Yesterday I started the course outlined in Learn Python the Hard Way. I downloaded Python 2.7 and got it working on my dad's computer (my computers aren't working right now). Then I downloaded gedit, which wasn't really necessary, but makes the course easier. These steps are outlined in the first lesson.
The reason I am doing this course is to learn programming. I feel that supplementing my BS in chemistry with some programming know-how is a useful thing, plus programming is kinda cool. I've dabbled in programming before, even took a couple courses on Java, but never got very far with it. Eventually I hope to program Android apps. Sure even though there is a profit motive, I realistically know that making money on that is unlikely. But at least some motivation is better than none at all.
The first three lessons that I completed were mind-boggling boring, but that is because I've been over that material before. So far it is all basic syntax. Hopefully it becomes more interesting the further along I go. At the end of the book, you are supposed to make a text adventure game. That sounds fun combining my interest in programming and writing. If I get that far, I will post a link to it on here.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Spain
When learning about the history of Europe in school, Spain always seemed to be marginalized. Sure we learned a few things such as when the English beat the Spanish Armada and how the Christians threw the Moors out of Spain. And of course we learned about Christopher Columbus and how he got permission from Ferdinand and Isabella to look for a new route to India. And at that time I was pretty satisfied with my knowledge of Spain. The French Revolution and William Wallace always seemed more interesting.
Then in the summer of 2009, I went to Spain for ten weeks for an REU program with seven other American students. We were at the University of Cadiz in southern Spain working in the allelopathy lab. When I was there, I realized that I really didn't know very much about Spain. I guess I never read any books that were based in Spain. Quite a few of the books I've read over the years were based in either Great Britain or France or written by English authors. The Three Musketeers, Victor Hugo, George McDonald, C.S. Lewis to name a few. Here I was in Spain and had very little context to put anything into.
So when I got back from Spain I registered for the History of the Middle Ages, partly because it satisfied a writing requirement for my school, but also because I thought I might learn something useful about Europe and Spain in particular. Well, Spain still seemed to be marginalized, so I wrote my semester paper on the Muslim conquest of Spain in the 700s. Then this fall I took History of the Renaissance and Reformation (again for the writing requirement). Again, the class focused mainly on Italy and Germany, not so much on Spain. So I am now writing a paper on Saint Teresa of Avila and the Catholic Reformation in Spain.
Then in the summer of 2009, I went to Spain for ten weeks for an REU program with seven other American students. We were at the University of Cadiz in southern Spain working in the allelopathy lab. When I was there, I realized that I really didn't know very much about Spain. I guess I never read any books that were based in Spain. Quite a few of the books I've read over the years were based in either Great Britain or France or written by English authors. The Three Musketeers, Victor Hugo, George McDonald, C.S. Lewis to name a few. Here I was in Spain and had very little context to put anything into.
So when I got back from Spain I registered for the History of the Middle Ages, partly because it satisfied a writing requirement for my school, but also because I thought I might learn something useful about Europe and Spain in particular. Well, Spain still seemed to be marginalized, so I wrote my semester paper on the Muslim conquest of Spain in the 700s. Then this fall I took History of the Renaissance and Reformation (again for the writing requirement). Again, the class focused mainly on Italy and Germany, not so much on Spain. So I am now writing a paper on Saint Teresa of Avila and the Catholic Reformation in Spain.
History Paper on Thanksgiving Break
Today I'm writing a history paper. It's three weeks and one day until I plan to graduate with a BS in chemistry, but I am here on Thanksgiving break writing a history paper. This is all because of some writing requirement that my school has. We need to take four courses in any subject that have a writing (W) component to them.
I transferred from HACC, a community college, with about a million gen ed classes. However, none of those gen eds transferred as writing courses. And the chemistry program at Millersville only had two classes with a writing component: Physical Chemistry I and II. Just this year Analytical was approved as a writing course, but since I took it last spring, the writing component was not applied to my transcript even I wrote about 50 pages of lab reports for that class.
So before this fall I had three writing courses: Physical Chem I and II, and History of the Middle Ages. To fulfill my last writing requirement I decided to take History of the Renasisance and Reformation, a logical extension of the other history class. It was a good choice; I enjoy history and am learning what I believe to be useful information. However, I don't like writing, especially this paper that I'm writing on Saint Teresa of Avila.
Despite having written hundreds of pages of papers for school, written sporadically on various websites and blogs since about 2000, and keeping a not so regular personal journal, I don't really enjoy formal writing. It is hard to discipline myself to write. It is hard to research things that I'm marginally interested in. It is hard to write when there are so many other distractions that vie for my attention. I would rather watch episodes of Family Guy on Netflix or surf the web or just sleep.
So I guess that's why I'm writing this blog right now. It's just a way to escape from the more difficult writing that I should be doing.
I transferred from HACC, a community college, with about a million gen ed classes. However, none of those gen eds transferred as writing courses. And the chemistry program at Millersville only had two classes with a writing component: Physical Chemistry I and II. Just this year Analytical was approved as a writing course, but since I took it last spring, the writing component was not applied to my transcript even I wrote about 50 pages of lab reports for that class.
So before this fall I had three writing courses: Physical Chem I and II, and History of the Middle Ages. To fulfill my last writing requirement I decided to take History of the Renasisance and Reformation, a logical extension of the other history class. It was a good choice; I enjoy history and am learning what I believe to be useful information. However, I don't like writing, especially this paper that I'm writing on Saint Teresa of Avila.
Despite having written hundreds of pages of papers for school, written sporadically on various websites and blogs since about 2000, and keeping a not so regular personal journal, I don't really enjoy formal writing. It is hard to discipline myself to write. It is hard to research things that I'm marginally interested in. It is hard to write when there are so many other distractions that vie for my attention. I would rather watch episodes of Family Guy on Netflix or surf the web or just sleep.
So I guess that's why I'm writing this blog right now. It's just a way to escape from the more difficult writing that I should be doing.
Friday, November 19, 2010
The Madness that is North Korea
The other night I got home from life and my roommate Ben was watching a National Geographic episode on Netflix. It was about North Korea. I started watching it about a quarter of the way through the episode and grew increasingly shocked.
Apparently North Korea is more crazy than I thought. I thought that they were just a crazy nation that got a kick out of resisting Western imperialism, but were probably changing with the times. Like China. China is communist and suppresses free speech and trade, but as time goes on they seem to be opening up. Foreigners are allowed to go to China and most of our things are manufactured there. I would hate to be Chinese, but it would be tolerable I suppose.
North Korea is a crazy nation that gets a kick out of resisting Western imperialism. That is most evident at the only access point along the border with South Korea. The North Koreans have three guards dressed up in their uniforms guarding the border; two of them face each other so that one of them can shoot the other one if he decides to defect to South Korea, and the third one faces north to shoot any other North Koreans that might want to cross the border. On the other side, a mere hundred yards away or so, a South Korean soldier stands beside an American soldier.
However North Korea is much more crazy than that. On the show, a team of doctors went to North Korea to perform cataract surgery on the blind people. Apparently basic medical care and nutrition is nearly nonexistent in North Korea. The doctors performed cataract surgery on about 1000 patients some of whom couldn't see for years. When the patients got their bandages removed, the first thing that they did was to walk over to a picture of Kim Jong-il, their leader, and his father and bow down and start worshiping him. I seriously thought it was a church service. When people were interviewed the first thing they would talk about was how great their Dear Leader is. Apparently if people say anything negative about the government, they are taken to prison camps. Very few people return from these camps.
We have some very real problems here in the United States. The Patriot Act, the wars in the Middle East, corrupt politicians, etc. However, I am thankful for the freedoms that we do have. It could be a lot worse. Like North Korea.
Apparently North Korea is more crazy than I thought. I thought that they were just a crazy nation that got a kick out of resisting Western imperialism, but were probably changing with the times. Like China. China is communist and suppresses free speech and trade, but as time goes on they seem to be opening up. Foreigners are allowed to go to China and most of our things are manufactured there. I would hate to be Chinese, but it would be tolerable I suppose.
North Korea is a crazy nation that gets a kick out of resisting Western imperialism. That is most evident at the only access point along the border with South Korea. The North Koreans have three guards dressed up in their uniforms guarding the border; two of them face each other so that one of them can shoot the other one if he decides to defect to South Korea, and the third one faces north to shoot any other North Koreans that might want to cross the border. On the other side, a mere hundred yards away or so, a South Korean soldier stands beside an American soldier.
However North Korea is much more crazy than that. On the show, a team of doctors went to North Korea to perform cataract surgery on the blind people. Apparently basic medical care and nutrition is nearly nonexistent in North Korea. The doctors performed cataract surgery on about 1000 patients some of whom couldn't see for years. When the patients got their bandages removed, the first thing that they did was to walk over to a picture of Kim Jong-il, their leader, and his father and bow down and start worshiping him. I seriously thought it was a church service. When people were interviewed the first thing they would talk about was how great their Dear Leader is. Apparently if people say anything negative about the government, they are taken to prison camps. Very few people return from these camps.
We have some very real problems here in the United States. The Patriot Act, the wars in the Middle East, corrupt politicians, etc. However, I am thankful for the freedoms that we do have. It could be a lot worse. Like North Korea.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Jimmyr.com - A Great Website
Let me tell you about a website that I visit nearly everyday. It is my primary source of news and interesting things on the internet. This website is jimmyr.com. The title of the site is "Technology and Programming News". That is what it primarily consists of, but includes other sections that usually include top national and world news, as well as some really obscure news that you won't find anywhere else.
The site is basically a bunch of links to interesting news. The links are updated automatically through a number of other sites such as Digg and Reddit. Digg and Reddit are websites where users post links to articles, pictures, videos, etc. and then other users upvote or downvote the links based on preference. News items that are of high general interest tend to rise to the top and the boring ones sink to obscurity. Jimmyr.com takes these top stories and puts them in an easily readable format. Clicking on the actual headline of the story redirects you to the site where that story originated. Clicking on the little icon next to the headline takes you to the original aggregator site, whether that is Digg, Reddit, etc and you can see comments on the story from thousands of users.
I prefer websites like this over mainstream media (MSM) websites because there is less advertising and sensationalism. Small news agregators like jimmyr.com draw from a large number of sources around the world and all of the items are there because they are interesting to normal readers like you and I. MSM websites tend to focus on things that advance their agenda rather than what is important to readers. For example, at posting time MSNBC's top article was about the pending US-Russian nuke treaty, while a number of articles on jimmyr.com are about the new draconian TSA regulations. Which affects normal people more? A nuke treaty with a dying superpower, or the latest violation of our rights by the TSA?
The site is basically a bunch of links to interesting news. The links are updated automatically through a number of other sites such as Digg and Reddit. Digg and Reddit are websites where users post links to articles, pictures, videos, etc. and then other users upvote or downvote the links based on preference. News items that are of high general interest tend to rise to the top and the boring ones sink to obscurity. Jimmyr.com takes these top stories and puts them in an easily readable format. Clicking on the actual headline of the story redirects you to the site where that story originated. Clicking on the little icon next to the headline takes you to the original aggregator site, whether that is Digg, Reddit, etc and you can see comments on the story from thousands of users.
I prefer websites like this over mainstream media (MSM) websites because there is less advertising and sensationalism. Small news agregators like jimmyr.com draw from a large number of sources around the world and all of the items are there because they are interesting to normal readers like you and I. MSM websites tend to focus on things that advance their agenda rather than what is important to readers. For example, at posting time MSNBC's top article was about the pending US-Russian nuke treaty, while a number of articles on jimmyr.com are about the new draconian TSA regulations. Which affects normal people more? A nuke treaty with a dying superpower, or the latest violation of our rights by the TSA?
Monday, November 15, 2010
Started New Blog Today
Today is Monday. As such I decided to start a new blog. Not that I don't already have about five at various places around the internet. No this is a new one and if the other ones are any indication, I will blog semi-regularly for some time going through several cycles of regular blogging followed by no blogging. Eventually I will stop and move on to something more interesting.
More on that later. I plan to start learning to program as soon as I graduate which is less than five weeks away. I found an ebook on learning Python. Not that that's something new. I've dabbled in Python before, but never really got anywhere. Hopefully this time will be different. Then I plan to learn to program Android apps.
Those are the things I plan to do in addition to finding a chemistry related job after I graduate in five weeks. Dang, I am so lazy that I did not start looking for a job yet. I'm not worried that I won't find a job. I'm just worried that I'll have to commute to Philly or get stuck in a dead-end lab tech-type of job. Who know? I'm a Christian and believe that God has a way of working things out. So I guess that's a good excuse not to worry too much about it. That's no excuse for laziness though.
Ok that's the end of this post. I will try to post three times a week with at least three paragraphs a post.
More on that later. I plan to start learning to program as soon as I graduate which is less than five weeks away. I found an ebook on learning Python. Not that that's something new. I've dabbled in Python before, but never really got anywhere. Hopefully this time will be different. Then I plan to learn to program Android apps.
Those are the things I plan to do in addition to finding a chemistry related job after I graduate in five weeks. Dang, I am so lazy that I did not start looking for a job yet. I'm not worried that I won't find a job. I'm just worried that I'll have to commute to Philly or get stuck in a dead-end lab tech-type of job. Who know? I'm a Christian and believe that God has a way of working things out. So I guess that's a good excuse not to worry too much about it. That's no excuse for laziness though.
Ok that's the end of this post. I will try to post three times a week with at least three paragraphs a post.
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