Author: Matt Chung
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Snapshotting my understanding before tackling homework assignment #1
Before tackling the homework assignment, I’m going to rate myself on the questions (below), from a scale of 1 (no freaking clue) to 5 (truly understand). The point of this exercise that I just made up myself is that I want to capture my understanding (or lack thereof) at a moment and time. Why do…
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Little Elliott has found her voice
[fvplayer id=”1″] Just a short little video milestone of Elliott finding her voice, which sounds raspier than usual since I think she may have overdone it yesterday, making this “ah ah ah” noise for 14 hours.
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Advanced Operating System Notes (File Systems)
Although I’ve covered file systems in previous courses, including graduate introduction of operating systems, I really enjoy learning more about this concept in a little depth. The file system’s module is packed with great material, the material introducing a high level introduction of file system and then jumps into the deep end unveils what an…
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My First Research Paper: COVID19 and the impact on higher education
Abstract—This research paper explores the impact of the COVID-19 health crisis on the education sector by unpacking the challenges and successes of the forced migration of professors and their curricula onto online learning platforms. Quantitative research was conducted in the form of a domestically focused survey to determine the success of those teaching models and…
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Weekly Review – 2020/08/09 – 2020/08/16
Past Week Published 8 blog posts within a week. I’m developing a cadence, aiming for one (very) short blog posts a day and one medium blog post per week. I think this target is manageable and S.M.A.R.T and will help force me to get in the habit of shipping small fragments instead of never shipping…
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Creating my own digital library
After reading Daniel Wessel’s post1 on creating a virtual library, I’ve decided take the leap and convert the majority of my books — classic literature will remain sitting on my book shelf — into digital form. To accomplish this, I invested in a Fujitsu ScanScan IX500. The scanner runs for about $400.00. I selected this…
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I’m a messy person: it’s time for a change.
I’m pretty embarrassed of how disorganized and messy our house looks and feels. I forget the color of the bathroom tile since its hidden from view due to dirty clothes sprawled out across the entire floor. I’m afraid of raising my standing desk for fear of a monitor toppling over due a caught wire and…
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Guitar practice journal #1
Today I practiced my guitar for 20 minutes, a generous amount of time these days (if you are parent you’ll understand). During this practice session, I worked ear training: I looped the song The Funeral (Band of Horses) on my iPhone and played along, plucking the individuals notes in chord progression on my Traveler’s acoustic…
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Logical Writing & Steven Pinker’s Coherence Relations
Have you ever read a passage that flows (i.e. has cohesion) but it just … doesn’t make any sense, no matter how many times you read it? You can lexically parse the passage (i.e. makes grammatically sense) but you cannot grasp the meaning? If so, the passage probably lacks coherence. What is coherence? According to…
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A healthy (no oil), quick (15 minutes prep, 15 minutes cook), plant based instant pot dish
If you are looking for a quick, delicious, healthy (no oil), plant based meal that takes only 30 minutes (15 of those minutes are waiting for the dish to cook in an instant pot) to whip up, look no further. Check out Jill McKeever’s video on “The Red Lentil Stew From Instant Pot”: I’ve taken…
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A No-Excuses Guide to Blogging – Excuse #5 – “I don’t want to be wrong”
Many people (including myself) fear that we will be perceived as a fool if we publish on a post blog that contains a mistake, a public mistake. Nobody wants to be humiliated publicly. This fear is encapsulated inside of a quote that Sacha shares: “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to…
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What vacation looks like with a 10 month year old
Summary I never could’ve imagine what being a parent (to a 10 month year old) looks like while on a vacation at the Suncadia Hotel (in the midst of a pandemic). When our daughter sleeps sprawled out on the cloud like king size bed, us two parents are quietly scarfing down our cold dinner while…
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Swapping values of two variables with XOR
As programmers, we know that we can swap two variables by using a temporary variable. That’s fairly simple and intuitive: given two variables (x and y) that you want to swap, you store x in a temporary variable z, copy y to x, then finally copy z (the temporary) to y. But I learned recently…
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Waiting for one day …
“If you want to be successful, find out what the price is and then pay it.” Scott Adams I agree with that Scott Adams wholeheartedly. I also think this rule can be more broadly applied: “If you want something — anything — find out what the price is and then pay it.” This quote reminds…
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Week 1 and Week 2 of compilers
Last week, I couldn’t carve out enough time to write a post on my reflections for week 1 of my compiler’s course so I’ll do the next best thing: write a post that combines week 1 and week 2. The quarter kicked off on January 10th and since then, I’ve felt a range of emotions,…