Classes have started, and so far so good. I find that I'm enjoying them more than I thought I would, even though (or perhaps because) the material is challenging. I'm taking four courses - Intro to Programming, Discrete Mathematics, a class on the Internet and American Life, and a class on Human-Computer Interaction.
The programming class is teaching Java, and so far it's been kind of fun. I've had the expected trouble remembering syntax, though the programming environment has improved considerably. I vaguely recall studying C++ over twenty years ago, and if I forgot to add a colon or got something wrong I don't recall getting a notice before running the program. I vaguely remember poring over code trying to figure out what I did wrong. Now, the IDE tells me exactly where the issues are and gives some clue as to what.
The Internet and American Life is neat, because it fits my new interest nicely with my old one. We're reading various material on internet topics, like privacy or access to broadband. It's making me dig into topics I've been only peripherally aware of. So...computer science and public policy, basically.
The Human-Computer Interaction one is interesting, because it's making me think about the various interfaces I've used over the course of my life. Everything from changes to Windows, to the things we did to modify our Warehouse Management System, to my work with an IT person to develop a Filemaker database. Dad said that going back to undergrad classes after doing a master's was a hoot, and I think he's right. (Ask me again when finals and term papers are due!)
I've saved the best (or worst) for last. Discrete Mathematics. I kind of love it, though I think it could be quite intimidating if you'd never had anything like it before. Our first few chapters cover logic and other things. Propositions, predicates, truth tables, set theory, matrices. Really, it's quite a lot to cover in the first two weeks!
Luckily, as I said, I've had classes rather like it before. One was a class on logic, twenty years ago. Or rather, a class called "the Darkside of Rationality" that covered how illogical we are, but had to cover logic to kind of show how often we aren't. I think. Again, it was twenty years ago. I'm actually a little impressed with how much it's coming back to me. I'm also drawing on my high school calculus and pre-calculus, where I did get introduced to matrices.
So the course is challenging. I find myself reviewing the material a lot over the course of the week, and some of it's a little slippery. But it's also kind of fun, as it reminds me a bit of sudoku puzzles, especially those times when you're able to figure out the number through some fancy bit of logic.
To give you a sense of how intimidating it can be, here's something from the wikipedia on De Morgan's laws:
It's basically saying that if there is some function (or proposition) 'P(x)' that is true for all possible x values, it's the same as saying that "no x exists that is not P(x)"
Okay, that doesn't come out very well when I type it. Or rather, something that seems so clear in my head is clearly not so crystalline when I try to explain it. I originally was going to read this off like I do internally but it just doesn't work quite right. "For all of x, P(x) is logically equivalent to saying that it is not the case that there exists an x which is not P(x)"
It gets even stranger when you realize x can be anything, even a statement like "humans have belly buttons". So the first part would say "for all humans, humans have belly buttons" and you can evaluate that statement for whether it's true or false. Those three stacked lines that look like a suped up equals sign indicates logical equivalence. It basically says that the statement to the left will have the same truth values to the statement on the right. It's not saying that it's true, or false. Just that when you evaluate the statement "for all humans, humans have belly buttons", its truthiness will be exactly same as the second half...which can be roughly translated to "there is not a human who does not have a belly button"
You could make x something else, like "cats have hair". Then the first half would say "for all cats, cats have hair" and the second half would say "there is not a cat who does not have hair", and since we all know that such cats exist we know that both statements are false. And since the truthiness of those statements are the same, they're still logically equivalent.
Okay. I'm leaving it at that. Let's just say, classes are kind of fun. I am quitting my job in a month. Part of me wonders why I gave my workplace such a long notice. Particularly when something annoying crops up at work. But I will be training my replacement soon and just have to do one more month. Then I can start freaking out about paying my bills. (I did get my certificate of eligibility saying I qualify for 70% of the post-9-11 GI Bill, and submitted all my paperwork.)
Oh, btw, I got all signed up to drive for Lyft and Uber. FYI - it's pretty common for drivers to use both apps, here. I don't think there's enough ride requests to stick with one and only one.
I hope that driving will give me the schedule flexibility and income to make things work while I go to school. I've driven a couple of times, just to try it out. I haven't done it extensively yet so I don't know how well this will work as a side job, but we'll see.
Anyone reading this who wants to try riding or driving with either company, feel free to use my referral codes.
For Lyft, it's: CHRISTINA93597
For Uber, it's: 6D5BZMZ1UE
The programming class is teaching Java, and so far it's been kind of fun. I've had the expected trouble remembering syntax, though the programming environment has improved considerably. I vaguely recall studying C++ over twenty years ago, and if I forgot to add a colon or got something wrong I don't recall getting a notice before running the program. I vaguely remember poring over code trying to figure out what I did wrong. Now, the IDE tells me exactly where the issues are and gives some clue as to what.
The Internet and American Life is neat, because it fits my new interest nicely with my old one. We're reading various material on internet topics, like privacy or access to broadband. It's making me dig into topics I've been only peripherally aware of. So...computer science and public policy, basically.
The Human-Computer Interaction one is interesting, because it's making me think about the various interfaces I've used over the course of my life. Everything from changes to Windows, to the things we did to modify our Warehouse Management System, to my work with an IT person to develop a Filemaker database. Dad said that going back to undergrad classes after doing a master's was a hoot, and I think he's right. (Ask me again when finals and term papers are due!)
I've saved the best (or worst) for last. Discrete Mathematics. I kind of love it, though I think it could be quite intimidating if you'd never had anything like it before. Our first few chapters cover logic and other things. Propositions, predicates, truth tables, set theory, matrices. Really, it's quite a lot to cover in the first two weeks!
Luckily, as I said, I've had classes rather like it before. One was a class on logic, twenty years ago. Or rather, a class called "the Darkside of Rationality" that covered how illogical we are, but had to cover logic to kind of show how often we aren't. I think. Again, it was twenty years ago. I'm actually a little impressed with how much it's coming back to me. I'm also drawing on my high school calculus and pre-calculus, where I did get introduced to matrices.
So the course is challenging. I find myself reviewing the material a lot over the course of the week, and some of it's a little slippery. But it's also kind of fun, as it reminds me a bit of sudoku puzzles, especially those times when you're able to figure out the number through some fancy bit of logic.
To give you a sense of how intimidating it can be, here's something from the wikipedia on De Morgan's laws:
![{\displaystyle \forall x\,P(x)\equiv \neg [\exists x\,\neg P(x)]}](https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/media/math/render/svg/d0cf60133e36276a8be3ee6803163417f57fb8f8)
It's basically saying that if there is some function (or proposition) 'P(x)' that is true for all possible x values, it's the same as saying that "no x exists that is not P(x)"
Okay, that doesn't come out very well when I type it. Or rather, something that seems so clear in my head is clearly not so crystalline when I try to explain it. I originally was going to read this off like I do internally but it just doesn't work quite right. "For all of x, P(x) is logically equivalent to saying that it is not the case that there exists an x which is not P(x)"
It gets even stranger when you realize x can be anything, even a statement like "humans have belly buttons". So the first part would say "for all humans, humans have belly buttons" and you can evaluate that statement for whether it's true or false. Those three stacked lines that look like a suped up equals sign indicates logical equivalence. It basically says that the statement to the left will have the same truth values to the statement on the right. It's not saying that it's true, or false. Just that when you evaluate the statement "for all humans, humans have belly buttons", its truthiness will be exactly same as the second half...which can be roughly translated to "there is not a human who does not have a belly button"
You could make x something else, like "cats have hair". Then the first half would say "for all cats, cats have hair" and the second half would say "there is not a cat who does not have hair", and since we all know that such cats exist we know that both statements are false. And since the truthiness of those statements are the same, they're still logically equivalent.
Okay. I'm leaving it at that. Let's just say, classes are kind of fun. I am quitting my job in a month. Part of me wonders why I gave my workplace such a long notice. Particularly when something annoying crops up at work. But I will be training my replacement soon and just have to do one more month. Then I can start freaking out about paying my bills. (I did get my certificate of eligibility saying I qualify for 70% of the post-9-11 GI Bill, and submitted all my paperwork.)
Oh, btw, I got all signed up to drive for Lyft and Uber. FYI - it's pretty common for drivers to use both apps, here. I don't think there's enough ride requests to stick with one and only one.
I hope that driving will give me the schedule flexibility and income to make things work while I go to school. I've driven a couple of times, just to try it out. I haven't done it extensively yet so I don't know how well this will work as a side job, but we'll see.
Anyone reading this who wants to try riding or driving with either company, feel free to use my referral codes.
For Lyft, it's: CHRISTINA93597
For Uber, it's: 6D5BZMZ1UE
