Nathan Laundry's Blog


Hi, I'm Nathan. I write on:


Why is your website so plain???

I'm glad you asked.

I tried making it pretty before. I think I even succeeded. But, I spent so much time messing with CSS and making this fragile mess of code that I never actually wrote anything. So, I'm going to keep it ugly and actually write stuff this time ... I Hope.

My Journey Through Reductionism and Determinism

My-Life-Philosophy Thought
👋 Hey Friends, Some kids grow up wanting to be firefighters, astronauts, or teachers … I wanted to be Laplace’s Demon. Let me explain. Pierre Simon Laplace hypothesized: if we knew both the laws of physics and the location of every particle in the universe, we would be able to predict everything that would happen in the future. — Paraphrasing Pierre Simon Laplace on Laplace’s demon Laplace attributed these powers to an imagined demon with almost infinite intellect. Read more...

How to Overcome a Fear of Writing: A Programmer's Perspective

Computer Science Writing My-Life-Philosophy
🔥 “I hate writing and I never want to do it again.” — Nathan Laundry 2013 to 2020 And I’m not alone. In Computer Science a lot of us wear our disdain for writing as a badge of honour. Honestly, there’s a sense of comradery in our shared hate for writing. I’d go so far as to say, in the undergrad’s natural habitat — the lecture hall — you can identify Computer Science students by the distinct groan they emit when an essay is assigned. Read more...

Reconnecting a New Graduate Student Community Post-Covid

Academia Community
Tldr; 📧 What Canadian Computer Science Lost in the COVID Years 📣 How the Loss of Pillar Events will be Felt by our Communities 📶 Connection for Graduate Computer Science Students 🦋 Emergent research ideas: how connectivity leads to inspiration 💔 The Splintering of Research Communities 🔗 How do we Un-Splinter The COVID Generation of Researchers? 📲 Concluding: a Call to Action 📧 What Canadian Computer Science Lost in the COVID Years We’ve all read enough “Covid sucks and here’s why” articles. Read more...

The 9–5 Graduate Student Schedule: Why I Treat Research Like any Other Job

Academia Productivity Time-Management
Between 33% and 46% of Ph.D. Students don’t complete their degree [1]. I don’t know about you, but that sends shivers down my spine. In my reading and previous article on how to succeed with one’s doctoral pursuits, we discussed the many ways that professors have seen graduate students fail to finish their degrees. While most agree on the big things: write consistently, learn by doing, don’t aim too high or low, a major point of contention was time management. Read more...

IN-COURSE EXPERIENCES WITH A SCIOER FOR OBJECT-ORIENTED PROGRAMMING

Link Here Abstract and Intro STEM learners often find benefit from interactive resources that provide a tutorial-like environment that facilitate guided practice. However, such resources are frequently expensive, and learners are not permitted to retain permanent copies. Online interactive resources are often not completely aligned with the learning outcomes for a class. Instructors may adopt more than one resource to provide a complete set of materials for students, which can increase both the financial burden and the cognitive load for students who must then pay for access to multiple resources and remember which resource to use in each context. Read more...

Toward a Computational Thinking Paradigm

Master’s Thesis PDF: [Toward a Computational Thinking Paradigm](Designing, Deploying, and Analyzing Adaptive Educational Field Experiments) Abstract Computational Thinking (CT) is crucial in today’s world, but the lack of a shared paradigm poses challenges for researchers addressing key issues like effective teaching. Diverse stakeholder motivations further complicate consensus on definitions, methods, and metrics. This research proposes a CT meta-framework, integrating cognitive science and stakeholder hypotheses, to disambiguate definitions and clarify experimental methods for a CT transfer experiment. Read more...

Increasing Your Surface Area for Serendpity: Finding Opportunities as a Computer Science Undergrad

Computer Science Undergraduate Networking
🏃🏽 TLDR — How to find summer research opportunities and freelance programming jobs for undergraduates There is a huge unfulfilled need for programmers outside of the tech-sphere both in research and in industry How to find research and freelance opportunities outside of the usual places: Go to events and join clubs Teach, tutor, and be taught Say yes to opportunities wherever you find them Opportunities to look out for: Data is plentiful and in need of analysis. Read more...

Surviving Grad School: What they don't tell you in Undergrad

Academia Writing
Hi! I’m Nathan. Hope this little Grad School Survival guide helps :) Check out my other work at Nathanlaundry.com The TLDR on how to survive your master’s/phd Priortize your research, not your grades Listen to your advisors but know when to take the lead Don’t read too much (there is a sweet spot) Learn by problem-solving Don’t leave all your writing to the end As I approach the end of my first year as a graduate student, I’ve begun to look forward; crafting a path towards a successful thesis and setting up for my PhD. Read more...

Increasing Your Surface Area for Serendipity - CUSEC 2023

Productivity Computer-Science

We have IDE at Home -> Vanilla Vim

Vim CLI
> The following is a markdown presentation. I use presenterm to render presentations from the terminal. Vim as a full IDE without Plugins And you thought it couldn’t be done. Weak! Assumptions You know the basics of how to use Vim Basic Usability Config First we need reasonable config this is pretty minimal " Set your configuration to some reasonable defaults set nocompatible " Enable line numbers set number " Enable line indenting set autoindent set smartindent " Enable syntax highlighting syntax on " Enable search highlighting set hlsearch " set clipboard=unnamedplus set clipboard+=unnamed Windows, Buffers, Splits Resizing and managing Windows ctrl-w Then some stuff Read more...
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