I see this “AWS for everything” Well-Architected stuff everywhere. AWS benefits greatly from inserting itself in between all our architectural layers.
There’s nothing stopping companies from using the cloud for its primitives (compute and storage), maybe with managed FOSS services (RDS Postgres). We don’t _need_ to go all in on AWS to build a ‘modern’ web application. Yet somehow much of the industry dances to AWS’ tune on how to architect software.
Architects in my company are required to have aws certificates. They can be monkeys but if they can list a dozen of AWS products and put everything there they are given the keys of everything.
Humans hugely undervalue their time. £12.50 per day is a bargain for a tradesperson if it means they can do more work because they’re spending less time idling in traffic jams.
Behavioural change is a key part of these schemes. Kids walking to school, families getting groceries delivered, or picking up groceries by foot on the walk home from the bus are all viable low-cost options in London.
The train companies operate trains, not lines. For example; CrossCountry’s service runs on track shared with other passenger companies and freight from Penzance up to Scotland.
The train companies (in general) operate a franchise for a particular region of the railway (including mandatory service to less profitable areas in the network). CrossCountry is a quirk in that it operates the "Cross Country" franchise and it has no specific track to itself. Eurostar, Grand Central and Heathrow Express are Open Access operators in that they have no franchise of their own but pay to use the track for each journey. The whole thing is needlessly complicated to be honest, there's no real exclusivity - but there's massive capital costs involved in setting up a competitor and more risk involved for these Open Access operators.
Great Western Railway operates the Great Western franchise which incorporates much of south wales and south west of england - Including the Great western mainline. Abellio Greater Anglia operates most services on the Great Eastern Mainline
As for permissions I don't know if the crossrail core section has exclusivity granted to TFL (or its subcontractor MTR Corporation), given it's run as a concession this may be the case.
This is my experience as an adult studying calculus, linear algebra, dynamic programming etc.
Calculus is mostly algebra. If you can’t reliably solve algebraic equations, derivatives and integrals will probably be a step too far.
Algebra is mostly arithmetic. If you can’t reliably add and multiply rational numbers, solving for unknowns is going to be patchy at best.
The key part as a student is learning to recognise when I needed to re-tread the primitive operations. Having to go back and practice the mental arithmetic I first learned in primary school was a hit to the ego, but at least I could recognise and take that step. When I was in my late teens / early 20s I was much less able to swallow my pride and back-track.
> When I was in my late teens / early 20s I was much less able to swallow my pride and back-track.
This is, in my opinion, one of the issues with adults attempting to pick up new skills, in addition to that mythical "free time". Many of us have been conditioned that if we aren't masters in something immediately, its a lost cause. If someone suggests that we do "what kids do", then we think we're too "grown up for that". A good example would be tracing drawings. Many kids learn this way, but to suggest an adult do it and provide positive reinforcement in doing it is almost non-existent at the adult level.
Honestly, an adult version of Sesame Street (not "adult" in sex, drugs, violence, but the simplistic dialogue with repetition) may help adults learn a new language, but its competing with other factors like time, general attention, thinking this is "worthy" of our time, etc.
I’m in a very similar position. I didn’t go to uni and somehow found myself in a programming career. In a few weeks I’ll be sitting A-level (UK advanced high school) Mathematics exams for the same reasons as you. I’m 32 years old.
I’ve found having formal exams to study for very motivating, and humbling. I thought I knew things I’d read in books, but it turns out I just recognised them when I came across the same topic again. Being able to recall concepts and use them without help under time pressure is a different level of mastery.
Can you sit high school exams as an adult in the US? There might be private exam centres in a city. That way you’ll _know_ you’ve learned the math(s) you need, on top of all the great learning resources linked here.
There are no standardized high-school exams in the USA. The closest things would be SAT/ACT which are taken by college-bound high school students, but they are separate from high school and have zero bearing on graduating from high school.
I don't know of any reason an older person could not take the SAT but also most older students interested in going to university would be admitted under different critera than a 17 year old, and high school grades and SAT might not be relevant at all for someone in his 30s or older.
I want to verify for myself that I _know_ the material. A series of challenging exams will do that more thoroughly than completing exercises from a textbook or online course (where, let’s be honest, we’re more forgiving of ourselves than we should be).
Check out Barbara Oakley’s Coursera course called Learning How To Learn. It turns out exams are actually an excellent tool for learning, more so than learning without assessment.
A side effect has been that having a deadline and a measurable outcome has been incredibly motivating. I’d have probably been distracted by side projects if I hadn’t committed to the exams.
And yes, it’s accepted for uni entrance here. STEM courses at top unis will expect A-level grades in maths/science subjects, even for mature students with industry experience.
