Why Data Structures Are Sweet

Should I be writing this post right now? Hell no. I need to be studying for the CS test I have in a couple of hours, but I'm tired of studying and I thought I should write a quick post before I finish up studying. I took my Philosophy test this morning and I feel pretty good about it. I barely finished on time and I wasn't confident on my last answer, but he said he doesn't expect people to finish and I'm sure he'll curve like crazy so I should manage an A in that class. Studying CS material has made me realize how much I've learned in that class, and I'm glad for it. I think up to now I just took stuff like trees and maps and linked lists for granted, but now I realize what all the possibilities for their implementations are. I was especially surprised when he showed us an alternate implementation for LinkedList where a lot of the work is transferred to the entries themselves. I know I've mastered the material where I developed an add method for a recursively structured list right on the spot in front of like 20 other students during the review. There are so many ways to do everything, and now that I'm starting to think about my Latin program (which I'll explain more about in a later post), it's cool to have to make such design decisions. I'm indebted to Professor Downing for the skills I've developed, and now I can only ponder what teaching methods he went with among all the possibilities for a CS2 class.

Thankfully, not a whole lot of nerd news. So yesterday I posted about cell phones evolving and today I have an article about the new line of VoIP phones, which are cheaper than normal phones and are actually free from one VoIP phone to another. It also talks about video phones, and while it'll take time to catch on I think it does pose a very real threat to traditional phone providers. Another followup to yesterday's post is this article about phishing trends (I'm playing off the hacking conference thing) becoming more complicated and turning more to keystroke loggers. In case it isn't obvious from the name, this would allow them to track information like credit cards and social security numbers to be transmitted to them directly, which is crazy and scary. Glad I'm a CS major and may understand how all this works eventually! The less dangerous techies out there have cracked the UMD format to get ISO dumps out of them, which means you'll soon see PSP emulators and such. I'd prefer to just play around with the inside data rather than pirate the game though myself. Microsoft is being a little shady today by validating the Windows software of users who bought it counterfeit in exchange for turning the person who sold it to them in. I don't support the piracy, but that just seems like a low blow to me for some reason. Lastly, I thought I'd mention this research project that's trying to develop CBIR applications, which would allow you to search for stuff based off an image as a query!

The movie news is pretty good today. I'm pretty excited that a new Rush Hour will begin production this fall with both Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker! They may not be A+ movies, but they're still lots of fun to watch. Another exciting thing today is a new entry in the Superman Returns video blog that details how they're simulating flight, and it sounds like they're really putting a lot into this movie so we can definitely expect great things. Another superhero who will be returning to the big screen is Spider-man, who according to director Sam Raimi may actually come back three more times! I love Spider-man, but I wonder if they can squeeze so many more good movies out of the superhero. If you still need more superhero news there's word here that all the X-men will return for X3 despite previous claims and there will be a Silver Surfer movie on the agenda right after Fantastic Four. I wonder if there's a threshold for number of comic book movies we can stomach? It appears that Indiana Jones 4 has a green light from Spielberg and so now they can start with the real pre-production stuff! Oh, the excitement of seeing Indy back in action! Lastly, there are some new Harry Potter pictures, and I think I'll share one with you all featuring my favorite color:



Just one last thing before I close up. I always block out all the Michael Jackson trial news, but I thought it was rather interesting today that one of the prosecution's key witnesses denied that he was mollested by the former king of pop. So maybe there's hope for him yet? It definitely hurts the prosecution's credibility irregardless.

Now for the Thursday Threesome:

Onesome: This--is the one thing you need to get finished today! What would that be?
My CS test! I need to ace it. Another thing I need to get done is my Math homework, which is basically done but I'm having trouble with this one question that requires Matlab.

Twosome: and a-- project you'd like to get started on this weekend would be?
Partying, I'd like to start that ;) I'll start on outside projects next weekend, but this weekend I have a lot of fun stuff to do and I'm looking forward to all of it.

Threesome: Day--Scenario: tomorrow is suddenly 'your day'--school is out, the kids are covered; you're shift is handled at work; you have no obligations! ...and you have gas and spending money. What are you going to do with your time?
Play Metal Gear Solid 3? Seriously though, I'd probably go pick up my friends with this car I magically have and go watch some movies since I'm so behind. Also, it'd be nice to maybe take a road trip to South Padre Island or something.

Wish me luck everyone! I must now go and face my fate...