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Today's soundtrack is Solas: All These Years, an album that makes me instantly feel happy. I've made it to the third section of Basic Math and Pre-Algebra for Dummies, "Parts of the Whole: Fractions, Decimals, and Percents." The first chapter that I'll be working on in this section is chapter 9, "Fooling with Fractions." There are three types of fractions: proper fractions, improper fractions, and mixed numbers. The number on the top of a fraction, the numerator, tells us how

Today's soundtrack is Arcturus: Arcturian. The Randomizer told me to work on coding today, so I'm on to the next chapter of Coding Projects in Python, "Password Picker." In this chapter, I'll be learning how to make a secure password generator in Python by using Python's "random" module. The lesson was a fun one; it was functional, and I used Stack Overflow to tweak the code a bit, allowing the code to repeat if users requested, regardless of which case they typed in, by usin

Today's soundtrack is Waylon Jennings: Good Hearted Woman. I'm on to chapter 8, which covers factors and multiples. Factors: Two factors are multiplied to equal a product. 5 is a factor of 20. If your larger number can divide by the smaller number with no remainder, the smaller number is a factor of the larger number. Multiples: A multiple is something that is equaled by one factor multiplied by another factor. 20 is a multiple of 5. Every multiple has at least one factor pai

Today's soundtrack is Saor: Aura. I absolutely adore this atmospheric Celtic black metal album in its entirety. I'm now on chapter 7 of Basic Math and Pre-Algebra for Dummies, which is titled "Divisibility." This chapter discusses finding out whether a number can be divided by another without a remainder, prime numbers, and composite numbers. Divisibility Tricks The book goes over some tricks to help identify remainderless divisibility. Every number is divisible by one and it

Today's soundtrack is Eluveitie: Spirit. I'm on chapter 12 of The Cartoon Guide to Physics, a comic-book style physics primer. The chapter is entitled "Charge," and is about electricity and magnetism. According to the book, we know how charge behaves, but classical electricity and magnetism doesn't tell us what it is. We now know that electrons, protons, and neutrons make up charge. There are two kinds of charges: positive and negative. Like charges repel; opposite (or unlike

Today's soundtrack is Cannibal Corpse: Red Before Black. Its cover looks as though a 14-year-old goth did it for a commission on Fiverr. The meth-addled protagonist on the album art brings to mind Ms. Tweedy from the film Chicken Run, yelling "No chicken escapes from Tweedy's farm!" I do like the album itself though. This evening, I'm reading the first chapter of Plato's Podcasts, a book by Mark Vernon. The book is purportedly an introduction to the great philosophers from a

Today's soundtrack is Struggle Jennings: I Am Struggle. Rather than doing an actual lesson today, I'm going to try putting together a little program that will calculate approximately how many edge pieces a puzzle should have. I tried to work out the equation myself and was unsuccessful. Based on some research I did online on how to determine perimeter from area, combined with questions other people had asked about similar topics, I decided to go with the equation P=([√A]4.1)-

Today's soundtrack is Sunn 0))): Black One. The Randomizer has decreed that I shall do much work on the Cephalopod project. Today, my focus is on writing lyrics. I've been using some reference books about cephalopods to help me in this project; today, I did some reading from Beth Blaxland's Octopuses, Squids, and Their Relatives.

Today, I'm continuing work on Cephalopod: Eater ov the Void. I've taken the riffs I worked on the other day and plugged them into Reaper. I came up with some awesome guitar parts to go with the drum beat I've been working on, and I'm happy with how this is shaping up.

Today's soundtrack is Arch Enemy: Will to Power. I'm reading the first chapter of Coles Philosophy Questions and Answers today, titled "Nature and Scope of Philosophy." Etymologically, philosophy is the love of wisdom. According to the book, philosophy is an "attempt to evaluate life's experiences on all levels and in all realms, such as religious experiences, aesthetic experiences, moral experiences, etc. " (2). The subcategories of philosophy are aesthetics, metaphysics, et

I decided to make this songwriting session a bit more organic. Rather than doing any recording in Reaper, I played around on my drums and guitar, coming up with some new material. It was refreshing to go back to basics for a bit.

Today's soundtrack is Dream Theater: A Dramatic Turn of Events. I'm on to chapter six of Basic Math & Pre-Algebra for Dummies. This chapter covers word problems. The chapter teaches how to turn complex statements into word equations by using words as placeholders for unknown values. This chapter was pretty straightforward.

Today's soundtrack is Adrenaline Mob: Omertà. I'm continuing in Basic Math & Pre-Algebra for Dummies. I'm now on chapter 5, "Evaluating Arithmetic Expressions." An equation is a series of numbers and symbols that gives you a problem and a solution (1+1=2); it tells you that two things are equal. An expression is the two or more parts that you put together to identify the problem (1+1); it makes up one side of an equation. An evaluation is the solution to the problem (2); it i

Today's soundtrack is Woods of Ypres: Grey Skies & Electric Light. I'm continuing today with Coding Projects in Python. This chapter is about identifying and fixing bugs. I learned that I can right-click an error code and choose to go to the line where the error has occurred. The book says that common errors include syntax errors (typos), missing punctuation (bracket or quotation mark), indentation errors, type errors (as in, which type of data is being input), trying to use

Today's soundtrack is Deafheaven: New Bermuda. I'm starting Charles Darwin's illustrated and abridged Origin of Species today. Introduction Darwin introduces his work with a disclaimer: It is incomplete; he cannot provide references; however, due to his declining health, he has been convinced to publish his work so far. Darwin says that all species came from one common ancestor; largely thanks to Natural Selection. Chapter 1: Variation Under Domestication Darwin says that do