power point and other woes

This week I worked hard on Excel and Power Point to make a presentation for my Biology class; it was a group project although I did most of the work on the actual presentation. Power Point is an amazing program with beautiful image editing software; the ability to make a great presentation is right there at your fingertips.

Excel also has great data processing ability; the raw data I entered got crunched down into graphs. Although this is where I ran into my problem. I had a really hard time getting my second axis (the z axis) and after lots of trial and error I figured it out. It was a painful learning process to get my data to become the graph I needed it to be.

This group project showed me a lot about myself and how I work with others; I took control of the group and worked with those who were willing to apply themselves but being a perfectionist the project had to be perfect in my eyes (with or without the help of my group). In the end the power point presentation is beautiful, with my computer science degree I am very much interested in making multimedia so this project was perfect for me.

Logic in Java

log·ic

ˈläjik/

noun

noun: logic

1. 1.

   reasoning conducted or assessed according to strict principles of validity.

   
   

   "experience is a better guide to this than deductive logic"

   
   

   synonyms:

   reasoning, line of reasoning, rationale, argument, argumentation "the logic of their argument"

   • a particular system or codification of the principles of proof and inference.

     
     

     "Aristotelian logic"
   • the systematic use of symbolic and mathematical techniques to determine the forms of valid deductive argument.

     plural noun: logics
   • the quality of being justifiable by reason.

     
     

     "there's no logic in telling her not to hit people when that's what you're doing"

     
     

     synonyms:

     reason, judgment, logical thought, rationality, wisdom, sense, good sense, common sense, sanity; informalhorse sense "this case appears to defy all logic"

   • the course of action or line of reasoning suggested or made necessary by.

     
     

     "if the logic of capital is allowed to determine events"
2. 2.

   a system or set of principles underlying the arrangements of elements in a computer or electronic device so as to perform a specified task.

Logic. Something that is occasionally lost to the entire world, or so it would seem.

when programming in Java sometimes we need to compare two values, this brings logic into the equation. We have to deal with logical and's, or's, not's and exclusive or's; these might sound a little complicated but with a nice cheat sheet reference guide you too can master the art of logic in programming. You will find yourself using this logic a lot in programming.

Logical && (AND)

True && True = TRUE

True && False = FALSE

False && True = FALSE

False && False = FALSE

Logical || (OR)

True || True = TRUE

True || False = TRUE

False || True = TRUE

False and False = FALSE

Logical ! (NOT)

! True = FALSE

! False = TRUE

Exclusive ^ (OR)

True ^ True = FALSE

True ^ False = TRUE

False ^ True = TRUE

False ^ False = FALSE

Binary and beyond

Binary. There are 0010 kinds of people in the world... Wait, that's a lot funnier when you think it means 10 instead of meaning 2, and I forgot the rest of the joke. Something something people that understand binary and people who do not.

Coding is the future, computers and the code to run them is everywhere from agriculture to entertainment and  in space. Not a day goes by that we are not involved in code of some sort, unless we are completely off the grid. So unless you are living under a rock I suggest learning some code!

Cyberpunk 2020

We need to get our tech game on point to catch up with the sci-fi genre! In 2020 we are supposed to be further along and more film noir with lots of neon! 

Way more noir!!

With a fantastic neo-retro soundtrack!!

Binary/Hexadecimal conversions and other fun!

This week was a fun week of classes and gym time; even with my left foot being injured and not being able to run I was asked to join the track and field team to throw shot put and javelin, thank you upper body strength. I'm back to hammer curling 70+ pounds so I'm happy, it is a good semester. 

But the real fun comes in my computer classes, that's actually why I'm in college, not to use the weight room; I'm not only a meat head, I'm a code monkey too!

We have been learning about binary.

Binary is a series of 1s and 0s, each bit represents an electrical on and off, eight bits combine to make a byte; all of this data is used to communicate ideas in the form of code. Binary strings can go on for what seems like forever, so to simplify things for coders (and tech support when a computer blue screens) hexadecimal is used to simplify long strings of binary into smaller chunks of code. The translation is not too bad to learn, it's not like it's the davinci code or anything!

Okay, that chart might look a little overwhelming, but it's not bad. I promise the conversion is not bad.

See? That code rubric is a little easier to wrap your mind around. It's actually pretty fun! This is the groundwork for all code and how computers really work!

 

Mathematical!!

Got a sweet new graphing calculator so I can do all the math I need for my degree! Had some amazing features so I had to get it (good for everything I need within computer science and if I take physics too!).

Java on my fridge.

I'm learning Java! Wednesday night in class I wrote this Java program to calculate the area of a circle based on the radius. This seems very overwhelming, but it is not really that it really is like learning a new language.

I learned that capital letters and lowercase letters are recognized differently because in binary they are completely different. Having a bit of binary knowledge personally it makes sense that the letters would be regarded differently in programming. 

(Oh and by "bit" I didn't mean like a byte.)

I was actually so proud of myself for learning Java that I printed this off and hung it up on my fridge. 😉

All the "Good" .blogspot names were taken.

Reading the URL to my blog you are probably saying to yourself "self, why on earth would anyone say 'Sloths are cooler than cats' and why would they use that as their blogspot url?", well the answer is simple everything else i tried to put in for a URL was taken. I am not afraid to admit, I think sloths are cooler than cats.  Since I was assigned to write a blog for class I have learned every single witty URL that might at all be relevant to the subject matter of this blog was taken I went a completely different way with things. Next, you are probably wondering who I am.

My name is Tom, I'm a computer science major at Finger Lakes Community College.

Within this blog you will find all sorts of things I am learning about or I am interested in learning about such as java programming, IT stuff, and I will probably link to some computer security articles. My dad is a project manager at Cornell, he has been working with computers for most of my life; when i was a little guy i went to his computer classes where i learned to read playing on an old Apple IIe. I have been a gamer since then; it all started with a little game named Rogue. When I was in high school I worked at Cornell, where I did computer networking work for CIT; I would love to go back into that line of work which is why I am going back to school for another degree in a more specialized field.

My love of fantasy RPG games has gone on my entire life, i built my last computer entirely to play World of Warcraft.