Hello!
I watched snowden not too long ago it was amazing hey I know you!!
You know me?
a new day a new ipad hahahah We've met on here on the chat I mean
Whaaat? Yeah! Hang on, hang on. I haven't been active since last time.
how you going brother?
Pretty good, actually.
I'm pretty sure I've met you on the chat I've been doing it for about a few weeks
Oh.
I got 4th
Um, this is my first time since the last competition.
but anyway, tell me about the movie!
Won myself a sick pair of bose headphones. Oh, movie.
oh true, well in that case, I must have met another KJ
Well, um. Hang on, hang on.
oh that's awesome.
There's another KJ here? What? I'm assuming a guy. That's so strange to think.
yeah I'm 90 percent sure
You said you got fourth?
yep! but only first place get prizes
Because, yeah, I don't remember you. What? Not even second? Last time I played, they gave out truffles.
unless I read everything wrong?? Oh, I didn't know that is there like a ceremony or something? Because I thought only the winners were contacted
I think so. I mean, I got third, and I got headphones. But. I played last time. Not last round. The last time they did the challenge. It was back in winter semester, I think.
ahh I feel you we just ended a round today so the points were reset
Yeah, I saw! I wanted to try my hand at the iPad. I need it, man. Breath of the Wild has been calling me for such a long time now. If I get the iPad, I can pawn it off, make a quick buck, then buy the system and game. Because, you know, I'm too lazy to get it myself. It was kind of funny to watch, actually. The top competitors kept going neck-in-neck for those last minutes. I kept reloading to page to see who would win.
Oh wow that's exciting. Breath of the Wild looked amazing it came out when I was on my mission but the switch has turned into a fornite machine now Oh wow that's pretty intense
Really? Ugh, that's unfortunate.
I just found that when you chat with a friend you can get up the ranks way quicker
The Switch could do so much more. Really? Why's that?
just kidding I don't know anything half of this is just waiting hahah
I know, right! My record is four hours.
yeah??
Forever and a day, man.
Wow that's intense lots of dedication
Well, more like I had little to do. I opened it at 6:00 and didn't get a response till 10:00.
But what you said about the switch--it's a beautifully made machine
6:00 AM, that is.
it is awesome
Do you have a switch?
no, but my brother does it's a really well designed device
I'd love to get one.
that has a good balance between innovation and practicality
On a sorta related topic, you type really quickly.
Nintendo usually leans too much one way
It reminds me of the DS.
the wii u was too much forced innovation ahah thank you. I do spend most of my time on the computer
It would explain it!
I swear I've saved years by now from a decent typing speed
I usually take the extra second to capitalize and whatnot. Yeah, no kidding. You're the first person I've met to type faster. Which kinda unnerves me. I'm not used to that.
That's something that surprised me about people here! They type pretty slow
Though, I suppose it makes for good conversation? I know, right?
I remember being surrounded by fast typists everywhere when I was in highschool.
Oh, really?
I'm from Asia, by the way.
Ah. Makes sense.
Yeah two fast typists make for GREAT conversation.
One of those Asian superhumans. The problem is, the lag time between responses actually affects things.
Asian superhuman is a redundant phrase!!! Just kidding. Is there much lag?
Pffft. Everyone knows Asians are crazy smart.
I think the response time is pretty good so far.
Not a lot of lag, no. It might be just my end.
where are you from? Without violating the rules
I'm looking at about, oh, 0.3 seconds between responses. From here in the States. Utah, to be specific.
Right right I'd be surprised to be chatting with someone further than Salt Lake Are you a student at BYU?
That I am, that I am.
what are you studying?
Well, sorta. Currently computer science. Or I would be. I'm off semester right now.
Awesome same man.
It's the best, right?
Oh ok cool. How does that work with qualifying for the chit chat challenge?
Yeah, don't worry, I worked it out.
I think you need to be taking the right number of credits oh excellent
I was very wary. Yeah, we're good.
so what are you up to during your semester off
So long as I re-enroll later, we're good. You know? Not a lot. Been taking side jobs here and there. Mostly just preparing for a mission, I guess. It's strange.
oh cool
I have five months.
so just finished your first year?
Just finished my first year. Yes.
Awesome stuff man I guess I;m on the other end I just got back in march
Ooh! Just in time for spring?
and I took time off until now, so this is my first semester back No, I decided to try out self study it was good!
Nice. You get a lot from it, then?
I'm a computer science major too, so it was a real eye opener for me.
Is this, like, teaching yourself languages? Or what?
yeah, I took up app development and a few other things, and it's done wonder for mem
I don't know how that would work.
right teaching myself a language and basically alligning a little more with industry standards or common practices
I like it. That's hard to find.
and getting away from institutional or academic computer science
Getting some real experience, huh? Not just what they teach in classrooms?
right so the small things like joining forums, following the right people on twitter, and getting on reddit right! github, reading documentation, etc
Gotcha, gotcha. Man, I'm still intimidated by how quickly you type.
it's awesome because I have a better bearing on what I'm doing here at BYU
Always a good thing.
hahaah no worries
No, seriously, I can't quite keep up. It's so strange. I'm not used to that. Granted, I'm using full grammar and whatnot, but still. I can't help it. Grammar Nazi is who I am.
It's refreshing for me to be with someone who types the same speed for me!! It's like a closer emulation of a real conversation oh but dude! I met someone this week with a 150 WPM it was amazing I swear it looked like he was just mashing keys and words miraculously appeared on the screen in order
What? Whaaat? That's not possible. Don't lie to me, man.
Incredible. I didn't believe that you could get much faster either, but there it was in front of my eyes!!!
That's insane. I'd love to be able to do that.
He was another asian, by the way. If that makes a difference.
Ah. Why am I not surprised? I don't get it. Why are you all so smart?
the implications were huge.  The affect that it had on his code was insane
It's the same in every single Asian.
hahahahaha I can say 100 percent that I'm not smart by nature I spend every waking hour studying
Wow. That's dedication. How do you do that? Honestly? If I had that sort of drive, I could do so many things.
I'm actually not joking!! I'm listening to a lecture as we speak
Is that just a culture thing? Dude, really? Doesn't that affect typing speed?
well actually, it's interesting. Because I feel like I'm more scattered then ever
What do you mean?
college just fractures me like crazy!!
I see. Because you have so much to handle? Or what?
I'm spending all this time trying to keep on top of things, when a concentrated effort on something could do wonders for me right!
See, it's reversed for me.
I don't understand how any student can manage a social life
I'll accidentally get so locked in what I'm doing that I forget about everything. Also, yes, 100 percent agreed.
I feel like I literally need every hour of every day to keep up
How many credits are you taking?
ahhh interesting just 14, but they're all core classes
Yeesh. Which ones?
my GEs are done
Already? Didn't you only have one year?
fin201 cs235 Math313 rel211 aaaand I think fin412?
Holy what.
it might be fin410
What's your major?
Computer Science
oh, derp I already knew that. Why all the financial classes?
yeah but I like business so I think I've technically qualified for a business minor now!~
Well, hey!
it happened accidentally
Not bad. "I accidentally got a business minor." --Asian
I didn't have too many GEs so I just had a lot of space to do whatever I wanted to do hahaha that is so funny when you say it that way
It's true, though! That's what makes it funny. I'm in a strange spot where I'm being paid to go to college, so I don't know what to do. I have two scholarships.
basically in my first three semesters I ended up finishing Accounting 200, Marketing, Econ110, IS110
One will run out in three more semesters. Whoa.
and now I'm doing fin201 so that's the minor I think!
Nice 'n heavy business.
right...
Did you mean to take business-like classes?
I should have taken more CS classes to be honest but CS224 was brutal!!!
Well, you live and you learn. Oh, my goodness, yes. I have the pin, "I survived 224."
That was back in the msp430 days too
There's a perfect picture in the Crabtree building. msp430?
are you at 236 and 240 classes?
What's that? Yeah, those are my next. I took 235 and 224 concurrently.
so I took the class before they changed everything up it was a totally different course it's still hard now, but it was a different beast back then
Oh, I see. Yeah, I heard about that. It was brutal.
it was a lot like a engineering class, because we had to code a micoprocessor
My class was hard, but it wasn't straight from heck.
we had to create snake and make it playable on the little machine
You had to code a what? Why? That sounds painfully difficult.
to teach us more about C and memory management have you ever heard of a raspberry pi?
We did that by creating malloc. Yup! I've got a few. Or my dad does, at any rate. And bitcoin miners, but that's off topic.
ok so the msp430 is a really crappy pi
Oh, joy.
so there was one lab where we had to create a animating image over a 8 by 8 array
Holy cow, I don't even see your conversation dots before I see a response. You type lightning quick.
but the MSP doesn't have enough memory to hold 64 ints
Er, sorry, continue. Oh.
so Dr Roper, the genius uses an 8 bit int for each row, and 1 for each column and he uses a pointer to the individual bits of the int, to represent the rows of the array crazy huh?? because the only thing we needed to store was a on/off or 1/0
Wow. Which is what binary is perfect for. I had no idea Prof. Roper could do that. He taught my 224 class, too.
right!
You know, after it was modified.
he's a legend....a little lacking on the teaching side but his qualifications are unparalleled
His classes were amazing, hehe.
did he ever get around to telling the classes about his past?
I thought his classes were going to be boring intially. My class? no. Does he have one?
he's worked on some of the foundations of C and other languages he's really insane
What? Prof. Roper? The same one from BYU?
yeah!
The guy that taught my class?
there are some huge bigshots on campus there was another ex professor at the engineering school who wrote numpi for python *numpy
What? Why am I unaware of all of this? Why do they teach at BYU? That's insane.
they probably enjoy it but actually, well at least for business professors, teaching is a great opportunity to network.
Really? I never would have thought. Networking in teaching, really?
A lot of business professors make a lot of money on the side,  by consulting for companies or sitting on boards of corporations it's really interesting how professors leverage their positions
That's wicked cool. So talking to professors is good? They can refer you to places and whatnot?
I don't think it happens at much in the other departments, but I know that business professors are notorious for doing things like that yeah
Hmm.
have you ever seen the documentary inside job?
Maybe. Unlikely, though.
it's narrated by matt damon about the great financial crisis?
Wait! Is this about the banks and whatnot?
He goes and interviews a lot of the big business teachers in Harvard and stuff
The whole "too big to fail" portion?
yeah that's the one!
I may have seen it, yes!
but it's not the Big Short, that's a different movei
Oh. Okay, I'm not sure, then. But go on.
yeah so basically he went around trying to find out why the smartest people in the country didn't see it coming and he interviews a lot of famous business professors and eventually digs out the fact that they have conflicting interests because a lot of them consult for the big banks and they're incentivized to keep quite quiet
For the kickbacks, huh?
Bingo. Interesting stuff, really.
I hear from certain professors that we're headed towards a worse crash. Or, sorry, no, not professors.
I'm not in a position to Judge.  A bubble does things to people
It's odd that it does. I don't understand it. Maybe I could if I were up there in power. But I'm just down here, so I don't get it.
Yeah, there were definitely people who saw it coming but too many people were invested in the whole scam that they couldn't afford to act against it
At the cost of what?
it was better to squeeze out more and just hand the blame over to someone else
So sad.
right
So many millions were hurt. Odds are, we're heading towards something worse.
but there's no one to blame really. We can point fingers at government and the banks, but the people were the ones that were ultimately fueling all of the capital
If history repeats itself.
if people were buying homes and believing that prices were going to rise
Also true.
then the whole thing wouldn't have had the gas to keep going deceptive marketing was definitely part of it, but who's that to blame?
Hmm.
people were taking second mortgages!! With subpar credit scores and they were all leaning on the "no interest first year" clause which is what finally popped the bubble in 2008 anway What do you think about the credit culture in the States?
It's certainly unwise on a lot of people's part, yeah, but it's difficult with mainstream media saying what a steal this is. I mean, think about BYU culture.
It's getting worse in Asia, but we're generally inclined to save.
Especially returned missionaries. Oh, wait, what? This is news to me. What's going on in Asia?
Like, savings. being frugal.
Is that not a worldwide thing?
I find that people here are easily fall into debt and buy things unecessarily etc. Not really! There's a huge disparity between countries when it comes to commercial debt
I had no idea. Is it just Americans who are debt-prone?
The average savings for people in our age bracket is..... negative on the whole, we are in debt
I hear economists say all the time that debt-spending is good. It stimulates the economy.
probably less so in BYU thanks to the discount tuition
We should encourage people to spend. etc.
yeah that's an interesting one
It's weird, right?
there's an economic theory that talks about that
Because it almost makes sense. What's it called?
it's called the Paradox of Thrift
Do you learn about it business? (Also, I'm simultaneously chatting on a different server unrelated to chit chat right now.)
it talks about how the economy benefits from a population that spends, but people would be better of individually if they saved yeah that's from Econ class I loved that class haha that's okay wow you're a chat master
Wouldn't the economy warp itself around the buyers?
what do you mean by that?
I mean, if they were prone to saving, then wouldn't it fix things? Like, let me explain. An economy is great when people spend. Gets things flowing and whatnot. And that's good. Things should be easily movable.
right
So if people begin to save, there's this fear that things will slow down.
keep going
If people really do begin to save, though, won't businesses adapt to that?
you are correct! That's why deflation is so dangerous
That, yes, there will be less movement as a whole, but it'll be better off? Oh. Also, I'm not typing in the other server, just reading.
That's why it's a paradox. So there's that side of the equation but a nation of indebted spenders are a huge risk to the economy
Wait, it's a risk? Why?
because good lends are harder find, and the growth in the economy is usually focused around the cheapest items instead of being invested in to research and higher sectors because if you think about it the people who are the biggest spenders are the poorest and they aren't really interested in sophisticated technology or donating their money to causes the only thing that's really being stimulated is groceries, commercial electronics etc
Huh. I had never considered the type of stuff we spend out money on would effect things. I only thought money was money. And if it circulated, all the better. You're saying it changes things?
so when we say that the economy is growing, we have to also think about which sector it's going to specficially that was Reagans
When a country is focused on technology versus groceries? Huh. That's really cool, actually. I had never considered that.
Reagan's whole thing about the trickle down. He though that if the rich didn't pay as much taxes, that it would trickle down to the poor but he was kind of wrong about htat that I'm oversimplifying everything here
Still.
but here's something that might help so what do you think about state sales taxes?
State sales taxes?
do you think that it's a good way for states to increase their income so they can afford more programs?
I'm actually not opposed to sales tax. I understand it affects the poor more. But I still prefer it to income tax.
right yeah so in the end it always comes down to incentives and what you're trying to acheive income taxes won't affect the poor much, because so many of them are not really paying any to begin with sales taxes hurt them the most, because rich people have more means to streamline their purchasing habits, and have the means to circumvent taxes by buying in a different state etc it's a complicated mess POLI110 at BYU was one of my favorite classes!!1
I know I don't know much about economics, but I remember the Communist Manifesto.
That was one of the few GEs that I had to take
Is that another economics class?
oooh that's a whole can of worms it's a political science class
Ooooh. I love those.
but economics and political science overlap a lot! because it's all about human behaviors and applying laws to natural phenomenin phenomenon
It's all fascinating. Question.
yeah it was amazing for me, because I didn't know anything about US history or politics
How many credits did you have when you began? Oh, right! You're new to America.
it helped me understand what the news was actually saying and why things were important I had 17 my first semester, then 15 then spring and now I only have 14
Sorry, what now? Did you say you took 15 in the spring?
I'm running out of "fillers" to keep the numbers up!! but I feel way busier than I was back then to be honest nonono I don't remember how many I took in the spring how many did you take?
I didn't take any this spring. But I took, um, I think 15.0 in the winter. And 16.0 in the fall. I'd like to take 18.0 Then eventually 22.0
oh wow what kind of classes are you thinking?
Just to see what it's like, you know? Unfortunately, math-y classes. We're talking computer science and physics and linear algebra stuff. But also a few fun ones.
ahh
Like choir or dance or something. Maybe piano.
I just got out of a linear algebra exam today
Hard?
I actually love it. I think that it's amazing difficult...I think so but not as much as Calc 2
Calc 2 was easy, though. Compared to my Calc 1.
yeah?
Yeah. I spent at most two hours per week on homework.
I didn't have the benefit of taking calc 1 because I passed out of it
There's a chance that I had an easy class. Oh.
but it would have been helpful to have the refresher
I took Calc 1 in high school. No kidding. It's hard taking that class going into it almost new. Or really rusty. It's about the same.
right right this is off topic, but we've probably gained around 200k points that's my guess
Really? But it hasn't been very long. Maybe it's because we type quickly.
this rate of conversation and how many word's we're tying, I wouldn't be surprised if we are at 300000 by now. That'll take both of us to the top of the boards :D
You moreso than I. Holy cow.
hahah
That's insane.
between 200 and 300 for sure I guarantee it!!
We've been talking for just under an hour? That's so strange! Okay, okay, I like your enthusiasm. With regular conversations, I found it to be about 500,000 for a few hours. But that was slower.
okok I literally have to go in like 10 minutes (back to homework, after all)
Ah, yes. And then there's me who has no classes. And no life.
but is there anything you want to ask me??
And can chat all day. Oh, yes! Yes, I do.
One last short burst of typing go for it!! I'd be happy to help
It's actually just a simple question. How do you think the metrics work? For adding scores, I mean. Is it just word count? Do you count back-and-forths?
I reckon that's a letter count, and there definitely is some weighted scoring based on vocabulary and average message length.
They say a lot goes into it, but it seems heavily weighted towards word count. Hmm. Average message length? Well, that's unfortunate.
Because I've been in really short conversations that ended up giving a lot of points, but a longer conversation with one liners yielded nothing
There's weighted towards vocabulary? That's interesting. Wouldn't that be more word count, though, and not necessarily how long each line was? Or am I wrong?
that's my guess. I now know that it's definitely doable thanks to my CS235 class! we just did the lab where you create an essay generator
I forget. Did you finish it? That what? I don't remember that one.
you read in lots of works from a single author and store it into a set
Nah, I got nothing like that.
and you print out a trailing vector oh ture true
We just finished convertin infix to postfix.g Er, pretend that makes sense.
well I just did that and I think it's amazing
The essay thing? Or the postfix?
that's ok I make too many mistakes with my typing over here the essay
Hehe, that's all right. Yeah, that sounds interesting!
We did the postfix thing too. That was incredible
Who's your teacher?
I think everything is so interesting to be honest.....
I know how you feel. I don't think I'll ever graduate.
I have to tone down my universal enthusiasm and trade it in for some focused attention
I'll just keep taking classes.
I'd do that in a heartbeat
Ugh, I know! I totally get you.
I have a experimental teacher called nathan fox
Nathan Fox?
He's a graduate student, and is teaching a course as his project really great stuff by the way He codes in class and gets right into what we need to know for the next lab
Okay, okay, I really do have one question for you.
finally a class that resembles the ones at MIT and stanford a bit more BYU CS program is a little behind....
Yeah. You're not wrong. I think I could do a lot if I had your sort of work ethic.
apparently, we're getting a Software Engineering emphasis next year !!!
So how do you do it? Wait, are we really? That's amazing!
finally
A lot of people will love that.
yeah it will finally address what everyone keeps asking
No kidding.
"so how does this apply to our life?"
Uh-huh.
yeah and it'll divert all of us normal people away from the actual geniuses that deserve to be a CS major and go onto their PhDs
Do all Asians have your work ethic?
most of us just want to work at a tech firm as an engineer
Oh, pfft, don't say that. You guys are geniuses. It's written in your DNA.
definitely not all.....my brother is the polar opposiute he's on the BYU rugby team and lives with tongans
He's super crazy genius smart? Oh. That sort of polar opposite.
he's smart though just really laid back loves sports, fashion, art, socializing
Are most Asians really work driven, though?
umm I'd say we're a little inefficient
Inefficient? What makes you say that?
we work really hard without regard to the bigger picture
How is that possible?
there are some serious geniuses here at BYU and they're very efficient with the way they study and spend time here I could use a little more of that I'm a brute force work ethic type of guy
That's still really good, though. I feel bad. I've sorta coasted my way here. Not intentionally. I still work hard.
so I can code from 8 to 10pm on saturdays (I usually do), but it could take someone smarter just a few hours to do the same thing essentially
Just not as hard as I could. Still! That's good character. I'm still working on that.
exams are my worst enemy because I always feel like I'm underexplaining so I write really long elaborate proofs for math tests when a short concise answer will get the job done but yeah, I'm working on it!! I'm getting more efficient now
That's more a small flaw than anything else. And I'm glad! You sound like you could do amazing things.
because I realize that there is simply not enough time to cover everything in full detail
But where do you get your motivation from? I'm curious about a lot, but I don't research a lot.
I'm doing more skimming and summarizing nowadays and it's just a good mental exercise to not be perfect, you know? umm well when I got back from my mission, I gained an appreciation for time and I couldn't believe that I had all this time to myself and I thought that was just the most magical thing in the world!
I really love that.
as long as I can control time and fill it efficiently, I was good to go
I still have trouble with self-discipline.
I'm really motivated right now, and to be honest, I don't know why
Motivation is good! Let it fuel you.
I love what I study, and I don't have stupid GEs that hold me down
It'll take you far.
thanks man! I'm sure ill see you on the chat again
Do you study anything not related to class? And, yeah, I hope so!
and I'll ask you the questions next time!!!
Sorry, I forgot you have to go. Okay, okay! I'm looking forward to it. See you, man!
no worries!! Thanks for being such a good chat mate
You, too. Hard to find.
but to answer your question
So it's nice. Yes, an answer.
I study heaps of things out of class too many I have too many interests I'll tell you about them next time!! Thanks