Power Supplies and Pittsburgh

[sathor]

A shower of sparks erupted from my tower today, signifying the end of a 600W power supply that was underrated for the system to begin with.

I managed to find a $50 750W Ultra (same brand as the 600W) to replace it.

Crossing my fingers the motherboard and other components were not fried. There's no visible scarring anywhere, and no capacitors are melted, so at least there's a chance.

If it won't boot when the parts arrive sometime this week, then I'll be waiting for my tax return to purchase a laptop of some kind to serve as my future studio and double as a PC for college (I'll be doing this anyway, but I'd like to salvage the desktop for the meantime.) I also purchased two thermaltake case fans rated at 78 CFM, this ought to help produce better airflow in my case. The culprit, I'm afraid, is that the 600W ran very hot. I imagine this is largely due to it needing to draw nearly it's capacity at all times, so I do imagine a 750W will solve the problem (I hope :X)

I am seriously considering going four years computer science (programming for certain.) After that four years is up, i can decide whether I want to get an education certificate, keep going, or whatever. But at least with a degree in programming, I'll have some other options. I taught myself BASIC at age 11 - so hopefully I've got a bit of a natural knack for it. This means I may pull out a couple coding books I have laying around and start going through them again.

In other news, I will likely be spending some time in Pittsburgh. How do you like them apples?

Comments

[sathor.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't go the three year route. I'd rather go traditional four.

Traditional four will give me more time away from the work force and give me more time to perfect skills outside of school, not to mention a higher chance for finding good internships through a college or whatever. Plus I want access to higher level liberal arts classes - as long as my degree transfers, I'll be able to take year 3-4 humanities courses on electives in both psych and philo if I so desire. That'll make me look better if going the teaching route too (you never know, I might be able to work this out so I end up with A B.S. and B.A. by the time I'm done.)

I'm really excited about learning coding again. I may just start out reading my C++ book and screwing around in some old MUD code bases. I'd like to pick up a book on Java though - my aunt told me if I could prove competency in Java I'd actually have a guaranteed job at her company probably starting in the 40-50k range.

[noximist.livejournal.com]

I may not have an adequate understanding of what A+ certification entails, but every university-calibre computer science program I've ever seen goes way beyond programming. Whether that is a good thing or not depends on your goal - if you're just going to learn to code well, then a tech school might be a fine choice, since they tend to focus on coding. But that's not what a comp sci degree is about.

I can only offer as examples the programs at a few of the major universities in Canada: U Toronto, U Waterloo, and UBC. Those three are pretty similar, though, and my Adventures in Googling to find additional course notes have suggested that American schools are comparable. Basically, to do a major or specialist in comp sci, expect to learn a lot of abstract math - a year or two of calculus, linear algebra, statistics, and number theory - and various methods of proving theorems using induction and logic. You'll also study the theory of computation in detail, analyzing the complexity of algorithms, comparing abstract data types, looking at computable and uncomputable problems, examining different models of computation, etc. If you study computer organization - which is a must in some places, UoT included - you'll learn about circuits, boolean logic, and assembly (machine) language.

I don't know about other places, but by the end of a CS degree at UoT, you'll know half a dozen programming languages (Python, Java, C, PHP if you take web programming courses, Scheme, Assembler, and Prolog, and possibly others) - but more importantly, you'll understand the scientific rigour that goes into developing algorithms and building large software systems. Oh, you'll know how to code... but that's a fraction of what you'll do over the course of the degree. Computer science is a lot more than programming, which is why people who have degrees tend to end up in better positions than people who don't. That's not universally true by any stretch of the imagination, but the skillset is really quite different...

(Warning: the above comment is a novel. My bad. Seriously, though, good for you! Education is awesome, and as hard as this degree is, I'm having a really excellent and valuable time. :D Enjoy Pittsburgh!)

[sathor.livejournal.com]

Yah, and all the more reason for me to go for a degree in Computer Science ;)

Well, I mean honestly, it -is- the natural choice. I've used computers since I was a little boy (NES, ATARI?) and my very first -real- computer was a command-line driven MS-DOS sporting Tandy 1000. I've seen a pretty wide range of the tech that's been available to the average person over the years.

Besides, there's only a few practical applications of being a talented logician, one of which being...?

Novel...right. Your standards for novels had really gone through the shitter, Noxi. :D

[sathor.livejournal.com]

Did I mention I love you?

If you weren't taken I would buy you bouquets of flowers and fly you to Amsterdam for the time of your life.