If I’m being completely honest, coming into this class I thought it would be a “gimmie”. However after going through the semester I learned more about technology from this class than I did in all of my others combined. I think the comic book was a great idea because it didn’t cost me a dime and it was far more interesting than a textbook. Kudos!

By far the most interesting things to me were the Robotics and Virtual Reality. The Robotics piqued my interest because I had no knowledge whatsoever concerning it. I plan on getting a Finch Robot of my own after messing with them in the lab! I enjoyed the Virtual Reality lesson because I had the most hands-on experience with it. Borrowing from a previous blog’s passage, video-gaming has been my life. I hope it will continue to be a part in the future. Another thing that amazes me is how accurate Moore’s Law has been. Based on our current technological path, it would be safe to assume we could be dealing with atomic sized transistors is the not too distant future which, to me,  is completely mind-boggling.

Some of the technology that was revealed to us made me slightly apprehensive. Knowing that we are always being “watched”, whether it be by Facebook collecting data on us, or from tiny hidden cameras, is disturbing. Also being able to build a UAV for around $100 presents a serious security risk concerning terrorist attacks. Hopefully by the time any of this becomes a problem I will have moved to my own private island .

Anyway thanks for reading my rambles and don’t forget to check out my Youtube Videos as there are more on the way.

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This week’s topic was probably my favorite of them all. FINALLY something I have experience with! Without sounding too nerdy or forever alone, video games have been my entire life. I started playing Duck Hunt at the age of 2, and have never looked back.

Sometimes while playing Skyrim I will catch myself responding to the game as if it were real life. And in some ways, I suppose it is. The same thing occurs in Modern Warfare series (or any shooter for that matter), but it appeals to a more animalistic instinct, survival. That and it invokes rage and the desire to throw things because I have gone through about 3 controllers/5 headsets over my gaming career. I also playing an MMORPG called “RuneScape.” It has the same basic pretenses as WoW, in that you level up by slaying monsters, doing quests, etc. I am also part of a clan/guild that raids regularly.

I tried to include a picture from the game but it wouldn’t load for some reason. It is in my gallery however if you want to check it out.

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I would love to live in a world where true A.I. was possible. Not A.I. in the sense that it can see/adapt to surroundings. A.I. that you can talk to and have a real conversation with. An A.I. that has feelings; it can hurt and be happy. For those of you who are video-game dis-inclined, there is a game series called Halo, for the Pc/Xbox//Xbox 360, set in the 26th century where the main protagonist is aided by an A.I. implemented via a chip into his helmet. Check it out!

Oh and our Finch project is going smoothly. I found a template that we can use to modify so we are able to actually use the Finch to draw on-screen/change colors/erase etc. Much better than those stupid Mindstorm robots! :3

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In class, our group opted to use the Finch robot instead of the Lego Mindstorm robots. This was good considering 3/4 of the people were currently in a Java class, plus I had some experience with Java.

In my opinion the Finch robot is 100x better than the Mindstorm just because of what it can do and what code is already available. That and the Finch is sooo freaking cute :3.

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Before this class, I never knew that being called a hacker could be a compliment. I’m not saying that there weren’t hackers back in the day that broke the law, but today it is much more prevalent.  It takes one bad apple to ruin the bunch they say. I’ve never got much into hacking but considering my major (Local Area Networks), I could benefit from the study of it.

I’ve seen too many movies about viruses gone out of control to even attempt to make one. Fear of the unknown you could call it. Oh and I don’t want to screw up my computer. :3

Oh and don’t forget to check out my Youtube Channel :3

Sincerely,

CowToTheBe11.

http://www.youtube.com/user/FiestaGaming

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From what I have learned about Java from my friend David, a programming prodigy it would seem, a lot of the concepts that are used in Scratch are also used in Java. Things like if then statements or while loops. This made the whole thing a little easier to understand and then write a “program” on.

Randy Pausch seemed like a nice chap. A lot of what he about his life also rang true about things I have experienced in my life. What I took from his lecture is this: Have goals and strive to complete those goals. Then you will have something to show for your time here on Earth. One of my personal goals, though you might not call it a goal per-say, was to save up enough money to buy my dream car. 5 after I set this goal I am now the proud owner of a black 328i BMW.

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Creating an HTML page has really changed the way that I look at websites. It really shows the time and effort that people put into their website and why it such a good field to go into. I did have a slight problem with embedding a Youtube video to my website on my older computer because I didn’t have the necessary plug-ins or updates, but it worked fine after I loaded it up on my gaming computer.

Believe it or not, my major was going to be database until I actually figured out what it was. When I got a glimpse of it, it kinda changed my perception of what is fun, and what would kill me from boredom. Thankfully I switched my major to networking which seems to be a lot more fun and more oriented to my tastes.

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To be perfectly honest, I had no clue how to make a website and I never knew it could be so “simple.” At least it appears to be simple in the beginning. James Hiatt (who is in our class I might add) showed me that the bland Google search site had page after page of HTML coding in it. There appears to be quite a bit of money to be made in web-page design but it may be a bit too much work for me.

Just from my recent experience working with Notepad there appears to be a lot of trial and error in the coding. Once you get the hang of it I’m sure it’s quite simple, but for right now I’ll be happy to be able to make a picture with words under it. This week has been very interesting though because it’s the first thing I had absolutely no prior knowledge to.

I look forward to designing a website. It’s actually been something I have needed for my job (see post #1). Having my own website would definitely boost my prestige and wouldn’t hurt with the cash flow. So I guess this class is paying for itself.

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At first I had no clue what in the heck an Assembly Language Simulator was. To be quite honest I still really have no idea what it is, but I know how to use it. As far as the semester goes, most of the information is a refresher (albeit much needed) because I have A+ Computer Software and Hardware. I feel like I have a grasp on most of the information that we have gone over and am looking forward to making robots in the near future! One thing I still find hard to understand is how the computer works at the atomic level. The things that must be done to microprocessors boggles the mind! Thankfully, that is not my projected field of expertise, and I will be happy to have a basic understanding of computers under my belt. My programming skills are a bit on the weak side, but I am sure that once I learn one of them, I can learn all of them. It doesn’t hurt that one of my good friends is a programming prodigy. Here’s looking at you David.

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I have already built a computer pretty recently so I will be using that build. First of all my system cost about $2200 but I hope that it will stay up-to-date even taking into consideration Moore’s Law. I use my computer for high-end things like gaming, video editing and rendering, and uploading high quality videos to Youtube. Keeping the system cool while playing Skyrim on max resolution can be difficult, but I believe that it can handle most anything. The components on my computer are as follows:

• XCLIO Blackhawk Black Finish 0.8 mm SECC / ABS Plastic ATX Full Tower Extreme Cooling Computer Case

I chose this case because it combined a good price and functionality together while still looking pretty decent. It also gives me plenty of space to go back and up-grade later on. I also changed out the LED’s to red to match my motherboard and RAM.

• ASUS Rampage IV Extreme LGA 2011 Intel X79 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Extended ATX Intel Motherboard

I tend to use Asus’ motherboards just because I find them at the front of the pack in terms of performance and just all around reliability. This particular model also comes with a built-in software that allows me to see the temperature of my board without exiting any screens which is helpful when over-clocking. I am looking forward to being able to optimize the USB 3.0 when I purchase an eternal hard drive that supports it. This would greatly increase my download, upload, and rendering speeds and would all around make life easier for me.

•   Intel Core i7-2700K Sandy Bridge 3.5GHz (3.9GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 3000 BX80623i72700K

To get the most out of my system I splurged a bit here and opted for the 2nd-gen Sandy Bridges processor. During my search for parts I was surprised to already see a 2nd-gen i7 on the market, but again Moore’s Law predicts rapid technological advancement. I have been able to over-clock this particular processor to 4.1 Ghz. Any higher and the machine gets a bit too hot. However, I hardly ever need this much and am content with the normal 3.5 Ghz.

• G.SKILL Sniper Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900) Desktop Memory Model F3-14900CL9D-8GBS

There is no particular reason I purchased this exact RAM, it just seemed to compliment the colors of my motherboard well and had enough oomph to get the job done.

• Western Digital Caviar Green WD30EZRX 3TB IntelliPower 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5″ Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

You may be saying to yourself, “Why would you ever need 3 Terabytes of non-volatile memory?” Well the answer is pretty simple. Every video I record is in 1080p, and these videos tend to have a file size of about 1GB per video. You can see how this would add up over the months. I also plan to purchase an external hard drive that supports USB 3.0 for blazing fast speeds to help take some of the load off of my internal memory.

I am still buying some items like a gaming mouse and keyboard. I am also looking into getting a dual-screen to help make editing easier.

If you made it this far then congrats!

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