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Seems that there is now a vote on which career the new barbie will have. There are 5 current options
- Environmentalist
- Surgeon
- Architect
- News Anchor
- Computer Engineer!!!!!!
So, go to Barbie.com/vote and vote for the computer engineer barbie!
(I saw this on insideHPC.com and had to post about it)
I must admit that I haven’t been posting much lately. Seems you “should” only post about work when you say something good. So, I won’t be posting about work.
Not much has been happening life wise. Just the same ole thing. Roberta is still feeling unwell, but no new news.
So, all in all. Not a lot to update, at least right now.
In Fairbanks Alaska there is now an Ice Sculpture of prior vice-president Al Gore. In a tongue and cheek dig at his almost religious like preachings of Global Warming there is now a 2 ton ice sculpture including hot air coming from his mouth. (Compliments of a Ford F-350 truck).
Here is a link to the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner article. Also check out the contest at the sculpture owners website. Go and make your guess in the Frozen Gore contest.
Frozen Gore “Local Warming Contest”
Guess the number of days that our ’96 Ford F-350 (460ci) would have to run (at idle) to equal the carbon output of a round-trip flight from Tennessee to Copenhagen on a Lear jet.
The winner will receive a warm Ski-doo jacket, long underwear, thermal socks and an Al Gore bobblehead doll.
(PS> For the Frozen Gore “hot air” sculpture this year, we don’t run the Ford F-350 all the time! Every once in a while we will start the truck up and let it run for a bit and then Frozen Gore comes to life, “breathing” hot air!)
A nice excerpt from the article I found particularly interesting. Bolding was done by me to point out reality vs alarmism.
Climate change scientists say Alaska has warmed by 3 degrees Fahrenheit during the past 50 years.
The average temperature for 2009 was 27.8 degrees in Fairbanks, about one degree warmer than normal, said Rick Thoman, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
Last winter, however, was unusually cold in Fairbanks. Temperatures in the winter months of 2008-09 were about 4 degrees below normal, according to National Weather Service figures.
I’ve decided to take the MIT OpenCourseWare class 6-00 Introduction to Computer Science and Programming. I know, I know, it’s an intro class, but it looks like fun. That and I’ve never programmed in python before, which is the language taught in this course. So, I’m going to learn Python for fun. It’s amazing how quickly the language can be picked up. Here is my first real attempt at writing in the language. Other than a couple of test “hello world” type things to get a better grip on the syntax.
So, the first real problem given out is to write a program to find the 1000th prime number. So, here is my first go round. It’s not very elegant, or algorithmically pretty, but it brute forces the correct answer out to at least 10,000 prime numbers. I checked.
# Write a program that computes and prints the 1000th prime number
# initialize some variables
# generate odd integers
# check to see if it’s a prime number
# use a%b to get remainder and see if it equals zero
# Note, we count 1 as a prime instead of 2 just to make this easier to code.
# 2 is an even number and messing with the logic. It’s a cheat, I know.
count = 1
candidate = 1
while count <= 1000: # iterate until 1000 primes found
myresult = ‘prime’ # turn on prime found flag
half = candidate / 2 # set the half way point
iterator = 3 # start dividing with 3
while iterator <= half :
if candidate % iterator == 0 : # do we have a divider?
myresult = ‘notprime’ # turn off prime found flag
iterator = half + 1 # Stop counting we found a divider
iterator = iterator + 2
if myresult == ‘prime’ :
count = count + 1 # found a prime, iterate the counter
candidate = candidate + 2 # set candidate to next odd number
# Print out 1,000th Prime Number
print ‘The’,count – 1,’th prime is ‘, candidate – 2
And in case you are wondering the answer is
The 1000th prime is 7919
One of the things that has been a major bone of contention between my father and I has been the fact that I have never completed my education. He’s a fan of the classical education and I’ve always been something of a “screw that, I’ve better things to do” kind of person. Which, has been both good and bad. It’s bad in that I’ve never gotten my degree. It’s good in that by sheer force of will I’ve succeeded in a lot of what I’ve wanted to do.
Now, I have a family, job, etc. And frankly, wasting my time, and a whole crap load of money, for a bloody piece of paper seems way out of what I want to do. And, yet, at some point I want to put Dr. in front of my name. Just for the fun of it. Odds are it will actually decrease my pay, not increase it.
To make matters worse. I love the MIT opencoarseware program. I’ve been watching lectures on physics, computers, philosophy, and literature. Given by some of the best and brightest in the world. All over my computer. Let alone the lectures from KITP on theoretical physics.
Why should I pay to have some person give me a lecture, locally, on a subject I’m only partially interested in, and can probably teach myself, when I can watch someone who can kick the wholly mental ass out of me, give a lecture on something I’m interested in? Yes, I don’t get a piece of paper, but I find it very interesting and fun.
So, is it better to pay a thousands of dollars a quarter and get a piece of paper locally learning fun things like Java (don’t get me started on what a piece of crap language that is) or get a free, undocumented, education learning algorithms and programming techniques online from eggheads at Carnegie Mellon and MIT?
FYI. I’ve worked on multiple top 50 Supercomputers in the world and No, I don’t even have an Associates degree. It says something for unorthodox education and a driving will to succeed. And yet, I still have this stupid, screwed up need to get the societal acceptance of a piece of paper. Go figure.
What’s 436? It’s the blood sugar I woke up with on New Years Day. I’m also hoping it’s the highest blood sugar of the year. If I had the blood sugar on New Years Eve it would have been the highest of last year.
So, let’s hope it’s the highest for this year coming up. 
FYI. Plan better for the snacks and Pad Thai.
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