The Happenings

Strings, unlike most of the other material, is harder for me. I can't exactly explain why, but it took me a little longer to figure everything out, and that's probably why I'm a little behind with the labs. I'm about to finish my encryption lab, but I still have 3 after that to catch up on. 

Also, I heard the Ipad 3 is coming out. Hasn't everyone. But why so soon? People have been telling me, "oh, the screen is so brilliant," but I don't see that as any major improvement upon the last one. Regardless, I'd suppose it would still be cool to have an Ipad, just because. 

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Tools

I've been exploring the linux os, which happens to be the KDE version, and there are a lot of neat little programs that are already downloaded. I can't mention all of them, but they vary in their uses. One of the programs is called Genius, and is excellent for math-related projects. Believe it or not, but Genius actually supports its own unique programming language that the user can use to write and run programs. It's actually quite similar to Python and is relatively easy to understand and use. It also has built-in math functions that help me with quick little tasks. Overall, I really like this program, and I plan to do some more experimenting with it.

Another cool little program, or game actually, is called GL-117. It is like a flight simulator, but the planes come equipped with a gun and missiles. It has retro-looking graphics, and is still really fun to play.

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Finching for the win

Now that my class has finished project 02, we moved into a new unit in Python in which we are writing code to control a 'Finch,' a funny little robot that can perform a variety of motor actions. Don't ask me how, but the finch resembles something of a stingray on wheels, and has a chromatic LED light on the front end. A pair of thin wheels control the finch's movements, while numerous sensors act as controls (I haven't experimented with these yet). I'm curious to see what I will be able to do with the finch in the future, besides stupidly driving around in circles. 

- zk : out