12.02.09
Posted in Reviews at 9:22 pm by Nick
For such a long time now I have bookmarked and otherwise hackishly cataloged some of the most interesting and persuasive material I have read or listened to. I have persistently and adamantly shared much of this with other people, and I often revisit them myself. I plan on reviewing much of this material in an effort to not only write more often, but to write down thoughts and ideas now on the things I am learning so my future self (and others) might analyze them later.
I plan to go through the many lectures I have bookmarked, and many of the best books and articles I have read. Much of the information is technology or entrepreneurship related, which makes sense if you know me. However, I think it is important to expose myself to the incredible expertise present in other fields. By learning more about art, music, politics, biology, physics, and anything else, I can develop an understanding that transgresses the fields themselves, and I will be a more well rounded individual.
I boldly support the idea that the more you learn, not just about one topic but about all things in life, the more unique your views will be and the better and more creative your solutions to problems will be. It is to your advantage to learn all you can about everything you can.
Note that many of these talks come from TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design), an organization devoted to “ideas worth spreading”. You can find their web site at:
http://www.ted.com/
And it has also been posted on the right under “Links”
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09.27.09
Posted in General, Thoughts at 5:46 pm by Nick
Unlike most students, I enjoy the general education I am required to take at my university. This is because I am interested just about everything; I simply cannot have too much knowledge. This semester I am enrolled in one class I have been looking forward to for four years: Philosophy, The Art of Thinking.
I think given different circumstances I would do very well in the Philosophy program and would like having a degree in the field. The ideas behind philosophy fit well with my life — not just to question what we don’t know, but analyze and question what we do know. Is something right or wrong? I like to play devil’s advocate and just think about things from different viewpoints because I find it interesting and fascinating. Mental challenges like this can broaden your view and creativity, which is an absolute must in the world we live in today.
My friend John has recently switched his major from Computer Science to Philosophy and is discovering how interesting and joyous the field itself can be. While I cannot pick it up as a major, the things he is going over are things I have discussed and thought about my entire life. It is interesting to me that so many people are willing to accept the world as it is and not analyze and question it. I suppose there is comfort in not knowing and not caring, but not knowing and caring can be frustrating and create an immense craving for knowledge and understanding.
As of late, it seems that questions and thoughts out of the norm have piled up around me to dissect and analyze. Below is a brief glimpse of some of them merely because I have spent time just thinking about them and I wish to save the ideas some place for later analysis.
The first came to me after following a random train of thought that led me back to one of my favorite movies of all time: Meet Joe Black. (Please, if you have not seen this movie and wish to then do not read this!) While there are many things I could say about this movie, there is only one I wish to address.
Brad Pitt plays a salesman that “Death” kills and takes over his body to have a physical presence in order to examine the excellence of Bill Perish’s life. It is true that every civilization has always had some sort of myth surrounding the grim reaper — a physical manifestation of death, which this movie builds upon. However, in my view and many others, I have always thought of “Death” only as the taker of life. That is to say, he may take life from people but he may not give it. Now you could argue that since he gives Perish more time to carry on his life then he is, in a sense, bestowing more life to Perish. On the other hand, I view this more as bestowing time existing life, not creating new life itself. This is an important distinction. Ultimately this brings me to what I consider the most moving (and in my mind, controversial) part of the movie. In the end, Perish and Death walk off during the fireworks, returning to the abyss where Death resides. A minute later, as Perish’s daughter Susan (actress Claire Forlani) comes seeking them, Brad Pitt then comes back over the hill. The salesmen is back into his body — revived from death. This is controversial because, in this movie, Death can not only take life but also bestow it. This then changes who Joe Black really is; he is not the grim reaper or death, but must actually be God. This has a large impact on the rest of the movie because we can then see that God is not a benevolent and caring being, but is instead an indifferent enforcer of rules who is curious (and ultimately jealous) of what humans have. This view changes the entire tone of the movie.
Another thought was brought up while watching the end of an episode of Ergo Proxy, which Dan began rewatching lately. The episodes all end with notes explaining some of the references brought up in the previous episode. During this one in particular, Vincent and Pino become lost in a fog and Vincent enters what he believes to be a book store, but is more or less a place to visit and analyze memories. This is important because Vincent’s memory has been intentionally erased, and it is the first real step in him realizing and accepting that he is indeed a Proxy.
What I found interesting was more or less the note at the end which is briefly touched on in the episode — a reference to The Origin of Languages by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The interesting thought is a paradox: in order to develop language, beings must be able to think, but in order to be able to think beings must have language.
This is actually a concept that several of my friends and I have talked about for years in the context of some of the games we used to play when we were world builders. Wade described something he read where a race of people did not know what love was because they did not have a word for it. Culturally, they were loveless. How can someone love without knowing what love is? Obviously this breaks down somewhere, because every day we create new words and things in this life of ours. Granted, we have an advantage in that we have a vibrant and growing vocabulary on which we build. If such a foundation did not exist, imagine how different life would be. How fortunate we are to not have to endure the pain of existence without language.
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08.17.09
Posted in Programming at 2:23 am by Nick
One night, Dan and I were talking about Computer Science as we often do. We were trying to come up with some interesting things for Computer Club to work on or talk about. Unsure of what people we have and what their interests are, we decided to work on something that interested us and then see if we could get people on board with the project. ABE is the result of that conversation and many other considerations since.
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Ideas we wanted to talk about and learn about: distributed processing, high performance computing, formal software engineering process and techniques, AI programming and emergent behavior.
Ideas we did not want to work on in-depth: graphics programming, user interface creation and design, user input.
When Dr. Gray allowed us to borrow the LittleFe, we instantly decided to use it for this project. This provides us with a high performance, transportable medium to do our testing (although I would later assemble a simple, low-end machine to run smaller MPI-emulated simulations). After much discussing, and even consideration of OpenCL and/or Cuda, we opted for an MPI (Message Passing Interface) based application for this project.
The goal itself is not to make a video game, but a large-scale battle simulation involving thousands (hopefully tens or hundreds of thousands) of units. We want a lot of units to readily see the effects of AI changes and to stress the system processing the updates. Ultimately a simulation will consist of several players, each with a defined rule set (which will be simple and defined by us, nothing too fancy) that will govern their units as each side faces off. We hope someday to have several unit types, terrain considerations, random catastrophic events (meteors, nukes, tornados, etc), and an event tracking system.
ABE will have two core parts, the simulation and the player. The simulation will run on the LittleFe or some medium and will load the rulesets, run the simulation, and then output information step-by-step to text files. We will then have a player that can read these generated text files and somehow visually display each step so we can actually see what is happening. The player should be able to play, pause, and advance one step at a time.
So what does this give us? Anyone who is interested but doesn’t know how to program will be able to talk about and influence our decisions and design, and even create their own AI rule-sets. This can lead to a lot of student interaction without a lot of domain knowledge. We realize not everyone wants to get into the technical aspect, so we want to take that out of the picture and talk more about our design, process, and issues. We figure this will make the project more marketable.
As the software process is an important learning part of this project, we plan to make extensive use of things not usually seen in student projects. DISTek, my employer, has graciously agreed to let us use their conference rooms for design and code reviews, so we will try to take full advantage of this. I don’t expect many people who will help with this project to understand the code I write, so their ability to review it effectively may be low, but it is a chance to help them learn none the less. The project is hosted in a Subversion repository and we will try to keep it up to date as possible. If things go well we will probably release the code under GPL or a similar license and allow people to use it once we have a stable, working version. Also, as we are following a more formal software engineering process, I personally will try out CPPUnit and attempt some test driven development. This is something I personally am interested in and would like to try on something beyond homework-scale.
Currently I am set to design and write the simulation. Dan is tasked with creating the player and, perhaps more importantly, setting up the LittleFe in a way we can use it. He is more of a Linux junkie then me these days, and he seemed quite interested in it so it should be fun for him. I personally can’t wait to dig into MPI and get things moving, but I don’t want this project to fall on its face. Thus, I will probably spent some large amounts of time designing things once I have a good idea how to setup the simulation correctly to take full advantage of MPI.
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Posted in General at 1:56 am by Nick
Why hello there, it has been a long time!
The start of school is just around the bend, and my life has been buzzing as things start to pick up again. In preparation for school I have found myself gearing up in several ways to make sure it is a successful semester:
Despite my normal frugality, money has been flowing quite steadily as I pursue quality and success in my life. Back on January, this meant buying a new car so I could avoid paying ~$2000 a year to fix a ~$3000 old luxury car. And I do mean new, as in 2009 Jeep Compass new. I have been absolutely happy and satisfied with my decision and find it quite enjoyable to drive, so I consider it a success. However, I must admit that if I knew my CS scholarship was going to vanish I would have forgone the car and used that money for debt and tuition payment instead. On the other hand, driving a car backed with a warranty and knowing each and every mile put on it was by me is a very, very good feeling. I used to think new vehicles were a huge waste of money due to depreciation, but I realize now that if it helps put your mind at ease (as it does for me) then it is money well spent, especially if you keep it for a long time as I plan to do.
My brother and several friends started buying computer equipment from NewEgg, so of course I ended up joining the trend. When our school received Win7 RTM copies and keys, I couldn’t help but throw it on my laptop and see how it ran. Considering it is still unreleased to the public, I am incredibly amazed with it’s state and the amount of polish. And, as XP starts to show its age in size and performance, and I became increasingly dissatisfied with my computer’s setup (two 37GB 10k RPM drives holding XP/Steam games, and then a larger 160GB drive holding programs and other bloat) I decided to bite the bullet and reorganize with Win7. I decided to get two new 500GB drives and put them in RAID 1 via fakeraid on my motherboard. This left me with enough spare parts to only require a case, power supply, and motherboard to build a cheapo computer, so I jumped at the chance to finally have a dedicated Linux machine (more on it’s intended use another time) at the cost of $130 or so. I ended up buying new hard drives, more RAM for my desktop, more RAM for my laptop, an external hard drive enclosure, a KVM switch to switch between my two desktop computers, and more. As I spent a night or two piecing everything together, I was reminded of just how much I really enjoy putting things together. It was a very fun and satisfying experience. Sadly, I have no plans to do any more computer hardware flip-flops or buying in the near future.
To prepare more for this school year (and fill a void of wall space near my window), I bought a brand new wooden desk from Target.com. It is quite stylish, well priced, was easy to put together, and seems pretty sturdy. The theory is if I have a dedicated homework space I will be more productive. We’ll see how that goes. It is a problem I’ve “solved” before, but I ended up switching from my old desk to the desk I bought for homework only as a computer platform to facilitate more monitors.
A month or two ago, I also decided to become a legitimate Pandora.com customer. While 40 hours a month is a lot of free music, I find myself listening to Pandora at home and at work (meaning I blow that in a week easily). I figure $36/year is fairly cheap compared to what many people pay for music, and I am quite satisfied by the service and use it regularly.
After a near eight-month break from the game, my brother and I have reactivated our World of Warcraft accounts. This came about only because I have found many of my coworkers play together, and the only reason Dan and I quit in the first place was because we had no one to play with. So, in league with the title of this post, we spent this weekend playing like the good old days: gearing up with heroics. I imagine with limited playing the game will stay fun for quite a while, though I have started my payment cycle on a monthly basis just in-case it starts to conflict with schedule.
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#include “std_blog_apology” // Clever, eh? 
I spend an ample amount of my day thinking and analyzing everything. Current events, health, exercise, programming, school, work, food, games, cleaning, economics. My brain is constantly crunching the angles, and when I stumble upon something I find interesting and wish to explore more it makes it into my draft post called “Topics to Blog About”. As summer quickly comes to an end and my list of things to write about is in the dozens, I figure it is time to start making this whole blogging thing a bit more routine like it used to be. Even if there happened to be few, if any readers, I often find myself coming back to the pages of this blog to reread my analysis of topics and refer to whatever started the post in the first place. Plus, it is a convenient place to store information I use on occasion (such as the hardware information for my computers) or would like to give out to people (gift list).
Given a new schedule that will free up more time for stuff like this, I hope to be posting more. Lets see if I can keep that promise!
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05.05.09
Posted in General at 1:25 am by Nick
Tonight was an interesting one. As 10pm rolled around I began to yawn and realized if I didn’t go running now it wasn’t going to happen tonight. I got up, dressed in my running attire, told Dan not to lock the door and embarked on what would prove to be one of the more challenging runs I’ve faced.
Things started off well. I listen to the Couch to 5k podcasts and use them to follow the running program outlined at this site. I pulled up the podcast and walked briskly trying to loosen up, and perhaps wake up as well. I felt good and decided to run what I considered a medium intensity route near my apartment. As I progressed and began my first running interval, the cool night wind rushing over my face and through my hair, I realized that yesterday I had made one very awful choice.
You see, Dan, John, Danny, and I have all been playing racquetball every Sunday and Wednesday night. This is great fun and extremely good exercise. I have enjoyed the camaraderie and variety it adds to my week in many ways. Best of all, it forces me to use muscles that are not used during other exercises. This has led to a lot of mild leg soreness to which I am not accustomed, though I relish it to a certain extent. It is in this that the awful choice was made. Due to our tight schedule and my lack of attention I did not stretch fully before playing, and I did not stretch at all afterward.
I am not sure about other seasoned runners, but this is something I know to be true of myself. With stretches before and after and warm-up and cooldown walks I rarely, if ever, have leg pain during or after running (granted I currently run small distances, 2-3 miles). However, due to my decision (or lack thereof) last night to avoid stretching I endured very agonizing tightness and calf pain during my run, as well as some pain in my knees.
Calf pain turns what is one of my more enjoyable forms of exercise into an absolute chore. I choose to run; if it hurts, I either give up or I run with pain. After the first interval was done I told myself giving up because of a little leg pain wasn’t an option, and the calf pain would likely work itself out. The second interval came and went, only this time I was running uphill (and would be for the next four intervals). Nothing changed. Each and every step started to hurt. Even walks between intervals became painful.
And so it came to another choice. No one was making me run, and obviously enduring pain is not enjoyable. I could quit if I wanted; no one would fault me. It was then I recalled something my mother once talked to me about. On a ride across town we talked about achieving a bad grade (to which I said was absolutely unacceptable) and she replied that it was acceptable, and even likely over the course of an academic career. No one is perfect and neither are their grades. But, as she aptly pointed out, I was my harshest critic. No one is going to reprimand me in any way that is more meaningful then the choices and actions I can and will inflict upon myself to solve certain problems and achieve certain results.
My mind began to wander back to my training days for Army ROTC and the emotional hardening I have sustained over the past several years. I remembered how hard I pushed when I was in ROTC. I remembered that with each step, and the pain that came with it, I was one step closer to a glorious victory walk home (as opposed to a quiet, self-loathing walk of defeat). I remembered how, when pushing, physical pain was really just an inconvenience and nothing more. My pace quickened. My strides grew longer. Each new step brought pain, but I only pushed more. Pain can be overcome. It can be conquered. I continued to run; I stopped counting the intervals. Built up angst was combined with explosive determination as I let my mind analyze more pressing issues then the pain I was experiencing in my in my calf. My mind became unaware of the pain and the duration of the run, instead embarking on its own interesting adventure into the metaphysical realm.
The choice to not only continue, but to continue with a redoubled effort is a theme of my life. Constantly I have believed there is nothing I can’t do; if I fail I must merely try harder. Bringing that mentality to things is almost always helpful (although it can certainly be a hindrance sometimes). My progress is not always visible to others, nor is it visible in my academics currently. However, I am amazed with the progress I have made in recent months. And it is that amazement that I value so highly, because such praise does not come easy.
As I walked back home after the run, completing the entire medium intensity circuit despite the pain, I was overwhelmed with a sense of accomplishment. As I often do on, I thought back to a mere year or two ago. I always feel like I was just a kid back then. If only I knew then what I know now. Every year my ambition grows with my determination, my resolution is constantly refined and my goals become absolute. I have stopped dreaming and worrying about independent events, but have instead assembled the larger picture into a future I enjoy thinking about and a life I enjoy living.
I realized this was my zen; this was my nirvana. For a brief time, I was at peace. In that moment I was invincible. The world was mine for the taking; nothing was unachievable. The ambition was rivaled only by content and happiness. I am happy with where I am and who I am. Things aren’t perfect, but the things I want answers to are answered. Ambiguities have been resolved and the things I wanted plans for have been planned. The questions that remain are simple ones that my mind can toy with or ignore. I am comfortable with these unanswered questions, and interested in watching some of them evolve.
The choices we make are not always easy or correct, but determination and perseverance will always lead to progress in one way or another. Sometimes, you just need to go for it.
What a ride this life is.
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04.06.09
Posted in General at 1:05 am by Nick
I would say it isn’t typical to get snow in April, but we did indeed get snow about this time last year. I remember well as the snow came down on my birthday (April 12th) which is now just around the bend. That said, it was kind of fun to have a blizzard today. It gave me a reason to putz around and be a little lazy.
After many intense weeks of “GO GO GO” action it has been great recently to take some time to reflect on things. I’ve noted that this a part of my personality I should be devoting more time to and I will continue to do so. After doing the StengthsFinder survey at work and doing another personality test (INFJ) I’ve adopted a few ways that help me keep myself in top mental shape. Giving new information time to sink into my brain and allowing my brain to analyze information has proven to be of great benefit. I’ve known this in the past, but I never really thought about taking time for myself. I’ve experienced a huge mental shift over the past few months from worry about everything and everyone to just worrying about myself. I’m not of much help to anyone if I’m tired, depressed, stressed out, or unhealthly. Thus, I’ve realized the best way to help other people is to help myself first.
Ever since winter break (the last post) I have had a good routine. I go to bed on time (a little off tonight! ) and get a full nights rest. I wake up feeling energetic and refreshed. It is no longer incredibly hard to climb out of bed. I used to live every day with a huge mental fog weighing me down, complicating and degrading my life. By simplifying my life and removing stress I have lifted the fog, and now I am able to function (perhaps with excess energy most days) from early morning to late at night, in which I’m quite tired at a reasonable hour and able to sleep pretty well. I’ve never felt more productive.
I can honestly say this is the best I’ve felt in years. Due to the new Wellness Program at work I am super charged about being a healthier individual, and I already know all of the benefits that come with it. It boggles my mind that this feeling of well being will get even better! I’m incredibly determined and I don’t mind the work it takes to lose weight (in fact, I revel in it), so I’m excited to continue building it into my schedule. There is enough time in the program to perhaps even prepare for a 10k which as interesting thought.
Anywho, I will work on updating this a bit more. I have a lot of things I would love to write about, so hopefully I can get my blogging back into gear.
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12.22.08
Posted in General at 3:23 am by Nick
Snow! It arrived pretty suddenly, and what a ride this winter has already been! It was fun being snowed in and just chilling for a few days. Granted, snow blowing in -8 degrees (-35 with windchill) wasn’t much fun, but it was also nice to be outside enjoying the snow.
These past few weeks have been incredible. Doing work and school was causing enough stress to make me want to pull my hair out. I took time off of work for finals and school resolved itself, and I’ve been having a fantastic time just living a bit. Catching up with friends, eating food, being out and about. It has worked wonders for my mental state. I’m not quite sure what things will be like when I resume the stress of things when break is over, but luckily that isn’t for a few weeks. I was surprised that with the heavy reduction in stress I actually returned to a state of happiness. Sure, I’m a bit worried about finances of next semeser and what my GPA will look like after last semester, but as Paul would say, “it is what it is.” Stressing about these things won’t change them, so I might as well as relax and focus my efforts on a better future. A big boost in morale came from monster.com too when I found that many companies were calling me and what not for interviews even though I don’t have a degree, which makes me feel better about my chances if school does fall through.
I’m still deciding what should be done. I don’t know if I can do a full time co-op next semester, but if I can’t I think I will be taking the semester off from work. I think I’ll be able to do well in school if I don’t have to work so much, but I really can’t take time off of work unless something changes financially. My brother will be moving here, so my financial burden may be less stressful and thus I may actually be able to swing not working, but it remains to be seen how much financial support I’ll get next semester.
But, for the time being, I’m just going to ride this emotional high and hope it lasts until the end of break.
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11.17.08
Posted in General, Thoughts at 8:26 am by Nick
A lazy Sunday afternoon and night have now followed the normal shift into Monday morning. I knew full well that staying up all night was in the cards when I set no alarm going to sleep at 5am Sunday morning.Ah, that is what I had already done for the basic training; I wasn’t sure why it would be reiterated in the advanced training. But this is good news, as it means I have completed the advanced training as well.
While not the most productive of hours, I feel happy and relieved I made it through the entire anime known as Ergo Proxy. My brother did hail it as a great show, and I figured it was probably like several others where I needed to devote a significant time block to it. The disks had sat near my TV, teasing me for a few months now. Now I have watched all of them, and I can honestly say it was the second best anime I’ve ever seen. That may not mean too much since I am not a frequent anime watcher. I prefer to only watch the deeper and well written shows that focus on psychology and mentality, such as the two mentioned below.
It is very rare that anything seen on a television screen can provoke not only emotion, but true thought as well. Nearly every episode sported notes to explain some of the more central (and usually more complicated) parts of the episode you just watched. Something that got an extremely brief mention or glimpse for seconds in the show might well receive a nice large paragraph to explain it at the end. This was interesting because many of the concepts covered may not relate directly to the show, but to the Ergo Proxy writer’s allusions. This had me not only interested in the show, but I was always eager to hit the end of an episode to see what kind of information I might receive.
The show tracks three main characters as they venture on a seemingly typical anime type journey for an amnesia-ridden male to rediscover his past. However, the technological twists are very interesting in this show. The characters hail from a dome world utopia where everything is efficient and perfect. The dome is supposedly the only safe place in some sort of post-apocalyptic world. Things run amok as powerful unknown beings know was Proxy’s start to appear and the government of the dome world tries to hide their existence. Later, the characters are troubled not only by the knowledge that there is a world outside the dome, but that it is, in fact, remotely inhabited by humans. The main character, Vincent, attempts a trek across the world to see if he can find his memories in his birth place, a now ruined dome. It is later revealed that the dome world the characters hail from destroyed Vincent’s home town in a bout of revenge for some ambiguous wrong doing. Later, the eccentric and seemingly insane security chief of the dome world launches a thermonuclear missile when he is stripped of power in an attempt to eradicate the ruins the characters seek to find.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about the series is the revealing of several Proxy’s and the story behind them. As the world was destroyed (presumably by humans), “the Creators” sought to remake the world. They created Proxy’s, whose sole purpose was to rebuild the world as it healed from the previous destruction. The result is that the Proxy’s are essential God figures. Much to the dismay of most Proxy’s, they find that humans are ill-natured beings who are truly only capable of chaos and destruction. As the Proxy’s experience these failures they begin to begrudge their own existence, hating the Creators. They later realize that without souls they would have never been able to experience the love, hate, betrayal, and other feelings of their creations.
This anime comes in second to Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex/GITS:SAC 2nd Gig and the movies associated with the series (I’m clumping them into one large mass). I’ve never done more personal research or been more intrigued by anything. The show takes place in a near future cyberpunk Japan when most people have cyber brains that allow them to hook up to the net. Many of the characters in the ensemble cast have high performance prosthetic enhancements. The Major, who would be the main character of the show if it had just one, has a fully prosthetic body. This show brings up many interesting points, such as how society would function if people were literally connected to the net, the new crimes that might ensue (cyber brain hacking), and the definition of what it means to be human. The show is extremely complex, well drawn, action packed and technological. Every topic, case, and conversation is interesting and each episode is fun to watch. It is, perhaps, the best animated thing a nerd could ever watch.
The name of the show envelops the proposed answer to the question of what is human. While a person’s body may be fake, you cannot fake the soul, or “ghost”. Each ghost is unique and completely unable to be duplicated or produced. Thus, even though the Major has a fake body and her brain can (and does) get switched to other bodies, it is her ghost that remains intact. So even though they may have advanced AI machinery (such as the thinking, spider-like tanks they use throughout the shows, knows as Tachikomas), none of them can technically be living because to live essentially means to possess a ghost, which you can only obtain through life’s standard processes. This is why ghost hacking is such an important issue, because it is tampering with the very human nature of people. Imagine a world so connected that people from across the globe could delete your memories, hack what your own eyes were seeing, or even delete your ghost (which would kill you).
Interestingly enough, the Tachikoma‘s programmed curiosity and linking capabilities allowed what was supposed to be a group of identical machinery to evolve different personality traits. There is an entire episode where the tanks consider some of the greater questions of life: why they have evolved the way they have, and how each one “feels” about certain topics and outcomes. Eventually the Tachikoma’s are credited with having evolved their own ghosts due to their epic self-sacrificing gestures: first, leaving their jobs in the civilian sector after they were decommissioned to sacrifice their own physical beings to save Batou and the Major, and second, for crashing the satellite that contained their AI to prevent a nuclear detonation, which, in turn, stopped a potential war and saved the lives of their beloved coworkers.
Now, before my words and thoughts escape my rattling brain, I plan to have a flurry of posts discussing some of the topics brought up by these shows. They won’t have anything to do with anime, merely the content and thoughts proposed that I have found so interesting.
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10.23.08
Posted in General at 1:53 am by Nick
Alas, it has been a while for an update. Often times at work or while I’m walking on campus I come across topics I would like to talk about, and yet most nights I can’t bring myself to do anything at my computer. I’m not sure why, but I don’t play games. I don’t instant message. I don’t even Facebook anymore. This past summer broke those habits, and though I am not at my computer as much I pay for not being as connected and e-social as I once was.
I dropped two of my classes. One was in the works since the beginning of the semester (unfortunately, it was also one of my most interesting classes), and the other was a lecture class I really did like to attend. With my flaky performance and attendance record (not to mention family and health problems), I decided I needed to minimize the damage to my GPA. I figured I would redouble my efforts in my remaining classes, but so far I have done so with lackluster results.
I am extremely disappointed in myself. I know I’m better then this. I know I’m smarter then the grades I am getting. And I know I can do more. I hate saying things like that because I don’t like to wallow in self pity or make excuses. I’m not doing well, and I need to fix it. It is as simple as that. And yet I can’t help but feel there is something more inherent, yet intangible and elusive, that needs fixing. I don’t know what that is, but I wish I could find out. I went into this week extremely energetic and excited to try and turn things around, and here it is 2am Thursday and I can’t get anything done.
I thought maybe it was my ambition. Where did my ambition go? I used to have such academic zeal. I later realized I have plenty of ambition, it just so happens that none of it lies with school. I want to learn to play the guitar and the piano. I want to go skydiving and learn to fly a plane. I want to write code and find a good job. I want to invest in stocks, plan finances, and work towards retirement.
While the end justifies the means for school, I can’t help but feel I could be learning more faster if I did more work on my own. The academic bullshit of college drives me nuts. True learning isn’t about tests, quiz’s, or even homework. It is about learning and understanding concepts that you can apply elsewhere. Thus, what good is it for me to work on a programming assignment for six hours when I know none of the code I wrote will be useful elsewhere? Perhaps this is why I am doing well in my Bio lab. It is one hour a week, and it is about applying our biological knowledge to various situations.
My summer internship played a role in breaking me. To be told that I’m good enough (or better) to do a job, but be denied that opportunity because I lack a stamped piece of paper is immensely frustrating to me. I understand what a degree represents, but I also feel like an active demonstration of abilities should count for more. In job adds I always see lines saying they’ll accept a mix between education and experience… why don’t I fit into that category? I think it was also the best learning experience I had. I would wager I learned more during my time at Lockheed then I will have learned over most of college. I’m not going to get that real world hands on experience in an academic setting.
If dropping to part time (which I’m not happy about) doesn’t change things then I’m going to have to make a more drastic move. I have given a lot of thought to joining the Air Force. The only disadvantage I can see is being away from family, which is part of this stage in life anyway. Worst case I would end up back in this situation a few years from now with more money and better experience. In a good scenario I could obtain my degree for relatively little and then find a job, or better yet, get promoted to officer and serve my time. This is attractive to me for many reasons. I have felt a strong connection with the military, and it is something I do actually want to be part of. I think it is something everyone my age should be a part of. It helps teach discipline, work ethic, management and a healthy life style. All of those are things that are lacking from most people in my age group, and to me it merely isn’t enough to obtain those skills by meandering through life. If I were to accept a commission and serve my twenty years, I’d be forty and I would be able to decide what career I would like to have while maintaining a certain degree of financial stability that is impossible to find elsewhere. Overall, if by around this time next year I still feel this way with my mitigating changes, I will probably enlist.
I know I had more to say on everything that has been running through my mind, but it is late and I will go to sleep. Perhaps I will expand this another time.
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Posted in Computer Science, General at 1:47 am by Nick
Moving my help sessions to Tuesday’s has made a big impact! I was happy to be approached for programming help almost immediately of my sitting down .
I went over my own time limit helping three students, so I’m curious how many will start showing up for more advanced help. It was wonderful to talk with some students about programming in a very non-academic setting. A setting where everyone could be perfectly honest and not feel bashful if they didn’t understand something simple. It is this candid setting I have wanted to promote for some time now. Students will learn better when the material becomes more relevant to them and they are able to be brutally honest about how they view it.
Interestingly enough, all three students were non-CS majors. I’m not entirely sure what that means overall. They are taking a class they don’t need -AND- they are seeking help outside of class hours. That alone is unusual. We also discussed all the concepts on paper and each student hand wrote their own notes, which was surprising to me as well. Overall I left feeling not only accomplished, but impressed. I hope these students return and more follow their example. I think it would help alleviate much of the frustration and anxiety many of them feel about the class.
That said, I was also pretty happy that we went through and wrote a program off the top of our heads. I didn’t write anything out ahead of time, so I was discovering how to solve the homework problem as they were. I think it was helpful for them to see how someone who has more experience thinks through the process and makes changes to the design as the program progressed. They expressed that they understand the concepts of what to do for the homework, but that initial leap into writing it out is whats so challenging. And I agree, it is hard to take idea’s out of your head and phrase them in a way a computer understands, which is why CS majors get the big bucks.
When all was done and I typed the program I came up with into my computer it also worked as intended (minus a few syntax errors), which is always a plus. I would hate to give them an example that I thought would work only to lead them astray. I think that next week, if the students aren’t pressed for time, I’ll try a more Socratic approach and see if they can come up with the ideas for each step.
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