The blogs I follow

This week on Endgadget I read an article about a cup holder that is also an Ipod jack. This post struck me as pretty cool at first. I thought that it would be a neat idea to be able to plug in your ipod to your cup holder so that you could listen to your favorite music in the car. I then realized that you could already do this, by simply turning on the radio. The idea of having an Ipod jack in a car with a radio seemed slightly silly to me when you can hear any genre of music on the radio as well as news and talk shows. It seems pointless and repetitive to add a gadget like this to a car. Even if you really want to listen to just your own music, then you can buy some speakers which look much neater and are much more portable than a cup holder. One idea on endgadget which I did like was the Acer Aspire AS5745DG which can run 3D TV. I just thought that it was neat that a fairly cheap (less then 1000 dollars) could run 3D graphics, even though it was a bit of a dissapointment that you still need glasses to view it.

The weekly comp sci update

This week was slightly easier than the last few weeks. we worked on several labs and are learning about how to draw and paint objects. This was difficult at first because I did not understand how each of the variables worked to manipulate whichever shape I was drawing. Through a process of trial and error of changing one variable at a time I managed to figure out which variables manipulated the size, and which manipulated the coordinates. I also learned that the coordinates are measured as the distance from the upper left corner. Once I figured out which variables affected different elements it was simply a matter of seeing how the variables changed with different shapes and how to get everything to line up to make a single recognizable entity. The later part gave me the most trouble especially with the robot lab. It took most of the class period just to align and get all of the body parts to look right. In the end I finished the lab right before class ended and learned the material.

First Comp Sci Blog Post

This year I have begun to take a computer science class which will hopefully be rather fun. This past week, I actually started learning about and using java. The one lab which I found most confusing this week was the inputs lab. At first I had no clue what we were even supposed to do. I originally didn't even know how to define a variable, but after a short explanation from my teacher this soon became clear and it was only a matter of copying, pasting, and a small bit of simple addition programing to do the rest. After you know the "grammar" (put a ' here or a ; there) and understand that spacing and case do actually matter, it becomes much more simple. After you were given the line of code that got input for the keyboard, it was simply a matter of defining and manipulating the variables to finish up the lab. I found this same concept to be true of all labs. One I understood the concept, it was just a matter of repetition and small adjustments to actually get the labs to work. So far I have been doing fairly well but it certainly helps to have the labs individually explained before I start. In class I found that hearing the power points also often helped with the labs rather then just reading the ppt on my own.

I'm back

I am back to reclaim this blog. In other news comp sci is funky.

How to make hard candy

This is a simple recipe on how to create hard candy
(warning: if not done exactly right it will taste bad or be way to sticky)

Ingredients

2 cups of white sugar

2/3 of a cup of corn syrup

Food flavoring (citric acid and oils)

Food coloring

An ice cube tray

saran wrap

To set up put saran wrap inside of the ice cube trays so that there is enough of a depression to make a decently sized depression for your hard candy.

Once you have set up pour the sugar water and corn syrup into a pot and put it at at medium temperature and stir for about five minutes or until the sugar dissolves. Then let it simmer for another 5 minutes until it boils and turn the temperature up to high. Add the flavoring or coloring at this point and stir in. Let the candy reach around 295 degrees or until if you put a drop of it in water it solidifies and floats. take the candy of the stove and pour it into a separate container and allow it to cool until it will not melt the saran wrap when you put it in but it is still a liquid. Scoop or pour into the ice cube tray.

Put in the fridge and allow to cool for about an hour. pop your candy out of the saran wrap and enjoy these sticky but tasty treat.

Bon Appetit!