(Part 2) Best products from r/uwaterloo

Black Friday is coming up, so I highly recommend waiting until then to see if there are any deals if you can put up with your current laptop for another 2 weeks.

Otherwise some of my current recommendations include these

Asus Zenbook 2in1. Generally 2 in 1s are pretty bleh but at $920 I think it checks off what you need.

Lenovo currently has this 14 Inch ThinkBook for $941.

If you have Amazon Prime and don't mind buying an open box product, I also recommend checking out Amazon Warehouse. There are some nice laptops selling at a discounted price. If you don't like it, it's always easy to return (bought a new laptop for school during the spring term through the warehouse). Just make sure to check the condition ("Very Good" is usually basically brand new but YMMV)

Zenbook 13

Zenbook 15.6

Zenbook Ultra

lived on the first floor of a UWP court during fall and spring term. highly recommend bringing a fan or two, especially a (reversible) window fan. had a small honeywell fan to circulate air around and a reversible window fan that fits in your sliding window.

i used my window fan to exhaust the air out in the morning or when it got hot. at night past 12:00 AM, the temperature would dip to below 20 degrees so i would use my window fan to blow air in to cool my room down by a huge factor. my room went from a sauna to a standard room with AC in 20 minutes. a window fan is very useful for a decent amount of temperature control in your room. very helpful for sleeping at night.

general ways of beating the heat would be to only go to your room to cook, shower, drop stuff off, or sleep. go to a place with AC (like grand commons or CMH) to study or do whatever instead. close all of your blinds and keep the lights off to keep your room as cool as possible. sleeping without a blanket became a necessity during the first couple weeks of september and all of july and august.

TL;DR - buy a reversible window fan

edit: formatting

Pretty sure the Dec 2015 LSAT is quite rare right now as it recently came out. You could try amazon, as it ships really quickly.

Link: http://www.amazon.ca/The-Official-LSAT-PrepTest-77/dp/0986086231

To be honest, don't worry about how recent the preptest is in terms of how valuable it is. Any LSAT preptest from June 2001 onward is generally the same in terms of the questions asked.

Instead of just prioritizing this one test, make it a habit to do as many questions as possible. I started studying the LR heavily just a few weeks ago and I don't use specific preptests. I just have an app that contains a database of all preptest questions and I try to solve a question per minute.

Managing to consistently break 170 now in LR .... time to move on to LG :).

Good luck on your LSAT!

I've been mostly finding that website coding is insanely helpful.

HackerRank, CodeForces, TopCoder are all great resources for "competition" problems (which translate really well into interview problems and problem-solving in general).

I read this book, it actually proved to be a lot more helpful for my Riot Games interview, since it had to do a lot with "in-depth" thinking, which this book is great at helping break down (I always found "Cracking the Coding Interview" to be way too high level, especially if you're in a pinch): http://www.amazon.com/Data-Structures-Algorithms-Made-Easy/dp/1468108867

(NOTE: If you're a primarily Java developer, there's an equivalent book for the above, just search "Data Structures and Algorithms in Java", from the same author)

I learned a lot more from that book than I did McDowell's, since I found that this author actually cared about doing "deep dives" into each of the topics presented. I own an earlier edition - not to say this one isn't great, I'm actually pretty sure the "algorithmic puzzles" he presents are a lot more relevant to current programming interviews.

There's also the age-old CLRS, which I found to be useful for any kind of theoretical computer science topic (Runtime analysis, big-O, etc): http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Algorithms-Edition-Thomas-Cormen/dp/0262033844/

Let me know what you think! -- I've been using both of these to get my next job (hopefully full-time)! ^_^

That's just the way people are .. people will steal whatever they can get your hands on.

Do you have the serial number of the bike? You might be able to go to the police and report the theft and hope someone gets back to you.

Unfortunately this might be one of those times where you learn a lesson and move on since bike theft is pretty common in Waterloo (just do a quick google search and you'll find multiple instances of this happening)

Some tips for next time:

make sure to buy a decent U-Lock with a cable it's going to be bulky and expensive but worth it since thieves go for the easiest bike they can get their hands on. That means any bike locked with a cable lock can easily be cut in a matter of seconds with a pair of decent bolt cutters without much work. While we're on that point make sure to lock your bike securely. People generally recommend the Sheldon Brown Bike Lock method since it locks the frame and back wheel to the post making it more difficult to cut.

Second is to never let your bike unattended overnight especially if it is a public area like the garage of 333 Lester. Even if the building has a controlled entry secured bike room its always best to keep it in your own suite.


Yes it does suck having it stolen, you might have some luck if you browse kijiji/craiglist/fb buy and sell forums and see if you can find a bike that looks like that. Then if possible meet up in a secure location (police station) and examine the bike serial number/identifying features. Just know that a lot of the time it is very difficult to trace down theives and you might just have to take the loss.

UW robbed me of my love for reading for fun.

A ~year after graduating, I was recommended Look Who's Back, which is a funny book about Hitler waking up in 2011, with no recollection on what happened.

It turned into a movie, and is a good/short read.

After that, I read:

• The metamorphosis (Kafka)
  
• Atlas Shrugged (Rand)
  
• Debt, the first 5000 Years (Graeber)
  
• Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage (Murakami)
  
• ...and a bunch of others
  
  I forgot how much I like spending an afternoon sipping coffee and reading a great book.

earplugs are the bomb my dude. i wear them every night even though my place is really quiet, they're awesome for studying when you don't feel like listening to music, and you can even wear them in exams if your instructor is okay with it.

i recommend these: https://www.amazon.ca/Stanley-RST-63002-Pressure-Foam-Earplugs/dp/B002EVP5LM/

the price for 200 pairs usually fluctuates between $25 and $40, and they're worth every penny. i literally wear these things every day for like 14 hours in a 24 hour period.

I'd like to recommend two books on the topic that I've read that tell the story pretty well:

https://www.amazon.ca/Blackberry-Inside-Story-Research-Motion/dp/1552639401 - A bit outdated, but cool stories nonetheless.

https://www.amazon.ca/Losing-Signal-Extraordinary-Spectacular-Blackberry/dp/1250060176 - Covers the fall as well, I really enjoyed this one.

If you're just looking to learn instead of fulfilling a degree requirement then it is a probably more useful to pickup a book and do it yourself.

Some useful subs:

• /r/personalfinancecanada
  
• /r/personalfinance
  
• /r/investing
  
  Some useful books:
  
  
• http://www.amazon.com/Common-Sense-Mutual-Funds-Anniversary/dp/0470138130
  
• http://www.amazon.com/All-About-Asset-Allocation-Second/dp/0071700781
  
• http://www.amazon.com/Random-Walk-Down-Wall-Street/dp/0393340740
  
• http://www.amazon.com/The-Millionaire-Next-Door-Surprising/dp/1589795474
  
  The takeaway is that when it comes to investing there is no secret that will make you rich overnight. Picking random stocks hoping they suddenly shoot up is no different than gambling. Even the most well paid people in finance with all of their years of schooling cannot consistently beat the market.
  
  Investing is a long term commitment.