Alice in Carnegie Mellon

Alice 2.2 is a 3D program that allows you to become familiar with java. It helps teach those who are unfamiliar with programming a little about how it works. It does this in a fun and readily available manner. This way a novice in the realm of programming to learn what programming is all about. Alice 2.2 was created by Carnegie Mellon University, a top notch school for world class programmers. I know they are, one of my friends went there. He wrote all the code for a FIRST robotics robot from Turkey in a matter of hours. Programming things like this take much, much longer. If people like him were to work on this program, it must be good!

V questions

1. Guy Fawkes was the original V. He was the guard of the gunpowder of the original bombing plot. He wanted to assassinate King James I.
2. V would leave a Rose behind as a calling card.
3. V's superpowers are that he can fly, teleport, turn into Robot-Godzilla on cue, and he could run with scissors. However, he exercised none of these powers during the film.
4. No the movement was not non-violent. The wound up blowing up Parliament, and V took out many people in his path.
5. Two other movements are the "Tea Party" movement and the occupy wall street movement.
6. Some forbidden items V has in his house are a jukebox, paintings, and movies.
7. V's favorite movie was "The Count of Monte Cristo".
8. The egg was cooked inside a hole in the bread. It is called an egg in a basket.
9. V is based in a totalitarian government on future England.
10. V's sidekick is Evey Hammond.
11. The relevance of the 5th of November is the anniversary of the failed Gunpowder plot.
12. The best part of the movie was the bombing of Parliament
13. V is relevant in today's society because censorship of certain things is a topic in congress and V deals a lot with the issue of censorship.

V for Vendetta

Basically, this movie shows a message of Government outrageous and goofy. The New government of England is trying to cover up certain events using censorship.. Now why would they want to use censorship?? For power of course. Now if a government uses censorship then things can get out of context. Now a big part of the movie revolves around this censorship and explosions are everywhere and that is kind of weird and masks covering the screen  become the primary form of intimidation and such. Now if this doesn't seem logical and straightforward, then you would be right!

Censorship and What is being passed

Censorship is a problem in the realm of Internet purchasing. Getting stuff for free is great. That is until you are the one that is getting your stuff stolen. Putting it that way makes it seem like you are stealing things, and that because you are. Torrenting is simply stealing copyrighted material. However, showing footage of copyrighted material with high modifications is still alright. The proposed bill S.978, or the Commercial Felony Streaming Act, is a bill which should have major overhaul done on it or it has to be completely thrown out. This would make things like "let's-plays" or video game footage completely illegal, in fact it would become a felony. Youtubers don't want this (they benefit from YouTube), YouTube doesn't want it (There are plenty of "Let's-Players", and the videogame companies don't want it (The footage creates hype for the game)). We should enforce some censorship, but the proposed bills must strictly define what will be covered, or some areas of YouTube or similar places will be shut down.

Savage Soccer

Going to start designing this week on the small VEX robots. Don't have that much time left for building, but they are small and they are simple enough to build. We finally are getting the rest of the kit parts from Northeastern, so we can start building if we wanted. Rules here: http://users.wpi.edu/~savage/

Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is a great alternative for a computing system like ours. Being able to not have a certain application installed on your computer is awesome if you are always connected to the internet. The main drawback is that, well with no internet, come no applications. Also, if you internet is tanking then you will have a hard time doing anything. Especially if it is a heavy app you are trying to run. No internet means you have nothing!
However, our system here is volatile and data gets lost almost constantly. So you need a portable memory device. With cloud, just shove all your files online. That way, you know there it at least some way you can access the data without having 5 flash sticks all colored the same.
As long as you have some basic applications on your computer, you can use cloud computing with minimal trouble.

Cell Phones

Cell phones are great for communication. However, the risk of cheating comes up. Outside the classroom they are a huge value. They enable us to talk, communicate, and get instant information pretty much anywhere (Unless you have AT&T...). But that capability is ambiguous. The same strengths become their most extensive draw backs. Therefore it becomes easy for us to manipulate their capabilities and create an easy environment for cheating. During tests they have no place. They enable us to cheat easily and efficiently. Therefore, a compromise should be made. You can use electronics outside of class but not inside. That way people get their fill of Angry Birds or Lady Gaga without doing it in class.

Facebook+Education=?

facebook does not have much relevance to education. Social networking has no more advantage over things like e-mail or education network sites such as edline or blackboard. However, because blocking facebook is really unrealistic, they should still allow access. And I can say that because I cannot stand facebook. I don't care you that you at 5 pizzas this week...
Students will always find something else to waste their time with. Might as well be with facebook.

Get me a cup o' Sack!

Honor picks me on. Yea, but how if honor pricks me
off when I come on? How then? Can honor set to a leg?
No. Or an arm? No. Or take away from the greif of a
wound? No. What is honor? A word. What is in that word
"honor"? What is that "honor"? Air. A trim reconing.
Who hath it? He that died o' Wednesday.

If anyone gets this reference, then you deserve a capon.