Back In The Grind

Well, the computer situation is still messed up, but I’ve started school.  Time to slog through another semester, I guess.  The first day went well, albeit stressful.  Finding classrooms, getting to know new teachers, etc.

I start off the day with a few hours of Calculus 2, very similar to last semester, where I had Calc 1 at the same time and in the same room and with the same teacher.  Only about half of the class were those I knew from last semester, those that had taken the same class in the fall.  90 problems of Calc homework due by Sunday, yay.  Then there’s English Composition — what fun.  The teacher warned us of a writing assessment beforehand via email, but I completely missed the attached essay we were supposed to write about and ended up listening to the teacher read the essay aloud for all of those who derped like me.  So I spent that period composing an ugly essay about an essay.  And if you don’t know me, I don’t like the other side of Academia — the touchy-feely side, the English and Arts side.  Give me back my Chemistry, please.  Anyways, my last class is Economics, which has the most elaborate classroom of the three.  A smart board, webcams and mics for live broadcasts, speakers for us to hear those who join the live broadcasts, it’s pretty decked out.  And it’s all recorded, so if I ever want to watch a lecture again, I can.  Overwhelming at first, but I’ll get used to it.

So that’s my spring 2013 semester in a nutshell.  Back to the grind of homework and lectures.

Do The Computer Shuffle

Things have been a little hectic around Gecko Labs, as we got a new computer to act as a server.  It’s not set up completely yet.  Basically, what that means is that I can’t access my files or do much of anything.  Right now, I’m working on my computer’s local admin account, which is all weird and default Windows 7.  Add in my parent’s computer getting upgraded to Win7, and stuff gets cray (WOAH IT’S A SLANG WORD!!11!!!1!).  Quick update, I’ll leave you with a cipher to puzzle over.

Tell me how I encoded the phrase “do the computer shuffle” to get to “fp yjr vp,iyrt djigg;e”

Hint Words (highlight): Right.  Board.

The T.W.I.N.K.I.E.S Project

T.W.I.N.K.I.E.S: Tests With Inorganic Noxious Kakes In Extreme Situations.  Or so the website says.  The T.W.I.N.K.I.E.S Project is a website detailing some experiments done with Twinkies, including the Resistivity Test, the Gravitational Response test, and the Turing Test.  Why?  Who knows.  But it is entertaining.

Screengrab from www.twinkiesproject.com

(In the event that the website ever goes down, you can view it here, using the Wayback Machine)

Glo

For Christmas, I got a set of 4 glow-in-the-dark superballs.  They came in 4 colors: the typical green, yellow, blue, and red.

Yes, that picture was taken with my webcam just now, ooh and ahh over my desk.  Anyways, each color, when glowing, has a different strength (luminosity, if you will, but that sounds snooty, and if you know me, I’m not snooty. (Sometimes I can be, but only if I’m being weird. (Like now.)))  Green was the best at glowing, which isn’t all that surprising, considering it’s been the top color of glow in the dark stuff.  Next came yellow, then red, and finally blue.  Blue barely glowed, since it’s a dark color.

Next, I made note of how long they glowed.  Green, again, glowed the longest.  Red glowed the shortest time, and yellow and blue were about the same.

If you think about how glow-in-the-dark stuff works, it’s neat.  Glow-in-the-dark has a chemical that takes in light and stores it as energy, which it releases over time.  It’s kinda like a rechargeable battery.  Put energy from the wall in, use that energy later.  In fact, a lot of things are like that, like the human body.  But I’m not going to talk about that today.

G:\>randommode on
Random mode activating…
…
…
Random mode activated.

SOCKS! A conglomerate of SOCKS! So many SOCKS! SOCKS! A conglomerate of SOCKS! Lots of SHAPES and SIZES and COLORS!

G:\> randommode off
Random mode deactivating…
…
…
Random mode deactivated.

This has been GLO.

δ

9,999

As I write this, the view counter sits nicely at 10,000 views. Huzzah! I don’t have anything more to say. Goodbye now.

Fibonacci Multiplication

This is a quite math-intensive post.  It doesn’t involve mathematics beyond Algebra, but may be a bit confusing if you haven’t worked with the notation before.

The Fibonacci numbers are a series of numbers where the last two numbers in the sequence are added together to generate the next one.

To generate the famous Fibonacci Sequence, start with the “seed numbers” of and .  This creates the sequence etc.  Other sequences of numbers, such as the Lucas numbers, can be produced in this fashion, by starting with different seed numbers.  (For example, the Lucas numbers start off )

I haven’t covered Fibonacci numbers before, but everyone knows about them (at least, I hope so if you’re reading this post.)  So I’m not going to go in depth about the Fibonacci numbers and how they relate to nature and all that.  Instead, I want to ponder a similar idea.

* * *

2012 Recap

2013 is just around the corner (and probably will already be here by the time you read this).  2012 was a good year.  Not for the blog, but at least some neat things happened this year.  Bosons.  Skydiving.  Gangnam Style.  The (fail)pocalypse.  Curiosity.  Olympics.  SOPA.  KONY.  Sandy.  Obama.  To name a few.  As I wait for the New Year, listening to Joy Electric and eating gummy bears, I think back over 2012 and wonder what 2013 will bring.

Goodbye… see you in ’13!