Thread: How to learn everything

  1. #1
    Ugly C Lover audinue's Avatar
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    How to learn everything

    I want to learn this..

    I want to learn that..

    I want to learn everything..

    There are many things I want to learn..

    Everything is interesting for me..

    I want to learn all of them..

    While I learn them, another things I want to learn come..

    I confused what to do, what to learn first..

    Could you help me please to cure my sickness?

    Thanks in advance.
    Just GET it OFF out my mind!!

  2. #2
    Guest Sebastiani's Avatar
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    The root of this sickness is our attachment to knowledge. Ultimately, the universe is actually empty, so there is really nothing to know.

  3. #3
    Ugly C Lover audinue's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sebastiani View Post
    The root of this sickness is our attachment to knowledge.
    Can we detach it maybe?

    Quote Originally Posted by Sebastiani View Post
    Ultimately, the universe is actually empty, so there is really nothing to know.
    What do you mean by empty?
    Just GET it OFF out my mind!!

  4. #4
    Guest Sebastiani's Avatar
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    >> Can we detach it maybe?

    You are either attached to it or you are not. It's as simple as that.

    >> What do you mean by empty?

    Consider for a moment your body. Where did it come from? Where did it obtain all of the atoms used to build it? Stardust? In that sense, we are timeless, and have existed from the very beginning. And yet, before birth and after death, we don't actually exist. Arising from nothing and returning to nothing - this is emptyness.

  5. #5
    Ugly C Lover audinue's Avatar
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    I think I posted this thread in a wrong section..

    Mod, move it please.

    Sorry for my error.
    Just GET it OFF out my mind!!

  6. #6
    (?<!re)tired Mario F.'s Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by audinue View Post
    Could you help me please to cure my sickness?
    Don't get a life.
    Seriously. Don't!

    If you want to learn everything, all you need to do is not wanting to be anything else.
    Originally Posted by brewbuck:
    Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.

  7. #7
    spurious conceit MK27's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by audinue View Post
    I think I posted this thread in a wrong section..
    LOL! Where was it before, the tech section?!

    I kind of have this problem too. At the end of last year I bought this huge book on openGL, and a huge NVIDIA card* thinking I was gonna get into 3D programming, since it seems very sexy, etc. Then it was a series of challanges, like dealing with lighting, textures, quadratics, quarterions, etc. 3D programming can be pretty consuming, meaning it may leave you with little time for anything else.

    Which is why I've pretty much stopped. Occasionally it was interesting, but now I think I had myself obsessed ("Must make this work...properly"), because 3D programming is IMO pretty tedious and boring if you are not also very interested in math.

    I went thru a similar thing with device drivers. The tedious part started when I realized that a lot of information is difficult or impossible to get from manufacturers, meaning I was getting myself into some time consuming reverse engineering and testing stuff that probably has very limited practical application. Like, if someone paid me to write a driver, I could deal with the headache, but in that case I would most likely be able to get the specs anyway.

    So I would say one way to sort out your pursuits is to decide what is genuinely interesting and useful to you from what (if you are like me) are things you are determined to do "because they are there" or to prove to yourself that you can do it. Your opinion may change, as mine did with OGL, once you get into it, so don't be afraid to give up -- otherwise, you could easily just continue such an obsession indefinitely. There will always be something "more to do", so examine your motives for wanting to.

    *that actually got returned
    C programming resources:
    GNU C Function and Macro Index -- glibc reference manual
    The C Book -- nice online learner guide
    Current ISO draft standard
    CCAN -- new CPAN like open source library repository
    3 (different) GNU debugger tutorials: #1 -- #2 -- #3
    cpwiki -- our wiki on sourceforge

  8. #8
    and the hat of int overfl Salem's Avatar
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    A long time ago (couple of centuries or so), it was possible that

    what you knew / what the rest of the world knew
    could approach 1

    Nowadays
    what you know / what the rest of the world knows
    is in fact approaching zero
    If you dance barefoot on the broken glass of undefined behaviour, you've got to expect the occasional cut.
    If at first you don't succeed, try writing your phone number on the exam paper.

  9. #9
    Guest Sebastiani's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Salem View Post
    A long time ago (couple of centuries or so), it was possible that

    what you knew / what the rest of the world knew
    could approach 1

    Nowadays
    what you know / what the rest of the world knows
    is in fact approaching zero
    Well said!

    I kind of have this problem too. At the end of last year I bought this huge book on openGL, and a huge NVIDIA card* thinking I was gonna get into 3D programming, since it seems very sexy, etc. Then it was a series of challanges, like dealing with lighting, textures, quadratics, quarterions, etc. 3D programming can be pretty consuming, meaning it may leave you with little time for anything else.

    Which is why I've pretty much stopped. Occasionally it was interesting, but now I think I had myself obsessed ("Must make this work...properly"), because 3D programming is IMO pretty tedious and boring if you are not also very interested in math.

    I went thru a similar thing with device drivers. The tedious part started when I realized that a lot of information is difficult or impossible to get from manufacturers, meaning I was getting myself into some time consuming reverse engineering and testing stuff that probably has very limited practical application. Like, if someone paid me to write a driver, I could deal with the headache, but in that case I would most likely be able to get the specs anyway.


    Yeah, I think I have the same problem. Just a week ago, I decided I was going to write an X86 disassembler. I spent about three days writing code, without even consulting the manual - just going on the obvious heuristics. I thought, "Wow, this is going well - now I'll just take a look at the manual and see what's left". That's when I realized that the journey had just begun for this "little" project.

    Needless to say, the project is on hold for the time being.

  10. #10
    In my head happyclown's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sebastiani View Post

    Consider for a moment your body. Where did it come from? Where did it obtain all of the atoms used to build it? Stardust? In that sense, we are timeless, and have existed from the very beginning. And yet, before birth and after death, we don't actually exist. Arising from nothing and returning to nothing - this is emptyness.
    Good to see some spiritual coders out there.

  11. #11
    (?<!re)tired Mario F.'s Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sebastiani View Post
    Yeah, I think I have the same problem. Just a week ago, I decided I was going to write an X86 disassembler. I spent about three days writing code, without even consulting the manual
    Well you got what you deserved when you thought you could just write a disassembler like that
    Originally Posted by brewbuck:
    Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.

  12. #12
    Guest Sebastiani's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mario F. View Post
    Well you got what you deserved when you thought you could just write a disassembler like that
    I know, right? It wasn't a total loss, though. I made enough headway so that when I do finally decide to sit down and read a million pages of Intel documentation, things should go pretty smoothly. Oh wait - see? I did it again.

    The funny thing is, this all started simply because I was getting annoyed with the way that GNU objdump tool formats numeric constants! I could have just looked around for a better disassembler, but instead I decided to do it myself. Hopeless.

    Anyway, I still very much want to finish the project, and most likely will within the near future - if anyone's interested in a project let me know.
    Last edited by Sebastiani; 08-27-2009 at 10:00 PM.

  13. #13
    Lurking whiteflags's Avatar
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    "How to learn everything?"

    Cure the disease by solving an actual problem.

    Wolves vs. Sheep Puzzle

    Since your brain needs something to do: My idea of putting sheep on the main diagonal and them putting wolves a knight's move away hasn't worked and I've been trying to put a fifth wolf in for too long. It's impossible, prove me wrong.

  14. #14
    Malum in se abachler's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by whiteflags View Post
    Wolves vs. Sheep Puzzle
    It's impossible, prove me wrong.
    It's impossible, here is proof by exhaustive search.

    Code:
    #include <stdio.h>
    
    void MarkDirty(bool* , int);
    int CountClean(bool*);
    
    int main(){
    
    	bool Dirty[25];
    
    	for(int a = 0;a<25;a++){
    		for(int b = 0;b<25;b++){
    			for(int c = 0;c<25;c++){
    				for(int d = 0;d<25;d++){
    					for(int e = 0;e<25;e++){
    						if(a!=b && a!=c && a!=d && a!=e && b!=c && b!=d && b!=e && c!=d && c!=e && d!=e){
    							// every wolf is in a unique location
    							for(int x = 0;x<25;x++) Dirty[x] = false;
    							MarkDirty(Dirty , a);
    							MarkDirty(Dirty , b);
    							MarkDirty(Dirty , c);
    							MarkDirty(Dirty , d);
    							MarkDirty(Dirty , e);
    
    							if(CountClean(Dirty) > 2){
    								printf("Solution at %d %d %d %d %d\n" , a , b , c , d , e);
    								}
    							}
    						}
    					}
    				}
    			}
    		}
    
    	return 0;
    	}
    
    void MarkDirty(bool* Dirty, int Cell){
    	int Row = Cell - (Cell % 5);
    	
    	for(int x = Row;x<Row + 5;x++) Dirty[x] = true;
    	for(int x = 0;x<5;x++) Dirty[(Cell + (x*5)) % 25] = true;
    	for(int x = 0;x<5;x++) Dirty[(Cell + (x*5) + x) % 25] = true;
    	for(int x = 0;x<5;x++) Dirty[(Cell + (x*5) - x) % 25] = true;
    	
    	return;
    	}
    
    int CountClean(bool* Dirty){
    	int Count = 0;
    
    	for(int x = 0;x<25;x++){
    		if(!Dirty[x]) Count++;
    		}
    
    	return Count;
    	}

  15. #15
    The Registered User Aparavoid's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Salem View Post
    Nowadays
    what you know / what the rest of the world knows
    is in fact approaching zero
    Approaching, but will never reach...

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