see you space cowboy @sdia - Tumblr Blog

on being raised on fairy tales in which you are the monster // a. m. h.

every time you leave the house w some aspect of your physical appearance challenging norms but honoring yourself, you get a little firmer in your conviction that you have the right to exist and be a body however tf you want

ashestoashis

1. your suffering can’t end until you stop identifying with it. if your sense of self is tied up in your suffering, anyone or anything that attempts to separate you from it will become the enemy because, whether consciously or subconsciously, you will on some level believe they are trying to take away a part of who you are.

2. read the above again.

girlot-deactivated20190919

girls against the flood, a poem by me. it’s been months since i wrote one, ha. i may be rusty, but i did my best.

mokatopia

God dangit Miku

boomeyer

Do yourself a favor. Learn to code. Here's how.

I’ve said this to my non-techie friends countless times. It’s no secret that being able to code makes you a better job applicant, and a better entrepreneur. Hell, one techie taught a homeless man to code and now that man is making his first mobile application.

Learning to code elevates your professional life, and makes you more knowledgeable about the massive changes taking place in the technology sector that are poised to have an immense influence on human life.

(note: yes I realize that 3/5 of those links were Google projects)

But most folks are intimidated by coding. And it does seem intimidating at first. But peel away the obscurity and the difficulty, and you start to learn that coding, at least at its basic level, is a very manageable, learnable skill.

There are a lot of resources out there to teach you. I’ve found a couple to be particularly successful. Here’s my list of resources for learning to code, sorted by difficulty:

Novice

Never written a line of code before? No worries. Just visit one of these fine resources and follow their high-level tutorials. You won’t get into the nitty-gritty, but don’t worry about it for now:

Dash - by General Assembly

CodeAcademy

w3 Tutorials (start at HTML on the left sidebar and work your way down)

Intermediate

Now that you’ve gone through a handful of basic tutorials, it’s time to learn the fundamentals of actual, real-life coding problems. I’ve found these resources to be solid:

Khan Academy

CodeAcademy - Ruby, Python, PHP

Difficult

If you’re here, you’re capable of building things. You know the primitives. You know the logic control statements. You’re ready to start making real stuff take shape. Here are some different types of resources to turn you from someone who knows how to code, into a full-fledged programmer.

Programming problems

Sometimes, the challenges in programming aren’t how to make a language do a task, but just how to do the task in general. Like how to find an item in a very large, sorted list, without checking each element. Here are some resources for those types of problems

Talentbuddy

TopCoder

Web Applications

If you learned Python, Django is an amazing platform for creating quick-and-easy web applications. I’d highly suggest the tutorial - it’s one of the best I’ve ever used, and you have a web app up and running in less than an hour.

Django Tutorial

I’ve never used Rails, but it’s a very popular and powerful framework for creating web applications using Ruby. I’d suggest going through their guide to start getting down-and-dirty with Rails development.

Rails Guide

If you know PHP, there’s an ocean of good stuff out there for you to learn how to make a full-fledged web application. Frameworks do a lot of work for you, and provide quick and easy guides to get up and running. I’d suggest the following:

Cake PHP Book

Symfony 2 - Get Started

Yii PHP - The Comprehensive Guide

Conclusion

If there’s one point I wanted to get across, it’s that it is easier than ever to learn to code. There are resources on every corner of the internet for potential programmers, and the benefits of learning even just the basics are monumental.

If you know of any additional, great resources that aren’t listed here, please feel free to tweet them to me @boomeyer.

Best of luck!

mementoluceat-blog

I’d also like to add some more specialized resources!

Video games:

Easy game engines (virtually no coding):

Game Maker Studio (2D; free and paid versions)

GameSalad (2D)

RPG Maker (2D; numerous versions ranging from free to $69.99)

Stencyl (2D; free and paid subscription versions)

Scratch (good for kids and is more general; 2D; free)

More difficult game engines:

Unity (lots and lots of platforms; C# and JavaScript script; 2D, 3D, VR; free and paid versions)

Unreal (specializes in graphics; C++ and visual script; 2D, 3D, VR; free with a royalty on successful products)

CryEngine (Lua script; 3D; paid subscription and full license versions)

Mobile game development:

Corona (free and paid subscription versions)

SpriteKit (2D) and SceneKit (3D) which are built into the official compiler to create iOS apps (see iOS apps for more resources)

also all of the above game engines (cross-platform)

Game console development:

Game Maker Studio (with a paid subscription)

Unity

Unreal

CryEngine

Note that games can also be created on more general platforms like iOS and Android apps, but the resources listed above are specialized for game development.

iOS apps:

In order to develop iOS apps, you’ll need to purchase an iOS developer program membership for $99 a year, which requires an Apple account. Here are some general resources:

Xcode (the official IDE for iOS apps; can be installed on OS X)

Start Developing iOS Apps Today (Objective-C)

Ray Wenderlich iOS tutorials (Objective-C and Swift)

Code School: Try iOS (Objective-C)

Developing iOS 8 Apps (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7; Swift)

TutorialsPoint: iOS Tutorial (Objective-C)

How to Make iPhone Apps With No Programming Experience (Swift)

Swift Tutorial: Building an iOS Application (2, 3)

iOS apps are developed in the 2 official languages of Apple: Objective-C and Swift, the latter of which is newer and generally much easier to learn.

Objective-C resources:

the official documentation

TutorialsPoint: Objective-C Tutorial

Ry’s Objective-C Tutorial

Swift resources:

the official documentation

The Swift Programming Language (free official e-book)

Swift: A Quick Reference Guide

Xcode also has SpriteKit, SceneKit, and Metal built in, all of which are incredibly useful for creating apps that require elaborate graphics, particularly games.

SpriteKit resources:

How to Make a Game Like Candy Crush With Swift (2)

Sprite Kit Swift Tutorial

Create Space Invaders with Swift and Sprite Kit

iOS SpriteKit Physics Tutorial in Swift

Build the Game of Life (Swift)

SceneKit resources:

Scene Kit Tutorial: Getting Started (Swift)

An Introduction to SceneKit (2; Swift)

Metal resources:

the official documentation + other resources (Obj-C)

iOS 8 Metal Tutorial with Swift (2, 3)

Getting Started With Metal (Obj-C)

An introduction to 3D graphics with Metal in Swift

Also, in order to publish iOS apps, you’ll have to juggle certificates, app ids, and provisioning profiles. This process can be convoluted at times so here are some resources:

How to Submit Your App to Apple: From No Account to App Store (2)

Beginner Tutorial: iOS Certificates & Provisioning Profiles

Android apps:

In order to develop Android apps, you’ll need to register as a developer for a one-time fee of $25. Here are some general resources:

Android Studio (the official IDE for Android app development; free; can be installed on Windows, OS X, and Linux)

the official documentation

Getting Started

Android Tutorial For Beginners (2, 3)

Learn Android SDK From Scratch

Introduction to Android Development With Android Studio

Android apps are developed in Java and the layout is coded with XML.

Java resources:

W3schools: Java Tutorial series

TutorialsPoint: Java Tutorial

Core Java Tutorial

XML resources:

W3schools: XML Tutorial series

TutorialsPoint: XML Tutorial

For publishing (which is somewhat easier than publishing iOS apps):

How to Publish to the Android Market

3D modeling/animation:

Blender (can also be used to create games; Python script; free and open-source; can be installed on Windows, OS X, and Linux)

Maya (specialized script; free trial, free 3-year student subscription, and paid subscription versions; can be installed on Windows, OS X, and Linux to an extent)

3ds Max (Python script; free trial, free 3-year student subscription, and paid subscription versions; can be installed on Windows and OS X)

RenderMan (specialized script; free for non-commercial/educational use and pay-per-license for commercial use; can be installed on Windows, OS X, and Linux)

Misc. resources:

Stack Overflow is an ask-and-answer community for programmers. It’s amazing and will save your life. Sign up and don’t be afraid to ask for help.

Github offers a student pack (here) if you create an account and prove you’re a student. This gives you free access to a bunch of great programming resources for free for a certain period of time, such as Unreal Engine. Also, Github in general is a site that you can host your code on. Other users can see it, and “fork” it to make a copy of your code and modify it.

Parse is a backend service that allows you to store data in databases it hosts on its own servers. It lets you use push notifications, create users, store and retrieve data, etc. It’s compatible with iOS apps, Android apps, Windows apps, Xamarin, React, Unity, OS X, Windows, JavaScript, PHP, .net, Arduino, and Embedded C. It’s free up to a certain limit that depends on the services you use.

Cloud9, Codebox, and Squad are online IDEs that allow for real-time collaboration and support a variety of languages, so they’re useful for team projects.

And some general advice:

Your program will not work right away, 99% of the time. That’s okay. Do your best to figure out where the error is. Here is some advice on debugging (written for PHP but the methods can be generalized).

If you’re stuck, Google. Google like there’s no tomorrow.

Ask questions on a community like Stack Overflow.

For that matter, browse relevant Stack Overflow questions. You can probably find some solutions there.

Don’t be afraid to copy and paste.

Take breaks sometimes if you’re getting burned out. But don’t stay away from your projects for too long or you’ll lose track of its status.

Backup your code. On the cloud, on a USB drive, wherever. If your IDE has a backing up feature like snapshots, use it whenever you hit a milestone.

If your project is big, split it up into milestones and set goals. Don’t tackle everything at once.

Like the OP said, coding isn’t just for professionals and “geeks” anymore. Anyone can learn it if you really try, and with the rapidly expanding tech industry, learning coding can really broaden your opportunities.

If any of the links are broken, or you have a question or some information/resources to add, you can contact me through the askbox or the OP through his Twitter (as mentioned in his post).

If you’re interested, try some of these out and best of luck!

boomeyer

Great work expanding on my humble list to include a much fuller collection of resources for learning how to code! Cheers!

jibunstudies

hello there! i would like to ask if you know any sites where i can practice reading japanese? like news sites, manga sites, or sites that offer free e-books that are in japanese. and are there any japanese podcasts that i can listen to? thank you in advance for answering this question. it'd mean a whole to me!

Hey there! There are actually quite a few recommended sites for Japanese learners, so I’ll link them right now :)

Japanese IO – I’ve used this site quite a few times and I love the interface! The design is really sleek and “to the point,” so there’s no distractions from what you’re trying to do, which is practice reading Japanese. It also has a great library and look-up feature.

朝日学生新聞社 – This is the “kid’s version” of the more adult 朝日新聞社. If you don’t feel that you’re quite up for the adult version, test out the version geared towards kids. They have fewer articles, but there’s plenty for a learner to pick through.

NHK NEWS EASY – I’m almost positive this is one of the most famous ones for learners. It’s similar to Asahi’s kid newspaper – articles are condensed with easier kanji and vocabulary, and it’s geared towards children, so learners can spend some time combing through updated articles and testing their skills.

Yahoo! Kids – More short news articles geared towards easier-to-understand Japanese.

MATCHA – A fun magazine similar in style to NHK EZ.

Watanoc – Another magazine-type site with a variety of articles.

Traditional Japanese Stories – Get your hands on some easily printed Japanese stories that are told to children. Great for language skills and culture! Similar to English pop culture stories (like Cinderella and so on), Japan has its own fairytales that are occasionally referenced.

Fuku Musume’s Fairy Tale Collection – More stories!

World of チョコチョコ – These are beginner stories, but as you progress you can read other stories on this website.

EhonNavi – Read hundreds of Japanese picture books for free!

If you’re looking for more advanced content…

NHK – Japan’s national broadcaster. You can read articles as well as stream audio and video (may be blocked depending on location).

毎日新聞 – Moderate/left-leaning national newspaper

朝日新聞 – Left-leaning national newspaper

読売新聞 – Conservative national newspaper

東洋経済オンライン – A well-known business and finance magazine.

Project Gutenberg (Japanese) – Get access to a ton of out-of-print and classical books for free.

小説家になろう – A site where authors can publish their works online in exchange for reviews.

青空文庫 – Another site where you can get older and out-of-print novels.

University of Virginia Japanese Text Initiative – Another place to access novels in Japanese for free (with the option to read them with furigana).

ComicWalker – Free manga from the publisher Kadokawa. There’s an app too!

最前線 – You can read some manga online for free.

コミコ – More free Japanese manga available here!

キナリノ – A woman’s lifestyle blog which covers fashion, cooking, decor, and more!

Magazine Lib – You can read PDFs of Japanese magazines.

1000文字小説 – A place where users can submit 1000 characters or less stories.

I also highly recommend starting a Twitter (if you don’t already have one) and following Japanese accounts. I follow a lot of feminist and political accounts so that I’m learning words relevant to my interests, as well as interacting with people that are discussing topics of interest to me (i.e. women and their place in Japanese society).

If you’re curious, you can find me on Twitter at @sydney0313 :)

I hope this list proves useful to you! (And others.)

頑張ってください！

elliotvalentinelee

The FULL RECORDING of my original musical, Purely Coincidental, is up! Hope y’all like it. :)

Summary: When the wishes of students at an all-girls high school start magically coming true in increasingly destructive ways, three friends - Robin, an aspiring novelist and closeted trans boy; Wisteria, a hopeless romantic; and Lucian, the quiet, ambitious girl Wisteria is madly in love with - must figure out how to fix everything before their classmates throw the world into chaos.

hardstoplucas1

When you call somebody’s name but they don’t know where it’s coming from

robb-the-reaver

This is genuinely frightening

bordermatecrinkles-deactivated2

You know when a horror movie has so many jokes it feels more like a comedy? This is the exact opposite of that

thethirdcircle

It Follows (2014)

batter-sempai

I remember reading somewhere that there’s a fine line between comedy and horror, this video crossed that fine line like 10 times.

danielcalmdown

coldwarkids2-deactivated2015031

heres some cool flash games in case youre bored

you wanna be a dragon??? well have i got the game for you

haunt the house and get your ghosty home back

a cool space kid and his alien??? thing??? go on adventures

a game about moving on [tw for death, implied animal death, and loud noises]

a sea monster and the world around it

its called sushi cat do you even need more than this

a creepy post-apocalypse game where you protect the last plant on earth

its like animal crossing but less cool graphics and everyones a bunny

congratulations youre in charge of a bunch of rollercoasters

a werewolf goes on a pleasant nighttime stroll [tw for violence and blood, all of it very cartoony and animated though]

a cool 8bit dungeon platformer with cool video game music

a pretty adventure game where you find the treasure to save your village

help the worms get into their holes and light up mushrooms

kulekrizpy

Some of my favorites:

Cursor*10 - little game where you have several “lives”. you use your cursor to navigate the floors, and when the time runs out, you go back to the beginning. however, the previous cursors will go through the same path they made before, thus allowing you to get further each time.

Daymare Town - creepy point and click game. very inky, interesting drawings. you have to find your way through (or perhaps out of) Daymare Town, which is inhabited by obscure prickly people.

Grid Game - there are a bunch of little circles. click one, and watch it rotate and set off a chain reaction. mindless distraction game.

Samsara Room - a strange escape game where you’re stuck in one room but pass through different dimensions to get out

i saw her standing there - zombie love story. super cute. there’s a sequel too.

Feed the Head - more like interactive art than anything. there are several different things to do in this game.

Factory Balls - a bit of a puzzle game. you have to paint a bunch of balls to match the model shown, using various options and paints.

Grow Nano Vol. 3 - one of my favorites of the Grow series. you have to click the options in the right order in order to make the sick person feel better. this one just warms my heart.

make sure to click the tags to find more games by the creators and companies and the rest of the games in the series!!!

wakingfromthewater

I find Tonypa’s games to be simple, unique, and enjoyable. A lot of them involve patterns, colors, and matching, so they’re very calming as well.

thegeminisage

some from me!!

deep thinking games with exploration themes…

6 differences - a pretty cool find the difference game that’s very atmospheric and somewhat soothing in the first levels, mostly takes place at night around a city, features sound effects and music and even moving cars down the highways. content warning for some surrealism and acid-trippy effects in the later levels (a person with a deer head, some kind of alarming music, the level’s walls moving as you look for the differences, etc - sometimes the level changes after you find all but one clue, and in one instance a train goes by rather suddenly and loudly, but it didn’t make me jump and i am sensitive to jump scares)

i can hold my breath forever - a game about exploring underwater caves in search of a friend. some references to drowning!

i wish i were the moon - short and sweet game about two people and a moon! clone things and move them around to get different endings :3

small words - a soothing platformed-style exploration game that lets you uncover different maps/pictures as you walk around

don’t look back - a creepy game based on the myth of orpheus and eurydice, this is a platformer-style game that has you going to the underworld to get your lover back. very atmospheric, but a slightly creepy atmosphere that (of course) references death, so take care

alight in dreams - during a dream you get wings, and explore the dream to find out about the history of a person who has never dreamed before. mentions death and suicide.

a house in california - explore an old house and learn its history, very atmospheric. can be a bit confusing for some, you may need a walkthrough.

silent conversation - a soothing game that makes levels out of passages of classic books; you win by toughing every word. not my preferred reading material, but the way the levels are built kind of force you to drink it all in stead of speeding through it.

games that are a bit creepy…

prior - you, a little box creature, wake without your memories in an unknown place. you must explore to find your family and figure out what happened before you woke. a dark game with multiple possibilities - can be a little creepy.

immorTall - an alien makes friends with a human family after crashlanding to earth. defend them as long as possible!

loved - a dark sort of game where you go through the levels deciding if you will choose to obey the voice giving you orders or defy it. in some casing obeying makes things easier, but in other cases the voice asks you to make things hard on yourself - throwing yourself onto spikes so you have to start over, etc. sometimes it is almost impossible to do what the voice asks. (serious warning for emotional manipulation, just to be safe - the question at the start will purposefully misgender you depending on your answer, and continue to do so throughout the game, but, depending on your actions, will then correct the mistake at the end.)

one chance - a kind of dark game; in the impending apocalypse you have one chance to decide what to do with the rest of your life. there are many endings, but you really do only have one chance…refreshing the page will not let you play again! content warning for death,suicide, impending doom, hopelessness, etc

every day the same dream - another fatalistic game with multiple endings, but this one allows you to find them all. same warnings as the one above.

elude - a metaphorical representation of depression. dark melancholy levels, nice atmosphere, but can be a little moody.

symon - you play as an elderly man stuck in a hospital bed. you sleep to dream and relive your past. this game is pretty much endless and features endless combinations of the same tasks, to reflect what that sort of life might be like. cw for death and end-life blues.

now for some lighter ones…

pizza king 2 - i found this sim where you run your own pizza shop weirdly addictive. food cw, of course, and it’s the only sim on here because they usually aren’t my thing, but, well.

boomshine & obechi - two colorful games where a well-placed click will start a chain reaction and see how many points you can collect!

filler - a similar concept to the ones above

music bounce - release bouncing balls to hit platforms to get the perfect rhythm!

dropsum & dropsum colors - math games where you combine numbers to eliminate them. you can choose where to drop the numbers, turn the board, and use powerups! (dropsum colors isn'tloading for me rn, but it might for you)

first person tetris - you spin with the tetris blocks! fun for pros, but it can make you dizzy.

flash tron - a recreation of the original tron game as seen in the movies. here you can play with others online!

dolphin olympics - super fun game where you swim and do tricks as a dolphin to score as many points as you can in two minutes. there’s also a freeplay mode. if you jump high enough, you may even see the moon ouo

mirror’s edge 2d - i adore the 3d version of this game for ps3, but if you don’t have access, you can play the mini/2d version. no real story, but it’s a very challenging game with rad animation!

bubble tanks tower defense - pretty fun tower defense game that doesn’t get old too quickly.

bloons - i started playing the tower defense game, but they’re all pretty fun and complex. scroll down a bit and click any of the ones under “bloons games”

elephant games - a sort-of series with gems like “achievement unlocked” & sequels (where there is no objective except to complete all the achievements) and “this is the only level” (where you go through the same level many different ways). you grow to be quite fond of the little guy. :’D

some of these i haven’t played in awhile! i pulled from my bookmarks, because i used to spend all day curating links to these things. if i’ve missed a content warning PLEASE feel free to contact me about it or add it yourself!

scholarlyhobbit

Sushi Cat and Haunt the House are my two favourites thus far.

polyglottingg-deactivated201503

For people learning French and wanting to speak it like a native, I’ll give you some tips, the things native people say (so you can sound less formal when you speak it).

“Je suis” is often shortened to “j’suis” and if we say it fast, it becomes “chuis”

“Tu es” and basically every verb with “tu” that starts with a vowel, we contract it and make it “t’es”, “t’arrives”, etc.

“il y a”, “il y avait” are most of the time shortened to (oral speech and when writing to a friend) “ya”, “y avait”

To make a question, it’s rare that we use the “est-ce que” form, we just take the affirmative sentence and put a question mark at the end : tu veux manger? (instead of : veux-tu manger?, est-ce que tu veux manger?)

Some abbreviations we often use :

bcp (beaucoup), mtn (maintenant), pk (pourquoi), tlm (tout le monde), mm (même), ptn (putain)

I know this post is probably useless but if you have any questions about french, ill be happy to answer them!

theboiwithabrokensmile

THIS WAS HELPFUL!

alexalfurinn-deactivated2016042

Also some things I’ve learned:

Drop the ne from ne … pas. So instead of saying « Je n’y mange pas », say « J’y mange pas.»

In Paris at least, they tend to prefer on over nous. On va au ciné, au musée, etc. is more common than Nous allons…

Learn what Verlan is and how to use it.

Ne … que seems to be used more frequently than seulement. For example, Je ne veux que l’écouter.

There are also just a lot of slang words your textbook won’t teach you, and they aren’t even necessarily rude. Like la flotte instead of l’eau.

I would definitely also recommend these YouTube channels.

jaimetalangue

The on over nous is simply everywhere in France, if not in francophone areas!

The ne…que construction: apply the en dropping rule too ;) but we also use juste A LOT, probably an anglicism? (e.g. je veux juste l’écouter)

j’suis and chuis can be applied to j’sais and chais too

informal greetings for hello: salut, coucou

informal greetings for bye: salut, ciao (frenchified spelling: tchao), tchô, bye, à plus, à toute (short for à tout de suite or à tout à l’heure, when you’re gonna see the other person in a few minutes or later in the day)

avoir des sous : to have money - we often say des sous instead of de l’argent