Me: *has 30 Million Things To Do Before Monday*

In whatever you choose to do, do it because it’s hard, not because it’s easy. Math and physics and astrophysics are hard. For every hard thing you accomplish, fewer other people are out there doing the same thing as you. That’s what doing something hard means. And in the limit of this, everyone beats a path to your door because you’re the only one around who understands the impossible concept or who solves the unsolvable problem.

Neil deGrasse Tyson (via mathblab)

on programming

When learning a new language don’t waste your time copying down syntax, it will come naturally after practice. But, if you really need syntax help badly then I can reassure you that most high end languages are heavily documented.

I say this so that you don’t waste all your time taking notes on basic syntax, instead use your study time to copy down any relevant code examples in the textbook, tinker with them and analyze them, comment on them. Practice, practice, practice.

The only time you should take notes is for flowcharting or pseudocode. And of course, notes on concepts.

Book of the week: Warrior of the Light by Paulo Coelho

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So, when I was doing my thesis on whether or not fanfiction should be considered a legitimate genre of literature, my advising professor asked me for examples.  I gave him the generic ones, of course - “Pride & Prejudice and Zombies” is a horror fanfic of “Pride & Prejudice”, “50 Shades of Grey” is an erotica fic of “Twilight" - and that seemed to make him understand what fanfiction is, but not how it’s useful.  So I thought about it, and, after about a minute, I said, “Paradise Lost is basically a fanfiction of the Book of Genesis.  And The Divine Comedy is an epic self-insertion fic for Catholic doctrine.  So, basically, you were teaching us fanfiction last semester.”  I had never before seen a grown man’s eyes widen with such fear, incomprehension, disgust, awe, and understanding.

“How’s that essay going?”

“We are assuming here that the user is competent. In reality this is always false. Users are very dumb and will do weird things.”

Intro to Computer Programming Professor (via mathprofessorquotes)

Don’t let your idea of who you are become a prison. 

Meet yourself anew every morning.

Allow change.

Allow growth.

Allow yourself to become.

Consider going into a classroom and looking around, and you’re the only man there. Even if you’re totally ok with that (heck, you expected it), you notice. You feel all the women in the room notice you and see that a lot of them are glancing over at you or making comments about your presence. Ok, you knew that might happen. A woman next to you says, “Hey, cool, a guy in a CS class, good for you.” When it comes time to form a study group, half the women in the class don’t want to work with you because they assume men aren’t as good at CS. The other half jockey to work with you, some for the novelty (“Hey, I’m in a group with the guy, ”) and half because they want to ask you out. When you go to apply for an internship, a lot of companies seem really interested in you, but you’re not sure if it’s because they like your resume or just because you’re a guy in CS and they want to look open and forward thinking by having lots of male interns coding. You meet up with a group of female interns and one makes a slightly sexual joke. Everyone freezes and looks at you - are you one of those guys in CS that is serious and can’t take a joke, or will you be one of the girls? At your job after you graduate, it’s naturally not ok for a woman to say outright that she’s prejudiced against male coders… But maybe your boss gives you slightly different work, or it takes longer for you to get a promotion because they need more proof that you are good - you don’t get the benefit of the doubt the way the girls do. When you express a strong opinion about a tough problem, the women write it off as you being sensitive and emotional - men often are, you know. When discussing your career ambitions, your coworkers often ask you how children play into that - I mean, you’re probably looking for a wife and plan to have kids since you’re in your late 20s. Everyone knows it’s a safe bet that kids are going to derail your career at least temporarily, if not permanently. You frequently police how often you mention family at all for fear people will assume you’re expecting a kid soon… … Does this begin to explain it, at all? Even when a company is open to women working in all areas and no one is a dick, there is still a lot of pervasive bias that affects how women are treated and perceived. Why would you notice? It doesn’t affect you.

Electrostaticrain (Reddit)