Daily "Check In" Thread For Us

[Mountaineer]

Good morning,

In honor of Pugchief I'm off to have a tooth extracted today. I'm doing my part to help keep the dental economy going.

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[Mountaineer]

Good morning,

In honor of Pugchief I'm off to have a tooth extracted today. I'm doing my part to help keep the dental economy going.

fd44a7b565e925cdf3487c6435a20e16.jpg

Good luck! Consider a bone graft if you think there is any chance you may want an implant.

Thanks, it went well. Both my regular dentist and the endodontist suggested as you did re. the bone graft. Since I'm from WV, I thought the open hole would look nice. Actually, it was a back molar that can't be seen when I smile.

[Smith1776]

Thought of the day:

I keep a habit of filling up my car's gas tank when the indicator reaches half empty. Today that happened and I thought to myself "Oh, looks like I've triggered a rebalancing band."

I shook my head at myself as I then thought "There's only one place on the Internet where that line of thinking won't make me come off as being a total weirdo."

[dualstow]

Do you charge your phone at 40%?

[Libertarian666]

Thought of the day:

I keep a habit of filling up my car's gas tank when the indicator reaches half empty. Today that happened and I thought to myself "Oh, looks like I've triggered a rebalancing band."

I shook my head at myself as I then thought "There's only one place on the Internet where that line of thinking won't make me come off as being a total weirdo."

I wouldn't be so sure about that.

[Mountaineer]

Thought of the day:

I keep a habit of filling up my car's gas tank when the indicator reaches half empty. Today that happened and I thought to myself "Oh, looks like I've triggered a rebalancing band."

I shook my head at myself as I then thought "There's only one place on the Internet where that line of thinking won't make me come off as being a total weirdo."

The ONLY thing weird about your post is you said you fill up when the indicator reaches half empty; I NEVER fill mine until the indicator reaches half full (I'm an optimist).

[Dieter]

...
I started using the Waking Up meditation app lately. I'm enjoying that (well, when not getting after my mind to SHUT UP! )

Gonna do that now on break instead of overmuch time on financial musings.

Is it the Sam Harris one?

Yes.

I had been using Headspace, which is good, but I needed a change. Monkey mind was too bored with that or something.

Hah! That's kind of ironic, isn't it? The app that is supposed calm one's monkey mind: We find it too boring because of our monkey minds.

Don't I know it. Got frustrated as all get out.

With me regarding my meditation app.

A walking irony.

But I'm on day 19 with Waking Uo, and while not as shiney as on day 1, I'm still liking it.

The teacher (Sam Harris) talks more DURING the meditation, but doesn't have a two+ minute preamble to get lost in.

And talking during the meditation keeps Monkey interested.

[pp4me]

Here's an idea for you:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/stir-crazy ... jem10point

Or maybe they could get together in small, COVID-sanctioned groups to remove their belts, shoes and jackets while standing on a filthy floor and give each other patdowns.

In other words....who the heck out there really misses air travel????? Not me!!!

It's not the journey, it's the destination.

Trying to find happiness in my own back yard in my golden years but there isn't much there.

[Smith1776]

Ah, almost forgot to check back in about this! You know that math class I was doing all that belly aching about a while back? I got an A+ in it.

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[Libertarian666]

Ah, almost forgot to check back in about this! You know that math class I was doing all that belly aching about a while back? I got an A+ in it.

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Congrats!

[Dieter]

Ah, almost forgot to check back in about this! You know that math class I was doing all that belly aching about a while back? I got an A+ in it.


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Great job! Congrats.

[dualstow]

Well done, Smithy.

[Kriegsspiel]

Thought of the day:

I keep a habit of filling up my car's gas tank when the indicator reaches half empty. Today that happened and I thought to myself "Oh, looks like I've triggered a rebalancing band."

I shook my head at myself as I then thought "There's only one place on the Internet where that line of thinking won't make me come off as being a total weirdo."

I fill up on a half tank too. I think of it as some sort of dollar cost averaging. More/smaller refills instead of fewer/entire tank refills. Filling the entire tank when gas is expensive fucks my mind a lot more than filling it with cheap gas makes me feel like I won, but only filling half a tank isn't as bad either way

[Smith1776]

Thanks, guys. I was talking with some hiring managers and people currently working in industry doing software engineering. They all said the same thing.

"You will never use calculus."

[Libertarian666]

Thanks, guys. I was talking with some hiring managers and people currently working in industry doing software engineering. They all said the same thing.

"You will never use calculus."

I can’t recall having to use calculus in my 50+ years of software development.

[Xan]

You would definitely use it if it related to your problem domain. I find I "use" it in everyday life: observing things in motion, mostly, but it applies a lot of other places. I don't know that it's necessarily "useful" to notice things like that, but I think it's fun.

Not that you need an A+ in Calc 2 in order to do that, of course.

[Mark Leavy]

Thanks, guys. I was talking with some hiring managers and people currently working in industry doing software engineering. They all said the same thing.

"You will never use calculus."

You may not use it directly very often. But it changes the way you think. It makes you a better engineer. When you write software you will do calculus via discrete approximations. Putting the central limit theory into direct practice.

I was hiking in the Appalachians last week and as I approached a peak, my first thought was "this is a dome peak, a negative second derivative, the trail should be getting less steep..." You'll also never look at a saddle surface the same way again.

It affects how you drive, how you accelerate, how you corner.

Calculus makes you a better thinker all the way around. Derivatives and Integrals become new dimensions of your world view.

A huge congratulations to you on the A+!

Mark

[Xan]

Wow, Mark put that in much better words than I did!

[dualstow]

I used Calculus to convince myself that I should not be taking any more math classes.

[Smith1776]

Thank you for the insights.

I am (was?) at a crossroads about going further and taking multivariable calculus. The previous math courses are still fresh in my head. I actually really enjoy math, and I'm fascinated to learn more.

However, everyone I've talked to that actually works in industry has been telling me that doing more math will be of minimal benefit in the real world. Further, instead of using my remaining credit hours on math I could take more programming which seems to be more beneficial. The amount of time math takes to really absorb is also weighing on my mind.

I'm strongly leaning towards focusing purely on programming courses for my last couple of semesters instead of taking tangentially related courses like math.

[Mark Leavy]

I used Calculus to convince myself that I should not be taking any more math classes.

Ha!

[Xan]

Thank you for the insights.

I am (was?) at a crossroads about going further and taking multivariable calculus. The previous math courses are still fresh in my head. I actually really enjoy math, and I'm fascinated to learn more.

However, everyone I've talked to that actually works in industry has been telling me that doing more math will be of minimal benefit in the real world. Further, instead of using my remaining credit hours on math I could take more programming which seems to be more beneficial. The amount of time math takes to really absorb is also weighing on my mind.

I'm strongly leaning towards focusing purely on programming courses for my last couple of semesters instead of taking tangentially related courses like math.

Which do you think you'd have an easier time self-learning in the future? You could buy a multivariable calc book and go through it at your leisure. Since it isn't your bread & butter, that sounds like the way to go rather than the programming.

[Mountaineer]

Thank you for the insights.

I am (was?) at a crossroads about going further and taking multivariable calculus. The previous math courses are still fresh in my head. I actually really enjoy math, and I'm fascinated to learn more.

However, everyone I've talked to that actually works in industry has been telling me that doing more math will be of minimal benefit in the real world. Further, instead of using my remaining credit hours on math I could take more programming which seems to be more beneficial. The amount of time math takes to really absorb is also weighing on my mind.

I'm strongly leaning towards focusing purely on programming courses for my last couple of semesters instead of taking tangentially related courses like math.

Ancient history comment: Try something like Advanced Applied Math. Applied to what was what I discovered. It was full of triple integrals and dell dots and dell crosses. Useless except for the three math credits I needed.

[Mark Leavy]

I'm strongly leaning towards focusing purely on programming courses for my last couple of semesters instead of taking tangentially related courses like math.

You're a smart dude, Smith. I think you're on the right track. You probably don't need any more calculus for what you want to do. If you did, I imagine you could pick up what you wanted to in a heartbeat. If you absolutely wanted to take more math that you will use in engineering and programming, I always like to see linear algebra and statistics. Unfortunately, I've never seen any of them taught well, so it is hard to recommend them.

I don't know how you give someone an intuitive sense of what is happening with matrix transformations, linear equations, distributions, probabilities and sparse solutions, but whatever the hell they teach in school doesn't do it. But once you get it in your head, you feel like Neo seeing through the matrix. And you can name your price as an engineer. It will get used.

[Kriegsspiel]

If you know what's going on with Excel formulas, then you're good to go.