(Part 2) Best books according to redditors
We found 719,500 Reddit comments discussing the best books. We ranked the 224,006 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the products ranked 21-40. You can also go back to the previous section.
I'm a doctoral candidate in clinical psych and a therapist, so here's my two cents on this phenomena. Please remember that this information is a generalization based off of existing research and observation of humans--there are always exceptions to any rule.
One thing I often tell my patients is that we notice negative events more often because the positive stuff is happening all the time. Think of it like bad reviews on Yelp. Most of the time, if you had a decent experience somewhere, unless the experience was exceptional you're probably unlikely to post about said experience. Whereas if something bad happened, you definitely want to tell the world, right?
Secondly, negative emotions are associated with the release of a lot of different neurotransmitters and hormones, such as cortisol and epinephrine (adrenaline). Both of those stimulate our nervous systems to enter fight/flight mode--this is a heightened state of arousal. Generally speaking, positive emotions don't put us into fight or flight mode unless we perceive something as a threat.
This is the same reason that we are more inclined to remember nightmares rather than dreams. Nightmares release the same chemicals and wake us (very quickly) from sleep.
All of that said, as to why we "seek" risky behaviors, that's all human nature. If you tell a kid "no" to something, what are they going to try and do? They'll find a way to do it. It's quite possible that this is because we like adrenaline rushes (and that's why adrenaline junkies exist).
Lastly, violence, drugs and vices are not usually seen as negative experiences by the people who partake in them. Mostly because they are getting some positive reinforcement from their brains--usually a flooding of dopamine (the feel good neurotransmitter).
TL;DR: Good stuff happens more so we don't always see it and being bad makes us feel good sometimes (like sneaking cookies from the cookie jar).
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Edit: If you are struggling with negative thinking, please consider seeing a therapist! Additionally, here are some resources for changing the way you think!
Books:
Grounding Apps:
Cognitive Distortions (Twisted Thinking):
I started drawing when I was 25 you can do it too if you try! Most people can only draw stick people if the only drawing they ever did was in grade school. You’ll find at first that you draw like a grade schooler, because well, that’s the last time you drew. You just pick up wher you left off. I find that is what discourages people from continuing. It’s to be expected though. You can practice your way up in no time. I know you’re not exactly asking, but thought I’d throw it out there for anyone who feels the same and feels like they can’t draw. You’ll catch up quicker than someone who’s really a child but it’ll take some work and some practice obviously! Just don’t give up because you draw like a child... to be fair you pretty much are drawing like a child at first. I recommend picking up a couple book and checking a couple YouTube channels!
Edit: r/ArtFundamentals is helpful used to be known as drawabox. First book I picked up was Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. I’ve picked up many many more since then!
Here's my list of the classics:
General Computing
Computer Science
Software Development
Case Studies
Employment
Language-Specific
C
Python
C#
C++
Java
Linux Shell Scripts
Web Development
Ruby and Rails
Assembly
Your value system says, "If this girl likes me, I like me."
Your value system should say, "I like me, no matter what happens to me. Because some things can't be helped, and you can't control other people. If other people don't like me, it's okay, I will find people that DO like me. Everyone is free to do what they want, but this girl that I'm interested in, can do what she wants. If she doesn't want me, it's okay, I'll go on to the next one."
There's something going on inside you that is waiting for the world to approve of you. Don't feed that false concept. The world will fail you at some time, and you will break (as you're doing at the moment). And the world will never approve you enough--ever.
Instead, consider a new concept. Start a new habit.
Say to yourself, "I am not OUTCOME dependent. I am process dependent." Meaning, you don't rely on the OUTCOME of situations to feel happy or sad--that's reactionary. Be proactive. Rely on yourself and only yourself for your emotions. Right now, your emotions are dependent on that girl--and sooner or later, it will be another chick, and another, and you will always be sad or unfulfilled because you can't control others. Depend on yourself to have fun, to feel good, as much as possible at any given situation.
It's hard to change. It's hard to be a new person that takes responsibility of their emotions. It's hard to be proactive. But hey, being reactive to the world, depending on people to always make you feel happy is exhausting too--and as you can see, it's not a solution to fixing the most important thing in this talk: you.
You're not exactly broken, what's broken is the way you relate and think about yourself. Pretend you are your own best friend. How would you treat your best friend? Would you beat them down all the time? Would you say, "hey, if that chick rejects you, you're not shit." O
OR
Would you say, "Dude, she's just one chick. And truth, you don't know what she thinks about everything. She might have some hidden thoughts that would turn you off forever--maybe she thinks that Jews really are the source of the world's problems, you don't know. Maybe she picks her toes daily and doesn't wash her hands after. Bro, just let her go, and go on about your life. Believe me, if you work on yourself and focus on being better, it gets better."
I know which best friend I like better.
Be your own best friend, always. That's the real issue here. Take care of yourself, I cannot state that enough. Good luck, bro.
Edit: Thank for the gold, whomever it was. I wasn't looking for karma or gold, just trying to pass some of what has helped me. I would also like to link the following, as they were HUGE helps to me in changing my life and way of thinking.
Link 1: Check out the top comment on this post (the comment is not mine): http://www.reddit.com/r/getdisciplined/comments/1q96b5/i_just_dont_care_about_myself/
Link 2: This little book helped me go inside myself and deal with my demons--very important don't skip through the book, just follow the simple instructions as if it were a manual--I know, that seems stupid, but trust me on this one: http://www.reddit.com/r/GetMotivated/comments/vz458/selfdiscipline_in_10_days_how_to_go_from_thinking/
Some other suggestions: Listen to Eric Thomas, this is what got me started--You have to want it, really, really want it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xM_7j6t9IyU
I also suggest "The Power of Habit": http://www.amazon.com/The-Power-Habit-What-Business/dp/081298160X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1414954061&sr=8-1&keywords=the+power+of+habit
I'll give you the important thing about it, in case you can't buy it: Almost everything you do is tied to a habit and you're not aware of it. Even our thoughts. He breaks down all the scientific data on how individuals and entire societies form habits and change them.
Every habit has a cue/trigger, a process, and a reward.
Example:
Cue: Someone rejects me. Process: I feel bad, my thoughts keep spinning on why can't they like me... Reward: I feel like shit.
However, if you don't press the cue/trigger--you're way less likely to play the habit out. So, if I'm tired of feeling like crap, I stop asking girls out. But then, a new habit develops--
Cue: I avoid social situations. Process: I feel bad for being "weird" in social situations. Reward: Social anxiety.
All you did was replace an unproductive habit with an unproductive habit.
As you can see, not all rewards are positive--that's why it's important to change our cues, process, and rewards from habits. Recognize your habits, and you'll have more power to change them. Replace unproductive habits with ones that help you grow. If you interrupt your triggers, you change the habit easily--usually, if you're past the trigger, your habit will take over, without you even thinking about it. This goes for our thought habits as well.
Good luck to everyone. I leave you with this, "Pain is temporary, it may last for a moment, a month, or even a year. But if you get through that pain, at the end of that pain is a reward." Think about it like this, would you rather:
A. Hurt, keep doing the same thing, keep hurting from the misery you keep getting.
OR
B. Hurt because you're changing into something better. Hurt on the journey to being stronger one year from now?
It'll be hard, very hard. Some people will not believe in you, but you'll be better if you stick with it.
You'll hurt either way, why not get something out of your pain? That's the choice I made. And every human being has that power. I've only been doing this for a few months--but dealing with me has changed everything around me.
I'm going to be brutally honest here, and I'm probably going to get down-voted, but I'm not impressed with the underlying code for the project. I don't even know where to begin.
You're obviously passionate about Javascript, but runtime engines and best practices have changed dramatically in the last few years. Some things that stick out could easily be chocked up to coding style or preference, but when those preferences aren't well-adjusted to current-day standards, it leads to a perpetuation of those bad practices and hinders the growth and evolution of web development overall.
I'm posting this here, instead of on Github, because these aren't quite bug reports. I'd be more than happy to contribute though.
Cutting corners in the interest of character count is useless. It's better to be able to read the code than to have to interpret it line-by-line.
For hinting, I recommend JSHint. It'll be nicer than JSLint, but it'll still likely hurt your feelings.
Here are some JSHint errors/warnings that popped up:
> The body of a for in should be wrapped in an if statement to filter unwanted properties from the prototype.
> Expected an identifier and instead saw 'arguments' (a reserved word).
> Expected a 'break' statement before 'case'.
A lot of syntax errors can be solved by linting or hinting, and following a style guide. Here's Google's Javascript Style Guide. You'll find that most projects on Github follow the same code conventions, and for very good reason. When you make your code consistent and readable, other developers will be more likely to like you and contribute to your projects.
I really like the project, but the code is unwieldy and confusing.
I see that you are a young man with an inquiring mind! I go into the five aspects of chaos in my book available for order here, as well as the 17 reasons why only tryhards choose Tau.
The other commenters here have had a lot of great advice, especially about you seeking external validation and being a bit over-devoted and expecting the same. It sounds a lot like you and your wife are not on the same page regarding expectations and the only thing that can fix that is communication. However, with how built-up this is for you, that is going to be very difficult. I'd really recommend you find some therapy for yourself to help arm you with tools to solve this and similar problems now and in the future.
Before you stray from your marriage or end it, you need to do some homework. See if you can get your wife reading the same things. First, read Come As You Are for a more nuanced understanding of the differences in types of sexual response patterns. Then, read Mating in Captivity for long-term relationship sparky sparks.
> Everyone poops. And sometimes, they poop after anal.
My parents always skipped that last part when they would read me that story.
If you have problems throwing something away you don't need anymore, read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. I can't recommend this book enough.
I remember reading a book called Guns Germs and Steel back in the day that seemed to cover all of these developments!
You are completely missing the point. I don’t even know where to start addressing this. It’s not just about people killed by police, they are protesting an entire system that punishes certain races more harshly than others. They are protesting a justice system that favors the rich. They are protesting the existence of for profit prisons that make money off throwing people in jail.
https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/141027_iachr_racial_disparities_aclu_submission_0.pdf
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/09/09/you-really-can-get-pulled-over-for-driving-while-black-federal-statistics-show/?utm_term=.3a50f9924266
Here’s a link to a whole book on the subject https://www.amazon.com/New-Jim-Crow-Incarceration-Colorblindness/dp/1595586431/ref=nodl_
And if books aren’t your thing there is a documentary called 13th on Netflix.
> people get thrown in jail for unpaid fines/fees and other minor violations in 13 states,
So is this a space where we can discuss the excellent book The New Jim Crow because it seems highly relevant.
Since I don't know the extent of your Autism, I will write as if I'm speaking to a person that is just very inexperienced with dating.
It definitely is different from case to case.
Some people experience it like this though:
If they agree; pull out your phone, open up a New Contact, put their name in, click the phone number field, then hand them the phone to type it in.
PROTIP: If there is a lull in the conversation, don't keep prodding them or start playing on your phone, instead have a casual conversation with someone around you (bartender, person in line near you, somebody sitting at bar). This shows you aren't a puppy dog relying on them for entertainment, are outgoing, and have confidence (an attractive trait universally).
its best to assume you aren't compatible and leave them alone. Definitely don't beg or pressure them.
At the FIRST sign of hesitation, stop entirely. Don't get butthurt or beg, just respect their wishes. You can offer them a drink or to do the activity you mentioned, then try again later. If still no, they may either have some friction (religious background, awkwardness about intimacy, principles against first-date hookups) or something went wrong and they think you're a friend/is using you for something. Nothing I've written here is a hard rule, simply my experience. This may not be the case for everybody, especially if there is mental disorder involved.
Sometimes it ends because it just isn't adding anything exciting to their life (compatibility comes down to being able to tolerate eachother for an extended period of time). Sometimes they will go on until death, often not.
Also, a book I cannot suggest enough is Mark Manson - Models
This book probably gave me more applicable advice about dating than any other source period. It is one of the most useful materials for self-improvement. Possibly the best dating advice to ever exist.
Yes, I remember that to, I think I read that in some book. It is both funny and a little bit scary how easily they can out put us into categories.
Edit: The book i read it in is called Charles Duhigg The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business
My wife and I were once in a similar situation to you and your husband, and we were able to turn it around completely, and now enjoy a really happy and fulfilling sex life -- a journey I described in detail in this post.
>For me however I don't desire sex. Maybe once a week I get a slight desire and it often comes and goes. He needs to get me in the mood, sometimes it works, most of the time I shut him down. Not because I don't want too but because I'm worried if I'm not in the mood it'll just feel uncomfortable. Even just light play.
This sounds frustrating, and I could totally see how you might worry that your libidos are "miss-matched" -- but that may not be the case. If you're like my wife, you might be feeling super stressed out about this, or even like you are somehow "broken." If so, that seems really painful and isolating.
I would offer, with a ton of respect, that I find the terms "low libido" and "high libido" to actually be pretty unhelpful and inaccurate ways to describe human sexuality. As you start to learn more about how our brains and sex drives work, you'll realize that these two terms are too simplistic, and I personally feel like they lead to a lot of hurt feelings and frustration.
The thing that changed her life (and by extension mine) is reading the book Come as You Are by Emily Nagoski. [Check out this comic about it, it's a good intro.] Reading that thing, we realized that most women have what's called a 'dual control model' of sexual arousal, which is like gas and brake. For me and most guys, we can basically just step on the accelerator at a moments notice and get to the right RPM easily. For my wife and a lot of women, there can be a foot on the gas AND a foot on the brake, in the form of anything stressing them out (the house is a mess, my mom keeps texting me, the kid broke the thing, my husband hates our sex life and is going to leave me, etc.)
We also learned another life-changing idea -- responsive desire, which means that my wife's arousal is like a water heater. (Sorry to switch metaphors) Three minutes of gas, and the water is still fucking freezing. Is this the end of the world? Hardly. She is slow to heat up, but once she gets going (and her foot is off the brake) she can get to a scalding boil. But my strategy of, "I'll give it five minutes, then declare it broken and play games," was dooming me to a life of never getting laid ever again -- and never feeling intimacy again.
Also, for what it's worth, I'll push back against the advice to spend too much time on /r/DeadBedrooms. That subreddit is more like a support group and safe place to vent, particularly for "higher-libido" partners who feel unsatisfied. That's awesome that it exists, but it's also a bit of an echo chamber, and I worry it can foster more resentment than it cures. Just my experience.
If what I've written here is helpful, and you want to ask any follow up questions or would like more detail on any point, I'm happy to help how I can.
Everyone Poops
I don't take issue with the statement that the media has an influence. I take issue with that being used as a way to diminish the real grievances that likely sparked the unrest.
Yes there are instances that turn out not to be ideal (with less than sympathetic victims, but that's been happening since Rosa Parks and Claudette Colvin) and there is the question of why white people have to have their property destroyed to resolve larger societal issues for which they are not directly culpable. But can't you apply the same logic to all the black people whose harassment and predetermined criminality at the hands of the police should not be dismissed out of hand because of the actions of a small handful of violent black people? I'm a big believer in fiat justitia ruat cealum, but I think the difference is that people are viewing Darren Wilson as a guy who deserves due process and others see him as a representative of the Ferguson Police Department. In reality he's both. He must be held to a higher standard as an institutional figure, but he's also entitled to have the facts of his particular incident evaluated fairly. Unfortunately, the notion of "fairness" comes from the the great beyond. He's getting his actions evaluated by a well-meaning (and almost exclusively white) accountability apparatus which is often very far disconnected from the experiences and root living conditions of black Americans. That's another big crux of the issue. It's justice being determined by people who sincerely believe they are neutral, but who unfortunately view the scenario through the spectrum of their own whiteness and skepticism of the idea of inappropriate or violent behavior from a cop. I wonder what would happen if the grand jury was all black and from Ferguson. Why are they likely to be any less partial than some white people who have also almost certainly seen some of the international news coverage? Again a question from the beyond, because they are not deciding what happens to someone who is supposed to be serving them. There is no structural accountability to the black people the cops are supposed to be serving the interests of, and black people do not have much collective political power to alter the white establishment save from mass civil unrest.
No I don't think that most white people are violent racists, or that they're even actively or consciously racist. The larger problem is blindness and willful ignorance. I think people see the disparities and don't see them at the same time. There is plenty in the public discourse about the ludicrous rates of arrests of blacks for offenses committed primarily by whites and how they fare much worse in every stage of the judicial process, but society rationalizes it. Is it because there are structural impediments suppressing black upward mobility or is it because they're lazy and need to have the moral fortitude to resist falling into rap music and the "thug" lifestyle? Interestingly, narratives similar to these have been going on since slavery and segregation. I think the white racism is definitely fueled by the right while the left sometimes makes facile arguments that don't get to the core of the problems. Yes I think there are cultural clashes that occur when two different cultures are next to each other that results in the dominant one using racism to justify fiendish or oppressive behavior. But the big fat zoom out issue is that it's used as a smoke screen to keep poor whites and blacks from organizing against the corporate state. I don't think Rush Limbaugh and those morons at Fox give a shit about black "thugs." I think they get white people so worked up about the negroes coming to take their job that they don't to pay attention to the crooks behind the curtain stealing all the money. Also, blacks tend to have very anti-authoritarian views such as checking the extensive power of the police and the expansion of social programs to resemble much of the western world. Notice how gleefully the left is in saying this issue has larger racial overtones, but they don't leap up and fix the militarized police force either or attempt to remedy larger societal problems that perpetuate these disasters either. They spout the same law and order crap as the Republicans, because it benefits them when they proliferate the same corporate state.
What is and isn't seemingly more important is hard to determine. That's another argument that's been around in every major social movement in US history. It wasn't time for blacks to have full citizenship because you know the economy, Vietnam blah blah blah. What is and isn't important is also largely determined by white people, but what I will say is that our democratic process should (but doesn't) serve the needs and alleviate the suffering of actual human beings instead of corporations and its own power. Black people are seriously suffering (as are many whites but not at the same rates as determined economically) and have very little political power (likely because of their widely held real left wing views) and this sometimes spills over into the revolt we're currently seeing in Ferguson. Is the question whether or not this doesn't seem so important, or just whether or not it happens to not be so important to white people?
EDIT: Cleared up a few thoughts and thanks for the gold!
EDIT 2: Grammar stuff
If you haven't read Come As You Are , I highly recommend it. It's not a Nirvana biography, it's a book about women's sexuality. Orgasms are talked about in depth. My IUD and antidepressants make it difficult for me to orgasm like I used to. This book really helped me understand what was going on and recognize tat I was having orgasms, just they are different than the screaming, shuddering ones in porn flicks. I'm much more ok with not having those every time and knowing what I want from sex. Like you said, there are times when I don't come and the sex is fucking incredible. Sometimes I want to remember every detail, and if I'm focused on coming, I can't do that.
Android team lead here, I've been working with Android commercially since 2009 (before Android 2.0 was released) and have worked at, or done work for, some big companies (Mozilla, Intel, Google, HTC...). I was in a very similar situation to you in that I was a web development and was bored, I'd been playing with Android in my spare time; I got my first break by volunteering to do an android app at the company I worked for, and went from permanent employee to contractor fairly quickly after that and have been doing it ever since.
First thing to say is that if you can get your currently company to pay you to learn android and stay with them, that's a win win for both parties (you get to learn something new without a drop in salary and don't have to interview and they don't lose a good member of staff).
In terms of moving company, I don't know where you are based, but here in the UK I often see junior Android contract roles coming up for £200-300 a day. Failing that it's just a case of applying for lots of poisitions and really knowing your stuff.
What I would look for in a junior is to have read, understood and put in to practice Clean Code (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Clean-Code-Handbook-Software-Craftsmanship/dp/0132350882) and Design Patterns (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Head-First-Design-Patterns-Freeman/dp/0596007124). I would expect you to have a good understanding of basic Java and OOP; a working understanding of MVP or MVVM (https://news.realm.io/news/eric-maxwell-mvc-mvp-and-mvvm-on-android/, https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/understanding-difference-between-mvc-mvp-mvvm-design-rishabh-software); understand threading; know about all the major parts of Android (Services, Broadcast receviers, Activities, Fragments etc); know how to write a custom view; be able to efficiently design a layout in XML and correctly apply styles and themes; understand the support libraries - what they contain, why they exist and what they are used for (and also when you don't need them); understand the difference between unit testing and integration testing and know what makes for a good test; the Gradle build system is a really nice way of defining your project build - knowing the fundamentals is essential.
A few of the main libraries I'd expect you to know and have used would be OkHttp (https://github.com/square/okhttp), Retrofit (https://github.com/square/retrofit), Butterknife (https://jakewharton.github.io/butterknife/), Picasso (https://square.github.io/picasso/) or some other image loading library, GSON (https://github.com/google/gson) or Moshi (https://github.com/square/moshi) or some other json parsing library
If you want to level up then there are loads of advanced topics surrounding Android. Any of these following topics will take a while to learn, but will be worth it and will look good in interviews and on you CV:
There's so much more - this is a large topic and it's easy to feel overwhelmed (I know I did & do) but the sheer amount of stuff to learn, but take it slowly and it'll come. The best way that I found to learn all of this stuff is to have a personal project which I was working on (I started doing an app which teaches you how to play guitar - never released it but learned so much). Get the fundamentals down and them start looking at some of the more advanced things. A good test app would be to write a Reddit client (they have open APIs: https://www.reddit.com/dev/api/) - this will get you up to speed on networking, background services (to poll the API to see if you have any messages) etc
Let me know if this helped or if you want to chat about stuff. Happy to help.
Here are my personal favorite head-fucks, each one of them did something strange to my whole world when I read them:
But yeah, by far my favorite is the one at the top of the list, The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson. There's just so goddamn much going on in that book, it's one helluva wonderful ride.
Hijacking the top comment to repost this:
To elaborate on how prison has replaced slavery as a means of racial control, here's an excerpt from a book called The New Jim Crow.
It's written by a legal scholar named Michelle Alexander, and it explains how mass incarceration in America has replaced slavery and the Jim Crow laws as a racial caste system.
> Mass incarceration in the United states has emerged as a stunningly comprehensive and well-disguised system of racialized social control that functions in a manner strikingly similar to Jim Crow.
>
> This is, in brief, how the system works: The War on Drugs is the vehicle through which extraordinary numbers of black men are forced into the cage. The entrapment occurs in three distinct phases.
>
> The first stage is the roundup. Vast numbers of people are swept into the criminal justice system by the police, who conduct drug operations primarily in poor communities of color. They are rewarded in cash — through drug forfeiture laws and federal grant programs — for rounding up as many people as possible, and they operate unconstrained by constitutional rules of procedure that were once considered inviolate. Police can stop, interrogate, and search anyone they choose for drug investigations, provided they get “consent.” Because there is no meaningful check on the exercise of police discretion, racial biases are granted free rein. In fact, people are allowed to rely on race as a factor in selecting whom to stop and search (even though people of color are no more likely to be guilty of drug crimes than whites) ‒ effectively guaranteeing that those who are swept into the system are primarily black and brown.
>
> The conviction marks the beginning of the second phase: the period of formal control. Once arrested, defendants are generally denied meaningful representation and pressured to plead guilty whether they are or not. Prosecutors are free to load up defendants with extra charges, and their decisions cannot be challenged for racial bias. Once convicted, due to the drug war’s harsh sentencing laws, drug offenders in the United States spend more time under the criminal justice system’s formal control — in jail or prison, on probation or parole — than drug offenders anywhere else in the world. While under formal control, virtually every aspect of one’s life is regulated and monitored by the system, and any form of resistance or disobedience is subject to swift sanction. This period of control may last a lifetime, even for those convicted of extremely minor, nonviolent offenses, but the vast majority of those swept into the system are eventually released. They are transferred from their prison cells to a much larger, invisible cage.
>
> The final stage has been dubbed by some advocates as the period of invisible punishment. This term, first coined by Jeremy Travis, is meant to describe the unique set of criminal sanctions that are imposed on individuals after they step outside the prison gates, a form of punishment that operates largely outside of public view and takes effect outside the traditional sentencing framework. These sanctions are imposed by operation of law rather than decisions of a sentencing judge, yet they often have a greater impact on one’s life course than the months and years one actually spends behind bars. These laws operate collectively to ensure that the vast majority of convicted offenders will never integrate into mainstream, white society. They will be discriminated against, legally, for the rest of their lives ‒ denied employment, housing, education, and public benefits. Unable to surmount these obstacles, most will eventually return to prison and then be released again, caught in a closed circuit of perpetual marginality.
The American criminal justice system is rigged against black people, black men in particular. It's a disgusting injustice, and nobody in mainstream society seems to really care. I'm glad Kanye is shining a light on it though.
House of Leaves, baby. More of a mind-fuck than fucked up, but still a hell of good time!
well shit man, you're gonna make me cry. I've had a relationship very similar to this and I have to say there is nothing really like it. However as special as you might think this person is; just remember that part of that emotion can also be nostalgia. When it comes to our needs and wants as human beings in relationships. We tend to overlook the negatives for the positives because (depending on how much abuse we are willing to deal with) sometimes those precious moments of mundane life can be just as powerful if not more powerful than the heartbreak dealt in it's absence.
To be honest; ever since I was a kid I has a romanticized view of women. That through trial and error I would meet "the one". Someone who brings the concept of "kindred spirits" to the next level. They get your sense of humour, they don't disappear or mock when you do stupid shit; they understand your aspirations and dreams; but more importantly they deeply understand inner workings of your pathos while bringing their own interesting perspective and pathos along with them. To make a sort of intermingling of emotions; like oil and water shaken up in a bottle intermingling but never a carbon copy of each other; only complimenting each other.
The sad reality however is that this shit doesn't really exist..
Don't get me wrong; you can find close to this if you are lucky which is what you probably found with the girl you are describing. However the older I get the more I realize that the concept of "oneitis" only hurts you in the long run. What turns from a 2 year relationship; might turn into 2 later years of mourning of that prior relationship due to the concept of how "special" or "unique" this girl is. I know this feeling deeply as i've dealt with it a couple of times. The truth is that these girls aren't actually that "unique" or "special".
Of course everyone is unique in their own way and there are no perfect copies of anyone. However when you start to date a large amount of women the "unique" traits; become less "unique" and more similar. People aren't as special as they make themselves out to be. We have similar molds and the girl you thought that was like no other; probably has millions of very similar copies. I know this is making me out to be like a dick; but i wouldn't write this novel if I wasn't trying to pass on some painful knowledge that I received from previous relationships if I didn't relate to your struggle.
This last piece of advice is even going to sound more asshole-ish/nihilistic, but the way I was back in my other relationships (and correct me if i'm wrong about yours because i hate to project incorrect psychological analysis). I would generally put the girl on a pedestal and value what made her happy more than what made me happy. This is what ended all of my relationships in horrible ways. From cheating to 1 week breakups to flat out insulting rejections; a large portion of putting these girls on pedestals was valuing them more than myself. This comes from a position of broken self-esteem. The moment I started having less attatchment to the females in my life and started living for myself. The more girls i started dating and guess what; if you want to ever meet a girl that's similar to the experience you had with your SO. Then you are going to have to play the numbers game and I mean quickly. When i say this I don't mean sleep with as many women as possible, but meet and become on friendly terms with as many people as you possibly can and then select the ones that you connect with the most. This will not only make your dating life way better; but it will change the way you view relationships. You wont be so desperate to latch onto a girl, because you wont see the girl as angelic saint diety goddess. However as a person with their own attributes, idiosyncrasies and flaws. This is one of the most singular things that has improved my life; and since you seem to have shared a similar relationship past with mine I just thought I would share it with you.
Anyways,
Whether you take my advice or not, man
I wish you peace, brother.
Also if you want to dive deeper into why women are more attracted when you are less attatched/emotionally responsive read this:
https://www.amazon.com/Models-Attract-Women-Through-Honesty/dp/1463750358
It's PUA without being a complete narcissistic superficial dick.
Pce.
Communicate clearly. Body language is confusing: Use your words. Before you begin, discuss and lay out each of your boundaries. When you want to try something new, ask.
If you fear asking a bunch of questions makes you less masculine or dominant, phrase your questions as statements. For example, instead of saying, "Can I kiss your neck?" you can say, "I'd really like to kiss your neck." Then wait. Don't kiss her neck yet. If she responds positively and enthusiastically, kiss her neck. If she responds negatively, don't kiss her neck. And the most important part: If her response is ambiguous, hesitant, or unenthusiastic, do not kiss her neck.
Learn how to eat pussy. The first time I ate a girl out, I studied this guide and made her cum with ease. It's far from exhaustive and there are lots of other things to learn, but I think it's a solid first-time guide. For more in-depth instruction, read Ian Kerner's She Comes First.
You need to know when your girl is ready for penetration: Measure the circumference of your dick. Then measure your fingers to figure out how many roughly equal the circumference of your dick. Until she can easily take this many fingers, Do. Not. Fuck. Her.
This will spare her the pain of getting your dick stuffed into her when she's not sufficiently dilated or wet. And a girl who associates your dick with pain is not a girl who will be keen to have sex with you again.
If you're too big for regular condoms, get custom-sized condoms. Check out MyOne/TheyFit and MySize.
As for unhooking a bra, you basically squeeze the two sides of the strap together to get the hooks out of the eyelets. Here's a more detailed guide. But don't surprise her with this. Ask first.
Actually it goes way farther back then that! After slavery was abolished, the white people in charge (for a lack of a better phrase) realized they could not just do what they wanted to black people anymore. The solution to this, through the law, was arresting them for minor reasons and locking them up. This of course expanded over time and as you said, The Drug War became a great resource for continued oppression- intentional and unintentional.
The New Jim Crow does an incredible job of going over it. Whether or not you agree with her theories, it's an important viewpoint to familiarize yourself with.
Everyone sucks at something at one point, but with practice you'll definitely be able to get better! I highly recommend writing over typing out the solution when you practice. Also, 90% should be dedicated to planning out path to the solution and 10% for writing/typing the solution out. Sooner or later, things should start clicking and making sense. Here's a list of resources that helped me get all the way to the Google on-site interview (Didn't get an offer but it was an amazing learning experience)
Data Structure And Algorithm 1: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLH73N9cB21W1TZ6zz1dLkyIm50HylGyg
Interviewcake: https://www.interviewcake.com/
Khan Academy: https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/computer-science/algorithms
Leetcode: https://leetcode.com/
Cracking the Coding Interview: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0984782850/ref=pd_aw_sbs_14_1?ie=UTF8&dpID=51F6Lwyq5JL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL390_SR390%2C390_&refRID=1PE4XEBQDDHEF4T1ZA9K
Algorithm Design Manual: http://www8.cs.umu.se/kurser/TDBAfl/VT06/algorithms/BOOK/BOOK/BOOK.HTM
Make sure to practice everyday and have a strong understanding of the concepts. Network, contribute to open source projects, and keep on learning!
Sexual assault when she was younger is unlikely to STILL be making her vagina and clitoris physically sore, but unresolved psychological trauma can definitely inhibit arousal, and physical stimulation of such sensitive parts without psychological arousal can easily be too much sensation and feel unpleasant.
I think she needs to talk to a counselor or therapist to make sure she's spent some time dealing with leftover problems from her abuse.
When that's been addressed, I suggest you both read Come As You Are ( http://www.amazon.com/Come-You-Are-Surprising-Transform/dp/1476762090 ), which introduces a great "accelerator and brake" metaphor for arousal that makes it much easier to communicate with your lover.
Be patient and good luck!
+1, don't just circle jerk and pretend you're above learning patterns before you even understand why they exist. They can be abused, but they exist for good reasons.
I strongly recommend going over Head First Design Patterns to anyone interested.
I have an anxious attachment style too, and initially I thought it was a bad thing. What I like about this theory is how non-judgmental it all is. Your needs are your needs. I NEED more security and validation from partners, so I NEED to look for someone who is capable of giving me that. Secures can do that, while avoidants cannot.
If this interests you at all, I HIGHLY recommend the book “Attached”
Can I recommend a book, "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck". It's an entertaining introduction to some of the concepts that helped me with these issues.
Come As You Are, by Emily Nagoski Ph.D. It's the owners manual for female bodies and sexuality.
Covers everything from practical sex info, building healthy relationships, recovering after unhealthy ones, communication, wellness, confidence, self esteem, safety, trauma, and emotional healing. For straight/bi/gay women (and she's working on expanding for transwomen).
I personally think the opposite. Photo realism is not "advanced". Painting impressionistically is not beginner either. What you need for impressionist painting comes off the back of photorealism. Copying a photo does not make you advanced. Infusing a photo with emotion and meaning makes you advanced. This painting is just that. And I love it. I am honestly tired seeing a photorealistic drawing and then clicking the comments just to see "Wow! I thought it was a photo" over and over again. Not to knock it, but this sort of work takes a different kind of skill. You need a handle (hah) on your brushwork and how you react to what you see. Difficult as fuck. Im still learning how to do this myself.
Learning "how to see" is definitely the cornerstone in becoming a better artist, though. That I agree with. Don't equate impressionism with not being able to do this. In my opinion they do it the best. I recommend anyone learning to pick up "drawing on the right side of the brain". Thats what personally helped me with getting things right. I used to draw photorealistic but I felt that it was an empty sort of exercise. Where do you go from there? Here. You go here. You express yourself.
Love the painting
I am by no means an expert artist so take this with a grain of salt but i can give you my advice:
it sounds obvious (and to be honest, pretty disappointing) but you just need to draw as much as possible, set aside an hour a day to just draw.
A good place is to start is to draw still-lifes with basic shapes at varying distances: something like this. this will let you start to develop an eye for lighting and how shapes and shadows interact. Search up how to properly shade if you're unsure.
while you're drawing these, start studying 1 and 2 point perspective: this slide makes it simple to understand and is pretty comprehensive. perspective is an essential tool which you'll need to understand.
keep drawing these basic shapes everyday, then start upgrading into more abstract shapes, things like wine glasses other shapes.
Maybe you can read Drawing on the right side of the brain?
It's probably one of the most highly regarded guide to drawing which really helped me to understand certain processes and logic behind drawing.
SIDE NOTE: Drawing from your
brainmemory/imagination is an incredibly difficult thing to do and not every artist is great at it. Use references and stills from life or books or the internet to develop your skill.One of the greatest difficulties you will face is drawing what is there rather than what you think you see.
PM me if you ever need help with something.
HTML and CSS are pretty simple, I would spend almost no time reading about them (Unless this is for some sort of job interview) for the most part you will just be googling "How to I make round borders" until you can do it by rote memorization.
JS, on the other hand, is a tricky beast. I would spend a majority of my time learning not just how to write javascript, but how to write good javascript.
javascript the good parts and Javascript garden is where I would start out learning. Javascript is easy to write, but hard to write well. You need to follow strong conventions otherwise your code will end up looking like spaghetti right quick and in a hurry. If you start playing around with the language, I would suggest using JSLint to make sure you aren't doing anything stupid.
After getting a good strong base in javascript jquery shouldn't be too hard. It is just a javascript library. perusing through the docs and getting a feeling for what it can do is probably all you really need. Just like any library you've used. You didn't learn all of the .Net framework, rather you would google and lookup specifics as you needed them. That is much the way you are likely to use jQuery. It can do a lot and you don't need to know everything it can do to use it effectively.
In short, javascript is where the traps are. The other things you mentioned are "I'm going to google this anyways" so I wouldn't really spend a large amount of time learning them.
I think you know the answer, but don't allow yourself to act on it. You're afraid of committing to something you don't have control over. You're afraid of negative emotions, because you don't know how to deal with them. Your plan right now is to adjust your life to avoid negative events and emotions, instead of learning how to deal with them.
Thing is, whether it's in love or something else, like losing someone to sickness or death, or losing your job, you won't be able to escape having to deal with heartbreaks.
The only way to deal with heartbreak is by experiencing it. By knowing life will go on and achievable, even if the mountain in front of you seems insurmountable.
You could see a therapist like somebody else suggested. Some self-improvement books might help you. I suggest reading The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson.
Some advice I can give myself is to start putting things in perspective. How does something affect you in the long run? How does it affect you in a week, a year or a decade? Look at the bigger picture and things become relative. Get yourself to think everything is a moment to learn from, to shape you to be a better person.
Also, if your happiness depends on needing someone else, something is wrong. You should be happy in life regardless of being with someone. I know that's hard to achieve, but it's definitely not impossible if you keep working on it.
One book that can help you do a better job is She Comes First. This book is aimed at teaching cunnilingus. It also explains a bit about her arousal and things to pay attention to that show she's getting aroused.
Because you're both new at it, it will take some time for each of you. Part of it is that she needs to understand what gets her off and how to let you know. Part of it is that you need to understand what cadence and speed is arousing for her. So clear communication is essential.
So a few off the top of my head:
Models: Attract Women Through Honesty, by Mark Manson
As a woman and feminist who read that book for funsies, I think it offers a lot of solid advice for men on how to gain confidence and a good mentality, and actual instructions for social interaction with women WITHOUT the ordinary PUA tricks and tropes. Can't be bothered to look up exact quotes right now, but his message is basically that "if you want to get laid, PUA tricks and games could potentially work on some women who are very insecure. If you want to maximize your happiness however, drop that shit and start making yourself and the women you meet truly happy -- which incidentally will also get you laid, and so much happier in the long run."
Same. I just ran through this summary and I'm really not impressed. This in particular sounds like a tall stack of anecdotal horse shit:
> After many experiments on himself and others, he emphasises that the key factor in waking up with energy is that you tell yourself before you go to bed, that you would be getting enough sleep that night and would wake up in the morning feeling energised and ready to go. Regardless of whether its 4 hours or 9 hours, if you acknowledge and accept that you’ll be getting a good amount of sleep, then you’ll feel great in the morning.
I think I'll stick with The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck by Mark Manson, thanks.
> This is my favorite form of foreplay these days, I think. I enjoy the way he uses his fingers, and he got me off this way recently.
Mine too! My SO is a genius at what we call "yoni worship" and tantric massage, and it's SOOO nice! 🔥💥⚡️🌋 🥰
There are many different ways to go about fingering and women differ a lot in what they like and need, so couples often need to do a lot of experimentation to figure out what works best. (I think that's one reason most men aren't very good at giving female handies.)
We do a lot of edging, which is extending the arousal phase while delaying the orgasm. It increases the amount of sensual pleasure and also makes the orgasms last longer and feel stronger. In our case, we have found that about an 80:20 mix of fingers and oral is about optimal for both of us, although we vary it quite a bit. We've found that mixing up different approaches helps the edging process last longer and it also keeps us from falling into a rut.
In addition to using oral and a variety of fingering techniques, we also mix in occasional uses of a vibrator on my clit to get me up to (or back up to) a high plateau level before he switches back to fingers or oral. Not everyone likes it, but it's definitely worth a try as you both learn more about managing your arousal pattern!
> I don't hear much talk of this online though.
Actually, there are whole communities devoted to tantric sex and erotic massage, where those of us who love giving and receiving this kind of sex tend to congregate. Try r/tantricsex for starters. The sidebar has links to some good online resources for a beginner.
This is my review of a website that provides tutorials on dozens of different techniques for using fingers. It's a paysite, but definitely worth it:
Here are some books you might want to check out:
This is a collection of articles I wrote that includes several articles on erotic massage, including reviews of videos that demonstrate excellent technique:
If you are interested in going beyond erotic massage, this article is an overview of the secular (non-religious) kind of tantric sex:
...and this is a book-length instruction manual that is online and free:
Here are some other perspectives on tantric sex:
Have fun exploring!
Sure :)
EDIT: Added links to Amazon just in case anyone wants to see reviews.
[$1 Or More Tier]
Head First Ruby
Head First C
Head First Object-Oriented Analysis and Design
Head First SQL
Head First Statistics
[$8 Or More Tier]
Head First Javascript Programming
Head First PMP
Head First HMTL and CSS
Head First C#
Head First Agile
[$15 Or More Tier]
Head First Design Patterns
Head First Java
Head First Python
Head First Learn to Code
Head First Android Development
>And your stats don't mean anything. They can be interpreted as meaning that blacks are more likely to commit crime in general, which the stats also show.
First, I appreciate that you're taking a different line of reasoning here. It's not easy to stand up against a multitude of people that see things differently than you. However, I think you're cherry picking statistics here.
You're right that statistically speaking, black people are more likely to commit violent crime - but if you don't follow up that statistic without asking yourself "why" then you're missing the crux of the issue.
For instance, did you know that white people are statistically more likely to abuse drugs than black people, but that black males are convicted at a rate 10 times higher than white males?
There's a long and complicated history as to why black people are inordinately prosecuted in our judicial system. But I strongly believe that if you look at the total numbers with an unbiased view you'll agree with me here. If you're interested in learning more on this topic, I strongly recommend The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander.
So there's not a lot for us to go on here, but one thing I'll say is that good software development jobs are not easy, even for those completely qualified for them. If he's in the middle-high range salary-wise, then the challenge and expectations are probably all there. Software engineers are not cheap, so while they're treated very well to attract and retain talent, they're also seen as a big investment that had better pay off.
I was laid off from my first full time job and while my coworkers spoke very highly of my skills and the care I took with my work and went out of their way to emphasize how bright my future was in the industry both in person and in my peer reviews, my managers made things very clear: For the level of work they needed me to do, I simply was either not skilled enough or experienced enough to make the cut. It wasn't personal, or a statement about how smart I was, it was a cold and completely practical business decision.
What did I take away from that? Well after I stopped feeling bad for myself I realized that there wasn't anything wrong with me, that I was perfectly capable of cutting it in this industry, that many engineers less smart than me got along just fine, and that I simply needed to up my game and get a new job. It wasn't about getting smarter, it was about getting my shit together and working out of Cracking the Coding Interview daily, learning the hot frameworks that everyone needs engineers for, building a real portfolio and GitHub profile, and being ready to work that hard even after I got a new job. And I got a new job where I was paid over twice as much and so far I love it.
Nah, don't be silly. There's the real world knowledge that you use on the job and then there's the stuff they ask in interviews, which mostly consists of things you learned in college and forgot. Most programmers, regardless of experience, aren't going to do well on an Amazon technical interview unless they study before hand.
I understand the 'put my foot down' mentality you're going for, but from what you've written it comes off as coming from a place of insecurity. Yes you have to establish boundaries for what you consider to be acceptable and unacceptable behaviour, but more importantly you have to recognize when you're doing things reactionarily to others or if you're truly acting out of self respect. The author Ayn Rand discusses this concept in Fountainhead,
>"Others dictated his convictions, which he did not hold, but he was satisfied that others believed he held them. Others were his motive power and his prime concern. He didn’t want to be great, but to be thought great. He didn’t want to build, but to be admired as a builder." Fountainhead Chapter IX, Part 4, pp. 605
Are you doing things to show others you have self-respect and boundaries, boundaries which are defined by reactions of others, or do you have self-defined boundaries developed out of self-respect.
I hope you'll take this as constructive criticism rather than an attack on your person.
Ok let's be real for a second. You were fairly invested in her and she didn't reciprocate. She sent some signals of disinterest that you picked up on 'acting distant and not making an effort to message me', then she sent a soft rejection, 'I'm busy' (I'm guessing she didn't propose another time by saying something like 'I'm busy but I can do this Saturday').
Because you were still invested in her, you pushed through the indicators and tried to get her to return investment in you by [demonstrating value] initiating conversation, cracking jokes and being nice. She didn't respond for a few weeks and then you 'put your foot down' and unfriended her. That's not establishing boundaries, that's acting reactionarily out of a place of insecurity.
Let's talk about what you could've done differently, and the underlying mindset behind what you did in comparison.
Here are a few books which I think may be helpful for you to read.
Subtle art of not giving a fuck
Models: Attract Women Through Honesty
If you're actually serious, this is an excellent read and a good starting point. Here is a free PDF copy. Here is another free PDF copy with links. One of the most incisive, accessible, and well-researched resources out there today.
Check out The Foodlab from Seriouseats. It wont really teach you the basics, but their recipes explain HOW and WHY certain things work and certain things dont.
Also check out /r/cookingforbeginners
And if you wanna know what flavors go well together, check this out. Great book.
It should be mandatory that everyone either read or watch the documentary Guns Germs and Steel. Because on the face of it it wouldnt be a unfair question to ask why did Europeans become the most advanced and dominated other cultures. Guns Germs and Steel lays out a rock solid case on and to sum up the answer comes down to Geography and timing not because of superiority of any race. But the answer is even more complicated then that... andv to sit there and argue with these knuckleheads with this long complicated arguments is pointless. It would be better if kids learn young about why these discrepancies exist so we can shut down those questions early on.
Also, the Vice Guide to Eating Pussy
and She Comes First by Ian Kerner
On the other hand, if it measures larger on the inside than on the outside, you've got an entirely different problem with your house.
Ok, lassen wir das wieso, weshalb warum mal außen vor da Du schon deine Entscheidung getroffen hast. Ich habe selber nur eine Erfahrung, aber ich habe viel mit den Damen und Herren aus dem Milieu zu tun gehabt. Lass mich einen Vorschlag zur Güte machen, finde eine Möglichkeit eine Escort zu dir kommen zu lassen, ggf. in die sturmfreie Bude von einer deiner Freunde. Sag am Telefon explizit das Du Jungfrau bist und Du eine Dame haben möchtest die auf so eine Nummer wirklich Bock hat, investiere mehr Geld = mehr Zeit. Weil: Du beschreibst dich als schüchtern und die Situation in einem Bordell ist beim Erstkontakt selbst für gestandene Männer eine eher ungewohnte Situation. Viele sind nervös, gestresst und fühlen sich unwohl. Insgesamt kein guter Rahmen um die notwendige Entspannung zu entwickeln die für guten Sex notwendig ist. Vor allem vor dem Hintergrund das bei dir ein weitere Stressor (Jungfäulichkeit) hinzukommt. Resultiert darin das Du entweder keinen hoch bekommst, oder super schnell kommst. Daher ist auch eine Dame wichtig die sich Zeit für dich nimmt und sich auf deine Situation einlässt. Dinge wie gemeinsames Duschen und Massage schaffen eine entspannte Atmosphäre, danach ausgiebiges Vorspiel und 1-2 Verkehr.
Viel Erfolg!
Edit: Da Du noch relativ jung bist, arbeite an dir selbst, es gibt zwei Bücher die ich dir nahelegen kann:
https://www.amazon.de/Die-S%C3%A4ulen-Selbstwertgef%C3%BChls-Erfolgreich-zufrieden/dp/3492263968/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1483880311&sr=8-1&keywords=sechs+s%C3%A4ulen+des+selbstwertgef%C3%BChls
https://www.amazon.de/Models-Attract-Women-Through-Honesty/dp/1463750358/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1483880318&sr=8-1&keywords=models
Lass dich nicht von den Rezensionen vom 2 Buch irritieren, es ist in dem Sinne kein "Pickup" Buch. Es geht darum wie man an sich arbeitet um einen selbstsicheren und attraktiven Lebensstil zu entwickeln.
It's this kind of thinking that fuels racism. There are too many people who think that Obama being elected as president was a sign of racism ending. This couldn't be further from the truth. Explicit racism is certainly on the decline but it has taken new forms that are more socially acceptable such as racially-motivated policing, constitutional rights being revoked from former convicts, and much more. There's a really great book called The New Jim Crow that details this way better than I can.
EDIT: THANK YOU for the gold! I'm not entirely sure what it does but I definitely appreciate it. Also, I think anyone who reads The New Jim Crow deserves gold in my book.
I'd recommend you take a look at adult attachment theory. I read this and it drastically changed my views on relationship needs, jealousy included.
Basically, you'll find that jealousy is a "panic mode" reaction (there are plenty of others) that can be quelled if you are pro-active with your partner. It's easiest to pre-empt the feeling by realizing you're feeling insecure, and addressing that with your partner ahead of time, before the jealousy sinks in.
Even once it's set in, you're effectively just looking for safety. Just ask for a hug, kiss, reassurance, whatever from your partner, and that intimacy will likely help to "reset" you to your normal state. Your partner will hopefully be communicative and open enough to help you there.
The important part is to address it calmly, and lovingly, instead of putting blame on your partner and yelling at them. Tell your partner you are upset, and need some love/reassurance. I'd be willing to bet once you both have some kind of intimate moment, you'll go right back to being fine.
tl dr; Jealousy isn't a bad thing in itself; it's a reaction to your relationship needs going unfulfilled in some manner, which can be calmed by good communication and reassurance between your partner and you.
Drawing From the Right Side of the Brain is a classic with some great exercises. Have fun!
http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Right-Side-Brain-Definitive/dp/1585429201
Standard Responses:
For Theory/Lectures
For Practice
/rant Something that concerns me about this sub is how up and coming Software Engineers ask for handouts of information that they can easily acquire by googling and researching. Now I'm going to reward this behavior by pointing you in the right direction.
/endRant
First off: The FAQ https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/wiki/index
1.) Resume: https://www.careercup.com/resume
Using Latex: https://www.overleaf.com/gallery/tagged/cv (A lot of people love the Deedy Resume template - note that if you choose to use Latex then your output will be pdf which may not be processed well by automated resume processors)
Using Word: https://templates.office.com/en-us/Resumes-and-Cover-Letters
Notes: White space is valuable. Target your resume to the position(s) (but don't lie). Write it, then proofread it, then edit it, and repeat (grammar/poor wording looks terrible). The easiest way to maintain a good resume is to do just that - periodically (every ~6mo) open it up and add new experience (ignore the proofreading if you want.. just write anything new down).
2.) https://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/098478280X and https://leetcode.com/
Notes: East Coast/Tier 2 companies typically don't ask as many (or as difficult) programming questions so focus on behavioral and domain knowledge. For the technical questions practice on an actual whiteboard with a partner while explaining your thought process out loud. Communication skills are probably more important than technical skills but this sub doesn't bring that up as much.
3.) See 2.
Final Notes: Maintain & update your LinkedIn. Prepare for your job search to be a grind (mentally). Do lots of research. Try and get referrals to increase the likelihood that you get an interview. There's no magic advice that will enable you to land a BigN job without hard work (though some will achieve it more easily than others - many people interview at Google 2-3+ times before they land a job there). Reading "Clean Code", "The Pragmatic Programmer", "How to Win Friends and Influence People", and at least owning a copy of "Code Complete" are often suggested here as ways to improve your abilities as an SWE.
Heh. IQ scores are not a reason to be proud. Pride is reserved for accomplishments, not tests.
Furthermore, most of the test are really bullshit.
I scored 160+ on my first one, in elementary school - off the scale of that particular test. I know why, too. First, it was a public school test in 1985, designed by the public school system, so it was expecting everyone to fail. Also, I started reading heavily before I went to elementary school, because my parents had the foresight to take me to a local library for some activities involving books, films, and a teacher doing these things in her spare time to help kids learn. I wish I could remember her name. I'd send her a thank you letter. :/
That's not smarter, it's just better prepared. Simple.
High school, another silly IQ test (again, not the real thing, expecting everyone to fail, scored 150, got a perfect score on the ASVAB.) I can't take a test seriously if I don't break a sweat on it, ya know? When the questions are so simple you can read the intentions behind them like a book, it's a shitty test. The AP tests were decent, though.
Then, in college, I finally met a real IQ test. Eight grueling hours, some of the most fiendish questions you can imagine. I got out of there with a 138 and finally felt like it was a fair assessment.
Then I saw tests like the Lowell Putnam. That's when you understand the difference between being ahead of the curve on some silly academic tests and real genius. I work with someone who managed a 2/10 on that test. He designs the core mathematical models and logic engines for our products, and his dogs can hunt. He's always ragging on me for going into IT (easy work) instead of engineering.
My advice to the OP would be - look, Math is a language not a separate subject. Own that bitch, that's where the real heavy thinking is. If you can get your head around it, all of the other sciences will fall in line like dominoes. Math is what matters most. Look at it like a language instead of a separate, mind-numbingly boring subject and you'll take to it like ducks to water.
I'd also say keep writing, and pick up a copy of both Elements of Style and On Writing. All other books about writing are redundant if you have those.
As for the social problems? Mostly bullshit too. Nearly everyone acts like that when hanging out with the wrong crowds. The trick is finding a crowd that fits your interests, not trying to mold your own personality into something John Q Public will enjoy. Find a good D&D game, chess club, travel to Europe, do things. Sitting at home changes nothing.
I'm 2 years into a part time physics degree, I'm in my 40s, dropped out of schooling earlier in life.
As I'm doing this for fun whilst I also have a full time job, I thought I would list what I'm did to supplement my study preparation.
I started working through these videos - Essence of Calculus as a start over the summer study whilst I had some down time. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZHQObOWTQDMsr9K-rj53DwVRMYO3t5Yr
Ive bought the following books in preparation for my journey and to start working through some of these during the summer prior to start
Elements of Style - A nice small cheap reference to improve my writing skills
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/020530902X/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
The Humongous Book of Trigonometry Problems https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1615641823/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Calculus: An Intuitive and Physical Approach
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0486404536/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Trigonometry Essentials Practice Workbook
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1477497781/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Systems of Equations: Substitution, Simultaneous, Cramer's Rule
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1941691048/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Feynman's Tips on Physics
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0465027970/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Exercises for the Feynman Lectures on Physics
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0465060714/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Calculus for the Practical Man
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1406756725/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
The Feynman Lectures on Physics (all volumes)
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0465024939/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I found PatrickJMT helpful, more so than Khan academy, not saying is better, just that you have to find the person and resource that best suits the way your brain works.
Now I'm deep in calculus and quantum mechanics, I would say the important things are:
Algebra - practice practice practice, get good, make it smooth.
Trig - again, practice practice practice.
Try not to learn by rote, try understand the why, play with things, draw triangles and get to know the unit circle well.
Good luck, it's going to cause frustrating moments, times of doubt, long nights and early mornings, confusion, sweat and tears, but power through, keep on trucking, and you will start to see that calculus and trig are some of the most beautiful things in the world.
Try The Flavor Bible! It helped me go from using recipes to making dishes on the fly out of what I had on hand and helped me come up with new recipes based on exciting food combinations I read about.
http://www.amazon.com/Flavor-Bible-Essential-Creativity-Imaginative/dp/0316118400
There’s an entire book written by a man dedicated solely to performing oral sex on a woman. It’s very tastefully (no pun intended) written and it would be an awesome read for you and your husband. She Comes First
Hey man, you might enjoy looking up this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Right-Side-Brain-Definitive/dp/1585429201/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1342485946&sr=8-1&keywords=drawing+on+the+right+side+of+the+brain
As somebody else who has resolved himself to learn how to draw, that book took me from shitty stick-figures to a Clint Eastwood sketch that still instills gushing feelings of inner pride from myself. All within days mind you.
It’s also deliberate: The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
Outliers: The Story of Success - by Malcolm Gladwell
The Pragmatic Programmer - By Andrew hunt
Cracking the coding interview - Gayle Laakmann McDowell
Some book recommendations:
Others that are great and related but not as "necessary" as the above three:
Unrelated to "better code" but still great:
I first heard about these when reading Godel Escher Bach back in later high school. That book was a long, difficult read, but man did it blow my brain wide open. Quines are definitely the thing that I remember most vividly (probably because it was the easiest to understand), but that book was full of awesome stuff like this.
You should totally check it out! You can get it super cheap at used book stores since it was such a successful book.
Horses, steel weapons, steel armor against obsidian clubs, Inca weakened by disease,
ohhh and gun powder.
Guns, Germs and Steel
Strunk and White's The Elements of Style
Salvadori's Why Buildings Stand Up and Why Buildings Fall Down
Tufte's Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative , especially the excerpt Visual and Statistical Thinking: Displays of Evidence for Making Decisions.
Falar Top ajuda tanto quanto falar "ta uma merda" ou "foda-se". Mas aumenta o ego. Obviamente a pessoa que desenhou focou o tempo em sombras e luzes e detalhes, mas ta bem obio que quem desenhou não tem noção de anatomia, estrutura, proporção ou muita pratica. E isso é ok. Depende do que você procura. Se é um hobby, "só um desenho", ta bem legal. E muito bom que você passou 3 horas nele, mostra que você realmente gosta de desenhar.
Se você quer melhorar de verdade. Primeira coisa é aprender estrutura básica. Proporção, blocagem, anatomia etc. Entender um olho sempre vai fazer com que você possa desenhar olhos mais rápido, mais realistas e ai sim manipular ele para o tipo de olho que você quer. Seu desenho está muito 2D, mesmo com as sombras. tente entender que o olho é uma esfera dentro do cranio e envolta por pele. Não se preocupe tanto com sombras e luzes no começo, tenta primeiro fazer o olho funcionar.
Isso se da por vários motivos. Um deles é que você está desenhando o olho como um simbolo olho, o que vocÊ lembra como que seria um olho. Muito melhor tentar ignorar essa memória e praticar a observação, pelo menos até você entender. Tem um luvro chamado "desenhando com o lado direito do cerebro" https://www.amazon.com.br/Drawing-Right-Brain-Betty-Edwards/dp/1585429201 Recomendo bastante para entender isso.
Cílios longos, lápis mais escuro... Isso são detalhes. Não são eles que deixam seu desenho bom. O básico que deixa.
https://www.proko.com/how-to-draw-eyes-structure/ Proko é um mestre. Ignora as luzes, as sombras. Foca na estrutura.
Dito isso, pense agora no... Desenho. Um olho sendo só um olho não diz muito. Se foi um estudo, desenhe menor, desenhe mais. Um estudo não precisa de um olho renderizado. Ao menos que esse seja o foco do estudo. Um estudo precisa de 5 folhas, lotadas de olhos de vários angulos, alguns com contexto, olhos de diversas etinias, diversos formatos, com os 2 olhos muitas vezes (simetria é sempre bom de estudar). Se for um desenho finalizado, sempre pense num contexto, esse olho está no vazio? Numa pedra? num rosto? Numa pessoa desenhando um olho num papel? Desenhe esse contexto. Velocidade vem com o tempo, não se preocupa.
Espero que minha crítica, apesar de um pouco mais pesada tenha sido útil. Todo mundo que desenha já passou por essa parte. Se eu te falar "ta legal", você vai ficar feliz, mas vai cometer os mesmos erros pelo próximos 50 desenhos de 3 horas.
In my opinion: Nutrition is for losing (or gaining) weight and making sure you recover properly.
Cardiovascular training (literally heart and blood-vessel training) is for heart, vascular and lung health so you can run after a bus or take a flight of stairs without feeling like you are going to die. It helps you think more clearly, resist depression, and reduces risks of some of the most deadly diseases (heart attack, stroke, etc.)
Resistance training is for gaining or maintaining lean body mass and strength. This helps you look better naked, keeps your bone mass up, and as you get older, helps you recover more easily from slips and falls. It also is good for your metabolism: it helps with insulin sensitivity and each pound of lean mass burns 2-3x as much energy as a pound of fat, and it takes up less space.
Finally, stretching/mobility training will help you keep your youthful ranges of motion, reduce stiffness and pain, and reduce injury potential.
You need a balance of these four elements to be truly fit.
To answer your specific questions:
Sorry, I started in on this post and it got away from me. Hopefully you find some useful nuggets in here.
TL;DR: You need to have a balance of nutrition, cardio, resistance, and mobility training. You have to have a calorie deficit to lose weight, so focus on foods that fill you up without a ton of calories. There are tons of cardio options that aren't running that will be easier on your joints. Lifestyle change is about changing your habits. Doing food prep really helps make losing weight easier.
A couple things:
This book is an amazing book I recommend for anyone who "knows how to write code" and has built a few things. It's a classic. Reading it cover to cover strengthened my coding skills considerably, and lessons I learned from it I apply to every new project I tackle.
[edit:] For example, the DRY principle: Don't Repeat Yourself. Basically, every operation and value in your code needs to be represented once. Two extremely similar functions? Do not copy and paste. Abstract the function slightly and find a way to make it do your two similar operations with the same basic function structure. This keeps your code clean and much easier to modify/maintain.
Need to do the same function in two different classes? Break the operation out into its own class or an abstract class (or other options depending on the language) and make both classes use it, because you'll probably find other similar crossovers that both classes will need. (These cases vary in practice, but you'll get a feel for it.) Hell, on a few occasions I realized after doing this that it was more practical to merge two or more classes into one giant abstract class and write smaller, specific children, and this helped tremendously.
Some situations might arise that this helps:
I refer to the Flavor Bible frequently. It is a compendium of flavors that pair well together.
There isn't a particular book that I can think of that focuses on cocktail creation, but I enjoy Kevin Liu's discussion of balance in Craft Cocktails at Home and Gary Regan's discussion of drink families in The Joy of Mixology. I would start there and then move onto other books.
In terms of process, it's very situation-based. Modifying current recipes can be fun and a good jumping off point. Start by trying to make your own signature Last Word variation. Classically it would be equal parts gin, Green Chartreuse, maraschino liqueur and lime juice. I do something with equal parts rose green tea-infused gin, Liquore Strega, pear liqueur, lemon juice and chamomile-citrus bitters.
You can also think about what certain drinks have in common and try something in the same style i.e. Sidecars and Margaritas are both spirit, sweet, and sour while Manhattans and Negronis are both spirit, sweet, and bitter. The history of drink making is so long that it is highly unlikely that you'll be making something that doesn't at least slightly resemble an extant drink, whether or not you ever figure it out.
The key to a good cocktail is balance. Sweet, sour, and bitterness all help to mellow each other out. Bitters are great for this because the addition of even a small amount of bitter flavor will dull the perception of sweet and sour so that any extremes are rounded out. Sweet does the same to sour and bitter while sour does the same to the other two, though both to a lesser extent than bitterness.
Again, I highly recommend the Flavor Bible. With it you can take a spirit, see what flavors you can pick out and see what will pair well with them. Then find ingredients that can bring that flavor to the table. You can then check out the pairings for that flavor and see if the two lists have any overlap.
The more classic recipes you become familiar with, the more you'll be able to see patterns in what general drink formulas work.
Be sure to straw taste as you go to correct any issues with balance early on in the process. You should do this anyway with drinks you already know the recipes for, but it's especially important when creating so that you can tell what each ingredient is bringing to the table.
Another approach, once you have an idea of ingredients to mix, taste each on its own to get an idea of how it might play with the others and also the intensity of flavor to give you an idea of what proportions you might aim to balance intensities.
Have at least part of an idea in mind before you start pouring. Cocktails are an ephemeral art, so you won't have to live with your mistakes for long if you make a bad drink, but don't go wasting good liquor chasing after a completely unformed thought (at least not at this point).
That should be enough to get you started. Let me know if you'd like additional reading recommendations.
Source: I run the bar, train the bartenders, and write the drink menu for a successful bar/restaurant with a focus on craft cocktails.
Thank you for this. I think I need to figure out a way to have a situation somewhat like this.
Right now, he's so frustrated in general about it, he's like, "LET'S BONE! WHY DON'T YOU WANT TO!!??" And when I tell him I don't know, he gets mad, doesn't believe me, makes crazy assumptions like I'm cheating.
All of that definitely doesn't help me get in the mood. And right now, I'm not able to just say, "SEX, let's do it." I don't like it. I know he's upset. But to have sex when I don't feel it, it just doesn't seem right.
---
EDIT: Since this is a higher comment, I'll put this here. Thanks everyone for the advice and wonderful words.
I ordered Come as You Are and Mating in Captivity. I'm going to give them a read and not-so-subtly leave the books out so he can see I'm doing something for the cause.
I also had to quit GW2 due to it being too addicting. Personal two nickels: quitting video games cold turkey doesn't work, especially if you haven't changed your living environment, like the computer with all the potential games is right there in your house/apartment waiting to be played. It is an instant trigger reminding you to play again. My happy medium was strictly sticking to single-player games when I'm solo, and ONLY playing multiplayer/online games with people I have met and know in real life - as a way of socializing. Luckily the few friends that I have are busy and can only play on weekends so it's working out for now.
A few books that helped a TON in understanding why I had such a hard time quitting:
The Power of Habit
[Mini Habits] (https://www.amazon.com/Mini-Habits-Smaller-Bigger-Results-ebook/dp/B00HGKNBDK)
I hope it works out for you! IMO you are doing the correct thing getting back to old hobbies, but it definitely does take time.
For me, it's a bit cheesey but after reading the Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo, I truly felt that my life was changed. In total, I have tidied up my place twice, the first time only my clothes and the 2nd time, doing my entire apartment. Each time, I've felt a perspective change after. The biggest thing beyond tidying your house was how that book forces to confront your past decisions and change the way you make new ones. I try to do things that "spark joy" for me and this goes beyond shopping or spending money. Speaking of shopping, after you tidy, you are much more careful about buying new things, how you're spending your money and what you're bringing home. Once I finished my tidying festival, as Marie calls it, I was able to shift my focus on to more important things like FIRE and doing thigns in my life that sparked joy.
>Indulge me in the systemic injustices of the black community from the last 40-50 years after the civil rights movement ?
There are entire books you can read about this. Here's one: https://www.amazon.com/New-Jim-Crow-Incarceration-Colorblindness/dp/1595586431
​
And then the rest of your post is just taking your incorrect premise and running with it.
As one of the people who commented on that thread, I feel the need to respond to this as rationally as humanly possible.
For starters, let's clear up the difference between fractal mathematics, fractal woo, and what Douglas Hofstadter might call fractal analogy.
>“Everything big is just like everything small!” they exclaim, “the universe is self-similar!”
...and then using such logic to thereby justify whatever silly energy-Reiki-mystical-connectedness-telepathy-de-jour they want.
As well, Chaos Theory - the study of how immensely complex patterns emerge from seemingly simple preconditions - is full of fractal mathematics. Given that the universe is absolutely packed with iterated functions and self-similarity almost everywhere we look, I think you can absolutely take the point of view that the universe is fractal in nature, especially when you are in a self-induced state where your brain makes a lot of connections you might normally overlook or not even bother to think about.
My point is that discussing things in the universe as self-similar is useful to mathematicians and non-mathematicians alike; using the word "fractal" to describe natural systems that exhibit those familiar patterns might not be perfectly correct, but it's not itself offensive or an affront to reasonable discourse. I manage a business; so what's your problem if I visualize the structure of my company as a fern leaf with departments and employees as branches off the main stem? What would be the issues of discussing how incredible human cellular morphology really is with my biologist roommate, and citing some cool research someone decided to do about fractal geometry in the way our bodies build themselves?
EDIT: OP's edit makes it more clear his statements were more about irrational folk seeing the universe as a single continuous fractal (that would be the "fractal woo"), and that he is not denying the existence of fractal-like patterns in nature, or that using fractal models can be useful in understanding phenomena. Sorry for any confusion and thanks for the discussion!
EDIT2: /u/ombortron commented pretty well in regards to the utility of the concept of fractals in scientific discourse and otherwise:
>The universe itself doesn't have to be a fractal for fractals to be important.
>Fractals are quite common in our reality, and as a result, that means they are an important facet of reality, and as such they are a legitimate and common topic of discussion amongst people, and this is particularly true of people who do psychedelics.
>Does this mean the universe is 100% fractal in nature? No.
Doesn't directly relate to FIRE, but The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life is pretty great.
KonMari.
http://www.amazon.com/Life-Changing-Magic-Tidying-Decluttering-Organizing/dp/1607747308/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1451491371&sr=8-1&keywords=konmari
I think part of the problem is really that people are looking at only granular parts of problems today and don't have enough historical context. Its useless to follow every story about everyone and every little thing. There are lots of ups and downs in politics and there's no reason to be so reactionary to every single new and probably manufactured "scandal".... that's what's exhausting. I like to keep updated on a few big issues, I follow the careers of a few people I find inspiring (and follow a few that do things that worry me), and spend the rest of the time reading up on topics in book form... they have the advantage of being written over time, and with more vigorous standards for accuracy. The news, while still important where immediate info is necessary, is essentially click bait now. You don't need to get caught in the rip tides that pull you everywhere constantly, just understand the general trajectory of the important things.
edit: to those curious about some book recommendations: I'm by no means an expert in anything really, and the books you read should really be about the topics you personally are interested in, so don't take my word as gospel (or any author's). I like American history, ancient history, international relations, and though I think they're more boring I force myself to read about the health care system and the American education system because I feel they're important. I'm also looking to read some books on the military industrial complex and cyber security/ big data because I don't really know anything about them other than the stuff I see in passing on the news or here on Reddit. So if anyone knows a good overview of those issues, feel free to let me know.
This is just some stuff I've listed off the top of my head. Another thing that I find helpful to better understanding intl relations are books about the major genocides of the past few decades, which are hard to get through (because of the brutal content) but... What is the What (Sudan), First they killed my father (Cambodian genocide), Girl at War (more of a autobiography, but still chilling) there's a couple of others I've read that I can't remember now.
Anyway, just go to Good Reads and look at Contemporary Politics. Perhaps Great Courses has a political philosophy course too that you can draw from if you wanna go even farther back into the origins of society's structure and political thought.
Also podcasts! I've just discovered these but there's a lot of audio content (FREE!) that you can listen to on your commute and whatnot. I like Abe Lincoln's Top Hat right now.
Edit edit: wow thanks for the gold!!
Queen Jennah and Exemplar Salia are brown. Besides select few NPCs though, it seems Ascalonians have completely pushed out both the Krytan gene pool and architecture. If real world history is any parallel, it's possible that native Krytans were wiped out by diseases they had no immunity to brought by the Ascalonian immigrants, though that doesn't make sense seeing that the two peoples were not isolated from each other before the exodus. More likely that Ascalonian food production technology outcompeted Krytans' such that Ascalonians multiplied so fast that Krytans were left with no resources and a diminishing population. Read Guns, Germs, and Steel.
The BEST BEST BEST book either my partner or I have ever read about all of this is Come As You Are . Get it. Read it. Make your partner read it.
It will change your sex life. We recommend it to everyone. (And it covers arousal, which is why it’s relevant here).
And there it is. Change of circumstance. Circumstance plays a huge part in female sexuality. Have you ever heard the classic joke advice about how to get your wife to have more sex with you--Do the laundry, do the dishes. A woman seeing her husband step up to help her out with taking care of the home can put her in a different mindset and get her motor running. Obviously this varies from person to person. A different wife might get stressed out by her husband doing the laundry (he's not folding clothes the right way! etc).
How is she supposed to "try harder?" She's just going to suddenly want sex more by sheer willpower? Nope. You two need to educate yourselves more on sexuality, sex drives, and get to know the circumstances under which you do and do not feel turned on. I recommend Mating In Captivity for both of you and Come As You Are for her.
Recognize that this is a problem and without concrete efforts to educate and reframe the situation, nothing will change. You can't keep doing the same things and expecting a different outcome. But it sounds like you are both willing to try, and that's what is most important.
Hi! Woman here. You are definitely not ugly. On the plus side, you aren't fat, full head of hair, well trimmed beard, symmetric face, good teeth - lots of good stuff!
Women aren't as superficial as guys on Reddit think they are - but awkwardness and perceived creepiness can be a real problem. Most of the dudes on Reddit who are super bitter about getting girls don't realize that being super bitter sends bad signals.
Have you seen or read this book?
https://www.amazon.com/Models-Attract-Women-Through-Honesty/dp/1463750358
Mark has great stuff on how to improve your chances of getting girls in a real way.
Some things to think of:
You're a professional the day you dress up and start trying.
fwiw, bare minimum working code is often a good idea if we're talking about the amount of code to do some task :)
Design patterns are most useful in that they help you start recognizing patterns in your own code, and they show you a number of common patterns which can be useful - but it's good to keep in mind that you shouldn't force a design pattern somewhere just because it's a design pattern.
Anyway, the Design Patterns book is good, and so is Head First Design Patterns.
-blacks are 3.73 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana despite roughly equal usage rates (https://www.aclu.org/gallery/marijuana-arrests-numbers)
-the bureau of justice statistics found that blacks receive longer sentences for the same crimes even when other variables are accounted for (https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fsd0512_sum.pdf)
-"African-Americans are far more likely than whites and other groups to be the victims of use of force by the police, even when racial disparities in crime are taken into account" (https://www.nytimes.com/.../study-supports-suspicion-that...)
-Black men nearly 3 times as likely to die from police use of force - http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/20/health/black-men-killed-by-police/index.html
If you want more information, here is a fantastic book on our systems of mass incarceration in the US called "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness."
Exactly! Guys, if you're not willing to invest time and effort in turning her on, why should your girlfriend care about getting your hopes up?
Read up on how to fuck a woman that makes it great for both of you. You have the entire internet at your disposal. Start having an open, ongoing conversation about what she personally likes. If she's inexperienced and doesn't know what she likes, then you get to find out together. Hoorah!
If you say, "Wanna have sex?" and she agrees but you don't do much more than stick it in, she is disappointed every time. If she says otherwise, she's just being sweet because she doesn't want to hurt your feelings.
Does everyone here know that it can physically hurt to have sex when a woman isn't really turned on? And I don't mean kinda uncomfortable or whatever, but real pain. So somewhere between wanting to fuck you and realizing you weren't going to do anything beyond saying, "Wanna have sex?" she realized she didn't want to fall sleep with her vagina burning from being rubbed raw just to make you happy.
Your girlfriend is not one of the small percentage of women who can come from penetration alone. Even if she is, assume she's not. Educate yourself (and maybe her, too). Why not have the best sex you can possibly have while you're young and full of insane lust?
(edit: accidentally a word)
(edit again: accidentally a recommendation)
I like thinking about culture. We tell the story of people, real and imaginary, and we should know where they come from.
I believe culture is driven by the head, the heart, and the belly. So if an idea comes into my head for a culture I ask five questions:
You'd be amazed how much you can inform yourself there.
That gives me a nice start. Then I start to ask other questions on themes. Ask the 5W1H (Who What When Where Why How) questions about 6 random subjects based on what you now know
For instance, Death:
It's a never fails way of going about things. Now come up with the life of five people living in a society based on this information. Use Proust's questionnaire and Gotham's questionnaire to frame them.
Do all of this with first thoughts. Look it over. Think about it. Look at common travel questions like "What's the best place to eat?" or "what should I not do to piss off the locals"?
You can get the true feel for a society in hours. Then put your characters who are in that culture through those same questionnaires, same random questions. You'll know them from head to heart to belly, and you're golden.
EDIT: I just saw some other information. DO NOT READ GENRE FICTION FOR WORLD IDEAS. Read history, philosophy, anthropology. Pick up a history of food ,Guns, Germs, and Steel, other books that give you overviews on specific topics in history and anthropology.
Tolkien wasn't reading Kingkiller Chronicle, he was learning about hillbillies, ancient languages, and living in WW1 England. Pratchett was a polymoth. Heinlein dug in on so many topics it's unbelievable. Inform with ideas, write from your head and not someone else's.
It does, but you don't need to know all of that to draw from a still photo of a face. Instead of drawing a skull, muscles, skin, you break the picture down into shapes and lines and draw those instead. You don't need to know any of the anatomy because all the visual information you need to draw it is already there without any knowledge of how it works.
It's possible to go from not knowing how to draw to being able to draw a pretty good face in just a week if you can learn to do this, there are several books that teach it. This is the one most people will recommend you. From there you just practice getting more accurate and learn how to actually do it (physical techniques to shade, how to blend, etc.).
He's being a dick about it but what /u/curdledS8 is saying is 100% accurate -- knowing how to draw from a still photo really well doesn't mean shit if you don't know how to draw form, how perspective works, etc.. It's not that impressive if you think about it this way.
/r/learnart
Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain
These two resources will pretty much do you for a while. The book is like learning the abc's for drawing. It'll run through everything a beginner needs to know. The sub-reddit will allow you to post your drawings and then get critique for them: really helpful tool.
For drawing kit all you'll need is a pencil or a pencil set and some paper. Don't go nuts with buying too much 'cause you never know if you'll like it enough to keep going.
https://www.amazon.ca/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/0984782850/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1510973787&sr=8-1&keywords=cracking+the+coding+interview+7th+edition
Awesome Interviews
https://github.com/MaximAbramchuck/awesome-interview-questions
Coding Interview University
https://github.com/jwasham/coding-interview-university
Cracking the Coding Interview: 189 Programming Questions and Solutions
https://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-6th-Programming/dp/0984782850
Company Interview Corner - GeeksforGeeks
http://www.geeksforgeeks.org/company-interview-corner
Technical Interview Questions | CareerCup
https://www.careercup.com/categories
Search Interview Questions
https://www.glassdoor.com/Interview/index.htm
Linux System Administrator/DevOps Interview Questions
https://github.com/chassing/linux-sysadmin-interview-questions
The System Design Primer
https://github.com/donnemartin/system-design-primer
Devops Interview Questions
https://github.com/Leo-G/DevopsWiki/wiki/Devops-Interview-Questions
More interview prep resources including online courses at http://Learn.SharjeelSayed.com
*Edited for more resources
Amazing!
I once did Reddit's book swap like 5 years ago and I sent away House of Leaves and received some hentai. Sigh.
Read this book: https://www.amazon.com/Subtle-Art-Not-Giving-Counterintuitive/dp/0062457713
Practice, you’ll get better with time. I approach every task I’m given the same way: I do my best at it, and if I fail then I learn what I’m not good at. That tells me what to work on for the next time I do it. You can get a lot of self development done that way.
Fake it till you make it man. Soldiers look at you and see an NCO. If you try to project what you think they should be seeing, then eventually you’ll get used to acting that way and it will become normal. Nobody has access to the inside of your head but you, it’s okay to be nervous or freak out to yourself, but what you project outwardly is what counts.
Historian here, ACTUAL truth, because of the warm all year climate and abundance of food with small tribal populations divided by geography (for the majority of the time) there was no development to the advanced civilization the rest of the world did, and the ones that did, didnt last long (great Zimbabwe, Nubia, ect). The middle east had vast deserts, Europe and to a lesser extent Asia had winters, so food cultivation and thus tool making never really materialized in vast amounts of sub-Sahara Africa because they didnt have to overcome their environment as far as climate goes. (i am assuming thats what you are talking about as north africa is a different story, they arent poor).
Africa actually has vast amounts of resources, rare earths for example, but their governments corruption keeps any of the wealth out of anyone's hands but the government and military war lords.
The idea that things were just fucking dandy until colonial powers came to the shores is laughable and only a fool with no education would believe such non-sense. The few iron age civilizations that did developed were gone long before the Europeans arrived. And it was the Arabs who arrived first and began slavery and "exploitation" of Africa, not Europe. And for every augment for colonialism raping Africa, there is another Rhodesia to Zimbabwe story to counter it.
tl;dr-Its not always Whitey's fault, despite it always being blamed on him
http://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/dp/0393317552
^gives you a basic idea in layman's terms
If you're working on your math and might pursue a CS degree I'd recommend Cracking the Coding Interview. I actually haven't read it myself but it's a highly recommended book often mentioned on subreddits like /r/cscareerquestions
EDIT: Perhaps pair it up with books on algorithms and data structures so you get comfortable in working with, lists, arrays, trees, graphs etc :)
EDIT: (currently 0) Why would someone down vote this? I just don't understand why?
EDIT: Someone mentioned that it could perhaps be because I hadn't read it myself so I thought I'd add a heartfelt recommendation by /u/amputect that I just read in the authors AMA:
> Gayle, I don't have a question, but I wanted to say that your book helped me get two programming jobs. I used to push grocery carts in the arizona summer, now I work for Google. I also, like, went to college and learned and stuff, but your book was a huge help in prepping for interviews. Thanks to you, I felt more confident and more prepared, and I was able to interview with several major tech companies without fear vomiting a single time which for me was a pretty big deal.
Seriously, thank you, thank you, thank you. Your book is great, I recommend it to everyone. You are a fantastic writer and a brilliant human being. Thank you!
Read Models. Best money you ever spent.
https://www.amazon.ca/Models-Attract-Women-Through-Honesty/dp/1463750358
https://www.amazon.com/Head-First-Design-Patterns-Brain-Friendly/dp/0596007124
Most people do not suck at drawing because they do not know the technique, but because they do not know how to see. What you want to do is train your eyes and I recommend the book "Drawing with the Right Side of the Brain" by Betty Edwards. EDIT: Here is the Amazon link and I just noticed there is a 4th edition! If I needed another I would get this to check it out but I am sure she added a lot of good things. The author studied the human brain to have a better understand of how drawing works so I am sure she added new techniques and things from current studies.
Try to look for it at a local library, I am guessing you are either Australian or English so I am not sure if they will have the book but you can drop about 20$ and then some for shipping from Amazon.
About styles: you develop it over time. I am not really talking about manga style, but your own flavor of doing things. I recommend trying out the manga style, but I do not recommend making that your main form of learning. That is bad, because (1) you are copying another stylized piece of work (you want to draw from nature or non-photoshopped photographs) and (2) you most likely will be learning mistakes and it is really hard to fix mistakes. I read some manga and Kubo and Oda are two artists I love and if you look at their beginning work, it is almost flat out horrible to where they are now. There are small nuances to other people's work and you want to be careful what you copy. The only thing you can copy are the masters (Da Vinci, other Renaissance masters). Here is a website describing what Da Vinci did for practice which I recommend everyone to check out, but if you are a very beginner, I recommend checking out the book I recommended first. Practice, practice, practice. Try to draw something once a day, even if it is just a stick figure.
(3) Drawing from imagination is very, very, hard. In the beginning a lot of your manga/cartoon/stylized work will look so stiff and maybe not so fun to look at. That will be because of basics and experience. Life drawing will be what corrects this. Look into that after you got the basics. Backgrounds and landscapes are usually another set of classes/studies so check those out after as well.
Other than that, those are my tips. I want to be clear to you, and any other beginner, that I beat myself up when looking at my earlier and current drawings. Drawing can be a challenge because you need to know when to look past your mistakes and look at the tiny improvements. This is a sentiment shared with a lot of artists so do not think you are alone. Do not give up. If it is becoming stressful it is so great to take a step back, work on another project, or just take a week off. I find this to be the challenging part of drawing.
Any other questions? I will try to answer to the best of my abilities.
Yesterday I ended up un the negatives for saying fedoras are bad.
Come on MFA, we're crossing into self-parody territory here.
Also reading The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up and purging things big time. I've always been drawn toward minimalism but actually getting there is surprisingly emotional. I'm way down in numbers clothing so far and my closet has gone from rows and rows of stuff to like five coathangers.
Incoming wall of text! Sorry in advance, look at the bolded words to kind of do a TLDR of my reply :P
Read "Annihilation", the first book in the Southern Reach Trilogy, by Jeff VanderMeer. It'll ruin Tanis for you, because you'll see where they got a lot of their content from (to put it nicely).
The two last books in that series are okay, but I wasn't completely on board for them. Loved the first one, though. You could also just watch the movie version that's on Netflix, but know this: while well-made in some aspects, the director chose not to re-read the book OR read its sequels, so it diverges from the original book / book series quite a lot in some unfortunate ways.
I'm currently (still) trying to get through [House of Leaves](https://www.amazon.com/House-Leaves-Mark-Z-Danielewski/dp/0375703764/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1536787331&sr=1-1&keywords=House+of+LEaves) by Mark Z. Danielewski. It's a fantastically weird story about a house...And about other things. It's probably the weirdest book I've ever read, in that it plays a lot with the format. There's at least two stories being told simultaneously most of the time, which can get kind of overwhelming. Think of it like if a regular horror movie and a found footage horror movie had a bastard child together. And that bastard child was this book.
If you're looking for weird fiction in the form of podcasts, I'd direct your attention to Archive 81. For my money, it's the absolute BEST in weird fiction podcasts. It's currently 3 seasons, and each season the podcast changes. It's still the same overarching story / world, but the settings are way different.
Other notable podcasts include King Falls AM which has sort of a goofy x-files-if-they-were-a-radio-station vibe to it, featuring both a lot of good comedy, good songs (when they happen) and the occasional gutwrenching drama. The writing is good, the performance is amazing. You could also go for Darkest Night if you're into the idea of podcasts as a horror medium. They do excellent stuff, and their new season starts this October! They feature a few cameos from Michelle Visage and RuPaul if that's your thing (and these two amazing people feature more heavily in the other podcast by this company, Deadly Manners.
Going back to books, I suggest Laird Barron to anyone who likes horror and short stories. He has mixes of gritty noir and cosmic horror, and he's an absolute blast. The Imago Sequence is my favorite collection of his, but The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All is great as well. Laird Barron has also appeared in compilations outside his own, and was part of compiling the excellent modern Cthulhu short story collection, Autumn Cthulhu. This book is great if you like the idea of cosmic H.P. Lovecraft-esque horror, but don't so much like the gross racism that HPL had (and showed in his work).
If you like Slenderman and have time to burn, I'd suggest looking at Marble Hornets on YouTube. It has 87 "main" entries of varying (but mostly short) length, with a bunch of cryptic in-between shorts. It's one of the first Slenderman pieces of media, though they don't call him that. In Marble Hornets, he's called "The Operator". TBH it's sort of varying in quality (especially in the beginning), as I'm fairly sure the people who made it were film students at the time. As they go along, they have some amazing moments where they show off some really, really great editing skills. Of course, you could also buy the whole series on BluRay if that's your thing, but it's available for free on their YouTube channel.
If you want to break your mind into tiny, little, mostly mad pieces, I recommend pairing House of Leaves with Haunted.
The author and musician, respectively, are brother and sister. Both projects stemmed out of dealing with the death of their father.
I was able to orgasm with a vibrator and a lot of time, but never could get off with a guy until my (future) husband and I got seriously experimental about it. I'm very glad we did. It has made a HUGE difference! If you want to make an effort to change this, I encourage you to keep exploring alternatives.
That's important, because women who have trouble having orgasms differ so much in terms of what works that it's really hard to give specific advice, except this: don't stop trying new things just because the first ten don't work!
Fortunately, most of the things you will want to try are interesting and enjoyable, even if they don't work the first time, so the journey can be fun even if it takes a while.
This is a good place to start:
It has a bunch of links to other resources, including this classic book, which I recommend:
It's out of print, but Amazon usually has used copies for under $10, shipping included. It's a classic for a reason. It has helped many, many women have their first orgasms and their first partnered orgasms.
If you're like most people, you both came into your relationship with a set of preconceived ideas about what "having sex" consists of, in terms of the sequence of steps, the techniques, and the amount of time devoted to each part of the process. You've tried that and it hasn't worked, and you've tried a lot of variations on those themes without success. But you haven't explored all or even most of the possibilities, so don't give up now.
A good example of that is the website OMG Yes!!!, where you can learn many variations on about a dozen basic ways for your partner to stimulate your vulva and clitoris with his fingers. (It's $39, but definitely worth it.) I recommend exploring it first and experimenting on yourself, and then you can show him what you'd like him to try.
I also recommend the book She Comes First: The Thinking Man's Guide to Pleasuring a Woman, by Ian Kerner. It will help a great deal with the "stalling out" problem.
More generally, I would urge you to:
Good luck! ❤️💕
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck is a great read, for anyone interested.
I'm quite sympathetic to the argument that the Rationalist community often behaves in worryingly irrational ways, extending in-group status to Neoreactionaries being a prime example...
But damn, son; go pick up a copy of Pinker's Sense of Style, or Strunk and White's The Elements of Style. Even a quick read through Scott's recent post on nonfiction writing will be of enormous benefit to you.
You vacillate wildly in tone between "snarky Youtube comment" and "dry, academic college essay", your paragraphs are bloated with cliches and banalities like "But if I might be so bold as to suggest" or "But there’s another angle that must be considered" (a quick read of some Orwell might cure you of this) and you resort to unimaginative insults like "vicious little shit" and "banal edgelords". Insults in general are usually a bad idea in an actual published work, but if you're gonna use them at least put a little creativity into them.
I've spent the last couple days in bed with a cold and I've been filling the hours by reading Reddit comments. An excerpt from an upcoming book should not be the worst prose I've seen in that time.
What about a book that everyone can relate to? "Everyone Poops"?
I'd strongly suggest picking up a copy of Models for your buddy. The book tends to be honest, insightful, and offer lots of actionable advice for building a romantic connection.
I've found that purposefully building a habit is what keeps practice going. Charles Duhigg's The Power of Habit has all the information you need to learn how to do that, but I'll try to summarise it there:
I am definitely forgetting some steps, forgive me. . . But the book I referred to definitely has the answer you're looking for.
You have a very special wife. She's admitted to you that she has a lower drive than you but she is still right there with you, having, and enjoying, sex 3-5 times a week. Never take that for granted. I know it's fantastic to feel desired and wanted by a partner that can't wait to tear your clothes off and throw you on the bed, but that's just not what some people do. The fact that after all these years your wife is still an active and enthusiastic participant in your sex life is her showing you how much she wants and desires you.
I think you might both benefit from reading Come as You Are, which explains Responsive Desire. It's not a reflection on you at all, it's just the way some people work sexually, and there's nothing wrong with it. Knowing what it is, and how it works can make a world of difference.
Attached is a pretty good read, and comes from a credible source - it's also geared towards the anxious types (since they're more likely to read it).
I can absolutely 100% relate. My pattern was always hot and heavy for 1-2months max, and then they’d have some sort of epiphany that they actually weren’t as into me as they thought they were. I never understood it until I learned about attachment theory... and damn, did that explain a LOT. If you’re interested, this book made a huge difference for me.
Is this /r/psychology or /r/clickbait?
The surprising truths are:
I can't recommend She Comes First enough, a book about why cunnilingus is the ultimate activity for helping women achieve orgasm.
How to Judge a Book Without Even Reading It
Do you think librarians read all those books they buy?? Heck no. Yes, collection development librarians rely heavily on library review journals, but you can pretty successfully judge a book before you even read the intro. And how!
1. Try a Little Intellectual Snobbery
Basically with this you need to try to smell out the people who are saying “I’m not a historian but…” when they start their books. Who wrote this thing and why? Is this a historian going for tenure, is this maybe a historian trying to write more popular history, is this a historian at the end of their life putting out a magnum opus, is this a journalist? Who published it, academic press or regular press? Does this person have Something to Prove with this history book?
Now, I’m a little leery of recommending this method first, because I’ve seen some pretty shitty books published by big academic houses from heavily degreed people, and I’ve seen some very nice historical work put out by tiny publishers you’ve never heard of or self-published, and written by people who just decided to write a book because they cared deeply about the history of something that few others cared about. Good work absolutely stands on its own merits, and independent scholars are important animals in the academic ecosystem. But there is a correlation here, and not necessarily a causation, between academics working with academic publishing houses and the production of rigorous history, and you can lean on it a little.
2. Give it the Vulcan Citations Pinch
Flip to the back of the book. Where does the actual book stop and the endmatter start? Basically the more endmatter the better. You want maybe a good solid half centimeter of paper between your fingers, preferably more. If you start seeing appendices in addition to citations and index that’s very good.
3. Scope-to-Cred Ratio
This one’s hard to quantify but basically, the more modest the book’s scope the more modest of arguments and credentials the author needs to pull it off. So a book about say the importance of paperback books for soldiers in WWII, this is a pretty modest scope, and it’s not making any very bold claims, there’s no real reason to be suspicious about the arguments made in this book, although it’s absolutely a popular history work. A book trying to explain the history of everything, get suspicious.
4. Read the Intro
Okay after the first three bits you’ve decided this book has merited your attention enough to open the thing. The intro to a book should give you the outline of the major argument and you can decide whether the argument passes a basic smell test of not being total bullshit. If you find the argument compelling and you want to see how they are going to argue it in the knitty gritty, it’s time to commit to checking out/buying the book and seeing what’s up. (Intros are usually available for new books on Google Books or Amazon previews.)
4b. Read the Acknowledgments
You can tell a lot about a person from their acknowledgments section. I’ve seen books where the author specifically thanked the ILL staff of their local library. They should ideally be thanking an archives or two if it’s a modern history book, because that means they’ve done Real Research.
5. Have a Good Idea of How One Does History
This one takes a little time investment, but having a basic idea of what makes a good historical argument and what makes a bad one will serve you well for judging any history book, from any topic. Maybe just spend some time on the logical fallacies section of Wikipedia. Just knowing to run away when you hear someone start yammering about glorious progress or indulging in extended hero-worship will serve you remarkably well in the history section at Barnes and Noble.
6. Nothing Wrong with Reading a Bad Book
Okay, so you did all this pre-judgement and you still managed to read a real turd. Ah well. You always can learn a lot from something done poorly. They’re a certain grim joy in hating a bad book, especially if you get to feel smarter than an author, so just treat yourself to a really firm critical dismissal of the work. Maybe leave a real stinker of a review here on a Saturday or /r/badhistory.
Yes. Everyone poops.
Most, not all, of these other responses are more in line with "why" quit gaming or how to balance it, but your question is HOW did I quit.
So here's the framework, then following that are my personal steps.
Framework 1: If you remove 5 hours of gaming, you don't have to replace it with 5 hours of super productive life habits. I removed 5-6 hours of gaming a day but it enabled me to add 1-2 hours of health/fitness, and some time to eat better, then I slept an hour earlier, etc., but I still dicked around and did useless shit for 2-3 hours of that 5 hours of previous gaming time. It doesn't have to be 1:1 bad habit removal to amazing habit add in. I still sit on Twitch and zone out for an hour or two here and there while I browse the internet, but it's easy to put it down and go to the gym or not wait until I'm starving to eat, which makes it easier to eat better.
Framework 2: Identify your level of addiction. Mine is a proper addiction. I think I can reinstall and play within reason today...for a week...a month...6 months...but at SOME point I fall off the wagon and to the bottom of the well. So I have to legit just straight up accept that I don't have the discipline to play in moderation like other people.
Framework 3: With any habit you have to analyze what it is rooted in. In my gaming habit it was a few things:
So here's what I did...
On my spreadsheet I have had days where I ate like shit or drank or missed days in a row of the gym. Far from perfect. My reading habit hasn't taken hold like I wanted it to. But I'm fucking HAPPIER. And you know what column is PERFECT in my spreadsheet? The gaming one. That's my keystone habit. That's my FIRST domino. Find yours and make incremental, deliberate changes.
Message me if you wanna chat, I got your back.
PS: Read this: https://www.amazon.com/Power-Habit-What-Life-Business/dp/081298160X
You should also read come as you are
Your statements seem more shaming her for having responsive sexual arousal when in fact75% of women do. So it sounds like your shaming her by saying her natural type is wrong because it’s not like the mostly male spontaneous type.
You and other activists who think throwing Asians under the bus is en vogue.
 
I just showed you a list of problems. Are you and other activists on the streets protesting anti-Asian violence from Blacks? Thank you. You listing what whites do to Blacks is precisely my point. It's whites who have a racial problem against everyone and that includes Asians so more focus on their misdeeds instead of pinning stuff on Asians as if Asians invented http://www.amazon.com/New-Jim-Crow-Incarceration-Colorblindness/dp/1595586431/
would help.
Yeah, then go read The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander.
> Colton said he didn't view it racially
Using racially charged terms and then saying, "No, I didn't mean it in a racist way," is the hallmark of racists (SEE: Donald Trump). No one self-identifies as a racist. They see their views as justified because they aren't against a particular race; they're against crime, poverty, drugs, etc. The main problem is, they overlook that behavior in the majority groups they belong to. White frat boys doing coke at a college party are just kids having fun, but black people doing crack in a poor neighborhood are violent criminals. Colton wouldn't have labeled a struggling white stand-up comedian as ghetto, so let's stop pretending like him calling Bill ghetto isn't racist.
tl;dr Colton is a racist.
EDIT: If anyone's interested in looking into this topic more, The New Jim Crow is a great book about how racism has evolved since the days of "Whites Only" water fountains and segregated schools.
Every quality software should have tests. So...
Read the unit tests / features tests first. Those will show you how a specific piece of the code works.
Also:
There are a lot to learn and if you really like programming you will never stop learning.
Thank you all for your responses! I have compiled a list of books mentioned by at least three different people below. Since some books have abbreviations (SICP) or colloquial names (Dragon Book), not to mention the occasional omission of a starting "a" or "the" this was done by hand and as a result it may contain errors.
edit: This list is now books mentioned by at least three people (was two) and contains posts up to icepack's.
edit: Updated with links to Amazon.com. These are not affiliate - Amazon was picked because they provide the most uniform way to compare books.
edit: Updated up to redline6561
The Flavor Bible gets thrown around a lot, but for good reason. It's a great resource when trying to formulate your own recipe. It focuses on things like which foods have affinities for other foods, seasonality, and sensations different foods have. It's a great thing to page through when you have whatever the equivalent of writer's block is for cooks.
Easy. Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid.
There's two components to this.
One, realize if you land in a relationship you won't magically get happy. No one thing in life makes everything better. Life is complex and misery comes from a lot of sources. If you're miserable outside of a relationship there's a good chance you'll be even more miserable in one. Also, you now have less time and money. To really understand misery and getting over I'd recommend Feeling Good and The Subtle Art of Not Giving A Fuck.
The second part, let's say you really do want success with women. Or at least to try it out. You're probably unskilled. That's it. You aren't a loser. You aren't a failure. You're just unskilled. Think about it like this. We all have to work to eat and survive. There are dozens of strategies for job hunting, but I've never heard anyone exclaim, "ah, don't worry about it. Just be confident and you'll land your dream job one day". You think about the type of career you want, think about how to build a presentable resume, create a strategy to get the experience you need. Plenty of steps and strategy. Same with seduction. For this I'd recommend Models and asking around /r/seduction. There's a lot of different strategies out there (a lot of terrible along with good) and figuring out what works for you, but the important thing is just realizing it's a learned skill. It isn't fate woven by gods from the beginning.
This is a dumpster fire.
This isn't your job's fault, it's yours. Accept it because it means you get to choose where to go from here. It doesn't feel like it now but you do decide your reactions to what happens around you.
Learn to stop giving a fuck. In fact, I recommend the book. Given your work history, I'm going to bet you don't delegate, it seems to be a common issue among former sysadmins and engineers.
Make use of all resources you have available to you, both personal and professional. MAKE time to go to the gym. If some low priority shit doesn't get done at work, oh well. I'd also recommend another book to help augment your current habits, The Willpower Instinct.
You are in control, you get to decide what bothers you. Take control of your life and your happiness. Get in better shape, play with your kids. Pick up a new hobby. Whatever you have to do but don't give up control of your life to a fucking job.
It shouldn’t all be on you, he needs to be an active participant as well. I only provide suggestions for you because you can control your own actions.
I’m currently reading Come As You Are. It’s pretty popular lately, and might be an interesting read for you both.
http://www.amazon.com/Everyone-Turtleback-Library-Binding-Edition/dp/0613685725
Habits I'm building
Habits I'm destroying:
I had other habits in April and May that were successfully integrated/defeated, and I moved on from them (one was waking up at 6:30am).
I have to give a lot of credit to /r/theXeffect for giving me a consistent manner in which to track progress and hold myself accountable. It's really gratifying to see the X marks day after day after day and TO KNOW that my brain is being rewired to want these things by the new cue/routine/reward cycle I'm enforcing.
If you want more knowledge about the actual science of habit formation (it helps me understand the why and the how, not just the what), pick up a copy of The Power of Habit - it's actually a very entertaining read as well.
Dude, you gotta get this book - https://www.amazon.com/Power-Habit-What-Life-Business/dp/081298160X
It's life changing. Yeah that may be a strong word but you're on the right track to fully appreciate it. It will fill in the gaps about what you know about habits and discipline.
EVERYONE POOPS!
Yo estoy viviendo en NY desde diciembre del año pasado y estos son los consejos que te puedo dar.
http://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/098478280X
http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Interviews-Exposed-Secrets-Landing/dp/1118261364/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1458414826&sr=1-1&keywords=programming+interviews+exposed
Básicamente, refuerza tu conocimiento de algoritmos y estructuras de datos. El decir "esto sí lo hice o lo vi en la escuela pero ya no me acuerdo" no es una excusa válida en ninguna entrevista.
http://www.bairesdev.com/
http://www.opensystemstech.com/
Mucha suerte, cualquier cosa mándame un mensaje!
Well firstly, language is a big choice right now. If you're looking to make a financially fulfilling career in a young company or on your own, I'd recommend learning javascript to later use node.js, and learning ruby. Personally, I'm a node.js developer, so I would recommend moving toward the JS world and using really cool things like socket.io and mongoDB. Ruby is a fantastic language overall. It's a bit slow, but it does a great job regardless, and tons of really cool startups use it. At the moment, I would say that these are the two most profitable paths to take in web development.
http://codeacademy.com is a fantastic place to start. It does a great job at teaching the fundamentals of programming. If I recall correctly, the javascript courses take you from the absolute basics to building some kind of useful application, such as a calculator or todo list.
Once you've made your way through the tutorials at codeacademy, move on to http://codeschool.com. Their tutorials are a bit more advanced, and leave you with a real application and real knowledge on how to take an idea and turn it into a real product. For node magic after you've moved through Codeschool, check out http://nodeschool.io/
Here are a few books I would recommend
JAVASCRIPT
RUBY
She Comes First
The Joy of Sex
Advanced level:
Sexual Secrets
I loved Emily Nagoski's Come As You Are
Really, in depth and it's only been out about a year so very up to date (you'd be surprised how much still isn't known!) And just a lot of stuff you don't hear in sex ed or even in typical sex books. It covers just about everything you mentioned and a lot more. I even was able to rent the eBook from my library but I loved it so much I bought it.
Talk to him face to face about how you feel. Be specific about when you feel angry or hurt. If he doesn't take you seriously, move on to someone who respects the kind of relationship cues you need to thrive. You should feel secure and safe in your relationship, not angry and abandoned. He may not need as much reassurance or attention, and doesn't understand where you are coming from. Talk about it! Share your needs with him.
I also recommend the book "Attached." It's a quick read and very enlightening.
\> I know they say you have to be okay on your own before you can be in a healthy relationship- but it seems like a tall order if you have no support. Just wondering if anyone else can relate.
I used to believe that you have to be okay on your own, but now I disagree with statement. Based off of my personal experience and information knowledge of trauma and attachment, I've revised my belief: Even if we don't need one (1) human to be our other half, we need the right social circle and the access to the right resources to have a solid foundation in order to have the skills, motivation, and support make progress toward their goals, feel secure, and be happy.
While I'm not a professional psychologist, what's working for me is trying to be vulnerable but being careful about who I do it with. There needs to be some thought about who I share it with, like what am I trying to do by sharing it with *this* specific person. Am I feeling some inner pain that I believe this person can ease? Am I sharing an experience that I think they will understand? If they don't understand, am I sharing this because I still trust them and I want to bond with them?
I believe healthy relationships is a balance of *relying* (as opposed to needing) on the *appropriate* people depending on the situation (as opposed to relying on the same person for every situation). Sometimes we will take risks and be let down. Over time by doing so, you refine your radar to know who is the best person for a feeling, situation, or experience.
Wishing the best in your healing.
I used to think that too, but don't give up on yourself! I would certainly believe that art comes easier to some people than others, but you can learn to draw better. I recommend the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, which has really excellent exercises aimed at people who have always considered themselves bad at art, interspersed with pop neuroscience that you should mostly ignore.
I've thought of myself as incapable of drawing well, and went through it a few years ago. This is me drawing without a reference beforehand, this is me drawing my own hand beforehand, and this is me drawing my own hand after a couple months of practice.
If you really want to know what's going on in America you should read the following books.
White Trash
The New Jim Crow
There are TONS of people who struggle with it. It's disappointing that she wasn't more understanding. I HIGHLY recommend, as a very first and cost effective step, reading Marie Kondo's book . It discusses the psychology and importance of a clean and tidy space. Her Netflix series is really great, but doesn't conquer the same issues as her book.
This book discusses the importance of a clean sink and the impact it has on everything else in your space! Good luck!!
Don't let the lucrative offers some people get, deter you from turning down a very solid offer to get some good experience even if it's a little below your compensation expectations. Being unemployed for 3+ months and never getting that 110K + bonus + relocation @ [Insert Big N Name] is a shitty situation compared to some 65-70k at a less expensive city with a smaller company that has some new tech they're trying to scale.
In a year, you'll be surprised how much you can save and if you play your cards right, network, do a great job, you'll be worth a decent amount of money after a year.
Have friends whiteboard you for practice. Get used to writing "nearly" build ready/compile ready code using built in Java language data structures and functions. Especially get used to the Collections library, iterating over two collections in a single pass while checking for duplicates or comparators on each entry.
Buy this book and this book and sign up for LeetCode on a free account.
Honestly, try to enjoy your spare time. Do something logical but fun like playing strategy games or solving puzzles. Go to meet & greets, club meetings, volunteer at a dog shelter. Don't try to "win" this game because out of all the people that "win", some end up having severe issues with stress, time management, "loving" the job/life and life after college is nowhere near as sunshine and rainbows as during.
I wish I could "skip" a lecture and work from home, watch Netflix or go with some friends to go eat food in a town nearby or catch a convention or watch some concert on campus. All the college fun stuff? It's gone. Now it's just work... Well, work and money but still... Not as much fun college stuff. Some fun college stuff, but not as much.
I've read most of your comments here and you sound exactly like the guys that get posted about in /r/niceguys. You seem entitled, shallow, and delusional, and you don't have much self awareness. The good news is that you're very young, and a lot of people didn't like who they were in high school and ended up 'blossoming' after high school, whether in college or work.
You need to think about this: if the majority of people, specifically girls, keep treating you and interacting with you a certain way repeatedly, there's got to be a reason for that, and it's most likely not them - it's you. YOU need to change. If you're overweight or too skinny, hit the gym. Not only will you look better, but you'll feel better about yourself, and you seem to need that because you don't sound too confident or sure of yourself.
You also need to be honest with yourself and truly analyze yourself and be vulnerable to identify what your personality traits are, which are good, and which need addressing. The end result of this is that you will be sure of yourself and be accepting of situations and not have a reason to make sad and pathetic posts like this (this is not an insult - but if you don't think this post is pathetic then it stresses my point about confidence and self awareness).
You need to get this book: Models: Attract Women Through Honesty. Even though the title of the book mentions attracting women, the main context is about what I mentioned above: being honest (with others and yourself) and being confident, and the process you need to go through to achieve that.
Lastly, you should save a copy of this post you made somewhere. Read it once every few months. When you finally read it and cringe really really hard after then you're starting to make some progress. Good luck.
Also check out Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski. It's a really good look into female sexuality and deals with the exact issues you're describing.
Honestly, there is nothing wrong with you. Speaking up in a group of people is hard unless you are comfortable with them and I don't believe that is the reason you struggle to develop relationships. Sure, if you're confident and witty, then it's a foot in the door, allowing you to start developing a relationship - if you are always on the edge of things then it becomes more difficult.
I was always on the edge of things in high school. I would sometimes try and insert a comment but it would be forced because I was desperately trying to get myself noticed. When you are in that frame of mind, you aren't relaxed and it becomes far harder to contribute to the conversation.
I used to think this was a fundamental flaw of mine until I got to university and developed a group of friends that actually valued me. I felt relaxed around them and my personality started to come through more.
There are a couple of books that I've read that have really clicked with me. You sound a lot like me, so I think they will help.
Hope this helps!
I think the two suggestions you'll see the most will be:
Code Complete
Pragmatic Programmer
I'm sort of in the same boat as you, except with an aero and physics background rather than EE. My approach has been pretty similar to yours--I found the textbooks used by my alma mater, compared to texts recommended by MIT OCW and some other universities, looked at a few lists of recommended texts, and looked through similar questions on Reddit. I found most areas have multiple good texts, and also spent some time deciding which ones looked more applicable to me. That said, I'm admittedly someone who rather enjoys and learns well from textbooks compared to lectures, and that's not the case for everyone.
Here's what I gathered. If any more knowledgeable CS guys have suggestions/corrections, please let me know.
Full disclosure: I haven't actually read more than the preface of any of those books. Software engineering topics are more directly applicable to me than CS topics right now, so here are some that I've actually started reading:
Godel Escher and Bach is precisely what you're looking for.
I don't think anyone is saying dump the person over sex right then and there. This is a woman who has had a serious discussion about her dissatisfaction over the sex and her partner's inability (or rather unwillingness) to change anything. He could go buy a book like She Comes First and learn some techniques that will help his woman have an orgasm before he even gets inside her. He could slow down and ask her what she needs to get more aroused if for some reason he can't teach himself to go longer than two minutes. He could learn how to kegel to hold back his ejaculation if he mistakenly goes too far too fast. He could wait a few minutes or perform oral or heavy petting and get another erection (unless he is a one and done type guy) and use THAT one on her. But despite her complaints, he has done nothing except say, "Don't hate the player, hate the game." That is selfish. And while it is only selfish in one area of their life together, who wants to be told, "Oh yeah, no more orgasms for you for the rest of your life." I don't care if you are 70; that is a hard sentence in a cold prison.
Ahh, real life House of Leaves.
here's where I break out my copy of The Flavor Bible:
SWEET POTATO Flavor Affinities
yes I know the first 2 don't really fit with what you may traditionally think of when you think of soup. But #3, #4 and #7 sound really good.
Don't give up just yet, keep looking.
Do you have a portfolio? if not try to work on a project of your own so you can have something to show.
And if you are considering improving your java skills try work with libraries like:
With spare time I would also recommend you to read:
https://www.amazon.com/Pragmatic-Programmer-Journeyman-Master/dp/020161622X/ref=nodl_
https://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/being-the-averagest
http://wiki.c2.com/?SoftwareDesignPatterns
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOLID_(object-oriented_design)
Been a developer for 18 years, never had a mentor, but these ideas/concepts I found insightful and enlightening.
23 M fresh out of college, did something very similar and am in a similar situation, except I’ve decided that getting her back isn’t my goal. At this point I have too much respect for her and myself to go down the selfish path of trying to get her back. I’d start exploring the idea of getting better for you and you alone and a better woman will come along one day, or not, and that’s what I’m learning to be okay with.
I’d HIGHLY recommend this book it is a very easy read(grammatically speaking) that hits very very hard. This is an amazing way to baseline where you’re at and figure out what needs to be worked on, chances are there’s plenty stuff you’re unaware of.
On top of that, some standard ways to jolt your body to support your mental progress: exercise, eat clean, meditate, sleep more, drink less, etc. if you’re not doing this any mental progress you attempt to make will be much more difficult. There’s some amazing correlations behind changing your bodily habits and the positive changes in thoughts and emotions.
Don’t go crazy, though. Lift for an hour 3-4 times a week, do some free YouTube yoga on your rest days, and get good sleep. If your job allows it, start implementing a sleep schedule to help manage your time. All these little things have a way of building up and impeding the progress we really care about, make the effort to “automate” a lot of those fundamental processes and you’ll put yourself in the best position to effectively make emotional and mental progress through meditation or whatever other therapy you seek out.
Good luck, feel free to PM me about more stuff I’m in a similar boat as you
Edit: also this book is another essential for being emotionally mature. Understanding Attachment Theory will make your dating life much more manageable
There's a great book that addresses this. It's called Attached: The new science of adult attachment and how it can help you find and keep love. It strongly urges people to date others who have a similar level of desire for and comfort with closeness, and goes into the biological drivers for why closeness feels so life-and-death important. Failing that, it gives practical tips for how to make your relationship less anxiety-provoking if your partner is avoiding closeness. Per the book, if your partner is prone to avoiding closeness, that tendency isn't likely to change. The communication tips these trolls are sharing here are gold. I'm trying my hand for the first time at a relationship with someone who also enjoys a lot of closeness and it is the bees knees. Near zero relationship anxiety for 4 months.
https://www.amazon.com/Attached-Science-Adult-Attachment-YouFind/dp/1585429139/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=attached&qid=1571751595&sr=8-3
IMO, the best way to start drawing is with a pad of unlined paper and mechanical pencil.
But if you want software: GIMP is free (yay), Photoshop is the well-known standard (and these videos are good), PaintToolSai feels more natural to draw with, and I just started using Mischief (which has a natural drawing feel, infinite canvas, and vector-based). My recommendation is Sai, since it's cheap, easy, and fun to use.
To learn how to draw people, start working through the Loomis books, beginning with Fun with a Pencil. A classic for learning how to 'see' like an artist is Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. And when you start to feel frustrated with your work, turn to Art & Fear and Daring Greatly.
Let me know if you have any questions, and good luck with your art journey :)
Hey! I looked through the comments and did not see any suggestions to help with your situation. Here's my suggestion:
I recommend the book "Come As You Are" by Emily Nagoski, where the concepts of SES and SIS (Sexual Excitation System and Sexual Inhibition System) are explained, as well as some ways to deal with a sensitive SES, which you seem to have.
Also, check out this link, where you can fill out an inventory to learn about your SES and SIS.
I don't have your problem, but your situation was mentioned in the book and it sounds exactly like you. I'm hoping that these resources will be very helpful for you!
This is my favourite:
http://www.amazon.com/JavaScript-Good-Parts-Douglas-Crockford/dp/0596517742
Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
This book is not exactly a programming book... maybe... kinda. It teaches no practical programming language. It explains no useful design patterns. It does not deal with any practical computer applications. And yet had I never would have really gotten into programming had I not read it long ago. Written in the late 70's, it's still relevant today.
so if you're aiming for summer 2015 then two things i suggest are:
when january 2015 rolls around, you'll be battle ready for all the interviews. but ya - thats what worked for me.
It's really simple. If you're have problems passing phone screens and in-house interviews, there's a gap somewhere. You need to figure out what that is and fix it.
Do you have personality issues (be honest). I have no idea what 2000+ friends on fb means. Who the hell actually knows 2000 people...wtf? Do you have close friends? Can you have causal conversations with people? Are you aspy? If you're sure you're cool here, move on. If not, sign up for Toastmasters and dive in.
More likely, you have some gap in CS fundamentals. There's stuff you don't know and people aren't hiring you because of it. Write the code to solve the following two problems (no cheating or I can't help).
There's something you're doing or don't know that's causing people not to hire you. You need to pinpoint what that is and fix it. It's probably nothing that a weekend or two of cramming can't fix. Check out glassdoor.com and get to the point where you can solve most any of the questions. When you're practicing, write the code for each one. Get this book: http://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/098478280X
You're completely wasting your time "playing around with frameworks" because no one's going to hire you for that. You need to work on the stuff you're scared of that you're putting off learning about. Can you code a red/black tree from scratch? If not, you should learn to do that before even thinking about doing a "personal project."
House of Leaves.
If you would like a very detailed explanation of this, might I recommend the book Guns, Germs, and Steel, but what it boils down to is similar to what person132 said in another comment.
High population density, and larger populations as a whole, combined with city living and poorer diets, means that more Europeans got sick in general. To infect the surviving Europeans, diseases needed to adapt to be stronger, and more resistant to their immune systems. When these diseases came with them to the colonies, they were no match for the Native American's less/differently developed immune systems.
Godel Escher Bach
It's ultimately about the self-referential nature of consciousness, but it explores so many fascinating concepts that I couldn't even begin to do it justice
Read Michelle Alexander's "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness" and it's massive list of citations and statistical research, then tell me you still believe what you've posted is the reason we have a higher incarceration rate of blacks in general, but especially young, black males.
In fact, I'm so serious about you reading that book PM me, and I'll buy the book for you.
Aggravated assault is a felony charge. A number of studies have demonstrated that whites are more likely to be allowed to plead to a lesser charge, or to not be charged at all. The aggregate effect of the favorable treatment of whites is reflected in the arrest statistics. For example, see Racial Disparities in Pretrial Diversions.
For a more detailed treatment of this topic—and the "big picture"—I highly recommend reading The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander.
Edit: Here's [a BJA summary of the research](https://www.bja.gov/Publications/PleaBargainingResearchSummary.pdf "Research Summary: Plea and Charge Bargaining"), from 2011, that calls out the racial disparity in plea and charge bargaining.
Appreciate the hat tip to www.ohjoysextoy.com, /u/Lynx_Rufus.
Her posts covering Dr. Emily Nagoski's research are fantastic.
The book is wonderful as well. I'm not surprised it's the #1 best seller in its category.
Cracking the Coding Interview is a bestseller on Amazon and is extremely helpful. I've read through it on flights out to interviews, and it puts me in a great frame of mind.
If anything, I get more out of the guide for how to approach interview questions more so than the meat of how certain problems or algorithms work themselves.
Make sure you take the science of approaching your answering process for the questions just as seriously and systematically as the mathematics/algorithms involved. Cracking the Coding Interview does a good job of summarizing the approach you should take, and gives a series of questions to practice answering in the manner provided (all sorts of common algorithms and data structures used in interviews are contained in the book, giving you great practice at applying these types of things). You should buy that book right now, and buy a whiteboard and an erasable marker to practice answering some of the questions on. Well well well worth it.
Most of all, have fun! In a certain way, the more fun you have, the better your impression will be on your interviewers.
Also, I wore a suit once to an interview, and I felt like a moron.
Edit: some quick re-wording.
This book completely changed my understanding and approach to relationships. Read it following my divorce two years ago, and I've always had exactly as much female interaction in my life as I've wanted since then.
I cannot recommend it enough.
It brings clarity to everything, and you can use it to bang a non-stop train of sloots, or (as the book recommends) find the girl that's perfect for you long term. It's not about pick-up lines or games to trick girls into fucking you. It's about investing in yourself and communicating in a way that lets women see your true self, flaws and all.
It's a really easy read, and you'll find yourself with vision and perspective you never previously had.
Models: Attracting Women Through Honesty
Flavor Bible. It has some recipes but the main thing is an index of food ingeredients with flavors that go with them. E.g., look up salmon and it will tell you dill, lemon, and a long list of other stuff compliments it. It's helped me put together combinations and experiments I wouldn't have thought of.
wow. I'm surprised these two aren't listed yet:
Pragmatic Programmer - this one's at the top of my list. I think that every single programmer should read this book.
Effective Java - although it's written for Java there's some great fundamentals in there.
a lot of people also mentioned Clean Code - while some things in there are important, I personally don't agree with everything that Bob writes about
Learn to give less fucks. A a few metric shittons less fucks.
Treat yourself to a good book: https://www.amazon.com/Subtle-Art-Not-Giving-Counterintuitive/dp/0062457713
The Flavor Bible, however, is an excellent resource.
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski.
It's a book about a book about a documentary about a house that is a labyrinth. It also appears inside itself twice and is title-dropped in a poem, sort of. In short, it is a labyrinth.
This.
I read Attached and started following the advice. Basically as an anxious attacher I needed to date a lot before I made a judgment about getting into a relationship with someone. Often I'd get into relationships with women who would "love bomb" me only to end up being cold and distant, even cruel. I dated several Borderlines because of this.
Anyway, I dated and dated. Several women at a time (I'm meaning only for a few weeks, never more because of either of our reservations). I met a really nice med student. Pretty wholesome to women I had dated. But I wasn't sure. She said I had to make up my mind soon. So with that in mind I dropped acid. The realization I had on my return was that I needed to stop fucking around, man up, and ask this girl to be my girlfriend. I had a sense as well that I would be asking this one to be my wife.
I'm still in the processing of sorting myself, just finished self-authoring and now implementing my plans. But I'm definitely saving for a ring and going to ask her to marry me. And she knows it.
I strongly recommend reading Gayle Laakmann Mcdowell's Cracking the Code Interview, or watching one of her lectures on the topic. Although her book goes into detail on the types of questions that can come up in these interviews, the general advice she gives in this lecture is solid gold.
First of all, for any software development questions you may have, I suggest you post your questions on Stackoverflow because the people there will surely provide you with answers.
Now, for a list of books I recommend:
JavaScript
JavaScript: The Definitive Guide; if you're new to JS, start with this one.
JavaScript: The Good Parts; not a beginner's book, but a must-read if you are going to use JS
If you are going to be using JS, you will most probably be developing using a framework, and for that I seriously recommend mastering jQuery because as they say, you will write less and do more!
CSS
CSS Mastery: Advanced Web Standards Solutions
Web Usability
Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability; the book that shows the users' perspective when viewing a website
Performance
High Performance Web Sites: Essential Knowledge for Front-End Engineers and Even Faster Web Sites: Performance Best Practices for Web Developers;if you want to get serious about performance for your websites
This one is a timeless classic and can't steer you wrong
You mention you have a very experienced team around you, this is your best resource. When I started my first coding job, the people around me really helped me become a much better developer. Ask for advice when you are stuck, think about best practices and sit with them and do the code reviews together. If they are writing good code then use their code as a guide for your own. You will soon learn the skills for yourself and realise that it's not as daunting as it seems as long as you can code basic programs. Something you can do to get a better feel for how your basic programs create something larger is to get them to walk you through the architecture.
One thing I did when I started was ask my team leader where I could improve and he recommended me some books. Have a look at head first design patterns, clean coder and growing-object-oriented-software. These are Java based but are applicable to any language.
http://www.growing-object-oriented-software.com/
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Clean-Code-Handbook-Software-Craftsmanship/dp/0132350882
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Head-First-Design-Patterns-Freeman/dp/0596007124
You're taking the wrong lessons out of this book. Yes, you should care about yourself and your values more than others. However, what you're talking about is not caring about others in the slightest. That's insane!
You're going from one extreme to the next. But you will still have the same insecurity at heart.
How do I know? I've been there. I was that nice guy that helped everyone out when they needed and didn't get anything back in return, or refused to take back. Then one day, I had enough. I became a raging dick to everyone, my friends, family, housemates. I'm still suffering from the fallout of what I did, 3 years on.
Change is good. And I'm glad you're taking action to change. But becoming obsessively narcisstic is not the best path. You'll get some of what you want but lose the things you loved.
Focus on yourself first, and then care about those around you next. Don't go full throttle on the former. Check out this, it talks about exactly what you're going through --> Models: Attract Women through Honesty
And here is an exerpt --> The Power in Vulnerability
At the end of the day, do what you want to do. I wish you the best of luck.
edit: Spelling, added 1 sentence.
read models.
Talk to women. Talk to men. Talk to old women you have no sexual interest in about things that come to mind (yours or theirs). collect cool stories. Pursue hobbies for the sake of doing something awesome (more stories).
Hit the gym - a better body looks better and feels better.
You should both was the book Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski. It will give you a very good understanding of why this is.
IMHO, knowing the basics is vital. For JavaScript, I recommend buying and reading, "JavaScript: The Good Parts".
https://www.amazon.com/JavaScript-Good-Parts-Douglas-Crockford/dp/0596517742/ref=sr_1_1
Every man should read
This is the book he draws from. It's a life changing book.
For a software engineering position? I highly recommend Cracking the Coding Interview if you're looking for something to prep!
Step 1 in solving any relationship problem, they have to care. They have to want to solve the problem. Nothing you throw at them, make them read, beg, plead, bargain, cajole, trick them.. wont stick if they just dont feel like changing because they have no need to change, you're never gonna leave right?
Anyway, Come as you are and She comes first both with ridiculous fruit on the cover, if he actually wants to pleasure you.
"The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck"
https://www.amazon.com/Subtle-Art-Not-Giving-Counterintuitive/dp/0062457713
https://www.amazon.com/Subtle-Art-Not-Giving-Counterintuitive/dp/0062457713
Check this out. Might help you
You can only play the hand you were dealt. You cant change that. The good news is that you can stop feeling sorry for yourself and start working on yourself. Change your mentality, read more (especially self help books...good ones as there is alot of trash out there), learn new things, pick up new hobbies, change yourself physically by hitting the gym, grooming yourself (if that's an issue), dress nicer (if you don't already), attain goals, set new goals....live for you and only you, man. Improve yourself. Stop comparing yourself to others. You will always fall short if you do that and quite frankly, other people are irrelevant when it comes to your life. If it is girls you want, there are "plenty of fish in the sea", this I am sure you've heard thousands of times, but although these girls all have different tastes/interests, they are, in general, not so much attracted to looks per se, but rather behavior and attitude. Girls of course are not opposed to a good looking guy, but good looks will only get you initial interest from them, but if a guy doesn't have a good personality, attitude, self esteem or confidence, then Brad Pitt himself would not be able to attract and keep women. You would be amazed how successful "unattractive" men can be. I'm sure you have seen it. Forget about women for now, work on you. Get your self esteem and confidence up. That should be the goal. How you negatively feel/view about yourself projects to people. It turns them off before you can even open your mouth. Good luck man!
Edit:
If you have a moment, check out the book "The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life" by Mark Manson. It's a great book and it will hit probably hit home in alot of areas. It (and others) helped me when I needed some help. Its a good read. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0062457713?ref_=ams_ad_dp_asin_2
I wrote a quick script to search the full text of HPMOR and return everything italicized and in title case, which I think got most of the books mentioned in the text:
Book title|Author|Mentioned in chapter(s)|Links|Notes
:---|:---|:---|:---|:---
Encyclopaedia Britannica| |7|Wikipedia|Encyclopaedia
Financial Times| |7|Wikipedia|Newspaper
The Feynman Lectures on Physics|Richard P. Feynman|8|Wikipedia|Full text is available online here
Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases|Amos Tversky|8|Amazon|
Language in Thought and Action|S.I. Hayakawa|8|Amazon Wikipedia |
Influence: Science and Practice|Robert B. Cialdini|8|Wikipedia|Textbook. See also Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
Rational Choice in an Uncertain World: The Psychology of Judgment and Decision Making|Reid Hastie and Robyn Dawes|8|Amazon |Textbook
Godel, Escher, Bach|Douglas Hofstadter|8, 22|Amazon Wikipedia|
A Step Farther Out|Jerry Pournelle|8|Amazon|
The Lord of the Rings|J.R.R. Tolkien|17|Wikipedia|
Atlas Shrugged|Ayn Rand|20, 98|Wikipedia|
Chimpanzee Politics|Frans de Waal|24|Amazon|
Thinking Physics: Understandable Practical Reality|Lewis Carroll Epstein|35, 102|Amazon|
Second Foundation|Isaac Asimov|86|Wikipedia|Third novel in the Foundation Series
Childcraft: A Guide For Parents| |91|Amazon|Not useful if your child has a mysterious dark side
Also, this probably isn't technically what the OP was asking, but since the script returned fictional titles along with real ones, I went ahead and included them too:
Book title|Mentioned in chapter(s)
:---|:---
The Quibbler|6, 27, 38, 63, 72, 86
Hogwarts: A History|8, 73, 79
Modern Magical History|8
Magical Theory|16
Intermediate Potion Making|17
Occlumency: The Hidden Arte|21
Daily Prophet|22, 25, 26, 27, 35, 38, 53, 69, 77, 84, 86, 108
Magical Mnemonics|29
The Skeptical Wizard|29
Vegetable Cunning|48
Beauxbatons: A History|63
Moste Potente Potions|78
Toronto Magical Tribune|86
New Zealand Spellcrafter's Diurnal Notice|86
American Mage|86
As others mentioned, TVTropes has a virtually-exhaustive list of allusions to other works, which includes books that aren't explicitly named in the text, like Ender's Game
>I have some questions about courses andsubjects for computer engineering ( Software Engineering)
CE and SWE are....a little different so I'll just talk to both a little bit.
CE is closer to Electrical Engineering specializing in Computers so you'd take more hardware oriented courses. Most CE curriculums [I've seen] take you through Circuit Theory, Electronics, Digital Systems, Signal Processing, Computer Organization (aka CPU design), Computer Networks, Embedded Systems, etc.
SWE is closer to applied computer science and is more about building applications and the software development process. So you'd start going through a lot of the early Comp Sci courses (Intro to Programming, Language Processors, Data Structures and Algorithms, Operating Systems, etc.) then you'd start leaning towards topics more closely related to building an actual piece of software like Software Project Management or Quality Assurance.
>Are they any books that you recommend to a complete noob ? Internet links ?
Who reads books?Other Tips:
Teach. Yourself. Git.
Video Tutorials:
Articles & Websites:
The Flavor Bible isn't really what you're asking for, but it might be useful. https://www.amazon.com/Flavor-Bible-Essential-Creativity-Imaginative/dp/0316118400/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1520779413&sr=8-2&keywords=the+flavor+bible
Guns Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond. Great thesis on why different human societies have developed so differently.
Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain is a book that teaches drawing as a skill rather than a talent, and gives tips like drawing upside down (which changes your perspective, thus how you draw something), etc. If I remember correctly, there are some remarkable examples of before and after drawings people did who didn't identify as naturally talented.
if anyone's actually serious about learning how to draw by reading a book about it, I can highly recommend Drawing on the Right Side of the brain by Betty Edwards.
It's the only book that actually teaches you how to develop the perception to draw what you see and I can say that it's helped me. You are guaranteed results because you do a before-and-after portrait drawing to compare how much you have improved.
I never said that was the case, and I'm not sure that I even see a point that you are making. What are the other things working against people? I agree, there are many factors, but you can't say something like that and not give any warrants for saying it.
My point was that, once you are in the system like that, the chances of getting out are low due to exactly what sinner13 said. I never said that was the only factor pre or post conviction; only that, post conviction, it is all but a foregone conclusion.
Check out the book The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander. It is a wonderful read on this subject as well as racial motivations of the drug war.
>Slavery never ended, it just got
swept under the rug. All the owners had to do was to criminalize being black.Slavery never ended, it just got modernized to fit the social and political climate of its time. All the owners had to do was to criminalize being black.
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1607747308/
The best resource I have found for learning how to draw/ progress in your skills is the book "drawing on the right side of the brain" here is an amazon link to the BOOK
But it's very easy to find this book online for free as well.
Other resources were weren't actually drawing books, but more of anatomy books. They are really helpful to teach you proportions, and shows you how the body is built up from bones to muscles, to skin etc...
I would avoid those "how to draw ___" books. They only teach you how to draw that one specific thing and its hard to transition that into drawing your own thing. The book I linked above does a good job of teaching you how to "see" what your drawing. So when you are drawing an eye, or an ear, it teaches you how to break down the subject into shapes and lines. A couple angled lines and squiggles are a lot easier to understand and draw than a full image of an eye/ ear.
America has a huge problem with the criminal justice system and race.
A pamphlet being distributed in the UK thinking through the intersectionality of gender justice / queer activism / prison abolition.
One of several articles on The Feminist Wire about prison abolition.
A talk by Angela Davis on prison abolition with an accompanying transcript. (You can also just look at pretty much the entirety of her work and the discussions that her work engenders.)
This book, The New Jim Crow, written by a black feminist and championed in many a feminist circle
The work of Dean Spade, a trans prison abolitionist who also happens to be a feminist.
Some really interesting discussions on detention and the prison system here.
I've also seen a lot more chatter about it also on my Facebook feed within the conversations that are springing up out of the Michael Brown and Eric Garner cases.
American amazon link
You do not need to enrol in co-op to get a job this summer, or any time for that matter.
Take initiative and apply to jobs independently. Job fairs are a great way to get an interview, and both the CS career fair and the Engineering career fair (there'll be a mix of companies, but companies hiring for Software devs will be there) are coming up soon. There are also plenty of opportunities to apply online. Check out student services periodically for resources (like interview prep strategies and the like), similar to what you would get in co-op. Get CTCI and practice. Practice technical interviews with your friends. Talk through problems as you solve them. You got this.
If you don't have a job lined up by the time summer registration opens, register for summer courses, but keep trying to get a job. You can drop the courses if you get a job, or take the courses if you don't.
When I went, there were always a few companies where the representatives had a badge that said "I hire frosh." My advice would be to check it out to get a feel for what's going on. I wouldn't expect a whole lot, but at the very least it'll be good prep for the frosh/soph fair.
A word of advice - when I went to the fall career fair during my freshman year, I actually found it quite stressful. I ran into a couple of recruiters who came off as condescending, and the overall atmosphere seemed pretty stressful (gotta hustle for that internship). It was a bit of a contrast from the dorms and even office hours, where people are generally happy to lend a helping hand.
When I took CS 103 later, Keith Schwarz actually had a fairly negative view of the effect/messaging of the fall career fair towards freshmen. He felt that the competitiveness and the inevitable rejection of certain internships would not really provide a positive view of one's learning. Learning is a long process, and getting rejected from a dream CS internship might lead some to feel that their classes were for nothing. It's ultimately up to you whether you want to view your CS education as more of a pipeline into a good job, or an opportunity to intellectually explore (you can of course balance both, and there is no right way to do it).
So if you wanna hustle for an internship, then by all means go for it. However, keep in mind that the career fair is only one way to get your foot in the door. If you wanna be a real snek, network around and find people who can give you referrals for companies you're interested in. Also code up a project or two and put it on GitHub (with a link on your resume). Most importantly, read the good book.
Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software
The Mythical Man-Month
Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams
Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master
Coders at Work: Reflections on the Craft of Programming
The flavor bible is great
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0316118400?pc_redir=1412571018&robot_redir=1
Well, it was the deciding factor in the birth of human civilization. Without the shift to agriculture from hunter/gatherer societies, we could never have achieved the necessary population to create virtually every human innovation that has ever happened. It is true that agriculture led to most of humanity's woes as well: war, plagues...Glenn Beck, etc... But without that shift we would still have an average lifespan of 30-40 years, and our population would be in the thousands instead of the billions. There are pretty valid arguments for why that's not such a great thing, but it's really a moot point. We're here, we did what we did, so that's that.
On a side note, anyone who hasn't read this book is missing out.
I'd imagine it's more of a generality than anything else. I'd wager that it is partly based on the fact that certain latitudes were more conducive for successful colonization by European powers. Those latitudes closely approximated the seasonal conditions in which their draft animals and crops thrived. This lead to a larger and more stable base in which to built wealth upon.
I recommend reading Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond as he details reasons why environmental factors are major contributors to why certain societies (ultimately countries) are wealthier than others.
I'll start with this: So many women, including myself, HAVE HAD THE MISFORTUNE of having had miserable sexual relationships with a man-child who was willfully ignorant and selfish in bed. I suggest that you grow up and educate yourself for the next woman who stumbles into your life, after this one hopefully dumps you, if you don't learn to please her.
Your inexperience could be excused, your selfishness CANNOT. She knows you have very little patience for her pleasure and needs. It's all about you. You're not really listening to her or asking her what works for her; she's having to ask youto care about her needs, as if it's a chore. She wouldn't just lie and say you're "not trying enough" if it weren't true. You're obviously not really paying attention when she does try to show you with her own hand. You're just, literally, going through the motions, moving your hand repetitively (maybe even too roughly which is why your hand's getting tired), just to say you tried. Poor little you.
Many women can't get aroused or get anywhere near orgasm if the guy is obviously annoyed or uninterested in doing what it takes to give her pleasure. She knows you're thinking she's taking too long and it makes her anxious, and then even less about to focus on any sensations, such as oral. That's precisely why she says she doesn't feel anything when you go down on her. She's probably unable to get out of her anxious head and into the sensations; or you don't know what you're doing because she doesn't want to tell you how. It's fine that you don't know how to please her orally, women are all different. She should feel free to tell you, but she knows you won't remember, because you're already impatient. My guess? You'll go down for a ridiculously short amount of time (less than 10 min, BTW avg time to come is longer for most women during oral), then complain that your:
​
You've probably already given her the idea that there's something wrong with HER, and not you. I'm sure she makes certain YOU always cum. Right? You've probably given her a complex which is very hard to shake for many women.
Did you know that almost all women need direct clitoral stimulation to have an orgasm? Or that almost all women require a minimum of 20 minutes of foreplay (Look that word up, since you obviously have no idea what it is) before they're even aroused enough for penetration? Hence, even if lubricated, some women find penetration painful if their vaginas haven't become engorged with blood aka erect (like a guy's erection, yes we get internal erections).
So, as she's finally about to come, you just gave up cause you're sweaty? Almost ALL women who get to the edge (unless intentionally ‘edging’) of an orgasm, whose lover then stops, lose almost all arousal, then the whole arousal process has to build up again. Question for you? How would you like it if, every time you were just about to come, she just stopped, and left you hanging? Great, huh? Obviously not, because later in your post, you say you got mad at her, cause she selfishly said it hurt and wanted to stop before you could get your rocks off. I can't even believe you admitted this.
This is repulsive-
"Last time she stopped me because it hurt, I got annoyed because I felt like we were just wasting time. I see her just a few days a month anyway. I wanted to cum and she made a weird face and started crying." W.T.F.?
If she foolishly wastes another minute of her precious time on you, you need to read about foreplay, specifically for women, female genital anatomy and sexual response. Find it in yourself to give a fuck about learning to give her pleasure, learn to enjoy giving it, as much as receiving it. If not, she should dump you and find a decent grown-up man.
And file your goddamn nails. That is, file them, run them across the inside of your cheeks (the closest thing to her vaginal walls). If you feel zero edges, good job. If not, file some more.
Buy this book for yourself. You can't afford not to. It's a good start to learning how to give her oral.
"She Comes First: The Thinking Man's Guide to Pleasuring a Woman (Kerner)"
https://www.amazon.com/She-Comes-First-Thinking-Pleasuring/dp/0060538260
Buy this book for you and her to read together. It'll seem like you care.
"Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science that Will Transform Your Sex Life" (Nagoski)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1476762090/ref=rdr_ext_tmb
Get Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain (not a referral link).
Follow all of the exercises. It takes a lot of the mysticism out of drawing and makes it a skill you can pick up, practice and become better at.
Well, that's actually a pretty significant problem with the prison system, historically. I'm not just being glib, it's something historians of incarceration and African American history have been saying for a long time. Long story short, following the American Civil War, when slavery was abolished, many white Southerners still needed 'forced labor' simply because there were many jobs it wouldn't be economic to hire free labor for. Thus was born the "prison-industrial complex," where newly freed slaves would be incarcerated for things like "vagrancy" and had to do labor similar to that under slavery. Naturally, this led to many social problems similar to those found under the antebellum regime. Again, it's hard to get into off the cuff like this, but this book is a pretty solid introduction to the issues, IMO:
https://www.amazon.com/New-Jim-Crow-Incarceration-Colorblindness/dp/1595586431/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1465956818&sr=8-1&keywords=jim+crow+prison#reader_1595586431
Yeah but he's black. The US criminal justice system was literally made for black men.
I've found Cracking the coding interview to be an excellent resource. That book together with online sources helped me get several internship offers. The book won't spoon feed you from the ground up - but will cover all the topics necessary. The interview questions are all about PRACTICE! Spend a lot of time thinking about how to solve programming questions, the complexity of your solution, and ways to improve your solution.
After a while, you should reach a point where you start recognizing patterns when you see a new question. There are often existing data structures (that you must know backwards - like hash tables) that you can use to solve a given problem - try and think of which one fits the question nicely.
Finally, read this. Good luck!
GET OFF YOUR SAD HORSE MY FRIEND. There's literally never been a better time to be a technologist who wants to learn more (and get paid more).
Yes, you're struggling. Yes, you want to change. But DON'T FEEL CONSTRAINED BY YOUR DEGREE. Draw on the experience you've had and look for new challenges. You certainly don't have to be a manager if you don't want to be.
if you think theory is holding you back, there are AMAZING online classes - online algorithms classes from Stanford/MIT. (The Stanford one is more of a refresher on basics). If you're finding that algorithms are holding you up in interviews, then read "Cracking the Coding Interview,"' cover to cover.
EVERYONE is looking for great technologists right now. Our company (untapt) is US-based, but feel free to message me with questions.
Let me be a devil's advocate here and defend why companies wouldn't pay > 5k a month for a 10x programmer.
First off, our typical firms in Singapore can't appreciate good technical value. They can't tell the difference between work done by a good programmer and one done offshore. To them, it's just like buying a chair. If I can get a much cheaper chair in India, why not? They are still used to judging quality by experience. In fact, technical quality can't be judged by experience and the number of projects you have done. A fresh poly grad might be way better than a programmer with 5 years experience and a CS degree. If the poly grad spent his time in poly dabbling in new technologies and programming languages, writing code for open source projects, he might be way better than the CS grad that stagnated in his J2EE job.
Also, good technical value is very hard to measure. Even Google have problems measuring this. Even if you care about technical value, you may not be able to tell if the person you are hiring is good. An interviewee that aced a coding interview may not be a good programmer. It simply means that this guy is good at solving such questions. (It's possible to cram for such interviews as if you're studying for Os by studying technical interview 10 year series, mind you.) He might ace the interview but suck at writing production quality code. Instead of using well tested libraries, he might hand roll his own red-black tree and crypto library >_<. What's more, such programmers may not write high quality, readable code. And, good programmers may not pass such coding interviews. One classic case was when this guy who wrote a program that's used by 90% of the engineers at Google, failed to pass Google's technical interview because he couldn't invert a binary tree.
Unfortunately these are hard problems. Fixing the first problem requires a mindset change from employers and key business decision makers. The second requires companies to change their hiring practices. Try pair programming some projects with your interviewees. That way you can get them to articulate their thought process and see how well they handle real world problems.
Not an expert, but heard this title being bandied around: https://www.amazon.co.uk/JavaScript-Good-Parts-Douglas-Crockford/dp/0596517742
Pour les anglophones, ou les anglo-liseurs en tout cas, je ne peux que recommander la lecture de Come as you are, de Emily Nagosky.
Le bouquin peut avoir un aspect rebutant parce que, en bon best-seller US, il fait la part belle, sur la forme, au scientisme et à la recette miracle.
Mais franchement il m'a ouvert les yeux sur beaucoup de chose sur le fonctionnement du désir et de la libido, en particulier féminine, et sur les tenants et aboutissants de la semi- "dead bedroom" dans laquelle je me débats avec ma copine depuis plusieurs années.
Si tu es une nana qui n'arrive pas à jouir, un mec qui se demande pourquoi sa nana n'arrive pas à jouir, si tu ne comprends pas pourquoi ton partenaire n'a jamais envie quoi que tu fasses, si tu culpabilises d'avoir moins de désir que ton partenaire, si tu veux juste comprendre comment fonctionne ton cerveau / ton désir... lis Emily Nagosky !
[EDIT] : Mais pourquoi il n'est as encore traduit en français!?
since it is matriarchy monday, I'm going to recommend this book to anyone who is a woman or likes to fuck women. I haven't finished it yet but its pretty good so far.
I swear on Everyone Poops because it's universal truth we can all agree on.
There is a great book about this. The Power of Habit. I recommend it for someone that is trying to understand why you can’t stop doing dumb shit you know is bad for you.
If you like stuff like this you may be interested in my favorite book: Godel, Echer, Bach: The Eternal Golden Braid:
http://amzn.com/dp/0465026567
Edit: Also see the great MIT course with video lectures:
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/hs/geb/geb/
Definitely read into the concept of Responsive Desire, or even just read the full book Come As You Are. It's helped me a lot in a somewhat similar situation.
My wife and I had a minor blowup a month or so ago. I felt for a very long time that she was just "indulging" me in sex and didn't really want it, despite us having a very active sex life. I thought that since she wasn't chasing me around begging for dick, she wasn't attracted to me.
Instead, she's just a lot more reactive than proactive compared to me. The best analogy I was given was popcorn. You can really like popcorn, but you might not think about popcorn all the time. But when you smell that fresh popcorn smell, the butter, hear it popping, walk into a movie theater, or something else that triggers that popcorn urge, you can really enjoy it.
My perspective was way off, and my understanding of sex drive or libido was uninformed. You can look at a couple of my early threads here if you want.
There are some key concepts you want to get down if you really want to make the most of .NET
Design patterns are used over and over again in OO based systems. A good understanding of what they are for, and how they tend to be used will be helpful when trying to understand key framework extensions and 3d party libraries. I like to point people at Head First Design Patterns. The opinions on design patterns in this book are a bit dated and the examples use Java syntax but they are all relevant to the .NET world and will go a long way to understanding how class names and object structures are used in OO systems.
IMO One of the biggest concepts you'll need to understand in OO currently is the Inversion of Control pattern (also referred to as dependency injection) and the frameworks that provide it. Most modern .NET applications leverage some kind of dependency injection to simplify development and make unit testing and porting of classes easier.
NOTE: I understand many folks in the PHP world feel that PHP is a full OO system. While they have made strides in this area it is not a fully typed OO system. It's a procedural system twisted to provide some OO features.
This is easy, just review MSDN docs and samples. The biggest different you will see in the .NET world is a different opinion in general on casing of object and method names.
This is the part that seems the most overwhelming IMO. The language itself is fairly easy but understanding the huge amount of 1st and 3rd party libraries, frameworks and tools can be daunting. Since you come from the PHP world I am going to assume you are most interested in web based applications. What I would recommend is to pick a set of tools for your web stack and learn them. Once you understand the key pieces of a web application and how they interact you can start picking and choosing different components to meet your needs. I am going to suggest you start with the following stack to get started with a web application, this is the same stack I use for most of my clients making smaller functional websites or simple content driven systems.
Key Concepts for Modern .NET Apps
Some basic tools to help you:
Edit: Now with more links.
Read JavaScript: The Good Parts by Crockford. He goes over structuring JavaScript in an OOP fashion. More generally it's a great book that will bring your understanding of JS from intermediate to the beginnings of expert.
Trim and file your nails. If you cut her she will cut you.
Don't rush. There's no reason to go leaping toward the clitoris like a bull at it's gate. Take your time with her. Explore her body. Warm her up.
Talk to her. Tell her how sexy she is. How much you want her. Ask her how she likes to be touched. Have her guide your fingers in the motion she likes on her clit.
If something starts working and she tells you not to stop, don't stop doing whatever it is you're doing. I don't care if your hand feels like it's gonna fall off. Play through the pain. In my experience 90% of the work that actually feels good for most girls is going to happen without penetration.
Now, depending on the girl she may like a bit of g-spot stimulation. About two or three inches in her vagina on the upper wall, that's the bit that's nearest the clitoris, there may be a series of fleshy wrinkles. That's the g-spot. What you're gonna want to do here is make a sweeping sort of "come here" motion.
Start with a single finger, I like the middle one, and add more as she loosens up.
Here's some reading for you.
Just remember that the most important part of good sex is communication. Pay attention to what your partner is doing, saying, and feeling. GL HF
Oh, and dry = bad. Lube your fingers up.
Guns, Germs and Steel -- Jared Diamond.
I'm a very visual learner, so I got good by watching Julia Child. She regularly peppers her shows with advice about how to get good at something, and how to customise a recipe when things go wrong, or when you want to switch things up a bit. She's got a decidedly French leaning, but French food is a very good place to start anyway. The full set of DVDs of The French Chef can get had for about $50 from ebay.
There's an episode where she was featuring four recipes for potatoes. She was trying to make a potato cake type of thing. She'd added plenty of butter to the pan, and threw in the boiled lightly crushed potatoes. She didn't let it set for a very long time, but tried to flip the whole thing over in one piece. Half of it ended up on the stove. Without skipping a beat, she scooped it off the stove, threw it back in the pan, and said the iconic line "When you're alone in the kitchen, who's going to see?" She then proceeded to dump it into a dish, throw in a load of cream and a few cubes of cheese, and instructed you to let it hang out under the broiler so that it gets bubbly and crisped up. She mentioned that you shouldn't ever apologise for how something came out, and just carry on as if that new thing is what you'd intended all along.
Whenever she had the ability to do so, she'd show you how to do something from scratch, including how to filet a fish, how to separate out a whole chicken, and how to break down larger steaks into serving sized portions. And, because you're watching her do it all for you, you get an idea of what it is you're looking for, step by step.
Another great resource (although their recipes are white, and tend towards the bland) is America's Test Kitchen's TV Show cookbook. On the show itself, they don't go into technique very much, but they certainly do so in the book. There are large, colourful pictures about how each step of the cooking process should look, and hundreds of recipes to try out. They thoroughly test out each recipe repeatedly, using tools that the average home cook will have access to, and taste test the results. It's an excellent resource to have on hand. You can generally find it used for about $20.
If you're curious to try out baking your own bread, I cannot highly recommend enough Bread by Eric Treuille.
https://www.amazon.com/Bread-Eric-Treuille/dp/1409352722/
It has HUGE full colour photos of the final product, and lots of foundational advice about the art of baking bread. They discuss various flours, how to combine them into an existing recipe, and the effects they have on the final loaf. It's one that I turn to whenever I have a craving for home made bread, and it's never lead me wrong.
If you want SOLID advice about how to quickly build up your cooking repertoire, Mike Ruhlman's Ratio is your best bet.
https://www.amazon.com/Ratio-Simple-Behind-Everyday-Cooking/dp/1416571728/
He realised that most basic recipes can be broken down into ratios, so that if you need to scale up or scale down, you can do so very quickly. His technique to teach you how to get comfortable with ratios is very good.
Another EXCELLENT place to start learning to build your own recipes is Julia's Kitchen Wisdom.
https://www.amazon.com/Julias-Kitchen-Wisdom-Essential-Techniques/dp/0375711856/
She gives some basic techniques on foundational recipes, and then tells you how to tweak the recipes to work with whatever you've got on hand. It's less a by the books recipe compendium, and more of a philosophical understanding of how recipes work, and what flavours should go together.
Speaking of flavour. Get The Flavour Bible by Karen Page.
https://www.amazon.com/Flavor-Bible-Essential-Creativity-Imaginative/dp/0316118400/
There are hundreds of ingredients, and the things that go well with them. Instead of giving you a recipe, it gives you ideas of things to combine together, so that they go together in delicious ways.
If you are going to get a ruler, go ahead and get a kitchen ruler:
https://www.amazon.com/Mercer-Culinary-Rules-Mini/dp/B00DT1XYDM/
It's small, but it has a TON of great information on it. Very useful to gauge whether or not you're hitting your marks for whatever size you're aiming for.
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
"Someone who willfully commits a crime is not "impacted" the way the victims of criminal activity are "impacted." People who commit crime subject themselves to the criminal justice system. There is no conspiracy."
If you are genuinely interested in finding out why the above statement is, at the very least, not right, I highly recommend this book: http://www.amazon.com/The-New-Crow-Incarceration-Colorblindness/dp/1595586431
Centuries of systematic racism (slavery, Jim Crow Laws, the war on drugs) have specifically targeted communities of color. There are a countless number of studies that show that people of color don't commit crimes at any higher rates than white people, yet they are arrested significantly more often.
So, the problem with 'the box' is that someone is more likely to get arrested than their white peer for the same crime, are then labeled 'felon' and lose the ability to get a job, and then are often forced back into the same situation which led to them getting arrested and sent to prison in the first place.
Seriously, read the book. It's eye-opening.
There are many issues with this mentality.
First, most women do not come from penetration alone. It is common for women to touch themselves or use a toy during sex to get off. If it’s been a year, he is not learning your body. By not allowing you to touch yourself, it’s preventing you from orgasming.
I wonder if he has the same concern I had when I started using toys. If I use a toy, then what is the guy’s purpose? When I asked my sex partner this question, he brushed his fingers on my arm and said his purpose was that. Yes, I can orgasm by myself and with or without a toy. The sex partner is there to share the experience, to touch me in ways I can’t touch myself. I can’t caress my own arm and he can. I can’t cuddle myself after and he can. So your boyfriend’s role isn’t to get you off (which he is failing at), but to share the experience with you.
Second, orgasm is not the most important part of sex. People’s myopic focus on orgasm can ruin sex. Is the orgasm for you or for him? Focusing on orgasms as an end goal ironically can hinder one’s ability to orgasm. The stress of deliberately pushing oneself to orgasm is not conducive to orgasms.
I want to tell you what I wished had been told to me: it’s ok if you don’t orgasm. There is nothing wrong with you. I never faked it with my first boyfriend and he never got me to orgasm. And he convinced me I was broken. I wasn’t. He just couldn’t get me to orgasm. I have had many partners since and only a few have been able to get me to orgasm. It takes a lot of practice, patience, and experience to get me to orgasm. And it’s ok. It’s just how my body works.
You need to stop faking it for your sake. Im the long run, I was grateful I never faked it with my first. I guarantee you will never have an orgasm with him if he doesn’t know that what he’s doing is not working. From his point of view, he is great at sex because you always orgasm. You will need to be honest and say that the sex is great and it feels nice and you like it, but you don’t orgasm.
Lastly, I recommend reading “Come as You Are” by Emily Nagoski. I wished I had read it when I was 20 instead of 30s.
There is a case study in her book of a woman who didn’t orgasm during sex. The thing she had her clients do was take orgasm out of the equation. You can have all the fun and sex, but no orgasming is allowed. The idea is that then you can focus on the other aspects of sex. I highly recommend the book to both you and your boyfriend.
If you want a good read (or audio book) for both you and your partner read Emily Nagoski's "Come As You Are". It explains a lot about different folks arousal levels through the dual control model and differences and strategies that help a lot. Plus, you know, science.
> and THEN when he starts touching me, it actually feels repulsive.
HUGE. Red. Flag.
These types of issues at only 3 months into the relationship, I'd move on to someone more compatible.
You're not LL, you're just LL for him.
You're not sexually attracted to him, and the Pursuer-Distancer pattern you have going on between you is killing off any remaining desire you have for him.
You're just not compatible sexually.
You both deserve to be with someone who is HL for you.
Edit: Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help YouFind - and Keep - Love can help you avoid an anxious-preoccupied partner in the future
I read somewhere that the reason that most adults draw like eleven-year-olds is that we are very self-critical during that age, and just stop drawing. Which means no practice and therefore no skill improvement.
If you really want to learn, there's a book which claims that anyone can learn to draw at least decently using their method.
(Sorry for imposing if you're not actually interested in drawing, I just thought I should mention it)
The neighborhoods are not like that because of democrats, it's because of redlining. Literally just google "redlining" and there are plenty of resources to understand what this practice is.
Institutional racism does exist. I don't give a shit what you say. Your parents are wrong, your friends and parents that believe this are also wrong too.
This is a good book to read, it will explain that yes, institutional racism does exist. it will hopefully open your mind up. Get it from the library - https://www.amazon.com/New-Jim-Crow-Incarceration-Colorblindness/dp/1595586431
I wouldn't call this game "finished," not even in quotes. Implement scoring correctly with display in the game and disappearing/respawning balls, correct deflection (as if the paddle were rounded), smoother AI motion and correct keyboard input (it's backwards and seems to rely on autorepeat). Then the game will be a "finished" pong game.
I can't comment on the Javascript code really, but if you're just learning Javascript, I really recommend reading Javascript: The Good Parts. It's a very short book on how Javascript really works, with no real attention given to irrelevant APIs (to game programmers) and the like.
I also recommend looking at one of the several HTML5 game libraries out there. I'm using ImpactJS, but it costs money. If you want something free, you could try looking at Crafty. They abstract a lot of things and you can focus on making games, and not with the details of HTML5 APIs.
When I was starting to learn JS which was not that long ago at all and I am still learning I started with this video series:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLz5rnvLVJX5VdVNddvRTj68X6miAWQ5pz
.then this one
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLz1XPAFf8IxbIU78QL158l_KlN9CvH5fg&amp;disable_polymer=true
.then this one
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4cUxeGkcC9jAhrjtZ9U93UMIhnCc44MH
.then I read:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0596517742/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1
.then I read: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1430264489/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1
and
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1118871650/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1
.then I read:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1491904240/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1
and
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1491904240/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1
.then
When I felt like I had a good enough grasp on vanillajs I started a giant project in Angularjs. Where I advanced my skills with git big time. Other resources I used are:
Atom: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYzJdSdNWNqwNWlxz7bvu-lOYR0CFWQ4I
Rest api with MEN (lol): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4cUxeGkcC9jBcybHMTIia56aV21o2cZ8
Docs are great for js: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript
These were good for angularjs just incase you were interested:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlUCU13dJyo&amp;list=PL4cUxeGkcC9gsJS5QgFT2IvWIX78dV3_v
Honestly I cant link one of this guys videos because they all help sooooo much:
https://www.youtube.com/user/shiffman
To piggy back on habits: The book "The power of Habit" is a great read. In general the idea can be summed up in this picture with a larger explanation. I'll do my best to explain.
Habits are created with THREE items.
The cue can be anything. An alarm going off. Stomach growling. Seeing a picture of a flower.
The routine is what you want to do. Getting up on time. Making a meal. Walking to the park.
The reward is THE most important aspect of a habit. If you have no reward, the habit WILL NOT stick. The reward could be petting your dog. Eating a healthy meal with your loved one. smelling a flower.
I'll use myself as an example. Almost every day without fail I would lose my keys right before I left the house to go to work, thus making me late for work. I decided to use hooks by the door to store my keys. Even with the hooks there I wasn't leaving the keys on them. Worse yet, I've left my keys in the door knob more times then I care to admit, and I live in a city. When I read the book I decided to change my habit to keep my mornings less stressful.
My cue is self explanatory. I walk through the front door. The routine is that I NEED to hang my keys up on the hook. If I don't hang my keys on the hook i am absolutely not allowed to pet my cats (He always greets me when I come in). Some days I forget to hang my keys, bend down to pet the cat, then realize "Wait I forgot something!". Other days I'll hang the keys with out thinking, but in either case I always pet my animals after I put the key on the hook.
The larger the routine, the harder it is to make it a habit, so break down the routine in to smaller habits. Create small changes and small rewards. Then when you get used to the idea of creating a habit go big.
Someone that hires first years here [1]:
Resumes
I can only speak from the perspective of a smaller company, but I have several suggestions, some of which may be more applicable if you're going to apply to somewhere with less than 100 employees:
Cover letters
Some companies will care about cover letters -- I personally count it as a negative if you include a cover letter that is obviously templated:
Dear hiring manager, I see you are doing [some random thing copied from our website] and I am myself very passionate about [that thing]...
If you are actually reaching out specifically to join my company because you know someone else that's worked here, or you've used our product and want to work with us for that reason, a cover letter is probably appropriate.
Interviewing
Interview in as many places as possible. There are really only two things you should be focusing on as a first year: Cracking the Code Interview, and not being too nervous.
Seriously. Buy cracking the code interview [3], and spend a week or so solving problems and learning memoization / pointer manipulation / dynamic programming. You'll be SO much better off.
I find that if you think of every interview as "interview practice for when it matters in later years" you will not be so nervous as a first year. Expect to not know the answers to some questions, and just explain what you are thinking to get "part marks." Freezing up looks much worse than going down the wrong path with confidence.
References
[1] I'm CEO of ParseHub -- you can contact me at [email protected]
[2] I also do optional lectures for CSC207 on Fridays noon-1PM @ BA1200, one of which will be on how to make open source contributions. Feel free to email me if you want to come.
[3] It's available on amazon
Here are two resources I've found helpful. Both of these were game changers for me:
No More Mr Nice Guy: The dangers of "Nice Guy Syndrome" (which you're obviously encountering now). It's not about becoming an asshole, it's a systematic approach to helping you set healthy boundaries with others and to start respecting and taking care of yourself.
Models: Attract Women Through Honesty: How to apply the ideas in No More Mr Nice Guy to interactions with women you'd be interested in dating. The "pick up" community can be pretty trashy, but this is about becoming the person you really want to be so that you can attract the kind of person you want to spend time with. Great stuff.
CTCI the "holy grail" of interview prep in this subreddit :)
> I was wondering if a DS course was necessary to do well on Leetcode problems
Nope:
Try Leetcode easy problems. Look up new concepts as you encounter them. Repeat.
edit: if you have time, there's also https://www.coursera.org/learn/algorithms-part1
Well at least you know what's wrong. First step to self improvement is admitting something is wrong. So you're ahead of the curve here.
The door to tawbah is never closed. Tawbah doesn't mean saying "I'm sorry!" and then going straight back into doing wrong. It means a genuine regret and attempt to put things right. God (swt) doesn't expect perfection out of us and we aren't perfect, but He does expect a genuine and strong effort to do our best. Thinking about whether hinduism is right or not is not going to send you to hell if your end conclusion was it's not right and God is one.
You need to learn the power of habit. In fact go buy the [book] (http://www.amazon.com/Power-Habit-What-Life-Business/dp/081298160X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1426535231&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=power+of+habit).
If you look at all your problems together, it may seem insurmountable, I recommend writing down a list. What do you want to change: Start with small goals and work your way through it.
For example, the number 1 thing that is a problem for you right now is salah. If doing 5 salat everyday looks like too much, start with the commitment to do a salat every single day and maintain for a few weeks. Focus on the getting the salat right, do it slow, contemplate the words and get into it.
Then add another and another every week or so, until you feel comfortable performing all five salat.
Once you have that down. Move on to the next item. Your parents. Your relationship doesn't need to be perfect, but make a commitment to do something nice to them once a day. Just saying thank you, I love you, I appreciate the effort you do. Buy your mom a gift on mother's day, and tell your dad he's a role model and you love him. It'll be the highlight of his decade if you say this, even he doesn't say much back.
And so on. Also, in your free time, explore ways to strengthen your faith and make it more enjoyable. Watch some inspiring videos, get involved with activities at the masjid, volunteer, join the msa once you're in college etc.
I am going to give my perspective, but as always, your milage may vary.
>When and how did you start?
I didn't start programming until I started in college. I knew I was good at Math, and good at Science, and that I was interested in Computers. I pursued a CE degree (I was 18 at the time), and am now pursuing a Ph.D. in CS. My wife started her CS degree 1 year ago (she's now 25), after being dissatisfied with (and subsequently abandoning) a degree in Marketing. For the sake of mentioning it, we both started with Java.
My real point is: I don't think it's ever too late to start. If you're sincerely interested, your passion will take you far.
> What are some daily things you do that drove/drive you to your goals?
I consider programming a type of carpentry, and so, I strive (and don't always succeed) to program as much as I can, in as many languages as I find interesting. So far, I've programmed in Java, Python, Javascript, C#, C, Objective-C, and Lisp. It can be daunting to learn new programming languages, but I wouldn't worry. I got around to playing with each one because I found they were good tools for things I wanted to do. In academic circles, I believe that's called "project-based learning," where you learn as much as you need in order to complete some project or task.
> What books do you recommend, ones that have had a huge positive impact in your professional career?
I absolutely love the Head First series, and it made me value my own unique learning style (which in turn led me to discover that I learn better through projects). I own 6 Head First books, and I absolutely love each and every one of them.
My wife recently discovered (and I also really enjoyed) the book Cracking the Coding Interview, which is a concise review of the fundamentals of programming, as well as very good guidelines for doing well in your coding interview.
> What advice do you give to junior programmers that want to plunge into open-source community but are just overwhelmed by the amount of complexity in most of this projects?
If you're just starting out, I would start your own project to do something you want to do. The chances are that, in doing so, you will leverage someone else's tools, and in turn, you may discover that a tool you're using...
...has an obscure bug, or
...would be really great if it had this one other feature
You then contact the project lead (or project board of directors), and state your case, and then...BAM. You're an Open Source contributor.
> Which work-related fields are you most interested in?
I am a fan of artificial intelligence, and I think it's the bees knees. I also do game development, which I enjoy very much.
> What was your first big investment after your degree?
I bought a car, mostly because I needed it. Bear in mind, I am on a graduate student salary, which isn't necessarily the most financially rewarding position out there.
If you have any other questions, or if you would like me to go more in-depth into some of the previous questions, do let me know. :)
First off, well done on getting one of your first apps out there. It's always a daunting step, especially when you're a beginner.
Some general things that will help you improve your current design and any other app you choose to create going forward:
varkeyword where applicable, using string interpolation etc, using auto-implemented properties for your classes, meaningful variable names etc).decimal.TryParse(...)instead ofConvert.ToDecimal(...), try...catch blocks, you always want to validate user-input as far as humanly possible.Nothing particularly good in this bundle.
If you want take up cooking and treat yourself, I would give my highest personal recommendation to The Food Lab and Bravetart. They are great because they go over technique and fundamentals and provide a good base that you can build from once you get more comfortable in the kitchen. Once you hit that point The Flavor Bible is also a great resource for experimentation.
(On mobile so hopefully my formatting isn't borked!)
Everyone's nightmare fuel is different, of course, but here are a couple that gave me some freaked out nights for very different reasons:
COWS by Matthew Stokoe
This book is sick. But it's also well written, which is what takes it beyond shock value. Pretty much everyone who has read it can recite a scene that really messed them up.
THE GIRL NEXT DOOR by Jack Ketchum
I took this out of the library several years ago. I had to renew it multiple times because I could only read it in small sections. It made me cry more than once and I definitely had nightmares. I've never read any other Ketchum, but I've seen folks around here saying he's got other books that will mess you up. I know OFF SEASON and THE WOMAN get mentioned quite a bit; maybe someone who's read those can chime in.
HOUSE OF LEAVES by Mark Z Danielewski
This one is divisive, but it's one of my favourites. I buddy-read it with several long distance friends in various time zones (I'm in Toronto, and they were in Ohio, California, Washington State, Colorado and Australia!), so we spent many nights texting about how creeped out we felt being home alone while reading it. We likened it to a long, terrifying drug trip.
HAUNTED by Chuck Palahniuk
A collection of short stories that have a through line narrative. Each story is about/written by one of the characters, and each is its own kind of disturbing, creepy, or upsetting.
I used to moderate a massive book club on Livejournal (!!) that was devoted to the most disturbing books in the world; I wish we could've migrated all of the 4,000 members to Reddit successfully, because we had a hell of a list! (ETA: here are a few posts about books with a captivity theme - THE GIRL NEXT DOOR is mentioned a couple of entries down. I'm amazed our massive archive is all still intact! You can search it by tag, too.)
Sounds a bit like House of Leaves. Talk about a weird, non-linear book with footnotes galore.
House of Leaves is a modern classic for highly imaganitive horror. Everything from the book's strange plot to its even stranger composition. The only way to really read the book is to get the physical copy since you have to do crazy shit to read it.
I just finished Salem's Lot by Stephen King; it was a good read and totally changed the way I feel about strange dark rooms. Just don't research the storyline. I went in not knowing what it was about and was pleasantly surprised about halfway through. If you do plan on getting this book, I suggest the illustrated edition, it is beautiful.
I'm waiting for House of Leaves to arrive in the mail, from what I'v heard, this will do the trick.
It would be hard to evaluate yourself. It's probably best to link your Github work to someone and ask for their opinion.
PEP 8
The biggest hurdle is to accept that there's a Pythonic way of doing things.
I think a lot of people's first step to becoming Pythonic is by the way of using List Comprehensions.
Then there's generators, decorators, itertools, functools, collections, etc.
What it takes to be an Expert in Python
I'm sure his Python skill is amazing; I was too distracted by his VIM skill to pay attention.
These are language-specific things but it sounds as though you might want to get familiar with proper Software Engineering principles. Recognizing code smells and trade-offs between different Data Structures and Sorting Algorithms. You can start off with this excellent book on being pragmatic.
Pragmatic Programmer
Here are some youtube links where you can follow along and maybe even adopt their coding style. I don't remember if they are Pythonic or whatnot but I would guess that they are. They focus on projects you would have an interest in.
Sentdex
Good on you for looking to grow yourself as a professional! The best folks I've worked with are still working on professional development, even 10-20 years in to their profession.
Programming languages can be thought of as tools. Python, say, is a screwdriver. You can learn everything there is about screwdrivers, but this only gets you so far.
To build something you need a good blueprint. For this you can study objected oriented design (OOD) and programming (OOP). Once you have the basics, take a look at design patterns like the Gang of Four. This book is a good resource to learn about much of the above
What parts do you specify for your blueprint? How do they go together? Study up on abstract data types (ADTs) and algorithms that manipulate those data types. This is the definitive book on algorithms, it does take some work to get through it, but it is worth the work. (Side note, this is the book Google expects you to master before interviewing)
How do you run your code? You may want to study general operating system concepts if you want to know how your code interacts with the system on which it is running. Want to go even deeper with code performance? Take a look at computer architecture Another topic that should be covered is computer networking, as many applications these days don't work without a network.
What are some good practices to follow while writing your code? Two books that are widely recommended are Code Complete and Pragmatic Programmer. Though they cover a very wide range (everything from organizational hacks to unit testing to user design) of topics, it wouldn't hurt to check out Code Complete at the least, as it gives great tips on organizing functions and classes, modules and programs.
All these techniques and technologies are just bits and pieces you put together with your programming language. You'll likely need to learn about other tools, other languages, debuggers and linters and optimizers, the list is endless. What helps light the path ahead is finding a mentor, someone that is well steeped in the craft, and is willing to show you how they work. This is best done in person, watching someone design and code. Also spend some time reading the code of others (GitHub is a great place for this) and interacting with them on public mailing lists and IRC channels. I hang out on Hacker News to hear about the latest tools and technologies (many posts to /r/programming come from Hacker News). See if there are any local programming clubs or talks that you can join, it'd be a great forum to find yourself a mentor.
Lots of stuff here, happy to answer questions, but hope it's enough to get you started. Oh, yeah, the books, they're expensive but hopefully you can get your boss to buy them for you. It's in his/her best interest, as well as yours!
For one thing, although you may know a few languages (you mentioned Java, Visual Basic, and SQL, which isn't a language per se but you know what I mean), you may not know how to work with remote teams. You may not know how to use code versioning systems like git or SVN. You may not know how to use continuous integration software like Jenkins. You may not know how to use these and more, simply because you were never exposed to them in the course of your studies. And that's perfectly fine. You can't know everything. The problem though is that so many employers expect you to know all these things, even though you may have never even heard of them before this post.
That is exactly why /u/ResidentBiscuit said "the journey has only just begun." It's an exciting time!
I agree with what was said here:
> The Pragmatic Programmer contains 46 tips for software professionals that are simply indispensable. As the name implies, the book avoids falling into any kind of religious wars with its tips, it's simply about pragmatism.
> If you were to read only one book on this list, this is the one to read. It never goes terribly deep into anything, but it has a great breadth, covering the basics that will take a recent college-grad and transform him or her into someone employable, who can be a useful member of a team.
Don't forget The Pragmatic Programmer
I can highly recommend the Artificial Intelligence for Games book mentioned in this article too, has many useful techniques written in an easy to understand manner.
Debugging is investigation. Trial-and-error is voodoo.
See "programming by coincidence" in The Pragmatic Programmer, as well as this SO post.
"Omit needless words." -- The Elements of Style. http://www.amazon.com/The-Elements-Style-Fourth-Edition/dp/020530902X
An example write from the getgo:
Yours: Let me start off by saying this: I’m terrible at learning new technologies.
Mine: I’m terrible at learning new technologies.
In my version I get to the point right away, instead of forcing the reader to slog over "Let me say this about that before I say anything else and, uh, you still with me here?"
My version has punch. Yours is soft. "Let me say, at the outset, before commencing the rest of the story, that my name isn't really Ishmael, but I'd like it if you call me Ishmael." Versus the classic: "Call me Ishmael." Punch. Precision. Get to the point. Omit needless words.
My suggestion would be for you to buy The Elements of Style (six bucks), read it, then take a sharp red pencil to your prose. The length of your piece will be halved and the reader will appreciate your sharp, to-the-point exposition.
Honorable mention:
Flavour profile. Onions/avocado/tomato/cheese/fatty meat in a dish is as Mexican as abject poverty and random decapitations. The moment you switch over from recipe cooking to flavour profile cooking (The Flavour Bible is a great introduction) you'll eat so much better.
Absolutely. And furthermore, let me say this: if they push me to the point where I feel the need to filibuster, I will take the opportunity to educate them. How? By reading books on the floor of the House like Guns, Germs, and Steel (so they understand better where we came from), The Black Hole War, Bully for Brontosaurus (so they understand a little bit about science), and Subliminal, so they know how the NRA and Fox News is killing their minds.
I'd second unplugging completely: no computer, TV, electronics. If you insist on doing something CS related, Godel, Escher, Bach comes highly recommended.
Reductionism is important, but pure reductionism denies the existence of emergent phenomena (phenomena that depend on collective behavior of many simpler things). A very enjoyable book that covers this and many other topics at a popularly-accessible level is
Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid. First published in the late 1970s, GEB is still delightfully fresh and exciting although a few minor elements are dated (e.g. computers now can beat humans at chess).
This is gonna be hard for you to do, but try not to invest your ego in her ability to orgasm.
I know that sounds weird, and you're probably thinking, "but I'm investing my ego in my ability to make her orgasm." Nah, no one can make someone orgasm. Yes, my girlfriend has hands, mouth, and pussy delivered from heaven that makes me feel pleasure I didn't know mortals could know, but the reason I orgasm (or don't) is because of my mental state. If I'm preoccupied, I'm going to have a much harder time coming, whether I'm using my own hand, or if my girlfriend is riding me.
I'm going to take your girlfriend at her word, that she loves being intimate with you and has made her peace with not having orgasms. I'm sure she would enjoy orgasms, they are the definition of pleasure, but if she can't get herself to cum, there is no reason you should beat yourself up for not being able to make her cum.
The best thing you can do for your girlfriend at this point is continue to let her know, both verbally and (more importantly) nonverbally, that you love every single part of her body. If you love eating pussy, kiss her pussy while you're kissing the rest of her body. If you love her ass, make sure you pay attention to it when she's just walking around the house. And it never hurts to pin her to the wall and kiss her just because, you know, she's there.
Finally, I recommend that you read She Comes First by Ian Kerner. That book is more than a series of tips and tricks to hit a woman's sexy buttons. It's a complete narrative that describes the attitude a sexual partner should take when developing a relationship.
Hey Op, great question. One thing I heard growing up was that it taste like sucking on a nickel and that the inside of a vagina felt like a softer version of the outside of a basketball. There's some truth to that but I think there are better approximations and those descriptions always left me wanting.
Some folks suggested feeling the inside of your mouth, specifically pressing your finger against your cheek. That's definitely close, but the sensation doesn't feel right because you're also touching yourself. Like trying to tickle yourself isn't a good approximation of what it feels like to be tickled. Oddly enough, if you have bigger dogs, the inside of their lips are relatively close to the texture you might feel inside a woman. This area between their upper gum line and the inside of their cheek http://i.imgur.com/ZZ4z89Y.png Vaginas are like a wetter, slipperier version of that. Women also have different areas inside their vagina that will provide different textures, I find the g-spot to be closer to that basketball texture. The inside of dog lips are weirdly close, enjoy not being able to unsee that.
As for taste, if a woman has recently bathed than I would say that they taste close to tomato juice. And no, not V8. Try cutting a fresh tomato, you will see nearly clear liquid come out from these areas http://i.imgur.com/Osm5KaL.png Now if you took that, strained it so it was just the liquid and no particulate and then warmed it up to body temperature, that's about as close as you can get. Though some women depending upon their arousal and hydration are have juices that are a little thinner or thicker. For a quick test, just let a tomato sit out at room temperature, jam your finger in and wiggle it around, taste and imagine there's not tiny chunks of tomato pulp.
Smell can vary, but as Hump_My_Face said lick the back of your hand then wait a 10 seconds and smell it. Depending on when they last cleaned up, it will be somewhere in the realm of that.
And yes, what you eat/drink can absolutely be carried over to her smell or taste. The same goes for guys, so maybe hold off on the coffee, garlic, and asparagus if you're hoping for a girl to go down on you.
And if you're looking for some pro tips, I highly recommend this book. It's not your typical sex advice book, and will definitely add new ideas, techniques, and confidence to your bedroom play. http://www.amazon.com/She-Comes-First-Thinking-Pleasuring/dp/0060538260
tl;dr
The feeling of a vagina is like the inside of a dogs upper lip
The taste of a vagina is close to the natural juices left over after cutting a tomato
The smell of a vagina is what you smell after licking the back of your hand and waiting 10 seconds
For those that need to learn from a literal professional. Here is a nsfw video of Nina Hartley explaining how to eat pussy. https://www.pornhub.com/view_video.php?viewkey=ph5712f4fcadf9c
Take notes y'all.
For those who want a more scientific approach, there's a book called she comes first.
https://www.amazon.com/She-Comes-First-Thinking-Pleasuring/dp/0060538260
Breaks down the female anatomy, gives really solid advice.
Between that book, that video, and responding to my partners body (that's the most important key, be aware of your partner and respond to their body) I've never had a partner that wasn't amazed at how well it all went. Sometimes I tell them that I learned it thanks to a book and a porno. Sometimes I just act like I'm a sex god. Really I just know it's because lots of guys don't know even the basics of sex and so all I have to do is not be shit at it :D
edit:
Oh also, do kegels. And reverse kegels. When I'm going at it, I'll do reverse kegels, and if I'm about to finish, and don't want to yet, I'll pull out, and do kegels just a hold for about 10 seconds.
Your wife needs to get her hormone levels checked. Low testosterone can impact a woman’s sex drive too. Also there’s a great book if you can find a copy, she comes first. It’s both thoughtful and funny.
https://www.amazon.com/She-Comes-First-Thinking-Pleasuring/dp/0060538260
I dated a guy who had this book on his shelf: She Comes First: The Thinking Man's Guide to Pleasuring a Woman (Kerner) https://www.amazon.com/She-Comes-First-Thinking-Pleasuring/dp/0060538260
He was crap at sex but very good at oral. It was his only saving grace with sex. Maybe we should start passing it out.
If you want to pick up some Cryptography, The Code Book is a great intro.
Pragmatic Thinking and Learning is good for learning to learn.
The Pragmatic Programmer is good for project code planning and learning how to write code in a well thought out way.
Ethernet: The Definitive Guide is a good read if you want to get up to snuff on your networking, though it can be a bit dry at times.
The Pragmatic Programmer
You've already done the first step: admitting that college can only teach the fundamentals while the rest of the things you need to know, you will learn while working.
With that out of the way, here's the next step: apply the Joel Test to your new employer.
If it gets an 11 or 12, you'll be fine. Find a senior developer there to mentor you and you'll be a decent software engineer in 1 - 2 years.
Otherwise, while you might learn a lot of new stuff in your first job, they might be inadequate, outdated, or outright incorrect. In this case, plan an exit strategy ASAP so that you can leave to another company that has a much higher score in the Joel Test. In this fast paced software industry, it makes no sense to spend 5 years in a company where you'd only get to grow the same amount as another guy who just spent 6 months in a better company.
Next step: read. No, not those "Teach yourself [insert language that will be deprecated in 2 years] in 24 hours" books - find the books that teach software engineering, lessons that don't get outdated. Here's the usual suggestions:
Finally, if you have free time, find a local user group or open source community and join them. Not only will you learn fundamentals like version control and automated testing, you'll also be up to date to the latest trends in the industry. Because of this, high school/college students who are active in these communities have a great advantage over their purely academic classmates, not to mention the connections they get in the industry allow them to be employed faster.
The Flavor Bible
This is simply a good book in general.
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life
I haven't read it, but Amazon and Audible both keep recommending it to me and I've heard good things.
House of Leaves freaked me out pretty good recently.
This subject has been Jared Diamond's life's work. Guns, Germs, and Steel explains it all much more thoroughly.
I'm not trying to incite a reddit riot but the idea of Racism = Prejudice + Power definition is pretty standard in sociology/anthropology, and was popularized in part by the insanely popular and well-reviewed book The New Jim Crow. Saying it is "Tumblr-esque" is an extremely nuanced and uneducated view.
I'm going to give you some advice... Advice that every aspiring artist needs to hear.
For the first while you're going to suck at it. But if you keep at it, never accept defeat and keep pushing yourself you'll start getting good at it.
And art isn't a talent that comes naturally to some and not at all to others... Like any skill it can be learned and you can train yourself. So, if you face anyone getting up in your face about how you should stop or whatever, just tell them to eat a bag of dicks and shut the fuck up. (besides, it's not like they came out of their mother's womb with a full set of copics and a tablet... They had to learn just like everyone else.)
I don't know if this is really what you wanted to hear since it seems you are hoping more for concrete examples to learn from... But it's all I can really offer that hasn't been said yet.
So, good on you for wanting to expand your skills and best wishes!
EDIT: If you decide that you want to pursue this a little deeper than for a couple projects then I'm going to suggest that you look for and pick up a copy of "Drawing on the right side of the brain." ( Amazon Link to book. I am not affiliated, it's just the first amazon result I found. ) It's a phenomenal book that will really give you the tools you'll need to become an artist that a lot of those "how to draw" books don't cover. Things like learning how to actually see what it is you're drawing, how to draw what you see (and not what you think "ought to be there.") and how to actually understand on a deeper level the process involved in drawing/sketching/etc. which should really give you a leg-up in your pursuit.
I found this book to be especially helpful in overcoming the tendency to draw what you think you see.
The single best book (or audiobook) I recommend every beginner about minimalism is "Goodbye, Things". The writing is simple and direct. It's full of interesting insights and advice.
After that, read "The Life-Changing Manga of Tidying Up" by Marie Kondo. Why not the main book? Because the manga (comic book) is easier and more entertaining to digest and goes over her main ideas just fine. While Marie Kondo isn't a minimalist, her methods complement it immensely.
And for the love of God, avoid "The Minimalists" or anything by them. Absolutely preachy, pretentious, surface level garbage.
If you replace 'subreddit' with 'book':
http://www.amazon.com/The-Life-Changing-Magic-Tidying-Decluttering/dp/1607747308
My gf got me that book about tiding up. I'm excited to get our house clean and in order.
Do people really identify with it though? I watched an episode where a lady had a cabbage where the outside was rotten but the inside was still "just fine". They were way beyond normal decluttering and into mental illness.
I think the japanese book on tidying is a lot more motivating.
You might enjoy the book Attached.
I sure do! This book is a great resource and goes into quite a bit of detail about attachment science and how it can affect adult relationships. If I recall correctly, it also includes self-assessments (I read it a few years ago).
On a related note, I wholeheartedly and emphatically cannot recommend this book enough to anyone who is, has been, or might one day like to be in a romantic relationship. John Gottman is a researcher at the University of Washington and basically the Einstein of relationship science. His algorithm can predict whether any given couple will divorce with something like 90% certainty. Don't let the title fool you -- this book dispenses extremely helpful advice for dealing with people in close interpersonal relationships regardless of whether you're married, dating, or just good friends.
Narcissism and Machiavellianism never got me anywhere worthwhile.
I've been reading this book recently, I found it helps with women of course but basic interactions with anyone as well.
It's a great blueprint, it's more about finding and expanding your true Alpha self than using arcane techniques to pass off as an Alpha.
Don't be only invested in you. Be driven, invested in yourself but make a bit of room for someone else. Don't brag but enjoy sharing yourself with someone who deserves it.
Be interested in them but don't let that influence you. Don't be arrogant, respect their opinions but don't ever change who you are for them.
I used to manipulate others, now I'd rather be upfront. "You're trying to get me to do x or y, for your sole benefit? I won't stand for that, goodbye."
Don't dwell and plot in the shadows, expose yourself boldly and stand your ground. You'll save time and effort. And you'll feel relieved and comforted that you've stayed true to yourself and your values.
There's a reason why there is a Javascript book (1096 pages) and another called Javascript: The Good Parts (176 pages).
I think the bible could use a similar treatment.
JavaScript: The Good Parts
I highly recommend JavaScript: The Good Parts. I'd say to read that one first because it explains how you should think when programming in JavaScript. Knowing the syntax and function names is no good unless you how to use them.
There's actually a really good book that might help you deal with this issue in a professional manner: https://www.amazon.com/Everyone-Turtleback-School-Library-Binding/dp/0613685725
Sounds like someone needs a copy of "Everybody Poops" for Christmas.
http://www.amazon.com/Everyone-Turtleback-Library-Binding-Edition/dp/0613685725
I don't think I could do a mock interview exactly... not sure that would be kosher. But I can definitely offer you some tips from my experience with both the intern and full-time interviews.
How to prepare:
How to interview:
What's next:
Good luck!! It's always really exciting for me to hear about young women applying to Google. Hopefully I'll see you rocking the propeller beanie this summer. :)
P.S. I love your username. Avocados are amaze balls and I don't know what I would eat if they didn't exist.
They are very likely to show up. I'll give you the standard set of links to review:
This book helped me: Cracking the Coding Interview: 150 Programming Questions and Solutions https://www.amazon.com/dp/098478280X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_rtPIzbM5ZMZXD
It goes over data structures and algorithms as well as many other common questions.
"Nice guys" aren't actually nice, they just think they can trade "being nice" for sex. When that doesn't work out then the "nice guys" turn into unhappy ass-holes, while they watch the women they pine over fall for someone else. I know this, because I started out as a "nice guy" and had a lot of growing up to do to reverse the crazy ideas that media and society put into my head about how love and relationships work.
Here's a good place to start:
Both of those books are filled with solid advice about how to extricate your head from your ass.
There's a really interesting book, Come As You Are, by Emily Nagoski. It talks about how all people have both a libido accelerator, but also libido brakes. Knowing your brakes can help you to identify how to change your libido.
I have been through 3 Microsoft Internships and am currently a full-time employee there.
First of all, congrats on securing the interview. 5 days might be a little tight. But I would recommend you take all 5 of those days off from school and study these two books thoroughly:
You must study these books and the problems in them very carefully. The basic data structures such as lists, arrays, stacks, queues, trees and hashtables - you should know these and associated algorithms like the back of your hand. You should be able to produce code for algorithms such as inserting to a list or searching through a tree in a few minutes. Most problems can be solved by using a specific data structure and some associated algorithm.
You will most likely have 2 back-to-back 45-minute interviews. Both of these will be highly technical and focused on algorithms and data structures. Typically, you will be presented a problem. For example: determine if a linked list has a loop or not. You must then come up with a solution to this problem and be able to explain the algorithm to the interviewer. You should also be able to quickly analyse the time and space complexities of the algorithm. Finally, you will be asked to code this algorithm. Here, knowing a specific programming language is not important. So put down your C Programming Language book and start reading the other two I have listed. You can code in pseudocode. The syntax is not important - only the algorithm.
If you manage to do all this in less than 20 minutes, you will typically be asked to answer an extension to the same problem. For example: Find the exact node where the list loops back on itself. Then you repeat the same process and solve this modified problem. Alternatively, you may be asked to describe yourself (small-talk). However, these HR style questions have very little impact on your result.
If you are ever stuck, you can always ask for clarifications from the interviewer. The interviewer will also provide hints if you seem to be struggling. Always think aloud as this will allow the interviewer to stop you from thinking in the wrong direction. The second interview will go the same way but with a different interviewer and problem. Remember to ask when they will let you know of the interview result.
After you have studied your books, go through glassdoor/careercup and search for interview questions. Sort these by date and learn the latest ones thoroughly.
If you managed to do everything right, you should be invited to Redmond to do your real interviews. Good luck!
> My strong suit is ruby/rails which I feel like is pretty rare and specific when it comes to most internship positions. (I can count on 1 hand the people who know rails in my school).
First off, trust me, you're not that special.
> So far, I have had interviews with 6 of the companies, and have yet to miss a question, & every time I am able to solve the technical questions relatively quickly (e.g. 45 min coding problem, done in 20 etc.) and then we go on to talk about interests etc. The thing is EVERY single company, after the technical interview (usually the 2nd-3rd phone interview), I am in limbo. Usually from 2-3 weeks, before I get denied.
So far, I'm picking up an attitude problem.
> I have only now started asking for feedback(but of course nobody replies to my emails).
Yeah, don't do that.
> I know they are large companies (vmware, yahoo, dell, etc.) but is it strange to have an interview go well and then just go into the void?
YMMV, but it's entirely possible. However, for myself I'd say 95% of the time, someone gets back to me.
> Also I am not socially inept, yet it always seems as if me and the recruiter get along great, while the technical people give off a cold disconnect (but still nice).
How often is this happening? I'd say there are some technical people who are just like that, but I'd say the majority of the time I see them acting that way in an interview is because it isn't going well.
> However it seems pretty inefficient to apply to jobs with 2000 kids hunting for 2 open positions, so it may be the lottery effect that is killing me.
Maybe, but if you're applying to 100s of jobs, you'd think something would eventually edge out in your favor.
Honestly, to me it sounds like:
There's nothing much you can do about an attitude problem other than hold your tongue and think before you speak on anything that isn't directly related to the technical question at hand. Explain, don't boast about past projects and experiences. Be open to learning.
As for technical questions, the best I can do is prescribe the usual: Cracking the Coding Interview. Good book for getting the basics down for technical interviews. Others will suggest other books after that, but I've had good luck with geeksforgeeks and the interview section of Glassdoor for companies like Google and Yahoo for going above and beyond.
Just to give you a peace of mind, I'm gonna share that I'm utter shit too. I have almost 20 years of experience and working at a huge worldwide company. I have conducted more than a hundred interviews myself and yet, if I apply to somewhere I can't write a simple parsing script in a coding interview.
Some of us just wired this way. Also interviews are like a date. It is equally up to chemistry and luck along with correct answers to questions if you get the job.
To be useful too, a few links. Check out this for inspiration:
https://rejected.us/
The best book to get an IT job:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cracking-Coding-Interview-6th-Programming/dp/0984782850
After looking at your post history, it seems you're a 2nd year majoring in stats? I would just continue on the path you're currently on- best case scenario, do as many 300 / 400 CPSC courses for your electives that you can. Worst case scenario, try the BCS program after you've graduated.
I completed a 5 year CS degree with 16 months of co-op experience and a ~90ish average in CS courses and have been working in the industry for about 3 years. Here is the breakdown of where I learned how to develop:
I totally understand how anxious people would feel after getting rejected from CS but it's honestly not the end of the world. If you're willing to put in the effort, there are so many free resources out there that will help you learn how to develop. I assume you're done with 110/121/210... here are some resources that really helped me out:
Code complete 2 - one of the best coding textbooks I've ever read... released for free: http://aroma.vn/web/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/code-complete-2nd-edition-v413hav.pdf
Practicing for interviews (not taught in school) - https://www.amazon.ca/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/0984782850
Learn the fundamentals of javascript... then learn typescript / react / whatever flavour of JS you hear about becoming popular... here's some site I found after 2 minutes of looking but I'm sure there are much better ones: https://medium.freecodecamp.org/an-introduction-to-object-oriented-programming-in-javascript-8900124e316a
If you're really worried that your stats degree might hold you back... fill out your resume with hack-a-thons and side projects and apply for CS internships. Email recruiters directly if you don't hear responses from normal application processes. When building your resume, start with the CS stuff and leave the major at the end... make sure that if a human ever reads your resume, they'll be reading about how much you've learned about development on your own rather than which major you happen to earn your degree in.
Grinding problems, haha! I can't answer your more specific questions, but I'll distill the resources that I have found to be most useful. The types of questions will depend on wherever you are applying and you might not even get technical questions at some places.
I would start with CTCI then, if you feel like it, move on to Elements of Programming Interviews which (I think) has more difficult problems. All the while just grind problems on leetcode. Also, make sure to practice answering these questions without coding in an IDE. I have just been using a notebook and pencil. A whiteboard works too. Before beginning any sort of coding, you should have the general algorithm down that you will use to solve the problem.
It also would be helpful to know how to implement / be familiar with the following:
Data Structures
Algorithms
OOP (define these)
Other stuff:
Finally, know Big-O complexity Big-O Cheatsheet! I'm sure there is a lot more but this should be a great start.
Good luck! :)
You're an experienced programmer: this
You're a mathematician/scientist/engineer/etc: this
You are "ok" with another language: this
You're more of a "video tutorial" learner: this (and your local library probably gives you free access, seriously check)
You're completely new to programming: this
You're 9 years old: this
Everybody poops.
http://www.amazon.com/Everyone-Turtleback-Library-Binding-Edition/dp/0613685725
Counterpoint: Everybody poops.
Source
> People on opiates don’t shit
i have a good book for you, friend
Oh I do, and everytime I see her, there's poop questions. I'm probably sitting at Type 3 most days, but the spicy nugs push it to more like Type 6 (Type 7 if there's booze involved). I got her this book, and she seemed quite pleased.
Thanks for the concern though!
Your post has too little context/content for anyone to give you particularly relevant or specific advice. You should list what you know already and what you’re trying to learn. I find it’s easiest to research a new subject when I have a concrete problem I’m trying to solve.
But anyway, I’m going to assume you studied up through single variable calculus and are reasonably motivated to put some effort in with your reading. Here are some books which you might enjoy, depending on your interests. All should be reasonably accessible (to, say, a sharp and motivated undergraduate), but they’ll all take some work:
(in no particular order)
Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (wikipedia)
To Mock a Mockingbird (wikipedia)
Structure in Nature is a Strategy for Design
Geometry and the Imagination
Visual Group Theory (website)
The Little Schemer (website)
Visual Complex Analysis (website)
Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos (website)
Music, a Mathematical Offering (website)
QED
Mathematics and its History
The Nature and Growth of Modern Mathematics
Proofs from THE BOOK (wikipedia)
Concrete Mathematics (website, wikipedia)
The Symmetries of Things
Quantum Computing Since Democritus (website)
Solid Shape
On Numbers and Games (wikipedia)
Street-Fighting Mathematics (website)
But also, you’ll probably get more useful response somewhere else, e.g. /r/learnmath. (On /r/math you’re likely to attract downvotes with a question like this.)
You might enjoy:
https://www.reddit.com/r/math/comments/2mkmk0/a_compilation_of_useful_free_online_math_resources/
https://www.reddit.com/r/mathbooks/top/?sort=top&amp;t=all
Algorithms, Design Patterns, VCS, being familiar with typical CS interviews questions and something that will be really needed
Some Books:
For Algorithms:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Algorithms-Sanjoy-Dasgupta-ebook/dp/B006Z0QR3I/
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Algorithm-Design-Edition-published-Springer/dp/B00E28CR4I/
http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Algorithms-Thomas-H-Cormen/dp/0262033844/
Design Patterns:
http://www.amazon.com/Design-Patterns-Explained-Perspective-Object-Oriented/dp/0321247140/
http://www.amazon.com/First-Design-Patterns-Elisabeth-Freeman/dp/0596007124/
http://www.amazon.com/Design-Patterns-Elements-Reusable-Object-Oriented/dp/0201633612/
http://www.amazon.com/Design-Patterns-Dummies-Steve-Holzner/dp/0471798541/
Interviews:
http://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/098478280X
http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Interviews-Exposed-Secrets-Landing/dp/1118261364/
It's tough to offer any kind of advice for your situation because you talk in a lot of generalities.
However, my wife and I have struggled quite a bit over the last few years and it sucks. I feel like things are getting better, but there are always mis-steps even on the up-swing.
If your wive really has checked out, there's not much you can do. It takes two to make a couple.
However. You can work on yourself. In so doing, you might find that it helps your relationship. Or it might not. But even if your relationship falls apart, you will be in a much better space to cope with that and move on -- as difficult as it seems right now.
So, here's my suggestions ... things that I have been doing and reading over the last couple of years that have really helped me.
https://www.headspace.com/
http://stronglifts.com/
http://altshiftdiet.com/
https://www.amazon.com/How-Talk-Kids-Will-Listen/dp/1451663889/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1474568476&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=how+to+talk+so+kids+will+listen+%26+listen+so+kids+will+talk
https://www.amazon.com/People-Skills-Yourself-Resolve-Conflicts/dp/067162248X
https://np.reddit.com/r/sexover30/comments/538uat/mismatched_couples/d7r5hys
https://www.amazon.com/Never-Split-Difference-Negotiating-Depended/dp/0062407805/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1474568493&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=chris+voss
http://www.amazon.com/Come-You-Are-Surprising-Transform/dp/1476762090/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1436544375&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=come+as+you+are
Anyway, those are my suggestions and have helped me immensely. Take what you think will work for you. Ignore the rest.
Best of luck!
Let me suggest this amazing book that talks about just this issue. Emily Negowski wrote this book to women for women. Emily also wrote a follow up to this book. Breaking the stress cycle or something. It also comes in audiobook. Please check it out. This information is so key for us men to understand. I had so many issues with the “breaks” in my last marriage that it just drove us a part. If we have language around these things then we can communicate better on how to overcome it.
Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science that Will Transform Your Sex Life https://www.amazon.com/dp/1476762090/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_Y9jWCbNY987XP
Also, female sexual boredom is a real thing! Dr. Wednesday Martin talks about this a lot!
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/women-get-bored-sex-long-term-relationships/582736/
So, there are a few books that I think all indie game developers should read that really have nothing to do with game development. However, they will help you understand habit and discipline. Really, everyone should read these books.
[Grit] (https://www.amazon.com/Grit-Passion-Perseverance-Angela-Duckworth/dp/1501111108/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1487005711&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=Grit), by Dr. Angela Duckworth, Phd.
Mindset, by Dr. Carol Dweck, Phd.
The Power of Habit, by Charles Duhigg
The ideas in these books and research behind them are very powerful.
I've been a smoker for 10+ years. Multiple quit attempts. I don't know if I believe in God or free will, but I believe in myself. I believe I can get control back. I am just sick and tired of being a slave to a substance. I've been going to therapy for a year and breaking down my thought process. I read articles on whyquit.com that breaks it down as well. I check r/stopsmoking sometimes. I went to a support group called Smart Recovery that deals with addiction generally, with no emphasis on God like 12 Steps. I started reading books like the Power of Habit to understand the science behind my actions. I recently watched a Ted Talk called "Everything you know about addiction is wrong" and it just really resonated. I keep a journal of the reasons I quit and my frustrations/urges to smoke again.
I kept telling myself: this will be the last one, this will be the last one. But it never is. And I smoked more and more. I made up excuses for months, then years and time moved on without me.
To answer how did I do it - Trial and Error. I fell on my face many times, but I'll just keep getting back up. Every time I get the urge to light one I ask myself - Do you want to live? Or do you want to be controlled by Marlboro Corporation? How many more years of your life are you willing to give up? Do you really believe in yourself? Do you really believe that change is possible? And I remind myself, ONE DAY AT A TIME. Just get through the urge at the present moment.
Why Quit:
https://whyquit.com/joel/Joel_Index_03_Quitting_Smoking.html
Power of Habit:
https://www.amazon.com/Power-Habit-What-Life-Business/dp/081298160X
Everything You Know About Addiction is Wrong:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY9DcIMGxMs
Smart Recovery:
https://www.smartrecovery.org/smart-recovery-toolbox/
Link: The Flavor Bible by Page, Dornenburg
We have this too - good book
I don't know the website, but....I know the book:
The Flavor Bible
http://www.amazon.com/Flavor-Bible-Essential-Creativity-Imaginative/dp/0316118400?tag=amaz98-20
Read about building flavor profiles.
There are a couple of good books on the market: The Flavor Bible and The Flavor Thesauraus. They both have a lot of information on what ingredients go well with each other.
Also, learn by doing. Try things you think may go together well, even if it's not conventional. Even if the things you try don't come together, you can still learn from it. Try to understand WHY it didn't work (cooking method, flavor profile, preparation all have an affect), think about what you can do to correct the mistake, then implement that the next time you try that dish. I don't own a copy of it myself (yet), but Cook's Illustrated Magazine's The Science of Good Cooking would probably help in that regard.
In general, I consider Alton Brown, Cook's Illustrated/Cook's Country, America's Test Kitchen, and Julia Child to be very reputable in the information they convey.
I'm sure you mean House of Leaves.
Depends on who your audience is too. House of Leaves has a huge cult following and its' "inferface" is designed to be as visible and intrusive as possible.
House of Leaves –
by Mark Z. Danielewski
plus this book , it's like the hadouken combo for cunningulus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man's_Search_for_Meaning. Victor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning.
More recently, "Attached" by Amir Levine. https://www.amazon.com/Attached-Science-Adult-Attachment-YouFind/dp/1585429139.
I believe the poster is referring to attachment theory, which is not gender-based but has more to do with early formative experiences.
I also "get attached easily" (anxious attachment, as it is called ).
And I'm hardly feminine and have plenty of options (and the experiences to verify it).
It actually means that you have to be MORE selective, to ensure you're not connecting with someone who is on the opposite side of the attachment equation ( someone who is "avoidant" ).
more info:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attachment_theory
https://www.amazon.com/Attached-Science-Adult-Attachment-YouFind/dp/1585429139/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1468767337&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=attached+amir
TL;DR: Draw EVERYTHING, draw CONSTANTLY, and TURN OFF YOUR LEFT BRAIN!
As an artist, I will tell you what all of my art teachers failed to ever tell me, and hopefully help kick-start you into drawing.
First of all, as /u/Im_A_Nidiot said, draw anything and everything and draw constantly. It's hard to train your fingers to do what your brain wants them to, so just like exercising to become a body builder, you have to draw constantly. Whether it's someone you passed by on the street wearing a funny hat that you want to capture, or something you just dreamed up, always draw. If you can, draw for at least an hour every day. For detailed pictures that's an easy task, but if you have a busy life and can't just sit down and devote time to it, then sketch every time something comes to mind. 10 gestures or sketches a day will be much more helpful in developing the skill than just one or two occasionally.
Secondly, a big thing my art teachers wanted us to do but never explained why, was drawing still life or from life. Figure drawing, inanimate object drawing, drawing your own feet from your own perspective, it's all incredibly important. Why, you might ask? Because it builds a library in your head of what things look like. If you have a pile of stuffed animals, and you say draw one each day as realistically as you possibly can, then after a month suddenly you'll know exactly what that stuffed giraffe looks like and how to draw it in various positions, even ones you haven't drawn before. Same if you have a pet cat or dog and you draw it every day in various positions- you'll be able to draw a cat or dog from your imagination without much issue. So even if it seems trivial, draw from life! An exercise I would do is I would divide my work space in half, and draw the boring realistic object in one side, and then draw the same thing on the other side but with added "weirdness" from my imagination. If it was a pill bottle on one side, it would have an octopus coming out of it on the other. That helps keep it interesting and helps you expand your mental library.
And finally, once you start building your finger skills and your mental library, as /u/jus_richards already mentioned, I highly HIGHLY recommend buying Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. The entire purpose of this book is to train you to "turn off" your left brain, because it interferes with right brain activity which is what you use when you create art. Being an extremely analytical person, my left brain was always giving me fits whenever I would draw. Now I know how to quiet it down so I can draw, and it has done wonders for my work. If you are serious about wanting to learn how to draw, definitely invest in this book and do all the exercises.
Upvoted because of my love of Freakonomics. Another interesting book about this topic is The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander.
People of color, particularly men of color, born in 1970 or later have not been welcomed into society as passively as you claim. Beginning in the late 1980s and continuing through to today in some areas, Americans of color have been consciously and unconsciously targeted by discriminatory and institutionalized practices and policies that restrict one's access into mainstream society. Collectively, these practices are generally referred to as mass incarceration, though politicians have tended to sell them as a War on Drugs that is Tough on Crime.
American-style mass incarceration is quite evidently discriminatory against people of color because the War on Drugs neither reducies drug use in the nation nor reduces crime in troubled areas. In fact, it has tended to increase both. Allow me to explain.
Since the late 1980s the American prison population has boomed from about 300,000 to about 2 million. This is the highest rate of incarceration in the world. Almost all of the prisoners in America are African-Americans, as high as 80% in some areas, and they were mostly convicted of minor non violent drug offenses. This makes no sense when you consider that Americans of all races consume illegal drugs and participate in the illegal drug market at approximately the same rate (Source).
Most of these non-violent prisoners of color, admittedly, spend only a short period of time in jail. However, once released almost all of them are branded felons because American laws offer little leniency on this account for persons convicted of drug offenses involving drugs that are frequently found in poor, African-American populated areas. Once labeled a felon, a released non-violent offender who has supposedly paid their debt to society sees little opportunity for a stable life because career, housing, educational, and social opportunities are severely restricted. Ask anyone who has been labeled a felon in America and they will tell you that given such a status is like being branded with a mark of the beast that essentially establishes one as part of an often ignored and almost invisible undercaste.
The lack of opportunity for this undercaste often leads to two things. First, many of the undercaste turn to drug use as way to deal with their emotional depression onset by a perpetual and inescapable state of impoverishment. Second, many of the same group turn to crime to make money because other opportunities never present themselves. They might be seen as having the "ghetto mentality" that other users spoke of. Hopefully you can see at this point how a deleterious cycle builds. Such a cycle benefits no one and also costs an incredible amount of money to maintain.
This is obviously a simplified account of mass incarceration (this is Reddit after all). Nonetheless, I hope it illustrated how opportunity is restricted in America for a large portion of the population. The mass incarceration system is "hidden" from us because there are no federal, state, or local laws in the US that explicitly target people of color so I don't think your comment is the result of a lack of intelligence on your part. Rather, the plain and simple fact that you live as part of an inherently flawed American society and culture stands behind your antiquated viewpoint. I hope you try to learn more about this so you can help fix the county that I, for one, love so much.
Further reading: Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow
Check out this book The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up
Easy read. Its really helped me in my decluttering process !!
If you're not outraged by our "justice" system yet, I recommend this NYT best seller.
The things the "war on drugs" has done to our society are atrocious.
Absolutely. I'm glad you asked and I hope I can be helpful.
I know it can be very difficult to stop consumerism within us because we've been advertised to our entire lives. We've been told that material possession equates to success and self-worth. The more we have, the better we are. You and I can read these sentences I wrote and recognize how stupid that idea is. Yet, advertising is so good that even the knowledge that we're being advertised to doesn't always prevent that same advertising from working on us. Advertising is based on exploiting human psychology. That's why it works. Just know that it's very difficult to ignore advertising on a subconscious level. We're only human. We will fail. We will make mistakes. Recognizing all this is a good first step.
It's important to practice desiring less. When you want something, stop yourself and think about it. Think about your motivations. Why do you want it? Is there a real justification for acquiring something? Is it a true need, or just a want? If it's simply a want, well, tell yourself you want it but you don't need it and move on. Try to thwart the desire for that thing at the source. Desire for a thing is like sexual lust... it's only human to feel that way, but you don't need to act on it.
It's a constant practice, desiring less. It's difficult. Possibly the most difficult thing a human can do. But desire leads to disappointment and suffering. Desire is temporary, but if we play that desire out to its end, often times the fruits of that desire can be disappointing and longlasting. But if you don't need something, if you don't desire, you're that much more free... "Nah, I don't need that." You become unflappable. More in control. But don't kid yourself... it's hard. Keep practicing.
If you're looking to get rid of stuff you already have that isn't bringing you happiness, I recommend Marie Kondo's "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up." It's become quite a popular book and for good reason. It really makes you think about why you have stuff and how that stuff functions in your life.
If you want to work on internalizing the idea of desiring less, take a look at /r/buddhism. It's important that if you start reading Buddhist texts that you realize that Buddhism is more of a philosophy than a religion. Buddhism's main tenant is "freedom from desire is the path to enlightenment." It's a very deep rabbit hole to go down and a lifetime of study. For a more modern take on Buddhist teaching, I love Pema Chodron. I also really love Anthony DeMello and Jiddu Krishnamurti.
Another great place to look is /r/stoicism and in particular "Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius. Aurelius was emperor of Rome, but that didn't stop him from living a life of equanimity and mindfulness. His book "Meditations" is more like a private diary, in which he reminds himself on how to live a good life.
“We need to master the art of acquiescence. We need to pay attention to our impulses, making sure they don’t go unmoderated, that they benefit others, that they’re worthy of us. We need to steer clear of desire in any form and not try to avoid what’s beyond our control.” -- Meditations, 11.37 (Hays translation)
I hope that this stuff can get you started on your journey. Just know that you don't need to be perfect. You don't need to flip a switch and completely change who you are to be a success at any of this. It's a process and it's a practice. Failure is okay. Don't beat yourself. Just try. Just keep practicing this stuff every day and it will add up. You can do it.
I found the Konmari method in The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up to be very helpful. It was therapeutic to accept that it's okay to get rid of things that don't make you feel good (or "spark joy") when you wear them.
I had several dresses that were basically new, with the tags still on, but didn't fit quite right... I was holding onto them with a sense of optimistic potential (maybe someday I'll get them altered, maybe after I lose some weight they will work, it seems like such a waste to get rid of them). After I Konmari-ed my closet it felt like a weight was off my shoulders and I could actually see the clothes I wanted to wear!
For old clothes -- I had been keeping a lot of old shirts that used to look great, so I had almost sentimental attachments to them, but I hadn't worn them in years. The Konmari perspective is that if they felt good and worked well in the past, then they have done their job. It's okay to let them go if you don't enjoy wearing them anymore.
Start with this: https://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Right-Side-Brain-Definitive/dp/1585429201
Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards
Edit to add: https://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Right-Side-Brain-Definitive/dp/1585429201/
I've recommended this book about a billion times, sorry if it's getting boring.
I'm very anxious in relationships. I drove myself mad with a new guy in January and wanted to stop doing it to myself. Some internet reading led me to attachment theory in adults and eventually the book. I can't recommend it enough.
I work at Google (full-time). Before Google, I had been writing software for 8 years professionally (Computer Science degree). I would say that every other day for about 1 month I spent about 2-3 hours preparing. Looking back, I probably over prepared, but I would rather have that than be underprepared. Here's how I prepared:
In the end, the interviews were easier than I imagined. Couple of n-ary tree questions, a distributed computing question, a math/algorithm question and a basic Java coding question.
Current Microsoft intern here! You've got your first sentence perfectly in order of increasing importance. Since you interned at IBM, I'm assuming you have a decent grasp of data structures and algorithms. If not, you now know where to start!
Do some thinking around your app -- if that's a highlight for you, then it's going to come up. Who was your audience? What was the goal of the app? What were the design choices you made? What could you have done to make it better? faster? more secure? What did you learn?
Go pick up an interview book or two -- I used Cracking the Coding Interview to prepare. If you notice yourself stumbling anywhere (especially the first two-thirds of the chapters), be sure to do some learning around the things giving you trouble.
I wrote about my interview experience at Microsoft, if that interests you. It's also got some links to other people's experiences.
An alternative to the gang of 4 book which is easier to digest is the head first guide
Head First Design Patterns https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0596007124/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_jGIzDb57C3ACR
This is a pretty good book about design patterns.
https://www.amazon.com/Head-First-Design-Patterns-Brain-Friendly/dp/0596007124
Strictly in order.
Head First Programming
Head First Java
Effective Java
Head First Design Patterns
Head First Software Development
<http://developer.android.com/training/index.html&gt;
You are welcome!
You can either learn to crack the interview or reconsider your job search strategy. Sure, you may not be able to analyze the complexity of a travelling salesman solution, but you may be able to find an employer who instead cares more about software engineering, tooling expertise (version control, CI etc.), expertise with a particular technology (you mentioned PHP), a well-rounded approach to software development in general, soft skills or whatever else you're confident you may bring to the table.
Here is an interactive page where people can visualize how Quicksort works, this is one of the most widely used sorting algorithms, once understood you can pick any of the other popular ones: Bubble, Insertion, Heap, Selection, etc. CtCI — Cracking the Coding Interview is a good book written by an engineer who used to be part of the recruitment team at Google and other "Big 4" companies, I really recommend it, every page is worth its penny*. Leet Code is also a good resource to learn and practice algorithms, most of the exercises have articles with good explanations of how to solve the problems.
Best advice I can give is check out this book from a library (or buy): Cracking the Coding Interview: 189 Programming Questions and Solutions. It's written by someone who worked as a software engineer at Google & Microsoft and did interviews.
Doing problems out of that book helped me remember some important things that were actually asked about in interviews. I ended up getting two job offers at the same time which allowed me to tell the other company what my offer was and get them to raise it quite a bit.
I interviewed at Google this year and I'm 33. The ageism you hear about sometimes, while it exists, seems to be less prevalent than some would have you believe. If you're worried about it, Triplebyte (referral link) does completely background-blind interviewing for SF and NYC companies (though you do have to be quite good to get through their process; see below first).
(This might not work for OP anyway if they are in Australia since they might need a visa, and Triplebyte AFAIK doesn't do that.)I guess where to start would depend on your background. Do you have any software itches you could scratch? That is, is there some solution to a problem you see either in your job or your daily life that you might be able to automate or solve with software? Maybe start with that; set up a respository on Github and start planning and coding it up (though if it has to do with your job, clear it with them first).
I recommend learning Java or C++. The concepts you learn in those languages will transition to others pretty easily.
If you're looking into bigger companies or startups, I recommend watching MIT OpenCourseware 6.006, Introduction to Algorithms and maybe following along with the class assignments (all free). If you can make it through this course, along with Cracking the Coding Interview, you'll be well on your way to being able to clear many DS&A-style developer interviews.
For others in this thread, $100K AUD is apparently $80K USD (but as OP mentions, Australia has a high COL so its purchasing power is probably lower).
I'm just two months into my first real job for programming and have a few books I've been going through.
Clean Code is a book not just about writing code, but good code that is easily maintained and passed down to other people to understand.
Working Effectively with Legacy Code was a great read coming into company that has been around for 20 years and is on the third iteration of their product.
I am doing web development so You don't know JS, Javascript: the good parts and then Javascript The Definitive Guide have all been a great help.
If you aren't much a book person, Pluralsight.com is awesome for info on tons of different technologies and is well worth the monthly cost. Go follow every major name in your preferred technologies on twitter. They will tweet all sorts of cool things to learn about. Also, PODCASTS!!!. I don't even listen to music anymore. If I'm in the car alone I'll be listening to Dot Net Rocks or Javascript Jabber.
Lastly, there are subreddits for every tech imaginable. Go subscribe to them and hit everyone up for where they get all their info!
:)
I read "Oh Crap! Potty Training". The author's recommendation is to not start until they are at least 20months and can sing their ABCs. My kid was speech delayed at that age and definitely couldn't sing her ABCs (and still can't, at 2.5yrs), but we dove in right at 20m and she trained super easily compared to most of my friends' kids, even training for naps and nights. It took us like 2w to get to where I felt like I could leave the house without accidents. And she learned to say "pee pee" when she had to use the bathroom, so that was a plus.
My second born will be 20m in 1 week and I can't decide if I want to dive in and go through 2 weeks of potty training accidents to get the sweetness of never needing diapers again. It's a tough call to make!
Anyways, we used the little separate training potty at first, so that she could put herself on her potty and go pee, and then eventually moved up to setting her on the toilet with an insert which was necessary for using the restroom during outings. By the time I potty trained her, she was also sleeping in a big kid bed already which was super helpful.. I would sit her little potty on a waterproof mat on her floor and if she woke up from her nap, she could quickly sit herself on her potty before I could even get in there. She rarely had accidents in bed.
We read a lot of books about toilets... "Everybody Poops", "Potty Time", and "Once Upon a Potty". Some other books I liked were "Diapers are Not Forever", "Potty", and "Let's Go Potty, Elmo!".
Funny, I'm getting this:
https://www.amazon.com/Everyone-Turtleback-School-Library-Binding/dp/0613685725
> 1) But...smells. And sounds. Also I'm terrified of having someone grunting and stinking it up in the stall next to me only to walk out and find out it was the cute girl from my bio lab or something.
required reading.
These two books by Cal Newport, one of the best authors on productivity and discipline.
Deep Work
So Good They Can't Ignore You
And also, The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
Aaaand, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
For mindset, I also recommend The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck by Mark Manson. It'll teach you to choose your battles carefully, although you can find most of that content in his site.
Stop fapping, and even more so stop porn. It wires your brain to seek instant gratification, which is not what studying can give you. You might want to give up gaming and the Facebook newsfeed too, everything that consists of short action-reward-circuts.
Interesting reads: Your Brain On Porn by Gary Wilson ($5 Kindle), and The Power Of Habit by Charles Duhigg ($9 Kindle).
Edit: Added links
You seem really frustrated and I feel like I actually have some useful information to offer, so I'm sorry if this feels obnoxious, but hopefully you'll gain something from it.
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I'm the low libido one in my relationship. I had a lot of "serious talks" with my husband about it over the years. He wants more. I want to want more, but don't know how. I convince myself I'll make it happen. Do all kinds of things like get sexy underwear and wear them daily so I'm reminded to think about sex. We have subtle signals for "I want to have sex today" so we don't have to tell each other "Want some sex?" shit like that. It bothers me when my husband tries to initiate while I'm trying to take care of things that have to be done. I ask him to stop. Etc. and so on.
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The issue was that we were misidentifying the problems involved. Yeah, all that stuff was true, but it wasn't *the* issue. I needed therapy. Like, a shit ton of it. I have a history of sexual trauma and it has my relationship with sex all fucked up. Besides that, I've been with my husband for ~15 years and all the habits and resentment and fear we have with each other around sex have been building and reinforcing themselves in cycles for that whole time. So trying to come up with these small solutions when the problems were much deeper, ingrained emotional shit, made no real difference, and we were stuck in our useless, frustrating cycles.
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I'm not saying your husband has sexual trauma. He might, he might not. He may be ace or depressed like another commenter said, but it's a big assumption to say it has to be one of those. It may just be that he has low libido. But if he really wants to change and it's not working, it's possible there's a deeper issue you guys are missing. And if you keep trying to solve the small problems, you'll never get to the big ones. I also really recommend the book Passionate Marriage for both of you. It's a little self-congratulatory, but it has some good ideas that can really change the way you think about your interactions with your husband, and maybe break some of those frustrating cycles. Another book that really helped me was Come As You Are, which is geared towards women but includes science that applies to men as well, and I think would help any low-libido partner get a handle on what's happening with their sex drive.
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I wish you luck, happiness, and satisfying sex.
While you are waiting for the therapist, perhaps the book Come As You Are could help her feel more at ease with her own sexuality.
It's too soon to jump to the conclusion that you are technically inept. If she does not know how her own body works, there is no way for her to guide you to being the partner she needs. Support and encourage her while she figures herself out, and hopefully she will get to a place where she can tell, and show, you what she needs.
Gotta recommend:
She Comes First
This was an informative book and the info from it was very helpful as it made me more aware of my partner’s body and what works for her.
My partner at the time wasn’t having orgasms, and I hadn’t ran into that problem before, so I stressed about it and looked things up online when I found this book. And. Oh. My. God.
The knowledge is like the difference between driver’s ed and automotive engineering course; one shows you how to do things safely, the other lets you know what needs tweaking to get the engine performance up.
It’s also made sex more fun for me because I feel more comfortable and curious to help my partner with her orgasm.
Hope that helps.
It's for straight guys, but this book helped me get some confidence...and I've always gotten great reviews so......blush
http://www.amazon.com/She-Comes-First-Thinking-Pleasuring/dp/0060538260
Sorry for link, on mobile. But yes, communication, passion, etc. are key. As well as not focusing on the orgasm. :)
Buy him a copy of "She comes first" for Christmas. Read it first yourself and then ask that he read it.
I hit a rut likes this years ago. Stressful military life is my excuse. In any event, the result was that my wife started to lose interested in sex and when we did, it was pretty lifeless. Eventually I realized that it was because I wasn't taking care of her properly. Emack was an idiot, don't be like Emack.
She Comes First
Here's a good guide to start with....
> What you say would only makes sense if germs guns and steel would have been unrelated to immigration
My point is that immigrants to the US will not be able to colonize us using superior weaponry, resources, or immunity asymmetry. They will not be able to overpower us with their superior numbers. We are in no danger of going the way of Native Americans or Texas. With or without a more secure border.
>native Americans who were so stupid to think the refugees they helped would be grateful in the long run and treat them with respect and behave as guests?
Well, for one thing, Native Americans were so outmatched that they could not have prevented us from immigrating, as many attempted to do throughout the the Continent. Particularly after we unleashed several deadly plagues.
>By contrast the Africans who did resist immigration/conquest still have their culture and way of life
Your example of African is not nearly the gotcha you think it is. People on the African continent traded with Eurasia for thousands of years and built up an immunity to diseases like small pox, what's more many African regions had their own deadly diseases that Europeans were not immune to. A big part of the reason that Africa put up a better resistance to colonization was that they had the same type of immunity asymmetry that Europeans had in North and South America.
Source
More info
>A lot of them quite prefer living under white rule and emigrate to white areas like South Africa and Europe and most people would say their life would be better off if we accept our way of life (doctors transportation jobs economy all around whiteness) as better, but they have a choice to live like their forefathers or not.
This really has nothing to with your point, but it is still a profoundly ignorant understanding of colonization. For one thing, South Africa is a majority black state. Doctors, transportation, and jobs are not exclusively the white way of life. Just ask China who had such advanced "transportation" that they could have make a trans Atlantic or trans Pacific voyage several hundred years before Europeans.
What's more colonization is the systematic pillage and dominance of another country. African countries did not have to be invaded and stripped of their sovereignty and resources in order to import European innovations such as cars.
There are many people all over the continent of Africa that do choose to follow a more traditional way of life. And, like you said, many African countries have economies that are prosperous and culturally more similar to European and Asian countries. There are also a number of countries and regions that are still struggling with the atrocities of the past five centuries, and do not "chose" to lack jobs, doctors, and "transportation"(cars?, highways?).
Don't worry, I am actually reading Guns, Germs and Steel at the moment and I have read many of these details within the last 7 days.
I am not trying to name names and point fingers here. The point I am trying to make is that all nations have a history with race. Additionally, think about:
Apartheid was bad, but it was certainly not the Holocaust, and the world seems to think that we are all a bunch of white-supremists. Just because Americans killed with Germs instead of Guns doesn't not take the deaths away. But that also does not mean you need to feel guilty. White people were indeed slaves at many points in history.
I didn't have anything to do with Apartheid.
But I'm still prepared to say sorry for any harm my ancestors caused. And I hope that we can learn to love each other, despite our histories.
Since you are looking for some reference books, here are some that I resort to using quite often in my world-building process.
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared M. Diamond
Plagues and Peoples by William H. McNeill
Weapon: A Visual History of Arms and Armor by Roger Ford
What People Wore When: A Complete Illustrated History of Costume from Ancient Times to the Nineteenth Century for Every Level of Society by Melissa Leventon
The History of Money by Jack Weatherford
If you need more, I can list more. I have a reference book for just about anything you could imagine in my ever-growing personal library.
They missed one of the most important ones!!
Guns, Germs, Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
As an avid cook and collector of cookbooks, I have three recommendations -
The first two will teach you the essentials of cooking. How salt, fat, acid, and heat work together to make delicious food. J Kenji Lopez Alt has a popular serious eats blog and his book will teach you everything you need to know about cooking perfect meat, eggs, burgers, etc.
Once you learn all of the basics from those books, use the Flavor Bible to be creative.
It's not free, but The Flavor Bible is pretty much what you want.
House of Leaves
If you liked the Tower, I highly suggest you read House of Leaves. The Tower reminded me a lot of a claustrophobic version of the House.
House of Leaves.
Algunas fotos para tener una idea de qué esperar al abrir el libro:
http://www.intotheabyss.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/house-of-leaves-sample.jpg
http://www.mottodistribution.com/site/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/House_Of_Leaves_Motto_1468.jpg
https://kzamanis.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/house-of-leaves-001.jpg
http://knowledgelost.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/617248_337175679713675_1178480927_o.jpg
> So something that would take in excess of 3 years to master is out, if you catch my drift.
You seem to be misguided on this point - while you can pick up the basics/fundamentals of programming pretty quickly, if you're so inclined, the actual practice of writing software, and writing it well, is going to take a lot of time investment. I look back at code/software I wrote when I was just starting out professionally, and while they worked, I know how poorly they compare to what I can write/design now.
Having 3 years of software development experience when starting from zero would probably leave you at 'junior' or 'mid' level at the end, and if you don't have a more experienced developer mentoring you throughout the process, you may be at a disadvantage. From the sound of it, your school has no actual programmers/developers.
With that said:
Not game-specific, but these books are definitely industry essential books when it comes to anything related to software development.
In no particular order (though Code Complete should probably be first):
Code Complete and Pragmatic Programmer are great books about programming as a craft and are both language agnostic.
Especially if your primary communication in English is written, Strunk and White's The Elements of Style is really your indispensable resource. It's much more about composition than grammar specifically, but the two topics are so closely linked that you'll benefit from it.
The Well-Tempered Sentence is another good resource, with a much more lighthearted approach. It's also primarily focused on written forms.
Neither of these are deep resources for grammar structure or usage rules, but understanding and implementing them will put you head and shoulders above a great many native speakers. I think if you're more interested in speaking than writing you'll want a language course of some kind. I've no personal experience with them, so I can't recommend one on that basis.
Good luck.
Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter is perhaps the most thought provoking book I have ever read. It unifies music, art, and mathematics and will simply blow your mind.
That's one of my favorite popular science books, so it's wonderful to hear you're getting so much out of it. It really is a fascinating topic, and it's sad that so many Christians close themselves off to it solely to protect their religious beliefs (though as you discovered, it's good for those religious beliefs that they do).
As a companion to the book you might enjoy the Stated Clearly series of videos, which break down evolution very simply (and they're made by an ex-Christian whose education about evolution was part of his reason for leaving the religion). You might also like Coyne's blog, though these days it's more about his personal views than it is about evolution (but some searching on the site will bring up interesting things he's written on a whole host of religious topics from Adam and Eve to "ground of being" theology). He does also have another book you might like (Faith Versus Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible), though I only read part of it since I was familiar with much of it from his blog.
> If you guys have any other book recommendations along these lines, I'm all ears!
You should definitely read The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins, if only because it's a classic (and widely misrepresented/misunderstood). A little farther afield, one of my favorite popular science books of all time is The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker, which looks at human language as an evolved ability. Pinker's primary area of academic expertise is child language acquisition, so he's the most in his element in that book.
If you're interested in neuroscience and the brain you could read How the Mind Works (also by Pinker) or The Tell-Tale Brain by V. S. Ramachandran, both of which are wide-ranging and accessibly written. I'd also recommend Thinking, Fast and Slow by psychologist Daniel Kahneman. Evolution gets a lot of attention in ex-Christian circles, but books like these are highly underrated as antidotes to Christian indoctrination -- nothing cures magical thinking about the "soul", consciousness and so on as much as learning how the brain and the mind actually work.
If you're interested in more general/philosophical works that touch on similar themes, Douglas R. Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach made a huge impression on me (years ago). You might also like The Mind's I by Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett, which is a collection of philosophical essays along with commentaries. Books like these will get you thinking about the true mysteries of life, the universe and everything -- the kind of mysteries that have such sterile and unsatisfying "answers" within Christianity and other mythologies.
Don't worry about the past -- just be happy you're learning about all of this now. You've got plenty of life ahead of you to make up for any lost time. Have fun!
Computer scientist here... I'm not a "real" mathematician but I do have a good bit of education and practical experience with some specific fields of like probability, information theory, statistics, logic, combinatorics, and set theory. The vast majority of mathematics, though, I'm only interested in as a hobby. I've never gone much beyond calculus in the standard track of math education, so I to enjoy reading "layman's terms" material about math. Here's some stuff I've enjoyed.
Fermat's Enigma This book covers the history of a famous problem that looks very simple, yet it took several hundred years to resolve. In so doing it gives layman's terms overviews of many mathematical concepts in a manner very similar to jfredett here. It's very readable, and for me at least, it also made the study of mathematics feel even more like an exciting search for beautiful, profound truth.
Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth I've been told this book contains some inaccuracies, but I'm including it because I think it's such a cool idea. It's a graphic novelization (seriously, a graphic novel about a logician) of the life of Bertrand Russell, who was deeply involved in some of the last great ideas before Godel's Incompleteness Theorem came along and changed everything. This isn't as much about the math as it is about the people, but I still found it enjoyable when I read it a few years ago, and it helped spark my own interest in mathematics.
Lots of people also love Godel Escher Bach. I haven't read it yet so I can't really comment on it, but it seems to be a common element of everybody's favorite books about math.
Read this book: Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid at least 3 times, and take your time.
For some physics :
Penrose - Road to Reality
Gleick - Chaos
Some math/philosophy :
Hofstadter - Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
Anything early by Dawkins if you want to avoid the atheist stuff though his latest is good too.
Anything by Robert Wright for the evolution of human morality.
Pinker for language and the Mind.
Matt Ridley for more biology.
There is no historical evidence of a written language in the entire sub-saharan region of africa at the time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writing_systems_of_Africa
And no the slaves didn't come from the other regions of africa where was some written language called Ge'ez, they mostly came from Senegambia:
http://www.ibtimes.com/where-africa-did-slaves-come-286429
Also confirmed by my school textbook.
So you should really get out of your cucked history books, or maybe talk to actual historians:
[link removed because automod]AskHistorians/comments/1nz7k6/were_there_no_native_written_languages_in/
Also, there was no wheel and no two-story building and no vessel that could even dream of crossing the ocean, you want more ?
I know it's hard to swallow for liberals but humans are different, blacks have a bigger penis, better musculature, more testosterone = more inclined to violence = less inclined to get educated = lower IQ.
Asians have a smaller penis than whites but are also smarter so I don't see why blacks would have a problem acknowledging other differences.
Also, if you want to learn more about the history of humans on this planet: https://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/dp/0393317552 Great read.
https://www.amazon.com/Subtle-Art-Not-Giving-Counterintuitive/dp/0062457713/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1524796923&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=the+art+of+not+giving+a+fck
great read
Perfect answer to this
https://www.amazon.com/Subtle-Art-Not-Giving-Counterintuitive/dp/0062457713
Dude.... I'm not even shitting you.... go buy and read She Comes First. It will give you an entirely new perspective on sex so that you can be way better than you thought you were (and MUCH better than she thought you were) when she comes back.
> I'm otherwise quite a confident and happy person, so this issue seems unusual for a male at such a young age.
Here's where you're wrong. Psychogenic erectile dysfunction is actually quite common, and doesn't depend on your age. Experiencing this doesn't make you abnormal or broken. If you're concerned then by all means get checked out by a doctor, but if you think it's just anxiety causing it then that may be the case. Virtually all men will experience ED at some point in their lives - be it due to nerves, alcohol, whatever; it's nothing to be ashamed of. Men don't magically always have perfect erections - that's not reality. I dealt with the same issue around your age and eventually got some therapy to discuss it and that helped unpack the issues that were causing it for me. Basically, if you're having performance anxiety, it's the anxiety that's probably the main cause of your problem. The general approach to this problem that I've come across is to 1) talk to your partner about how you're feeling so that they're on board and understand you and can help, 2) work with your partner to make sex less goal-oriented or put temporary limits. E.g. first have a session where you're not allowed sex or genital touching so that you have 0 pressure to perform, and then gradually build up over time to sessions where you can add those elements back in.
This book is pretty good and has talks a lot about the role of anxiety in sexual dysfunction, and has an entire chapter on erectile dysfunction that may interest you:
http://www.amazon.com/Sexual-Healing-Complete-Overcoming-Problems/dp/0897934652/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1459011764&amp;sr=8-2&amp;keywords=sexual+healing
Another approach is to focus on pleasuring your partner first through something other than intercourse, and after they're satisfied the focus can shift to you - this takes a lot of the pressure off because you've already 'performed' and thus can't really 'fail' - although it's better to not view sex through a lens of success/fail, this can be a helpful way to solve the problem. This book below is all about oral sex, but the author explicitly talks about having sexual dysfunction that he solved by doing exactly what I just described, and may be of interest to you.
http://www.amazon.com/She-Comes-First-Thinking-Pleasuring/dp/0060538260/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1459012050&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=she+comes+first
Best of luck!
Disclaimer: I am not a doctor, just someone who's had this problem and solved it for himself.
Some women have a hard time orgasming from PIV. No big whoop. I've dated some of them.
I've dated some women that have only ever had an orgasm through masturbation. That doesn't mean they didn't enjoy sex, but just that it was hard for their partner to bring them to orgasm.
If he is serious about wanting to give you an orgasm, buy him this book and have him read it. I won't lie: I was rather confident--and pretty good--at giving my partner an oral orgasm but after reading this book? FUCK YES. My oral skills were taken to the next level.
Edit: One of my partners had never had an orgasm from someone else until I went down on her. I loved the fact that I was able to give her her first 'non-manual' orgasm. Since then, she's orgasmed from not only my mouth, but also my fingers alone (much like she masturbates) and a toy in her ass with my fingers inside of her, doing nothing more but pressing down on her g-spot. Sometimes it just takes patience and communication. Say yes to both!
This
Truth.
The Flavor Bible
and
Ratio
are great resources if you want to start cooking like this.
Skip the bullshit and get a few good books. Here's one.
The speediest learning always comes from working with a skilled teacher. In absence of that, read what the skilled people write to improve more quickly.
So you've made a bunch of recipes, you should be familiar with basic knife skills, slice, chop, dice, batons. Everything else is a variation on those.
You probably are familiar with some dry heat cooking methods, sautée, pan fry, roasting, broiling.
You should also be familiar with wet cooking methods, simmering, steaming, boiling, braising perhaps. If not look them up.
Use these methods together with a flavor profile you're looking for, think regionally, then about what kind of flavors you really want, like garlic and rosemary, fresh tomato and basil, ginger and scallions.
If you think you've got the basic techniques down, pick up , The Flavor Bible: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America's Most Imaginative Chefs https://www.amazon.com/dp/0316118400/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awd_xyfywbD9B71BM
And go from there. It's a really good book
The Flavour Bible
Just look up a food and see what interesting things go with it.
Hi! I recommend the following books:
You can find other similar books here and here.
One that I especially liked (although closer to an algorithms textbook, but also had very cool "War Stories") is called The Algorithm Design Manual.
Have fun reading! :D
Android is java, there is 100 million devices right there.
I know Java, along with a handful of other languages used on the JVM (kotlin, scala). I also use Python quite a bit, C++/ObjC (though I use it much less), and I dabble in JS if needed. I've written perl, php, pascal just to new a few others. Once you learn the fundamentals of CS, you should be able to grasp any C like language pretty quickly. (even C++ if you just keep it simple)
What you should focus on is learning object orientation. Relationships between different objects/classes, their interfaces, and how to actually construct software. Don't worry about language so much yet, you will quickly get the point where you know 5+ languages.
Now go read this book.
https://www.amazon.com/Pragmatic-Programmer-Journeyman-Master/dp/020161622X
Also, I have to say that knowing Java and Python is a sought after combination.
This isn't trouble! There is nothing wrong with you! Most women do not come from vaginal penetration alone. You are not defective! (And it's possible some of those other women were faking orgasm, which is a thing some women do, you know?)
I'm sure you all can have a lot of fun exploring this, but it needs to start from loving yourself, and your husband loving you, not from a place of thinking there's something wrong with you.
A few books that might help you learn to love your body and your sexuality:
Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski
Woman: An Intimate Geography by Natalie Angier
I've seen a few guys post on here women can't have an orgasm from sex :-| One comment was, "Just focus on yourself getting off, women can't get off from sex anyway. WTF. Women appear to be losing ground.
Clearly more research needs to be done on the subject, but then the information needs to be shared.
Current we have https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1476762090/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;qid=1480719452&amp;amp;sr=8-1&amp;amp;pi=SL75_QL70&amp;amp;keywords=come+as+you+are
You should read this book if that comment was helpful to you.
https://www.amazon.com/Attached-Science-Adult-Attachment-YouFind/dp/1585429139
I listened to it as an audiobook first which I actually liked a lot, since my library had the audiobook for free on the phone app. Then I bought it so I could take notes, look at the charts, and take the quizzes in the book. $9 for my used Amazon copy, $13 new
It's not only about the "avoidant" people, also has good segments on people who are more "anxious" about relationships, overthinking things, caught up in small details, wanting constant communication, etc.
I recommend this book for people who want to learn to draw. I'm no artist, but I love drawing things. I'm about 1/3 a way through the book, and I'm already seeing my skills improve simply because I'm learning to draw correctly. Instead of drawing an object, draw lines that connect to other lines and are in relationship to other lines. Then, suddenly, you have a chip bag.
>I'm attempting to live a more minimalist lifestyle. I feel kinda burdened with clutter, and I know there are so many others that feel the same way, and want to start getting rid or donating some of it.
Ugh, I feel you! I HIGHLY recommend the book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. It is a short book (also available on audiobook) and it will change your life. Seriously. My home is soooooo much nicer now, even with two kids with tons of toys, our little house doesn't feel like there's too much stuff.
Thanks again for taking the time to do this, /u/VeganMinecraft!
If books/audiobooks are up your alley, Marie Kondo's book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up was good shit.
From her Wikipedia page:
>Kondo's method of organizing is known as the KonMari method, and consists of gathering together all of one's belongings, one category at a time, and then keeping only those things that "spark joy" (tokimeku, the word in Japanese, means "flutter, throb, palpitate"), and choosing a place for everything from then on.
My family could be on Hoarders, so it hit real close to home.
I know right?! I've been reading Kondo Marie's "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up" and it's been helping me with the decluttering and putting away. And thank you, I fixed the links:
And a bonus:
Use the KonMari method! I didn't realize until I read this book what 'organized' actually meant: Link
The term "racist" can be very loaded and charged, because some people (especially white people) view the label with such fear and dread that they will vigorously defend themselves against any hint of an accusation of being racist. The defensiveness masks for them the systemic racism within the culture into which they were born.
It's not always as simple as saying "X person is a racist" or "Y person is not a racist". There aren't just two options. Outside of people like white nationalists, who are overt and admitted racists (and who Trump regards as "fine people"), for everyone else, the label of "racist" is given out by others, and when it is, people usually run from it as fast as they can.
The reason I like to use it only sparingly when directed at an individual is not because it isn't true that the person being accused isn't a racist, but because the label halts any possibility of either person shifting from their position. A person labelled a racist becomes blind to even their own actual views on race, and blind to the larger existing cultural problems involving race.
Trump supporters will often respond to accusations of Trump being labelled a racist much in the same way as if they themselves were being accused, so we encounter the same problem.
If you really want to know the ways in which Trump is racist, you can just Google it, read about it on Wikipedia, or read one or two of the numerous, well-documented, thoroughly researched articles on the topic.
What I recommend instead is that, if you genuinely want to understand race in America, these three books are a pretty great place to start:
White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
Unironically?
Have you read anything by Michelle Alexander?
Here ya go: https://www.amazon.com/New-Jim-Crow-Incarceration-Colorblindness/dp/1595586431/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=new+jim+crow&qid=1550175272&s=gateway&sr=8-1
Try not to use words you don't know the meaning of. It makes you sound like a moron.
Whew, okay. Pulled out my actual computer to answer this.
So, a lot of what I could recommend isn't short stuff you could read in an afternoon because 1. it's depressing as fuck, and 2. it's likely heavy with the sheer volume of references wherein at least one book attempts to bludgeon you with the facts that "this was depressing as fuck." Frequent breaks or alternating history-related books with fiction/poetry/other topics is rather recommended from my experience. Can't remember if I got onto this topic through Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States or Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong or just some random book found in the library.
The very clean cut, textbook Wikipedia definition of "sundown town", aka "Don't let the sun set (down) on you here.", (Ref: BlackThen.com), is:
> sometimes known as sunset towns or gray towns, are all-white municipalities or neighborhoods in the United States that practice a form of segregation by enforcing restrictions excluding people of other races via some combination of discriminatory local laws, intimidation, and violence.
For my intro into the subject however, read Buried in the Bitter Waters: The Hidden History of Racial Cleansing in America. This is a very emotionally draining, mentally exhausting book though, frequently with lists of atrocities in paragraph form. I think it's an important read, one which frankly should've been covered my senior year of highschool or so, but it's a difficult one. Also on my reading list is The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration which is a surprising and sneakily hopeful title for such a depressing topic, so only guessing the narration may be somewhat more accessible.
Also, 'cause I totally didn't run to my kindle app to list out titles before fully reading your post, here's some below, and relisted one above, by timeline placement, best as can be figured. These might not be the best on each topic, but they're the ones available to my budget at the time and some are still on my reading list.
The Fires of Jubilee: Nat Turner's Fierce Rebellion
Buried in the Bitter Waters: The Hidden History of Racial Cleansing in America
The Mis-Education of the Negro
At the Dark End of the Street: A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power
Assata
Revolutionary Suicide
Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion
Sister Outsider
See also:
Black Street Speech: Its History, Structure, and Survival
Women, Race, & Class by Angela Y. Davis
Black Feminist Thought
Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations by Bell Hooks
Brainwashed: Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
Have you seen the SE Bible?
This video is a Google interview example so of course the problem is a bit contrived, but I think it is a decent illustration of the process he is referring to. The guy writes the code out in C++, but you could just as easily write in pseudocode.
Solving the problem by hand and writing a sketch of the algorithm builds intuition and makes the actual code much easier to write. People knock interview prep as being nothing like the job, but I find that it can do a lot to boost general problem solving. CTCI and leetcode are good resources. If you are brand new to programming Codingbat might be useful, but it is really just for the basics.
Disclaimer: I teach at a bootcamp in the midwest.
Here are some things I'm noticing:
I'm going to suggest a couple of things to try before you enroll in a boot camp.
From here, it's a matter of learning. You're never going to learn everything (there's too much out there), but you can definitely learn quite a bit.
If you've got a CS background, you should be able to pick up the basics of Ruby on Rails. Michael Hartl's Rails Tutorial is pretty commonly cited; if you want to do web development, go through this tutorial twice. Maybe three times. Then start building projects on your own. Alternatively, Daniel Kehoe's Learn Ruby on Rails is also pretty commonly cited.
A good understanding of Rails, plus a solid foundation in HTML, CSS, and Javascript/jQuery will make you a reasonably compelling junior developer for a company that builds web applications. Doubly so if you can show off a few good personal projects. A good bootcamp (like the one where I teach) will give you a structured and guided opportunity to learn these skills. A terrible boot camp will also give you this opportunity, but you'll have to work a lot harder on figuring out how to make it all happen.
In addition to self-study and building projects, start attending meetups and actually talk to people.
If you do decide to start looking at different boot camps, here are some questions to ask:
Of course they can lie to you, or use weasel-words to obfuscate, or make stuff up, or.... Of course that's the case.
A good boot camp will give you lots of opportunities to practice AND will help you find your first job. We (where I work) do a lot of talking with recruiters and companies in our network, and we work really hard to make sure that our students get jobs that offer lots of opportunities for growth and development, and, when possible, that align with strengths and interests (there's not usually too big of a disjunct there). So far, we've had quite a bit of success in terms of our students finding employment, and even the companies that have been resistant to hiring students like our grads have started coming around (albeit slowly) as more and more companies hire our grads and have good experiences with them. But it'll be at least another year or two before our grads reliably get hired as junior devs in the bigger corporations (as their first or even second job) without first having a CS degree.
There are lots of different ways you can find success, and almost anything you do (quit your job and self-study, stay at your job and self-study, go to a boot camp, backpack around Europe, and so on) can be reasonably explained in an interview, especially if you can demonstrate that you are someone who is smart and gets things done.
Even your current job can be explained. Sure, your dev skills aren't what you want them to be, but you've got a ton of practice fixing code, which means you've got a huge list in your head of all the different mistakes you might make while writing code (which then means that you can, given adequate leeway, build systems that help you avoid or at least catch those mistakes). Don't discount that. It's important stuff that you learned, even if the way you learned it makes you feel really terrible.
Hope this helps.
Practice whiteboarding (solving technical problems on a whiteboard). Try to read Cracking the Coding interview . If you look online you might find a pdf version.
General tips for the interview:
To be clear, I don't work for HP but I do work for a large tech company and I'm on a hiring panel. Good luck!
Introduction to Algorithms is probably the best book if you want to go deep in algorithms eventually.
Cracking the coding interview book is also a great repository of "must-have" concepts for CS.
Cracking the coding interview for prepping interviews: https://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/098478280X
I went through the Google interview process not too long ago. Here's my recommendations:
Here's some lighter reading I've liked:
Readable, but more hardcore
Hardware:
Mathy:
Programmy:
Unixy:
Off the wall:
I generally agree, but the problem with patterns is some folks try to shoehorn everything into a pattern sometimes turning something simple into something more complex than it needs to be.
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I find that following SOLID with YAGNI at the back of your mind tends to be what seems to work best for me
Along the lines of patterns: I'd recommend Head First Design Patterns
These are great suggestions. The three books I typically give devs early (that fit in well with the two presented here) are:
Refactoring by Martin Fowler
This is a list of patterns of common refactoring a and how to do them safely. It’ll help you recognize transforms you need to make in your code as it changes.
The Pragmatic Programmer by Dave Thomas and Andy Hunt
This is a great guidebook for how to get better at being a software engineer. Essential read.
And while there are lots of options for design patterns books...
Head First Design Patterns was the one that helped me internalize them. Even if you aren’t writing much (or any) Java, the method of teaching is hugely valuable.
Yes, there is also Head First Design Patterns which is also very good.
> Look for a book on object oriented programming
For this I recommend both Head First Java and then follow that up with Head First Design Patterns.
Is there any way you can study during your commute? Books if you're taking public transportation, or podcasts/audiobooks if you're driving?
Also, I read this book (borrowed it from the library of course) and really enjoyed it: The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business. It's helped me change a couple of my habits to be more productive.
This question isn't really about sciences, per say, it's about energy and motivation.
It's trash and it promotes social interaction solely as sexual conquest, coupled with a borderline red pill mentality that's also trash. Erik Von Markovik is also walking cringe. It's hard to find anything relatively positive about PUA.
Some people will put Models in the PUA bucket, but it's also an interesting read if you want to detect more bullshit.
I highly recommend reading a book called Models - Attract Women Through Honesty by Mark Manson
In the book he covers different dishonest methods that men use to attract women for the wrong reasons, including the very same situation you find yourself in. If you want to stop doing this to women, start improving yourself so that you can eventually become the honest man you want to be in a relationship.
1.) You are putting the opinion of others above your core values. You believe you need to prove yourself to others and have an external locus of control.
2.) Your wife is overweight/unhappy because of the above. She wants a man who acts like a man.
suggested reading:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Way-Superior-Man-Challenges/dp/1591792576/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1343349702&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=the+superior+man
http://www.amazon.com/Models-Attract-Women-Through-Honesty/dp/1463750358/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1343349734&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=models%3A+attraction
http://www.amazon.com/No-More-Mr-Nice-Guy/dp/0762415339/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1343349752&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=no+more+mr.+nice+guy
Are you an experienced programmer already? If so, Javascript the good parts. http://www.amazon.com/JavaScript-Good-Parts-Douglas-Crockford/dp/0596517742/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1251072337&amp;sr=8-1
You're not alone, friend.
This is clearly the work of the Patriarchy. Boycott this book everyone.
Number one most important book ever right here.
Someone needs to re-read Everyone Poops by Taro Gomi.
https://www.amazon.com/Everyone-Turtleback-School-Library-Binding/dp/0613685725
But for the love of God, please, please, learn JavaScript itself to a good standard before even touching jQuery.
Even though jQuery makes writing web apps a lot easier and saves you a lot of development time, it is still a JavaScript library and as such, if you don't have a good grasp of JavaScript, you're going to be writing jQuery code that may well work correctly, but you're not going to have any idea why it works correctly and as such, debugging and writing advanced jQuery code is going to be a nightmare.
I appreciate that you might not want to spend any money on learning JavaScript, but if you're really interested in the language and want to know it well (and you already have a solid foundation in programming), then I highly recommend getting JavaScript: The Good Parts and reading through that. It's short (176 pages), you can read it in an afternoon (though the first time round, some of the stuff might go over your head), and although it may be very opinionated, most of what Crockford says is pure gold and at the end of it you will have a thorough understanding of how JavaScript works and how you can write good JavaScript, which will aid you tremendously when you start using libraries such as jQuery.
Apologies for my rantiness, it's just that JavaScript is seen as a 'toy' language by many, a simple language that people can just jump in and use without learning it first, as evidenced by people suggesting diving straight into jQuery, which is a reputation that I think is undeserved. JavaScript may not be the prettiest of languages, but it's here to stay, and if you learn to use it properly, you'll find that beneath the design mistakes lies a simple and beautiful programming language that just wants to be loved.
Here are a few of my favorites:
Design patterns:
The JavaScript language:
And as a general language reference, MDN is the best: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/
Hope that helps!
https://www.amazon.com/Everyone-Turtleback-School-Library-Binding/dp/0613685725
LOL I have a book recommendation for you, OP.
I know it sounds silly, but I got my body on a rhythm where I had to poop everyday around 10 am, when I knew everyone was out of the building. If I had to go at another time, I searched out an empty bathroom if possible because I find it uncomfortable and awkward.
You lose a lot of privacy in college, it just happens when there are a bunch of people living all together. You'll have to adapt, and be comfortable with your body and its natural functions. Have you read Everyone Poops?
I do not want to sound like your granddad but you should target to wake up at least 2 hours before your day start. in your case 6 am. morning time is really very useful and getting one big task done before starting your regular stuff gives you a feeling of a small "win" which is proven to make you feel more confident and less vulnerable to small "failures" later in the day.
Now obviously to wake up early, you need to sleep early and that takes a lot of effort generally.
rather than pussy out, make a habit loop out of it:
set an alarm at 10 pm to fucking floss your teeth. and the next thing you do after flossing your teeth is get in the fucking bed. these triggers will eventually make it automatic.
also read this while you are in college.
Amazon.com links provided:
1 The Slight Edge
2 Mastery
3 The 4-Hour Workweek
4 The Art of Power
5 Thinking, Fast, and Slow
6 The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
7 The Power of Now
8 The Power of Habit
9 Whatcha Gonna Do with That Duck?
10 The 48 Laws of Power
11 Your True Home
12 Ego Is the Enemy
13 The 4 Hour Body
14 The UltraMind Solution
15 The Dip
Why not try breaking the loop and focus on something else?
I compiled lists of interview questions from Glassdoor before my interviews and used Cracking the Coding Interview.
The interviews questions that I received were fairly varied. From what I can remember:
There are a lot more of these topics covered in Cracking the Coding interview.
My previous internships were for big non-tech companies. They weren't particularly interesting or impactful, but they were a line in my resume. Keep in mind that your resume is just to get an interview. Once you're in front of engineers, what you say and write in the interview are most important.
I can name you a book, Cracking the Coding Interview.
Make your own projects or code to build a portfolio. Upload the code to Github to build an online portfolio.
Here are some excellent books that may help as well:
Elements of Programming Interviews
Cracking the Code Interview
Programming Interviews Exposed
If you don't usually have a problem with the content, I think Models by Mark Manson is a decent book on the subject that avoids most of the typical PUA bullshit. This post has the book's main ideas. I think the book is a little too ready to declare universal truths about women, but it still has useful advice.
Easily the best resource I can recommend from own experience, changed my life:
Models by Mark Manson
Buy it. Read it. Get out there. I agree with the other comments, it starts within. You need to grasp who you are as a person from within and BE different from everyone else. Forget the random attractive girls, you need to explore things that make you who you are and find the demographic of women that would be most compatible. If you like to play video games and occasionally play pick up ultimate the girl in the ugg boots and yoga pants at Starbucks ordering a Venti Double whip chai mocha latte is NOT for you. First step toward finding the right girl is figuring out what YOU like to do and enjoy YOUR own activities first and foremost. A girl should be as interested in you as you are in her, you do you and invite them to SHARE experiences in YOUR life. Not become a PART of it or be put on a PEDESTAL.
>Do you find that the standard system of technical interviews (data structures & algorithms) is an effective way of assessing candidates? Why or why not?
When I was an undergraduate, the dominant interview approach involved brainteasers like "why are manhole covers round?" Initially, these were reliable indicators of future success. But after every other company started copying Microsoft mindlessly and asking the same set of questions, the approach quickly became less effective. People optimized for interview performance with books like How Would You Move Mount Fuji? and How to Ace the Brainteaser Interview.
Brainteasers were mostly phased out after Google introduced the current approach involving data structures and algorithms. Initially, these were reliable indicators of future success. But after every other company started copying Google mindlessly and asking the same set of questions, the approach quickly became less effective. People optimized for interview performance with books like Cracking the Coding Interview and Elements of Programming Interviews.
There are certainly parallels between what happened then and what's happening now. The difference today is that people have taken things to another level with platforms like Pramp and bootcamps like Interview Kickstart. New businesses keep popping up that focus on cracking the current system, and I don't think that bodes well for its future.
But what can we do about it? The fact is that any interviewing process can be cracked once its format becomes popular and standardized. Let's say that some major company like Facebook introduces a new standard that involves candidates giving two-hour presentations about significant personal projects and then answering tough questions from a committee. You may be familiar with this format if you've ever applied for a research position. I actually think this would be great for 2-3 years until everyone starts doing it and Gayle Laakmann McDowell or whoever publishes "Cracking the Personal Project Presentation." And then a bunch of new businesses will pop up to sell you slide templates, professional reviews, etc.
In short, I'm not a big fan of the current system (EDIT: because it's been "cracked") but I honestly don't know of a better one (EDIT: that won't suffer the same fate).
> I read that SWE internships typically have data structures/algorithms style interviews. Is this true?
Yeah, out of 3 offers only one of them had me do any interviewing that wasn't strictly DSA, and that was because they do banking.
>When's a good time in your OSU online degree progression for you to begin applying to internships?
Whenever you have time. It's July so you can probably catch the spring co-op cycle and definitely the summer internship cycle for most companies. All you need is enough data structures and algorithms knowledge to interview (anecdotally, I wrapped up all my interviewing while I was finishing 162 and discrete).
> How did you do it?
Ultimately optimize for time, try to study stuff that 80% of people will ask you, but look at specific questions companies ask when you get down to the interview stage.
> Most of the jobs out there are temporary or contract (short/long/C2H)
This sounds patently untrue. I'm certain that the vast majority of people in CS have full-time jobs rather than temp or contract.
> Recruiters won't even look at you if you don't have a knowledge in a specific stack (even for entry level)
Also untrue, especially for entry level, where good companies won't care what tech stacks you know.
> Recruiters don't even look at your resume, all they do is keyword search
Partially true. Resumes are often automatically filtered by how many buzzwords they contain. If you can use buzzwords without making your resume seem over the top, do it.
> I've been told that I shouldn't even apply for SDE jobs because I'm a "tester" and how I probably don't know of any CS fundamentals (because my degree is in CompE, not CS)
Bullshit. Any company worth working for - most companies - will not take that attitude. They might be skeptical, but they would never suggest you don't apply.
> Interviewers don't seem to have interest in interviewing
It doesn't matter; it's their job. And most interviewers are competent at interviewing, so nothing to worry about, regardless of how "interested" they are. (Though an "interested" interviewer, while rare, is a pleasure!)
> Companies have absurd hiring standards (they are all looking for a unicorn for 50-60k/yr pay, through contract)
Depends on the company.
> * Entry level jobs require years of PROFESSIONAL experience in a specific technology
Entirely false.
---
The current job market is fine, prosperous even. Craft a strong resume, post it in the resume advice thread, and send it out to companies. Apply to a bunch of companies, account for a 5-15% response rate (higher if you're more skilled).
Getting interviews will be the easy part; to pass them, you'll need to pass difficult algorithms questions. Books like Cracking the Coding Interview and Elements of Programming Interviews are essential reads; then go on a website like LeetCode and grind away at problems until you can solve easies in 20 minutes or less, mediums in 30 minutes or less, and hards in 60-120 minutes. I'd say a 3:9:1 ratio of easy:medium:hard would be a good ratio to go with, and do as many problems as possible until you're comfortable with where you are (for me, that was about 120 problems). The premium subscription is well worth it for problems tailored to certain companies.
Edit: spelling
On a related note, I also recommend Cracking the coding interview (Cracking the Coding Interview: 189 Programming Questions and Solutions https://www.amazon.com/dp/0984782850/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_Dr39ybRT8SJ94) as it is literally recommended by Google as study material for their interviews.
hi
get yourself a copy of this
https://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/0984782850/ref=dp_ob_title_bk?dpID=41J6k0AL6yL&amp;preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&amp;dpSrc=detail
have a look at this
https://www.pramp.com/#howitworks
watch a few mock interviews on youtube
attend meetups
join irishtechcommunity and have a look at the jobs section
Go read Cracking the Coding Interview. It covers pretty much everything they are likely to ask you and has a bunch of practice questions with solutions/rationale.
Some tips...
I used to be terrible with women. Constantly friendzoned. Got cheated on by a girlfriend that I had no idea how I got.
Then I found some "pickup" stuff online that got me lucky two times in a row following a script... and then nothing. So I studied more online stuff. I was going to be the best pickup artist ever, I was going to show them all! I'd approach women to impress my friends. Got a stripper to go out for coffee(ended badly, I was totally over my head). All sorts of showy stuff.
Luckily I found some charisma based pickup stuff that was essentially just presenting yourself in the correct manner, and not be afraid to escalate sexually.
One of the techniques was a type of disqualification where if anybody said anything negative you agree and amplify. And if they say something positive, be genuinely thankful, but say something a bit humbling to keep yourself human.
Disqualification was great for my interactions with others, but weirdly, it was the best thing for me. It didn't happen overnight, but it did happen. I started not to place too much importance in what others thought of me. Not in a narcissistic way, but in a freeing way. I came to realize that I didn't need to impress anybody by showing off or becoming a pickup superstar. I became decent at dating and could spend my energy in other areas of my life.
The reason I'm telling you this is because "pickup" advice can help you, but you need to be careful. As Grayflcn said, becareful over in Seddit. There are some genuine people there, but there are also some people trying to impress people with BS, or show offy, creepy things. Try to keep your filters set appropriately.
I've been in a relationship for a while, but trying to help some friends I've found some things I think are good resources in this area coming from the right place...
That said... if you've already got women you're dating maybe the only thing wrong is you're not escalating. Letting them know you find them attractive in a man to woman manner. This may seem like a huge hurdle, I was terrified of this. Yet, doing it a few times, it became something I did without thinking because it totally improved my relations with females.
It's 3 steps.
Figure out what you find sexy about her. Something about her personality is better than something physical.
Use the word sexy to tell her you think that thing is sexy . There's no ambiguity. She knows what you mean when you use that word.
Don't wait for a reaction, start talking about something else. It will ferment in there and not waiting for an answer shows you're not hanging on her approval.
Example: I like women that make me laugh... she says something funny.
"Hey, you're funny, I think funny women are sexy. (A half beat pause so it's not rushed then) So, anyway, tell me more about that Japanese restaurant... "
It seems like a small thing but it made a total difference in my male/female relations.
I'm typing this on mobile, but I remember the pain of feeling helpless with women. I hope some of this helps a bit, Bud.
*Edit fixing the book link that didn't work.
** Edit2 I'm not sure this is worthy of it, but thank you to whoever gifted me the gold.
I detest games in dating... but there are definite pitfalls to spilling it all off the bat. I've been in a casual relationship where we each went full transparency upon first meeting. It worked to an extent, but it also destroys any semblance of mystery. Part of dating is getting to know the other person and them getting to know you. Trust and love are built through experience and time together.
A month or two ago, someone posted something about discovering the INFJ strength in dating... which was being mysterious. I can't remember who, but it resonated with me. He said he'd been finding much more dating success by slowly revealing who he was and how he felt. Not so much manipulating as just not going full glom off the bat, if he likes someone.
Mark Manson's book, Models, makes some very good points and introduces some solid techniques for dating with authenticity, too. It's geared toward men, but I think much of the information is applicable to anyone. The first 15% of the book is pretty self-promotey, and there are some misogynistic generalizations here and there, but it was worth my time. Much of it is about building confidence just by being yourself and taking a zen - like approach of being grateful for any response to a declaration of interest. I'm into you! You're into me? Cool, let's see where it goes. Not into me? Cool, thanks for not letting me waste my time chasing you. I feel like it's a healthy version of playing it cool, without lying or repressing yourself.
I do not understand why you are downvoted. You are asking for perspective, no matter how offbeat the direction is.
>what's with all the scathing hate towards nice guys?
a lot of NGs show a simple display of unsuccessful sociopath behavior. The abuse attempt alone is enough to warrant plausibility of the personality of that person. On top of that, other factors like the big media and those mediums taken out of context by the NGs adds a flurry of social chaos. This disaster is solved by letting themselves understand the power of "thinking before speaking", and accepting their own emotions as their own, not blaming emotions on external forces.
>Most of them are genuine human beings who are lead in the wrong direction due to lies perpetuated in this hugz and feelz society through parents, schools, media and such ("masculinity is for chauvinist pigs", "instead of working out, girls like sensitive guys who buy them flowers and treat them like queens etc"). Most of them have grew up bullied or an outcast to the point of self-deprecation and low self-esteem. Instead of lashing out at them, maybe give them legit pointers on how to self-improve or pick up their game beyond banal polite conversations and random compliments.
This can go in many ways. Most of them ended up taking the pill, while others discover the negative power of who they are emotionally and mentally. Other ways fall between these two extremes, and usually people who take the pill fall out of their own accord and go completely out-of-society to the rest of the world. Anecdotally.
In my opinion I do not agree with the above because this furthers the narrative even harder than before (to the point of performing mental gymastics). I would suggest trying the filter method mentioned in a book like this or understand letting go of the things that you are hampered with like this.
>I feel most of it is due to society's underlying repulsion towards weak men who fit the betamale mold. I don't think society is quite ready (nor will ever be) for men showing emotion or vulnerability. You can't demonise those who reject you but we as humans are allowed to feel upset or dejected if one doesn't feel loved or worthy for intimacy or companionship. The whole "nobody owes you shit" may be true but it's completely nihilistic without offering some sort of solution to address the problem rather than sweeping it under the carpet.
There is a solution to this problem, and the solution does not involve setting people into boxes. the solution is looking at the differences between positive masculinity and toxic masculinity and gauge what your life is as a whole: personality, personal worth, and what you actually persevere in your hobbies.
A great subreddit that gives more discussion on this topic is /r/MensLib.
Head First Design Patterns: A Brain-Friendly Guide
A relatively unique methodology of approaching design patterns (using Java examples). Understanding design patterns will transform both you and your code.
EDIT: Adding my comment below to my comment here for better visibility and description of the book:
> It can absolutely be read as an introductory book! I would recommend going into the book having a foundation in an OO language, such as Java or C++.
> This was the "textbook" we used in my Object-Oriented Design course; however, the great part about this book is that it reads more as a "narrative" than a traditional textbook. I definitely think this is the best book for learning about design patterns. The GoF book should be used as a reference, after you understand them better.
> All I can say is do not judge a book by its cover, and in this case I mean it literally. I think they are trying to be ironically cool by using stock photos on the cover and within the book. It seems odd to be reading through a "serious" book that look like that, but believe me when I say it will be an eye-opening experience.
Uhm, I would first start with a complete introduction to OOP. This book:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Thinking-Java-Bruce-Eckel/dp/0131872486/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1451750882&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=thinking+in+java
helped me a lot. Once you go through with it, you should have a pretty solid understanding of OOP and Java.
Also I cannot stress enough how important this thing is, many people seem to neglect it nowadays:
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/codeconventions-150003.pdf
I recommend following books once you understand Java more :):
Effective Java by Joshua Bloch:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Effective-Java-Second-Joshua-Bloch/dp/0321356683/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1451750978&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=effective+java
Head First - Design Patterns by Eric Freeman:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Head-First-Design-Patterns-Freeman/dp/0596007124/ref=pd_sim_14_2?ie=UTF8&amp;dpID=61APhXCksuL&amp;dpSrc=sims&amp;preST=_AC_UL160_SR138%2C160_&amp;refRID=1J4FWDFZDD8XERKQEY2Q
Clean Code by Robert C. Martin:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Clean-Code-Handbook-Software-Craftsmanship/dp/0132350882/ref=pd_sim_14_3?ie=UTF8&amp;dpID=51oXyW8WQwL&amp;dpSrc=sims&amp;preST=_AC_UL160_SR124%2C160_&amp;refRID=1J4FWDFZDD8XERKQEY2Q
Procitaj "The power of habit"
You probably already have, but if not, definitely read Design Patterns, which is old but a classic. I'd also highly recommend the Pragmatic Programmer.
EDIT: I just want to say, that I also fully support alienangel2's answer. I wanted to recommend a couple good books to get you on "the path", but ultimately, the best thing by far is to find a job that grows you. For some people, the best way to do that is to work at a super small startup, where everything you're building is from scratch. For others (like me), the best way is to work at a company with tons of really smart people who have already built great software, and learning from them and the choices they've made (and why). And if you still feel like you're regressing since school, maybe that's the answer: go back to school (i.e. get a Master's or PhD)!
Since you're already a programmer: Effective Java, 2nd Edition. That's pretty much your definitive Java language and Java best practices reference.
I would not recommend the Head First series - those are more geared to novice programmers. I don't think you'll have much trouble picking up basic object oriented concepts, which is probably the only thing that book might help you with.
For general programming reading, I recommend The Pragmatic Programmer - great read, lots of excellent advice in there.
For the first two I think OP means:
https://www.amazon.com/Design-Patterns-Object-Oriented-Addison-Wesley-Professional-ebook/dp/B000SEIBB8
https://www.amazon.com/Clean-Code-Handbook-Software-Craftsmanship/dp/0132350882
I'd also recommend:
https://www.amazon.com/Clean-Coder-Conduct-Professional-Programmers/dp/0137081073
https://www.amazon.com/Pragmatic-Programmer-Journeyman-Master-dp-020161622X/dp/020161622X
Reminds me of "The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck"
Had a really frustrating work trip a few weeks ago In the airport on the way back I saw this book:
The Subtle Art of not Giving a F*ck:
https://www.amazon.com/Subtle-Art-Not-Giving-Counterintuitive/dp/0062457713/ref=sr_1_1
It is really good, I enjoyed it.
The idea that some fans are true and some are fairweather or bandwagon fans is just a way for some people to feel better about themselves. They want to feel like their sacrifice for their team was meaningful in some way, and they try to elevate their status by pushing everyone else down.
You don't have to sit through 2 decades of shit seasons to call yourself a Seahawks fan. Hell, you can even be a Bears fan and a Seahawks fan at the same time. Some people will get bent out of shape and try to make you feel like shit for it. I strongly recommend that you learn how to not give a fuck. There is no reason you need to justify why you like the hawks to people that would shit on you anyway.
Go ahead, call yourself a hawks fan. Let people hate you for it. Fuck them, they don't matter one bit.
Against The God: the remarkable story of Risk- Outlines the history of probability theory and risk assessment through the centuries
https://www.amazon.com/Against-Gods-Remarkable-Story-Risk/dp/0471295639/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1475105434&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=against+the+gods
When Genius Failed - A narrative of the spectacular fall of Long Term Capital Management, a hedge fund which had on its board both Myron Scholes AND Robert Merton (you will recall them from MFE)
https://www.amazon.com/When-Genius-Failed-Long-Term-Management/dp/0375758259/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1475105453&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=when+genius+failed
Black Swan/ Antifragility- A former quant discusses the nature of risk in these controversial and philosophical books. Some parts of this book are actually called out and shamed in McDonald's Derivative Markets, one or the both of them are worth reading
https://www.amazon.com/Black-Swan-Improbable-Robustness-Fragility/dp/081297381X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1475105478&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=black+swan
Godel, Escher, Bach- Very dense look into recursive patterns in mathematics and the arts. While not actuarial, it's obviously very mathematical, a must read.
https://www.amazon.com/G%C3%B6del-Escher-Bach-Eternal-Golden/dp/0465026567/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1475105497&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=geb
Endurance- This was recommended to me by a pure mathematics professor. Again, not actuarial, but more about the nature of perseverance though problem solving(sound familiar). It's about Shakleton's famous voyage to the south pole.
https://www.amazon.com/Endurance-Shackletons-Incredible-Alfred-Lansing/dp/0465062881/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1475105520&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=endurance+shackleton%27s+incredible+voyage
I get teased by people that I am one of only 3 people in the world to have actually finished this book, one of those being the author and the other being the person who recommended to me, but Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid was pretty interesting. It covers the profoundness of the topic and is interspersed with Alice in wonderland style dialog that comes at the topic from another angle. Deep but captivating overall.
On a tangent, Goedel's theorem and Turing's incompleteness theorem, along with some other mathematicians who have gazed out over the edge of logic and gone somewhat mad are covered in the BBC documentary Dangerous Knowledge.
Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter
Yeah. The novel House of Leaves by Mark Z Danielewski includes a fictionalized version of the photographer, Kevin Carter. That photo is an important part of the story. It's a really good book, very different and "postmodern" in a lot of ways, and very morbid in its own way, really messes with your mind. I recommend it to anybody.
The Flavor Bible is a must-own. Gives not only descriptors for every ingredient you can imagine--spice, protein, produce--but also lists of commonly used ingredients in particular cuisines and for seasonal cooking as well. I love this book and find it indispensable for creative off recipe kitchen endeavors.
There is a site called Nouveau Raw that used to have a nicely laid out chart of flavor pairings that I found very useful, but, they've pay-walled it this year.
THIS might be helpful for a quick fix, but, I wholeheartedly recommend grabbing a copy of The Flavor Bible, because it's downright inspiring to paw through, and will up your mixing/cooking game considerably.
I'm not saying it's easy to find a .PDF/.EPUB file through nefarious means, but, I'm not not saying it, either.
House of Leaves is that kind of thing, but more-so.
book: house of leaves
http://www.amazon.com/House-Leaves-Mark-Z-Danielewski/dp/0375703764
Folks, just read this book. It's very helpful.
Pragmatic Programmer is over a decade old, but I doubt you'll more useful advice.
I agree that Code Complete is an excellent book. Another I'd add to the list is The Pragmatic Programmer.
Effective Java is good but it's really about the nuances of the Java language. It looks like you are looking for better programming practices in general. If so I'd go with the books already mentioned.
https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Style-Fourth-William-Strunk/dp/020530902X
I tried reading your first paragraph aloud; it felt like my mouth was full of thumbtacks.
Climbing out and onto the fire escape two stories above the food vendors of the sixth district of the city, Moonrow, the street food's scent made him instantly hungry and the harsh sounds of the busy night below somehow relaxed him.
What is the subject of this sentence? The street food's scent? The scent appears to be climbing onto a fire escape? You're stuffing too much shit into one sentence. He climbed onto the fire escape, and he smelled food, the smell made him hungry, and he heard the city, and the sound relaxed him, somehow.
He sat on the metal steps leading to the apartments above and watched the people move in between the rusted bars below his feet.
Is it important that the words "above" and "below" fit in the same sentence? This is awkward. Again, trying to stuff action and description into the same sentence.
The Sixth was the mutually agreed upon best place to be on weekends like tonight, and because of that every district throughout the city was represented.
This should be two sentences, or at least attacked with a semicolon. And this is telling, not showing. And "mutually agreed upon" is an awful way of saying "considered."
I respect that you're trying to get into writing. Continue writing. And study the basics:
The Elements of Style
On Writing
Later, if you're serious, get into a workshop full of people who are much better than you, who will openly tell you when your work is bad and that you should feel bad.
All these may not be exactly relevant but worth exploring:
The Flavor Bible
This book helped me a lot, and I refer to it often when I want to change a recipe or just come up with something with what I have on hand. The first chapter has a very abbreviated discussion on flavors, but the majority book is just a cross-referenced index of ingredients, what their flavor is, and what things complement it well.
If you like this website, you may want to check out The Flavor Bible which is a reference/cookbook that does much the same sort of thing, only it is more in depth (being a book and all).
There is actually this really good book that came out recently called "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness". It talks about how the U.S. Justice system has become this form of racial and social control. Felony charges take you out of the voting pool for life and limit you to what what types of jobs you can and can't get. It's very interesting to say the least.
> Law makers making thing illegal because they know it'll effect minority's
Sure, check out this article which quotes Nixon's White House counsel:
> Nixon's White House counsel, John Ehrlichman, verified the intention of the War on Drugs in a 1995 interview with author Dan Baum, author of Smoke and Mirrors: The war on drugs and the politics of failure.
> "Look, we understood we couldn't make it illegal to be young or poor or black in the United States, but we could criminalize their common pleasure," Ehrlichman confessed. "We understood that drugs were not the health problem we were making them out to be, but it was such a perfect issue for the Nixon White House that we couldn't resist it."
The Nixon Presidency marked the beginning of the heavy criminalization of drug use. It is not a coincidence that Nixon's most famous contribution to our electoral history was the Southern strategy, designed to win Southern racists over to the Republican Party who were upset with Democratic support of the Civil Rights Movement. That's probably what Ehrlichmann meant about drugs being a "perfect issue for the Nixon White House."
I'm a little busy at work right now so won't address your other point here at the moment, but maybe someone else can find some good sources (there should be many) about police disproportionately interacting with minorities (leading to more arrests etc.). Stop and frisk would be a good example. Edit this article is as good a starting point as any for the various ways in which police disproportionately target minorities.
In general I think The New Jim Crow is an excellent account of many of these issues.
Here's some reading for you.
And ignoring the oversimplified and outright false accusation that "so many black men abandon their children", what else is wrong? You learn how to be a father from your father. And if your father didn't have the opportunity to learn from his father because they were property? Well, there's another difficulty, isn't there? And it's a difficulty that's not going to go away in one generation in the best of circumstances.
And why is it so far away from being "the best of circumstances"? Well, you could read Slavery by Another Name and The New Jim Crow to see how slavery actually lasted well past its abolishment and how the for-profit prison complex is preventing black people from simply "working past it". It's really such a complicated, horrible web... It's too much for me to try to discuss in one post.
But put simply: No other enslaved group, not the Irish, not the Japanese, not any other group of people has faced the same level of obstruction while attempting to rise up to equality. And if you think that these issues aren't part of the cause rather than the result of crime and drug use and poverty which results in black fathers being taken from their families... well, you're wrong.
Check out The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander, she discusses mass incarceration in relation to the war on drugs and it's relation to institutional racism. I don't know enough on the topic to answer your question but she covers it in detail.
Pretty sick of people making false equivalences. Let's be objective here.
The West created an entire fake science to justify centuries of exploitation of "lesser races" that greatly influences modern day ethnic abuse http://www.amazon.com/New-Jim-Crow-Incarceration-Colorblindness/dp/1595586431/
Then, one tasteless ad or starring or refusal to give a high five = Chinese are soo racist.
&nbsp;
It's a false equivalence. It's a farce and only spread to demonize Chinese people. Another example. China builds infrastructure in Africa = colonialism/neoimperialism. It's preposterous especially since these labels come from the most exploitative group of all. I don't need to name them do I?
Here’s a good book on the subject of adult attachment style: https://www.amazon.com/Attached-Science-Adult-Attachment-YouFind/dp/1585429139/ref=nodl_ . It’s helpful to become aware of your own style and to be able to recognize others so you can try to work with them or end the relationship. As Kenny Rogers said: You've got to know when to hold 'em, Know when to fold 'em, Know when to walk away, And know when to run.
I really like Drawing on The Right Side of the Brain. Kind of unlocked my mind in how to approach drawing, it's helped me a lot.
I did the same just using Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain and about 1 hour a night of practice.
Read The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander. This was one of those books that I had to pick up and put down many times because of the internal rage it caused. The drug war and mass incarceration are among the biggest issues we have in the US, and we need to find a way to change the way we think about it as a society.
I also feel this way about gift cards, but my opinion has shifted a little since I did the KonMari purge a couple of years ago. I'm much pickier about what I bring into my house now (with bras being no exception), and when I choose a particular brand of makeup or model of toaster oven or type of laundry detergent, only to be given something "similar" by my sister at Christmas, I very much appreciate the thought, but now am left with something I won't use and have to figure out how to get rid of AND am still without what I actually wanted. In that case, I'd rather have a generic gift card, but then I'm faced with the same opinion I've always had. The trick is to avoid making the gift card the object of the gift.
My husband and my mom understand the pickiness (he because he lives with me, she because she did the purge too), and if they gave me a gift card and said "let's go bra shopping", I would understand their intent, that they knew how complicated it was, and that it would be about going together. Spending the day shopping with them becomes the gift, with the gift card just a vehicle.
My husband has successfully surprised me with a bra once (and not just bedroom lingerie, that's a different topic), and it was another color of a bra I already owned in the same size. Since you know about the Aerie Sunnie bra and her size, I think that will work out wonderfully! However, I do think u/branita's idea is something you should hold onto for the future. I think it's perfect for this sort of thing, because the gift card isn't the gift, the experience is. It's still plenty romantic and shows how much thought and effort you put into the plan, and becomes about you doing something together, with a nice bra as a side bonus.
This book. Seriously.
This isn't quite a tip for daily housekeeping as much as it is a strategy for overall tidiness long-term, but I'm reading The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up on my Kindle right now and I just did the first stage of decluttering my clothes - and it's already made a great difference in how easy it is to stay organized and clean! I haven't finished it yet, but another good part about it is that it emphasizes gratitude for the objects in your daily life and it's helping me practice being more appreciative of everything. :)
Think of your goals with minimalism. What does your ideal life look like once you’ve minimized? You want to focus on relationships and that’s a worthwhile and common reason, but I’d encourage you to get more specific, and also to consider the practical reasons as they pertain to your health and lifestyle.
To give you a personal example, I focused on three things: saving money and curbing the need to ‘buy, buy, buy’, being mobile and able to travel while taking the important things with me, and to stay organized.
I work weird hours and I need to move frequently for my job, I didn’t want the hassle of moving a bunch of stuff I didn’t really need - you know, the just in case things and the never been used things. Because I’m usually sleep deprived I get scatter brained, so not having a manageable amount of items means I can’t lose them. Instead of duplicates which I’d end up misplacing I just have one of (almost) everything, and if it’s not on me it’s in its ‘home’. No more frantically running around and leaving for work I’m the morning having already lost my patience because I couldn’t find my eye drops.
I have some free time so I’ll just write you a long story:
It’s taken me years, but the catalyst was that when I first moved out I lived with a roommate who wasn’t very clean and we developed a pest problem and lice - I know that lice are not caused by hygiene, but her disorganization and disregard meant she didn’t address the problem in an effective or timely manner. I moved out abruptly to a generous friend’s place. I had a large wardrobe I’d accumulated over adolescence and most of it was hang to dry/hand wash, I sanitized anything that was dryer friendly and I put the rest in garbage bags for 2 weeks. I retrieved a single hoodie 15 days later and guess what? I re-infested myself.
I have GAD so I was at my wit’s end, I put all of my clothes in the dryer and a lot of them shrunk or started falling apart. I’d been housesitting prior to my first official move so technically I’d moved three times over the course of 5 months. I couldn’t find any of my things, I never had time to unbox everything or put it away, and I realized that my copious amount of stuff was impeding my ability to enjoy or adjust to my new space. The possessions I hauled with me were actually preventing me from feeling at home!
So I began a long process of discarding old items, by giving them away or donating them whenever possible. I also lost weight, so my remaining clothes were no longer very functional. At first I bought a lot of new things but ended up donating them again pretty often, and I started asking myself these questions repeatedly: with the things I have now, how stressful would it be if I had to move again? Why am I continuing to bring new things into the house and why do I feel compelled to shop?
I realized that having lots of clothes that only served one purpose (formal, casual, winter) wasn’t compatible with my lifestyle. Because I travel so much, I need everything to be versatile and easily washed. I realized I was buying a lot of ‘aspirational’ items, things I was anticipating I would use or bought with the intention of changing my style in some way, but I didn’t have a clear direction.
When I purchase something now i think about whether I really need it or if I have something else that serves the purpose, that I’m forgetting about. I don’t ‘go shopping’, I buy items when I’ve clearly established a need for them, and I consider what I’ll wear it with, where I’ll wear it, how I need to care for it, and ultimately the room it takes up in a suitcase. I research before I buy. Every time I go to a store I know why I’m there before I enter. I might see a new version of something and think, “I’d like that, but it’s not urgent. The one I have right now is good enough, but if/when the time comes I’ll upgrade to this.” Because I choose my things carefully I’m always satisfied and don’t really feel temptation. Impulse buys never happen unless it’s a gift.
I’ve noticed I’ve become much more resourceful, this is a minor example but a few days ago I went to use a tote bag a friend had given me, and it’s got a clear window on one side that I wanted to cover. I took a scarf I had and tied it to both handles, and secured it with a hair clip so it’s covering the window. It sounds trivial but a solution like that probably wouldn’t have occurred to me before, I would just think ‘I’ll get another tote bag’. Now I can use my free one and it looks really cute.
Instead of trying to impress others I impress myself by solving problems effectively, when I decide not to buy something because I spot a pitfall I give myself an inner high five - I’ve totally changed the way I see my things and where I get my excitement from, but that mental change has taken almost three years. After the whole lice/weight loss fiasco I got to a point where I had less than a dozen items and almost all of them were from the men’s section of value village (I’m female). I’ve literally rebuilt from the ground up.
Financially I have found freedom because I own everything I need to own, I only need to spend money on things when I need to replace or mend something, so hardly ever. I’m able to live comfortably with very few items because I don’t need a large wardrobe right now, and if my work setting changes I have the money to invest in new pieces - no need to worry about ‘just in case’. Instead I can take time off of work and contribute to baby showers, I sent my mother and grandmother a gift for Mother’s Day as it’s the first time I’ve been out of my home province this time of year. I know those things aren’t unusual but I have a good fund to draw from to do so.
My goal when I finally started rebuilding my wardrobe and overall collection of life tools was to reach a point where I had everything I needed, as I stated above, and only needed to maintain. That’s what I tell people if it ever comes up and it’s the honest answer, it’s also easy to understand and relate to.
I still like to have nice things, but instead of something just being trendy, I have items that are useful, aesthetically appealing, and over time they gain a sentimental aspect that I rarely ever developed before - when you use things often and have them for over a year you get that ‘favorite sweater’ feeling, only there’s just one sweater so it’s your favorite by default 😉I think it is important to value the things you have, you just have to value them for what they give/do for you, not because you think other people will value them.
This lifestyle/way of thought has been great fir me and my stress level. Just knowing where everything is has been a weight lifted. Not only do i not lose my keys, I know where my clothes are - drawer, laundry, on my body. I just have my shit together.
Hopefully reading this will be helpful.
TL/DR; https://www.amazon.ca/Life-Changing-Magic-Tidying-Decluttering-Organizing/dp/1607747308
There are serious and endemic issues facing African-Americans today. They are not fairly represented in politics, and people in the inner cities for several reasons have the deck heavily stacked against them. While it's true that through hard work some of them may get out of poverty, it's not at all comparable to the upward mobility of middle-class whites.
The reason the inner city is a crap place to live and grow up is due to several discriminatory policies, including redlining. Black neighborhoods were denied loans and insurance from banks through federal policy dating back to the 1930s. This had several effects. an important one being that black people couldn't get a mortgage in a white neighborhood, they were largely left in the urban core while post WWII whites moved to the suburbs.Since whites had much of the business capital, jobs began to leave the inner city and move out. Thus blacks were now living in a place with few jobs, and the remaining jobs were far away and difficult to access without a car. In sociology this is called a spatial mismatch.
Job discrimination is rampant and inhibits blacks from getting careers with promotion opportunities. A famous sociological study called "The Mark of a Criminal Record" (PDF) found a large racial disparity when confederates applied for jobs. In one set, both white and black individuals applied for jobs without stating a criminal record, in the other they stated they DID have a criminal record. The end result (p. 958) is that blacks without a criminal record get fewer callbacks than whites with a criminal record. In a more recent study it was found that people with "black-sounding" names had to send 50% more applications to get a callback than people with white-sounding names.
The criminal justice system is rife with racial discrimination:
>On average, blacks receive almost 10% longer sentences than comparable whites arrested for the same crimes. At least half this gap can be explained by initial charging choices, particularly the filing of charges carrying mandatory minimum sentences. Prosecutors are, ceteris paribus, almost twice as likely to file such charges against blacks.
Source
Mandatory minimum sentences tend to be for crimes that blacks commit more frequently than whites. In murder cases, whites that kill blacks serve shorter sentences than blacks who kill whites, and blacks are far more likely to get the death penalty.
There are far more things that could be addressed. Blacks are packed into gerrymandered districts that were originally meant to get blacks elected to legislative office. Now they are used to ensure that most districts have virtually no black constituency. It's part of why Democrats (a party almost universally supported by blacks) have gotten more votes in congressional elections yet still are a minority in the House.
There's the issue that blacks get less pre-K education and are chronically behind their white peers. The family and economic background that black student have matters a huge amount:
>Understanding the reasons why so many black and brown Americans enter adulthood with extremely weak skills and low educational attainments is central to figuring out how to change the future. Poverty and inadequate family resources are a key piece of the problem. One in four children of color lives in poverty. Two of three black children and one of three Hispanic children live in a single-parent family. The low resource levels available to support these children’s initial development means that most come to school not ready to learn.
>The low quality of the schools black and brown children attend is another critical piece of the problem. Children of color tend to be concentrated in low achieving, highly segregated schools.
Source
Simply put, if your parents have a bad education, they can't help you do assignments- or because they work long hours as a single parent, they're hardly around to supervise whether their children are doing academic work- or avoiding falling in with the wrong crowd. To add an anecdotal bit to this post, I was tutoring a minority kid in a school with a low local reputation. He was near tears because I wasn't able to help him finish his math homework- he couldn't do it at home because neither of his parents understood 5th grade math. Few middle-class whites have a similar problem.
Conclusion: The people at your school are mostly correct. While slavery is not a good metaphor, a hugely influential book on racism in mass incarceration has came out in 2010. It is called The New Jim Crow.
Colonialism is an appropriate term in some cases. Also, just because segregation policies and their ilk were ruled unconstitutional doesn't mean their effects don't exist here, in 2013. White flight, redlining, and spatial mismatch no longer play as much of a role in racial wealth disparity as they used to, but it's why blacks live in inner cities and whites usually aren't.
Hiring discrimination exists and there is huge amounts of research to show that it is serious. The fact that whites with a criminal record are more sought after than blacks with no criminal record whatsoever should point to a system that is rotten.
The American Dream idea that people can succeed through hard work is an idea. It is not policy, it is not a law. Are we going to fault the new generation of black teens and young adults for being in poverty, when several generations before were as well? Are we going to fault them for not getting a good-paying job, when they don't exist in their neighborhoods and they have to compete with whites on an unfair playing field?
This isn't to say that some whites aren't in the same bind. Nor is to say that all whites are racist or don't understand what privilege is. But the evidence is stark- African-Americans don't have things pretty good.
This is really good advice-- helps a LOT to spend the time in advance to find furniture that fits exactly.
If you have the time, read this:
https://smile.amazon.com/Life-Changing-Magic-Tidying-Decluttering-Organizing/dp/1607747308/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1511398978&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=the+life+changing+magic+of+tidying+up
Will really to reduce the trauma of throwing stuff out
This book was the tipping point for me https://www.amazon.com/Life-Changing-Magic-Tidying-Decluttering-Organizing/dp/1607747308
I think it's naive to say the rich conspired in some form as an attack on the poor and middle class. However the fact is that the income gap between rich and poor is widening by nearly every metric. The rich are getting richer.
It's also extremely difficult for poor people to get by in America. Here's a good book describing the broken policies that make the cards stacked against the poor.
Tied into that is institutional racism. Minorities, especially blacks, are unfairly targeted by the war on drugs, incarcerated, then labeled a felon and stripped of their rights. The New Jim Crow describes the policies and reasons that the war on drugs is effectively enforcing racial caste in America.
It's important to gain a deeper understanding of these issues if they are to be solved. All of these issues are visible to us on a surface level, but without a deeper understanding it can seem that the rich are actively trying to bleed out the poor.
These issues are not so much an agenda as they are something that emerges from our collective behavior. For example, studies have shown that many of us who do not identify as racist still exhibit conscious and unconscious biases. Our biases affect our society. Cynicism and pointing fingers gets us nowhere. Change starts with ourselves and we are all responsible.
Here, friend.
That's not what I said. I didn't say that now is the worst time. I said that we've been collectively pretending there is NO racism, and now more people are realizing just how wrong that is. Just because it's better than it was in the 1890s doesn't mean we've solved the problem.
A lot of white people, especially since the 80s, were raised with the idea that being "colorblind" is the ideal, but are now starting to realize that doing so ignores the fact that black people live a different experience in this country than white people. Part of solving that problem is recognizing that basic fact, which requires "seeing color", and then coming up with solutions that take that into account. "Colorblind" solutions often just give discretion to those in power, which ends up reinforcing the racial disparities that are already written into our society. (Edit: I highly recommend The New Jim Crow, which examines this through the lens of our justice system)
(As a side note, I think there's a decent case that racism in the US reached its lowest point sometime 2-5 years ago, and has increased since then. It's definitely come to the surface more)
Read "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness" by Michelle Alexander: http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/1595586431.
It takes everything you think you know about the drug war and takes it to another level, all while making you rage.
Can we please also remember that the Controlled Substance Act came about in an attempt to combat civil equality. So groups that benefit from inequality and racism are also at play here, which could very well mean everyone that benefits from the low wages in America.
Relevant read: The New Jim Crow
Read this book immediately.
Hey, I'm not a doctor but I am involved in sex education. Two things:
One: I don't know why you feel how you feel, obviously, but I can tell you you're normal. You're not broken, and in fact you're in good company. If you haven't yet, I am sure you could find support groups online, if you just want someone to commiserate with. I know that doesn't fix anything, but it's worth saying. It sucks, and I'm sorry.
Two: The question of "How does my desire work?" is specific to you and your experience. There is no global reason. So, while I can't hand you an answer (I wish I could) I can tell you that you have all the information you need to begin exploring this question for yourself. Not for your husband. Not for public scrutiny. For you. It's hard and frustrating and unfair you're going through this, but it's not magic. I promise.
As for how to even begin exploring that question, there is a really, really good book called Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski that I would beg you to read. It is not a quick-fix kind of book, but it's also not a gimmick. It explains a lot of (recent!) science of human sexuality in very clear terms, and gives guidelines for how to explore those in yourself. It explains how your brain understands desire and all the things that affect it. Oh, and the writing is very clear, sometimes outright silly. There's a sample of the audiobook up online as well. Dr. Nagoski has a blog called The Dirty Normal, which is less in-depth but still worth checking out.
I think this book is so useful that I don't lend it out: I buy it for people. It changed the course of my life (I know that sounds cheesy). But you've been to therapy and switched birth control and put so much time and effort and money into this, it's obviously important for you. So I hope suggesting a book is not too much of a stretch on your patience.
I wish you the best of luck <3
Attached and The Feeling Good Handbook. As she handed them to me, I just kind of thought to myself "really?" She chuckled and said to give it a try. I left her office and purchased those two books from a local bookstore around the corner from her office and they were honestly great.
Basically, I wouldn't worry about being unhealthily co-dependent in a relationship you're largely happy in and where there are no issues of abuse or addiction. The concept of co-dependence has been co-opted and applied to situations where it's not terribly relevant. Unlike the bloggers of the world, I'm going to admit that I'm nowhere near qualified to dole out this kind of advice, though.
I recommend Attached by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller for more on this topic. It's an easy read and helps you understand patterns you may have seen in yourself or your partners. Also, it seems well grounded in science. The authors continually cite psychological studies, which is more compelling than it sounds.
I know that self-help books are hit or miss, at best, but I’ve been going through my own relationship struggles. While reading about attachment styles & boundary creation here on Reddit, the list below are some of the books (on Amazon) that kept popping up in Reddit discussions. Haven’t read them yet, but I did order them, & they’re supposedly arriving today - I can update w/ my thoughts & feedback, if anyone is interested.
Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples, 20th Anniversary Edition
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0805087001/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_7gE4BbB2R5DZY
Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help YouFind - and Keep - Love
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1585429139/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_giE4BbJ3RKFRN
Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0553386395/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_VhE4BbQ84219T
Another name that I’ve seen referenced a bunch here on Reddit is Mark Manson - he has a ”Guide to Strong Boundaries,” which I’ve also included a link to below
https://www.google.com/amp/s/markmanson.net/boundaries/amp
Mark Manson is famous for this book, amongst others
*The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life**
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0062457713/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_mrE4BbHBCFCS6
Dunno if this may help, but I do know that learning about one’s own attachment style, love language, etc can at least be a great start to a better relationship with yourself. As for the relationship with one’s partner? Boundaries! Boundaries are crucial.
...man, do I suck at boundaries!
Read this book:
Attached
Most people who engage in affairs have an “avoidant” attachment type and are with someone who has a “secure” or “anxious” attachment type.
My wife is avoidant, I am anxious. She minimizes her feelings and rationalizes her choices in order to avoid having difficult conversations about her emotions.
This led her to connect emotionally with someone else when she found it easier than discussing difficult issues with me directly. This emotional connection made her more receptive to his attention than she may have been otherwise.
Understanding how she became vulnerable has helped us understand how to avoid the situation recurring in the future.
I wish you peace.
Some people are more sensitive and anxious in relationships than other people, it's just how it is. It doesn't mean there is something wrong with you, it's just how you are wired. There are plenty of people out there who won't be put off by it (or bring it out in you) as long as you don't cross the line into controlling. There are, however, quys who will just be a really bad match for you. A guy who's first reaction when the anxiety comes up is to pull away will increase your anxiety, which will push him further away and it will just spiral and spiral. You can even feel that you like him more than you even do - but it's just anxiety.
This isn't doom, it just means he's probably a bad match for you emotionally. I highly recommend reading a book about attachment theory like Attached, it might help you be able to identify unhealthy matches for yourself. I found it really interesting and it's helped me pick healthier people to date.
I highly recommend this book: “Attached”:
https://www.amazon.com/Attached-Science-Adult-Attachment-YouFind/dp/1585429139/ref=asc_df_1585429139/
And, remember that if you’re clingy and your partner is happy with you anyway, don’t over-worry. That’s not to say you don’t work on yourself - we all should. But also don’t let your fears ruin a good relationship.
I can't recommend the book Attached more! Check it out.
https://www.reddit.com/r/learnHentaiDrawing/comments/c1izah/faq_21_we_have_a_discord_and_patreon/
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https://drawabox.com/lesson/1
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https://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Right-Side-Brain-Definitive/dp/1585429201
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The links above should set you on a good start. Do the lessons from drawabox, do the lessons from drawing on the right side of the brain. Unless you have a physical disability preventing you from picking up a pen, I promise you can learn. I will not lie to you and tell you it is easy, it is not. But learning the fundamentals will aid you greatly in getting better. There is no doubt in my mind it can be straight up tedious at times, and frustrating as all hell, but it is worth it.
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The trick? Actually doing the lessons as they are told to you and not skipping around.
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You can do it my dude, best of luck and happy lewding!
I took a drawing class at a community college. Cost me $35 plus pencils and paper supplies. It gave instruction and a reason to spent the time and focus on learning. I'd recommend that as the primary strategy.
A big part of learning to draw is to learn "to see". Most people don't actually see what they look at but instead they let their brains tell them what their brain/memory presumes they are looking at, abstractly.
This is where/why you get amateurish child-like drawing that look horrible initially - your brain "knows (better)" superficially and overrides what's actually hitting your eyes. Then you draw this abstraction and it's always wrong and unrealistic looking. So you have to "unlearn" this way of seeing things to learn to draw.
There are a lot of books on this subject:
http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Right-Side-Brain-Definitive/dp/1585429201
http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Techniques-Learning-Peter-Jenny/dp/1616890541
http://www.amazon.com/Learn-See-Draw-Larry-Wither/dp/B0013MELQS
http://www.amazon.com/Your-Artists-Brain-right-brain/dp/1440308446
These books can be helpful and are often used in drawing classes but the first thing is to start drawing.
One other hint I've learned: the #1 and #2 parts of the face you MUST get right (and in fact you can do only these two parts and create a recognizable portrait - of a Western person for a Western audience) are the shape and details of the eyes, and of the nose/mouth. It's different if you are in Asia (asian models) - then it's the outline of the head/hair and nose/mouth.
It's a good start. Obviously you're unpracticed, but drawing is a very learnable skill and you've got everything required to learn it.
I'd recommend getting your hands on a copy of Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards. It'll get you past a lot of the common mental blocks that people who are new to serious drawing struggle with and you're right at the skill level where it'll be most beneficial. If you work your way through that, you'll be astonished at what you're capable of within a few weeks.
The neuroscience it talks about has largely been debunked, but the exercises and basic concepts are still spot on.
Traditional materials are the best place to start. Don't worry about anything fancier than pencil/charcoal and paper until you've got the basics down.
What you need to do first is study the Principles of Design and the Elements of Design. These are the first things students are taught before they can move on. Usually, they are taught alongside Drawing 101, where students become familiar with these elements in practice, drawing mostly contour drawings of still lives. You should also be learning about linear perspective. You should be focusing on how to break objects down into simple forms, like cylinders and cubes and cones and spheres. Learn to draw with your arm and not your wrist; you can do this more easily by drawing on large paper (18"x24" or bigger).
Once you've got those basics learned, you can move on to learning about drawing with value. Charcoal and a kneaded eraser work best here, I think. Start doing still lives of single objects, like eggs or fruit, small geometric forms like cubes and the like, and focus on how light moves around these objects. One thing our professor had us do is to wipe our drawings down with a chamois frequently. It keeps you from getting focused on your drawing, but gives you a vague guideline to continue from. It makes drawing more about process than product, which is ultimately your goal if you're learning; to understand the process of seeing and drawing.
Once you've got the concept of the process and how value works, start increasing the complexity of your still lives. See how large you can make them. Get some big boxes and chairs and stuff and set them up in the middle of your room and draw that. Then start drawing the room you're in. Now, go outside and draw the buildings outside. You might notice that they're like a larger version of the boxes you were just drawing!
If you can, take some classes at your local community college. They'll really help you along learning these basics. If that's not available, most schools base their teaching methods on Betty Edwards' Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. Pick it, and the accompanying workbook up, and you'll be well on your way.
You should also look at Andrew Loomis' books to help study most of these principles. George Bridgman is another godsend for learning to draw, as well as Burne Hogarth and Louise Gordon.
You should always be studying things from life to keep your skills sharp. Always remember that reference photos aren't cheating. You'll find that more often than not, they're a necessity.
I also heavily recommend you check out CtrlPaint's videos. They're focused on becoming a digital artist, but have a section devoted to traditional work and its importance in digital work. He also goes over the basics quite well and provides links to outside resources, as well as homework assignments for every video. Check it out, watch a video a day, and do an assignment with it, and you'll be putting yourself on the fast track.
One thing about drawing is that it's going to take a lot of patience. It takes a long time to develop your skills. Don't get discouraged! Learn to handle criticism, both good and bad. Critiques are your friend and whether you agree with them or not, they'll help you grow. Never ever rely on the excuse "It's my style!" because more often than not, if you have to use that line, it's a mistake you don't want to fix, not a stylistic decision. I've seen many people with great potential fail out of the art program I was in simply because they couldn't handle criticism.
The thing with the creative design process is that it is in many ways different from what you've been learning previously. Not just new, but essentially different. Actually, it utilises another brain process than the one you're used to.
People who just learns the tools and language of design, but not the way of thinking, usually ends up with creating stuff that lacks harmony.
Programming is creative; it requires logical thinking, problem solving, efficiency. These are typical
left-sidelogical skills in your brain. Therefore, you are probably really good at using yourleftlogical brain right now.However, things like shape and form, composition, proportions, and the whole gestalt are not things that the
leftlogical brain likes to handle. These are the skills of therightcreative brainhalf. This brainhalfis hardly ever used by engineers, programmers, physicists, or linguists.A book that takes you through the process of developing your
rightcreative brain half is this one: https://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Right-Side-Brain-Definitive/dp/1585429201J'ai appris à 38 ans, alors que j'étais incapable de tracer une ligne droite.
J'ai utilisé 2 ressources principales : Reddit (/r/ArtFundamentals , /r/learntodraw) et ce livre, considéré comme le meilleur pour l'apprentissage
Never have to poop on the go? Come on. We're adults. Do we need to get this book for the people who are so afraid of bodily functions?
Riding a bike is a complex process that requires co-ordinating many actions at the same time. In order to cope with activities like this, your brain creates automatic behaviors, and stores them in the basal ganglia where they can be recalled and used without conscious thought of each step.
These automatic behaviors are often called habits. They are really complex algorithms the brain encodes to relieve the processing load, so you can perform complex tasks without being so distracted that you are in danger from the world around you.
The brain knows to store a habit in the basal ganglia when you keep deliberately practicing the complex behavior with a great deal of attention. This is what happened when you learned to ride a bike. You practiced it over and over, paying intense attention to the various actions that go into keeping the bike moving and upright. At a certain point, usually when you get effective at the skill and start repeating the steps exactly, the brain encodes it into an automatic behavior and stores it in the basal ganglia.
This is the moment when you suddenly can do a skill without thinking about it.
The brain stores automatic behaviors indefinitely, but they retain freshness with frequent use. All that is required to refresh a habit is to practice the behavior. People speak of a skill "coming back to them." They are experienceing the brain accessing the habit in the basal ganglia because they are trying to do the habit steps using their conscious mind.
That is why you don't forget how to ride a bike.
It's also of interest to note that most of our waking life is governed by automatic behaviors stored in the basal ganglia. To optimize processor load efficiency, the brain will automate any repetitive activity. That's why you can go through your morning routine, and have no memory of it. You are literally on auto-pilot.
Source: this book and years of reading psych books.
Look, this may not be what you are looking to hear, but you should check out SAA (Sex Addicts Anonymous). I can relate to everything you are saying. Maybe you are a sex addict and maybe you aren't, but going to a meeting (you don't even have to talk) will show you there are others who can relate to everything you described.
I'm 45 and I've been struggling with this crap forever. I've tried everything; therapists, self help books and tapes, hypnosis, NLP, seminars and plain old white knuckle self control (ultimately the least effective- I've had some wild binge and purge cycles). Getting around people who know what you are going through from their personal experience AND WHO ARE IN RECOVERY is really the only thing that works.
I guarantee that at least half of the problems you listed are due to the fact that you know you are not living a satisfying, meaningful life. It really is true that you can run, but you can't hide - the bad feelings, procrastination, etc... is all about you knowing the truth about yourself and that truth is that you have something inside you that is valuable, unique and worthwhile, and you don't know how to get there from where you are right now. Being able to share yourself with others who get you without your having to explain (or defend) every little detail and who are also on the right path is like a fucking miracle.
I'm recommending SAA because everything you said is soooo familiar. Like I said, I'm 45 and I started with this shit sometime between preschool and kindergarten. It has affected EVERY aspect of my life and one of the things I think about these days are all the things that could have been.
I'm guessing you are probably still fairly young (teens or twenties?). You have a good life in front of you, start living it now.
I imagine that you have concerns as to whether this is really for you. Don't worry, you'll know. A life coach I went to described me as a "dry alcoholic" and gave me the AA bible. I read the stories and didn't relate to them at all. When someone handed me the Green Book of SAA and I read the stories, it was like they were talking about me with just the specific details changed. Get a copy of the Green Book and read through it, you'll know if it's for you or not.
If it turns out that I'm wrong, my advise is still the same. Find a group of people who understand where you're at because they've been there AND who are making or have made SPECIFIC, MEASURABLE PROGRESS in their own lives. They will be able to help you, and remember the second part is VERY IMPORTANT! Don't join a pity party circle jerk where you can feel better by wallowing in your misery with others.
Anyway, I hope I've given you something of value.
This my first post on Reddit, so I'm not sure what the links policy is, but I've included two links for you; one is for the SAA site, go there and just check it out, and the other is a pretty good book I've been reading on how we form and change habits. It draws from the latest psychological and neurological research and I think it's really good.
https://saa-recovery.org
http://www.amazon.com/Power-Habit-What-Life-Business/dp/081298160X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1398850299&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=the+power+of+habit
Just remember that even though you may not feel it all the time, you always have the capacity to grow and change and our darkest, most difficult challenges give us our greatest gifts when we turn around and look back at them.
Imagine yourself in the future, look back, and see the gift.
What is it?
I'll pop back in in a few days to see how you're doing. Remember you're not alone. God bless.
I would read this summary of The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. If you want to go deeper and read the book I would recommend either purchasing the ebook, which is only $3, or getting a free trial of audible and getting it for free.
The thing that you have to understand is that we are creatures of habit, and most of them are bad. The best thing to do is to get a pen and a notepad and every time you notice a cue for a bad habit, write it down. Simply being aware of your bad habits is a great place to start. Then I would read the summary and make a plan for being more productive. Everyone is different so you may want to read the book for more insights.
More books that come highly recommended:
Deep Work by Cal Newport
Eat That Frog by Brian Tracey
Mastery by Brian Greene
Hope this helps
You also may want to check out the Discord server of r/getdisciplined. You can find it here
I may be talking out of my arse here, but I believe that research has been done into habit and it isn't just a psychological thing but your brain literally shapes itself around a habit. The more you do a thing the stronger the connections in your brain. (Obviously I've forgotten the technical language.)
By forming a new habit, you create new connections / paths in your brain. The good / bad news is, the more you do something the stronger those connections become. Good because it allows you to form new habits. Bad because it's harder to shake bad habits because they're literally part of your brain. (Again, I may be talking out of my arse.)
There's a good book about habits called The Power Of Habit if anybody is interested in a modern take on habit. It's not really a self-help book and more like one of those interesting pop-science books with a lot of interesting case studies. Such as how companies create habits to help sell their brand or how habits are used by winning sports teams.
A friend recently told me about this book, which he's set to loan out to me next week (I haven't read it). It's helped him to change a number of habits, but when we talked about it, he made particular point to tell me about this crucial thing he'd learned from the book (assuming it is correct).
The author insists that A habit cannot be eliminated - but rather One habit can be replaced with another. It's as is there's a mental "Law of conservation of habit" that states that if one habit it eliminated, it must be replaced with a replacement activity or superceding habit.
How do you feel about this opinion and/or have you noticed "replacement" habits substitutions in your own efforts?
So I just finished Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski and cannot recommend it enough. She really helps break down women’s sexuality in a way that makes you feel enlightened afterward. Give it a read, it will help.
I (26/f) have the same issue. I've talked to a ton of doctors and tried birth controls, no birth controls, antidepressants, having sex more frequently, and exercise. Honestly, the thing that helped the most is exercising regularly. Not just walking on a treadmill but lifting weights. Something about getting the blood pumping and working up a sweat increases my sex drive more than anything else. I've heard that some people recommend supplements but I don't think there is enough research out there proving they work.
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Check out the book Come As You Are. It'll help!
I'm a big fan of JavaScript: The Good Parts. I'm not sure if it is quite intermediate, but it is a terrific (and short) read.
Secrets of the JavaScript Ninja is a bit more advanced. It's written by the guy who created jQuery. I found some of the coding style to be sort of strange, but it does have a lot of great information.
I can really recommend this book: http://www.amazon.com/JavaScript-Good-Parts-Douglas-Crockford/dp/0596517742 (not an affiliate link ;) )
JavaScript is amazing if you embrace it's prototype-orientation and assorted ugly warts.
To expand upon this ...
For example, see this talk about how Ubisoft uses C++
They avoid most of modern C++ features because there is little, or no benefit, and the (run-time) performance cost is too high.
To be a great programmer, you should know both the strengths and weakness of every language feature. They were designed and added to the language to solve a certain problem. What is the context? Where does it NOT perform?
On the negative side, it has tons of small gotchas. One of the ways to minimize it biting you in the ass is to use this hack at the beginning of your .js file
"use strict";
This will prevent the browser from allowing you to use variables that haven't before declared.
On the plus side, it is fantastic for rapid prototyping.
Now I didn't say you shouldn't use Javascript. Whether you write your game in C or Javascript is (slowly) becoming irrelevant as you can compile Javascript to C, or compile C to Javascript.
Use whatever language you feel fits your dev style.
All programming languages suck. Some just more.
The more programming languages you know, the better the programmer you will be.
It's not quite what you asked for, but the parent of this reply answers that.
JavaScript: The Good Parts offers a wonderful Computer Science style discussion of JavaScript.
Everyone should know about this book.
We got sent an epic picture by a co-worker on maternity leave. Legend will remember it as "The Oil Spill."
Why is this NSFW? "Everybody poops"
https://www.amazon.com/Everyone-Turtleback-School-Library-Binding/dp/0613685725
If you forget every time that the human body has a process whereby we expel unused, unneeded or dead material I think there is a book out there that may help you.
Found it! "Everyone Poops" by Taro Gomi
The solution to your problems is quite simple: make a list of things that you need/want to do, then just fucking do it. Yep, there, I said it. I know it sounds harsh. But after years of reading, researching, and experimenting, I've found that precisely this is what it all boils down to: just. fucking. do. it. We end up building all kinds of mental scaffolds around the concept, with tricks and rewards and what not, but it all boils down to the same in the end.
Having a system in place to help you "just fucking doing it" can help tremendously, especially in the beginning. If you're willing to put in some time to work through them, I recommend The Now Habit, and Getting Things Done. Each of these books presents a different approach to productivity. You don't have to implement either system verbatim. Learn from them, try out things that sound interesting, and over time, build your own system.
Building and sticking to your system is a habit you will have to build. If that kind of thing is hard and/or interesting for you, please read The Power of Habit.
Don't just read them once and put them away. Read them, then take notes, then go over them again, and refer back to them every time you find something is lacking in your system. Don't read them cover to cover. They're quite long, and drag their feet through some sections. Skim them, check the index, and read through what sounds interesting, then go back and fill in the gaps if necessary.
It's never "too late" for smaller startups. Keep applying! Even if you get the offer halfway through the summer, it might still be worth it for the company to take you on for the rest of the summer.
Find smaller companies on http://angel.co and https://www.whitetruffle.com/.
What specifically is going wrong with your applications so far? You say you've gotten some phone screens--are you generally having trouble getting to the phone screen, or generally having trouble getting past the phone screen?
If you're having trouble getting past phone screens, there are a bunch of resources for brushing getting better at technical interviews:
If you're having trouble getting the interviews, your resume might just need some dressing up. Having more projects is a great idea, as you mentioned, but you also might be able to spin some stuff you've already done to fill that need better in the meantime. Post it and we can help!
Going through jobmine, there are exactly two parts to getting a job:
You get the interview by having a good resume, and knowing how to talk to recruiters.
You get the offer if you appear technical. Socially fitting together with your interviewer is invaluable. You want to feel like a coworker.
Google "c# github projects for beginners". Theres a whole bunch of interesting stuff out there. You could also download/fork a github repo and try to extend a project, or build on top of it.
I think this repo has been posted here before, but learning design patterns is really useful prior to designing something from ground up. https://github.com/Finickyflame/DesignPatterns
Here's a good beginner's book on design patterns. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0596007124/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_FmHsDbGWQ0NTJ
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0201633612/?tag=stackoverflow17-20
https://www.amazon.com/Head-First-Design-Patterns-Brain-Friendly/dp/0596007124
https://www.amazon.com/Code-Complete-Practical-Handbook-Construction/dp/0735619670
And you could check stack overflow for question on general programming books. I would always go for a general concept
functional programmingoverhow to functional programming in haskell.But I'll be perfectly honest, I'm a victim of the curse of knowledge so I honestly don't know how one should start. What I do remember is that I had huge problems with syntax (how do I tell language X to do a
for (Employee e in employeeList), how do you write a switch and stuff, why would I ever need a ternary operator, and like that.But once you master the basics of how to write x, y and z in your preferred language, you absolutely need to understand design patterns, you absolutely need to understand how code is supposed to be written, you absolutely need to understand data structures, you absolutely need to understand inheritance and polymorphism, you absolutely need to understand lambdas and functional programming.
Then you can get to the more "neat" stuff like the benefits of having immutables, and "job specific stuff" like how to solve race conditions in threading; sockets and web communication, etc.
Learn by experience and by reading is probably the way to go. The gang of four's design patterns is still the de-facto standard:
http://www.amazon.ca/Design-Patterns-Elements-Reusable-Object-Oriented/dp/0201633612
I really love this book for Java design patterns though, fun to read and really informative:
http://www.amazon.ca/Head-First-Design-Patterns-Freeman/dp/0596007124/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1333263240&amp;sr=1-1
Then it's a matter of knowing when and where to apply them, which is a harder problem and just an experience thing I'd say.
Thanks! I am looking at software engineering positions right now, and I agree that the market is very hot right now. The last time I looked for a job in earnest was around 2011, and it was depressingly hard to get a foot in the door.
Since others in the field might read this, I recommend getting "Cracking the Coding Interview" to prepare. I felt much more confident after reading this book. The author does an excellent job of explaining what interviewers are looking for and there's a lot of material to use for practice.
You're GPA is great so you don't need to worry about that, IMO I'd list it on your resume.
I would recommend the following:
While concurrently (har har) reading the book, any data structures you don't know, learn. Program them and test that they work.
Further, check out CSC263 materials and see if you can implement the data structures. You should also at the end of CtCI be able to attempt some of the assignments from CSC263 and complete them.
Also try coding problems on hackerrank or leetcode or w/e the sites are called -- note they can be demoralizing on hard but it's worth it and you learn a lot
Pick a language and learn it well, again if you do Java, then know how garbage collection works and other core language features (ex: If I ask you what a GC root is, do you know? [ask yourself this in 4 months] Can you compile from the command line? Do you know what Maven is and how to use it? Can you use lambdas and the new stream API? What is type erasure? etc)
C++ is great at removing your hair, but you'll learn a lot... and if you ever have to work on a C++ project you won't want to kill yourself when you accidentally do object slicing or something funny like this.
Obviously put your work on github or somewhere, though I think you know that this is implied
As you can see, attempting the above will directly benefit the following courses:
Sounds good doesn't it? Though this is probably only possible if you are doing literally nothing over the summer ;)
Hello 29 year old version of me, from the 36 year old version of me. Since you're a reader of actual books, this should be pretty easy.
Okcupid/Plentyoffish: free sites, lots of cheapos/weirdos. Probably decent for hookups.
Match: Pay site, has a moderate "meat market" feel to it.
Eharmony: the most expensive, best for meeting long term relationship material
Overall Impressions/Recommendations:
It's a lot to deal with at once, and I wouldn't wish divorce on my worst enemy. But you know what? A year after I got divorced, I was banging women 8 years younger than my ex-wife. You can do this.
There is a book on that topic.
There's a great book called The Flavor Bible. It doesn't have any recipes... it's just an index of what flavors complement each other.
Haha, the presentation is nothing. Ive worked in a kitchens for a total of about 3 or 4 years so I guess I kinda just learned. The combination of ingredients is nothing. At one of the places I worked we had a couscous salad which had sultanas, grilled egg-plant and pumpkin, along with some orange juice. I didnt have egg plant so I just left it out and skipped the orange juice. So that part is easy. The salad...having lived in a wine region for 10 years I quickly learned that the locals like marinated olives/mushrooms/sundried tomatos...just put them on some greens and you have a tasty looking salad. Then just do the lamb cutlets and you have an awesome meal :) If you really want to learn about combining some more ingredients and maybe move away from conventional cooking, i highly recommend THIS book. I often try and buy something ive never worked with (like a herb or spice, or some vegetable etc) and then look it up in this book and make a meal from that.
I would recommend the Flavor Bible as well. It isn't focused on techniques so much as it is focused on the flavors of different ingredients. I have found it to be incredibly helpful in teaching me how to combine flavors and ingredients in new ways beyond simply following a recipe. Techniques are important, but getting a baseline for flavors gives you a baseline to build from.
It along with Alton Brown have been incredibly helpful in getting me comfortable in the kitchen and taught me to get away from the recipe.
I've used Bacardi and Captain Morgan, both of which turned out well. According to The Flavour Bible, bananas, almonds, dark and light rums, and cinnamon all make strong pairings. If that's the case, I'd be curious about using 99 Bananas, Disaronno (amaretto), or even Fireball.
Edit: Screw it, why not go all out dark Myers's Rum? ;)
Yes, and if you want to follow this deeper into the context of consciousness, check out this book: GEB
There's a series of chapters discussing the localization of brain functions. The author discusses a study on rat brains, in which maze-running rats had significant portions of their brains removed, and were allowed to heal. Most rats were still able to re-learn the maze.
You might like this [book] (https://www.amazon.com/G%C3%B6del-Escher-Bach-Eternal-Golden/dp/0465026567)...Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, the cover has an even better whatever you call that effect/illusion.
In Search Of Schrodinger's Cat by John Gribbin is a very readable physics and quantum physics history sketch. Might be slightly dated now, although I can't think of anything directly contradicted by recent work. Then again, I'm not actually a physicist :)
The Quark and the Jaguar is quite a bit more complicated, but still quite accessible to the layperson and has a lot of interesting stuff.
Slightly less sciency, more maths/logic/computation is Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
A Guinea Pig's History of Biology is pretty much what the title says, although there's an awful lot about fruit-flies too. Quite a good review of the history of biological experimentation, especially genetics.
H2O: A Biography of Water from a previous editor of Nature, covers water across a variety of fields. The second half of the book is mostly a rant about cold fusion and homoeopathy though, from what I recall, but the first half makes up for it.
Most general-audience things by Richard Feynman are well worth the read. He's got some great physics lectures, and his autobiography (Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman?) is fun, but more for the anecdotes than the science.
Those are off the top of my head. If its something in a particular field, I might have some other ideas I'm currently forgetting.
You would love Godel Escher Bach by Douglas R Hofstadter. It won the pullitzer prize and is basically just a really good popular math/computer science/art book. But a really excellent jumping off point. Yes it lacks mathematical rigor (of course) but if you are a bright clever person who likes these things, its a must read just for exposure to the inter-connectivity of all of these topics in a very artistic and philosophical way. But be prepared for computer code, musical staff notation, DNA sequences, paintings, and poetry (all themed around Godel, Escher and Bach).
I don't follow?
At some point we started asking questions about the world. There came a time where 'something' emerged in us and we started questioning the world around us.
Questions are investigations about how the world (and here 'world' is everything in the immediate environment) works. This leads to 'what if' scenarios, equivalencies 'is this thing like the other?' and sets 'I belong to the group called 'men', she belongs to the group called 'women'. In the group called 'women' there is the subset of 'women' that are my offspring. Godel, Escher, Bach yourself on sets and other concepts.
So, we learned how to ask questions and the answers to those questions lead to more questions. All this leads to the internet and us meeting. Our interaction is the result of an unbroken chain of questions that has brought us from the savanna all the way to here. Think about that.
What a great question, and an interesting example. For those confused by OP's example, check out Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem on Wiki. Better yet, read the insightful and very trippy Pulitzer Prize winning book, Gödel, Escher, Bach. Gödel's theorem is a bit abstract but it was both a monumental and surprising discovery. It's not just mathematical -- it's meta-mathematical, in that it reveals the limitations inherent to any mathematical framework or system. From wiki:
>The first incompleteness theorem states that no consistent system of axioms...is capable of proving all truths about the relations of the natural numbers (arithmetic). For any such system, there will always be statements about the natural numbers that are true, but that are unprovable within the system. The second incompleteness theorem, an extension of the first, shows that such a system cannot demonstrate its own consistency.
I'll point out an obvious one, though it's more to do with the aesthetics of the psychedelic experience rather than insights or ideas. Psychedelic hallucinations tend to be geometric, with lattices, grids, spirals, and perhaps most intriguing of all, fractals. All these are geometric forms that can be rigorously defined and analyzed by math. Fractals are especially fascinating because they exhibit self-similarity at every scale, appear sometimes in nature (for example, coastlines), and look extremely trippy. (Seriously, just look at these zoom-ins of the Mandelbrot set, discovered in 1978.)
Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas F. Hofstadter. The section on Ant Fugue blew my mind away.
Two things: The coursework from my CS degree, and reading books about software engineering.
I've spoken in other places about the former, and for the latter, I recommend The Pragmatic Programmer, Code Complete, and Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software
In all fairness to him, it was when you showed enough merit in your work.
And one can make a great deal of progress in 4 years of real world software development. But by the language of highly recommended The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master, you were almost certainly still a journeyman back then. I would guess it took me > 10 man years to obtain mastery.
They seem a like reasonable starting point I think. Repetition is the mother of mastery, the more books the better (in addition to applying what is learned).
Since Mosh is calling out learning fundamentals as important to becoming a good C# developers, I would personally also recommend some general (non C# specific books) too for who are starting out in software development:
There's a ton more, but those are a few that stood out to me. Essentially the more the merrier in my opinion - books, courses, videos, tutorials, and so on. The books I'm recommending here focus on adopting the developer mindset and being successful at it. That's part of the puzzle.
The other part is understanding the technical details including the programming language and frameworks you intend to use.
And finally, for learning about C#, I do highly recommend Mosh's videos/courses (some are free on YouTube, others available on Udemy). He's got a unique ability to explain things clearly and simply in a way that beginners can pick up quickly.
What I'd do is check out his free content first, and if you agree his style is ideal for learning, an investment in one of his courses is well worth it since he'll cover a lot more breadth and depth on each of the topics and they're organized into a super consumable package rather than scouring the internet for various topics.
Tell him to read what you just wrote, and buy him this:
http://www.amazon.com/She-Comes-First-Thinking-Pleasuring/dp/0060538260
You're being too hard on yourself. Women will come much harder when you use your tongue, trust me. If you dont believe me just get this book:
I tell people this a lot, and it really depends on the person, but I'll try to make a list! To focus on ourselves basically means to better our confidence and our general well-being. Focusing on ourselves is basically keeping busy while improving ourselves at the same time. Because at the end of the day, we can't rely on others to lift us up. It helps to have people there, but we will always have ourselves. Focusing on ourselves means just living our lives and not worrying about trying to find another person to help fill the empty void in our hearts, but at the same time, while doing our own thing and just living life, this is when we may meet other people or potential future partners along the way. So either way, it's a win-win situation.
I know there's so much more you can do, but I hope some of these can help for now! Basically just go out there and live your life and have as much fun as possible.
I don't know if it's considered a personal development book, but I really enjoyed reading The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*ck by Mark Manson, it's a great self-help book.
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck - Mark Manson
I mean, he's not a licensed psychologist or anything and therefore lacks some credibility. Nevertheless, I really did enjoy reading it and he does have some good points. Other than that it is just quite fun to read.
Hell, some people would probably rage and be all like "He doesn't know what he's talking about!!!" but those people need to read the book.
I was diagnosed RRMS in Feb 2002. I was re-diagnosed in Feb 2017 with Secondary Progressive. When you said this:
> how am I supposed to accept this new reality? I suppose I just sort of have to? Not like I have a choice in the matter... I guess it takes time.
It just hit me, again, hard. I am into this thing for a LONG time now, and I am still adjusting. I am still accepting the new normal.
I wish I could give you a better answer. I recently finished the Subtle Art of not Giving a Fuck
It's the usual blend of BS pop psych and what not, but one thing really really hit me: You cannot accept responsibility for what happens. You can only take responsibility for how you react to it.
I have good days. I have bad days.
I have a ton of spinal lesions, and most of my MS stuff is below the waist. When I was DXed with the secondary progressive, the doctor said he didn't really understand how I still walked without aid or a wheel chair.
Anyway, for years I had horrid shitting problems. Explosive, violent, painful and horrific shits. Like something HR Geiger would draw. Perhaps Jackson Pollack if instead of Oils he used poop.
This week, I had to have a colonoscopy. Everyone talks about how awful the prep is. How disgusting, how painful and how gross.
Well, let me tell you--- Compared to my MS Shits, this was nothing. I could do that every day--- fuck, twice a day, rather than have one of my MS Shit 'Splosions
It made me realize, again, that we deal with our MS, our issues and our symptoms as best we can. That what we have does become a new normal.
That something we deal with everyday is both a new normal--- and an old horrible.
But it makes us so strong.
I am an Atheist but I grew up Old-School Jewish.
Yet, I love this good old line, I think it may be from the Jesuits.
No one is given a cross to heavy for them to carry.
Good luck, I hope my ramblings weren't too, well, rambly--- and feel free to PM me as the journey of MS takes you down its weird and wild path.
She Comes First: The Thinking Man's Guide to Pleasuring a Woman - the Author was a Premature Ejaculator, and this is his tale. Hasn't failed me a day since.
Over 70% of women can't orgasm from intercourse alone - that is a fact. Most still find it enjoyable - it feels good, it's intimate and it's hot to see you partner's pleasure.
>what can men do to accomdate women?
Give your lady lots of clitoral stimulation. Making her cum from oral before you enter her usually works very well. I highly reccomend this book, if you want to learn how to be a good lover.
I have a few sources you can look at (mostly from the /r/sex wiki ):
on the subject.
I hope this gives you the info you need.
> I'm dating a "crazy" girl.
I don't know what you mean by 'crazy'. You'll need to provide more specifics.
>I do love her, but we fight about the most stupid topics.
Disagreements, especially in long relationships, are not uncommon. The way you resolve these disagreements can make all the difference between a happy life and an unpleasant existence. Be sure that you are respectful of one another - that each of you gets an equal vote and that you communicate clearly and often.
>Then it's shutdown, no talking, looking forward, possible cry time.
If she's shutting down because she needs a few minutes to process, fine. But pretending the problem never existed it not a good idea - again, communication is key.
>Annnnywho, the guys at work all talk about how I would be stupid to get married.
The guys at work are doing it wrong.
> They say all women get crazier as times goes on,
So do men. People get crazier as time goes on. We all end up standing on our lawns in our bunny slippers and bath robes, shaking our fists in the air and yelling at neighborhood kids.
The real question is whether you want to be standing there alone or with someone next to you.
> all blowjobs stop.
Buy them a copy of this book. See if anything changes for them.
>The main problem is, I would rate myself abbbbouuuuut a [[1] 6 ], she is easily a 9. I'm content with that Punnett Square.
This doesn't matter a great deal. You will both slowly progress to a 1 as you get saggier and droopier over time.
>If all women are crazy, hey, maybe I'll just suck it up because she's beautiful (and probably the hottest I'll ever get).... but if there is serious hope, and great matches out there- I'll continue my search.
Here are the standards for a relationship:
Trust: Do you trust this person? Do you believe that they would behave in an appropriate fashion even if when you're not there - not because they're afraid of getting caught, but because they have integrity? Are you trustworthy? Do you conduct yourself with integrity?
Respect: Do you and your partner each get an equal vote? Do you condescend to one another, or do you treat each other as equals? Are you kind to another another? Are you willing to make compromises and endure little sacrifices for the sake of the big picture? Do you share responsibilities equitably?
Communication: Are you open and honest with one another? Do you lie and/or omit to hide things?
Commitment: Do you value the commitment you share with your partner? Do you treat that commitment with respect - abstaining from activities that might call that commitment into question (even if you know for yourself that there is no problem)? Do you invest - time, money, effort - into the commitment and your future together? Do you plan and work as a team? Do you have a vision for your shared future together, or are you just kind of floating around waiting for something to happen?
---
For most relationships, these four cornerstones are crucial. Failure of one damages the others, and the whole house of cards comes tumbling down.
If you've got those four cornerstones taken care of, and if you love this person - then absolutely get married to them.
Don't listen to 99% of people who give you relationship advice. They don't know what the hell they're talking about, and their relationships are broken. That may or may not include me. Listen to your own moral compass and your intuition. Allow that to guide you to correct principles - then commit to and live by those principles.
https://www.amazon.com/New-Topping-Book-Dossie-Easton/dp/B001TJV5DW
https://www.amazon.com/New-Bottoming-Book-Janet-Hardy/dp/1890159352/ref=pd_sbs_14_t_0/159-2529759-0556432?_encoding=UTF8&amp;psc=1&amp;refRID=KEXYX8NPBXC1K8VSJF0N
New Topping and New Bottoming books a good overview of how to set up, the different types, and responsibilities of each person in a scene and explores the emotional side of it.
https://www.amazon.com/Playing-Well-Others-Discovering-Communities/dp/0937609587/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1483220806&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=playing+well+with+others
Examines the entire kink culture and how and why people can safely get involved. All the different symbols, types of D/s way more definitions then I have here, the difference between a kink club, sex club, fetish night, leather bar etc. is all here. The back has a great long overview of many possible kinks and a chart for you to map out your experience and limit levels with each one. Also has a glossary of more books.
Also i'm new to relationships in general but to really learn how to make a woman feel good you might want to look into She Comes First. As you'll see from reviews even couples who've been together a long time really got 'energized' by the book. Also good at dispelling many myths around female sexuality that both men and women might think. https://www.amazon.com/She-Comes-First-Thinking-Pleasuring/dp/0060538260/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1483221177&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=she+comes+first
We need lots of the basics, MKultra, JFK assassination, Operation Northwoods, Iran-Contra, GLADIO, Project Paperclip, etc.
One thing I feel strongly about is history white washing, so I recommend A People's History of the United States, which is also available from amazon in book format.
Guns, Germs, and Steel is another good book to read once you understand the flows of political power.
Also a shout out to Noam Chomsky, Lots of his books are worth reading and going over, however for those that don't wish to read, I recommend the documentary based on his book Manufacturing Consent, which I hope you were going to include anyway :P
EDIT: Here's a decent source for ebooks - b-ok.org
http://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/dp/0393317552
http://www.amazon.ca/Guns-Germs-Steel-Jared-Diamond/dp/0393317552
Awesome book!
While I agree that your question is quite subjective, I'd suggest taking a look at Guns, Germs, & Steel, the ubiquitous recommendation when dealing with this question. I'm not sure I agree with all of Diamond's ideas, but it's a thought-provoking book, and he makes some excellent arguments within.
Also, Collapse and Guns, Gems and Steel by Jared Diamond
If you haven't, you should read Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond (http://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/dp/0393317552). Taking a very scientific, objective approach to civilization and the development thereof, it provides an interesting and, in my opinion, highly plausible reason why African countries have typically fared worse than Western-European countries over the past 500 years (and which has nothing to do with race).
Jared Diamond - Collapse and Guns, Germs and Steel
Both are great. Not at all boring. Both are favorites of mine.
What an absolutely idiotic response.
Whites weren't successful because they were white. They were successful because, their harsh environment and access to resources caused them to look toward innovation to overcome nature. After that mindset was established, they further advanced through structured warfare, and after that, colonization.
If you want to dumb it down and say, "cuz white ppl", then by all means...
Guns, Germs, and Steel can give you an absolutely masterful understanding of why
whiteEuropean peoples came to preeminence.So, all white people in America have the same culture? A culture that values education and politeness? What about the deep south, where, let's be honest, higher education is not overly stressed? Or how about the differences between a person from New York and a person from Idaho?
"White" is a homogenized term that refers to skin color only. The culture you speak of is "American".
I'll also just point out that Africa is not a uniformly shitty hellhole, and the parts that ARE hellholes are like that largely due to outside influences. I'd also point you toward places like Egypt, with cities like Alexandria that were the once the center of knowledge and learning in antiquity. If you're interested in learning why certain cultures seem to be underdeveloped while others thrive technologically, you should read Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. There's also a movie version on Netflix.
Anyway, let's get down to brass tacks. When I see a "black cultural event", I see a group of people with common interests and common troubles who come together to support one another. The fact that they feel the need to do this tells us more about the environment they exist in than it does about their culture. If I were in another country - one that did not support or welcome me as an American - I would probably find other Americans or like-minded people to hang around.
During the time of slavery, the ONLY people that would support black people was other black people. They formed a culture that meshed (mainly southern) American elements with their African heritage. Because they had no real support from the outside, they had to support themselves from within, and that leads to a very strong cultural identity - one that still exists. And a big reason that it still exists is because, by and large, they are still not completely welcomed or accepted.
Now, when I hear a white American complaining about black events, I think of a child who has always gotten his way, who throws a tantrum when someone else gets to do something that he can't. Largely because he, and people like him, created a NEED for those sorts of things in the first place. Black people wouldn't feel the need to form these groups and events if the larger population accepted them the same way they accepted other cultures. And regardless of what you, personally, may feel or believe, there is still a very large group in America that sees blacks as foreign and thuggish. It's a foolish thing to think, and is clearly untrue.
And it's this "why do they get an event, I want an event!" mentality that makes anyone who wants to form a "white culture" event or group seem like a spoiled brat who wants something solely because someone else has it.
This book is an outstanding place to start if you're interested in deep experimentation in flavor profiles.
Link for the lazy
The The Flavor Bible came recommended to me from a friend. It has an index which helps you determine what other ingredients to best pair with an ingredient.
More info here: https://karenandandrew.com/books/the-flavor-bible/
The Flavor Bible is totally what you are looking for.
Spooky! I just picked it up just last week because the book store had Cosmicomics and not if on a winter's night a traveler
a good friend of mine recommended it to me. I got him reading House of Leaves and this is what he responded with.
So far I'm really digging the galactic scope of his stories. He writes so elegantly about the time before anything was describable. Astounding!
Some paperbacks have the formatting in them.
It's a fantastic book. Well worth owning a copy of.
I've been reading a lot of horror recently, so I can suggest a few off the top of my head.
Hell House by Richard Matheson
Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill
The Shining by Steven King
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski (You might hate this one.)
Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay
Also, I'm not sure if you're into comics, but there's a bunch of great horror there. I recommend Locke and Key, Colder, and Wytches.
Everyone reading/responding to this without catching the reference should educate themselves post-haste
Don't you mean House of Leaves?
No one has mentioned the Flavor Bible yet? This is where you go to find out what works with each other. It is a magnificient resource.
While it won't teach you to cook entirely from scratch, you can use it to sort out new combinations. It is invaluable.
check out the Flavor Bible. My chef friend likes to refer to it when coming up with pairings of garnishes on plates.
Damn, was this all copied directly from The Flavor Bible?
Edit: Just checked my copy. It is.
The Flavor Bible: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America's Most Imaginative Chefs $23 hardcover on amazon brotha 👌
While I do not own it myself, I have heard lot's and lot's of praise of
The Flavor Bible
Looks like a page out of House of Leaves
This book by Mark Manson helped me a great deal: The Subtle Art of How not to Give a Fu*k
First of all, this is an excellent post. I've seen so many questions posted here but yours is the most concise and upfront. I know exactly what your background is and so I'm more confident that what I want to suggest would actually be relevant.
You have solid industry experience with academic foundation. And I think you already are aware of the pitfalls of expert beginner (http://www.daedtech.com/how-developers-stop-learning-rise-of-the-expert-beginner/). I think you are in a sweet spot where you can afford to invest resources without immediate gain - unlike early-career coders, you don't have to necessarily learn another language/framework right this second. You can afford to deepen your higher-level understanding of concerns and concepts that are timeless and not bound by the language/framework of the day.
I'd like to suggest you read other people's code/design. Here are some books to get you started.
Another thing you can invest in is everyday skills as a programmer. This is a classic on this subject.
You can couple ideas and tricks from here with any devops tools of the day to automate much of your workflow, such as bash/git/unix concepts onto automation tools such as docker/jenkins/ansible. Additionally, familiarizing/customizing your personal development environment. Improving scripting skills to automate many many things (practically everything that we do on computers that doesn't involve creative process are automatable. It's just a matter of ROI.).
Code Complete
Big Java Late Objects
The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master
The Mythical Man-Month
Android Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide
cracking the coding Interview
Introduction to Algorithms
Thinking in C++
Perhaps offtopic but... Some books you should read regardless of CompSci branch
This list isn't about "coding" per-se but is more focused on concepts, sw.en., practices, etc.
Thinking in Java is one of my favorites, the definitive introduction to object oriented programming and design.
Code Complete, Don't know anyone who hasn't heard of this so far
The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master
> Knowing one programming language, is of course, a must for any sort of programming. Knowing many programming languages is a bit less important, in a way. Many languages are very similar to one another and aside from the keywords, the syntax largely remains the same. If you've done Java before, then this means you could very well hold your own in C++, C#, and VB.NET for example.
I'd disagree strongly on this one. Writing VB.NET is very different from writing C++. I'd argue that programming language paradigm is more important. It's easy to switch between languages following the same paradigm because, beyond frameworks, libraries, and syntax, they are very much the same.
>Whenever possible, seek to make your functions about a screen's height. It's easier to follow the flow if you don't have to scroll up and down all the time.
Huh? That's a weird way to explain it. What's more important than number of lines is the Single Responsibility Principle. Every contextual item in your program (class, method, variable, etc) should only have one responsibility.
Otherwise I'd agree with this advice. For these little quips like these check out The Pragmatic Programmer, which is perhaps one of the best books that helped me move from a novice/junior developer to an intermediate/senior dev.
Amazon
Goodreads
Wikipedia
Looks like most of your knowledge and experience so far is with imperative/object-oriented programming. You might want to have a look at functional programming, just to get some perspective. Scala, Erlang or Haskell could be some good choices here, or even Ruby (if you make use of blocks and don't use mutable data). Actually, Ruby is pretty cool and very versatile and practical, that could be a good language choice as well, and you would also be able to make use of your prior knowledge with OO programming.
One other thing that you could do with this time is to read some books! There are some wonderful "generic" titles that every programmer should read, in my opinion. Have a look at The Pragmatic Programmer, Clean Code and Code Complete, for starters. These might get you really inspired and pumped up for the undergrad college and computer science classes, as well as give you some good tips on new things to learn.
The Pragmatic Programmer http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pragmatic-Programmer-Andrew-Hunt/dp/020161622X
Has a lot of similar stuff to Code Complete 2 but not quite as dense so makes a good primer.
Well, the obvious answer would be to read this:
Elements of Style
But Stephen King's On Writing is well respected (I'm reading it now, and it's told in a narrative. It doesn't feel like taking your medicine, if you're worried about getting bored.)
If you're looking for examples of quality writing that translate well into journalism, anything by Hemingway would be a good investment.
I bought The Flavor Bible last year for my wife and myself. It's a very thorough guide to pairing flavors. Really well organized. A bit overwhelming at first, but we really enjoy it now.
Edit: Put in name of book...
The Flavor Bible is, I think, exactly what you're looking for.
The ability to improvise comes with time, observation and willingness to experiment. Onions can add different texture and flavor to a dish depending on preparation. From crunchy, sulfurous, raw onions to sweet, soft, caramelized onions the spectrum of possibilities is quite broad. Use them raw, gently sautéed in oil, caramelized, fried, dried, pickled; cut lengthwise, crosswise, diced; etc. and build up a mental library of the results. I love reading about food, food history, preparation and food science but nothing beats actually getting hands-on with food.
That said, there are some books about flavor combinations and it might help if the concern is wasting food due to impractical experimentation. I own and enjoy Niki Segnit's The Flavor Thesaurus. It's not a mathematical table of A+B=C, but it gives classic and inventive combinations of various flavors. I can't vouch for these, but maybe read through the reviews and see if they sound interesting to you: one and two. I follow the blog of the latter two authors and it's quite interesting even if it is sometimes beyond the scope of home cookery.
House of Leaves?
I strongly recommend reading this book. The super-short TL;DR for it is that Europe sort of hit the jackpot in terms of geography, biodiversity, natural resources available, etc., which gave the people settling there an inherent leg up versus other areas of the world.
I'm traditionally more into literary fiction, but I've been exploring non-fiction recently.
Currently Reading: 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
Recently Finished: The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration and Margaret Atwood's MaddAddam Trilogy
Next on the List: Either Guns Germs and Steel or Devil in the White City. Haven't decided yet
Nope. 100% have a B.A. in history a B.A. in education and a B.S. in health science. Currently in graduate school.
I didn't respond to your "facts" because you didn't list any. You went on some schizophrenic rant about race. You've completely failed to understand how geography influences the success and failures of societies. If I had handed in a paper with your line of reasoning my professor would have handed it back and said "start over, this is trash."
I'd suggest you read the book "Guns, Germs, and Steel" by Jared Diamond or the "Wealth and Poverty of Nations" by David Landes
You're going to have to go into reading those books with an open mind, because they might not fit your predetermined narrative that societies are only successful because of skin color.
So what you want is just some hunk of meat to put your penis in, to find ways to last longer, with no emotional investment of care of what their feelings might be? If you were a girl, does that sound intriguing?
Can't you just masturbate before you have sexy time? This way the sperm chamber is emptied, so to speak.
Your way of thinking that if you don't come and you lasting longer will automatically make the sex 'better' is false. Making sex better is complex, is different for different partners, and means making it more pleasurable for her and for you. Not just lasting longer. Working together, not just getting working on your ability to last longer. Also, sex doesn't have to end when you ejaculate. Try not thinking so selfishly, and leave your 5-7 minute eqo crutch aside. Make her come first, then yourself.
Here is something that could actually benefit you:
https://www.amazon.com/She-Comes-First-Thinking-Pleasuring/dp/0060538260
Not sure this will help...but check out the Great Wall of Vagina art project.
It highlights the many differences that exist between women's vaginas. More importantly, they're just plaster casts...so maybe they'll be easier for you to look at and provide yourself with a little "exposure" to overcome the discomfort you feel.
I kind of understand how you feel...although I don't think I've ever felt those things to the degree that you describe. But female genitalia can seem very foreign when you're young.
You see your penis all the time, but it's not often you see a vagina. And when you do, you're in the throes of sex, so you may not really get to explore it in a curious way...if that makes sense.
Also, it might be helpful to read some anatomy books or guides that will help you get to know the vagina a little better.
Maybe something like Women's Anatomy of Arousal or She Comes First
Both are often mentioned in sex ed. circles...and I'm sure there are plenty more.
I suggest reading Mark Manson's The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A Fuck & Models: Attract Women Through Honesty.
I would recommend giving this a read: https://www.amazon.com/Subtle-Art-Not-Giving-Counterintuitive/dp/0062457713/ref=sr_1_3?crid=1RMBFCYGYWLFK&keywords=the+subtle+art+of+not+giving+a+f---+mark+manson&qid=1558913677&s=gateway&sprefix=the+subtle+%2Caps%2C128&sr=8-3
However, most of the positivity and optimism that I've gained over the last few months was due to recovering from heartbreak. Did a lot of soul searching and introspective work to figure things out for myself (as well as seeking out therapy). So, everything I've learned has been a mixed bag. What I can say to you is that you yourself, as a person, no matter how you view yourself, how you think people may see you, are enough. More than enough. Whatever little thing you do in your day to day has impact on the world around you. You may not know it, believe it, or even be aware of it but, it has worth. Remember, every footstep always makes an impression in the ground.
Give this book a try. If you want the epub/audiobook let me know. It did wonders for my ability to get up and do things that I want and need to do.
My buddy highly recommended that book to me, but I haven't given it a read yet. It's "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life".
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck
The power of your last paragraph is real. For those who need help with that, may I recommend a book?
Don't disappoint your gf by going celibat if you don't need to. You can always go back to hardmode when you gf is not around. I mean, quitting porn and not fapping should be just as easy when having a gf(sex included) and without having a gf. Eighter way, if you decide on hardmode there are always other ways to succeed without using your penis.
Yes, this is referring to a book. I've read it. It goes through a lot of detail of female anatomy and female sexual response. Then it gets into some specific techniques for oral sex on women.
The book also recommends that the man provide the woman with an orgasm (or more) before having one himself. It sounds like you strongly agree with this approach, as do I.
However this is a subreddit that is all about sexual dysfunction or loss of desire. When you're not having any sex at all, someone stating that they have (at least) 3 orgasms per encounter is going to be a painful reminder of what you're missing.
In my case I used to be able to make my wife cum consistently from PIV, and she would have at least one orgasm before I did. Sometimes I could get her going into a sequence of multiples. But for reasons unexplained she decided that she doesn't enjoy sex and really never did. So now I have sex with someone else, and she gets to have one (or more) orgasms before I do.
I have found this very helpful.
You should read the book Attached. I don't recommend the Kindle edition, it has parts it expects you to write in the book.
There is a book I really like, called Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment Theory. You might like it, your comments about your reaction to potential partners reminded me a lot of some of the stuff it talks about.
Pencil to digital is just a matter of practice. If you have a few extra dollars, I'd also grab Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. That'll teach you how to draw. To learn what to draw, i.e. be more creative, get The Keys to Drawing with Imagination. Transferring to digital is just a matter of learning how to use photoshop and a scanner or a drawing tablet.
I apologise, those are Canadian links, but the books are also available in the US.
Well this isn't an overnight method but in all seriousness, this book is amazing. You work through the lessons and you will learn to see things differently, allowing you to capture, in a drawing, an accurate representation of what you see. I loved it.
http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Right-Side-Brain-Definitive/dp/1585429201
This was recommended to me, and I'm just starting it myself. So far, really does make you believe that this is something a non-artist like myself could accomplish.
Alternative approach would be learning to draw. Contrary to common belief, it is actually a learnable skill. You won't be making Mona Lisa in a few months, because as with everything it takes practice, but you can shrink your restrictions and get a better understanding of what you can and cannot do.
I would recommend books and youtube video series for learning, few examples:
http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Right-Side-Brain-Definitive/dp/1585429201
https://www.drawspace.com/lessons (used to be all free, now might require free account or a paid sub I don't know)
http://www.ctrlpaint.com/library/
If you follow the first book along, I can speak from personal experience that not only you will get a better understanding, but you will also actually learn to draw (this is coming from a guy that barely could draw stick people). You just need to stick to it and follow it to the letter.
This seems like the perfect place to get started, and having the kind of confidence that it takes to be able to ask for help when you need it is exactly the kind of thing you need to be successful with drawing. I've been on my own drawing journey for about six months now, from a starting place quite similar to where you were, and although I still have a long way to go I'll do my best to share what I've been able to find out along the way.
Drawing is much like learning any other skill, like math or a sport, and as such the best favour you can do yourself is to know how you learn things best and to focus on that. Always try to go for several different methods, since variety will help your learning process from getting monotonous, and remember that any type of instruction will be better than no instruction, even if it's not your first choice.
Also, drawing on a tablet is hard. The disconnect between pen and screen as well as the small surface and lack of completely accurate touch feedback can make it a difficult way to begin making art. It's fun and you should certainly keep it up, but I found it was much easier to learn the basics with a good old pencil and a cheap sketchbook, and then apply what I learn to my tablet paintings afterwards. Sketchbooks also have the great benefit of being portable, and going around and drawing things that you can actually see in front of you is essential to learning to draw well.
Books did wonders to help me. Check you local library to see if you can find some on the cheap. Try to avoid books that only deal with drawing on specific thing, like "How to draw cars" and such, since these are often far to specific and narrow in scope, when what you really need is a solid drawing foundation. Probably the highest recommended one for beginners is Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards. It covers all the basics and is geared to the complete beginner, and unlike a lot of art books that focus primarily on techniques it also talks a lot about the thought process behind drawings. Judging by your work, I think it would be the most help to you of anything, as your major problem seems to be that you are relying on "symbols" that represent what you are wanting to draw rather than direct observation, which is extremely common and was my major problem too. You can also find videos of her teaching the lessons from her book on Youtube, but I'd still recommend the book, as it allows you a better view of the examples, lets you double check the instructions and makes it so you can work at your own pace.
Taking a class can be invaluable, since you have someone with experience right there to put you on the right track. Many colleges and community centers offer art programs in evenings or weekends (and during summer break, since you seem to be a student) where you could get started. Asking at a local art supply store might help to put you on the right track there. My work schedule prevents me from taking classes on any regular basis, but I'm always on the lookout for short intensive and drop-in meetups that do fit in.
For web based ressources that deal specifically with digital painting, nothing beats Ctrl+Paint. You don't need to bother with the videos that require you to pay for now, there is a great deal of free tutorials that will help you get started.
After you learn the basics, it all comes down to practice and choosing what you want to focus on at any given time. More advanced books and classes can focus on different mediums or subjects, and the fun part is often exploring and experimenting on your own. The trick is to think big, avoid restraining yourself, laugh off every mistake and try again and practice, practice, practice.
So, I don't know whether you'll consider this good news or bad news, but the path to illustrating anything well mostly involves developing your artistic skills in general, and not one specific type of illustration. For example, you don't learn how to paint landscapes so much as you learn to paint in general, and then do a lot of landscapes.
Example: Randall Munroe, of xkcd fame. xkcd is very simplistic art (stick figures, for the most part), yet it looks better that most people's attempts at stick people. Why? Because he's an actual artist (by hobby, not by profession, although it's basically his profession now), not just some guy who decided to draw stick figures. Stuff like this is what he was working on back in his high school years, and he's clearly had many years of practice since then. His stick figures look better than the average person's because he draws them with attention to the details of human anatomy and proportions.
Okay, so what's the path? The boring answer: practice, practice, practice. If you really are willing to "put in the 10 years," then you already have the right mentality. But you probably want a little more guidance than that.
Step 1: Start thinking about art in the right way. You think you want to draw from your imagination, but what you really want to draw is reality that doesn't exist. What do I mean by that? Drawing "from imagination" isn't much different than drawing from life; it's just strictly harder. When you draw from life, you see something with your eyes and then copy it onto your paper. When you draw from imagination, you have to see it with your mind's eye and then copy it onto your paper. This means that your imagination has to come up with the details you'd normally see in the world, all on its own! That's very hard. (This is true even for stylized drawing, which I'll get to in a bit.)
So how do you learn to do that? Well, your brain can't come up with realistic details without knowing what realistic details look like. So, every artist needs to start by drawing from life. There's no way to get around it. BUT, there's a catch! If you don't have any artistic inclination right now, you probably don't really know "how" to draw from life! Eventually, you'll "get it," but for now you could use some guidance. So, you need someone to teach you. Assuming you don't have any private art tutor friends, you should get a book. The standard recommendation for new artists is Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, which, despite its title, is not a book about pop psychology and is a book about learning to draw "the right way" from the ground up. What is "the right way"? Basically, it's forcing yourself to draw exactly what you see without thinking about it at all. You need to learn to shut off the part of your brain that tries to draw things the way "they should look" and instead draw them the way "they do look." The book will teach you all about this.
Step 2: Developing your basic skill set. Assuming you picked up the book I just recommended, you're going to want to start reading it and doing the exercises. I recommend spending the first week of your artistic journey just blindly following what the book tells you to do. Do one exercise per day for the first 5-7 exercises, and read the material in between your practice. Do practice 5-6 days a week for at least 30 minutes each day (preferably longer, but we all have lives). Don't burn yourself out by spending an entire Saturday blowing through half the book. If you're having fun with your drawing, do some light doodles on the side, but don't undertake more than one major project per day. Spend your doodling time just playing with the pencil (or pen), drawing shapes, experimenting with holding the pencil in different ways, etc. Just have fun. Not only will this keep your brain fresh for the major projects, but it's learning in its own right because you're developing comfort and flexibility with your instrument.
Step 3: Embark on your own projects. If you've worked through the first 5-7 exercises of that book, then you probably "get it" a little more than you did before; enough to start drawing anything and everything that catches your fancy. At this point, you don't need to keep following the book. Feel free to only come back to it when you need ideas or inspiration.
Copy, copy, copy. Like a picture you see online? Copy it. Your version won't be as good, but it doesn't matter, because it's all practice. However, try to make at least 50% of your drawings from real life (as in, 3D objects that you see with your physical eyes), and not pictures you see in books or on the internet. Why? Because drawing from a picture is easier than drawing from life. Pictures are, by definition, "flattened" for you, so you don't have to interpret what you're seeing as much. You need to be able to visualize and interpret objects in 3D, so you need to draw from life.
Step 4: Challenge yourself. Although your art skill will have undoubtedly improved by this point, you're still super far from your goal. This is usually where people settle in to only drawing things that they can draw kinda-sorta well, like simple objects, or copies of cartoons without any shading. This is a huge mistake! You have so much to learn and you know it, so don't stunt your growth now. If you're not sure what to practice next, I recommend drawing human beings. Why? Because there's not a single artist on the entire planet that couldn't benefit from being able to draw people; it's basically a necessary skill. It's also difficult, and forces you to move out of your comfort zone. But it's also a highly desirable skill, and once your humans start looking, well, human, you're going to feel super proud of yourself.
How do you practice figure drawing? Well, if you can find real people to pose for you naked, then go with that. But, your friends and family probably aren't going to be comfortable with that. If you feel up to it, try to find a figure drawing class (check local community colleges). But, if all else fails, find pictures of naked people online (really not that hard).
Regardless of whether you decide to pursue anatomy at this point, there are two huge skills you should start working on about now: foreshortening and shading. This shit's super hard, and you're going to suck for a super long time at it. If you don't know what foreshortening is, it's basically the fact that objects warp themselves into optical illusions when you're not looking at them at right-angles. Your brain processes this seamlessly, but as a non-artist you've never thought about this before, so you're going to be terrible at drawing objects from all kinds of angles. Shading is exactly what you think, but there's no "secret" to it; not only is seeing light and shadow (in an artistic way) hard in its own right, but just getting the shadow to look right on the damn paper is a skill unto itself. NO MATTER HOW LONG YOU SUCK AT THESE THINGS, DO NOT BECOME DISCOURAGED. This is the death valley of art. Every single artist just needs to hammer away at this stuff until they start to become better at it, little by little. When you first start drawing, you usually make surprisingly quick progress. But this stuff? SLOWWWWW. Just do it and do it and do it, over and over and over. You will improve, very slowly, until you're actually kind of okay at it. Do not give up. Do not get frustrated. Block all emotion out of your head about this stuff, because you will not feel anything positive about your skills in this department for a long time.
Step 5: You're an Artist! It turns out there's no "endgame" for art. Every artist thinks they suck until they die, but around this time you'll start realizing that you can kinda-sorta draw almost anything. From this point forward, draw the things you want to draw, and go out of your way to practice the things you know (deep down) you need extra work on. Improvement at this point is measured in years, not months, but if you stick with it, you will become "a good artist" by the end of your 10-year timeline. Of course, at that point, you'll still realize there are infinite ways to improve, and you'll realize you're going to be working on this until you die. But congrats, that just means you're an artist.
---
Q&A
Q: All you talk about is pencil drawing here. What about painting??
A: Drawing with a writing instrument on paper is where you should start because it's super cheap, super flexible (you can do it anywhere), and super productive (the line is a fundamental artistic unit). You should start experimenting with alternative artistic instruments (marker, chalk, feathers dipped in lamb blood, whatever) near the end of Step 3. At the start of Step 4, feel free to start transitioning to other mediums, like painting (digital of physical). Painting is about "form" more than about "line," but you'll need the fundamentals you developed in steps 1-3 to paint anyway.
Q: What about cartoons/manga/anime/comic books/Tim Burton/Picasso? Those aren't realistic! When can I start doing stylized drawings from my imagination?
A: No matter how abstract or stylized something is, it always has roots in reality. That's why you need to never stop drawing/painting/etc. from real life and real photos. However, you can start experimenting with these fields in Step 3. Do not let them make up more than half of your time practicing, though.
Everyone starts off not knowing how to draw (with some very rare exceptions). It is definitely something that can be learned. For example, Van Gogh started learning art when he was about 27.
You should check out Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards. It's more than just step-by-steps and tutorials. It goes into detail about how to learn to draw and how your brain perceives and processes imagery. Once you do get started, keep at it! ...and marvel at the new super power you've acquired! :D
I can't really add anything to this conversation seeing as Maxwell Lord left such an excellent and thorough critique. However, one thing I will add is that you should definitely go out and pick up these two books:
I would also recommend that you get the superb art instructional books by Andrew Loomis. Unfortunately, a lot of these are long out of print but - thankfully - you can download some free, digital versions here.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1585429201/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1463435275&amp;sr=8-1&amp;pi=SY200_QL40&amp;keywords=drawing+on+the+right+side+of+the+brain&amp;dpPl=1&amp;dpID=516I7mz%2BZEL&amp;ref=plSrch
This is a good book to learn how to look at things
Have you done the exercises in drawing on the right side of the brain? Stuff like blind contour drawing helps with those skill significantly, and seeing the atrocious craziness you get from it will help disconnect your "inner critique".
Another trick is to draw like you were a kid. I doubt that you were forcing it so much when you were a child, just do it the same way again.
Finally, have explicit process goals of doing 100 drawings or drawings in a few seconds. That'll help your mind focus on what you can control.
The comparison to slavery is apt: The New Jim Crow goes into detail about how the drug war and spike in mass incarceration is being used not to keep dangerous criminals locked up but as for-profit social control, much like how vagrancy laws were used to lock up blacks and put them to work after slavery was abolished.
> What new Jim Crow laws are you talking about?
Primarily mass incarceration, but also continued redlining, police brutality, etc. I recommend reading this book, it's amazing.
> What do you mean by “have this”?
Let them have their own film and simply be a guest in this space, e.g., not being a cop and dressing up as black panther.
> By letting black people “have this” does that mean no one can buy it on DVD? Or that they can’t buy the merchandise or listen to the music?
No and no (meaning you can do those things). It's mostly about respect. We should partake, not take.
If anyone wants to learn more about Number 6, there'a good book called "The New Jim Crow" which goes into detail of some of the shadiness that was engaged in. Also, Cracked doesn't mention it but this era of time is where vagrancy laws came from.
> Whites don't have the ability to put their pitfalls on racism. Whites are thought to automatically be advantaged compared to blacks simply because of their skin color, so not being accountable for their actions is bogus.
It seems like we aren't even talking about the same thing anymore. You have some kind of narrative that black people aren't taking responsibility for something and it's not fair because black people can blame their problems on racism. But that is not the question that you discuss at the top of the tin.
I am talking about whether the difference in outcomes between US black people and US white people on a population level can be blamed on racism. The fact is, not much distinguishes black people from white people in this country except for the legacy of slavery and racism. The entire meaning we attribute to "blackness," and why we compile statistics on whites and blacks but not blue eyed people vs brown eyed people or brown haired people vs black haired people, is a consequence of that history, and a legacy of racism. No amount of apologetics or attempts to shift blame can elide that history.
> Does that legacy of racism get to last forever? Does it get to supersede the consequence of our actions?
Again, either we are talking past each other here, or your reasoning is difficult for me to understand. The legacy of racism lasts as long as the legacy of racism lasts, and it's still going plain and simple. Slavery lasted 300 years, and Jim Crow lasted another 100 before the civil rights movement. Even if you think that racism is over now, you don't undo that all in ~50 years.
Then recently we've had decades of the harsh punishment and overincarceration of black men, redlining, toxic mortgage loans targeted disproportionately at racial minorities... A good summary of very recent acts of discrimination is here, and a great book on our racially unjust system of incarceration is here.
Just because we all want the legacy of racism to be over doesn't mean it is, or that people asserting the bald truth that it still exists are looking for excuses for the "consequences of our actions." If anything, it's the other way around. People seem determined to turn a blind eye to the consequences of our actions as a nation, and to whitewash our history towards that end.
> I'm not getting why we can ignore the actions.
I explicitly said at the top that we can't. People obviously and trivially bear personal responsibility for their actions. But nevertheless, the difference in population level outcomes is attributable to historical and present racism within the United States.
>Another claim made by BLM is that they are regularly targeted by police officers in an unfair manner. This can be attributed to the fact that blacks commit a highly disproportionate amount of crime.
So what you're saying is that it's okay for officers to treat all blacks poorly because blacks are more likely to be criminals? I hope you're able to see why that would be a problem.
I would also suggest reading The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander. It doesn't shy away from the fact that a larger percentage of blacks than whites commit crimes in America. What it focuses on is the fact that the punishment for these crimes are usually unfairly more harsher for blacks than whites. It also brings up the fact that poorer blacks are more likely to be targeted than poorer whites despite having similar crime rates.
There is most certainly a problem, it's just not so much in the open as in other countries.
I'm not so sure I agree with this analogy. It doesn't address the fact that the question is flawed in the first place. The problem with it is that assumes that black people don't also organize against the crime in their communities, which happens at so many levels. There are many, many people trying to make their communties better who speak out against crime, but the OP isn't bothering to see if any such action is happening. He might not be aware of all the black people trying to address violence, but the question assumes that black people don't do anything at all.
On another level, high crime rates are very much the result of systemic forces that have existed in our country for centuries, but going into that is going to make this comment turn into a book, and the book has already been written.
I haven't seen this doc yet (just added it to my list!), but it reminds me of an amazing book I just read called The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander, about how the felony and incarceration system in the US limits the rights of african americans in a way similar to the Jim Crow segregation laws. I was skeptical of the scope of the problem at first, but the book was really convincing- I'd recommend it if you're interested in learning more about our prison system and how messed up it is.
If you want to hire someone, you probably want a life coach. If you're looking for someone who will help you on many of these angles, that would be a life coach. Someone with a more detached, professional view of your life who can provide motivation, a sounding board, accountability, etc.
Now, seeing as you are broke AF, I'm not sure if a life coach is affordable. So if you want to DIY this, I have a couple of suggestions.
The value for you in Getting Things Done (GTD) is the initial collection, processing and organization phase, along with the workflow habits it can build. That initial process of gathering up all this stuff that has accumulated in your life over the past year you've been unable to work and deciding what you're going to do with it should be helpful in getting you moving forward again.
But where GTD kind of falls down in my opinion is in deciding what you are going to do and providing structure in how your organize your tasks. And I think both of those are provided much better in Agile Results. That system has a much more intentional process of laying out a vision for your year, month, week, and day that makes working through all your goals and the accumulated backlog easier.
As a lifelong mild hoarder myself, this book was kind of life changing. It really helped change my outlook on "stuff" and using her method of decluttering worked way better than all the other tips I'd tried. The basic principle is that you keep only stuff that you actually take pleasure in owning and get rid of the rest. You tackle things in categories instead of room by room. So for an example we gathered up every single piece of rain gear we owned. Instead of hanging onto every random umbrella we would stumble across, when we saw everything together we got rid of the 4 crappy umbrellas we never wanted to use and kept the 1 large and 1 compact umbrella that work very well. She also has a lot of tips on dealing with the psychology of letting go of your stuff (saying goodbye to it, recognizing that you're letting go of the object, not the person/memory associated with it). It's really quite amazing.
But be warned, it is quite an undertaking once you get going. You need to dedicate real time to accomplishing her categories. And go in the order in the book! So start with clothes and easy stuff and keep the video games and anime for the last category (which is stuff that involves more emotions) for when you're more on a roll.
If you struggle with stuff I highly recommend Marie kondo's book, the life changing magic of tidying up
Otherwise! Keep it up! Your space will feel sooo much better afterwards!
You might find reading Come As You Are helpful.
Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science that Will Transform Your Sex Life https://www.amazon.com/dp/1476762090/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_awd_7tfNwbVA6EJ10
I want to recommend a book to you. It's called "Come as You Are" by Emily Nagoski Ph.D. (which you can buy on Amazon for like $12).
I read this book last year and it's been hugely beneficial to me in discovering/exploring my sexuality. The author is incredibly knowledgeable and has the science to back it up.
Specifically, there's a part in this book that I thought of when I read your post. The author talks in depth about how women and men have different means of arousal. For a man, the idea of sex is enough to turn him on. Women, however, require a little more. Simply thinking about having sex isn't enough to get them totally prepared/in the mood. Instead, women have more of a "responsive desire" where there needs to be some foreplay for them to respond to, then the desire is there.
I'm probably doing a terrible job summarizing the key points she hits but I seriously can't recommend this book enough to you. Here's an interview she did with NPR. If you find it interesting then I think her book would be enormously helpful.
Read Come As You Are as a a starting point.
Not to sound like an advertisement, but, I just started reading this book called Attached... Might help you deal with some of your relationship issues as well.. Find it very interesting, got it from the library -
https://www.amazon.ca/Attached-Science-Adult-Attachment-Help/dp/1585429139
You two don't sound very compatible. It sounds like her attachment style is anxious, while yours is avoidant - a sure recipe for angst on both sides.
TL/DR: Know what you want to be paid, be specific, show off your work, your resume isn't graded, and interview the company as much as they interview you.
Got my first industry programming job by posting on here about a year ago. I'd just graduated uni and was looking for a serious gig.
It took three or four posts over two months before I finally was starting to get decent offers. The ads that failed were generic, didn't market my skills well, and weren't specific enough as to what I actually needed, thus I got lots of Rev-Share-only offers, lots of $400 a week offers, and lots of "exposure" offers. There were a few offers for positions I was in no way qualified for, either.
For reference, this and this were my unsuccessful ads, this was my successful one.
I'm actually just now starting to look for a new job (my contract is up), and revamp my portfolio site, and my general advice is:
Bonus: If you're a programmer, get "Cracking the Coding Interview". It is amazing and will help you figure out what potential employers are looking for.
edit: ._. oh. This is a bit old. Oh well. Hopefully someone'll see it and get something from it.
https://www.amazon.fr/Models-Attract-Women-Through-Honesty/dp/1463750358
I also didn't like Mark Manson's TSAONGAF, but his previous book, Models: How to attract women through honesty, was a life changer. I mean, I'm still trying to implement the principles into my life but it already started to change my life for the better. It's not just for the single guys btw, any man who wants to be attractive should read this book.
I've recently been working on my JS skills and heres a few resources I've found super useful:
Books:
Javascript Patterns
Javascript: The Good Parts
Javascript: The Definitive Guide (While an exhausive resource on the topic, this one is a bit verbose)
Web:
Mozilla's Javascript Guide (One of the best free online javascript guides/references.
How to Node (Tutorials on server-side Node.js)
Daily JS (Interesting JS related news)
Echo JS (Similar to above but updates less frequently)
Hacker News (This is more general tech news but there is a ton of useful web stuff, especially as node.js is currently a hot topic. Reddit actually spawned from HN)
Online Videos (free)
Douglas Crockford's Javascript Lectures (I would recommend these to anyone getting into javascript)
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/Getting_started_with_the_web/JavaScript_basics
https://www.codecademy.com/learn/introduction-to-javascript
https://www.learn-js.org/
https://www.udacity.com/course/intro-to-javascript--ud803
https://www.udemy.com/beginning-javascript/
https://www.coursera.org/courses?query=javascript
https://javascript.info/
https://www.w3schools.com/js/
https://www.amazon.com/Eloquent-JavaScript-3rd-Introduction-Programming/dp/1593279507
https://www.amazon.com/JavaScript-Good-Parts-Douglas-Crockford/dp/0596517742
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=you+don%27t+know+js&amp;crid=3CTP426AMFRY2&amp;sprefix=you+don%27t+know+%2Caps%2C208&amp;ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_15
One more to add: JavaScript: The Good Parts
(obligatory joke)
In all seriousness, it is a really good book.
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First of all, don't worry too much about a single interview. A lot of interviewers don't really know what they're doing / why they are actually asking the questions they are asking. Usually, they're programmers--not experts at hiring people.
Having said that, you definitely want to be familiar with common "gotchas" and major issues in the languages/frameworks you will be using.
For JS, I recommend two books in particular: JavaScript: The Good Parts and JavaScript Patterns. I found these helpful because they cover all the major issues with the language and they are quite concise. These don't cover any frameworks like jQuery or Angular though--that's another matter altogether.
Also take a look here: https://github.com/h5bp/Front-end-Developer-Interview-Questions
There's a good chance the interviewers will straight up copy questions from this list and you researching the answers will be a great learning experience.
Now I'm imagining a book titled "PHP: The Good Parts". (Kind of like "Javascript: The Good Parts".) Only, it's less of a book and more of a pamphlet.
Advanced
Medium
Old, but probably still relevant
Yet to be released, but you can get the in progress pdf from the publisher
Docs
The one that everybody recommends
HTML5 spec
HTML5Rocks
Latest Webkit News
Other than that build build build. Make demos and play. Ask questions here or on stackoverflow and read other people's code. Also, lots of great old JSConf videos out there.
Check out JavaScript, the Good Parts. Imo the best beginner JS book. No one should be able to save a .js file without reading it :)
You can learn angular without learning JS first, but it sure will help you go a lot further if you understand the fundamentals of JS.
http://www.amazon.com/JavaScript-Good-Parts-Douglas-Crockford/dp/0596517742
May I recommend the following book:
http://www.amazon.com/Everyone-Turtleback-School-Library-Binding/dp/0613685725
Damn dude I gotta buy everybody a copy of Everyone Poops (Turtleback Binding Edition) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0613685725/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_ymvGDb3MQ25HJ
Everyone Poops
Buy it here
My journey started when I discovered the book "The Power of Habits" by Charles Duhigg. It made me realize that if I wanted to make long-lasting changes in my life, I needed to turn good habits into automatic actions. Nowadays, eating well, working out, taking care of skin and hair... it all feels like second nature!
In terms of weight loss, I eat mostly low-carb and do intermittent fasting (16:8). I don't count calories, but I write down everything I eat in a food journal to keep myself accountable. Eating low-carb has killed my sugar cravings and has helped me feel more energetic and satiated. (No more carb crashes in the afternoon!) Doing intermittent fasting has put a stop to my night-time snacking, and it has helped me maintain a good CICO deficit without having to count calories.
In terms of fitness, I workout four times per week: two days of weightlifting and two days of HiiT Cardio. I also do two days of light yoga for flexibility and relaxation. I have recently achieved my first set of fitness goals. I can now hold a plank for a minute, wall sit for a minute, and do 10 real push-ups. Oh and I can touch my toes standing! I am excited to set new goals for this summer!
Hey Man--Glyco is great. Its life changing and can really help control your hyperhidrosis with a few other supplemental treatments. I highly recommend you try it, along with other supplemental practices, to get your hyperhidrosis under control/take control of your life.
I have pretty bad palmar/plantar hyperhidrosis, with a bit of axillary thrown in there. I lived with this for the longest time and used things to cover it up (folded pieces of paper when taking notes in class, avoid shaking hands, going to washroom to wash hands, etc.). After I graduated college, I decided to start seeking treatment for it, and went to a dermatologist.
My dermatologist prescribed me Glyco, and it gets it really under control. In addition to this, I started using prescription strength deodorant (use it properly, apply it before you go to bed at night, and then use normal deodorant for the day). With both these treatments, my hyperhidrosis is relatively under control.
Things to note about Glyco
• How bad is/was your Palmar Hyperhidrosis before any treatment? Did you drip?
My Palmar Hyperdrosis was pretty bad. My hands were always clamy and if I didn't wipe them on my clothes/towels, they would start dripping. I also had Plantar Hyperdrosis and my socks would often be soaked by the end of the day if I couldn't change them.
• How big of a dosage do you take to help your Palmar HH?
I think I take 2mg. You will build up a tolerance, so you may have to up the dosage or take breaks once in a while (break = 1 - 2 weeks).
• How effective he Glyco been for you personally with preventing you sweaty hands? Are they completely dry? Do they still drip? Are they just clamy?
Its been extremely effective. They are dry most of the time, although stressful situations sometimes cause sweating. This usually stops. Clamy-ness is definitely gone. Before, even if I'm not in a stressful situation, my hands are clamy at best. With Glyco, hands are never clamy.
Look luck buddy. Get this shit under control and your life will be so much better. Its worth putting in the effort to look up treatments and spend some time building habits to manage your own treatment (Look up Power of Habit if you need some inspiration!).
Improve yourself & learn things
Habits
Learn about habit formation. Watch tiny habits, check out the subreddit Xeffect or read Power of habit.
the Power of Habit
I second the book recommendation.
https://www.amazon.com/Come-You-Are-Surprising-Transform/dp/1476762090
There’s a book specifically about the barriers of orgasm by a sex health scholar Emily Nagoski titled Come As You Are. If you’re unable to purchase it, your local library may have it as an ebook to rent.
Book link via Amazon
Talvez você precise de mais experiencia pra conseguir algo assim, mas ganhar em euros ou dólares é melhor que ganhar em reais.
Eu trabalho remoto direto pra uma empresa de fora, mas tenho vários amigos que trabalham pela toptal. Pelo que sei, ganham no começo 35 trumps por hora (os projetos podem ter horas variáveis), mas é um pé na porta pra conseguir algo melhor depois.
Sobre areas, o que vejo mais oportunidade é front-end, principalmente com react, mas isso varia muito pra cada região.
If you are a CS major I'd go with the $15 package just so you can get the two books on security. In terms of helping your job prospects, I'd think about the following:
Assuming you already know how to program in a handful of languages, you might find the following useful:
Of course depending on what your interested in (e.g., mobile, web, systems, etc.) there are additional great resources but these will at least get you moving in the right direction. The biggest thing is just practice writing code as much as possible.
Mengetahui lebih dari satu bahasa pemrograman adalah persyaratan wajib jika ingin menjadi programmer professional. Pelajari low-level language seperti C dan C++ karena akan sangat membantu memahami high-level language yang lebih banyak dipakai di dunia kerja. Satu saran berguna: pelajari terlebih dahulu teknologi dasar yang membangun sebuah framework sebelum mempelajari frameworknya. Misalnya jangan langsung belajar Angular, pelajari dasar-dasar JavaScript terlebih dahulu. Jangan langsung belajar Laravel, pelajari dasar-dasar PHP terlebih dahulu.
Kurikulum pemrograman dibuat sejatinya untuk mencetak lulusan yang mampu menghasilkan good software. But contrary to what you'll face in real world. Di dunia kerja kamu akan menyadari bahwa bisnis lebih menginginkan "produk" ketimbang mengaplikasikan best software practices. Artinya kamu harus punya gambaran perusahaan seperti apa yang kamu impikan sebagai tempat bekerja nantinya.
Inti dari dunia pengembangan perangkat lunak adalah algoritma dan data. Di dunia kerja kamu akan dihadapkan dengan banyak sekali data dan bagaimana mengelola data tersebut. Perkuat pengetahuan fundamental, yaitu algoritma dan struktur data.
Pemrograman itu sulit. Sulit. Jangan berharap untuk menjadi expert dalam hitungan minggu atau bulan. Tapi tahunan.
Kalau sudah lulus kamu bisa baca buku ini untuk menghadapi interview.
Edit. Tambahan. Ingat bahwa programming languages, library, framework etc, is just a tool. Merely a tool. Modal kamu yang paling berharga adalah kemampuan merancang arsitektur sebuah sistem.
Cracking the Code Interview is the most well known book for interview programming questions. However, it's focused on harder interview questions than "reverse a
char[]", which is little more than a basic "can you program" check (the interview questions that CTCI covers are skill checks).For solving something like "reverse a
char[]", you should be able to do this after a first year programming class. It requires basic array and loop knowledge; nothing more. For a resource to cover that, you could use a MOOC like this one. It'll cover the basics enough to answer that question and similar ones, but you'd still need a lot more if you'd want to reach the point of being employable (merely being able to reverse achar[]is not enough to get a job -- it's just a way for the interviewer to quickly figure out if they're wasting their time).Live radically below your income level no matter what it is and invest as high a percentage as possible.
Change every habit in your life to save and invest, and not spend.
Change every habit in your life to recognize 99% of what you do is based on habit and consumption, that people have existed for 10's of thousands of years and lived on very little. Water, a bit of food and shelter. Reduce your existence to that and invest the rest.
Read "Millionaire Next Door".
Read "Habit"
It will cost you about $20. Follow them like the bible, like your compass. And in 30 days when you haven't done any of this, re-read this answer.
That's all there is to it. Follow that and you will become wealthy. There is nothing more to this, 99.9999% of humans cannot do it. And the wealthy benefit from that every day.
You're welcome.
I can only recommend bootcamps for 2 types of people:
But for the rest, I think you're better served biting the bullet and going back to school for an actual diploma or degree program.
For what a bootcamp provides, I think it's really expensive ($8600-9000 over 2-3 months). Ironically, the appeal of a bootcamp is also the main flaw of a bootcamp: time. For people who have no tech background (which is the main target demographic of bootcamps), you're essentially cramming all these tech concepts, languages and frameworks in 2-3 months. Are you going to retain all of this information 6 months later?
When you graduate from a bootcamp, you're competing with CS graduates, diploma students who had years to hone their skills. Give yourself an honest assessment and ask how you'll do against them?
I highly recommend going through a book called: Cracking the Coding Interview
These are the type of questions that the top companies will ask. Good luck with your pursuit!
I would recommend brushing over some basic CS concepts first. Since you've been out of school for a few years now, it might be a good time to start working on little side projects and/or programming exercises if software engineering is what you want to get into.
You can also check out this book, which will help you prepare for a programming/tech interview.
What type of job are you looking to get? Are you interested in software support? development? IT? Your preparation will depend on what route you want to go down.
Yes! Also, quite honestly I don't know that many CS majors who took linear algebra at my school for whatever reason.
Where do you get started?
Bonus for programming:
Maintainable kinda means that your code is easy to test, easy to comprehend (by others) and easy to modify. Read up on different design patterns to learn more about this.
Scalable is something you'll learn more about later, but basically it's kind of thinking about whether your code will be "good" enough to handle a lot of users (how fast is it how much memory will it take up)
Testing is very important when coding. You want to try to write small pieces of code then test it (i.e.: make sure it works).
All three of these things show up a lot in interviews, and if you can relate why you made your code the way you did to one of these three points (or something else) you should be pretty well off :D
How do I land an interview?
How do I study for an Interview?
Typcially, an interview will have you and the interviewer. The interviewer will first ask questions about you, what you're majoring in. And then maybe ask questions about your previous projects, and then he'll throw you a programming problem. Sometimes these can just be questions like "Which is faster: quicksort or mergsort?" or something like that, but other times they'll have you code something. If the interview is online, this will either mean you'll need to tell them the code you're writing or you'll code online on some collabarative envirionment (i.e.: you type the code online). If it's in-person they may have you write on a whiteboard. There are other formats of interviews as well, so make sure to research. Typically, for most larger companies, they won't care what language you code in (hopefully though it's mainstream!), but if you don't code in a language which they use, they may test you later for proficiency in one of their languages.
Sorry, not sure if this helps or not!
Good luck!
Read this
It will help you pass the interview process.
But before that you need to have a strong resume to attract recruiters.
Build a personal project. Participate in algorithm contests(acm).
> short of a very detailed rehearsal of many different problems
Exactly.
I've had about 5 interviews with companies in the Bay Area, and in my experience all of them follow the same general sequence:
For the specific type of questions they ask, I recommend this book and /r/cscareerquestions
edit: and the technical screenings are always live coding sessions using a shared document. That shit is nerve racking and I recommending practising before the interview.
Never ever ever ever ever ever ever EVER ever ever EVER tell a company "I'm not suited for the job". Have some balls! Sure, you messed up, but hold your head high. Everyone messes up in their life at interviews; I know I have many times. Confidence can go a long way in promoting your personal image.
FizzBuzz is probably the most simple, commonly used interview question out there to see if a programmer can actually program. It doesn't get much simpler than that. I hate to break it to you, but Modulus is one of the most basic foundation concepts you need to know, and it's definitely taught in any entry level OOP book or Uni program. I dare you to show me a "Learn programming in Java/C++/Any other OO Language" book that doesn't cover it in the first few chapters.
You are over-thinking the solution here: it's meant to show how well a candidate can easily write clean, short code. There's no reason for you to abstract the functionality of finding whether a number is evenly divisible into a method - that's over complication in design, and it's a red flag for employers. I think you may have believed that isolating specific mathematic processes into methods seemed like a good idea to show off that you know object oriented principles. You're on the right track. However, if the process you're writing can be completed in a single line of code, let alone under 10 characters, you're just adding more dependencies and complication to a simple block of code. I would suggest this as a more clean solution to fizzbuzz (in Java):
for (int x=0; x<=100; x++) {
if(x%3==0 && x%5==0)
System.out.println("FizzBuzz");
else if(x%3==0)
System.out.println("Fizz");
else if(x%5==0)
System.out.println("Buzz");
else
System.out.println(x);
}
I personally struggled with a decent amount of interviews until I started to actually prepare for the interview. I recommend finding time to work through these two books; they'll help prepare you for what kind of questions to expect.
http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Interviews-Exposed-Secrets-Landing/dp/1118261364/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1377704276&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=programming+interviews+exposed
http://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/098478280X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1377704294&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=cracking+the+coding+interview
And most important of all: NEVER get down on yourself! Every tough problem or terrible interview you have is just a learning experience. Never tell yourself you aren't good enough, or just outright give up. You aren't allowed. Stick with it, and prepare months in advance, like homework. You don't have to be that person dedicating every waking moment of their life to programming, but if you're serious about keeping your interview skills sharp, you need to dedicate some time to learning the questions. Good luck!
EDIT: Grammar, etc.
TL;DR Improve yourself, invest in your future, don't worry about the mistakes...read the books listed at bottom, and practice!
Few months ago I royally fucked up an interview at Microsoft. A really simple question. But I had no experience doing coding on paper instead of a computer.
I spent a lot of time studying various books and paper coding to make sure it wouldn't happen again.
I then had an interview for another (in my mind at the time) dream job. I did fine for all the phone interviews and they flew me over to the west coast for an in person interview for the day. I did well for the first bit until they started pulling out dynamic programming and integer programming questions on me and expecting me. Once again something I didn't prepare for, and f'd up. Didn't get this job either. For the longest time I was really hard on myself at fucking up on both these interviews one after another. Especially this second one since a lot more was riding on it than just the job (another story).
But then I decided I didn't want to have this sort of experience again and expected better of myself. I made myself further improve and brush up on all those concepts as well. Did a few mock interviews with friends, spent some time working on interview type questions on both the computer and on paper. A month or two later I started interviewing again. By this point I was an interviewing machine - and I'm now able to do just about anything thrown at me. I've had my choice of employers and until just recently, was in the situation where I had so many offers I didn't know which one I wanted most. I'll be heading to silicon valley soon at one of the top tech companies in the world with a fantastic offer considering I just graduated.
The point is - learn from the mistakes and improve yourself. I realize you don't want to be that guy spending heaps of time coding outside of work or whatever... but this is an investment in yourself and your career. Do it once, and then just brush up on your skills from time to time. Get into the interviewing mindset and just rock them so you can have your choice of job - and then you can go about your thing once you have the job locked. The up front investment will be worth it!
Things that helped me:
Having trouble with Algorithm design/analysis? These are some of the go-to books for that:
While you said books haven't helped, give this one a try: http://www.amazon.com/Head-First-Design-Patterns-Freeman/dp/0596007124
This website is pretty good also: http://sourcemaking.com/design_patterns
The book, Head First Design Patterns, is actually pretty good.
You could also read the book that started it all, Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software. Although good, it is a dull read - I had to force myself to get through it.
Martin Fowler is also really good, in particular, I thoroughly enjoyed his book Patterns of Enterprise Architecture.
If you want more of an MS/.NET slant of things, you should also check out Dino Esposito. I really enjoyed his book Microsoft .NET: Architecting Applications for the Enterprise.
My recommendation would be to start with the Head First book first, as this will give you a good overview of the major design patterns.
Effective Java
Head First Design Patterns
http://www.theserverside.com/
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/java
For language specific stuff like c++ I'd suggest:
https://www.toptal.com/c-plus-plus/interview-questions as a pretty good quick review. Going through c++ primer (or whatever book you learned C++ from) and just touching on all the topics that you don't remember can help a lot.
What helped me with design patterns is head first design patterns. Even though that book seems very 'intro' it has helped me pass all the design pattern question I've ever gotten. I think just visitor, singleton and MVC are the most popular interview design patterns. The more canonical 'gang of four' book would be: this.
For just practice tech interview problems that you'll see on silicon valley, big4 tech interviews, the most popular site is probably leetcode (hackerrank, or top coder or even codewars are pretty good sources too). The most popular book (as mentioned many times) is Cracking the coding interview.
Just grinding out problems on leetcode, you'll probably learn enough to pass most tech interviews after about 100-200 questions (if you've never done this before, less if you have).
Before/during your leetcode practice I've written a series of tech interview tips to help you check on your fundamentals (you can check it out at fizzbuzzed.com). I try to go over the questions I see people failing most often. I'm also trying to help readers so would love to help you if you run into problems.
I also think you should ask the recruiter the style of interview you'll be having. If you are on the whiteboard then you should practice on it before hand (whiteboard interview tips here.
Pragmatic Programmer, Clean Code, and Head First Design Patterns come to mind right away. They're 3 of my favorites.
There's also Design Patterns by the Gang of Four. That's a lot more dense IMO than Head First, but it's fantastic material.
Since you're looking to jump ship and start interviewing, take a look at Cracking the Coding Interview. That will prepare you for any questions you run into during the process.
It's probably also worth brushing up on Algorithms and Data structures.
That is a lousy professor. You want to learn more? Nope, don't think so.
You could find open source projects that are written in java. Or maybe check out the source code for OpenJDK (library implementation).
But better yet, pick up a book. You have the popular book Clean Code by R. C. Martin that covers how to write clean and maintainable code. Or maybe the book Head first: Design Patterns by that covers common designs used to make adaptable and reusable code.
But your professor has one point. You should not get lost into code design when still learning the basics. So remember to focus on what you learn in class! :)
It depends on what I'm reading. 20 for the average book is about what I can read. I've had things like What Every Programmer Should Know About Memory that I could only do 5 pages at best and things like Head First Design Patterns where I could do 40 or 50
An interesting side note is that I've also been reading books like Thinking, Fast and Slow that basically say that we have a finite amount of mental will power. We can only focus on a difficult task for so long before we run out of steam. The only way we know to improve focus this is by maintaining decent glucose levels. So you might be able to improve your limit by having a snack or breaking for something to eat.
I've also been reading Seach inside yourself. It's book on meditation written by a programmer at Google. I'm hoping to improve my focus with meditation. It might also let you bump up your number number of pages per-day or at least let you settle in to reading faster
I find the Head First Design Patterns book to be really helpful. The code samples are in Java, but for the most part the examples are very readable even if you're not familiar with the language. Most of the good stuff is in the explanations, as opposed to the specific implementations shown in the code samples.
So this is what I would consider the "Core" reading list for anyone interested in programming games. None of this is really game specific though. These are just the fundamentals you need in order to be an effective Software Engineer.
Learn about...
C++ syntax: Programming: Principles and Practice Using C++ by Bjarne Stroustrup
Software Engineering: Code Complete by Steve McConnell
C++ gems: Effective C++ by Scott Meyer
Software Teams: The Mythical Man-Month by Frederick P. Brooks Jr.
Why we love Joel: Joel on Software by Joel Spolsky
Problem Solving: The Pragmatic Programmer by Andrew Hunt
Common Code Solutions: Head First Design Patterns by Eric Freeman
Pearls!: Programming Pearls by Jon Bentley
I'll do a supplemental on this in a few days that dives into specific topics related to engine development. All of this is generic enough that it will help you regardless of what you do. You'll notice that very little here is actually language specific. Almost all of this is about the art of making software and process of working with a team. These 8 books alone will make you think about making software in a whole new way.
It will help if you know the basic catalog of OO design patterns (observer, decorator, factory, etc.). Then, if your "very experienced, knowledgeable leader" is kind enough to name things appropriately, it should be a lot easier to understand what's going on.
Head First Design Patterns has a very fun approach, teaches the basic patterns while also covering core OOP design principles.
I have to give a recommendation to http://www.amazon.com/Head-First-Design-Patterns-Freeman/dp/0596007124
E-commerce is where it's at my man. E-commerce is straight forward. It's a store where you buy stuff. Real simple. However, the backend architecture is a bit more involved. You have to handle things like Databases, Queues, Cacheing, Error Logging, Load balancing, etc. If you want to be a mid-level back end dev you really need to understand the basics of Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA). You should also be familiar with CI/CD Pipelines and docker containers. Try looking into some open source e-commerce platforms:
https://codinginfinite.com/best-dotnet-core-e-commerce-open-source-platforms/
https://github.com/dotnet-architecture/eShopOnContainers
Also you need a strong understanding of Object Oriented Programming (OOP). So you'll need to understand S.O.L.I.D principles very well. Of the SOLID principles, you should focus heavily on the 'D' which stands for Dependency Inversion.
Lastly, in any decent back-end interview, they'll ask you about design patterns. I'd recommend "Head First Design Patterns" (https://www.amazon.com/Head-First-Design-Patterns-Brain-Friendly/dp/0596007124/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3JOAGN3VIZZ8P&keywords=head+first+design+patterns&qid=1574177751&sprefix=head+first%2Caps%2C187&sr=8-1 )
Hope that helps!
I'll quibble with the "easy to read" part. As a reference, to look up one individual pattern and learn how to use it, I agree with you. As a cover-to-cover book to learn why patterns are important and how they relate to each other, I prefer Head's Up Design Patterns. I find it much more readable (source: I read it cover to cover, after having had the GoF book on my self for years and only reading bits and pieces).
My suggestion to anyone interested in design patterns is to read the Head's Up book, then have the GoF as a reference.
... none of which helps OP for his upcoming interview. :)
In addition to Code Complete 2, which, while very dense, is a compendium of wonderful coding knowledge... I recommend Clean Code by Robert C. Martin.
One of the best books on concurrency that I've ever read is definitely Java Concurrency In Practice it's (obviously) written with Java in mind, but most of the concepts map rather easily to constructs in other languages as well.
The standard for design patterns is still probably Design Patterns (colloquially "Gang of Four")... but I've heard good things about Head First Design Patterns as well, despite the really stupid cover.
Perhaps their parents never bought this book...
https://www.amazon.com/Everyone-Turtleback-School-Library-Binding/dp/0613685725
Edit typo - nevery is not a word.
Really you're just asking who the most powerful character in fiction is, since, as we all know...
You might consider reading 'The Power of Habit'. I recently started reading this and it has some interesting information on how the brain forms and executes habits as well as giving some advice on how to change them.
Or if you don't want to read the book you might consider searching "habit loop" on the internet and getting your learn on that way.
I really liked The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. It has some excellent case studies that look at businesses as well as individuals, and examine how habits work, how they get into your brain, and what techniques you can use to change them.
Χαιρετώ! Καταρχήν σου εύχομαι να τα καταφέρεις στην προσπάθειά σου. Πέρα από γιατρό, διαιτολόγο,ψυχολόγο πήγαινε και σε κανένα group therapy. Κατά πάσα πιθανότητα θα βρεις και άλλους που αντιμετωπίζουν ίδιο πρόβλημα. Επειδή απ' ότι κατάλαβα η υπερφαγία εμφανίζεται σαν αντίδρασή του εγκεφάλου σου στο άγχος θα πρέπει να κοιτάξεις να διαχειριστείς το άγχος με άλλους τρόπους. Αν σου αρέσει το διάβασμα σου προτείνω αυτό το βιβλίο: https://www.amazon.com/Power-Habit-What-Life-Business/dp/081298160X
Read The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. Do that before anything. Write out your goals in great details. Consider this book also, for getting things done. I would consider another shroom trip with the exact intention you have here. Sit in silence for a while, journal what you want to change, then trip. 18, however common, is a dangerous time to start depending on stims, and they won't give you wisdom. Especially if you don't have a plan. Sure, you'll probably feel great and may improve for a while, but its so damn easy for it to end up worse. There's countless stories of that. If you do go that route, I strongly believe in the advice that you plan out EXACTLY what you will do before you take stims. Also, hang out with people who are living the way you want to live.
Studying 8-12 hours is NOT good. Start working out and I recommend these books:
https://www.amazon.com/Good-They-Cant-Ignore-You/dp/1455509124/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1482042700&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=so+good+they+can%27t+ignore+you
https://www.amazon.com/Peak-Secrets-New-Science-Expertise/dp/0544456238/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1482042708&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=peak
https://www.amazon.com/Power-Habit-What-Life-Business/dp/081298160X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1482042776&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=the+power+of+habit
https://www.amazon.com/Letters-Penguin-Classics-Lucius-Annaeus/dp/0140442103/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1482042852&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=seneca
So, the idea is learn HOW to learn. Leisure is important and healthy for everyone.
If your serious about improving yourself this is a step in the right direction.
EDIT: www.calm.com go there and be.
Here's a really good book by someone who used to conduct coding interviews at Microsoft, Amazon, etc.
Cracking the Coding Interview
Still, it's not likely that you'll see the same exact questions on an actual interview. Just practice a lot and get comfortable with solving problems. That will help you when it's time to code on-the-fly at an interview. Also, it's more important to talk through the solutions. Coming up with an innovative, elegant, or efficient solution with pseudocode is more important than getting the syntax exactly right in a particular programming language.
[The Manual] (https://www.amazon.com/Manual-What-Women-Want-Give/dp/1456494554) and [Models] (https://www.amazon.com/Models-Attract-Women-Through-Honesty/dp/1463750358/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1467218700&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=models) are way better. The Manual is my bible. Top inner game!
Mark Manson is pretty great. He started out as a pickup artist, but quickly realized how awful and insincere most of that community is. He then wrote "Models," which is one of the best books I've ever read on being open and honest with yourself and others. It really transcended its roots, which is why he eventually distanced himself from the community and started his blog. He, along with Brene Brown, really turned my life around when I was in a dark place.
I read a book awhile back that you might want to see if you would be interested in called Models: Attract Women Through Honesty by Mark Manson. Think it would help yah.
I would recomended you read Models by Mark Manson. It's a great book that takes an analytical approach on improving yourself and improving your self confidence to attract high caliber women that interest you through honesty. It is much better then over PUA books that focus on pick up lines and being fake. It really helped me a lot.
Models: Attract Women Through Honesty https://www.amazon.com/dp/1463750358/ref=cm_sw_r_other_awd_ou.8wbM9K207W
Edit: He also dedicates a chapter in the book to discussing how to choose locations to meet women that fit what you are looking for, it sounds like going out to clubs probably is not the place to go if you are frustrated by materialsim.
Try this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Models-Attract-Women-Through-Honesty/dp/1463750358
It's a shitty thing to do and you won't get an honest answer so there's really no point.
Generally similar reasons apply for being rejected on dates, if it's something that really bothers you (or just interests you) theres plenty of useful material out there that can put things into context.
https://www.amazon.ca/Models-Attract-Women-Through-Honesty/dp/1463750358
/u/CoachToughLove probably has a a lot to say on this.
I am reading this books called models: attracting women through honesty. It has been extremely helpful for me.
>Models is the first men's dating book ever written on seduction as a purely emotional process rather than a logical one, a process of connecting with women rather than impressing them, a process of self-expression rather than manipulation. It's the most mature and honest guide on how a man can attract women without faking behavior, without lying and without emulating others. A game-changer.
http://www.amazon.com/Models-Attract-Women-Through-Honesty/dp/1463750358/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1420342456&amp;sr=8-2&amp;keywords=models
Gonna jump in here just because as an asian dude I know this is a touchy subject that non-asians might not understand. It sounds like you don't have an "asian" problem, just a social awareness problem.
A couple of books I think you can benefit from reading:
Mate by Tucker Max and Geoffery Miller
Models by Mark Manson
No More Mr. Nice Guy by Robert Glover
I also recommend listening to "The Mating Grounds Podcast" which was the precursor to the Mate book.
You have a lot of mindsets you have to unpack and work on. These books (and podcast), I guarantee you will transform your life, not just your dating life.
Best of luck
Not really, I don't owe you anything to explain, also there are too many things to cover. I suggest reading No More Mr Nice Guy and also Model.
This is the golden question, right?
*
Fake it 'til you make it yields false confidence. Although you'll still be exhibiting the traits of a confident male, you're true self will eventually show itself. It's not sustainable, and at times demeaning towards women.
Now, true confidence, as you seem to hint at here comes from being less invested in others as you are in your perception of yourself** (taken from Mark Manson's book Models - you should absolutely positively read this book). To reach this state, you obviously need to invest in yourself. Investing in yourself means that you have the following nailed down in your life:
Working on these 3 items will improve your overall confidence and it will ooze through literally every action you exhibit in your life.
**
Obviously, tackling these 3 items is quite complex; I highly recommend you check out Mark's book to learn the specifics on how to do each of them. Essentially, to be confident you have to feel* confident: you can only feel that way if you're actually living a great life, and are comfortable in your capacity to handle social situations.
I highly recommend checking out the You Don't Know JS book series by Kyle Simpson. It goes in depth into how the language works and all the quirks you might encounter: https://github.com/getify/You-Dont-Know-JS
If you'd like a shorter read and maybe have your opinions formed for you... checkout JavaScript the good parts: https://www.amazon.com/_/dp/0596517742
> Failing that, are there any good cheatsheets/references for JS "gotchas" and unusual features that devs from other languages might not be familiar with?
There are entire books dedicated to this! (Also some entertaining talks.)
Here are some good JS books not aimed at total beginners:
Bonus (to give you a sense of the kinds of "gotchas" you'll find in JS):
// Even though you pass in numbers, JS sorts them lexicographically
> [5, 1, 10].sort();
[ 1, 10, 5 ]
// You "fix" this by passing in a custom comparator
> [5, 1, 10].sort(function(a, b) { return a - b; });
[ 1, 5, 10 ]
// This probably makes sense to someone, somewhere
> Math.min();
Infinity
> Math.max();
-Infinity
// Some things are best left unknown
> {} + {};
NaN
> var wat = {} + {}; wat;
'[object Object][object Object]'
Here are a bunch more in quiz form.
Not in any order though
In today's shiny web world, it can't hurt to learn JavaScript, but it's a dreadful mess, saved only by this fine book.
Python is a great language for learning, and I think Tasker supports it..
Now, I've spent years in software, and I suggest you stick with Tasker and its plugins, because it is very well thought out. You can learn a lot about real world stuff if you focus on being battery efficient and being responsive. Setting task and profile priorities, scheduling waits, running tasks in parallel, is an art.
Premature optimisation is the root of all evil in programming. JS doesn't necessarily make things faster, and believe me I've seen clueless JS programmers consider using C/C+ for speed, when they could have simply used JS properly. Use libraries, not DIY code, which is why AutoTools is so good.
JS is hard, especially for people new to programming. Basically, JS as we know it today is an evolution of a browser hack that only recently became a seriously useful language. The syntax is terrible, math and numbers don't make any sense, the regex system isn't super robust, oh and it's not really an OOP language. Technically, it is multi-paradigm and includes some oop-like things and classes are on the way to browsers, but it's for naught anyway, because you don't need classes in JS - It's a prototypical inheritance based language.
If you're new to programming in general, I'd say you should start with a more sane environment, like Python. It will teach you programming concepts while railroading you into making good coding decisions. It's really common for people to start with Learn Python the Hard Way - don't. Go to /r/learnpython and search "LPTHW 31" and just count up the people struggling with it. Zed Shaw is an idiot, there are better things to read, I'd recommend watching the google IO talks, get a buddy to learn with. Honestly, I've never read a python book cover to cover, but I feel pretty comfortable with the language from just googling "How do I do X in Python" millions of times, usually if a link comes back to docs.python.org, I click that one first. The docs are wonderful, you don't need a book.
But, since JS is one of the most important languages due to it's integration with the most common form of media distribution in our time, I'd recommend reading / watching talks by Douglas Crockford. Check out Javascript: The Definitive Guide and Javascript: The Good Parts. The second one is a little easier to digest, while the first is really the definitive guide.
In both cases, I'd recommend doing the challenges on hackerrank.com.
Crockford's JavaScript: The Good Parts.
Serious recommend.
I've been using node for about a year now (was a PHP/mySQL dev for 6 years before that) and have come to realise that it's all about methodology. The language is just JS (I mean, you should get good at JS too) but it's how you use it that defines whether your node code will be good or not.
Some things I've found useful:
My experience:
I can definitely relate, this sounds just like me last year! I've done things the hard way and it took me 5x longer. I also prefer screencasts to books. I always need to create a project to solidify those fresh skills, otherwise they'll be gone in a month. Also tutorials for things like Backbone assume you know how to use jQuery, Underscore, and things like REST, and JSON responses... this can quickly get confusing if your not familiar with all of these. My largest regret is not building enough practice apps in the last year. I really should have applied more by doing, instead of staying in the theoretical world.
Here are some insights that i've made and the courses/tuts/projects that helped me the most:
Learn the language first:
Set up a comfy environment
Take some time to start optimizing your development environment, the Paul Irish explains it very well below, but some of the topics are a bit too advanced for now (modules, build tools, etc...).
Learn the native DOM and it's API
Learn jQuery
Read "The Good Parts"
Though very cliche at this point, read through this classic. If you don't really understand it all 100%, make sure you hang on to it though as it gets better with age. Try and follow it as close as possible, then later feel free to break the rules. By then you'll know why you can break them.
Learn Underscore
This is a great library that gives you a lot of cross browser ES5 features and features that should be in JS. Not a lot of tuts on this one, reading the docs and source helps a ton here.
Learn Backbone
There are lots of these libraries but Backbone is the most popular and easiest to learn. Keep in mind this is a library, not an entire framework like ember. This means in a larger app you will essentially use Backbone to help build you own SPA framework for your app.
http://cheeaun.com/blog/2012/03/how-i-built-hacker-news-mobile-web-app
http://cheeaun.com/blog/2012/03/how-i-built-hacker-news-mobile-web-app_26
Learn Node
General Front-End, Programming
Read a comprehensive JS book
I really like Nicholas Zakas's book over the definitive guide. I find that he is able to tell more of a story and makes it easier for me to absorb.
Testing
Make sure you're comfortable with everything before moving onto testing... this includes frameworks etc.. Learning testing will only slow down the learning process if you're not comfortable with the rest. Mocha is the newer test runner and is better with async. However, Jasmine is very popular and time tested. The "Lets code javascript" below is an awesome course. Don't let the first sections turn you off, they may seem tedious at first (integration server, etc...) so feel to skip to dom/browser testing and then loop back when testing is more normal.
--
I just started sketching out a website to try and solve this problem. It has different paths to follow to fill in gaps of JS knowledge quickly (much like hackdesign.org)... unfortunately it's not finished yet! Watch LevelUpJS on Github in the future. I also have some more links on app architecture and things like modules but this list is getting a bit large!
Cheers and good luck!
This should answer your question
https://www.amazon.com/Everyone-Turtleback-School-Library-Binding/dp/0613685725
This will help
May I suggest this for some light reading?
Everyone Poops by Taro Gomi
ISBN-10: 0613685725
ISBN-13: 978-0613685726
Unfortunately I couldn't find a Kindle version. This shook my core. Once I found out that girls, in fact, do poop I was never the same again.
Somebody does not like Nancy Pelosi and has not read this classic book.
from /u/i_Got_Rocks
>Your value system says, "If this girl likes me, I like me."
>Your value system should say, "I like me, no matter what happens to me. Because some things can't be helped, and you can't control other people. If other people don't like me, it's okay, I will find people that DO like me. Everyone is free to do what they want, but this girl that I'm interested in, can do what she wants. If she doesn't want me, it's okay, I'll go on to the next one."
>There's something going on inside you that is waiting for the world to approve of you. Don't feed that false concept. The world will fail you at some time, and you will break (as you're doing at the moment). And the world will never approve you enough--ever.
>Instead, consider a new concept. Start a new habit.
>Say to yourself, "I am not OUTCOME dependent. I am process dependent." Meaning, you don't rely on the OUTCOME of situations to feel happy or sad--that's reactionary. Be proactive. Rely on yourself and only yourself for your emotions. Right now, your emotions are dependent on that girl--and sooner or later, it will be another chick, and another, and you will always be sad or unfulfilled because you can't control others. Depend on yourself to have fun, to feel good, as much as possible at any given situation.
>It's hard to change. It's hard to be a new person that takes responsibility of their emotions. It's hard to be proactive. But hey, being reactive to the world, depending on people to always make you feel happy is exhausting too--and as you can see, it's not a solution to fixing the most important thing in this talk: you.
You're not exactly broken, what's broken is the way you relate and think about yourself. Pretend you are your own best friend. How would you treat your best friend? Would you beat them down all the time? Would you say, "hey, if that chick rejects you, you're not shit."
>OR
>Would you say, "Dude, she's just one chick. And truth, you don't know what she thinks about everything. She might have some hidden thoughts that would turn you off forever--maybe she thinks that Jews really are the source of the world's problems, you don't know. Maybe she picks her toes daily and doesn't wash her hands after. Bro, just let her go, and go on about your life. Believe me, if you work on yourself and focus on being better, it gets better."
>I know which best friend I like better.
Be your own best friend, always. That's the real issue here. Take care of yourself, I cannot state that enough. Good luck, bro.
>Edit: Thank for the gold, whomever it was. I wasn't looking for karma or gold, just trying to pass some of what has helped me. I would also like to link the following, as they were HUGE helps to me in changing my life and way of thinking.
>Link 1: Check out the top comment on this post (the comment is not mine): http://www.reddit.com/r/getdisciplined/comments/1q96b5/i_just_dont_care_about_myself/
>Link 2: This little book helped me go inside myself and deal with my demons--very important don't skip through the book, just follow the simple instructions as if it were a manual--I know, that seems stupid, but trust me on this one: http://www.reddit.com/r/GetMotivated/comments/vz458/selfdiscipline_in_10_days_how_to_go_from_thinking/
>Some other suggestions: Listen to Eric Thomas, this is what got me started--You have to want it, really, really want it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xM_7j6t9IyU
>I also suggest "The Power of Habit": http://www.amazon.com/The-Power-Habit-What-Business/dp/081298160X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1414954061&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=the+power+of+habit
>I'll give you the important thing about it, in case you can't buy it: Almost everything you do is tied to a habit and you're not aware of it. Even our thoughts. He breaks down all the scientific data on how individuals and entire societies form habits and change them.
Every habit has a cue/trigger, a process, and a reward.
>Example:
>Cue: Someone rejects me. Process: I feel bad, my thoughts keep spinning on why can't they like me... Reward: I feel like shit.
However, if you don't press the cue/trigger--you're way less likely to play the habit out. So, if I'm tired of feeling like crap, I stop asking girls out. But then, a new habit develops--
>Cue: I avoid social situations. Process: I feel bad for being "weird" in social situations. Reward: Social anxiety.
All you did was replace an unproductive habit with an unproductive habit.
As you can see, not all rewards are positive--that's why it's important to change our cues, process, and rewards from habits. Recognize your habits, and you'll have more power to change them. Replace unproductive habits with ones that help you grow. If you interrupt your triggers, you change the habit easily--usually, if you're past the trigger, your habit will take over, without you even thinking about it. This goes for our thought habits as well.
>Good luck to everyone. I leave you with this, "Pain is temporary, it may last for a moment, a month, or even a year. But if you get through that pain, at the end of that pain is a reward." Think about it like this, would you rather:
A. Hurt, keep doing the same thing, keep hurting from the misery you keep getting.
OR
B. Hurt because you're changing into something better. Hurt on the journey to being stronger one year from now?
It'll be hard, very hard. Some people will not believe in you, but you'll be better if you stick with it.
You'll hurt either way, why not get something out of your pain? That's the choice I made. And every human being has that power. I've only been doing this for a few months--but dealing with me has changed everything around me.
u are trying too much at a time. choose one thing only and do it for 4-8 weeks until it becomes a habit. now you dont have to motivate yourself any longer because you developed a habit that doesn't need any motivation to be done. pick the next thing of your list and repeat. this will take his time but will work much better then you current approach.
if you want to read more
motivation is like a muscle that gets sore fast. habits don't need motivation, that's why they are habits.
Better yet, start building a portfolio by open sourcing the code on github. Include links to your projects in your resume. Have your resume live on linkedin and make sure its up to date and completely public.
As an interviewer, I love to see code examples and a pasion for coding in free time.
P.S: If you're about to go into software engineering interviews
Cracking The Coding Interview Read this book from cover to cover and be ready to accept your 75K+ job after you start murdering interviews left and right.
Some books that could help you practice algorithms and coding challenges are:
If you want some actual practice solving challenges with some guidance and/or help, I'd recommend Coderbyte which provides solutions to the problems along with the ability to view other user solutions so you can learn how others solve the same challenges. This article might help you find some other coding challenge websites as well.
Cracking the Coding Interview
Here are the resources that I have used in the past. These are the type of questions that the large bay area software companies ask during phone screens and on site interviews. I've interviewed at a number of these companies and currently work for one of them. They all do similar things both in terms of the coding questions they ask as well as the overall interview process. I've never interviewed for a start up or any other sort of company, so I cannot speak to how it's done outside of large software companies on the west coast.
The following book, Cracking the Coding Interview, is great. Some companies use questions straight out of this thing. Others will ask one of these questions with a little twist.
http://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/098478280X
Either of these sites are good resources for actually writing code. Some of the challenges on Hackerrank are harder than you'll probably ever encounter in an interview, though it's worth noting that I've been asked a couple of the problems marked as hard on OJ Leetcode during onsite interviews (I recall LRU cache and a dynamic programming version of text justification specifically).
https://oj.leetcode.com/problems/
http://hackerrank.com/
For general stuff you need to know, this blog post about how to prepare for an interview at Google is a good resource. Jump down to the Tech Prep Tips for the relevant stuff, or just read the whole thing, it's a good read.
http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/03/get-that-job-at-google.html
The way we view libido is very odd, and for women, it's usually based in using the male libido as our baseline.
This is a good view of women's libido and sexual response. I love this book so much: https://www.amazon.com/Come-You-Are-Surprising-Transform/dp/1476762090
Can I recommend a book? I'm about halfway through this: https://www.amazon.com/Come-You-Are-Surprising-Transform/dp/1476762090 and it's a really good read. Great reminder about how we are all unique but totally normal.
To be fair, our sex drive is regulated (if that's the right word?) or managed differently, if I recall correctly the most prevalent theory these days is spontaneous desire (most common in men) versus responsive desire (most common in women). It's like 2 cars with the same amount of gas (the sex drive), both can have the gas pedal floored but if one has the brakes on, it won't go as far as the other. Women tend to pile on the brakes more easily.
/r/deadbedrooms has a surprising amount of info on the topic specifically because they deal with those differences on a daily basis (I got redirected there to read a lot).
Google has a lot to say about the theory and if you're interested in something more concrete, check out "Come As You Are"
I'm still not convinced that these more subtle differences aren't attributable to biology though.
I highly recommend Emily Nagoski's Come as You Are - she has her PhD in health behavior with a focus in human sexuality. This book goes a long way in normalizing the variations in arousal and desire, and also offers great vocab and tips for how to wrap your own head around it and how to discuss it with others. I could definitely see this being helpful for you and your partner.
How was your sex life prior to marriage? Does this mark a change in how things were since before marriage/living together?
I ask because depending on how things were before marriage this might seem like a let down to you but seem normal to her. If you guys were only seeing each other and having sex once a week before you moved in together to her it might not feel like things are any different because its technically the same frequency. For you on the other hand it seems like not nearly enough because you see her all the time and have to deal with not getting sex with her as much as you want. Before if you only saw her once a week it was still the same amount of sex but you didn't have the frustration of ever being around her and not having sex. Let me know if I'm off base because this wasn't mentioned in the post.
The anxiety and depression is a tough one and a big part of the problem. You guys are going to have to come to a mutual understanding and meet in the middle here. I would also try to work on getting her medical issues dealt with. Depression is not easy to deal with and it likely makes it incredibly difficult for her to have the motivation to do anything in terms of daily life tasks and that includes sex. You add issues with the pain from the headaches and its no wonder she doesn't feel sexy. Try to relax that this isn't personal to you or a reflection on her attraction to you. I know its hard, I too use sex as a language through which to communicate intimacy so not having that feels incredibly painful. Its hard to deal with but her rejection is not personal. See what you can do to help her deal with working through the physical pain because pain will put the breaks on her feeling sexy and make it difficult for her to get into the mood at all. In terms of understanding libido and how external factors affect it "Come as You Are" by Dr. Emily Nagoski is a really good summary of the research on this topic. Its backed by science but still accessible. You could look into it for more insight into what your partner is experiencing.
That said she needs to see your side too. I know for her she probably feels inadequate because she is struggle both to deal with her own needs and her guilt over not being able to satisfy yours. While she should know that this is really painful to you she should also know you recognize that she is trying and its hard. If this was simply about pure physical release for you then you wouldn't be having such a hard time and feeling so much pain over this. This is about using sex as a way to connect intimately with her and the fact that sex is the act which makes you feel most loved by her. You guys need to talk about this. I know the language is hard but that's why I'm trying to give you descriptions of what it feels like on both sides and resources so you can have ways to explain it. Not having the words is what makes "communication" hard. Yes communicate is the message and posters who say that are right, but what you need are the words which is what I'm trying to include here.
Also consider other ways of sharing sexual intimacy that don't pressure full on piv sex as the end game. If she is feeling uncomfortable, in pain, or self-conscious its going to be hard to get her into it. I have a high drive but if I'm stressed or tired the act of opening myself up to get into something like piv sex which requires relaxing and getting physically aroused is kind of intimidating. Sometimes that feels like too much but I'm happy to just use hands, do oral sex, or even just cuddle my partner while he masturbates and help him through it. Any of those acts are going to involve some sharing of intimacy and connection but initiating them is not as much pressure as knowing that if you get involved you're going to be expected to do full on sex where you receive penetration (maybe its just me but I find that getting warmed up and into that is much more involved then giving or receiving oral). For your girlfriend oral might be too much but you could always just use your fingers or a vibrator on her instead. You guys could also shower together. In this situation it takes the pressure off and becomes about the journey. You could either enjoy the act within itself or you may find she gets into it and eventually does want to have more involved types of sex. Either way you are sharing intimacy in a way together that is less pressure on you both and will satisfy a need for connection you have without requiring as much of a commitment to getting aroused for her that may not happen if she is feeling too anxious/depressed or in pain to fully immerse herself in her arousal.
Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski really helped me out! There is an entire workbook component and everything!
I had a recruiting firm send me this book. Pretty interesting.
https://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/0984782850
As someone who has alot of friends who received the NIS previously and it has been rebranded to SG:D scholarship, I can you tell that almost all of them want to break their bonds if they could afford to.
Therefore my advice to you is to not take up the scholarship unless you need to for a various reasons:
If you really want to take the scholarships in government agencies, there are some perks too:
To be honest, the first 5 years of your career is extremely important because they setup the stage for your career advancement. My (biased) advice if you are serious about tech and developing skills to do awesome work is stay out of public sector, typical MNCs, banks and consultancies because there's just too much wayang than doing the actual work. Most consultancies in Singapore are just sweatshops than doing good work. Go work in tech firms that are known for their engineering processes and build stuff.
And if you want to get into FAANG, it's not that difficult if you put in the effort to prepare for it and try to do as many internship as possible. You should be willing to work through one of the following books
Lol, competitive coding is usually overkill for interview prep. Don't get me wrong--if you are good at competitions, you will almost certainly do well on interviews. Coding competitions focus much more on "finding an important insight"--usually beyond anything that you'll have to know for work--and then coding a solution, while interviews focus much more on your ability to hold many different moving parts in your head. Competitions also tend to focus on parsing inputs, which, if you are using a language like C++, is a pain in the ass and can be unnecessarily discouraging if you just starting off.
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My advice is to check out the CTCI book and to write working code for as many problems as possible.
https://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/0984782850
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Be able to crank out DFS in your language of choice. Code every day. Try and work on problems that are easier to solve theoretically but that require holding a lot of different components in your head while you write the solution. The bottleneck for most people is writing correct code even after they know the solution--not "solving the problem" with theoretical data structures.
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Also, know your language well. Spend some time every day typing out the apis for the basic data structures into your lang's toplevel or interpreter.
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That stuff will keep you busy for a while.&nbsp; Once you're comfortable with the basics and get to a point where working on those kinds of exercises becomes more rote than challenging, try to create your own apps/plugins/libraries from start to finish.&nbsp; Working on full-scale projects will require you to learn skills that aren't developed as much during exercises & smaller projects, such as: architecture, design patterns, maintainability, testing, best practices, etc.&nbsp; Even more so if you give yourself a goal to actually publish/release those projects.
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A few other ways to develop those skills:
(Yelp, Imgur, Facebook, Trello, etc.)
(you can usually stay informed of hackathons through MeetUp or your local tech event calendar)
The book She Comes First goes into this in a lot more detail and isn't that bad of a read. Some of the stuff is a bit over the top, but there's a lot more to a woman's downstairs than many people think.
Here you go.
The clitoris is more than just the little bulb - although most people think that's all it is. The clitoris has is part of a neurovascular bundle with nerve endings across much of the vagina and, in some women, some right around the perineum and anus. Although there are far more nerve endings on the bulb of the clitoris, for some women the clitoral nerves which extend to the anus are sensitive enough to at least contribute to or heighten sexual sensations.
Also, the fabled G-spot is considered to be part of the clitoral bundle. More specifically, it's the base of the clitoral bundle. If you're genuinely interested in clitoral anatomy (and you don't mind reading medical papers) check this out: http://www.firenode.net/sexualite/sources/oconnell-etal-clitoris.pdf
If you're more interested in learning how to use this knowledge to please a woman sexually, this book is very good: http://www.amazon.com/She-Comes-First-Thinking-Pleasuring/dp/0060538260/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1409797556&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=she+comes+first
I was recently asking about good sex books in another post. Here were some of the good ones I found:
http://www.amazon.com/Our-Bodies-Ourselves-New-Era/dp/0743256115/
http://www.amazon.com/Guide-Getting-6th-Paul-Joannides/dp/1885535333/
http://www.amazon.com/Sexually-Shy-Inhibited-Womans-Guide/dp/0984057463/
http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Sex-You-Want-Inhibitions/dp/159233301X/
http://www.amazon.com/Because-Feels-Good-Pleasure-Satisfaction/dp/160529876X/
http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Idiots-Guide-Amazing-Third/dp/1592573274/
http://www.amazon.com/She-Comes-First-Thinking-Pleasuring/dp/0060538260/
You should check out the book (she comes first). My girlfriend never had an orgasm from oral until I used the stuff from this book.
Fun read, a little flowery for my taste.
https://www.amazon.com/She-Comes-First-Thinking-Pleasuring/dp/0060538260/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=she+comes+first+book&amp;qid=1568171053&amp;s=gateway&amp;sprefix=she+come&amp;sr=8-1
YES
I would advise you to read alot. Like, alot alot. If you do the wrong thing in a scene it can really screw the person up.
Coconut oil is your friend. It's a good lubricant, it makes rope less grating on the skin, you should use it if you decide to get into wax play.
https://bdsmgeekshop.com/ is a good shop for beginners. Do note that they source some of their things from China (i've found their supplier. If you know how to use taobao.)
http://www.ohjoysextoy.com/ is easy to understand reading material. (they're comics) You might find something you want to try.
Communication is key really. You should always be talking to your partner about this stuff. Even in the middle of the act. "Is this too tight? Did I hit you too hard? Are you comfortable with this? Do you remember your safe word? You can say no, if I'm pushing too hard."
BDSM is alot more about trust than it is about sex.
Be sure to read about aftercare, that's one of the most important things to do.
Read this stuff (if you want)
https://www.amazon.com/She-Comes-First-Thinking-Pleasuring/dp/0060538260/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1501800170&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=cunninglingus
Just do alot of reading.
You can get into your local kink scene on Fetlife. Just be aware that since you're a black man, you'll 100% be fetishized with all the stereotypes. Be sure to be clear about things you want and don't want. Always tell someone where you're going(If you have an iPhone keep your location services on and tell a friend you iCloud log in information), always meet in a public place.
Maybe this will help.
https://www.amazon.com/Pragmatic-Programmer-Journeyman-Master/dp/020161622X
The Pragmatic Programmer: From journeyman to Master. It's a philosophical book that shares wisdom on how to think like a programmer. . . Not in the pure sense making you a better Computer Scientist (in terms of thinking algorithmically) but if you write code you should give this one a thumb through.
I can't speak of a specific book that is a comprehensive history of computing, but I will speak to books that speak of our culture, our myths, and our hero's.
Hackers and Painters, by Paul Graham. People are polarized about the man, whether he's too "pie in the sky" - full of shit and ego, or if he speaks as an ambassador to our most optimistic ideals of our (comp-sci) culture. The contents of this book is a collection of his essays that are inspirational. It made me forego the societal pressures within our culture and reject popular opinion because it is merely popular and just an opinion, which is a virtue no matter who you are, where you are, or what you do. All these essays are on his website, though. If you want to review them, I recommend Hackers and Painters (the essay), What You Can't Say, Why Nerds are Unpopular, and The Age of the Essay; his oldest essays are at the bottom of the page and go up - he writes about what he's thinking about or working on at the time, so you'll see the subject matter change over time. So much of this will have direct application to his middle school and high school life. I cannot recommend this book, and the rest of his essays, enough.
If he wants to get into programming, I recommend The Pragmatic Programmer. This book talks about the software development process. I'm not going to lie, I don't know when best to introduce this book to him. It's not a hard read whatsoever, but it's abstract. I read it in college in my first months and said, "Ok," and put it down. Approaching the end of college and my first couple years in my profession, I would reread it ever 6 months. It's a kind of book that doesn't mean anything, really, without experience, without having to live it, when he has an obligation to his craft, his profession. I tell you about this one since you're asking about books to tell him, because this isn't something someone would normally come up across without being told about it.
The Cathedral and the Bazaar is a telling book about the cultural differences between the proprietary monoliths like Apple and Microsoft, and the Free and Open Source Software communities that back such popular software as Linux (the most popular operating system on the planet, running on all top 500 super computers, most server computers on the internet, and all Android phones) and Chrome(the worlds most popular web browser). Indeed, this book directly reflects the huge cultural battle that was duked out in the field, in the industry, and in the courts from the mid-90s and into the 2000s. It advocates helping the community, contributing to something larger than yourself, and that none of us are as good as all of us. To paraphrase Linus Torvalds(inventor of Linux) "Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow."
It's important to know who the hero's are in our culture, and they are diverse and varied, they're not just computer scientists, but mathematicians, physicists, philosophers, science fiction writers, and more. I would find a good book on Nicola Tesla, since he invented basically everything anyway (Thomas Edison was a great businessman, but a bit of a tosser), Richard Feynman was a physicist who is still celebrated in his field, and he even worked for Thinking Machines, back in the day, which was a marvel of it's time. Seymour Cray founded Cray Supercomputers and they have a lasting legacy in the field, a biography on that would be interesting. A biography on Symbolics and their Lisp Machines will make him yearn to find one still functioning (a rare gem that crops up every now and again, though he can run one in an emulator), and about the "AI Winter", a significant historic era (note: the AI Winter is over, and we are in spring, the history is both compelling and enthralling). Anything Issac Asimov published (in nearly every category of the dewy decimal system) is also compelling, and hardly dated. In fact, he's the originator of a lot of modern sci-fi. Charles Babbage invented the modern computer (though it was entirely mechanical in his day, and it wasn't actually built until 1996-2002) and Ada Lovelace was the worlds first computer programmer. A woman! Speaking of women, and it's worth young men learning this about our history, Grace Hopper was a military computer engineer who invented the term "bug".
And speaking of women, someone I have respect for, especially if your boy wants to get into game development is Sheri Graner Ray's Gender Inclusive Game Design, which may be more appropriate when he's in high school, and I consider it required reading for anyone who wants to enter the gaming industry. The book lays out plainly how video games hyper-sexualize both women, and, for some reason surprisingly to many - men, it's disastrous effects it has for the game industry, the game market, and the gaming community, and insights on how we may combat it. I have seen colleagues (men) become indignant and personally offended at reading this book, but were absolutely humbled when they took the fight to Sheri directly (we had a few phone interviews with her, always fantastic). If your boy found a problem with this book, he would do well to read Paul Grahams essay on keeping his identity small... The subject matter is not a personal attack on the individual, but on the blight, and he would be better served finding himself on the right side of history with this one, it would serve him well if he were to pursue this craft, specifically, but also any forward facing media in general.
And I also recommend some good books on math. Algebra, linear algebra, calculus, and statistics. You can get very far, lead an entire career unto retirement without knowing anything more than arithmetic and basic, basic algebra, but he could only serve himself well if he makes the decision that he is going to like maths and chooses to willfully become good at it. Outside the context of school and terrible teachers, it's actually an enthralling subject. Just get him a copy of Flatland, Flatterland, and Sphereland. Try this. There are books about proofs that break them down into laymen terms so that anyone can celebrate how special they are. My wife has a few on the shelf and I can't remember their titles off hand. Also this, the book is the narrative of some witty laymen who discover a whole branch of mathematics from first principles, the surreal numbers, an extension of imaginary numbers. It's really quite good, but might keep him occupied for a couple years in high school.
I should stop here or I never will.
The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master
It's not really focused on Java or any language specifically, but it helps you become a better team member. The concepts help you write code you won't curse at later...
Read lots of code and read books to get multiple viewpoints. This is a deep topic which will require more than superficial online reading.
Check this out.
Books I have found useful:
The book Clean Code was recommended to me by my manager when I asked about writing more efficient code. The author goes through best conventions of naming/organizing/etc for keeping your code base super clean and legible. Other people also recommended the Pragmatic Programmer, but I haven't had time to get to it.
https://www.amazon.com/Pragmatic-Programmer-Journeyman-Master/dp/020161622X This is a book I usually advise junior developers to read. Another one is Clean Code by uncle Bob.
The Pragmatic Programmer
I should re-read for a refresher. Invaluable source of general information that can help any type of computer programmer, regardless of their language of choice.
The Pragmatic Programmer (http://www.amazon.com/Pragmatic-Programmer-Journeyman-Master/dp/020161622X). It's a great resource to help you think about your career and how working as a software developer is different from what you learn in school.
I use The Flavor Bible by Dornenberg and Page.
They also have a vegetarian version, but I haven't looked through it.
Lately, I've very much been enjoying Kenji's The Food Lab. I think it's worth the (ebook) price just for the chapter on fried foods.
I also keep coming back to The Flavor Bible, which has lists of how to combine ingredients for different cuisines.
If you want a valuable collection of recipes and have $50 to spend, get Cook's Illustrated's The New Best Recipe. It's supplanted The Joy of Cooking on my shelf.
This one has helped me a lot. It isn't too expensive at Chapters.
This one seems pretty legitimate as well, but I haven't personally read it
The Flavor Bible is an excellent resource for learning how foods and seasonings combine.
Agreed. When I first started to cook resourcefully by "cleaning out the fridge" I found this book: The Flavor Bible to be very useful.
Anyone reading this who enjoys thinking about the above analogy, should try to read House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. Similar concept, but it's happening to his house.
The selection this month is House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski, but I'm not sure anyone got through the whole thing. Usually we just talk about any books that anyone has recently read, any shows or movies that are any good, and advanced spatchcocking techniques. It's a very loose agenda.
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Title: \<span style="color\: #0000ED"\>House\<\/span\> of Pancakes
Title-text: Fuck it. I'm just going to Waffle House.
Comic Explanation
Stats: This comic has been referenced 13 times, representing 0.0116% of referenced xkcds.
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^xkcd.com ^| ^xkcd sub ^| ^Problems/Bugs? ^| ^Statistics ^| ^Stop Replying ^| ^Delete
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/House_of_Leaves
http://www.amazon.com/House-Leaves-Mark-Z-Danielewski/dp/0375703764
This. This is what I felt the whole way through the album. I’ve read House of Leaves. I know how this ends!
Amazon has the "Look Inside" for HoL, which lets you do a text search: https://www.amazon.com/House-Leaves-Mark-Z-Danielewski/dp/0375703764/
The book House of Leaves is great if you really liked the Dionaea House
http://www.amazon.com/House-Leaves-Mark-Z-Danielewski/dp/0375703764
http://www.mathman.biz/
http://wheelof.com/whitney/index.php?var=v1
http://vihart.com/
http://www.go.kestrel.nu/
http://www.amazon.com/Escher%C2%AE-Pop-Ups-Courtney-Watson-McCarthy/dp/0500515905
http://www.amazon.com/Alexs-Adventures-Numberland-Alex-Bellos/dp/1408809591
http://www.amazon.co.uk/You-Can-Cube-Patrick-Bossert/dp/0141326506
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Godel-Escher-Bach-Eternal-Golden/dp/0465026567
http://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-Very-Short-Introduction-Introductions/dp/0192853619
http://www.amazon.com/Project-Origami-Activities-Exploring-Mathematics/dp/1568812582
http://www.amazon.com/Origami-Tessellations-Awe-inspiring-Geometric-Designs/dp/1568814518
http://www.amazon.com/Proofs-without-Words-Exercises-Classroom/dp/0883857006
Once I got started ....whew. good luck!
It becomes useful to replace concepts such as equivalence relations (and other relations) with symbols in order to facilitate understanding, actually. I'm sure you've used the =, <, >, the greater-than-or-equal-to, or the less-than-or-equal-to symbols before. These symbols allow those that read equations, definitions, or proofs to quickly and unambiguously understand what is being discussed. If you end up studying higher math for a while, you become familiar and comfortable with this style of notation.
Interestingly, notation like this and the thought process it represents is important in understanding the structure of mathematical logic, forms a large part of the basis of automata theory (aka why you're able to enjoy complex technology, like computers), and may hold key insights into the nature of consciousness and sentience itself.
If you've got the stomach for the notation, wide worlds of fascinating information await!
Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach
If you like things a bit more prose-y, try Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Not specific to algorithms or even to CS, but Douglas Hofstadter (Gödel, Escher, Bach, I Am a Strange Loop) touches on many of the logical fundamentals in a relatively layman-digestable manner.
I wouldn't call him easy reading compared to Sagan or Kaku, and don't know a "pop computer science" equivalent to those two, but you definitely don't need a CS or math degree to get through GEB. Whether it's on-topic enough here is definitely questionable.
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Edit: I haven't read it, but from the description this one by Thomas Cormen looks like it might be close to what you're looking for: Algorithms Unlocked.
"This is a unique book in its attempt to open the field of algorithms to a wider audience. It provides an easy-to-read introduction to an abstract topic, without sacrificing depth."
From the TOC, it looks like it's probably fairly light on math but gets into code or pseudocode relatively quickly. I still wouldn't call it pop-CS, but if that sounds like a fit, maybe give it a shot!
Go read Godel Escher Bach
Here's the inevitable recommendation for Gödel, Escher, Bach (Amazon page, so you can see the reviews).
Synopsis:
>Twenty years after it topped the bestseller charts, Douglas R. Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid is still something of a marvel. Besides being a profound and entertaining meditation on human thought and creativity, this book looks at the surprising points of contact between the music of Bach, the artwork of Escher, and the mathematics of Gödel. It also looks at the prospects for computers and artificial intelligence (AI) for mimicking human thought. For the general reader and the computer techie alike, this book still sets a standard for thinking about the future of computers and their relation to the way we think.
>Hofstadter's great achievement in Gödel, Escher, Bach was making abstruse mathematical topics (like undecidability, recursion, and 'strange loops') accessible and remarkably entertaining. Borrowing a page from Lewis Carroll (who might well have been a fan of this book), each chapter presents dialogue between the Tortoise and Achilles, as well as other characters who dramatize concepts discussed later in more detail. Allusions to Bach's music (centering on his Musical Offering) and Escher's continually paradoxical artwork are plentiful here.
It may be strange, but during the biology and nature-of-thought-related sections of GEB I decided to read the neurology chapters of Gray's Anatomy (no, not Grey's Anatomy). It's pretty heady and slows you down quite a bit, but it results in a really interesting mix of deep biological knowledge about the structure of neurons and functioning of the nervous system with GEB's higher-level, cognition-focused discussion.
Note that that's the 40th, British edition of Gray's Anatomy. There are cheaper ones if you don't need the most up-to-date version, including leather-bound reprints of the classic 1901 American reprint. I doubt the old versions have much accurate information about neurology, however.
I'm 46 now and married, but I was single for a while in my late 30's. I'd say the only real difference in dating nowadays is the more or less ability to be constantly connected. I'm mostly talking about texting. I had teenage kids, so was very well acquainted with it when I started dating again, but I can see that that might not be the case for you.
In my experience, sex is pretty much still the same, though with possibly less hair. However, it does sound like you're a bit sexually inexperienced/sheltered. I suggest you might want to read She Comes First. If you feel that isn't enough, you can also go with The Guide To Getting It On.
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck: It's more Zen than the title alludes to.
No More Mr. Nice Guy: Excellent book!
How to Win Friends and Influence People
Mystery: Body Language 1
Mystery: Body Language 1
Hot Seat Breakdown: Part 1 of 5. This might be the greatest breakdown of legit pickup. It's Owen from RSD, and I don't like him typically, but this is super good.
I'll just leave this here
Think you’d like the book below. Not about not caring it’s about not worrying about things you can’t control. I liked it!
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life https://www.amazon.com/dp/0062457713/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_vDqoDbR8C0X5S
>Delete the lawyer, Hire facebook and hit a gym.
FTFY /s
Relevant resource for OP.
> You might be thinking: then what happened before I started doing my homework? I didn’t develop IPT2048 and played other incremental games instead. After I published IPT2048 v2.1, for the entire week I was playing The Perfect Tower, NGUIdle, Almost a Hero, Scrap Clicker 2, etc.
Yo. Punishing yourself mentally for having anxiety about your cool little project you care deeply about isn't going to help you progress with anything.
My guess is: you're overwhelmed with the expectations you've set for yourself, and it seems extremely difficult to conquer your targets to the level of perfection that you can't possibly not achieve. You're anxious that you're not going to get it done perfectly, so instead of lowering your standards, you keep yourself from doing it at all, because then, you can't fail at all.
Problem is, you can't succeed that way, either. You're young. It will do you well to learn so early on that the reason you're anxious is because you want everything to work out to the utmost of expectations, because you care deeply about it. I think you know that it's a good thing that you care, but in your head, the tape keeps playing over and over of how some things can go wrong, and since it's louder than your desire to make it work, you stop yourself from working.
I've read an article in Scientific American about how one researcher considers addiction a learning disability. She was clever and learned things at a faster rate than most (I think this is your situation, as well). But then, when things started to get overwhelming — like after she got to the university or something — she started to find solace in drugs, because they helped her relax and not worry about things too much. At some point, she said, she was so attached to doing light drugs — like marijuana — that she'd forgotten to do the actual work of studying. She put it aside because it bothered her too much, and enjoyed drugs because they gave her the opposite.
Her thinking was: she got into drugs because she was clever. She learned all things quickly; she'd also learned quickly that drugs help overcome her fears — and it didn't matter at the time that she pushed the important work — the kind of work that made her a better person and a more capable specialist — aside.
I don't know whether it's true, but I certainly notice similar threads in my life. I learn well. I get things quickly that others struggle with. I excel. I also enjoy a lot of procrastinating and putting things off because they seem too difficult or are too scary to undertake.
As I got older, I came to realize how baseless those fears really are. It's not that the work is scary: it's that I think it would hurt me to do it, when there's no real reason for me to think that way. I give the negatives much more weight than I do the positives. The fear of failure, therefore, starts to rule my decision-making — and the only place I can possibly end up in when it's at the helm is in a rut, on the sidewalk of life, hoping that someone would come pick me up and help me get where I want to go.
Now, imagine this. There are two people in your life. You know both a little bit; you've spent some time chatting, so you kind of know where they're coming from when they say what they say. One day, one of them starts telling you about this cool new project they have the idea for. They describe it in great detail: all the cool features, all the awesome user interactions, all the potential — and then go on listing the reasons why they can't take it up. "It's too big!". "I can't make it all by myself!". "People would probably not like it".
The other person tells you about their current pet project too. It's not ambitious: just a little app that helps people in a small area. Maybe it's a shopping list app. Maybe it reminds users to take their medication. Maybe it sends autoreplies to certain SMS and emails. The person has some codebase ready, they've read the app store license agreements (for which they have some questions they mean to ask people who know something about it), they ask you if you'd like to test it once it's ready, to work out the kinks in design before official release.
Of those two people, whom would you rather help when they ask? The one that does nothing for themselves and always looks for the reason not to do what they think would be "really cool", or the one who gets things done and keeps things on the level where they understand it?
You might be tempted to start arguing the first person's case. Don't. You know what I mean, and you know I'm right.
You seem to be doing pretty good so far. People have spoken to the quality of your work — and to the nature of those who make "cool idea" posts. You actually accomplish things, and people respect that. So should you.
Take a step back. Leave the project to rest for a while. Take a deep breath, get what things you need to have done first so that nothing bothers you, and when you're ready, come back and see what you can do. There's no hurry, there's no rush, there's no expectations or a timeline. It's your project: you can, quite literally, do whatever you want with it. Continue it, scrap it, rework it, stop it — it's in your hands, as is the goals you set for yourself.
In the meantime, I'd recommend reading something on anxiety and productivity. I have no links for you, since everything I read is piecemeal: a little insight here, a little advice there, an overview from an unrelated book and a personal story from a videogame. That said, I would recommend Raptitude — a blog about mindful living and finding peace in a troubling world. David writes on a variety of issues, and you might just find something that speaks to you.
I would also have liked to recommend A Subtle Art of Not Giving a F-ck by Mark Manson to you, but I think you're not on the level to get as much benefit from it as I did. I started soulsearching when I was about your age, and it took me until now to come to understand life and living enough to be able to apply Mark's advice. Feel free to read it if you're curious, but I wouldn't expect much of it if I were you. It might not make much sense right now.
Take your time. Breathe. Focus on things you can do. Set the bar low and overperform.
Hey I am 54 and good news it gets better!
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First thing I would do is take care of yourself. Hit the gym a bit, reflect on life, do something nice for yourself.
I am not sure if your kids are teenagers yet but if they are they are vile creatures between 12-18 but then they get better.
Be careful about how much porn you watch.... I had a huge porn problem in my 40's and it became my escape from reality. The problem is that your brain starts to crave that dopamine rush and it is harder to get that rush without spending hours jerking to porn. Looking for that one perfect video or photo that makes you cum. I started doing a 30 day reset, No porn, no jerking off, no sex It is one of the hardest things I have done but it clears the mind. Get our and be social, but don't fucking chase women!
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At 54 I know that I don't have much time left on earth and I am not going to waist one minute. When I stopped trying to make everyone happy all of the time and focused on myself things got better. I stopped putting pussy on a pedestal. If I can give you two great books to read the links are below and they are on audio
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No More Mr Nice Guy by Dr Robert Glover
https://www.amazon.com/No-More-Mr-Nice-Guy/dp/0762415339
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The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life
https://www.amazon.com/Subtle-Art-Not-Giving-Counterintuitive/dp/0062457713
If self-help books are your thing you might check out these two inexpensive ones:
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck
Unfuck Yourself
I’m about halfway through the first one and have the second on my shelf to read. No religious bullshit mixed in, and it’s an easy read so far.
No doubt a game changer: https://www.amazon.com/Subtle-Art-Not-Giving-Counterintuitive/dp/0062457713/ref=bseries_primary_1_0062457713
Read The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck
That may give you a better understanding of this mindset. But going a little deeper, not giving a fuck is just a perspective. It's a different way of interpreting our life as we experience it.
Instead of including what other people think of our actions in our brain processes, we just notice that what we do affects other people, but instead of letting it deter us from what we want to do, we just do it anyways.
Not giving a fuck takes a lot of practice, I feel many years away from truly mastering this, as I feel I've been conditioned during my life so far to give a very large fuck about what others think of me whenever I do anything.
This book is good https://www.amazon.com/Subtle-Art-Not-Giving-Counterintuitive/dp/0062457713
Mark Manson is really awesome. I've been a reader of his for a few years and just picked up his audiobook for "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F***."
It discusses the counterintuitive ideologies that one must adopt to become more secure with oneself and others in their lives, by letting go of things they shouldn't give a fuck about. Highly recommended you start reading his material.
Read The Pragmatic Programmer
It is exactly what you're looking for.
You have to under the concept of uncoupling your programs and break them up into separate entities and that takes practice. This book will show you a few main guidelines to follow but without application you will not get pass that wall.
Don't want to bullshit anymore? put yourself in a position where you can't bullshit. Get a job as a webmaster, it's not very hard. Smaller non-technical companies would love to hire college kids to build an internal inventory tool or something that they can use.
This.
NTs tend to send unproofed, unedited, uncorrected emails. We simply can’t.
You have to improve your writing to be understood, and perhaps more important not be misunderstood.
Here is the best guide I know;
https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Style-Fourth-William-Strunk/dp/020530902X
"And this is my Strunk and White, with which I have a passing familiarity at best."
These are the sources I would use if I were to give a class on writing. Totaling out at about fifteen bucks if you don't mind used books or, you could go online and find a PDF I'm sure.
This book is widely considered the holy bible for logophiles.
https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Style-Fourth-William-Strunk/dp/020530902X/ref=pd_sim_14_9?ie=UTF8&amp;dpID=51q3tYpGjnL&amp;dpSrc=sims&amp;preST=_AC_UL160_SR101%2C160_&amp;psc=1&amp;refRID=ARMA7SMW0KWG1JSEB0P2
Do that first, practice the core conceptsas you go along, then read this.
https://www.amazon.com/Moral-Fiction-Harper-Torchbook--5069/dp/0465052266/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1467830718&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=On+Moral+Fiction+by+John+Gardner
and lastly, since you're interested in fiction, I would read this.
https://www.amazon.com/Writing-10th-Anniversary-Memoir-Craft/dp/1439156816/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1467830937&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=on+writing+stephen+king
The take away is understanding, so don't just skim if you can help it. Meanwhile, I'd write short stories. (aim for about 2-3k words at first) Monthly, one hundred words a day and keep at it for three-four months. See how you improve and such along the way and then, increase your goals. two hundred words a day. One story instead of different short stories.
*The most important thing is setting a goal for yourself and seeing it through to the end.
no worries, i saw that and it predicated my PM to you!
strunk & white is this book: http://smile.amazon.com/Elements-Style-Fourth-William-Strunk/dp/020530902X/ it's generally considered a classic with regards to writing, and is all about how to communicate clearly. (well, mostly.) i definitely recommend it. hell, email me to set it up and i'll send you a copy, it's great.
Please read and learn from this powerful tome then I'd be far more likely to take you seriously.
There are fewer of us who come from the technology side and into writing, so if you are willing to put in a little bit of work to master the mechanics of writing, you will be in demand. You will probably command a slightly higher salary than many other tech writers. This has been my experience, anyway.
I LOVE this career, and I came from a similar background as you. I don't get calls in the middle of the night because a server is down or a critical bug was found. I do get to dig deep into technology and understand and use complex things. I get to play with software before anyone else does, sometimes even before the QA teams as they occasionally rely on MY documentation to help them understand what they are testing and how it is intended to function. I still get to file bug reports, but I don't have to unravel someone else's (or my own) spaghetti code to try to figure out how to fix it. :-)
Pick up a copy of Strunk & White. Read it. Reread it occasionally. This is 90% of what you need to know.
Then, find as many examples of quality technical writing as you can and absorb the style, just as you would do when learning a new programming language. Grasp the grammar and syntax and typical style.
If I had to recommend one other resource, it would be The Insider's Guide to Technical Writing by Krista Van Laan.
The gold standard for this sort of thing is going to be A Pocket Style Manual by Diana Hacker and Nancy Sommers. You would also do well to pick up The Elements of Style by Strunk and White.
William Shunn's format is pretty much the standard, so much so that some magazines/publishers refer to it in their submission guidelines.
And, as others have commented, English prose is written in paragraphs. Some style guides to English writing:
Short handbook: Strunk & White, Elements of Style. 4th Edition
Exhaustive reference: Chicago Manual of Style. 16th Edition which is kind of expensive. Or get the 15th Edition for the price of a latte.
Congrats on making it this far!
Here's my constructive criticism: Your concept is cool, but your prose is stilted, clunky, and awkward, and you need a more evocative cover to draw a buyer's attention.
I really think your book would benefit from a professional editor's touch; the feedback would vastly improve the quality of your writing, and it'd help you achieve your goals of learning and developing as a writer.
If you can't afford an editor's services, please buy a copy of Strunk and White's Elements of Style for your personal reference. It's 90 pages of wisdom that will change your writing for the better; it won't be the same as getting an editor's feedback, but it will be a distinct improvement.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Flavor-Bible-Creativity-Imaginative/dp/0316118400
I highly recommend this book, I think it's the followon to Culinary Artistry. Not only does it include optimal pairings, it "ranks" them in effectiveness (i.e. more people agree that apples pair well with cinnamon than the people who would pair apples with Bay). It's easily my favorite "cookbook".
Good question. I always have cinnamon on hand because it works great in both savory and sweet dishes. Also a great way to cut back on sugar, which I have been doing recently. Smoked paprika is amazing because you it works great in barbecue, and with tomato or lemon. Whole cumin because they can be used either way, and it is an irreplaceable flavor in many dishes. Basil and rosemary because they seem to work in a lot of things. Garlic powder because you can throw it on just about anything and it will be good. If you tend not to keep dijon mustard on hand, mustard powder is always good. Whole nutmeg because those things last forever. Thyme is really good; try lemon thyme. Ginger is a lot of fun. Allspice is really good too with both meats and pastries. Fresh lemons or limes are really good. Onions and peppercorns are a must in every kitchen. Don't buy ground pepper. Taste is lost completely.
Best thing to do is pick spices and herbs that span a couple of different types of cuisine that way you aren't having to buy a lot of specialty herbs and spices for nights you want something inspired by Spanish cuisine or Middle Eastern. If you have an extra 20 or 30 bucks, I suggest buying The Flavor Bible. You will learn a lot about flavors and which ones play well in a lot of different dishes.
Yes. The Flavor Bible lists some combinations to avoid – some random examples are:
IMO you can never go wrong with Thomas Ligotti.
ETA--after reading your link, I'd also like to recommend this book: House Of Leaves
[House](http://www.amazon.com/House-Leaves-Mark-Z-Danielewski/dp/0375703764/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1269194984&amp;sr=8-1 "Editor's Note: Buy this book") of Leaves.
House of Leaves can be somewhat hit or miss with people, but I found it to be one of the few books that actually creeped me out. Also, both its content, a story within a story within a story, as well as it's style ("Danielewski packs in poems, scientific lists, collages, Polaroids, appendices of fake correspondence and "various quotes," single lines of prose placed any which way on the page, crossed-out passages, etc") are rather unique.
Oh geez, who invited Stormfront?
If anyone would like a less bigoted examination of history: http://www.amazon.ca/Guns-Germs-Steel-Jared-Diamond/dp/0393317552
(But if you would rather trust a GIF on the internet than a Pulitzer-prize winning book, go ahead. It's a free country. Be as dumb as you want.)
Here is how I would organize it:
Physiological needs of survival.
Techniques for temperature
Techniques for water
Techniques for food.
Miscellaneous techniques
Psychology of survival
Each numbered section could be a book of its own, and some of them have already been written. I think this is a good way to organize wilderness survival for the short term. I think once you start thinking about preserving food you are entering a new realm where you'll need a new, more complicated organization. Maybe I'll write the psychology one some day, as I haven't seen a good survival psychology book out there, just a bunch of bullshit.
Now I don't agree that society has failed us. I think you would really like to read Guns, Germs, and Steel. It will put societies into a perspective where they are just groups of people providing themselves with the same physiological needs of survival, in ways most efficient for their environment. But I also think it's best for society that individuals can carry on in the event of a problem. So I hear what you're saying. Anyway, I hope you find this helpful.
Have you seen their Highlights for High School feature?
Also, there are sites like Academic Earth that might be useful.
Here are a few blogs with potential. You'll have to decide for yourself if they have inappropriate content.
Here are a few book recommendations covering various fields, in no particular order (though they should all read #1):
And here's a video interview with Richard Feynman they might enjoy.
Are you retarded? I'm saying & giving you a source for the fact that Natives were dropping like flies from diseases brought over by the survivors of said diseases, who had biologically developed immunities that prevented them from dying at nearly those high of rates. The natives had a far less varied, lower caloric intake diets than did the Europeans who not only had a wider selection of crops but also of cattle. They had steel weapons and steel armor that the natives did not develop as well as guns, all of these factors growing out of the generally higher level of diffusion of technology on the Eurasian landmass & it's east-west orientation as opposed to the more difficult to traverse, mixed climate north-south orientation of the Americas. It's very similar to how the north-south orientation of sub-Saharan Africa hindered greatly the abilities of it's people to develop relatively advanced societies as opposed to Eurasian societies. Read [Guns, Germs and Steel](Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393317552/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_pbPZBbTNPA260) by Jared Diamond.
Some nonfiction books I enjoyed that came to mind:
Would you be interested in reading a book? Come as You Are. Maybe also investigate /r/sexualanhedonia
Check out Emily Nagoski's Come As You Are for some really insightful information about the differences between physical and mental arousal in female bodied people.
Not just for this one night but more for your long term I recommend reading “Come as You Are” by Emily Nagoski. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1476762090/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_wZV3Db75DSJY8
There's a book called Come As You Are that explains the difference in libido and needs between the genders well.
My libido has always caused problems. It functions identical to /r/demisexuality. My drive is "off" for partners until I trust them and feel safe and then it's "on" the way the average woman's drive is. Once my libido is engaged, I have high libido of wanting 2-4 daily (minimum 1) sexual encounters with my partner.
The problem is the time it takes to transition from off to on is too intolerable and cockblock-esque for pretty much every man I've met. You drive them neurotic with your inability to complete the sexual encounter, and then you're both frustrated.
Hi, I also have testosterone and the opposite of your libido so I can't help you out from experience, but you might like to read "Come As You Are" by Emily Nagoski. She talks about low sex drives in a very helpful way. Here is a quick TL;DR of what most of the book is about in comic form.
In general it's a really good book about sexuality (especially women's sexuality), talks about having a low libido very positively and affirmingly, easy to read through, has some exercises/quizzes to make you think about yourself, and has real life examples of couples that agreed to be part of the book. I'd recommend it to anyone, but sounds like it could really help with your predicament :) Also IMO it couldn't hurt to see a therapist again even if your worked through everything about your assault - even if it's just once and you confirm that's a chapter you've closed.
Not that I have any answers but I have two books that might help some:
Intimacy and Desire - http://www.amazon.com/Intimacy-Desire-Awaken-Passion-Relationship/dp/0825305675/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1426091676&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=intimacy+and+desire
This books first chapter talks about no matter what in a relationship there is always a High Need person and a low need person and the low need person will always control the sex. No matter what that is how it is. Now here is what to do about it.
The other is Come as you are - http://www.amazon.com/Come-You-Are-Surprising-Transform/dp/1476762090/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1426091799&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=come+as+you+are+emily+nagoski
This on goes into the science of how your body works and letting you know that you are normal and explaining how things work.
Good Luck
The book "come as you are" changed my wife and I. It is fantastic. I highly recommend it if you are at this point and want to save it. But he has to be open to reading it as well.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1476762090/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1484078707&amp;sr=8-1&amp;pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&amp;keywords=cum+as+you+are&amp;dpPl=1&amp;dpID=41lL2PcRgfL&amp;ref=plSrch
Edit: Added link
He's got an anxious attachment style (read about attachment theory! I think it will shine some light on your marriage). It's hard to reconcile these differences but it starts with him taking responsibility for his feelings and not putting them on you. Then, you seeing that this is part and parcel of who he is, and there are things you can do to ease his worries and get the freedom you want. This is a super accessible read if you want to dive into attachment theory and what you can do about it.
I've told people on this sub to do this before, but I honestly think you should take a look at this book. This is based on actual scientific research on relationships, not self-help BS, so I think it could be really helpful in this situation. This guy sounds like a pretty cookie-cutter case of someone who is avoidantly attached. This means that without serious therapy, he will shy away from intimacy and probably remain a commitment-phobe who won't meet your emotional needs. I can't tell you how to run your life, but I'd probably try to get out while you can and find someone who will actually want intimacy with you.
Hmmm sounds like you might find the book Attached helpful: https://www.amazon.com/Attached-Science-Adult-Attachment-YouFind/dp/1585429139 It sounds like this might be kind of an avoidant behavior: maybe as you get to know someone, you start feeling uncomfortable with the closeness and start finding things to justify why you can't get any closer? Worth reading up on, talking to a therapist about if it's upsetting you. Good luck!
I recommend you read Attached. It focuses on a love perspective but I find it very applicable to my friendships as well.
Consider also going to a therapist and maybe a support group for people with similar issues.
Have you read Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find — and Keep — Love?
I highly recommend "Deeper Dating" by Ken Page as he describes this phenomenon exactly. He calls it "the wave of distancing" and says it often happens in relationships that are actually good for us. He writes more about it in Chapter 9, 'The Saboteurs of New Love":
>"In my years as a psychotherapist, dater, friend and learning partner, I've come to believe that one phenomenon has destroyed more potentially great relationships than any other single factor. I call this phenomenon the Wave of Distancing (or simply, "The Wave") The wave occurs when you push a caring and available person away by inwardly diminishing his or her worth.
>
>... What does this phenomenon look like in dating? You're dating someone caring and available, and there has been at least a spark of attraction for you. And yet:
>
>You can't find the sense of affection and desire you once had
>
>You keep getting irritated at him or bored by him
>
>Her flaws make you quickly lose respect for her, even if you don't show it
>
>You start yearning for the excitement of the hunt
>
>You feel like a fraud, pretending you're interested when you just don't feel it any more
>
>... This widespread phenomenon has huge implications for our romantic lives. If we can't navigate the Wave, we'll keep going after the wrong people and passing the right ones by. Our lack of training in managing the Wave has doomed countless good relationships." (Page 171)
I highly recommend getting this book and reading the rest of this chapter for more info! Also like another commenter said, 'Attached' by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller is worth checking out. It's not perfect as it's a bit simplistic (it doesn't go into much detail about Fearful-Avoidant people) but still would be relevant to your experience. I found these excerpts from that book were helpful:
>"Remember, an activated attachment system is not passionate love. Next time you date someone and find yourself feeling anxious, insecure and obsessive - only to feel elated every once in a while - tell yourself that this is most likely an activated attachment system and not love! True love, in the evolutionary sense, means peace of mind. "Still waters run deep" is a good way of characterising it.
>
>... The trick is not to get hooked on the highs and lows and mistake an activated attachment system for passion or love. Don't let emotional unavailability turn you on."
Drawing on the Right side of the Brain is a very impressive educational resource:
http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Right-Side-Brain-Definitive/dp/1585429201/
I can't draw well, but this book is helping me get better. I need to spend more time with it and practice more, but it definitely showed me that I could do it.
This is simply not true. You should read The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.
You've got that right. We can start by legalizing all recreational drugs.
That’s what I’m saying. The laws don’t explicitly target Black people but they disproportionately affect Black people. It’s like what GOP strategist Lee Atwater said:
>Y'all don't quote me on this. You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger."
Bonilla-Silva has discussed this in Racism Without Racists, terming it “color-blind racism.” And Bobo et al have called it “laissez-faire racism”. And, of course, Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow is popular as well on the topic. If you don’t want to read a book or article, Ava DuVernay’s Netflix film 13th is insightful too. Examples abound. Take a look at the disparity in sentencing between crack cocaine and powder cocaine. They’re essentially the same drug, but the former is more likely to be found in Black communities and the latter is more likely to be found in white ones, but the former has much harsher penalties. Or look at sentencing for marijuana. Surveys show that white and Black people use and sell it at the same rate, but Black people are put in jail for marijuana offenses at a rate of 20 to 50 times more than white people. So I’d point to the example of the war on drugs, mass incarceration, and broken-windows policing as ways that racism has evolved.
If you're interested in diving into attachment theory, I'd highly recommend the book Attached.
I've been discussing the book with my therapist after identifying some anxious attachment patterns in myself. I was dating someone who displayed a lot of avoidant attachment behaviors, and reading the chapter about the effect that anxious and avoidant attachment styles have on each other was so enlightening.
To answer your question, I do believe that relationship happiness is absolutely attainable, even for those of us with attachment styles that are not "secure." Like most things worth reaching for in life, it will take some work and dedication. But, really, that could be said to anyone wishing to attain a happy relationship, right?
It's a huge step that you're recognizing and facing these things. That's an important step that many people never reach. I'm a huge fan of therapy/counseling when it comes to this stuff. I don't know where I'd be without it.
Have you read Betty Edwards' Drawing on the right side of the brain? I personally went through a similar before and after transformation as these student pictures show.
Me too! But I started reading Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain and went from this to this in three drawings. Completely changed the way I thought about drawing things!
Edit: Bonus drawing from when I was three.
Vamos lá. Minha experiência com desenho:
Tentei, cheguei até um pouco antes da metade. Me frustrei e desisti.
Motivo da frustração: Grande parte do livro é a moça te falando "agora você deve estar satisfeito com o que fez, olha o que meus melhores alunos fizeram para você comparar". BITCH EU NÃO ESTAVA SATISFEITO OK?!
Depois de anos, revisitei meus desenhos e pensei "Olha, até que ficaram legais sim, pqp".
Extremamente massante e arranca a tapa toda a maravilha de desenhar algo. Fiz durante uns 3 meses, não cheguei nem na lição 3 (depois de formas livres). Mas foi o que mais me manteve disciplinado, e a qualidade de alguns dos meus traços (até na escrita) melhorou um pouco.
Testei muito pouco a parte de desenho "clássico", mas o cara desenha bem. Minha crítica é que logo na primeira aula ele já recomenda comprar um lápis que não é lá muito comum.
É interessante, as primeiras lições são uma mistura das lições do Drawing on the Right Side e do ArtFundamentals. Não consegui avançar mais por falta de tempo, mas pelo que eu folheei o livro, é o que mais mostra técnicas diferentes (e por isso, aumenta o custo de materiais).
Fiz um uma vez um tempo atrás. Não suportei mais de 3 aulas porque o professor era péssimo.
Dito isso, vou de acordo com o /u/crazy_student, vá com o Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain (se concentre só nas técnicas).
Recomendo também o ..For the Utter and Absolute Beginner. O livro se baseia nas mesmas técnicas da Betty Edwards no começo, tendo em vista o desenho observacional (na vida real), então um complementa o outro.
NOTA:
Eu sei que existem outros autores, livros e conteúdos. Sempre existiu e sempre existirão, mas foram esses que eu corri atrás.
Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain: The Definitive, 4th Edition
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1585429201/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_aHx9BbTMCRC26
1 month ago I thought it was impossible for me to draw something "nice". Now, even though I'm no DaVinci, I have improved my drawing skill. How, you ask? Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain book.
You don't need any prior experience, and just by dedicating 30 min/ 1 hour a day will improve your drawing skills dramatically.
Good luck!
drawing on the right side of the brain. It's a fantastic reference, and I guarantee you can find a cheap copy or borrow it from your library.
I would absolutely recommend beginning by reading Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, and doing the exercises. I'd follow it up with The Natural Way to Draw, again, doing the exercises.
1836to1846 has the right idea about focusing on shapes, not ideas, and drawing upside-down while you're first training your verbal mind to get out of the way and let you draw what you see, rather than the symbols you think you see. Drawing on the Right Side is exactly about that - teaching you that you can draw, and teaching you how to get out of your own way. After that, Nicolaides' book will teach you how to practice effectively.
Practice is absolutely the key, but getting some grounding in what to practice and how to practice effectively will allow you to get more out of it faster.
Your friend is sort of right about the pen. It can help do away with the "chicken scratch" method of drawing by forcing you to be more confident with your lines but you should stick with pencil for now.
I'm mostly self-taught as well (although I learned a bit from Watts Atelier until it got to be too expensive) and the sheer amount of information out there can be really overwhelming. I mean, there's so many things to learn: perspective, line weight, figure drawing, portraiture, landscape, etc.
What definitely helped me is realizing that I'm never going to stop improving as an artist. That means that I'm going to have my entire life to hone my skills. Even if you have to unlearn a lot of bad habits, you've still got plenty of time to practice slowly, deliberately and mindfully.
If you understand that you've got your whole life to get better, it's easier to formulate a strategy to get better. You've got to think about this in the long term. That means taking a month to work solely on anatomy, another month to work only on perspective, another month to work on tone and values, while always revisiting the skills that you've already cultivated.
For example, I've laid out my artistic goals 3 months in advance. That means that for the next 3 months, I'm only focusing on anatomy and gesture/figure drawing. My daily schedule this week looks like this:
warmup
1, 2, 5 and 10 minute gesture/figure drawings
study/copy hands from Bridgeman's Constructive Anatomy book
draw 50 hands
spend about 10-15 minutes drawing hands from memory and comparing them to the references I was using earlier
work on something fun
If I have extra time, I'll work on some more anatomy studies but it depends on how busy I am with work/life. After this week is up, I'll move on to arms, then the core, then legs, head, etc, following the same setup I've made. Maybe the next 3 months, I'll move on to perspective drawing but I haven't thought that far ahead yet.
If you're confused about where to start, just pick something that you're the weakest at and start drawing that. It's a grind and you're going to be producing hundreds, if not thousands of drawings but that's the way to get better.
Like I said, if you start thinking in the long term, it gets less overwhelming. I'm gonna link some resources that really helped me out.
Books
Perspective Made Easy
Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain
Fun With a Pencil Actually, anything by Loomis.
How to Draw Kind of a technical book but goes into really great detail about perspective
Youtube Channels
Watts Atelier Highly recommended. Watch his figure drawing videos. Also, if you can spare the cash, join his online school. It's fantastic and very structured course in drawing. Definitely look into this if you have trouble deciding what to learn next.
Proko This guy has great intro videos for figure drawing. I think he learned at Watts Atelier as well.
New Masters Academy They have a ton of great videos about everything. Definitely look into Glen Vilppu's figure drawing series. He's the god of figure drawing.
Alphonso Dunn Really great pen and ink tutorials
Sorry if I overwhelmed you (ironic, considering your original post) but I just wanted to share some stuff that's really helped me develop a schedule and get better. Let me know if you have any questions and I'll do my best to help you a fellow art student out.
TLDR: You have plenty of time in your life to get better, so make a schedule and stick to it.
Don't believe it.
Anyone can learn to draw. You first need to learn how to see.
Start with https://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Right-Side-Brain-Definitive/dp/1585429201
You'd be surprised that today, it's rare to be black in an all-white neighborhood. Even education today is more segregated than it was in 1968 (the height of the civil rights movement).
"White flight" has resulted in all-minority neighborhoods in America. This results in less funding for local schools, lower property values, and fewer businesses wanting to establish themselves in low-income, racially segregated areas. This means that even grocery stores that sell fresh fruits and vegetables don't want to be in a low-income, high-minority neighborhood, limiting their access to healthful foods. Instead, they rely on the local corner store that doesn't even primarily sell food.
There isn't just an unequal standard of living, but also unequal access to opportunity. Your network (from family to your college alumni) can be so important when you're trying to find a job, but if you couldn't afford to go to college and your family has always been working class, you're already set up to have unequal opportunities compared to the kid whose parents are lawyers or doctors. Even if you look in the news today, you'll see instances of discrimination by banks, hiring managers, and federal regulations.
If you're really serious about learning more about why it's more difficult to be Black in America today, I urge you to pick up a book. Here are some of my suggestions:
American Apartheid by Douglas Massey and Nancy Denton
The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
The Shame of the Nation by Jonathan Kozol
It sounds like you need to do a lot of research on your own and have a lot to learn. It's not other people's job to teach you. However I would recommend this book The New Jim Crow. It also has an audiobook that I actually have and would be willing to upload if you wanted to listen to it. There were also certain practices like redlining which segregated neighborhoods, and the fact that the G.I bill which many veterans used after WWII to get homes and build capital was denied to African-American veterans. Also look up Stop and Frisk in NY. There's more to it you just have to be open to it. If you have any questions and you're seriously interested to learn please contact me. If you don't want to and just want to deny everything then please don't.
Yea I agree with you that he shouldn't so easily dismiss the non-violent incarceration rate that has been messing up the black family for decades. Also it's not just drug dealers that go to jail fyi. If you want more in-depth information on the incarceration problem in the US I suggest reading this book http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/1595586431.
Now, as another red pill black guy I really had to have an open mind when watching this video because in the past O'Reilly has made one too many inflammatory and crude statements toward the black community, but after watching this video I do have to admit that he makes some very valid points about the community's deep-seeded issues.
However, I would have liked for him to back up his statements with some sources. I'm also sure his assessment of the problem and the solution is a lot more complicated than he tried to make it out to be. True, the disintegration of the black family and the high rate of children being born out of wedlock play huge rolls in the issues plaguing certain black communities, but there are also other micro and macro issues at play here that we really have to delve into to get the full picture - at least in my opinion.
BORROW this book from the library. Obvious and amazing.
https://www.amazon.com/Life-Changing-Magic-Tidying-Decluttering-Organizing/dp/1607747308
I've really enjoyed "The Joy of Less" and "The life-changing magic of tidying up". I find that when I have less clutter IRL, my mind feels less cluttered and it's easier to stay focused on my goals.
I just got this book, which mostly emphasizes dramatically de-cluttering your life and only keeping things you really love/need. Less stuff means less stuff to clean!
I've done it so far with my clothes and it's been HUGE. Every day I look at my new, tiny little wardrobe full of only things I love and want to wear and I feel so much peace. It's easier for me to do the little chores associated of hanging my clothes too because I'm invested in that space and how nice it feels to have it "right". It's also not nearly as overwhelming because there's so little to organize.
https://www.amazon.ca/Life-Changing-Magic-Tidying-Decluttering-Organizing/dp/1607747308
Your welcome
Oh man, here's the book for you.
https://www.amazon.com/Life-Changing-Magic-Tidying-Decluttering-Organizing/dp/1607747308
Basically it's about assessing your belongings and surrounding yourself with only things that make you happy.
I feel like the best type of organization is easy and intuitive.
examples:
In the past I've tried being extremely specific and keeping things meticulously organized/lined up - only to have it become a mess two days later.
I think it's easier if you lean into your messy habits - and use them as a guide to develop ways to stay organized.
Also, for tossing clothes you could try two things:
Check out this book. It's amazing. :)
Not a pilot, but will still be looking at your blog for the writing. Your review of the levels of learning was excellent too!
Keep on doing what you do, thanks!
Edit: Buy your GF this book to help her along her journey toward minimalisim.