Since Tuesdays, scribbling and haphazard interaction I've been a little in between things - take what you want your meaning from that as you like. I'm not sure if I've been productive or not but perhaps as I have to say that, its likely that I've not been as productive as I could. Let me work backwards then...
I started reading a a few new books yesterday, one called How to think like a mathematician and the other two are about the history of math which I find quite interesting generally. I also generated a C# Sdk for my investment tracker so that I can start building a nice looking GUI for it in WPF which was the last GUI framework I worked on since working for Citrix while working on Desktop Studio. That work kind of stalled as I fell into the spell of the previous math book, which keep me up until 11pm last night and why my run was so tough this morning.
One of the interesting concepts about maths is how it came about - is it inherent in the nature of the world or did we invent it to fit our understanding of the nature of the world? I had the opportunity to revisit of fundamental concepts that bad math teachers never teach (because they don't know it themselves or don't see how essential it is for people learning maths to understand how its works, not merely that it does and be done with it) such my favourite concept which I brought up a while back as why a negative take a way a negative is a positive... Remember this:
no, not because that's the rule but because taking away less "lessness" gives your more positiveness. This was nicely explained by representing +number and -numbers are two different types of 'things' that have some sort of inverse relationship ie more +things means less -things and viceversa. You can describe a scenario in terms of these negative and positive numbers by representing the numbers as something else that also have a inverse relationship - Hot Air Balloons. Let me explain:
If you represent Heat as positive number and Ballast as negative numbers, then as these things are inversely proportional concepts to each other (in terms of altitude reached by a hot air balloon - more heat higher the balloon's altitude, less heat lower balloon's altitude and more ballast(weight) less altitude etc ) in the same way that negative and positive numbers share a similar inversely proportional relationship. The way to explain why (-6) - (-5) = -1 is that you start at a ballast of 6 and take away 5 ballasts so you have less ballasts left, so you only have 1 ballast left and a ballast is a negative number and thus -1. To explain (-6) + (-5) is saying you started with 6 ballasts and you're adding more ballasts, you're going to end up will a lot more ballasts, that is a negative number: -11. The dumb rule that doesn't explain to who how a negative number subtracted from another negative number is that a "negative" and a "negative" is a positive but makes you dumber in the process : (-6) - (-5) as -6 (- and - = +) +5 = -11. But its important that -6 - -5 = -11 not because two negatives makes a positive and you just add the sum - who in their right mind would make rules up like this without the result actually being representative of the actual mechanical process of taking away "lessness" (ballast or negative). Its a tricky concept to grasp always but that doesn't mean that teachers should avoid explaining it. I think my pet hate is rules because they are so deceptive and don't provide you with any substance.
My explanation might stink but its damn well better than a "negative and a negative is a positive". That's a rule and I don't like rules.
With the missing space in my schedule now that my C programming course is finished, I've found myself a little at a loose end though maybe I've coped just fine...
I also finished by Digital Forensics assignment which was quite interesting and thankfully I'd finished the majority of it last weekend and so this weekend was just filling in the blanks, referencing and making sure my spelling as OK (actually did I do that!?). That also marked the end of the study of English Law with respects to Computing. I've learned so much about it and I'm so much more informed about cyber crimes and how the law approaches them. For this alone, this study was beneficial. Can't much be said for the course I took on CPD which I've decided after a bit thought to abandon as I'm not interested in sweating blood in order to pass assignments - which is what is required. At this level, you can't really pass without being entirely "in it" and so I think I'll stick to what I know and what I'm "in" to: Simply put that Computing and programming. I'll leave the psychological stuff to their respective fields. This also means that I'll have a bit more time to study the more practical aspects of digital forensics which include static file analysis, dead machine analysis and network forensics which is shaping up to be an incredibly interesting 2nd half of the course(and I found the 1st part about law interesting).
I also finished by Digital Forensics assignment which was quite interesting and thankfully I'd finished the majority of it last weekend and so this weekend was just filling in the blanks, referencing and making sure my spelling as OK (actually did I do that!?). That also marked the end of the study of English Law with respects to Computing. I've learned so much about it and I'm so much more informed about cyber crimes and how the law approaches them. For this alone, this study was beneficial. Can't much be said for the course I took on CPD which I've decided after a bit thought to abandon as I'm not interested in sweating blood in order to pass assignments - which is what is required. At this level, you can't really pass without being entirely "in it" and so I think I'll stick to what I know and what I'm "in" to: Simply put that Computing and programming. I'll leave the psychological stuff to their respective fields.
This also means that I'll have a bit more time to study the more practical aspects of digital forensics which include static file analysis, dead machine analysis and network forensics which is shaping up to be an incredibly interesting 2nd half of the course(and I found the 1st part about law interesting). I got sick of my glasses sliding down my nose when I'm looking down at my keyboard while typing so I found these which are super cool at fixing my specs to my face all snug. Apparently, as the guy at the optometrists said, they use them for sports like bagmington so that's a great vote of confidence from my perspective. I spend most of my day on Saturday not going to the gym. The reason for this was twofold. First I'd gotten pretty sick on the Wednesday (I think it was a bad cherry or I eat my food to quick) which saw me in a bad way for that evening(I won't go into details) and very tender on the Thursday and even on Friday I was a bit quite at work! My headache was I think the worst one I've had before and when I sneezed my head reverberated and hurt. So that kinda made me not want to go running or picking up heavy things that day. So instead I just planned, I planned feeverishly. I like planning.
I planned my upcoming Autumn term which starts in September and which I've really excited to start. Looking at the previous year's timetable, I think we start with Object orientated programming in C++ and Information Systems and then I think I'll only get to Computer graphics and Artificial Intelligence in the subsequent term (the Spring term). I need to brush up on my reading about 3D math around vectors and matrices and well as the coordinate systems soon. I think a lot of these concepts will be talked about but I always find reading upfront makes the teaching easier.
I also planned out how my I'd need to plan my other courses following that i.e making sure I've got enough run way to finish it all in time. That was fun. I'm currently thinking weather I should move houses but this is a priority that's loosing favour - I quite like living in Uxbridge actually.
I've not really progressed my 2D game project with animation and I feel that this is somewhat dragging and I think a little has to do with the want I have install visual studio 2019 and see how it supercharges my syntax capabilities in the IDE but at the same time I don't want to break my running TeapotWars source code that I got up and running under Visual Studio 2017 and which was not that easy. Game Coding Complete 4 is on the list of recommended reading so I should problem not mess with Visual Studio 2017 (but I can run 2019 at the same time? but I don't have loads of ram) - Welcome to my world of comprimeses?
I also fixed my TouchId on my phone which I'd broken since I'd replaced by iPhone 5S battery. Its actually pretty useful when I'm using my banking apps or lastpass and my password is long so anytime I don't need to type it, the saner I am. So that was nice - I enrolled in my 2 little fingerprints last night. It took a bit of fiddeling to dismantle the device but I'd done it before.