Daily Stuff--9/12/2012

Languages--Chinese:

I watched episode 56 of Travel in Chinese. This episode was about Beihai Park and it's history since it's been around for at least 1,000 years.

Articles:

There were a few interesting article in the LA Times about the gap between the rich and poor in America. The gap is at an all-time high, especially in California. The good news is that the poverty level has finally plateaued rather than risen this year but the middle class is suffering now more than the poor. While jobs have been created, they don't pay as well as peoples' old jobs, which means the middle class income is shrinking. This is ultimately what could prevent Obama from being reelected and it makes sense to me because even though jobs have been created, people aren't really seeing the effects of it. Instead, they're stuck only being able to get jobs that pay much less than their previous jobs, which means their entire lifestyle might have to change in order to accommodate the lower income.

Another article was about the new iPhone 5 and why Apple thinks it will be so popular. That has to do with it's consumers. Apple customers are very loyal and are constantly upgrading their devices. The new iPhone is thinner and lighter than it's predecessor and already that seems to be enough for some people to upgrade. Apple is competing against Microsoft, Google, and Amazon to be the "digital hub" in peoples' lives. I don't think they have to worry.

Philosophy:

I read about Seymour Papert's learning theory, constructionism. To put it simply, constructionism is "learning-by-making". Essentially, you learn by constructing theories of how certain principles or problems fit together. Problem based learning is an example of constructionism. Teachers give students multiple problems and students come up with their own conclusions about how the problems are related and how they fit into the overall scheme of things.

Internships:

I looked at an job at Boston Dynamics. The job is Control Systems Engineer and it involves creating simulations of robotic systems for early testing. Requirements include experience in C/C++, dynamic simulation, optimization, and knowledge of multi-body kinematics.

To-do List:

• Finish unit 3 of Artificial Intelligence
•  This unit was about the programming used to create a particle filter. A robot uses the particle filter to navigate it's way through unfamiliar territory. Each particle is a tiny guess to where the robot is so it can maneuver around obstacles and doesn't crash into any walls or doors. This is in the case of the robot being somewhere completely new and it's useful because it means that the robot can be used virtually anywhere without having to reprogram it whenever it's in a new environment. 

• Finish unit 3 of Differential Equations in Action
• This unit was about using math to predict disease outbreaks. Hopefully, once the pattern is predicted, it can be easier to control and less people will get sick. It starts with one sick person who then transfers the disease to several other people and then those people transfer it to other people. 

• Finish unit 3 of Debugging
• This unit was about why it's ideal to make programs as simple as possible. The reason is because it makes debugging a whole lot easier because the bugs are much easier to spot. Good programming doesn't rely on how many lines of code there are, but on how much relevant code there is. If the code isn't relevant, it can be deleted. Simple programming doesn't necessarily rely on how much is there, but if the coding is all relevant.