13th Reflection

Last week we began to learn how to use strings in more complex ways inside of JCreator. We learned methods that would find letters in the word, give the length, etc. Applying this in labs and on the worksheet seemed easy enough, but it isn't at all. The logic behind the lab was simple enough, use string methods to give you the first and last letters in any word. Getting the first letter was easy enough, by using the index method you could search for character 0, which would always be the first letter in a word, but finding the last letter was slightly more complicated. Because the length of different words can vary you had to use a method that would work for any word, which in this case would be the length of the word minus one. This would always give you the last letter, but working this into the rest of the code has proven to be difficult. Although I see the logic behind the labs, I still have trouble writing the code, but I hope that with more time it will get easier.

-jag13

Black Jack

This past weekend, one of my friends had a poker themed birthday party. The main attractions were Texas Hold' Em and Black Jack, but there were other card and boardgames available to play. After, losing about 40% of my chips in Texas Hold' Em I headed to the Black Jack table to try and build my stack back up again. There I learned some of the basic strategies at playing Black Jack, and after losing my first few hands began to get a hang of it. Knowing when to "hit" and when to "stay" became crucial as I began to bet more chips. Ultimately I lost, but the experience of playing was extremely entertaining knowing there was no high risk. Every hand could turn out to be a nail-biter, unlike in Hold' Em where that might happen every few hands, and everyone had the chance to win. Every hand ended in excitement and either cheers of excitement or jeers that came with loss, but that's exactly what makes the game so fun.

-jag13

Upset Alert

This year in the National Football League Playoffs there have been numerous upset victories in the early rounds knocking out many Superbowl hopefuls. So far, both number one seeds and all the number three through five seeds have been eliminated. This means two of the remaining four teams or the second seeds and the other half the sixth seeds from each conference. The craziness began in the NFC, when the Seattle Seahawks upset last year's Superbowl Champs, the New Orleans Saints and the sixth seeded Green Bay Packers upset the Philadelphia Eagles and the dynamic Michael Vick. It continued when, in the next round Green Bay beat the top seeded Atlanta Falcons in Atlanta, where the Falcons have lost only twice with Matt Ryan at quarterback. In the AFC, the New York Jets pulled off a last second win over Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts, and then defeated the Superbowl favorite New England Patriots, who last time they played, destroyed the Jets 45-3. With the way the playoffs of been going this year it wouldn't be unlikely for Green Bay and New York to play each other in Dallas for the Superbowl in a game of both sixth seeded teams.

-jag13

12th Reflection

This past week in Jcreator we learned to use math functions and to do basic math in java. For example, one of the labs we had to complete was a calculation to find the speed a car was traveling at in miles per an hour. After having the user enter numbers, we had to assign those values to variables. Those variables and their values were then reassigned to a different variable inside a different method. The reason for that is to make things more organized by running through the actual calculations in a separate method. After assigning everything we had to construct the actual equation, which had to convert minutes into hours as a double, and then after finding the speed, round it to the nearest integer. The final equation looked like this *(math.round)(distance / (hours + (minutes / 60.0)));. Throughout the week the labs became easier and easier as we learned more about the specifics required to make the calculations work. I think it was a good experience the way we had to work through some labs to understand how they worked.

-jag13

Winter

Many people love the winter, but probably for different reasons than me. Most people love winter because of the holidays, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and the New Year, but that is not what I love most. No, what I love most is the weather that come with winter, even in Texas. It isn't particularly the snow that excites me, but the cold in general. I have and always will love the cold. I sleep with my fan on no matter what the weather and I hate wearing pants, especially jeans. I love that I can walk outside in shorts and feel the bite of the cold on my legs and the cool air rush into my lungs and my mother thinks I'm crazy for it. That's why I am totally ready for this week when it's supposed to be in the 30s and 40s. Others may think I'm crazy, but I will continue to wear shorts as long as my mother lets me no matter how cold because to me there is no other feeling that can make me feel so alive and full of energy.

-jag13

11th Reflection

This week in computer science it was the first time we worked in JCreator in over three weeks and I had forgotten some things about the program. However, those specific skills weren't necessary to complete the labs this week. The labs focused on calling on a method that could solve mathematical equations, including finding the sum or average of two or three numbers. The labs required you to create a second method where all the calculations would take place. This worked by assigning a value to a variable in the main method and then assigning that variable with a value to a variable in the second method. For example in the main method you would assign the value 5 to the variable 'num1', and then assign 'num1' to the variable 'one' in the second method. Now that you have variables you're able to use in the second method you had to create another variable that was equivalent to the sum or average (depending on the lab) of the values. After creating and assigning values to the variables you had to print out the equation. This is where things got frustrating. To print out and equation you had to type out the equation and plus signs in between each part to get everything to print the way you wanted it to. For example to print out one + one = sum, you had to type out System.out.println(" one " + " + " + " one " + " = " + " 10 "). If you typed out System.out.println(" one + one = sum") you would get one + one = sum in words, not their actual values. The overall procedure makes sense, but the typing requirements make things more complicated than anything else in the method.

-jag13

Texas Football 2010 (aka "The Blame Game") Revised

            Texas Longhorn football has not been good at all this season and fans are beginning to turn on the team blaming whoever they feel is at fault. As a faithful UT fan I have always supported the team, but I am sick and tired of hearing people complain about the team. I also believe there are several people at fault for the way Texas has been playing, but I do not blurt out what I am thinking every time someone mentions the most recent game we had. The most annoying ones who blame players who don't have control over the things they do like Garrett Gilbert for example.

Gilbert is constantly blamed for interceptions and the play calling, but there are many things wrong with this accusation. First of all, Greg Davis calls the plays, not Gilbert, and secondly, the majority of Gilbert's interceptions have come off of tipped or dropped balls, because his receivers dropped the ball or his lineman didn't cut block like they should have. Now that the season is over and we failed to make it to the post-season it is time for Mack Brown to make staff changes. Following former coach Darrell Royal's old saying, "scratch where it itches", we should be seeing "a four-coach housecleaning". This year the poor play of the team has come from the poor coaching and performance of the offense, particularly the offensive and receivers, and the special teams. Davis will probably not be fired, but instead reassigned to a different position on the staff, but the other coaches may not be as fortunate.

The other three coaches are offensive line coach Mac McWhorter, wide receivers coach Bobby Kennedy and defensive tackles coach Mike Tolleson. They haven’t shown improvement as the season dragged on and they failed to help the players reach their potential. The have effectively wasted the talent of these young players by not doing their job, helping these athletes grow and learn as a player to prepare them for the NFL. As for the other offensive coaches Major Applewhite (running backs) and Bruce Chambers (tight ends), their players also struggled throughout the season, but both coaches are good recruiters who are key parts to the always rich recruiting classes Texas manages to bring in every year. These coaches, although they recruit well, need to also improve their coaching to get the most out of the talented players has, because having a top five recruiting class means nothing if those players aren’t properly coached or prepared for the season.

As a fan I will always have my own opinion like everyone else; however I wish people would try to keep it to themselves, unless it is directly asked what they think or if they are defending the team. Maybe the whole coaching situation will fix and everything and we can get back down to business. After we do that the fans can actually get back to supporting the team like we are supposed to instead of blaming and bashing them.

original link: http://sportsblogs.star-telegram.com/colleges/2010/12/expect-sweeping-changes-when-texas-coach-mack-brown-makes-them.html

-jag13