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    • Archive for September, 2009

    Trying to Make a Happy Place


    2009 - 09.24

    Tags: ,
    Posted in Goal, Miscellaneous, Personal | Comments Off

    I’m a chronically unhappy person to the point of being somewhat cheery about it. And, to some degree, I think that’s because the little spark of optimism that I have keeps hoping for the world to get better.

    It’s a very silly thing when I describe what I want to do for the rest of my life: I want to make toys that help people. But I really want to create devices that are entertaining to use while serving a practical benefit. I firmly believe that designs work best if the widest range of backgrounds and implementations are considered. And I mean wide:

    • economic backgrounds
    • cultural heritages
    • education level
    • experience
    • age
    • gender
    • disability
    • ethnicity

    And I do care about practicality. I want to create things with some purpose so that they have a use beyond temporary amusement.

    I’m going to change the world. And I’m going to make sure that others have just as much fun while I’m doing it.

    Grading


    2009 - 09.09

    Tags: , , ,
    Posted in CS, Teaching assistant, Work | Comments Off

    It’s very strange to me how my department handles grading.

    First off, the emphasis on having courses on a curve. I understand the significance of having the course weighted for even distribution. But, when the curve is set up with a C+/B- as the median, I’m not convinced that students understand what they are suppose to. In this system, you can tell how well a student did relatively, but not what they know; there isn’t a checklist of knowledge in this case.

    I, as I have mentioned, am doing grading this semester. It’s depressing how few students follow directions.

    … Yet, I can’t entirely blame the students. They are being taught to program in the lower levels. The importance of theory (algorithms, logic, and critiacal thinking) aren’t emphasized. It’s very difficult to blame a student for not understanding, if (s)he doesn’t know why things are important and why we do things a certain in way.

    Even the tutors and some of the grad students don’t get the signifigance. I just want to hit my head against a wall sometimes.

    No cheese


    2009 - 09.05

    Posted in Food, Personal | Comments Off

    I like cheese. I like it a lot. I would happily eat it plain without any crackers, bread, or chips.

    This summer, I became lactose intolerant. Cheese, milk, chocolate, and cookies are no longer alright for me to eat. But then there’s more stuff that I hadn’t even considered as containing dairy: hot dogs, bread, Asian food… Things that I can’t even fathom why dairy would be added. I have to be careful about eating anything.

    And it bothers me. I can’t eat the things I want to because someone decided extraneous ingredients were needed. My personal favorite being “lactose” on the ingredients; not even bothering for milk or whey.

    And there’s lots of people that can’t eat certain foods. Heaven forbid a person have a corn allergy in America; the stuff is everywhere.

    Final Year


    2009 - 09.05

    Tags: , ,
    Posted in CS, CSU, Work | Comments Off

    It’s the second  week of my last fall at Colorado State. And things have definitely changed. First up, I’m taking two embedded systems courses: one senior and one graduate level. There’s also a Sensation and Perception course along with a senior capstone Artificial Intelligence. It’s going to be a much bigger project-oriented course load for me. :-)

    I’m now the president of my ACM student chapter. I really don’t know what to expect with that; it’s a volunteer position and it’s hard to imbue urgency and seriousness into others. (Our chapter doesn’t exactly keep the finances balanced. We’d need more members to do so, or to get students more excited for fundraising.)

    I work at my computer science department.  While in previous years I’ve taken more of a peer-mentor roll, this semester I’m spending my work doing grading for freshman and sophomore CS courses. I really don’t know what to think about that.