http://www.khanacademy.org/#computer-science seems to have some tutorials for python. I think Khan Academy is a pretty good resource for people who are interested in learning...
I had pretty much the same problem some time ago. I switched to using my left hand for the mouse, but even that hurt after a while. So I got a touchpad from cirque. They are about 40 bucks for the USB version (I don't recommend the older ps2/serial versions that I used earlier, unless you want to play around with getting the driver correctly installed). Also, I got a Comfort Keyboard (about $300), and I don't use my thumbs for the space bar, I use my index fingers. I found the book Repetitive Strain Injury to be very useful in general (for good posture, input habits and exercises for healing the tendons), though it didn't specifically address this problem.Link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0471595330.
Now I can use a regular mouse again, but I have meanwhile learned to use a trackpad with either hand, a mouse with either hand, and any weird keyboard:)
Hope that helps.
BTW: It is amazing how bad touch-typing is for your hands. I completely changed my typing habits, and as a result I don't type fast (while using lots of backspace). I think through what I want to write and then type it slowly but accurately. It has done wonders for my hands.
I second this. I switched to OS X from linux for my scientific work and for doing stuff at home, and I am delighted! A cool UI and all the unix stuff just works. Also, a lot of useful OSS apps I like(XEmacs) etc are available for install through Fink or other package managers. Best of both worlds.
It seems the damage depends on the weight per axle, not the total weight, just to complicate the weight-mile tax code; Soon we will be consulting road tax preparation pundits come road tax time:)
>That means all the so-called NP (excluding P here) problems we know of are NP-complete!
That's not true. Factoring and discrete log are NP but not shown to be NP-complete. It is relatively easy to show that some problem is in NP (If you can check an answer for validity in polynomial time it is in NP). Much harder to show that it is NP-complete (Need to show that the SAT problem can be solved in poly time if the given problem can be solved in poly time).
On another note, quantum computers can solve factoring and discrete log in poly time thus breaking most cryptosystems. However, it is believed that quantum computers will not be able to solve NP-complete problems in polynomial time.
An interesting question is that if P!=NP then are there some problems that are not in P and not in NP-complete. The answer is not known but factoring could be a candidate.
Posts have suggested many alternatives. I believe that you will need to do all of them.
- Take some time away from CS
- broaden your horizons academically and otherwise.
- Then look at what you enjoy
- Do what you enjoy, money will come.
- Give yourself time to do all this and remember not to blindly copy others' decisions.
I have been through something similar recently and have stumbled through the above stages, albeit unplanned. The hardest part has been figuring out what I enjoy and that's where exploring all the options helped a lot. Now things are getting clearer and I think I know what I want to do.
You could also take some vocational/personality tests to help you figure out what you may enjoy. Your career office should be able to help you. They get paid to do this kind of stuff. Make sure you get a one to one consultation. Another resource (expensive!) is Johnson O'Connor Foundation. I didn't do this test myself but my wife and some other people I know found it quite useful.
Most of all give yourself time. I extended my Ph.D. by more than a year to just try out different things and resolve these issues before going on. I should have done that before the PhD. but better late than never! So be warned that blindly going to grad school is not going to solve your problems.
Hope that helps.
p.s. I am very glad that this topic was brought up on slashdot. I find some of the posts very helpful for my own situation too.
Doing a man-in the middle attack would require
some form of copying of the information. If you don't then you either get to keep it or send it but not both.
Quantum bits cannot be cloned or copied without making the copies imperfect. So, if you
try the man-in the middle attack, you either have
to pass on the information intact with no copying
(or sniffing) or you make an imperfect copy and disturb the original and that can be detected.
Quantum cryptography mainly involves distributing a key (random string) over a channel. What quantum mechanics guarantees is that if someone listens on this key exchange you know about it. Then you just discard that key and start again. So someone can jam your communication, but cannot get your secret key without your knowledge.
After this key (random string) is with both parties, they can use XOR coding with this random string to send data over a plain classical channel as done in the Vernam Cipher that is provably secure.
So quantum key distribution helps you ship the key across without having to be at the same place as the receiver. Then you use XOR coding.
In addition to an uncertainity principle relating information gained versus disturbance imparted to a quantum state, these results rely on the no-cloning theorem of quantum mechanics which says that a quantum bit of information cannot be cloned or copied, otherwise man-in the middle attacks would not be ruled out.
Bennett et. al. and Ekert et. al. proposed
the idea of using entanglement for key distribution more than five years ago. It has many advantages over the other quantum scheme proposed by Bennett and Brassard in 1984/86 and its refinements, theoretically speaking, but implementing it experimentally is much harder since entanglement is involved. I think
the point here is that Anton Zeilinger has an idea
about how to generate entangled particles in real life more efficiently. This is not easy. Theorists can assume they have a perfectly entangled state and do all kinds of operations on them in their minds and notebooks but even the most simple of these are extremely hard to implement in practice!
It can be proved that quantum entanglement does not allow any communication. The closest classical analogue to entanglement is a shared random string, which we know is a key for the Vernam cipher. In fact, if two particles are perfectly entangled, and say the same (not exactly correct!) measurement is done on each of them then the results are correlated.
Slashdot Mirror
http://www.khanacademy.org/#computer-science seems to have some tutorials for python. I think Khan Academy is a pretty good resource for people who are interested in learning...
I had pretty much the same problem some time ago. I switched to using my left hand for the mouse, but even that hurt after a while. So I got a touchpad from cirque. They are about 40 bucks for the USB version (I don't recommend the older ps2/serial versions that I used earlier, unless you want to play around with getting the driver correctly installed). Also, I got a Comfort Keyboard (about $300), and I don't use my thumbs for the space bar, I use my index fingers. I found the book Repetitive Strain Injury to be very useful in general (for good posture, input habits and exercises for healing the tendons), though it didn't specifically address this problem.Link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0471595330.
:)
Now I can use a regular mouse again, but I have meanwhile learned to use a trackpad with either hand, a mouse with either hand, and any weird keyboard
Hope that helps.
BTW: It is amazing how bad touch-typing is for your hands. I completely changed my typing habits, and as a result I don't type fast (while using lots of backspace). I think through what I want to write and then type it slowly but accurately. It has done wonders for my hands.
I second this. I switched to OS X from linux for my scientific work and for doing stuff at home, and I am delighted! A cool UI and all the unix stuff just works. Also, a lot of useful OSS apps I like(XEmacs) etc are available for install through Fink or other package managers. Best of both worlds.
Here's a study about the Effect of a weight-mile tax on the road damage in Oregon
:)
It seems the damage depends on the weight per axle, not the total weight, just to complicate the weight-mile tax code; Soon we will be consulting road tax preparation pundits come road tax time
>That means all the so-called NP (excluding P here) problems we know of are NP-complete!
That's not true. Factoring and discrete log are NP but not shown to be NP-complete. It is relatively easy to show that some problem is in NP (If you can check an answer for validity in polynomial time it is in NP). Much harder to show that it is NP-complete (Need to show that the SAT problem can be solved in poly time if the given problem can be solved in poly time).
On another note, quantum computers can solve factoring and discrete log in poly time thus breaking most cryptosystems. However, it is believed that quantum computers will not be able to solve NP-complete problems in polynomial time.
An interesting question is that if P!=NP then are there some problems that are not in P and not in NP-complete. The answer is not known but factoring could be a candidate.
Posts have suggested many alternatives. I believe that you will need to do all of them.
- Take some time away from CS
- broaden your horizons academically and otherwise.
- Then look at what you enjoy
- Do what you enjoy, money will come.
- Give yourself time to do all this and remember not to blindly copy others' decisions.
I have been through something similar recently and have stumbled through the above stages, albeit unplanned. The hardest part has been figuring out what I enjoy and that's where exploring all the options helped a lot. Now things are getting clearer and I think I know what I want to do.
You could also take some vocational/personality tests to help you figure out what you may enjoy. Your career office should be able to help you. They get paid to do this kind of stuff. Make sure you get a one to one consultation. Another resource (expensive!) is Johnson O'Connor Foundation. I didn't do this test myself but my wife and some other people I know found it quite useful.
Most of all give yourself time. I extended my Ph.D. by more than a year to just try out different things and resolve these issues before going on. I should have done that before the PhD. but better late than never! So be warned that blindly going to grad school is not going to solve your problems.
Hope that helps.
p.s. I am very glad that this topic was brought up on slashdot. I find some of the posts very helpful for my own situation too.
Doing a man-in the middle attack would require
some form of copying of the information. If you don't then you either get to keep it or send it but not both.
Quantum bits cannot be cloned or copied without making the copies imperfect. So, if you
try the man-in the middle attack, you either have
to pass on the information intact with no copying
(or sniffing) or you make an imperfect copy and disturb the original and that can be detected.
Quantum cryptography mainly involves distributing a key (random string) over a channel. What quantum mechanics guarantees is that if someone listens on this key exchange you know about it. Then you just discard that key and start again. So someone can jam your communication, but cannot get your secret key without your knowledge.
After this key (random string) is with both parties, they can use XOR coding with this random string to send data over a plain classical channel as done in the Vernam Cipher that is provably secure.
So quantum key distribution helps you ship the key across without having to be at the same place as the receiver. Then you use XOR coding.
In addition to an uncertainity principle relating information gained versus disturbance imparted to a quantum state, these results rely on the no-cloning theorem of quantum mechanics which says that a quantum bit of information cannot be cloned or copied, otherwise man-in the middle attacks would not be ruled out.
Bennett et. al. and Ekert et. al. proposed
the idea of using entanglement for key distribution more than five years ago. It has many advantages over the other quantum scheme proposed by Bennett and Brassard in 1984/86 and its refinements, theoretically speaking, but implementing it experimentally is much harder since entanglement is involved. I think
the point here is that Anton Zeilinger has an idea
about how to generate entangled particles in real life more efficiently. This is not easy. Theorists can assume they have a perfectly entangled state and do all kinds of operations on them in their minds and notebooks but even the most simple of these are extremely hard to implement in practice!
It can be proved that quantum entanglement does not allow any communication. The closest classical analogue to entanglement is a shared random string, which we know is a key for the Vernam cipher. In fact, if two particles are perfectly entangled, and say the same (not exactly correct!) measurement is done on each of them then the results are correlated.