought the battery grip at the same time. Now, if I can't find a replacement internal battery, I can power it with AA size NiMH cells. Yes, the battery grip makes the camera rather bulky, but at least I can continue to use it so long as I can buy AA cells.
Japanese whalers are also of a species that is nowhere near endangered. So, why not just shoot them and hang them out to feed snow leopards, or any other carnivorous species which IS endangered because of US?
Or, population will be so dense that a pandemic will wipe out 90%. Not that that would be a bad thing in the long run.
I bought what was apparently a fairly standard, reasonable quality HiFi setup when I left university - Dual CS-505 deck, Acoustic Research speakers, NAD 3020 amplifier. The deck still works perfectly but is now gathering dust on a shelf in the garage. The cone suspensions of the speakers fell apart a few years ago to be replaced by a pair of Mordaunt Shorts, which I reckon produce stunningly good sound for their small size. Now, in praise of NAD, the old 3020 was still going strong after nearly 30 years and sounded great, but it had long since run out of inputs. I donated it to my son's school who gratefully accepted it, and bought a NAD C326BEE as its replacement. I don't think there's a great deal of difference in sound quality, maybe a bit more punchy bass but that's about it as far as I can tell. I've always been of the opinion that if you want great sounding HiFi there's no point in going out and spending thousands on it without first providing a room with great acoustics, because that's exactly what the HiFi store does for the demonstration room - unless you do this it will never sound as good when you get it home. Maybe the best you can do for a sensible budget is go for decent separates like NAD, then have plenty of soft furnishings and thick carpet.
I wrote to my MP about this a while back. They acknowledge the fact that population is a problem but as far as I can tell none of them has the balls to do anything about it.
After nearly 30 years working in electronics and software, getting made redundant for the fourth time, losing the missus, being sick, fed up, pissed off with working for idiots who sign any old spec to get the contract even if it is approaching impossible to meet, I decided I'd had enough. Next month I take the Part 2 driving instructors exam. I still enjoy writing some software - I did some C++ for myself only a couple of months ago to run on my Linux server but so far as doing it for anybody else is concerned they can all go take long walks off short planks. I don't care any more.
I want to thank you for your comments which are a great comfort to me.
Last year my wife was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease, and in March I found myself having to have that awful conversation with the hospital registrar, to tell her that my wife had suffered enough and that she was to be allowed to pass away with whatever dignity she still had.
Along with her family I then had to sit with her, talk to her, hold her hand and try to comfort her while they took away the ventilator and pumped her full of morphine.
This horrible disease takes away a person's ability to control the muscles of their body yet leaves the brain and consciousness completely intact, so she knew exactly what was about to happen and I have worried for months about what the hell she must have been thinking while we were watching over her as she died.
Knowing from your personal experience that the morphine takes away the fear of death comforts me more than you can know.
I am now in a similar situation to you, out of work but trying to get back on track and find a new partner to share happy times with.
(calculators tend to work for very extended times).
I'll second that statement. Only yesterday I was doing some calculations on my TI SR-50A. Obviously it was too well made.