Psypoke Staff Blogs

So, for the curious, a little explanation as to why today's update is just bug fixes instead of new content; I've been busy.

Busy with the site, yes. Bug fixes are still time consuming. But, real life is even moreso. There's a 4-day weekend coming up for Easter. My plans? Homework. I have a 7 page paper for History to write up on Stalin (that'll be easy enough). I've also got a 20-page paper to write up for my AI/Game Design class; that won't be as easy.

Looking back, I haven't really talked much about my classes. Might as well since they're eating all my time.

MAT206: Linear Algebra
This class... oh boy. 95% of it is review stuff that I could have done in the 6th grade with a two week crash-course in matrices, vectors, and the dot product. The other 5% comes way outta left field, and my prof glosses over it because it's complicated and he can't explain it to save his life. Of course, that's what the tests are on. Well, that and definitions. The homework is all about manipulating a set of data to get an answer. The tests have no such problems; it's restate the 30-point qualification definition for some concept, and then verify all 30-points of said definition for an example of the concept to prove that the definition is in fact the definition. @_@; The prof isn't a bad guy, and he's quite smart... he just can't teach.

HIS104: Western Europe since 1800 (or thereabouts)
This class caught me by surprise. I can't stand history classes; they bore me. I like ANCIENT history, like Egyptians, Babylonians, or even Romans and Greeks. But once you get beyond that, I don't care about history; the future becomes much more interesting. And then, I took this class. While the subject matter isn't any more interesting now than it was in high school, the prof is awesome. He's so energetic and enthusiastic. He practically jumps up and down, screams, shouts, even gets to the point that he'll start cursing like a sailor when he really gets into the lecture. Some might call it unprofessional, I suppose, but I call it entertainment. I never thought I would enjoy a history class, but I really like going to this class, just for the prof.

CSC323: Programming Languages
*sigh* Time for a 180. This class, being a CSC class, even with "Programming" in the name, SHOULD be a blast. I can honestly say that there has never been neither a Comp Sci nor ANY type of class in the history of my entire education that I have found so wholly and completely useless and boring. For three and a half hours at a time, we sit there getting talked at about compilers, dead languages, and low-level computing processes that are only applicable to someone who intends to invent their own programming language. I am not such a person; I am a software engineer. I write programs using existing languages. I don't care at what point during the develop-compile-run process my program knows what "int" means. It's irrelevant to my career, and completely useless to anyone else in this class. Also, it's technically CSC323, but it's also CSC623; a graduate level class. The prof just can't be bothered to teach two different classes, so we all attend CSC623, but the actual grad students just have one extra problem on each homework assignment and test. Whoop-dee-doo. I want my Masters for putting up with this terrible excuse for a class.

That being said, after over 30 hours of this class, I have found a use for it. There was a bug in a program for my other class (see below) and I realized why because of the compiler-level understanding I got from this class. Two important things to note: 1) I would've fixed the error without this class, just not fully understood WHY it was an error. 2) The discussion that helped me understand why was about 10 minutes of those 30 hours. That's 0.555...% of the class that I've found a use for. I highly doubt anything else will ever be useful. Then again, this is a class designed and taught by the same prof who designed and taught an entire class on data structures (and he proofed the textbook; wonder why we used that one even though it sucked compared to the previous one?), which is a topic that my friends at other schools spend about an hour of lecture on during their courses, and then move on to other topics.

I hate this class more than I have ever hated another class. Indeed, this is the only class I have TRULY hated. I rejoice in the knowledge that I have no classes with this prof next semester.

CSC431: Artificial Intelligence (aka, Video Game Design)
Now, a 180 again, strapped to a rocket. I LOVE this class. Absolutely LOVE it. The prof is my favorite prof on campus (who also happens to be my boss and adviser). The subject matter is fun; I'm writing programs, which I love to do. But not just any programs, video games. Games that can be run on any Windows PC, or even an XBox 360, if I add the couple extra lines to process a controller instead of a keyboard. It's wonderful.

Things started out pretty simple. We just copied code out of the book at first to animate little things and process inputs. Then I made Asteroids. Then Breakout. Then I tried to make Bejeweled, but my computer died. I still got the basics though, so I COULD make a proper version. Now, for next week, I'm making Monopoly.

Have you ever sat down and thought about all the little things that go into a game of Monopoly? It's so much more complicated than I'd ever imagined. As it stands, I've got a lot of the game working; the basics, really. I've spent so many hours on it already, and I've only just begun. I'll be spending hours more over the coming week. This is why I've been so busy that I haven't been working on the site quite as much as I'd like to have been.

Oddly, despite spending so much time on this game, I don't mind. I'm normally so impatient that I won't spend more than an hour at a time on homework. Usually, I don't NEED to spend more than an hour at a time. But I'll sit down for HOURS and work on this. And you know what? It's one of the most enjoyable things I've ever done. This is what I want to do with my life; this is what I want to be paid to do every day. Because it's frustrating and it's annoying and it's tedious... and it's SO MUCH FUN! There's nothing more satisfying than having sat there for hours tweaking lines of code and finally being able to hit F5. And the program runs. And the asteroids start flying in. And the ship flies around and shoots. And the asteroids break. And the UFO appears. And he shoots you. And you blow up. And the beeps of the background continue, rhythmically.

It's the greatest feeling in the world, and I wouldn't trade it for everything else the world has to offer. It'll probably drive me mad some day. Hell, it probably already has; I've been doing stuff like this for... 8 years? I think... I'm not sure anymore. But it's a blast. :D

You know, considering I'm the one that made these blogs, I really ought to make more USE of them.. Oops.

I've officially finished my first week of this semester, so it seems like a good time to write a bit. So far, so good. I'm technically a Junior now, so hooray for that. And I'm still on track to graduate on time. Yay. And my GPA is still doing well, despite my complete and utter lack of effort in two of my classes last semester! w00t.

I've got a nice sampling of course levels this spring: History 104, Math 208, and Computer Science 323 and 431.

CSC431 is by far my favorite, even though I've only had it for just over an hour. My boss and favorite prof is the one teaching it, and it's on game design. What more could I ask for?

Anyway, it's time for Rock Band. Rather, Guitar Hero 4. Cause I spent $200 on that the other day. Because... what else do we do in college?

For those of you who didn't know, I figured I should point the following things out:

- Tales of Vesperia is awesome.
- Vector Calculus is not.
- 3.5 hour long night classes suck.
- But not as much as the prospect of having an 8am class.
- Thanksgiving break can never get here soon enough.
- But that test you forgot to study for will be happy to kill some time with you until then.
- Doing homework is merely a matter of convincing yourself that the degree to which it is important is greater than the degree to which you would rather watch paint dry.
- Homework doesn't get done when there is a prospect of taking a nap instead.
- Friends are there to keep you up late and prevent you from doing homework.
- And then wake you up early to drag you off to get food.
- There are dozens of things you need to accomplish in any given day.
- And only 24 hours in that day to not feel like getting out of bed.
- It takes one Friday staying up until 4am and sleeping until 2pm to ruin your schedule.
- And an entire week of waking at 9 to restore it.
- Only to reach another Friday night again anyway.
- Advisers are no more interested in telling you what classes to pick than you are to ask them.
- But they'd be happy to chat and crack some jokes before suggesting some classes anyway.
- When you want to do something, you'll have no time for it.
- Your free time is instead spent putting off things you don't want to do.
- Tales of Vesperia is awesome.
- Staying up until 3:30 in the morning to write something silly like this... not so much.

I lieu of a serious, thought-provoking blog, I now offer you this sage bit of wisdom I've picked up in my time here at college, which I was reminded of again today.

Approximately every seven to ten days, any given male living on campus will have to make a very important decision; do laundry today, or go commando tomorrow. To any guys looking at heading off to college soon, be prepared to make such a decision.

To any girls on a campus, or planning to go to one soon, keep that in mind. Assuming every 10 days the cycle hits, you have a 10% chance of hitting the vital day, and there's a 50-50 shot either way. In theory, every 20th guy you talk to on campus each day has opted to go commando.

Just a little college wisdom to brighten your lives. ^_^

Everyone's blog posts lately seem to be rather aimed to make you think, full of imagery and the like. So I'll join in with this:

Have you ever been talking to a friend when suddenly they get that look in their eye? As though, just for an instant, they fully understood just how easily they make you smile, even though you can't ever find the words to tell them so...