preternatural-codes-by-minski

[preternatural-codes-by-minski]

literally and figuratively, what the fuck

#chatgpt #ai

[preternatural-codes-by-minski]

5 programming languages in 5 weeks | #5in5weeks Coding Challenge 💻

Hiya hiya! I wanted to create a challenge for myself but thought why not share it with other people! I decided I should dip into learning a bit of the programming languages I wanted to learn but always said “I’ll learn them later!” Later might never come with how busy I have become these days, so learning just the beginner stuff will suffice for now! And that is what the challenge is!

The challenge itself does not only have to focus on programming languages (I only said 5 programming languages for the people who are really new to programming or only know 1 or 2 languages) but the challenge can include frameworks and libraries.

Example programming languages:

☀ Java

☀ JavaScript

☀ C / C++ / C#

☀ PHP

☀ Ruby

☀ Python

☀ GO

☀ Pick 5 programming languages you want to use for this challenge - bonus points if you never worked with the language in the past

☀ Learn the basics of each language e.g. syntax, what environment to work in, learn how to print, basic maths, etc

☀ Learn each language for 7 days - it does not need to be 7 days in a row (those who are extremely busy) but bonus points if you do 7 days, 5 weeks consecutively

☀ Use the hashtag #5in5weeks or #5in5WeeksCodingChallenge - to track your progress for your blog and for others to see on Tumblr (or anywhere really)

☀ OPTIONAL: you can include pictures on your posts

☀ OPTIONAL: on the 7th day of each language, build a simple, basic project! You can share it on your post, if you wanted

In the posts, you can talk about what you learnt about the language. If you wanted, you could include the resources you used to help you learn. Talk about what you found easy to understand and what was hard to get the grasp off! But to be honest, you can talk about anything!

If you choose to include the mini project at the end of the week, you can talk about the project, again including the ups and downs!

These prompts are completely optional! But I will definitely be using them~!

💌 Day 1: What are you most looking forward in learning [insert prog. language]?

💌 Day 2: What are your three goals with learning [insert prog. language]?

💌 Day 3: How do you print “Welcome to Earth!” in [insert prog. language]?

💌 Day 4: What has been easy so far from learning [insert prog. language]?

💌 Day 5: What has been difficult so far from learning [insert prog. language]?

💌 Day 6: Favourite topic so far from learning [insert prog. language]?

💌 Day 7: Will you continue learning [insert prog. language] after this challenge? Why?/Why not?

I really hope I can complete this challenge! I really want to try some languages I have been scared of continuing or trying, e.g. C++...

Again, this challenge is more for me to track my progress but anyone else can join!

That's all and have a happy day programming! ♡

#reblogs #challenges

[preternatural-codes-by-minski]

If anyone wants to know why every tech company in the world right now is clamoring for AI like drowned rats scrabbling to board a ship, I decided to make a post to explain what's happening.

(Disclaimer to start: I'm a software engineer who's been employed full time since 2018. I am not a historian nor an overconfident Youtube essayist, so this post is my working knowledge of what I see around me and the logical bridges between pieces.)

Okay anyway. The explanation starts further back than what's going on now. I'm gonna start with the year 2000. The Dot Com Bubble just spectacularly burst. The model of "we get the users first, we learn how to profit off them later" went out in a no-money-having bang (remember this, it will be relevant later). A lot of money was lost. A lot of people ended up out of a job. A lot of startup companies went under. Investors left with a sour taste in their mouth and, in general, investment in the internet stayed pretty cooled for that decade. This was, in my opinion, very good for the internet as it was an era not suffocating under the grip of mega-corporation oligarchs and was, instead, filled with Club Penguin and I Can Haz Cheezburger websites.

Then around the 2010-2012 years, a few things happened. Interest rates got low, and then lower. Facebook got huge. The iPhone took off. And suddenly there was a huge new potential market of internet users and phone-havers, and the cheap money was available to start backing new tech startup companies trying to hop on this opportunity. Companies like Uber, Netflix, and Amazon either started in this time, or hit their ramp-up in these years by shifting focus to the internet and apps.

Now, every start-up tech company dreaming of being the next big thing has one thing in common: they need to start off by getting themselves massively in debt. Because before you can turn a profit you need to first spend money on employees and spend money on equipment and spend money on data centers and spend money on advertising and spend money on scale and and and

But also, everyone wants to be on the ship for The Next Big Thing that takes off to the moon.

So there is a mutual interest between new tech companies, and venture capitalists who are willing to invest $$$ into said new tech companies. Because if the venture capitalists can identify a prize pig and get in early, that money could come back to them 100-fold or 1,000-fold. In fact it hardly matters if they invest in 10 or 20 total bust projects along the way to find that unicorn.

But also, becoming profitable takes time. And that might mean being in debt for a long long time before that rocket ship takes off to make everyone onboard a gazzilionaire.

But luckily, for tech startup bros and venture capitalists, being in debt in the 2010's was cheap, and it only got cheaper between 2010 and 2020. If people could secure loans for ~3% or 4% annual interest, well then a $100,000 loan only really costs $3,000 of interest a year to keep afloat. And if inflation is higher than that or at least similar, you're still beating the system.

So from 2010 through early 2022, times were good for tech companies. Startups could take off with massive growth, showing massive potential for something, and venture capitalists would throw infinite money at them in the hopes of pegging just one winner who will take off. And supporting the struggling investments or the long-haulers remained pretty cheap to keep funding.

You hear constantly about "Such and such app has 10-bazillion users gained over the last 10 years and has never once been profitable", yet the thing keeps chugging along because the investors backing it aren't stressed about the immediate future, and are still banking on that "eventually" when it learns how to really monetize its users and turn that profit.

The pandemic in 2020 took a magnifying-glass-in-the-sun effect to this, as EVERYTHING was forcibly turned online which pumped a ton of money and workers into tech investment. Simultaneously, money got really REALLY cheap, bottoming out with historic lows for interest rates.

Then the tide changed with the massive inflation that struck late 2021. Because this all-gas no-brakes state of things was also contributing to off-the-rails inflation (along with your standard-fare greedflation and price gouging, given the extremely convenient excuses of pandemic hardships and supply chain issues). The federal reserve whipped out interest rate hikes to try to curb this huge inflation, which is like a fire extinguisher dousing and suffocating your really-cool, actively-on-fire party where everyone else is burning but you're in the pool. And then they did this more, and then more. And the financial climate followed suit. And suddenly money was not cheap anymore, and new loans became expensive, because loans that used to compound at 2% a year are now compounding at 7 or 8% which, in the language of compounding, is a HUGE difference. A $100,000 loan at a 2% interest rate, if not repaid a single cent in 10 years, accrues to $121,899. A $100,000 loan at an 8% interest rate, if not repaid a single cent in 10 years, more than doubles to $215,892.

Now it is scary and risky to throw money at "could eventually be profitable" tech companies. Now investors are watching companies burn through their current funding and, when the companies come back asking for more, investors are tightening their coin purses instead. The bill is coming due. The free money is drying up and companies are under compounding pressure to produce a profit for their waiting investors who are now done waiting.

You get enshittification. You get quality going down and price going up. You get "now that you're a captive audience here, we're forcing ads or we're forcing subscriptions on you." Don't get me wrong, the plan was ALWAYS to monetize the users. It's just that it's come earlier than expected, with way more feet-to-the-fire than these companies were expecting. ESPECIALLY with Wall Street as the other factor in funding (public) companies, where Wall Street exhibits roughly the same temperament as a baby screaming crying upset that it's soiled its own diaper (maybe that's too mean a comparison to babies), and now companies are being put through the wringer for anything LESS than infinite growth that Wall Street demands of them.

Internal to the tech industry, you get MASSIVE wide-spread layoffs. You get an industry that used to be easy to land multiple job offers shriveling up and leaving recent graduates in a desperately awful situation where no company is hiring and the market is flooded with laid-off workers trying to get back on their feet.

Because those coin-purse-clutching investors DO love virtue-signaling efforts from companies that say "See! We're not being frivolous with your money! We only spend on the essentials." And this is true even for MASSIVE, PROFITABLE companies, because those companies' value is based on the Rich Person Feeling Graph (their stock) rather than the literal profit money. A company making a genuine gazillion dollars a year still tears through layoffs and freezes hiring and removes the free batteries from the printer room (totally not speaking from experience, surely) because the investors LOVE when you cut costs and take away employee perks. The "beer on tap, ping pong table in the common area" era of tech is drying up. And we're still unionless.

Never mind that last part.

And then in early 2023, AI (more specifically, Chat-GPT which is OpenAI's Large Language Model creation) tears its way into the tech scene with a meteor's amount of momentum. Here's Microsoft's prize pig, which it invested heavily in and is galivanting around the pig-show with, to the desperate jealousy and rapture of every other tech company and investor wishing it had that pig. And for the first time since the interest rate hikes, investors have dollar signs in their eyes, both venture capital and Wall Street alike. They're willing to restart the hose of money (even with the new risk) because this feels big enough for them to take the risk.

Now all these companies, who were in varying stages of sweating as their bill came due, or wringing their hands as their stock prices tanked, see a single glorious gold-plated rocket up out of here, the likes of which haven't been seen since the free money days. It's their ticket to buy time, and buy investors, and say "see THIS is what will wring money forth, finally, we promise, just let us show you."

To be clear, AI is NOT profitable yet. It's a money-sink. Perhaps a money-black-hole. But everyone in the space is so wowed by it that there is a wide-spread and powerful conviction that it will become profitable and earn its keep. (Let's be real, half of that profit "potential" is the promise of automating away jobs of pesky employees who peskily cost money.) It's a tech-space industrial revolution that will automate away skilled jobs, and getting in on the ground floor is the absolute best thing you can do to get your pie slice's worth.

It's the thing that will win investors back. It's the thing that will get the investment money coming in again (or, get it second-hand if the company can be the PROVIDER of something needed for AI, which other companies with venture-back will pay handsomely for). It's the thing companies are terrified of missing out on, lest it leave them utterly irrelevant in a future where not having AI-integration is like not having a mobile phone app for your company or not having a website.

So I guess to reiterate on my earlier point:

Drowned rats. Swimming to the one ship in sight.

#reblogs #educational posts

[preternatural-codes-by-minski]

when you realise that you wrote minski as minksi in your blog username and didn't notice for half a year.

#haha #meme

[preternatural-codes-by-minski]

hello! i just happened to see the designs for your fanfiction site and they are super amazing! i was staring at it for a whole minute (maybe more), and now i really want to read those fanfictions :) you are really talented, and more importantly, dedicated. i have never been able to wake up in the middle of the night and keep working on something so single-mindedly. so my question to you is, how often do you happen to wake up at odd hours to work on a passion project/random idea?

Hiya!!

Just a big FYI those fanfictions are completely fake, like placeholders but I so wished they were real also! And thank you so much for your kind words!

Now to answer your question: depends!

There are times I go through periods where not a single idea pops into my head because I am focused on other things such as my other hobbies (writing, watching anime, art, learning Russian) so I don't stay up late working on my code.

However, I push myself, kindly, to stay inspired and motivated to work on designs and program them! Things like having my Pinterest Feed be about web designs, having a programming job (I learn new concepts at work and can apply them to my work) and, most importantly, I work on projects are interest me completely.

The projects I tend to work on are cute projects, which makes me really happy and that's why I make the extra effort to stay up and work on them~!

Hope this answers your question~! 🐼💓🙌🏾

#asks #motivation #reblogs

[preternatural-codes-by-minski]

back to kotlin: day 3

completed unit 1! created a boring to-the-book business card because thinking about design will send me off on a journey.

i do have some grievances with google developers interface because i keep getting signed out in the middle of my sessions.

pending:

business card app

#kotlin #androiddev #day3

[preternatural-codes-by-minski]

back to kotlin: day 2

the simple purple layout was moderately time-consuming to create because i was trying to find out a way to dynamically insert resources based on their names, e.g. R.string.[stringName] where stringName is given by me. i did find some answers on stackoverflow (linking them here for future reference), but they were written in Java and when converted to Kotlin, it was showing "Invalid reference to getResource".

instead of hardcoding each card inputs per row, i wanted to create a function that will take a list of cards and arrange them in a row. obviously that didn't work, hence, time wasted. i still am a bit confused on the Composable layouts, like what is the difference between writing

Column { Row{...} Row{...} }

and

Column { ReturnARow{...} ReturnARow{...} }

because I observed a difference when setting the color of the cards.

tldr; don't bother scaling the code when it's clearly not necessary.

pending:

business card app (i'll do it later; i have to prepare for a huge exam that's less than a month away and i haven't even started. the anxiety is why i started doing kotlin in the first place. :D)

#kotlin #androiddev #android dev #day 2

[preternatural-codes-by-minski]

earned my first badge in this course >o<

back to kotlin: day 1

turns out the course has been renamed to android basics with compose - i have to redo it. i can’t stand the empty progress bars. i decided to be a little more fun this time. or maybe i’ll just resume the old course - to hell with the deprecated content warning.

#kotlin #androiddev #android #compose

[preternatural-codes-by-minski]

back to kotlin: day 1

turns out the course has been renamed to android basics with compose - i have to redo it. i can’t stand the empty progress bars. i decided to be a little more fun this time. or maybe i’ll just resume the old course - to hell with the deprecated content warning.

#kotlin #androiddev #android #compose

[preternatural-codes-by-minski]

ALWAYS.

CAREFULLY READ.

YOUR CODE.

BEFORE.

DEBUGGING!!!

Seriously so many of my bugs have been small oversights I would have seen if I just read my damn code top to bottom.

#codeblr

[preternatural-codes-by-minski]

When studying to code, especially as a beginner, it’s super nice to see how far you’ve come in the future, so wouldn’t it be nice to have a way to track your coding progress? I think so! I have some ideas as to how you can~

Keep a journal 📔

You can use a physical or digital journal to write down your coding goals, summarises what you worked on each day, and any challenges or successes you encountered! I have a physical bullet journal to add goals but I also have a Google Sheets spreadsheet to track the challenges I do and any moments of big achievements like when I finish a major project at work!

Use a task or project management tool 🔨

I work on a lot of projects in one go so I find these very useful! There are many tools available that allow you to create tasks and track your progress. Some popular options include Trello (which I personally use the app), Asana, and ATracker.

Use version control 🖥️

As you get into coding projects, you might of heard of version control - sounds huge but it isn’t! If you're working on a software project, you can use version control systems like Git to literally track your code changes and be able to see the history of your code! Mix that with GitHub and you have a real image of how your project has progressed!

Use a code timer ⏱️

There are tools out there that allows you to track how much time you spend on different tasks or projects - in minutes, hours, days and even the past month! This can help you identify areas where you're spending too much time, and identify ways to be more efficient. I’ve shared on here using Wakatime which even allows you to set daily coding time goals! It definitely helps me! Other timers include Toggl, Study Bunny and Focus Quest-Study Timer!

Share your progress with others 🤗

Consider sharing your progress with a mentor, friends and families, colleague, or an online community. Online communities are my best choice! Tumblr, Twitter, YouTube, your own blog website, anything! Discord is another fav, I’ll probably make a post of some Discord servers you could join that help people on programming! They’ve helped me a lot and I got to meet cool people, get inspired for new project ideas and just get to talk to people about programming, technology and even tech jobs!

━━━ ⋆⋅☆

Well, that’s all I have to share! Whether you're working on a personal project or part of a team, tracking your progress will help you stay on track and make the most of your time. Happy coding and have a nice day/night! 💻🤎

#reblogs #new year

[preternatural-codes-by-minski]

advent of code: days 7 and 8 [end]

upto 29th December 2023 (or maybe 28th, I forget), I managed to make it up to day 8 and I have 16 stars in total! I was supposed to get 50 before Christmas but nevermind that! I couldn't do most days because of my semester exams at uni and a trip outside. so overall i am somewhat proud of myself, but not proud of how much time i spent doing this. and in vain at that - i solved all problems >24h after they were posted so i am not even on the leaderboard. anyway here's my screen for y'all:

thanks again to @xiacodes for the inspo! i had fun doing this. :)

#advent of code #aoc #aoc2023

[preternatural-codes-by-minski]

advent of code: days 5 and 6

this is turning out to be quite the addiction. i spend way too much time solving these problems and getting less payoff but a sense of accomplishment nevertheless. i keep wanting to do the next one, but i am losing valuable time in the process and i have actual things to do. ugh.

(terminal on the right shows my true source of pride: cleaning up all allocated memory successfully and no memory faults 😤)

#advent of code #aoc #aoc2023

[preternatural-codes-by-minski]

I can't stress enough how much I miss StumbleUpon

#random #reblogs

[preternatural-codes-by-minski]

i did the part 1 of it but i simply can't do the part 2. and i realized that i can't do this challenge anymore until my exams are over. because it's taking up my time and opening me up to opportunities where i can distract myself. i have lost three days like this and i regretted my last examination so i am going to put a pause on this.

advent of code: day 5 (prelude)

why did i choose C as the language to code with? i have to spend half of my time thinking how to parse the input.. T_T

#advent of code #aoc #aoc2023

[preternatural-codes-by-minski]

🎮 HEY I WANNA MAKE A GAME! 🎮

Yeah I getcha. I was once like you. Pure and naive. Great news. I AM STILL PURE AND NAIVE, GAME DEV IS FUN! But where to start?

To start, here are a couple of entry level softwares you can use! source: I just made a game called In Stars and Time and people are asking me how to start making vidy gaems. Now, without further ado:

SOFTWARES AND ENGINES FOR PEOPLE WHO DON'T KNOW HOW TO CODE!!!

Ren'py (and also a link to it if you click here do it): THE visual novel software. Comic artists, look no further ✨Pros: It's free! It's simple! It has great documentation! It has a bunch of plugins and UI stuff and assets for you to buy! It can be used even if you have LITERALLY no programming experience! (You'll just need to read the doc a bunch) You can also port your game to a BUNCH of consoles! ✨Cons: None really <3 Some games to look at: Doki Doki Literature Club, Bad End Theater, Butterfly Soup

Twine: Great for text-based games! GREAT FOR WRITERS WHO DONT WANNA DRAW!!!!!!!!! (but you can draw if you want) ✨Pros: It's free! It's simple! It's versatile! It has great documentation! It can be used even if you have LITERALLY no programming experience! (You'll just need to read the doc a bunch) ✨Cons: You can add pictures, but it's a pain. Some games to look at: The Uncle Who Works For Nintendo, Queers In love At The End of The World, Escape Velocity

Bitsy: Little topdown games! ✨Pros: It's free! It's simple! It's (somewhat) intuitive! It has great documentation! It can be used even if you have LITERALLY no programming experience! You can make everything in it, from text to sprites to code! Those games sure are small! ✨Cons: Those games sure are small. This is to make THE simplest game. Barely any animation for your sprites, can barely fit a line of text in there. But honestly, the restrictions are refreshing! Some games to look at: honestly I haven't played that many bitsy games because i am a fake gamer. The picture above is from Under A Star Called Sun though and that looks so pretty

RPGMaker: To make RPGs! LIKE ME!!!!! NOTE: I recommend getting the latest version if you can, but all have their pros and cons. You can get a better idea by looking at this post. ✨Pros: Literally everything you need to make an RPG. Has a tutorial inside the software itself that will teach you the basics. Pretty simple to understand, even if you have no coding experience! Also I made a post helping you out with RPGMaker right here! ✨Cons: Some stuff can be hard to figure out. Also, the latest version is expensive. Get it on sale! Some games to look at: Ib, Hylics, In Stars and Time (hehe. I made it)

engine.lol: collage worlds! it is relatively new so I don't know much about it, but it seems fascinating. picture is from Garden! NOTE: There's a bunch of smaller engines to find out there. Just yesterday I found out there's an Idle Game Maker made by the Cookie Clicker creator. Isn't life wonderful?

✨more advice under the cut. this is Long ok✨

ENGINES I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT AND THEY SEEM HARD BUT ALSO GIVE IT A TRY I GUESS!!!! :

Unity and Unreal: I don't know anything about those! That looks hard to learn! But indie devs use them! It seems expensive! Follow your dreams though! Don't ask me how!

GameMaker: Wuh I just don't know anything about it either! I just know it's now free if your game is non-commercial (aka, you're not selling it), and Undertale was made on it! It seems good! You probably need some coding experience though!!!

Godot: Man I know even less about this one. Heard good things though!

BUNCHA RANDOM ADVICE!!!!

-Make something small first! Try making simple: a character is in a room, and exits the room. The character can look around, decide to take an item with them, can leave, and maybe the door is locked and you have to find the key. Figuring out how to code something like that, whether it is as a fully text-based game or as an RPGMaker map, should be a good start to figure out how your software of choice works!

-After that, if you have an idea, try first to make the simplest version of that idea. For my timeloop RPG, my simplest version was two rooms: first room you can walk in, second room with the King, where a cutscene automatically plays and the battle starts, you immediately die, and loop back to the first room, with the text from this point on reflecting this change. I think I also added a loop counter. This helped me figure out the most important thing: Can This Game Be Made? After that, the rest is just fun stuff. So if you want to make a dating sim, try and figure out how to add choices, and how to have affection points go up and down depending on your choices! If you want to make a platformer, figure out how to make your character move and jump and how to create a simple level! If you just want to make a kinetic visual novel with no choices, figure out how to add text, and how to add portraits! You'll be surprised at how powerful you'll feel after having figured even those simple things out.

-If you have a programming problem or just get confused, never underestimate the power of asking Google! You most likely won't be the only person asking this question, and you will learn some useful tips! If you are powerful enough, you can even… Ask people??? On forums??? Not me though.

-Yeah I know you probably want to make Your Big Idea RIGHT NOW but please. Make a smaller prototype first. You need to get that experience. Trust me.

-If you are not a womanthing of many skills like me, you might realize you need help. Maybe you need an artist, or a programmer. So! Game jams on itch.io are a great way to get to work and meet other game devs that have different strengths! Or ask around! Maybe your artist friend secretly always wanted to draw for a game. Ask! Collaborate! Have fun!!!

I hope that was useful! If it was. Maybe. You'd like to buy me a coffee. Or maybe you could check out my comics and games. Or just my new critically acclaimed game In Stars and Time. If you want. Ok bye

#resources #reblogs #game dev #game dev 101: resources

[preternatural-codes-by-minski]

advent of code: day 5 (prelude)

why did i choose C as the language to code with? i have to spend half of my time thinking how to parse the input.. T_T

#advent of code #aoc #aoc2023