Daily Stuff--9/17/2012

Languages--Chinese:

I watched episode 60 of Travel in Chinese. This was another review of scenarios like exploring Beihai park and making dumplings.

Articles:

There was an interesting article and video in Forbes about a company called UniShared. It was created by a French university student who believes that the problem with education is mainly in the classroom. He felt that the classroom was too isolating. It's possible to ask the professor questions but not interact with peers. UniShared allows students to write collaborative notes on a class and share them to help other people learn. Together, they come up with their own conclusions and write lecture material in their own words. This is how the university system will hopefully be changed if a big enough student revolution ensues.

There was another interesting article on thedailybeast.com about college education and whether or not it's a worthy investment. Unfortunately, the answer now seems to be no. Year ago, working your way through college wasn't that big of a deal since tuition was so much lower. But now that tuition has hiked up so much, the thought of working to pay your way through college is a lot harder to fathom. Also, it doesn't help that a small amount of college graduates are actually employable at the end of those four years. It is possible to get a good job and make enough money to pay off student loans after college but those jobs are in science and technology, which is unfortunate for English majors and others with similar degrees.

Philosophy:

I read about the key elements of metaphysics. The biggest one is that reality is absolute. Metaphysics aims to understand reality correctly and that is done by observing the physical world. Everything has certain properties and a specific nature and when two or more entities interact, they interact according to whatever their specific nature is. Also, there is a cause and effect for every action, big or small. Sometimes the effects can be huge but most of the time, they don't affect things too much and same goes for the causes.

Internships:

I looked at an internship with a company called FrontPageLocal. The job involves website design and development and basic IT tasks. The requirements are being able to do website duplication from templates or themes.

To-Do (9/16/2012):

• Get financial aid issue taken care of
• Done. Found out what needs to be done in the absence of the needed paperwork. Will get the paperwork turned in ASAP
• Read papers on particle filtering
• Read article on analyzing music
• I read about the different types of instruments and specifically the electric and acoustic guitars and what makes them different. Both have strings, usually six, that vibrate when plucked or strummed. Electric guitars are usually thinner and are always made out of wire. Acoustic guitar strings are thicker and can be metal or nylon. What makes the guitars sound different is the way that sound is amplified for each. Acoustic guitars rely on their hollow body to amplify the sound which is why the bodies are usually that hourglass shape. Electric guitar bodies are quite often solid pieces of wood that can be any shape since they aren't amplified like an acoustic guitar is. Electric guitars use electromagnetic pickups to amplify sound. A pickup is a permanent magnet wrapped in wire and when the strings are plucked, they vibrate in the pickup's magnetic field. There are several different types of pickups and each one gives the guitar a slightly different sound.