So, recently as I’m sure you have heard, here in the United States Congress is trying to pass SOPA. Without getting into the details, in summary, it is a huge censorship of the internet. A lot of people are upset about this and I have my 2 cents to throw in about this. I do NOT support this bill at all! I think it is a huge mistake and will do more harm than good. I can’t help but notice that all of this is about people downloading and uploading copyrighted content. So basically all of this is in favor of the RIAA. I am not an advocate of not paying for all of my media but the legal means are lacking. For instance I subscribe to NetFlix, as shitty as their service may be, it has an incredible potential. The problem is most of the movies that I want to watch aren’t stream-able, and I’m not going to wait for a DVD in the mail like it’s the stone age. That is I have in the past used illegal means to acquire the movies that I wish to watch. I am not going to pay the $10-$20 that it costs to buy the DVD when I already pay NetFlix every month. If NetFlix and Hulu could just provide a better service it would actually be more convenient for me to stick with paying them and streaming my content, rather than illegally acquiring content. I dont’ know what else to say about this but it all bothers me. I feel like the efforts are all going in the wrong direction. All these organizations are spending money and making efforts to try to prevent this illegal sharing rather than creating something better. Prohibition doesn’t work, history has told us this, and censorship doesn’t either. The content will still be out there and yes we will find another way to get it if we want to. So here’s an idea, put money into avenues that create a very convenient way for people to acquire their content at a reasonable cost with great service. If anything I ever wanted to watch was on NetFlix and stream-able I would only ever use their service. It’s like if one company was competing with another, would that company try to find a way to get the other shutdown? Or would they just try to be bigger and better? The first seems to be a wasted effort and the second is what we see everyday. Come on people get your shit straight!
So I just got home yesterday and was excited to jump into working on my server and writing all of the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to make myself a nice website. Although, the night before I was told the power had flickered a few times right in a row. I tried to visit my site and it 404’d. I freaked! I went down to check on it and it turns out the whole OS is corrupt. I should have had it on a UPS but I was dumb. Also, I didn’t back up any of my .conf files so I would need to reconfigure everything after a fresh install. This is about 3 hours of work that I am not very anxious to start. I was looking forward to starting to build my site and set things up but now I have to literally start all over. FML!
It has been a week since I last made a post here. I have been busy with projects, studying for finals, and I’m still not done. I won’t be completely done with this semester until this Friday. I can’t even begin to express how the end cannot come soon enough. I really need to be done with this waste of time school work, so that I can get to the important things. I want to work on my server, my website, my programs, and blog about it all here. So, I’m trying to get by.
Just a little bit ago I was watching a youtube video about common reasons people allow their computers to start running slow. This isn’t something I would normally watch because it is a pretty nooby topic, but I like to watch Chris Pirillo videos so I did. One video lead to another, which was identical in topic, so I watched that. At a point in the video the person started describing what RAM is and it was at that moment that I started day dreaming. I know that RAM has to be solid state memory. If you have ever worked on building a computer you know that those sticks of RAM have no spinning disc inside them (like a HDD). I then realized that a new technology that is very very expensive, yet growing in popularity, is solid state drives (SSD). I then began to drift of into programming land in which I recalled my data structures course. One of the things we talked about was how you should avoid writing to the HDD as much as possible because of the amount of time it takes to read and write in comparison to using RAM. Then the thought struck me that the SSD is in a sense a LOT of RAM, because of its architecture. The next thought that crossed my mind is, I wonder what will happen when SSD’s are the standard and all OEM computers are built with them instead of HDD’s. When/If that happens, the world of programming will change too! Do you agree?
This post is going to be a rant. I would just like to warn everyone now! I have had a couple glasses of wine this evening after a rough day. I was very disturbed today by some news that I received about a few class mates.
When I was in Networking this morning someone told me that one of my other class mates had applied for the same internship as me and was granted an interview. I was complaining about how he shouldn’t have even been granted the interview because he is no where near my level of knowledge in our field (not to be arrogant). I was distraught by this only to further find out that this guy claims to have a 3.7 GPA. I have a 3.6 GPA. I have busted my ass and I am well known in the department as one of two students to go to if you need anything (tutored, anything major related). I got this internship because I was recommended by one of my professors! So to hear that this lazy, cheating, degenerate has a 3.7, angers me. His work is no where near the quality of mine and his knowledge isn’t either. I would have picked many people as competitors to me over this guy! I really don’t actually even believe that he does have the GPA he claims to, but if he does, words can’t explain my anger. So I would like to ask my followers: Am I wrong for feeling this way?
Winter break is soon approaching and I have so many ideas of things that I want to accomplish! Well, at least two main ideas at least.
Idea one:
Now that my server is running and completely configured at home I would love for it to actually host something. So I need to write some nice HTML and CSS for the my site. That will take me a while since I would like to actually have two separate domains, but that won’t work. So what I am going to do is make a basic front page with links to all the other pages that I want to make. It doesn’t really make sense, because it’s hard to explain. Trust me it will be cool and work.
Idea two:
I would really love to go back and optimize my Shoot’em Up game. I know it’s using way too much memory compared to what it is doing and the amount of processing is pretty high too. I will see if I can actually do anything about it or not. I know that there are a bunch of lines of code that are really redundant and could really be cleaned up.
If all of that gets accomplished and I am still looking for more to do I am sure that I won’t have a problem finding other programs I have started, lost interest in, and need finished.
As this semester comes to a close I am becoming less and less motivated to do anything. I mentioned in my last post that I may not have time to make a daily post this week, but I would rather blog than do my school work. I am so tired of making UML diagrams and ER diagrams that it is making me nuts! So with two weeks left in the semester, not including finals week, I am not going to try too hard. I have been so stressed and I need to do relax. Plus, the way I am as a student I have built such a cushion into my grades that I can slack a little and I will be fine, even though it goes against my very nature.
I am so ready to just be done with college, it’s not even funny. At this point I have taken all but two major classes. I have so many general education courses left though, and I hate them! I would so much rather be at home tinkering with my server, blogging, writing random bits of code, and trying to throw together some HTML for my server to host.
Asked by Anonymous
I would suggest something like the other student did, in the sense that it has a practical use. You could even do something like take a simple math equation from geometry and write a program to calculate things for you. For instance, you could do the circumference of a circle. Where the user inputs either the Diameter or the radius and your program calculates the circumference. Another idea might be writing a simple converter. You could convert temperatures. Where the user inputs either F or C and gets the other. You don’t have to do temperatures though, you could do almost any measurement, just code in the formulas and your done. I hope I was of some help.
