drewfer @drewfer@qoto.org

@Lwasserman I always seem to do better on the 3rd attempt 😅

@nyetoots @MutoShack@functional.cafe @freemo

"[Computer science] is not really about computers -- and it's not about computers in the same sense that physics is not really about particle accelerators, and biology is not about microscopes and Petri dishes...and geometry isn't really about using surveying instruments. Now the reason that we think computer science is about computers is pretty much the same reason that the Egyptians thought geometry was about surveying instruments: when some field is just getting started and you don't really understand it very well, it's very easy to confuse the essence of what you're doing with the tools that you use." - Hal Ableson (author of SICP).

SICP will show you how CS people 'think' about programming problems and teach you your first language (a semi-toy language, useful for instruction) so it's a great first book. I haven't read the Concrete Math book so I can't really comment on it but I'd definitely encourage you to seek out a good algorithms course after that. I think Harvard has some free courses online. Then you'll want to learn a very high level language like Python for general applications. After that, what tools you learn will be more specific to what you want to end up doing.

@MutoShack@functional.cafe @freemo @nyetoots

I started out in Zoology and then moved into a MS in CS later in my career. The advice @freemo is giving is solid. Anyone with a decent logical mind can do well at the practice of programming (writing good code, working with other developers, etc) but you'll be limited on the design side without brushing up on your math. If you've made it through Cal2 then you should have a strong enough grounding to pick most of the other stuff up. Discrete math and Linear Algebre would be good courses to look for online as supplements.

SCIP is a very good intro book but TAoCS is extremely dense and you'll most likely miss most of the nuance without the equivalent of an intro to algorithms course.

How did I make it through college without exposure to Aristotle's square of opposition?

If you make a company 'too big to fail' you give it's debt risk-parity with US government debt. Yet it retains %400+ the ROI.

That company becomes a better investment than building roads and damns.

Day 2 of my self-imposed quarantine. Given the recent announcement that the FDA has approved chloroquine as a treatment for COVID19, I've decided to 'self medicate' with Gin & Tonics.

@realcaseyrollins Appreciated. I'm not in a high risk category so I'm betting the net outcome of this situation is a shorter home improvement list and hopefully being a bit better at guitar.😁

It appears I've been exposed via a friend who came over to the house. So, today is my first day of self-imposed quarantine.

So far I can't log in to my work account remotely and am waiting on IT to call back with suggestions. While I wait I've made myself some real oatmeal for the first time in years. I might even get a little yard work done and start on a woodworking project.

It's amazing that once you are forced to deal directly with the scary thing a lot of the anxiety just goes away.

My cat controls the spice.

@realcaseyrollins it seems to do pretty good.

@realcaseyrollins camera on my Pixel 3 :)