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I found out just how important sleep is yesterday. Apparently, not getting enough sleep will harm you in every single way. Every way. I read an article (and some subsequent books cause I was interested), and not getting enough sleep makes you physically slower and less agile and strong. In addition, it effects motivation, memory retention, mental processing, ability to be creative and problem solve, and skill in absorbing information. I am beginning to think that my problems this year have been more than a little effected by how much sleep I get. Article was in the NY times.

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Philosophy

No, I am not turning into Cameron and writing about deep BS. I found an interesting factoid online: Save for a few particular corner cases, virtually ever page on Wikipedia will lead to philosophy in a reasonable amount of time (in my tests, all under about 2-3 minutes). I wonder what it is about these sort of chains that lead back to philosophy. One of the things that I discovered as a shortcut, however, was that I knew science would lead to philosophy, so once I hit science, I was there. But then, everything was just leading to science. Do all things in life lead to science? To philosophy? We just don't know.

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THE RAPTURE

So, the rapture didn't happen. Well shucks. I was counting on a lot of things so that I would be in hell. Which would be better than doing my HW. I just wonder how those people who were so invested in the rapture happening feel now? I read this story in the NY Times about this family who's parents honestly believed in it. They didn't plan for anything, didn't keep track of how their lives were going, all because they really thought the rapture would happen. I have never been so invested in something that it might be possible for it to collapse like that, so I have no connection to how they might feel. This essential part of their belief system has been proven wrong, shown that, to the best of their abilities, they were wrong about it. I doubt I will ever have the chance to talk to someone about it, so I will just have to keep on wondering.

FINAL Blog Post

If I have any one piece of commentary, or any one thing I would change about the class, it would be about blogs. I don't think that having consistent blogs did much for me. I found that my suggestions or thoughts changed little, and was only repeating my self, which does very little both for me and the class. I didn't have very much to share that I felt was worth while looking at, and was more scrambling for a grade than anything else. That said, I do think that large blog posts like these at key points in the year serve as a solid and effective means for feedback. Essentially, I think the glut of posts we have to do could be tuned down.
Now, through the year. I think Scratch was an excellent place to start, no comments there. It worked well for what it was supposed to do, and transitioned well into most everything.
Alice, on the other hand, I did not like so much. I think that the amount of time necessary to really be come accustomed to the program out weighs the value it gives you as a transitional tool. I think Alice's purpose should be redefined, or Alice should be removed.
Jeroo was, I think, the best transitional program. It was intuitive, gave a sense for basic programming, and was similar enough to Scratch while still acting in some ways that Java/other programs do. It was also simply fun to program in it, even if its material was a bit narrow.
I found that, once we were through with Jeroo, and moved into Java, Python, etc, that my productivity, I am sorry to admit, dropped a little bit.
I think that the open practice with the programming labs has its pros and its cons. For someone like Mason, and to a lesser extent someone like my self who is easily distracted by what the person next to me is doing, it can be hard to get work done. However, for someone like Cameron, who (when he wasn't looking up strange philosophy material or writing up nonsensical proofs) has solid focus, it can be a great boon to work at your own pace. Over all, considering how I think and work and the environment I was in, got about as much work done as I would have in a more iron-fisted class approach. I think that the real thing to do would be to identify who works best in which situation, and then try to place them in that. The only issue I can see is that this may lead to levels of perceived unfairness.
I really liked the class on the whole, and am particularly impressed that this was on a first run through. I feel I got a lot out of it, far more than I have out of some other programming classes I have been in, and amd really looking forward to taking CS2 next year or senior year.

Year-long Reflection: Part 2

Second Month:
I noticed a rapid drop off in my posting quantity. Also, I see I wasn't doing share posts, for some reason I do not remember. I feel rather nostalgic for the early days of comp sci, back at the beginning of the year when everyone was so energetic, and not ready for summer. I notice that I was starting to have some trouble with Alice. I wonder how much time I spent doing blog posts as compared to doing programming work?

Year-long Reflection: Part 1

This series of blog posts will endeavor to be my compiled response and reflection of the entire year. I will be looking back on my older posts to really see what I was thinking.
First Month:
Reviewing my posts from very early in the year (last semester), I see my self being much more pumped than I turned out to be. Thinking back on it now, I do not see why I had so much hype for the blog posting idea. I remember going into Scratch with such a bright outlook (not that I have devolved into a cynical, angry person or anything), and do not feel quite the same hype now for posting my blogs. I notice I was surprisingly regular in my postings (something I wish I were now).

More to come.

make up reflect post

Looking at what everyone else is going over (namely app inventor), I am sorry to say I am not too hyped about it. Mason and I have gotten permission to continue on with Python; however, I am not entirely sure which direction we should move in. I will be quite honest: my programming interests are mainly in the realm of working on computer game programming. I have heard that Python may not be the best language for that, and I understand that. However, I have really begun to enjoy programming in python, and would like to expand into graphics. It is not something I think is best to do in python, but I like the language and feel comfortable enough with it that it seems the best place to break into graphics.

Makeup share post

There is not a very wide array of movies to pick from this weak, much to my dismay. I have been bombarded with essays, and have been rather scattered. So instead, I will speak of a tv show.

My family recently acquired netflix, greatly broadening our viewing horizons, and coupled with apple tv, will probably have enough to watch for the next ten years. Lately, we have been diving into murder mystery shows, and have been watching Columbo. For those who don't know, Colimbo is a 70s show about a rather inept looking liutenant who always seems to catch the wealth genius murder. One of the unique aspects of the show is that you see exactly how and by whom the murder is done, and the interesting part is seeing Columbo pick it appart. We originally saw the show's first two episodes off a DVD we picked up at Vulcan Video, and have been hooked for quite a while now. The convenient part is the the episodes are usually only a little over an hour, so they are much easier to fit into a day of hard labor for school than a standar hundred plus minute movie.

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I have, after looking over some of the other share posts in other blogs, come to a descision: my share posts will now follow the common theme of being about what ever movie I have most enjoyed in the last weak. Movies are a large social part of my family, and we generally watch anywhere from two to five a weak, depending on work.

In the past weak, the both most entertaining and well done film was undoubtably The Social Network. While there were very few kind characters, and it wasn't a very kind movie, the plot was engagingly presented and well paced, and the meshing of the film clips was as wonderful as can be asked for. I don't think it did much for my view of facebook, however; it only strengthened my resolve to avoid supporting a corporation so apparently evil. What I found particularly interesting was the mechanical background of it's spread and acceptance. I also was able to catch a brief mention of Python, which I enjoyed. Technically, is was not that informative, and I am still curious to find out what/ how it was programmed.

I didn't understand strings as well as I would have liked at first, but now that we have gone over lists (which I find to be one of the easiest things we have gone over so far in Python) I can see a lot of parallels between the two, and am much more sure of my string programming ability. Python feels pretty intuitive to me, and I am really looking forward to getting up to more serious levels of programming.

Reflect for Spring Break

Right now I have been having discipline problems in comp sci. I can do all the work in class, but I have been having a lot of trouble forcing my self to do the blog posts. I am running out of things to talk about (quite obviously), especially in share posts, which I am about to simply give up on. Except for blog posts, the class is wonderful, the programming for the most part intuitive, and the material well paced and interesting. Writing too little makes me feel like I am cutting corners for easy grades, something I despise, but I do not have enough problems or spurts of genius to justify writing anything more than a two sentence update. I have come to the point where I am at a loss for what or how much to say. If it is acceptable, or even if it isn't, I will just default to incredibly short, mundane posts unless I can find an other solution.
It doesn't just stop there though. Should I fail to do a blog post, or even delay one, suddenly the worrying hound that is my parents jumps on it and all I can think about for the next day is ripping my hair out, thinking of something to squeeze in for a grade. It is not that I am pressed for time; my schedule is quite loose. It is that, once I sit down to write up something, there is nothing at all to write. I may sit down two or threes times over the course of a week, look at the screen for 5 minutes thinking about how I wish I had something to say, and then throw my hands in the air in frustration and do something else. Once I finally stumble upon something to write about, I blast through my posts, nothing flat. I love to write. If, however, the pressure from my parents gets to me first (most likely the case), I throw some dribble on the page and call it a day. I need an out.

Weekends of Feb 27, Post 1

So far in Python we have covered simple numerical programs, and are proceeding into more complex verbal programs, namely those with strings. It is not, to me at least, as difficult as Java was at this point, something which I believe is a good sign and for which I am thankful. There is beginning to be a build up of vocabulary, something which I never seem to be able to handle, but the pace it is coming in at, I believe I will be able to handle it. Enjoying Python quite a bit.

I have really settled into Python. In the last week, I was able to clock off all my labs at a rate that surprised me. I am finding programming in python to be increasingly easy. The one thing that seems like it will be daunting in the future is graphics, which, although difficult, will be very interesting. I look forward to the next 6 weeks as a chance to learn more and expand my knowledge of python and programming as a whole.

http://xkcd.com/593/

This comic made laugh quite a bit on first read through. I didn't really know what to expect they would say the book would be, but I was pleasantly surprised to read the final panel. It makes me wonder how people will perceive us in the future. Because of the pace of advancement in the last 100 years, it is surprisingly hard to predict. This does raise several questions about how much longer we will continue at this rate. I saw a rather interesting (if somewhat far fetched) article in TIME about the theoretical "Singularity", the point at which people develop sentient or pass-human intelligence computers. Once (if) this happens, how will the past be perceived then, a time in which there was only one race?

This weekend I saw an absolutely riveting movie, "Silence of the Lambs." There were a few things which I found really amazing about the movie. First, how interesting the characters are. While several are admittedly very nasty and sick, the portrayal of Hannibal as both the most sane and most dangerous leads to a very interesting conflict on how much to root for him. The nature of the title, at first so opaque, it artfully revealed as the movie progresses, giving a window into the darker past of the main character. What really stunned me was how much fear the movie could invoke. Due to some of my reading choices and hobbies the film didn't leave me continually terrified, but once the momentum of the movie built up, my heart was pounding the rest of the way through.

This past week in class I transferred over to Python. I have found the program to be much, much simpler for what seems to be the aim of programming in this class, and I really value how intuitive it is. I have spoken to several other people (foremost Allan Sadun) who have programmed in both, and was a bit disappointed to hear that graphics are a bit harder to do in Python than in Java, but not disheartened. I am not as much a fan of the lab method for Python (as it seems too similar to how my math homework sometimes turns out) and worry that the number of questions could balloon, but apart from that have had no issues with it. My prime concern at this time is how easy it will be to manage the class when it has been so split. I am sure that it is accomplish-able, I just worry that it may put more strain on Mr. Stevens.

Over the last weekend, I found a wonderful set of tutorials for a game I have called NWN2, which I was looking into using the toolset of to make games. I stumbled across some tutorials for scripting and modding the game code, which looked very interesting. When I read up on it and looked at some examples that I could access, I found out that it was a C based language, and the syntax reminded me of Java. This was something I was really excited to find, and hope to put to use later in my spare time.

The following link is a link to only one of the sites, there are many more tutorials on a site called the vault, which compiles a lot of scripting and toolset work into one location, as well as instructions.
http://www.nwn2scripting.com/

This last week, we went over string return methods. I have been getting more used to Java, but it is taking longer than I would hope. I am more excited about beginning to program, however, and am always looking for new ways to get better at it. Sadly, core classes have been getting in the way of this. Once Mr. Stephens walked me through one of the labs, I found that Java was a lot more intuitive than I first thought. The only issue that I have still been having is finding in what location to put the relavent piece of code, and that is what I think I would want next addressed.

Blog Post: This Week

I have had more trouble with java than I was expecting. I just wish that the program commands made a little more sense (as in, words or phrases that were more like speaking to the computer), although I guess I will have to deal with it, in the end. It will take some getting used to that is for sure, and will require some more work, but I believe I can work it out.