Languages--Chinese:
I watched episode 57 of Travel in Chinese. This episode was about exploring hutong, narrow alleyways, and square courtyards in Beijing.
Articles:
There were a few interesting articles in the Wall Street Journal and Union Tribune.
One from the WSJ was about the new iPhone 5 and why it may fall behind in sales compared to new Android and Windows phones. Android phones have the advantage of an NFC chip that allows users to share pictures just by tapping phones together and also to pay for certain things by phone using digital cash. Windows phones don't offer quite as much as Androids but at the very least, their home screens are more customizable, as are Androids. The main upgrades that the iPhone 5 has is that it allows for faster internet and it's smaller with a slightly bigger screen. A few people have remarked that they were hoping for a bigger change with the iPhone. I think what's going to make the iPhone 5 a success is Apple's loyal fanbase. They're willing to buy any Apple product and they're always thinking about the next upgrade.
One Union Tribune article was about California's enterprise zone program, which helps keep companies in California. If I understand it correctly, the program makes it cheaper to run a business in California, where one of the biggest problems is high rent costs. As a result, some companies have ended up moving to neighboring states like Arizona. If it means keeping jobs in California, even if they don't pay that much, I think this program is a good thing.
Philosophy:
I read about Seymour Papert's idea of bringing IT into the classroom (on Wikipedia). Constructionist learning involves students drawing their own conclusions to problems through experimentation so Papert believes that students shouldn't simply be talked at because they won't learn that way. He used the Logo language to teach students math. He didn't write up a bunch of problems on the board and then tell them how to solve them. This was a much more hands-on approach to learning. This method of teaching has now made it's way to Applied linguistics, specifically in second language acquisition. It's also been the basis for popular games like SimCity.
- Do unit 4 of Debugging
- This unit was about working backwards to find errors in code. Essentially, you should be trying to channel Sherlock Holmes. If you find that there is a bug in your code, all you know at this point is that the bug is there. Then, you have to work backwards to figure out exactly which parts of the code led to the bug. This is why simple coding is essential. If you had too many lines of code to go through, you would miss a lot of the errors and would probably make more than you had to. By simplifying the code, you eliminate at least a few errors, and make tracing the bug's origin much simpler. Now, this may or may not completely fix the code, depending on how many other bugs there are but at least one specific part of it is fixed.
- Do unit 4 of Differential Equations:
- I started this unit but I haven't gotten very far. It's about logistic growth and how that applies to raising and harvesting fish so you get the best results and therefore the most money.
- Look up particle filters:
- Everything I read told me exactly what particle filters do, but none of them told me what particle filters are or what they're used for. I know one of their uses is to test interference so once the robot is actually up and running, interference won't cause it to crash into anything.
- Call Damarcus about housing situation
- Housing situation is fixed (still waiting for money to be taken out of my account)
- Find out who to call to ask about health insurance
- Need to do
- Check financial aid and see what I need to do
- Need to fill out a few forms before I can see it
- Log-in page for app
- Need to finish
- Check out Boston Dynamics internship programs
- I looked a several different websites but I can't seem to find anything about internship or co-op programs. All they have listed on their official site are actual jobs.
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