It's Been A While!?

Ok, so I haven't written on this blog for like FOREVER! I have been writing on another one of my other blogs periodically, however, if you want to read that (if you hadn't already discovered it). It's called "Imagine a Day When..." and basically discusses recent advances in scientific research and/or interesting philosophical views and their implications. [http://imagineadaywhen.wordpress.com/]

So, I need to get back to my homework, but I will quickly summarize all the juicy highlights of my life in the past month or so. I have been going to the U of U, pursuing a Geophysics and Computer Science double major. Currently I am taking gen chem, intro to geology, calculus II and intro to physics. It is rather amazing how "intro" and "gen" classes can sound so easy, but are not! :)

In other news, I publicly declared my gayness over the internet...that was interesting. Everyone was pretty supportive, but time will tell all I guess. I am suppose to go out with this Tayne guy this weekend, so that should be fun. My love life has been about as exciting as solving first order linear differential calculus equations. Well, actually it was pretty much non-existent. But now it sucks because I vaguely have to care what I look like. It was nice just being fugly 24/7 without giving a @)#*$!, but now I feel obligated to be at least semi-beautiful. It's actually kind of fun, but definitely more work and less play, in my mind. I have met a lot of cool people recently and I hope we become good friends. However, I am always a bit unsure whether I am being stalkerish or not simply because I always feel like people ignore me half the time, so I try to get their attention and they just ignore me still so I usually just back down. But is that because they are too busy or is everyone just being a byotch to me? It's like you have to nag people to hang out with you. Why can't it be: "hey, you want to hang out?
 Ya, sure...when?
[this time and place]
Ok, see you then!"
Then you hang out or whatever, everyone has fun and everything is good.
But NO! You have to text them after you have been waiting for an hour because they forgot or they unexpectedly have something else come up. I am not a booty call...Ok, so if you're always a booty call, then you have two choices: be a "booty call" or friendless...and I am not a booty call...Well, there you have it.

Ok, that is enough ranting for now. See you later! (or maybe not?)

Sucker Punch: Review

I was amazed to find that critics were so harsh to this film. Something like only 20% of critics gave this film a positive rating, so I thought I would give my spiel in defense of this movie.

Pro's:

Music: I instantly fell in love with the music. It features Sweet Dreams (Are made of this) by Emily Browning and Annie Lennox at the very beginning of the film. This song is so powerful and intriguing, I have listened to it many times, after seeing the show. Another great song was White Rabbit by Emiliana Torrini (she also sings Gollum's Song in LOTR, which a fave of mine also). My sister has listened to this song over and over so I am a bit sick of it, but still enjoy it occasionally. I just feel like if you don't have a feel for the music at the beginning of the movie, then you probably will not enjoy the movie because it really sets the tone.

Story: *Spoilers* This film reminds me a lot of Inception, which surprisingly did much better than this film did. I personally think I would rate them both just about the same. My ultimate favorite would definitely have to be the Matrix Trilogy (for this genre anyhow). The main character, Babydoll, is essentially put into a mental institute by her stepfather. In order to cope she imagines she is a dancer for some rich chauvinist pig. It is kind of a dream within a dream thing, as she imagines she travels to a far off land, fighting orcs, dragons, cybertrons and black soldiers. I really connected with this part because I secretly enjoy slaying invisible orcs and such when I am bored. Anyhow, they must get 5 things to escape and it shows them getting these items and two different parallel realities, neither of which is really reality. It is all rather confusing, but great at the end when everything comes together and you understand.

Action Scenes: Ok, so a group of sexy miniskirt clad girls, equipped with pistols and shotguns, jumping around blasting evil fiends and demons is just awesome! It did become kind of repetitive at times, but still pretty enjoyable. I would have to say I have similar feelings about this movie as with Inception.

Con's:

I will admit that this movie is frustrating at times and very confusing. Sometimes it does seem to drag on...This movie is not necessarily for pure entertainment, if you will. A lot is about the ideas and subtleties hidden in the background. Entertainment wise, I would give this movie a 7/10. It really could have done better. Everything else was superb. Basically, you are either going to understand the movie and be able to appreciate it or you will probably just hate it....This movie is awfully like a Salvador Dali painting. It is so very surreal...while you might not necessarily enjoy it, you love it because of the artistic value and utter absurdity of it all! :)

PSN IS DOWN!!!

Ok, so right now I can't satisfy my SOCOM addiction because the playstation network is totally botched! Apparently some hackers penetrated sony's server security and must have done some pretty nasty shiz to keep PSN closed down for almost 4 days now. There is a whole bunch of crap about a hacker group called Anonymous. They are being portrayed as net neutrality saviors, but whoever these hackers are, they are definitely not nice. They are malicious, out to cause destruction and probably gain money. With all the recent server meltdowns, it has me quite worried. If it is this prevalent, then I have to wonder if competitors of companies are secretly hiring hackers to infiltrate and wreak havoc? I suspect the reason sony is not opening the PSN is because the hackers corrupted many files. Files which contained data that denoted account balances and funds. They are scrambling like mad trying to figure out what to do. They must either somehow recover the corrupted data, which seems improbable or find those who are responsible and push the load on them. I am all for net neutrality and can't say that I haven't secretly wished I was personally part of some elite hacker group. Nevertheless, I would never ruthlessly cripple an entire company like that! To me, that is just fundamentally wrong. Sure, I bet it is hilarious to think of all the addicts rocking back and forth, going mad, cussing incessantly at evil nerds for ruining their seemingly brainless activities. Also the Sony guys scrambling to get back up on their feet. It seriously lacks presentation. I thought, today's date didn't even rhyme like "remember, remember the 5th of November." Then I realized it was 4/20 when all this began, so they (whoever they is) did at least pick a significant date. However, I liken it to more like 9/11 than the 5th of November. Nothing valiant, just utter selfishness and destruction. Maybe if Sony had some deep dark secret, I would hack their servers to get proof then release it, but only for the benefit of the public. So who's going to stop these alleged hackers anyhow? Perhaps it's about time to start fighting fire with fire. A great alliance of loyal and valiant hackers, with a mission to stop evil ones from destroying the internet out of greed and selfishness. For the multibillion dollar companies are clearly too incompetent to protect themselves (unless of course my theory is correct and they are secretly waging cyberwar against one another). Then perhaps they should rightfully burn to the ground. If they can't provide a reliable service then they don't deserve to live. Let someone more visionary take control. Someone more competent. Someone who can actually provide a reliable service. May god help us all...

College = High School (except with money)

I think with every passing day I begin to hate college more...I guess it is college directly that is to blame for my hatred, but all the things you have to endure to get through college, which mostly includes working a part-time job to pay for in the first place and driving/travelling roughly 3hrs every day to get to and from college/university. College is basically like my high school experience except for it costs money. If it didn't I wouldn't have to work and could probably just live on campus. If this were the case, then maybe it wouldn't be so bad. I wouldn't have to constantly recheck my schedule to make sure I meet the numerous deadlines.

I used to think that I wanted to get a PhD or something, but that seems to be rapidly changing. Every day I wonder why I am doing this. I know that I love computers, learning and want to start my own trivia some day (emphasis on "some day", seeing as I have still not made much progress...). I also know that in order to make a decent living you need a bachelor's degree in something. I don't think I have ever given up on something that is major as this and I don't plan on doing so. However, now it has come down to one simple question How do I get this over as quickly as possible so that I can start making some money and get some real job experience? Maybe when I can afford graduate school I will go back (especially if my employer will pay me to do it)? I am just too exhausted. I just want to be able to go home and not worry about anything but getting to work on time. If I can afford a nice computer and lots of delicious food, then I think I will be content. Anyhow, I really should stop ranting and do my homework before I fail discrete math and algorithms and data structures!

Java- So evil, yet so sublime...?

So, I have a ton of homework to do, as usual. I am doing fine in writing and calculus, but am practically failing my Data Structures and Algorithms Java class and have like a 'C' in Discrete Math. Anyhow, instead of doing that homework, yet again as usual, I spent my time programming useless things for my own personal uses and reasons. My latest? A Java GUI that will close your music player for you after a specified amount of time (in minutes). I was just so proud of it that I thought I would post the source code (works with Rhythmbox in Ubuntu, but easily alterable to any OS):


package rhythmBox;

import java.awt.Container;
import java.awt.FlowLayout;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit;

import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.JTextField;

public class closeRhythmBox extends JFrame implements ActionListener {

private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;

private static final int WIDTH = 400;
private static final int HEIGHT = 300;

private JTextField minutesBox;

public static void main(String[] args) {
new closeRhythmBox().setVisible(true);
}

public static void execKill(long minutes) throws InterruptedException {
Thread.sleep(minutes*60*1000);
try{
Runtime.getRuntime().exec("pkill rhythmbox");
System.exit(0);
}
catch (IOException ioe) {
         ioe.printStackTrace();
       }
}
public closeRhythmBox(){
setTitle("Rythmbox Timer");
setSize(WIDTH, HEIGHT);
setVisible(true);
setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);

Container pane = getContentPane();
pane.setLayout(new FlowLayout());

JPanel box = new JPanel();
box.setLayout(new FlowLayout());
JButton startButton = new JButton("Start");
startButton.addActionListener(this);
box.add(startButton);
box.add(new JLabel("Minutes Until Close"));
box.add(minutesBox = new JTextField(20));

pane.add(box);
pack();

}

public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
String textNum = minutesBox.getText();
long minuteNum = Long.parseLong(textNum);
if (e.getActionCommand().equals("Start")){
try {
execKill(minuteNum);
} catch (InterruptedException e1) {
e1.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
}

PaRaDoX!? -When Reality Becomes Stranger Than Fiction

Image via Wikipedia

Paradox can mean many things, such as in my discrete math class, where it defines a particular logical statement to be impossible. A paradox can also describe something that is counter-intuitive (you would think the opposite of the actuality). Today at work I listened to RadioLab (a cool NPR/WNYC podcast I recently found) titled "Numbers." While it wasn't quite as good as "Lost & Found", it is definitely up there...along with basically every other episode (http://www.radiolab.org/2009/nov/30/).
They were talking about something called Benford's law. Basically, if you find anything numerical, then the first number is most likely to be 1 (30% chance, aprox.- according to the chart above...calculated by averaging first digit from many sources). It was amazing to see how this serendipitous discovery led to so many applications, going as far as use as evidence in criminal court cases. Investigators can look at someone's bank account balance and if it doesn't follow Benford's law, then they may be committing fraud. It seems so, what's the word...oh, ya..."counter-intuitive"? Nevertheless, it seems to hold true (listen to podcast to learn more).

Image via Wikipedia

This got me thinking about another paradox I ran into a while back called the Monty Hall Paradox. For just a second, imagine you are on a gameshow and the host shows you 3 different doors. Behind one door is a goat, another has a Porsche an the other contains nothing. The host then asks you to pick a door (in hopes of getting the Porsche, of course), so you randomly pick a door, say #3. The host then tells you that there definitely nothing behind #2 and proves it to you by opening it. Lastly, he asks you if you would like to switch or open the other door. Which should you do? Does it even make a difference? Answer...?

You should always switch because when you originally picked the 1st door you only had a 33% chance of picking the Porsche and now between the two doors that are left, there is a 50% chance. I found this interesting, but didn't quite understand (and you are probably still scratching your head too I suppose? ^_^). This is why I decided to put my Java programming skills to use to write a program to test this out. When writing I realized there were several possibilities (going under assumption that you always switch):
1) I originally picked the ONE door with the Porsche  and when I switch I will get crap.
2) I picked one of the other TWO booby prize doors and when I switch I will get the Porsche.
Ok, point proven...but if you are still unsatisfied you can try it yourself or run my java source code:


import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Collections;
import java.util.Random;

/**
 *
 * @author JT Newsome
 * Demonstrates the Monty Hall Paradox and theory of probability.
 *
 */
public class MontyHallTester {
public static int forMonty = 0;
public static int againstMonty = 0;
public static int min = 0;
public static int max = 2;
public static int timesToLoop = 1000000;

public static void main(String[] args) {
for(int i = 0; i < timesToLoop; i++){
montyTest();
}
System.out.println("forMonty: "+forMonty);
System.out.println("againstMonty: "+againstMonty);
System.out.println("Ratio: "+ (forMonty/againstMonty));
}

public static void montyTest(){
ArrayList boxes = new ArrayList();
boxes.add(0);
boxes.add(1);
boxes.add(2);
Collections.shuffle(boxes);
Random rand = new Random();
int randomNum1 = rand.nextInt(max - min + 1) + min;
if (boxes.get(randomNum1) == 2){
againstMonty++;
}
else forMonty++;
}

}

Ok, well that was fun! Happy days until we meet again!

Added Last FM to blogger so you can stalk me even more!

Instead of doing my homework I have wasted my life away by trying to make it so my music player would sync with lastfm, which would then send the information to my blog. Now you can know when and what I listen to 24/7! I still haven't got it to work 100% however. There are a ton of songs that it does not recognize and therefore does not display what I have been listening to, which is a real shame because now you can't see all my obscure techno. Maybe I will try and fix that this weekend. For some reason I have had absolutely no motivation towards school. Hopefully I will find the inspiration soon. Well, I guess I have had a lot of fun doing my calculus and actually got ahead by several weeks, but everything else has just been dread and depressing. Anyhow, I had better go. Farewell (to the whole 2 people who look at this).

Oh, and thanks so much to this person: http://chapmanit.blogspot.com/2010/01/last-fm-widget-found.html.