Practice writing slowly and with good form. Write regularly, give yourself practice pieces. At uni you will be writing FAST, so it’ll get worse if you don’t keep disciplined.
Alternatively, learn to touch type, and type any work you need to hand in. - if your handwriting is so bad, you may want to make your notes legible to yourself for revision.
I’ve avoided the conversation entirely. Ever since the pandemic I’ve done my own hair with clippers. Made a good enough job of it, even if I’ve sometimes needed to do a small adjustment the next day.
For a simple style it’s not that difficult if you take your time.
Thought I did so well on my phone. It kept auto correcting code to coffee. Maybe it was telling me something.
Yes, plan for it!
All the other comments are great advice. As an ex chemist who does quite a bit of code I’ll add:
Do you want code that works, or code that works?! It’s reasonably easy to knock out ugly code that only works once, and that can be just what you need. It takes a little more effort however to make it robust. Think about how it can fail and trap the failures. If you’re sharing code with others, this is even more important a people do ‘interesting’ things.
There’s a lot of temporary code that’s had a very long life in production, this has technical debt… Is it documented? Is it stable? Is it secure? Ideally it should be
Code examples on the first page of Google tend to work ok, but are not generally secure, e.g doing SQL queries instead of using prepared statements. Doesn’t take much extra effort to do it properly and gives you peace of mind. We create sboms for our code now so we can easily check if a component has gained a vulnerability. Doesn’t mean our code is good, but it helps. You don’t really want to be the person who’s code helped let an attacker in.
Any code you write, especially stuff you share will give you a support and maintenance task long term. Pirate for it!
Code sometimes just stops working. - at least I’m my experience. Sacrifice something to the gods and all will be fine.
Finally, you probably know more than you think. You’ve plenty of experience. Most of the time I can do what I need without e.g. classes, but sometimes I’ll intentionally use a technique in a project just to learn it. I can’t learn stuff if I don’t have a use for it.
I’m still learning, so if I’ve got any part of the above wrong, please help me out.
Yes prime minister is the most accurate documentary about British politics of all time.
There’s a lot of Scotland, and don’t underestimate driving times. Argyll is good, but can be rather wet any time of the year. Going around now you should be safe from the midgies. Recommend getting onto some of the islands too, and boat rides are always nice. Kerrera is a lovely little island just by Oban. It has a very atmospheric castle, though the teashop isn’t as good as it was so pack a lunch. If you like a dram, make a tour of some distilleries, each has it’s own character. Argyll has lots of archeology & standing stones if that’s your thing. There are loads of lumpy bits of you like walking too. Pretty much anywhere is good, tourist hotspot are ok, but try to get off the beaten track once in a while.
If you’re driving, and going onto country roads, please please please learn to reverse.
If you’re lucky you may get to spot some wild haggis, but they’re quite rare now. The farmed ones are cute but have a nasty bite so be careful.
Also don’t neglect the borders, loads of history.
It may not sound your thing, but consider geocaching… It takes you to some interesting out of the way places.
3 day working week will more likely mean companies cutting staff by 50%. Can’t imagine most people being able to live when only working 3 days.
Why wasn’t there security on the device? My works devices are password protected and it’s a disciplinary offence if I share passwords or give unauthorized access.
If he gave them the login creds, then he should be penalised .
If he logged in and gave the device to non parliamentary staff, he should also be penalised.
He got caught because it cost money, which is the lesser offence. Cyber security should be more robust for ministers than it is for most companies, but seemingly not.
Not sure if this vid will help you, but it’s real life experience of carrying for someone who has the disease.
Apparently other people have said it’s accurate and helps. I’ve no connection other than following the creator for his excellent technical content.
Arduino and esp32 are both good places to start. On YouTube look up ralph s bacon I think he is - He does lots of microcontroller stuff, and of course the likes of big clive will teach you all about basic electronic circuits.
If you’re a complete newbie, get a kit and work through the tutorials.
Stuff you’ll need at first is a microcontroller, prototyping breadboard and a few components (should all come in the kit of you go that route). When you have something that works that you want to keep, you can think about a cheap (ish) soldering station and either veroboard, or look into getting your own boards made.
A multimeter will help a lot (cheapish will do) and depending on how deep you get, a bench power supply and an oscilloscope, but you can live without those for a while.
Get good quality solder, and using extra food quality flux changed the game for me. If you are an older person, magnification really helps too!
Get components in 10’s or more as you’ll save a little and it doesn’t matter much if you let out the magic smoke. For hobby stuff, Alix is your friend.
Have fun.
The PI is always a good place to start, but they’re not cheap anymore. You can still do some useful things at the command line (not sure how fun, but a great education), python is there and very accessible. - get a camera and you could do some great things with open CV. Not sure what packages are out there though. Think you’d just have to follow some web tutorials.
As an alternative, have you considered an Arduino kit? Lots of great projects, all very well documented. Playing with LEDs, sensors, motors etc may keep their attention longer than a bash prompt.
I don’t yet have a 3d printer, and it’s a bit large to print in single pieces. I’m toying with the idea of a black plastic 2-3mm front, have tested it and the LEDs will shine through rather nicely. The case can then be whatever I have laying around, painted black. May do the edges in either brass or alu L section as it’ll make the construction a bit easier. All depends on time really.
I don’t yet have a 3d printer, and it’s a bit large to print in single pieces. I’m toying with the idea of a black plastic 2-3mm front, have tested it and the LEDs will shine through rather nicely. The case can then be whatever I have laying around, painted black. May do the edges in either brass or alu L section as it’ll make the construction a bit easier. All depends on time really.
many technical jobs are vocational in nature as it’s impossible to turn it off after work. As long as it’s not affecting your personal life & work life balance (and not affecting your friends and relations) then you are very lucky. Most people don’t enjoy their work so you’re in a good place. Importantly though, don’t feel obligated to do work problems on your own time and don’t let management expect it. Only do it if you want to.
I like the saying “give a man a job he loves and he’ll never work again”. it’s been true for much of my working life.
It’s a while since I’ve wild camped so not sure if the status has changed. When I did it was more ‘accepted’ than ‘permitted’. Also, the good spots are closely guarded secrets, so you’re mostly on your own there! I don’t know you’re experience, but for anyone else thinking about wild camping: You want water relatively accessible and depending on the weather, some shelter. (I’ve always drunk from fast flowing streams, never pools and survived without treating the water. You also want seclusion as you really don’t want to be getting any attention from walkers or land owners.
This time of year you won’t be getting much sleep, so decide if you want the evening or morning sun - I prefer the morning sun as it dries any dew off my kit. Looking at the map you should be able to plan a route and spot some quite nice spots if you think about the above. Only spend one night in a location.
I used to leave work early, drive down, get half a walk in, a night camp, finish the walk and be back to work for 9AM. One memorable morning was waking up on top of one of the Carnedds.
My preference was always to bivvi rather than tent as it was easier to carry and far easier to find a hidden spot. - The pleasure, as with most bivvying is generally retrospecive, but great fun. Pitch up at dusk and leave at first light, leave no trace bar some flattened grass and all is good. - Just make sure you pack enough calories and water.
The first wild camp I ever did was on the side of Tryfan in just my sleeping bag on a clump of heather. It would had been perfect if I hadn’t put my hand in goat muck earlier in the evening. - Took two days to wash the stink out.
Happy days. Have fun.
It’s like everything, practice slowly, get good form wired in, then when you write fast for exams your writing will be worse than normal, but still legible.