packetpixie

[packetpixie]

Why are so many trans girls into computer science? Because they're trans-sisters

#you're a genius op #i dont make the rules that's just how it is #i literally laughed out loud

[packetpixie]

The rubber duck method has literally never failed me. I'm currently in a game jam, and I was pulling my hair out at a bug since yesterday. But AS SOON as I start explaining what the code is doing to my foxy plushy, I figure it out within like 5 minutes.

#i have a plushie named Bugs for exactly this reason!!! they're the best i love Bugs :D #talking things through out loud WORKS #this is also why things like therapy are helpful #that's off topic but just where my mind went lol #programmer

[packetpixie]

Hey! I'm David Peterson, and a few years ago, I wrote a book called Create Your Own Secret Language. It's a book that introduces middle grade readers to codes, ciphers, and elementary language creation. The age range is like 10-14, but skews a little bit older, as the work gets pretty complicated pretty quick. I think 12-13 is the best age range.

Anyway, I decided to look at the Amazon page for it a bit ago, and it's rated fairly well (4.5 at the moment), but there are some 1 star reviews, and I'm always curious about those. Usually they're way off, or thought the book was going to be something different (e.g. "This book doesn't teach you a thing about computer coding!"), but every so often there's some truth in there. (Oh, one not 1 star but lower rated review said they gave it to their 2nd grader, but they found it too complicated. I appreciate a review like that, because I am not at all surprised—I think it is too complicated for a 2nd grader—and I think a review like that is much more effective than a simple 10+ age range on the book.) The first 1 star rating I came to, though, was this:

Now calling a completely mild description of a teenage girl who has a crush on another girl controversial is something I take exception to, but I don't want to pile on this person. Instead I wanted to share how this section came to be in the book.

The book is essentially divided into four parts. The first three parts deal with different ciphers or codes that become more complicated, while the last part describes elementary language creation. The first three sections are each built around a message that the reader can decode, but with language creation, the possibilities are too numerous and too complicated, so there isn't an example to decode, or anything. It would've been too difficult.

For what the messages to decode are about, though, I could do, potentially, anything, so at first I thought to tie them into a world of anthropomorphic animals (an ongoing series of battles between cats and mice), with messages that are being intercepted and decoded. My editor rejected that. Then I redid it so that each section had an individual story that had to do with some famous work of literature. My editor rejected that as well. He explained that it needed to be something that was relevant to kids of the target age range. I was kind of at a loss, for a bit, but then I thought of a story of kids sending secret messages about their uncle who eats too many onions. I shared that, my editor loved it, and I was like, all right. I can do this.

The tough part for me in coming up with mini-stories to plan these coded messages around was coming up with a reason for them to be secret. That's the whole point of a code/cipher: A message you want to be sure no one else but the intended recipient can read in case the message is intercepted. With the first one, two kids are poking gentle fun at a family member, so they want to be sure no one else can read what they're writing. For the last one, a boy is confessing to a diary, because he feels bad that he allowed his cat to escape, but no one knows he did it (he does find the cat again). For the other, I was trying to think of plausible message-sending scenarios for a preteen/teen, and I thought of how we used to write notes in, honestly, 4th and 5th grade, but I aged it up a bit, and decided to have a story about a girl writing a note to her friend because she has a crush on another girl, and wants her friend's opinion/help.

Here's where the point of sharing this comes in. As I had originally written it, the girl's note to her friend was not just telling her friend about her crush, it was also a coming out note, and she was concerned what her parents would react poorly.

Anyway, I sent that off with the rest of my draft, and I got a bunch of comments back on the whole draft (as expected), but my editor also commented on that story, in particular. Specifically, he noted that not every LGBTQ+ story has to be a coming out story, the part about potential friction between her and her parents because of it was a little heavy for the book, and, in general, not every coming out story has to be traumatic.

That was all he said, but I immediately recognized the, in hindsight, obvious truth of all three points, and I was completely embarrassed. I changed it immediately, so that the story beats are that it's a crush, she's not sure if it'll be reciprocated, and she's also very busy with school and band and feels like this will be adding even more busy-ness to her daily life as a student/teen. Then I apologized for making such a blunder. My editor was very good about it—after all, that's what drafts and editors are for—and that was a relief, but I'm still embarrassed that I didn't think of it first.

But, of course, this is not my lived experience, not being a member of the LGBTQ+ community. This is the very reason why you have sensitivity readers—to provide a vantage point you're blind to. In this case, I was very fortunate to have an editor who was thinking ahead, and I'm very grateful that he was there to catch it. That editor, by the way, is Justin Krasner.

One reason I wanted to share this, though, is that while it always is a bit of a difficult thing to speak up, because there might be a negative reaction, sometimes there is no pushback at all. Indeed, sometimes the one being called out is grateful, because we all have blindspots due to our own lived experiences. You can't live every life. For that reason, your own experience will end up being valuable to someone at some point in time for no other reason than that you lived it and they didn't. And, by the by, this is also true for the present, because the lives we've lived cause us to see what's going on right before our eyes in different lights.

Anyway, this is a story that wouldn't have come out otherwise, so I wanted to be sure to let everyone know that Justin Krasner ensured that my book was a better book. An editor's job is often silent and thankless, so on Thanksgiving, I wanted to say thank you, Justin. <3

#girls who code #codeblr #programming #lgbtqia #code #codes #cipher #ciphers #linux

[packetpixie]

It's so funny to me that people think of Math/Mathematicians as being hyper-logical and rational. Like, have you seen some of the wild things hiding in the Math?

Did you know there are non-computable numbers?? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaitin%27s_constant)

Did you know that there are things that are true, but we can't prove them??? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_incompleteness_theorems)

Did you know that we can prove that something exists, and yet never actually figure out what that thing is?? (https://mathworld.wolfram.com/NonconstructiveProof.html)

Math is crazy. Math is wild. Math hardly makes sense, and when you think you understand the weirdest parts of it, everyone who hears you explain it to thinks you're a gibbering lunatic.

"In mathematics you don’t understand things. You just get used to them." - von Neumann

(please share more unhinged math with me, i want to see more scary math)

#maybe this is why i suck at math #bc i cant logically intuit it like i can w computing #like math is cool and i appreciate all the people who do it im just sooo bad at it

[packetpixie]

pro tip for programmers - how to alias

hey, so you know that annoying thing that happens when you're coding, and you need to run/test the same program 100 times in a row, so you end up typing "python3 testScriptWithASuperLongName.py" into the terminal about 80,000 times?

well, there's a better way! it's called aliasing :D

in your bash shell (or zsh, or whatever shell you use, but bash is the default on VSCode and most people on tumblr use VSCode, so I'm using bash as the default to explain this concept) you can set an alias, essentially a shortcut command, that runs longer commands.

(yes you can just use the up arrow key to re-run the same command, but sometimes you're typing other things into the terminal too and you don't feel like hitting the up arrow key four times in a row, and also this is just a cool and useful tip to get comfortable with aliasing so shhhh)

so, in your terminal shell, just type this:

alias run="python3 testScriptWithASuperLongName.py"

now, you can run that entire super long command, just by typing the word "run" into your terminal. Here's a screenshot of an example on my computer to make it make more sense:

in this example, i just created a simple python file that contains one line of code: print("it works!")

then, as you can see, by setting the alias to run, i can now run that file, runningatestscript.py, simply with the command 'run'.

the best part is, this alias is temporary - it only lasts as long as your shell session is open. so once you close the terminal, the run alias is cleared and you can set it again next time to any file or task you're currently working on, to save yourself a lot of typing, typos, and time.

so if you want to, you can get in the habit of always setting a run alias in the VSCode terminal for whichever file you're working with as soon as you get everything open. that way, when you need to run the same file 50 million times, you have a super easy way of doing it! you can even set it to a single letter if you want to go for maximum speed, but i prefer to use whole short words, because they're easy for me to remember.

note: if you do want to set an alias to work for all sessions, you can simply add it to your ./bashrc file. this is a common way to automate repeatable tasks, and simply to set easier-to-remember commands for terminal commands that are really complicated/confusing/hard to remember.

for example, i saved the alias checkboot="[ -d /sys/firmware/efi ] && echo 'UEFI mode' || 'BIOS mode'" into my zshrc file (zsh equivalent of bashrc file). this way, no matter how many times i rebooted my machine, i would always be able to quickly check which boot mode was running by simply typing 'checkboot'.

yesterday i was updating my boot mode from BIOS to UEFI on my very old machine that is technically compatible with UEFI, but not configured for it by default. So it was extremely helpful and saved me the time and headache of having to remember and type that long-ass command a thousand times in between many different reboots and new shells.

if you have any tasks like that, or terminal commands that you know would be useful to you, but you can never remember them when you need them, i highly recommend getting comfortable with aliasing! it can be super useful to simply set custom aliases for all the commands you don't want to remember, so that you can automate things away and not have to worry about so much linux syntax all the time when you're tring to focus on programming.

i know this may seem like a simple tip to some, but i only learned about it recently and it's been extremely helpful to integrate into my workflow and customize my OS with! so i thought it might be worthwhile to some people if i share :) hope it helps!

#codeblr #linux #hacker #compsci #hack the planet #hacking #studyblr #coding #progblr #programmer #programming #women in tech #women in stem #women in computing #women in cs #comp sci #coding tips #programming tips #software development #software developers #vscode

[packetpixie]

Help required to collect data for a project.

Hello everyone,

I am currently working on the development of an Indian Sign Language interpretation system and need your help in collecting sign language gestures for training purposes. I have not found proper data for training a model for this project. Any contributions are would be very helpful and will be used exclusively for this project. I have created a Google form where you can upload video demonstrations of the gestures. Sample videos are provided for your reference. If you're interested in contributing, please use the following link to fill the form

Any support will be very helpful. If you're unable to upload the video files in the form send them to the mail mentioned in the form.

Please reblog and share this post which would help me reach more people who would be able to help me with this.

#signal boost #please boost #technology #sign language #disability #disability rights #ableism #fight ableism #accessibility

[packetpixie]

for someone who loves computers and wishes i could be one i sure do fucking suck at math

#crying in the calc textbook rn

[packetpixie]

❥ STUDYING MAKES YOU HOT (SCIENTIFICALLY PROVEN)

Perceived Attractiveness: Studies, such as a 2014 research published in "Psychological Science," have shown that individuals with higher intelligence scores are often rated as more attractive by peers. This could be due to the perception that intelligence is linked to problem-solving abilities, which are valuable in relationships.

Mate Selection: Evolutionary psychology posits that humans are wired to seek intelligent partners because intelligence can contribute to better decision-making. A 2007 study published in "Personality and Individual Differences" found that intelligence was a significant factor in mate choice, especially for long-term relationships.

Educational Attainment: Intelligence is often associated with higher education. A study in the journal "Intelligence" in 2013 demonstrated that people with advanced degrees were perceived as more attractive by others. This perception could be due to the assumption that higher education reflects intelligence and a commitment to personal growth.

Communication Skills: Intelligence is frequently linked to effective communication. People who can articulate their thoughts and ideas clearly and thoughtfully are often seen as more attractive. This is supported by research showing that strong communication skills are essential in forming and maintaining successful relationships.

go study girl.

[packetpixie]

I've read this book and it's excellent. Absolutely the only reason I am currently passing calculus rn

Y’ever read something and have understanding that has eluded you interminably suddenly stop, curl up, and snuggle neatly into a fold in your brain because a new way way opened to it?

[packetpixie]

every girl needs a cinnamon coffee and a little muffin so she can do her programming. it's literally the law

#codeblr #studyblr #coding #compsci #hacker #women in stem #women in tech #girls who code #programmer humor #programming #progblr #programmer

[packetpixie]

love to write out leetcode solutions in pseudocode and have slips of paper lying around all over with rough drafts of tree algorithms like some kind of scuffed programming Mozart

[packetpixie]

[packetpixie]

[packetpixie]

taking this opportunity to spread a friendly reminder to anyone who needs it that the school system has never been about learning, it's always been about social hierarchy/appearances over everything, and you can be just as good or better a programmer, or anything else you wanna be, without it

these were the first four articles that popped up for me when i searched "professor scandal". just because someone is decorated with degrees or published research, doesn't mean they're better or more deserving than you. just means they're better at playing the game of social climbing in a corrupt and unfair system. so much of academia is literally fucking fake!

i will always promote diversity in tech, including diverse backgrounds/unconventional paths!!! learning > appearances

SO many of the best programmers i've known were self-taught! it can be so hard fighting against a world that loves to judge and deny opportunities for any and every shallow bullshit reason it can find, but never discredit yourself because of where you came from or where you're at <3

you are SO smart and capable, babes!!!

and the best way to say "fuck 'em" to a broken system is to succeed anyways - get so good they can't ignore you >:)

thank you for letting me get on my soapbox :)

🤩Are you a CS Student !?!???? 🥳🤩😎CHECK OUT THESE-

No. No I’m not. I study at home.

#studyblr #self study #study blog #self teaching #self learning

[packetpixie]

it's a pink calculator app because the default iOS calculator now runs ads and i'm not supporting that - plus, i like pink versions of things :P

this is my progress so far :)

got all the buttons looking pretty and listening for input, and handled the logic to distinguish between digit buttons, the decimal button, and action buttons. now i just need to implement the calculation logic!! :D

- assignments done and got an A on all of them that I've gotten back so far

- saturday night, no school or deadlines tomorrow

- giant brownie

- fun new programming project

yeah, it's gonna be a good night 😎

#codeblr #girls who code #women in tech #women in stem #coding #studyblr #programming #cs student #cs studyblr

[packetpixie]

- assignments done and got an A on all of them that I've gotten back so far

- saturday night, no school or deadlines tomorrow

- giant brownie

- fun new programming project

yeah, it's gonna be a good night 😎

#yes im a loser but this is my perfect evening #exhausted student #self care #introvert #codeblr #studyblr #relaxing #chillout #chill vibes #women in tech #girls who code

[packetpixie]

Google confirms they will disable uBlock Origin in Chrome in 2024 🤡