bfcarson's blog

Hey here we go again starting a new year and a new Semester, and what a Semester I have gotten myself into.  With  my full schedule at school, tending to my sick Mom, and trying to quit smoking I very well may have lost my mind.  I told myself that I would continue to blog at least once a week and at the end of the Semester go back and read what was on my mind.  This being week 2, I did not have much time last week due to Mom just getting out of the hospital and getting settled in back at home.  This one is going to short this week, for I need to get started on my Database lab and review for a quiz in Statistics.  Later.

billy

Well, here we all are at the end of another long semester here at Pellissippi State and I can honestly say that this has been one of the few classes that I have enjoyed participating with.  I think, in my opinion that Dr. Brown’s comics were a great idea, and had more than enough information to make me rethink a lot about what I know, or thought I knew.  Not only did I feel like I gained a lot from this class, my class mates were good as well.  I can’t begin to tell about how many classes I’ve taken over the years and nobody ever said anything.  I truly believe it is all our best interests to participate at some point or another, even if sometimes the subject goes a little off subject.  This is what allows us, as students, to get to know each other better as people not as just students.

With this class, I really do believe that I have made the correct choice for the new path that I am taking in computer programming.  I just wished that I had not given up so easily on the intro to JAVA class I started so fast.  If I had taken this class before hand, I believe it would have made all the difference in the world.  For example, ALICE.  I do not feel I did as well on this assignment as I would or could have mainly due to direction problems, that is, too many ideas at once and no clear path.  After I was so far into the project I remembered the lesson on setting up an algorithm, and when I finally put my plan to paper in that form it started to come together.  Only but by that time it was a bit to late.  It is these small bits of information that I have pick up along the way is what I will be carrying with me through the rest of student life and beyond.  My most favorite assignment was building and programming the robots.  Not only was it pretty cool, just as a few of members of my team also wrote, it made me feel like a kid again.

Finally, doing this blog has brought me a little bit more in touch with the younger generation, as in the beginning I had actually rejected this notion of “blogging” and “tweeting”.  It seemed like a big waste of time, but I have learned a lot from reading what I have written, as well as, that of my peers and instructor.  Whose to say, I may actually become a regular at this?

One last note, I would like to say a big Thank You to you, Dr. Brown.  I really do like your style of teaching, and believe we will cross paths again in the future.  At least I know that one thing is true, I know where to go for help when I need it and not be embarrassed or afraid to admit I don’t know what I’m doing.

Take care all, good lucky, and hope to see a few of you again over the next few semesters.

Billy Carson

I guess for me, I have not ever been a real “gamer” in the sense of online games today.  I am one of those people who actually did grow up using the Internet starting in the early 1990’s.  I can remember when “chat” was such a big thing, and have to admit, met and went out with some pretty strange people from there.  As far as virtual world type games, I have always play the game “Sim City”, all the way back when it was a “Maxis” product.  I even bought it for the Nintendo game system.  I think that the best version is Sim City 4, but I still play the “2000″ version.  Some of the structures are better in the older version, but that too  is my opinion.  Last year I got as a gift for Christmas, Sim Societies.  Unfortunately this game sucks.  I guess that I really am all about building is bigger and better, vs how happy everyone really is in the city.  I did look online at the Second Life site and think that it would be cool to play around with, but I don’t really have the time or the money to invest in an online life right now.  I think that this idea of a virtual life could be OK, but in my opinion, we are over looking the issues we need to be facing IRL.  I would sometimes like to be something that I’m not, but to many years of therapy have ruled that out.  Even though the notion would be fun.  Once I feel like I’m rambling on, so guess I’m outta here for now.

billy

Just wanted to add another quick note about the robot lab.  I have to say again, I wished that when I was a kid we had these kinds of robot toys to learn and play with.  I thought it was really cool working with my group Thursday, and getting the robot to actually do the course.  Now that the assignment is technically complete, the time in Tuesday’s lab is really going to be “play” time.  We got it to work, but now we are going to try and make it do some other things.  I really can say that this is the first timeI had a class where I got to have “fun” playing in class!  This exercise actually got me to thinking why I did not understand intro to JAVA, I could not get it into my head you have to have a plan and tell each step exactly what to do.  With the robot you got the chance to see what you were programming.  It just made it easier to visualize.  Guess I’m outta here for now.  Later.

Artificial intelligence.  This topic went into many more areas than I really ever took the time to think about.  I always thought the idea was really cool, having a robot, or computer that could make decisions on its own.  Now I think that I will step back and just rethink that notion.  Some would already say that computers already do think for themselves, and to a degree, they do.  Now it looks like it is back to the old statement of just what defines intelligent life, or even life itself.  I don’t know if we as humans are ready to accept artificial intelligent machines, as something other than just a machine.  This reminded me of a movie that came out back in 2001, “A.I. Artificial Intelligence” by Steven Spielberg.  I did not really care for the movie, but loved the concept.  I do think that this movie shows that people really are not ready to evolve to consider machines to be anything but a machine.  I used to be one of those people who thought that is technology would be much farther along than it already is, but never thought of the complexity in the programming.  The exampleDr. Brown gave in class showing us the marker in one direction,  then changing the orientation of the object and we still knew what it was.  We only knew what it was due to the many years of learning what things are and what they do.  We as humans can anticipate a response, where as with a computer every rule has to be spelled out.  I was just amazed at how the robot could recognize the objects.  For me, this topic is something that I plan to do a little more research with.  I am curious about the possibility of creating an artificial neural network just like the way our brain works.  It still makes me step back and wonder will this happen?

I just have one thing to say about the Lego robots, and that is kids these days have it made.  These “toys” were, and are too cool.  If I was not unemployed I would buy one to play with at home.  The hands on experience is the best way to learn.  I used to watch the maintenance guys at my old job work on the the robots on the production lines and they programmed them basically the same way we did in the lab.  This is something that I think that I could really get into, building a better “bot”.  This is one time when I wished that we had more time to “play” in the lab.  I have a friend that lives in Florida that has a robot, like the Rumba, that mows his grass.  We got to watch it work this past summer and it really was pretty cool.  I told him that he needed to “rent” it out to his neighbors for some extra cash.  There’s the phone, gotta get off here.  Billy out.

Once again, I did not see the correct due date for this blog entry and I’m late.  Alice…..I thought it was pretty cool, but for me my issue is that there is too much freedom in this project.  For some that would be great, but I am one of those types of people that need structure.  That is, I need to know exactally what needs to be done.  I have spent many, many hours on  this project, and have changed it so many times that just about drove me completely crazy.  I am still not happy and still do not have a clear plan as to where I really wanted to go.  I would say that I am not like some of my friends who can improvise a sketch on a moments notice.  You should see some of the stuff on YouTube we have done, but I’m just not the creative one out of the bunch.  I did however pass the software along to my niece, who truly loved playing with it, and you may get to  meet her in the fall.  I guess I need to get off here, and will be back soon.  Cheers.

Here I am again, and hope everyone is doing well.  This is the second blog entry for HTML programming.   This one is a little late, due to I did not catch the due date, but here it goes anyways. After playing around a little bit more with the page, I went online and found several other tags that can be used other than the basics we saw in class.  I tried to redo my version to add tables, but it got to the point that I was running out of time to figure out just how to make it work the way I wanted.  With that, I will continue “playing” with it long after this assignment.  The thing that I most agree with Dr. Brown about building the page from “scratch” is that it true if you don’t know how to do it yourself, how can you tell a computer or anyone esle how to build it?  I guess I had better get off here.  Later.

I did find this section to be very interesting.  The whole idea of all these people gathering together to lean from each other to end up creating some of the largest computer companies was pretty cool.   As I read the comics, Kevin Mitnick came back into memory.  I did remember when this actually happened.  I really do think he did get a “bad” wrap for what he had done.  I can remember when my best friend got his first modem, a blazing 3300 baud rate.  It seemed like it was just a competition as to who could get the latest technology.  I trumped his with the 9600 baud.  We actually tried to “prowl” around at the NASA, as well as others doing the same thing, to see if they really did know anything about extra terrestrials.  We never really found out much, but we were able to access some of their files.  I would like to know a little more  about my pc security, I run really good software and a tough firewall but howdo I really know that it is working?  At times I put out a lot of information about myself out there, online banking, shopping, unemployment status.   I just hope that  the software really works.  I do plan on doing a little bit more research on this subject, just for my own curisioty.  Guess I’m outta here for now.

It has been a very long time since that I designed a web page and never really from “scratch”.  The biggest problem that I seemed to have with putting everything together was forgeting to put in the “end” tag.  It took a few tries to realize that I am the one telling the page just what to display and not something working in the background filling in the blanks.  I have looked around for different “tags” to implement sound to my site and don’t really  know if it is a good thing, due to copy right infringements and such.  So much for the “good old days”.  It’s not like I am trying to make a profit, just want to share what I like with all who may visit the site.

The second hardest part of the overall design is that you really do have to plan out just what you want to dispaly.  I have changed everything so many times it is not even funny.  I started over, actually putting everything down on paper first to make a good layout, to make it flow better.  This time I think that I will try to use the table tags to split up my text and links to other sites.   I just know that here it is again Sunday afternoon and I’m starting over as usual. Maybe this version will look better.

This one is kind of short, but as you can see I am running short on time once again to complete another project.   Later for now.

I thought I would add to my post, and this exericse was actually more “fun” than I had orginally thought.  With the servers being down due to the electronics upgrades I got to  play around a little bit more with the assignment than normal.  I really did not use all the tricks to make it stand out, but in my opinion, less actually is more.  I found no need to put up “bold” headings and such.  I felt it was not actually needed for what I had to say.  I just wanted to put out there just a little something about me, “campy” or not it is who I am after all.   I’m outta here again, since no one looks at this any ways.  Chill

billy

Billy