Diary
This article chronicles my Computer Science Ph.D. self-study program.
Previous title: Journal
2014-JUL-28 Monday
UCF Grad Fair[1] Spoke with an unknown professor from UCF Computer Science about earning a Ph.D. Short story, he told me, in a long-winded but polite way, to buzz off, not bother, and to study this by myself. Before I'd gotten three sentences out. Not having to be told off twice I decided against enrolling in any graduate school and to formulate my own self-study Ph.D. program in Computer Science. This adventure starts today.
2014-SEP-26 Friday
Described my Ph. D. problems to Gregg Mitchell and he said I was burned out where school was concerned. I agree. There is no future for me in taking classes for a degree. Journal Search on Google[2]
2014-OCT-03 Friday
Ask for training in Project Management Professional (PMP) at work. Two people at work and three friends have PMPs. Obtaining one will make it easier to get a management job. A management job will give me more credibility when submitting papers.
2014-OCT-14 Tuesday
PMP training was approved. Now the hard part starts.
2014-OCT-25 Saturday
UF's program is 90 credits! UCF's program is 72 credits! There are multiple official and "unofficial" GPA requirements for both. What drugs are these people on? Are there any left?
2015-JAN-03 Saturday
Research Statement and Purpose Statement, both first drafts, completed.
2015-MAR-04 Wednesday
Since last December I've been continually ill with one cold, cough or another. In January FontDoctor trashed disks on the laptop and Velocity. Then the Math:Extension corrupted my wiki pages. Took four days to fix. This has deeply impressed upon me that my chaotic life is incompatible with academia's ridged calendar. A cheap but not quick lesson.
2015-NOV-15 Sunday
Illness and PMP studies have eaten up the whole year. Next year, 2016, starts this all over again with:
- Finish MathLatex documentation and publish it.
- Finish Calculus 3
2015-NOV-27 Friday
The Portfolio section describes posting my research and course work to my web page. This does not constitute publication according to the Articles Rules but does provide a convenient place for people to see my research.
2015-NOV-29 Sunday
Searched the MIT Course Catalog but did not find any classes related to A-Life.
2016-JAN-03 Sunday
Added the Requirements section based on UF.[3]
2016-JAN-28 Thursday
Finally got a digital note page formatted the way I like it. Calculus_II_06.01_Slope_Fields_and_Euler's_Method is formatted in a similar fashion to the textbook but the text is now written in English. Now I can take digital notes almost as fast in mediawiki as on paper.
2016-JAN-31 Sunday
Finished Calculus II 06.01 Slope Fields and Euler's Method and starting Calculus II 06.02 Differential Equations Growth and Decay.
2016-FEB-20 Saturday
When studying a proof I need to see every single step. Most times the author does not provide these because it's tedious and bloats the text. Need to work on this. Figured out how to use MathJax[4] with MediaWiki. No more MathLaTeX. MathJax provides equations properly scaled with the correct font on most browsers and the LaTeX statement is embedded in the article. No more image files.
2016-FEB-29 Monday
Hit a wall with Section 6.4 so now it's time for Wolfram Alpha Pro[5]. At just $70.00 a year it's like renting a calculator that shows all the steps in a solution. Really, really do I need to know the steps.
2016-APR-07 Thursday
Earthlink reported they had successfully transferred my domain name, 'minormiraclesoftware.com', from fatcow. Yippee! Tomorrow I'll start on the site.
2016-APR-08 Friday
Earthlink didn't transfer the site. Still waiting for various transfer approvals to go through.
2016-APR-21 Thursday
Approved the last, hopefully, transfer to get my domain to Earthlink.
Finished the Doctorate requirements. Still have to finish the software program requirements, exam, and article parts.
2016-APR-22 Friday
The domain transfer went through. But the idiots at Earthlink didn't update the name servers. Now they are updated and I can get to the web site. Now to build the site.
2016-APR-26 Tuesday
Dropped Earthlink. They do not provide for compilers or a full Linux installation. I'm looking for other, real, Virtual Private Servers (VPS) to mount my work on. Digital Ocean[6] looks promising.
2016-MAY-11 Wednesday
Finished deploying University to Digital Ocean, 190.241.192.50. So far, knock-on-wood, it looks real good.
2017-FEB-02 Thursday
The doctoral program is a marathon, not a sprint. In the undergraduate world it's binge and purge, fire and forget. This time when I read an article or book, notes must be taken.
2017-SEP-25 Monday
There is no future for me in academia. Universities have their heads locked into the 13th century. The administrations are fossilized. The Computer Science colleges either laugh at me or ignore me. Every university I've ever had any dealings with has treated me, and everyone else I could see, as worth less than dirt to them. This reduces any career in research to an institute or corporation.
2017-NOV-19 Sunday
Finished Calculus III notes. Now for the Final Exam.
2017-DEC-07 Thursday
Finished Calculus II Final Exam. Now onto running my software from mediawiki.
2017-DEC-15 Friday
Just from looking over Conway's Game of Life on various sites I found that no one runs the program from a wiki page. Everyone runs it from an ordinary HTML page. The reason is that running software from a wiki violates both the wiki architecture and purpose. A wiki is an encyclopedia, not a software launching platform. So I'm adding an HTML entrance page with links to the wikis. From the new entrance page I'll branch off to different projects.
2018-JUN-05 Tuesday
Gave up on running software from the web page. Emscripten[7] simply does not work for a simple console program like Super Star Trek. Moving on to Algorithms.
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Parent Article: Matriculation
