I felt similar at your age when reading through Popular Electronics. I'd think to myself "this soldering is FRUSTRATING - how can these guys KNOW so much stuff".
It's not important to be the best. Trying to beat everyone else in the entire world is really pretty silly when you think about it.
Follow the boyscout motto and do YOUR best. That's something achievable. Given your circumstances, find some passions, consider how you should prioritize them, and just keep learning about them and practicing.
Life is relatively long. You don't need to be an expert, just have a passion for it. That passion over time will FORCE you into becoming an expert in whatever it is you love.
But it's important to identify what it is you love early on so time can work it's magic on ya. And keep the passions list short to concentrate the buildup.
It doesn't need to be computer programming. It is for me, of course :)
those are some great ideas. The video I have is old as the hills. So my goals for this week(or 2):
- a decent modern video of just practicing a song
- a page of the "why" of pianocheetah
yeah, I'm trying to get into robotics cuz it reminds me of my electronics past. but my prio is pianocheetah and i'm kinda outa time. But I plan on teachin it to my grandson if he shows interest. Next to my c64, that's probably the most time I've spent on anything.
Hmmm, I don't use assembly any more. I've settled on c++ (and java when forced into it). It's nice to know especially in that you get a real tight handle on what a CPU actually is. But I'm not sure how to go about learning it these days. The only thing I did on my ZX81 was use it's so called graphics mode to plot successive shrinking squares (using "fast mode" where it turned the graphics off for speed)
assembly was the only way to do anything on the XZ81,C64. You needed it a little on the Amiga and MS/DOS graphics (with C doing most the work). On Win95 I used it for a hi res timer (only a couple lines). But haven't used it since. If I were to dig in now, I miiiight start with the C++ compiler's assembly listings. Look at your C++, look at the unoptimized assembly the compiler generates and see how they equate. Google will find quite a few sites of people still using 80x86 assembly I think. Good luck to ya.
If you're interested in beta testin (helpin me find n swat the GOD DAMN bugs in this thing and givin me "clean up that GUI" tips, etc) please email me. I can explain the program better for ya and help you along with piano a BIT. (But, really, you'll want a piano teacher.) I want to keep the source to myself (sorry!). Some day, if enough people bother to use it (not so far), I may start chargin'. That's my dream. But I would not be chargin' any beta testers of course ever.
My android port is a long ways off. I'm juuuuuust starting it. Planning on using java for GUI only and NDK beneath. But it's going to take a long time.
ha ha. good advice in general. but you never can tell... i'd probably do it all over again even knowing what i do now. Hey, I might not be with her, but I have 2 fantastic kids and a grandson as a result. I know a =LOT= about girls now. Life is weird and you don't need to follow ALL the rules...
side note: if anyone has any ideas about finding beta testers for my baby (erm, pianocheetah) I'd be glad hear em. can't find beta testers to save my life.
Overall, I'd say I'm pretty freakin lucky. Spoiled even. Thanks for the nice replies.
It's not important to be the best. Trying to beat everyone else in the entire world is really pretty silly when you think about it.
Follow the boyscout motto and do YOUR best. That's something achievable. Given your circumstances, find some passions, consider how you should prioritize them, and just keep learning about them and practicing.
Life is relatively long. You don't need to be an expert, just have a passion for it. That passion over time will FORCE you into becoming an expert in whatever it is you love.
But it's important to identify what it is you love early on so time can work it's magic on ya. And keep the passions list short to concentrate the buildup.
It doesn't need to be computer programming. It is for me, of course :)