sheth
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Posts: 21
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Post by sheth on Oct 21, 2008 0:19:13 GMT -5
Though at least some people probably will, I wouldn't be surprised if not very many people remembered me. So uh, I'm back. o.o
-And in new personal news, I'm in college now. Computer Engineering. Yup. First quarter has been great so far. =0
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Post by Nixie on Oct 21, 2008 0:55:17 GMT -5
Hey, stranger! I remember you. And I remember you didn't stop in to say hello for your birthday.
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Post by Tenjen on Oct 21, 2008 1:02:08 GMT -5
Ofcourse we remember you :3
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Post by Kristal Rose on Oct 21, 2008 2:59:33 GMT -5
Yep. Not too many of us around here to recall or forget you though these days. I'm a softwae engineer most recently working in microchip synthesizers. What exactly are you studying?
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sheth
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Post by sheth on Oct 21, 2008 9:13:11 GMT -5
-Good question. |D It's not that specific in freshman year, I'm just in the "computer engineering" department.
-Actually, my birthday week was a little intense, I don't remember if I even checked my email that day. That week was humans vs. zombies week on campus, and most of my energy was spent being sneaky across campus. By the end of tuesday, I think there was 300 out of almost 500 players that were zombies. But they overhunted monday, and since they need BRAINS every two days, the number started dropping after monday. But so did the number of humans... In the end, I didn't make it to the 'extraction point' on friday, instead going out in a blaze of dramatic glory taking down about 10 people solo in a parking lot. Anti-flanking FTW.
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Post by Nixie on Oct 21, 2008 15:12:56 GMT -5
.......... What. Humans versus zombies week?!
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Post by ongaru on Oct 21, 2008 16:03:47 GMT -5
"Sir, there's a strange user here..."
Welcome back!
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sheth
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Post by sheth on Oct 21, 2008 16:57:01 GMT -5
-Thanks. -Yea, Humans Vs. Zombies week. A total of 500 people across RIT campus participated. Four people start as zombies, drawn randomly (from a lot of people who signed up saying they wanted to be in the drawing for OZ,) and then, for each person tagged, there was, obviously, one more zombie. No play in buildings. But, play is on 24/7. So you learn to be an indoor rat for a week, if you survive. Humans can fight back with socks, and, after we completed monday night's mission, nerf guns. If you hit a zombie with a nerf gun, they're out for 30 minutes. Zombies have to wear an orange headband, humans, an orange armband. (For identification.) ...Yea, it was pretty awesome. xD There was bounties, cell-phone co-ordination networks, and much much moar. BUT. MY GOD IT MADE YOU REALLY REALLY PARANOID. -I just realized, the kiwi smilies aren't here. I forget if they were gone when I left, but I miss the little fellas. D=
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Post by Nixie on Oct 21, 2008 17:33:30 GMT -5
=P Eeeeeh. I guess I could bring em back, but it would take a while. Each forum skin has its own set of images, including the smileys, so I have to manually put in the URL of each smiley once for every skin...
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sheth
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Posts: 21
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Post by sheth on Oct 21, 2008 17:45:15 GMT -5
Don't feel obliged to, they were just completely hilarious. XD
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Post by Kristal Rose on Oct 21, 2008 20:15:00 GMT -5
They did set quite a mood, those kiwi smileys.
So, you were learning viral programming and system process flow sustainability. Good work.
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sheth
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Post by sheth on Oct 21, 2008 22:43:20 GMT -5
Right now I think the only two courses that are major-specific are computer science (Java) and a freshman seminar for computer engineering that's pretty much... a joke, really.
-The later stuff is more engineering-ish, but we start hitting those mostly next year, it seems.
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Post by Kristal Rose on Oct 22, 2008 6:04:22 GMT -5
I hope Java isn't your first computer language. Listeners, multi-threading, remote procedure calls, and everything based on layers of subclassing, you'll be lucky just to address all the concepts involved in that language. I wrote a basic Tarot Card reading application in that language a decade ago. It had a graphics flow system which was as much of a pain as html in relative divs.
Engineering? Hopefully electronics engineering. That's sorely lacking in our CS dept. Physics in general would be useful. Today they're using optic interference to solve fourier transformations (audio waveform analysis). Were always getting closer to the day of nanotchnology when we skip computer chips and directly program molecular matter (any matter), so chemistry and biology are becoming more important too.
The reason I'm fond of it is the same reason I like art or writing, that it's an accessable ground for quickly implementing complete conceptual systems. One can take anything from phonograh records, fractalling galxaxies, or ant farms and use it as a model for a software application. I was handed some advice long ago which turned out to be useful. If you really want to understand programmiing, write your own operating system. Use XML as much as possible. It's increasingly becoming a universal standard for all aspects of data and software. I created a prototype for an xml based incremental client/server application delivery system and pioneered storing xml in an SQL database.
What are you hoping to do eventually?
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sheth
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Post by sheth on Oct 22, 2008 14:38:46 GMT -5
Hoping to do eventually? Get a job. =3
I dunno, I'm not so picky, I'll see what I have open and scurry a way through, learning about stuff as I go. But no, I've learned C++ before too. Java, actually, I don't really like as much. It's got some advantages, but still, it's kinda... nyeh. As for projects like writing an OS, well, I haven't had time/knowledge to do something so complex as of now, though I'm sure the big projects will come in next two quarters. ^_^;
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Post by Kristal Rose on Oct 22, 2008 22:25:05 GMT -5
Writing an interpreter is much the same thing. One of my first educational projects (besides al the database and GUI projects) was writing my own editor with substitutions, macros, and such.
Being handy with structures like xml, rule-bases, object-embedding and such is the key to composing full applications and reducing code complexity. For every application there are infinite structure solutions but only one best one.
So you don't really care if you are writing GUIs for fertilizer routines or analysis algs for space radio signals?
As far as the career goes, in the form of employment, most everyone has all the computing they need already, and jobs only open when new technology makes new capabilities possible, like blog feed integration or paying parking meters with cell phones. On your own, as an entrepreneur, you can run into what just hit me, two companies releasing your product (a digital theremin) ahead of you. In other words you will always have to spend your weekends learning the latest stuff to stay employed, so you better love programming. Unless you design complete applications and negotiate design with upper management, it does'nt pay all that much anymore either, since even the defense industry outsources to asia these days.
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