Sunday March 17, 2013

Over the past couple of weeks, nothing interesting has really happened. The labs have been very simple and I’m not even sure if we are being expected to learn. For example, with the finch lab, we were required to write a second compareTo, but through the use of the compareTo that was already written, the code required was about 12 lines. 12 LINES! The entire lab, from beginning to submission. I don’t know if this was a lab that was done previous years, but honestly, it in no way aided my learning. Conversely, the lab in which we sorted strings was very helpful and extremely gratifying upon completion. Unlike the previously described lab, it required though and analysis of the problem. We were required to start our portion of the code from scratch, thus the feeling of accomplishment stemming from the aforementioned challenge was greater.

The funniest thing that I accomplished the past two weeks was the creation of a bogo sort. It was not difficult, nor was it time consuming (the time it took to write it), but it was absolutely hilarious upon completion. For those that do not know what a bogo sort is, it is a method by which a set of data is organized, for example, from greatest to largest values. In order to accomplish this task, the bogo sort checks the order of the list. If it is not in order, it randomizes the values and checks again. This process continues until the randomizing happens to place the values in the correct order.

The most exciting thing that I did over Spring Break was seeing Sam Beam in concert at the KEXP show at Mellow Johnny’s. I went with Alex Schultz and George and we were on the very front row. For half of the concert I actually sat on the stage! Furthermore, when he was taking suggestions for songs, he asked me what I wanted to hear, and then played my favorite song for me: Lion’s Mane. I also got hit by a car and lost the majority of the skin on my upper thigh and hip!