How programming immediately applies to life out of college

On friday I randomly got on digg.com and found an interesting link to a site that had something to do with the top 10 degrees companies were looking for in the next 5 years. Computer Science was at the top of that list, but since I couldn’t find that specific site again, I ran across these two other sites with much of the same information. Programming can be applied to 3 out of the 10 hottest college degrees. Specifically in Illinois, this programming class again relates to 3 out of the 10 top jobs in Illinois. I hope this puts a smile on each of our faces as you can rest in the fact that this semester’s hard work will literally pay off if you chose to let it do so

Gmail to become like the rest?

The one sight that has kept to simplicity and functionality is google. It has just recently added emoticons to their messenger called google talk. Is this the first downhill step to a messenger like MSN or Yahoo? Will google become like facebook with million upon millions of applications?

Google body

Google recently released a new search service enable users to view and examine the external and internal anatomy of every living creature on earth. Not only is the project a huge milestone for science, but it is filled with almost useless facts, such as the toenail length of the President and the number of follicles on an average persons head. What’s great about this search service is that it will help user get in touch with the nearest, most suitable donor for multiple organ systems. Intersting…

optical illusion

I kinda wanted to see if we would be able to see this “person” from a projected image because I could on a regular monitor.

Compared to most BitTorrent sites, Mininova only allows user upload, meaning that all the torrents on the site are uploaded by users. This is probably one of the many sites BitTorrent users on campus used as it recently entered the list of the top 50 most visited sites. I am still kind of confused at to what BitTorrents are but in case any of you are still in the dark, leave it up to good old wiki to get the job done. Comes complete with a gif animation.

Who knew?

I am one who likes to know what the big picture is. We are learning C#, but how many languages are there and how does it fit into the scope of other languages. Did it branch off from other languages we hear thrown out in class like Java, C, C++, Fortran, and Cobol. Now that we are going more visual with C#, it seems to be a lot like Visual Basic, but is it?

When I stumbled across the “History of Programming Languages”  it cleared up a lot of these questions. C# is a very new programming language started June 26, 2000 and draws from Java 2 and C++. According to the chart, Visual Basic has nothing to do with C# and doesn’t even branch off to any other programming language since Basic was created on May 1, 1954.

FYI – There are more than 2,500 documented programming languages of which 50 are outlined in this poster.

Weird and wonderful foreign phrases, but they don’t cover everything

English is a very diverse language drawing from major language groups. It is so powerful that it is used to build complex computer programs and games. There are several phrases drawn from languages around the world and compiled in a book called Toujours Tingo. Some of my favorites are:

Jayus – Indonesian: someone who tells a joke so unfunny you can’t help laughing.

Giri-GIRI – Hawaiian pidgin: the place where two or three hairs stick up, no matter what.

Tartle – Scottish: to hesitate when you are introducing someone whose name you can’t quite remember.

Vovohe Tahtsenaotse – Cheyenne, US: to prepare the mouth before speaking by moving or licking one’s lips.

Prozvonit – Czech and Slovak: to call someone’s mobile from your own to leave your number in their memory without them picking it up.

Mariteddu Tamant’e Un Ditu Ieddu Voli Essa Rivaritu – Corsican: a husband must be respected even if he is very short.

But sadly, among all these there is no Hindi word for “child born with 8 limbs”! There is currently a two year old in India who has a headless twin attatched to her body at the pelvis providing her with two sets of arms and two sets of legs. Lakshmi Tatma is a two-year-old girl named after the Hindu goddess of wealth who has four arms.

If the internet weren’t so slow…

Not only am I doing this blog 0 minutes before class…it took me 3 minutes to get to where I could write and post a blog. Good thing for me, a man named John Doyle wants to fix this. The problem is he wants to own the entire internet. I have not had a chance to read his theory but it will help the internet become very robust, but at a cost. Just like the human body can look like Arnorld Shwarzenager, he probably has internal problems from steriod use.

 Check it

Looking to buy something online?

I recently bought a cell phone off ebay that was advertised to work with AT&T and had great reviews on the trusted cnet.com. Needless to say I had to pay quite a bit for the item and for shipping, and eventually for shipping it back. I am a fan of e-commerce and this was my first negative experience (minus some cleats that were too small, but they sent me the right size at no extra cost and paid for shipping ).  This  article will certainly prove useful to me in the near future, and I was hoping to pass on the general wealth of knowledge that ebay is not the necessarily the cheapest online site.

This site has a list of 13 bargain websits that are supposedly cheaper than eBay. Worth a try…

btw, I hope you guys were there for the colloquium where a Holocaust survivor retold his story. We cannot forget.

Apple Wireless Keyboard (aluminum)

It seems Apple is once again leading in design and beauty. “Irreducibly complex” would be what I would call this new wireless keyboard. What is so amazing about the design is how it is still comfortably angled for typing and what produces that angle is the 3 AA batteries which power the wireless keyboard. The keyboard is armed with Bluetooth technology which is revolutionizing a lot of peripherals and wireless devices.  There really is no way you could get a keyboard any smaller without loosing comfort. What really strikes my interest in the device is how it has virtually no pieces, just a metal plug which unscrews for you to insert the batteries. The light which shows the power is on has an interesting feature in that it cannot be seen when it is not on as the light appears to be hidden underneath the plastic covering itself. Oh, and there is no room for dust bunnies or any not too many crums in this compact design.

Check it

Very Deep

Project It

Right now it is great to be able to experiment with all this code and basically not be given any restrictions. I can’t begin to imagine what Programming must be like out there in the real world. This illustration seems to go very well with what Jess Hayley wrote about in reference to Windows ME. This group/business definitely lacks Communication101. I think I would have to pick the job of the Business Consultant because of its optimistic characteristics.

Hopefully my next program does not become as illustrated…completely useless. About all you can do with the swing is throw it, which would in the swing wraping itself around the tree and smashing you in the back of the head, depending on how hard you threw it   ; P