Did You Know That 2015 Equals 11111011111 In Binary, A Palindrome?

“Only open your mouth if what you are about to say is more beautiful than silence.”

Arabic Proverb (via distractful)

How To Easily Remember the Unit Circle

I work in a walk-in tutor lab at my university and one of the other tutors showed me this a couple years back and it has changed my life.

First, you make a table that looks like this.

Then, go ahead and add in some nice denominators of 2 in every entry in the table.

Then give yourself some nice square roots on the numerators.

Alright – now we’re going to fill it in. The only value you have to remember is that sin(0)=0. So we put 0 in the numerator for 0 in the sine column. Then we just count up as we move down.

Then we do the opposite in the cosine column.

Then we simplify!

And voila – a beautiful unit circle table. 

Never make fun of someone’s passion because that is the thing that saves them from the world.

(via kluah)

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.

How do you make the jump from like, completing CodeAcademy lessons to actually conceptualizing and building a program?

Honestly, it is really tough. People seem to make it sound like it’s a lot easier but if you’re doing it by yourself, you really have to work at it!

What you could start doing is drafting up a thought in your head from any idea; say you think "I have this problem and it could be solved this way”. Transform that thought into a solution and use it! It’s going to be a bit tougher since CodeAcademy can’t teach you the logic of everything, but it will start to get easier and easier as time goes on! 

I would also suggest maybe looking at school websites for Computer Science, as a lot CS teachers will post their assignments on a website and you can use those to base projects off of!

What’s Up for March 2017?

What’s Up for March? The moon hides red star Aldebaran and crescents dazzle after dusk.

On March 4 the first quarter moon passes between Earth and the star Aldebaran, temporarily blocking our view of the star. This is called an occultation. 

The occultation begins and concludes at different times, depending on where you are when you view it.

The event should be easy to see from most of the U.S., Mexico, most of Central America, the Western Caribbean and Bermuda. 

Observers along a narrow path from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Hartford, Connecticut, will see the moon “graze” the star. The star will disappear and reappear repeatedly as hills and valleys on the moon alternately obscure and reveal it.

As seen from Earth, both Mercury and Venus have phases like our moon. That’s because they circle the sun inside Earth’s orbit. 

Planets that orbit between Earth and the sun are known as inner or inferior planets.

Inferior planets can never be at “opposition,” which is when the planet and the sun are on opposite sides of Earth.

But inferior planets can be at “conjunction,” which is when a planet, the sun and Earth are all in a straight line. 

Conjunction can happen once when the planet is on the opposite side of the sun from Earth and again when it’s on the same side of the sun as Earth. 

When a planet is on the opposite side of the sun from Earth, we say it is at “superior conjunction.” As the planet moves out from behind the sun and gets closer to Earth, we see less and less of the lit side. We see phases, similar to our moon’s phases. 

Mercury is at superior conjunction on March 6. 

A few weeks later, the planet emerges from behind the sun and we can once again observe it. By the end of March we’ll see a last-quarter Mercury.

 On April 20 Mercury reaches “inferior conjunction.”

Brilliant Venus is also racing toward its own inferior conjunction on March 25. Watch its crescent get thinner and thinner as the planet’s size appears larger and larger, because it is getting closer to Earth.

Finally, look for Jupiter to rise in the East. It will be visible all month long from late evening until dawn.

You can catch up on solar system missions and all of our missions at www.nasa.gov

Watch the full “What’s Up for March 2017″ video here: 

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

What non programmers think programmers are like:

What programmers are actually like

right, if you are in college and are a cs major or a budding software developer, i highly recommend you to check out the architecture of open source applications, especially the 500 lines or less section. architects, artists etc look at thousands of buildings/paintings  throughout their lifetimes, critique them, learn what’s worked and what didn’t. most software developers, however, do not share that experience - unless it’s with a codebase they have written themselves. 

reading other people’s code is JUST as important as writing code of your own. i especially recommend the projects/documentation in 500 lines or so section b/c while they are big enough for you to understand basic system design, 500 lines of code isn’t too overwhelming. plus it’s super cool to read about building a database built from archeological principles or how the code behind pedometers works

real talk tho you might feel like you aren’t doing enough or you’re behind or you haven’t set yourself up well enough and you aren’t in the right place but you can still work it out and there are beautiful, amazing things ahead of you. two years ago I had a 2.8, was on the verge of losing my scholarship, had no idea how to study, and wouldn’t have been able to handle a research position even if I knew how to get one. now I’m working in a lab, have tons of research experience, co-authored a publication, have an amazing advisor who is helping me with a honors thesis, and am set to do eight months of paid research abroad next semester. (and the 2.8 is now a 3.6). it’s not over, it can get better, you aren’t a failure, and wonderful things are waiting.

do u ever remember all the horrible offensve things u said when u were like 15 and u literally feel ur soul detach and turn 2 dust