Well, first off I want to actually pass my college classes. You know, the classes I barely find interest in that seem to be very minimal in my coding skills.
Next, take up or join a project for the summer. You know, get my name out there.
Third, make money
Fourth, make something significant in the OSdev community. I absolutely love low-level dev. Now (to myself) Let's do this!

Minecraft mods get me into programming. I used to spend hours yelling at Eclipse for not making that stupid JAR file! 7 years later, I'm pursuing a career as someone who spends hours yelling at a CLI assembler for not making that stupid ISO file! Good times.

When some random Assembly code I got off the OSDev Wiki actually booted on real hardware. This is where I'm meant to be.

If you saw my last rant, you'll know how much I hate Calculus. I decided instead of trying to learn this foreign topic, I'd instead translate it into a language I DO understand: C. The irony is that we use Calculus so we can learn to code easier, but I'm using code to learn Calculus easier. Funny if you ask me.

For those who graduated, how the heck do you people do it? I'm on the verge of failing and/or having to retake Calculus AGAIN! I thought that if I could retake it, I would do better. But nope, now instead of getting into that really good tech school in a couple years, I'm a fledgling developer stuck in commonunity college with a 2.9 GPA and not a single project finished. Every decision I make has an exponential affect on my future, but right now, I got nothing. I can't see myself going anywhere else or doing anything else than software development. I'm not quitting, but that isn't enough anymore. This is a nightmare.

Just spent 15 minutes trying to explain Unix time and Y2K to a liberal arts major who wanted to know why 2038 is such a huge deal. It was technical, frustrating, and challenging. Kinda like debugging

You know, I read so often about people out there who don't have WiFi or don't have cell service for miles, and until today, I had little considderatoom for how truly tough that can be. I grew up during the cell revolution, but I didn't use smartphones til I was 16. But now that I went to visit relatives in the country, we went over a hundred miles without cell service. Where was I? New York. Now this may sound whiney or petty, but for people who live out here (and especially people in third-world countries), they are missing out on the many benefits of internet access. Connectivity is good. I support it now more than ever.

Tried an ad blocker for the first time yesterday. Well what do ya know? Websites I use will not let me access them unless I turn it off. I KNEW something like this would happen. When they were first coming out a few years ago, I said to myself "If everyone is going to be blocking ads, how will we be able to go to these sites for free?"

I expected the worst. I thought they'd put free websites behind a pay wall, much like ad-free mobile applications I would make. Thank GOD that didn't happen. This system is a lot more fair in my opinion. I'm just glad they don't do the same with popup-blockers. Then we would have an issue.

In all seriousness, as annoying as some websites are with their trashy, misleading, or fake ads, they (kinda) have to be there in order for devs to make money and for consumers to be somewhat happy. That is why I personally will not use ad blockers.

You know what I'm CONSTANTLY trying to improve on? Time. With my career out ahead of me, I feel like I gotta get a stopwatch going for myself on my personal projects. It took me hours throughout the weekend to get a stupid table UI and JSON serialization system working on a small project. Meanwhile I remember two guys created a Pokémon Go client in a couple days (back when I had a Windows Phone that didn't have one). Like, how important is time in the industry? A lot according to the memes.

I've been laughed at a lot for thinking this way, but I'm honestly frustrated by how little information exists on the web for people who want to take Operating System development a step further. I mean, the OSDev Community is amazing and offers pretty, much everything one needs to know at the system level. But my issue is: What if someone didn't want to use existing compilers and assemblers like GCC and NASM, and do everything from total scratch? I mean, the original Unix came from somewhere, right? I know you're going to think "Why not? It works.". Well, I just think it's crazy how few people (such as Linus and the GNU foundation) are out there that have the ability to create such things without help from existing software tools. Sure, it could take me decades of careful practice and experience, but my passion is for creating software at this level and becoming one of those people is very strong. I just wish I knew where to begin and who to learn from.

When my friend finishes an amazing project and I can't even decide which project to pursue and can keep myself stuck to whenever I code (having college rarely helps with timing and such). Meh, that's gonna change soon. Gotta exercise some good ol' responsibility.

You know, I've really been thinking about renouncing my love for Microsoft's products. I got into the tech world through them, so their stuff was all I really knew. It's like a non-dev growing up using Mac and iPhone. You don't really know what other hardware and software can do (especially since Microsoft is now acting a LOT like Apple nowadays). Ever since they killed Windows Phone, I started seeing past the rose-colored glasses. They've annoyed me with one slip-up after the next. The only things that have kept me tied to them are my Windows Insider membership, and their developer platform. Now that I've seen things like Fuchsia and Linux, I realize that the way Microsoft is going about technology is painful to developers and consumers alike, and this is now beginning to hurt their bottom line. I'm sick of it.

The issue is that if I leave the Microsoft platform, I will have no time to waste. I spent the last 2 yeas cozying up to them, and now I will need to find other platforms, languages, and utilities to build a portfolio from. This also means that I will despise pretty much every major tech company for different reasons (Apple for locked-down hardware, Microsoft for locked-down software, Google for it's monopolistic actions and its unfair policies and terms, Amazon for its invasiveness, etc). If things get worse, I'll probably end up going to Linux and joining the open-source community. The only worry I have is what I'll do for a career. I'm almost halfway to getting an Associates in Computer Science, but where do I go from there? Can't make a living open-source (unless I get patrons, which is unlikely), will probably abandon my dream of joining Microsoft or Google, and I don't currently specialize in any particular area of development yet. I want to spend my life dealing with tech and software. But right now, I've got next to no plans. I've got a lot of thinking to do...

!rant

Another day, another weird trend that's come up on devRant. Today it's Light Theme vs Dark Theme. Take your pick and place your bets! 'cause after setting Windows to dark theme, I ain't leavin' it! What about you guys?

I'm more pissed than I've been in awhile. With classes coming back soon and having to catch up to my classmates in college and as a developer, have to work part-time to pay off debt. Now I just found out that I have high cholesterol at EIGHTEEN and need to exercise regularly. All this putting off has now crashed down on me and I have no idea how I'm going to do this all at once. For the sake of my future (and my heart), how the heck am I gonna do all this?

Cat-warming solution when the power goes out

Problem: Your power goes out in the middle of winter. Your cat is cold and will not leave you alone. You are her only source of heat.

Step 1: Find battery-powered laptop.
Step 2: Power on laptop and turn off sleep/hibernation in the settings.
Step 3: Open up 5 instances of Minecraft and load a single-player world in each.
Step 4: Close laptop and flip it upside down
Step 5: Place cat on computer above the fan. Cat will begin to purr.

(Yes this works)

Best Experience: When I finally got my own machine so I could do whatever the heck I wanted to it. Learned and applied more than ever.

Worst Experience: Being an idiot and getting kicked off the only dev team I have ever been a part of because I asked too many questions and did no actual effort...

I see people posting pictures of computers (ATMs, ad screens, digital signs, instruments, etc) failing and instead showing some Windows function, update, or the desktop. Makes me wonder: WHY would you use Windows this way? Think of how many product keys you'll have to buy and how many systems you'll need maintain to show a stupid sign? There's GOT to be a cheaper way of doing things like this.

Well, there is this one video online of some guy who made his own website out of PHP and MySQL (https://youtu.be/lomppRPkeFE) . Good old me didn't care about how we were both noobs that didn't care how cringey the site was. The site had so many vulnerabilities and looked so much like a 90s forum, I offered to help the guy out on a common quest to make an epic website. 2.5 years later and that quest is still in progress today. We actually remade the site too (https://www.novanius.com)

I dunno if this is a rant or an anti-rant, but for some reason, Assembly and low-level development hardly ever tick me off. It absolutely dumbfounds me how what many regard as the most frustrating and difficult ways of programming a binary digital computers is just so enjoyable. I spend hours per day teaching myself C and GNU Assembly and how it works with little actually getting done. It just rarely gets frustrating enough to rant about. Ladies and gentlemen I think I have found my calling!

Ok, so the new programming language Q# is out. VERY exciting for me! I love the idea of quantum computing! Then I realize that developers will need to know the basics of quantum physics to use it effectively. Yay or nay? Welp, those extremely big, expensive machines won't program themselves (yet).

One of professors has an interesting philosophy in regards to how software is planned. He makes us forget that we dealing with a computer and has us write instructions as if we are teaching a human (no optimization, binary, or unnecessary numeral variables). Then we change it into code, then we optimize it. Every time. It freaks me out, but it gets us thinking. Not sure. If that is genius or insanity.

Do ya ever hate how often people use the term "AI" so loosely. It's like saying your thermostat or your "smart oven" (or "smart"-everything) is "AI-infused" because it can regulate the temperature. Unless the machine actually learns something for next time around, a bunch of "if" statements isn't truly AI in my book.

I like Xamarin, but they treat Windows like crap. What is more ironic? EVERYTHING Microsoft creates or sells treats their own platform like crap! Skype on my Android has been updated constantly while Skype on PC absolutely sucks. Every developer tools like Visual Studio don't target Windows apps as much. You spend YEARS hyping us up for the Universal Windows Platform, then toss it to the side and give away Android apps. What's worse is that all of that was preventable. They could easily improve the UWP and build an ecosystem around it, but nope. They kick their fanbase, and every other end user involved in the platform, to the curb. Microsoft, nobody trusts you anymore! I've been a fan since July 29th, 2015. I owned a Windows Phone. I own Mixed Reality headset. My Android has every one of your services on it. Why? Because I spend day after day hoping for your reception. But while you are busy "Hitting Refresh", thousands, if not millions, are being ticked off by how we enjoyed the Windows platform more than you did... Get your head in the game! Your developers hang in the balance.

Today is one of those days where I realize there are hundreds of free APIs and tools to make something amazing and revolutionary, but you can't think of anything that isn't already done or is too advanced for an indie developer. Seriously, I watched Microsoft's Connect event keynotes and demos for these easy and amazing structures, but not a single app idea comes to mind. 😐

If I'm going to make a profit and a good resume, somethings needs to happen.

TWENTY GIGABYTES!?!? I go to install Xamarin so I could work on a cross-platform project. My C drive is minimal in size and Windows doesn't let you install programs on the D drive. This is madd a billion times worse because Windows 10 treats secondary uard drives just like SD cards! Seriously? TWENTY for that framework?

Ok this is freaking creepy. I searched for information about login systems on other websites for some time. Not once did I touch Facebook. Then Facebook show me targeted ads when I hoped on 30 minutes later. How the heck does Facebook get that data in the first place? I'm starting to get pissed that my data is just handed out to everyone, even by search engines.

Ah, so the great war I my head has begun. When you're a CS major in college, you can't help but realize that knowing everything about computers and how to develop everything on thrm is next to impossible. So you start to question "what will be my specialty?". "Web dev or Low-level? "swirl through my head. I work on projects when I should be writing that 5-page essay for that College Composition course I care nothing about. Then on my own time I need to openly practice and refine my craft, and studying. Sheesh, I hate time (or the lack thereof). How do you do anything major on your own these days?

A good honest changelog.

What I should be doing: Playing around with it and working my way up, usually by reading the docs and putting together a "tutorial" in my head.

What I actually do: Get overhyped think of theost complicated thing possible and figure things out bit-by-bit

Meh, I do both nowadays. Slowly buys surely.

Got half my college calling me "Pennywise" cause I work at the "IT" department. Thanks Saturday Night Live!