Whenever you do something that relies on previously acquired knowledge, make sure you know the rationale behind each decision. This is especially important if you trust the information that came from other sources, and less important when you rely on conclusions previously established by yourself.
Here's why:
Look at your to-do list, if you are like me, you'll see that most of the items have the "pending" state (sometimes noted as "x% complete" or "almost done" or "final review required").
Look at the age of each entry, if you are like me, you'll see that most of the "pending" tasks are quite old. If you don't see that, it most likely means that your to-do list lacks a "date" or "age" field ;-)
Zoom into each entry and see where exactly you got stuck. You'll be surprised that in most cases you are "almost there". What are you waiting for?
The following rule will help you get out of trouble sooner, or not get in trouble at all. Whenever you are about to decide that you failed, that something has to be canceled, that you have to do X, or that you have to do X instead of Y, imagine that your rationale is made public.
Think about it for a while... Are you still into it?
Cînd cerul albastru
Se transformă în plumb,
Şi soarele nu se mai vede,
Stropi de metal şi durere străpung
Liniştea codrului verde.
***
Taie, şi rupe din frunzele tale;
Fum şi cenuşă, căzute petale...
Curge acidul pe scoarţa tulpinii
Roşii văpăi sunt noua lumină.
***
Lasă şuvoiul să se scurgă în mine,
Eu voi absoarbe veninul ce vine.
***
Noaptea se-aşterne, iar în depărtare
Ziua de mîine cu-ncetul răsare...
Ţinând cont de ultimele evenimente din Moldova, ar trebui să facem unele concluzii şi să anticipăm evenimentele din viitor.
Până acum puţini dintre noi s-au ciocnit cu noţiunea de "privacy", pentru că ne putem apăra de inamic setând bitul "hidden" în proprietăţile fişierelor speciale (inamicul de obicei e părintele sau fratele). Însă acum, când inamicul este mai sofisticat, şi măsurile trebuie să fie mai serioase.
Iată nişte instrumente indispensabile, şi gratuite - utilizarea lor nu te va costa nimic (nici bani, nici timp pentru a înţelege cum lucrează).
Dacă până acum nu te-ai gândit la securitatea\confidenţialitatea online şi offline, e timpul s-o faci.
UPDATE: An epilogue and a meta-epilogue were added
"All models are wrong; some models are useful"
(George Box)
Is there a state in which a civilization can say "we know everything there is to know"? Is the chain of discoveries and inventions an endless one? Or is there a point where it all stops, and there will be nothing left in the universe that can surprise us?
At first it seems that knowledge has no bounds, because when we invent/discover something, the new information can be combined with older building blocks - thus something new is obtained. The more elements you have, the more ways there are to combine them - so there is clearly no bound.
Here is a simple example, we only have 10 digits: {0, 1, 2 ,3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9} - but we can write an infinite number of numbers with these 10 digits; i.e. the number of things we can do is infinite, while the number of building blocks is finite.
Although I've finished watching Futurama quite some time ago, and these images were drawn soon afterwards... Somehow I forgot to post them.
There you go, Leela and Bender in SVG, feel free to take these apart and apply them in your avatars.
(Turanga Leela)
(Bender Bending Rodríguez)
As always, the pictures come in Polaroid format, with certain elements going beyond the edge of the photo, which makes them look very realistic ;-)
Naturally, I recommend the Futurama series, these cartoons are great! If anyone can suggest a good Futurama substitute, feel free to do so. If you liked this cartoon, then you will probably like Samurai Jack too, it has been previously covered on this site.
Updates:I've compiled a list of key-points which in my opinion, can make a significant difference in one's academic life. Since these days are the days many high-school students will pass their BAC exams and face the problem of choosing a university (i.e. determine their future), I decided it is time to publish this list.
Many points are generic, and apply to anyone studying in any field; while some of them are of a technical nature, and they will be of interest to those studying computers and programming.
In spite of the fact that the list is for pupils from Moldova, it is in English because it targets a specific subset of the "soon to be students" crowd; I hope you guys will find it useful.
The beauty of this list is that all the items are simple and you don't need to be a rocket scientist to make it work for you ;-)
Social stuff
Information
Books
Software Tools
Learn Python
Sleeping habits
Have your pet-project and do everything for it
Professional aspects
Things I didn't do, but think are important
Notes:
Am observat un lucru interesant - tineretul zilei de astăzi nu poate folosi eficient internetul. Poate că nu îşi dau seama că au la dispoziţie o sursă (practic) infinită şi (practic) gratuită de date? E imposibil să fii atât de limitat, e mult mai probabil că lenea e de vină.
Când eram elev, nu citeam întotdeauna lucrările, ci căutam un rezumat, sau citeam diverse comentarii, apoi interpolam şi extrapolam, generând o impresie generală despre lucrare. Nu ştiam totul, dar petreceam puţin timp citind (literatura română); şi cu un "analytics engine" bun am reuşit să trec cu succes de cursul de literatură română.
Mi-a plăcut ultima reclamă a berii "Chişinău" pe care am vazut-o la TV, nu pentru ca sunt un fan al berii, ci pentru că stilul ales de autorii spotului publicitar este unul care îmi place - stilul infografic. Aceste ilustraţii sunt nu doar atractive, ci şi informative.
Spotul poate fi vizionat pe Youtube: bere "Chişinău".
E probabil că ai văzut câţiva ani în urmă şi un videoclip realizat în acelaşi stil: Röyksopp - Remind Me.
Dacă ai fost atent, probabil că ai observat ceva.