paradigm problems

The more I think about it, the more I think that our education system has things backwards. It seems to me that learning to count in decimal is fine, but why not introduce the concept of powers earlier? Or rather, when powers are introduced, why isn't it applied to our base ten counting system. This would give kids an extraordinarily powerful understanding of how number systems are formed. I can't remember it being explicit in our learning material; maybe it was. 

That said things may have changed a lot in 20 years..

By the by, I feel the same way about radians and degrees. I don't think they're harder. In fact I think that both of these concepts *could* help some kids conceptualise numbers and mathematical problems far better if they didn't have to see it from the point of view of their educator. Ask yourself how big a degree is.. then ask why. Apart from it having many possible factors it seems almost arbitrary.

Whereas radians have an iron clad concept.

Rant over. Off to my exam.

balance

Finding balance in your life is a difficult, but important goal. But computer science/maths is teaching me some useful ways to define it.
Defining it, after all is key to creating and maintaining it. So here's my question to you; "How do you define balance?"
Here's my two pennies worth.

1. Define it - sit down and set your goals for things, relationships, finance and the your development this might help. it helps me
2. Refocus each day - here are some tools I use personally. But you can do it on paper or in your head in the shower. I sometimes use a recording to give me headings to think on and brief/debrief each day
3. Take Action - make sure when you have filtered your action plan to the daily level you follow it and record your progress towards each goal
4. Refocus twice a year - I do the goalsetting thing every six months to refresh my goals and adjust for new priorities. That's why I made it

I hope you find all that useful. It is the system I use to manage my development as a computer scientist, musician, martial artist, parent, security operative, teacher, lover, friend, uncle, brother, son, and everything else that I turn my skills towards in the future.
My website has had some pretty big updates lately, including a new web based image editor (beta) and some new videos. check out www.meds-place.com for regular updates.

Studying the hard way?

A huge challenge for me during this year at uni (termed year 0, programmers will be pleased to know) is working out how best to study. Ironically the 'study skills' module has helped exactly 0% with this. 

I think that studying is a very personal thing. If, like me, you find that just reading and writing and going through exercises is very difficult and demotivating I have a few tips.

Replace the act of writing with the creation of something. Your own 'study system' if you will. For me I use a third party PDF reader (foxit) to speed read and annotate my lecture notes, copy the highlights onto a pad/whiteboard and summarise them and the formulae in aural notes that I then upload to www.meds-place.com/maths.php. The next day I listen back through, copy out all of the formulae and add as many as I can in the same fashion. After this ritual is performed I attempt example questions and then exam papers. 

This daily ritual can be split, shrunk, expanded as I need; depending on the events of the day. I also repeat this daily (if there's time) for maths revision. The priority being which exam is the closest, or which I feel weakest on. 

I can happily study 4-8+ hours straight in this fashion. Of course I take breaks at convenient intervals and make sure I get outside and get exercise. 

I also find that it helps to change my scenery sometimes. Considering all I need is my laptop, notepad and pencil case, this is really easy. 

Some other things I've discovered:

- Get Evernote and keep your notes there. You can access PDFs from smartphones in this way.

- Get a mini whiteboard to do practice questions on. You'll save a buttload of paper. The act of writing it down is way more useful than the act of reading them again. 

- Combine rote learning with understanding. If you are overwhelmed by something learn the formula/equations by rote, then read each day on it and attempt questions. This will lead you gently to the lightbulb moment.

and last but not least:

- Don't procrastinate too long on random blog posts...

Boiling an Egg; As taught by your Calculus lecturer...

"y = C*E+(½E)
a = π(x/2)^2 v = ( ∫(C+E+(½E))dy)x OR ay
t = 60*3
T = t+1/10t
b=s*v*z (z = equation for boiling one unit of water)

b+T = |Yummy|

OK, that is the technique for boilination, now you try with examples 1-50!!"

While this is probably innacurate, some of it estimated and some of it is undoubtedly incorrect. It serves to demonstrate the point.

If at some point in the lesson the teacher would actually say the words; "this is applied to the real world and is not just an abstract set of numbers and letters and long words..." mathematical studies would probably be more populated at higher levels.

Now I know WHAT integration, differentiation, limits etc are defined as, (discoveries I made independent of my lectures) I feel like I've lost a lot of time for something that could just have been explained a little differently.

Any way.. back to studying.

IDE or not to IDE - Pitfalls for would be coders (like me) to avoid (unlike me)

That is the question? If you are starting out, what do you use to write your code in and how do you compile it or check its working (if its interpreted)?

In the last year I've been struggling forth trying to level up my coding ability on multiple fronts. I started, luckily by finding www.newthinktank.com (starring the hyper-generous Derek Banas) and attempting his Java Tutorials. All of this in an effort to prepare for the start of my degree.

In the past of course I had taught myself HTML, CSS and a little javascript. But this endeavour really kickstart my journey into the code.

Back in the early 00s I tried building websites with macromedia (sickface). This experience put me off for a long time. Until, during my time running my own dojo business it fell upon me to write the website.

After 3 days locked in a dark room with just me, my PC and www.w3schools.com I emerged bleary eyed to a new world. A world where, armed with nothing but a browser and a simple text editor you can create websites without wanting to eat your own fist or headbutt the PC (who is an innocent bystander in all this).

Returning to my more recent excursion into OOP and Java, I discovered Netbeans. Overall my experience with netbeans was very good, and I still use it occasionally. But it is quite 'heavyweight'. Especially after developing in notepad..

So spin on through the summer and I delve back into web scripting. I ventured deep into the murky depths of HTML5, Javascript, CSS, JQuery and PHP. My steed on this journey: Akelpad (google it ;) ), a fantastically simple and light-weight text editor that is totally free (as is netbeans). Akelpad is feature rich and with a little tweaking and some plugins becomes a viable IDE like experience. Especially when using chrome as a pack mule (to preview I mean). Here's something I made with it while learning about HTML5 Canvas.

Then I began formal education and discovered that on all the comp science machines they encourage you to use notepad++. At first I was put off by its microsoftiness. Then I gave it a whirl and now I'm hooked.

Especially after a little confidence in your code is built up you really don't need to be in an IDE with its preloaded library recognition stuff. It doesn't eat your memory and it DOES NOT MESS WITH YOUR ENCODING!

So my advice to anyone getting into programming is look up notepad++. The best way is to head over to www.portableapps.com and get it from there. Or just get their platform because that's ace too. Loads of free and legal software that you can move around on a chip with you. I don't leave home without it.

If you want an IDE for Java there is a portable version of eclipse knocking around the ether, but you can just get the full version for free any way. I do prefer netbeans however. I find it more intuitive for some reason but many programmers seem to blow the eclipse trumpet.

Avoid windows 8 apps or coding software in general unless you have looked up peoples experience with it. Especially if you are starting out like me. It really is a minefield and there's a lot that can go wrong that you may not yet understand that will make you chew through your desk in frustration.

Here's some great sources of info:

www.khanacademy.org
www.codeacademy.com
www.newthinktank.com

Once you've got going and think you are getting the idea of OOP, program architecture etc; find a book on a proper language, like C or C++, Java or similar and read. Read like your eyes will die tomorrow.

One last note on the programming community. Ask them questions. They love it and there are only a few complete nobs in a sea of nice and helpful people. They do appreciate it if you have done your homework so before you go cap in hand to www.stackoverflow.com make sure you've at least tried to get your head around the source code/documentation in question.

I hope that's all helpful and... this is me www.meds-place.com

The first iteration

Until recently I was a full time martial arts teacher. Martial arts still live at the core of my being, but my life has gone a different way.

Making money doing what you love is the dream, right? Well, I did that and I was successful at times, unsuccessful at others. But it was astoundingly rewarding in many ways besides financially.

So at 32, with a partner, step-son and rent to pay me and said partner brought up the subject of university. It's one of those things that I never got around to. There are lots of reasons why and I'd like to share a couple with you here.

Reason One:

When I was 14 my mother passed away due to cancer. Looking back I can see many events in my life that would have turned out rather differently with her at my back, watching over me or checking up on me...

That's not to say that I regret my life. Sometimes I look at situations that friends of mine are in, and into that factor in the support/berating/kick up the arse from a maternal figure and it confuses me. The role of a mother to a young adult is something that I understand intellectually but not intrinsically. But when I compare these events to similar happenings in my own life and try to overlay the 'mum' factor I can see that occasionally I would have taken starkly different paths.

Of note; I can say with confidence that I would certainly have gone to university at 18 or 19.

Reason two:

I have been let down by systems that I thought would support me or help me take the step up.

Seven or eight years ago, I held a supporting role in Exeter College. During this role I was placed in the music department where they made use of my college experience and musical ability. I attended course aimed at delivering learning to adults and it was arranged that I would teach provisionally on the lower level courses, whilst studying for a foundation degree in music.

Quite suddenly, the department pulled the funding and with one stone killed the two birds named 'hope' and 'confidence'.

...............

I could go on with this rant about how I've been disappointed, but lets face it... boo effing hoo; right?

For anybody that does not know me, these situations are things that I have never considered before in this light. This is not cathartic, I write the accounts down in a purely ponderous way to give some insight into my motivation(?!). They are objective musings to set the scene.

So then, the seed was planted and inevitably grew into a real life event. Now I find myself falling down the rabbit hole of study. After 16 years out of formal education (at least in maths and English), I find myself on an engineering foundation year at the University of Nottingham preparing to undertake my undergrad computer science degree.

The moral of this story is; what-ever your new years resolution is, don't just write it down. Get up off your arse and do two things. Today, make a plan with a timeline on how its going to happen. Straight after you've done that do the first step, whatever it is. Make the first step towards that thing you want, that place you want to go or that person you want to be with (I'm all about motivating stalkers...).

So I thought I would blog about a few of the trials and tribulations that come along the way. This blog has many facets. On the one hand I'm a full-time student who is completely out of his depth (most of the time at least) juggling the roles of father, house-husband and studious learner. On the other hand I'm a mature student returning to higher maths, physics and computer science at 33. Let's not forget that I'm also learning teh Codez and blundering my way blindly through formal and informal education in all of the above.

So this blog will have stories of difficulties, successes and failures. It will have advice for coders who are starting out and probably an extensive library of 'what not to dos' in that area. It will occasionally feature my work which, until I get employed by someone or make something amazing, will be free or open source. There will be some news on the projects that are always available at www.meds-place.com. There will be some journalistic accounts of parenthood and my continuing education and efforts/adventures with the wee Webb (my step-son) and more besides.

So prepare yourselves travellers, for my brain().