Home Stretch

I'm coming down to the home stretch here.  I'm almost done being an undergraduate student.

I have the portfolio for this class (and I'm probably going to have to present it), a ~10 page paper due next week for my STS 470 class, and one final on monday.  That is essentially all I have left to do to complete my degree.  That really doesn't total up to a lot of work.

The portfolio I have done, I just need to upload it.  The paper I've got about a page done so far and the topic is phenomenally boring (the assignment is 100% bullshit, god I hate gen eds).  The final is in my only really challenging class this semester aersp 430: space propulsion (which is an awesome class by the way).  

The teacher for my propulsion class has broken the class into three distinct sections and allows you to have multiple chances on a test grade on all but the last section of material.  The first test is only on the first sections material, the second test has half first section/half second section, and the final is equal parts all three.   Each section is graded separately on each test and he takes the highest score for each section (from any of the three tests) when calculating the final grade.  If you already banked a satisfactory grade on the prior material you can skip them and only do the new material.  

Which is what I am doing on this final.  I already have A's banked for the first two sections so therefore I only need to study the last sections material.  Also, when it comes to taking the actual test the third sections material will most likely be covered in only 2-3 questions for proper time fairness to those trying to complete all three sections material.  That means I will have the full 2 hours to complete 2-3 questions instead of the normal 10-11 ish.  I really like this method of scoring, it really allows you to demonstrate your grasp of the material fairly instead of just catching you with tiny technicalities.  

Portfolio Deal

I'm trying to figure out this whole portfolio deal, or whatever it's called.  I'm not exactly sure how to appropriately demonstrate what i've learned in this class.  I've had a few decent ideas, but nothing that seems both decent and is also not rediculously hard to do (I am pretty lazy and the end of the semester is sort of piling on).  

I was thinking of maybe use the flamethrower I built to set some stuff on fire in class, or maybe make something explode.  Although these are somewhat unsafe in a classroom setting.  

I contemplated making a flash animation, last semester I got reasonably good at flash.  That would be a a good way to show off multiple things I learned.  I don't really have a ton of time, and flash animation quality is directly proportional to the amount of time put into it.  Even a basic animation takes a fair amount of time.  

I think I might just make a webpage, or a video collage, or something that utilizes someone elses work rather than doing it all myself.  

Jobs

I verbally accepted a job with AAI corporation (they make UAVs among other things, and are a subsidiary of Textron) a few weeks ago.  Last week I signed all the contract paperwork, I stalled as much as I could for as long as I could, but eventually I had to sign the papers.  

This job pays great money, has great benefits, is in a pretty sweet area, and I found cheap apartments nearby with little trouble.  My specific role at this employer was explained in some detail, but as with any job you've never done before it's kind of hard to get a feel for how working that job everyday will be.  

On monday night at like (4:58pm) I got a call from a company I was applying to four months ago(GeoEye)  requesting I come down and interview with them.  This is the company that does the majority of the picture taking for google earth and pretty much any other service that provides satellite images that is not the military (although the military does contract them frequently).  This is also the same company that took those massive photos of the obama inauguration where you could make out a lot of detail (the pictures were taken by a satellite about 400 miles up and a few hundred miles south).   

I would normally just brush off the offer and ignore them, but this company was one of my top choices to work for.  The job description is one of the coolest I can even imagine (I plan and control the movements of their three imaging satellites to maximize the pictures in critical zones around the globe).  Plus from what I hear in general it is a very awesome company to work for.  

Its not that the job I have already accepted is bad, its just the job with GeoEye seems cooler.  The downsides of trying to drop the other job and snag this new one would be: lower salary, contract problems ditching the first job, the new job is in a much more expensive area to live (Dulles, VA), might have to work odd hours at GeoEye (they operate 24/7), and I might burn bridges with Textron.  

I don't think I'm going to take the job with GeoEye, but if they contacted me earlier I think I would be considering it a lot more seriously.  Seriously who waits 4 months before even so much as emailing back about an application, every decently intelligent person I know who would be qualified for this job has already taken a position elsewhere by this point.  

Twitter

I don't get it, I just don't understand.

I thought blogging in general was an incredibly over hyped and pointless phenomenon supported primarily by angsty teen agers.  It just doesn't really make sense to me why other people would want to read the majority of text that gets posted to blogs.  If you want to present information, or maybe tell a funny anecdote that's fine, but that's not what most personal blogs consist of.  Most non-technical or general purpose blogs I have seen have basically been pointless stream of consciousness regurgitations about how someones friend didn't say hello to them while walking by.

Twitter takes the pointlessness of a full blown blog and removes any of the actual useful information from it.  You take the lack of any useful application that you find in a blog and further restrict it to 140 characters.  Here's a sample "tweet" that is 140 characters in length: "I just saw a car drive by that was the coolest shade of pink ever, like omg it was so amazing I totally want one, I wonder what kind it was"  How is this website popular?!   Who is interested in reading something that pointless?!

The website opened in 2006 and already has 6 million users, it is already ahead of myspace and only trailing facebook for number of members.  Part of the success can be attributed to the race between Ashton Kutcher and CNN to see who can get to one million subscribers (http://www.examiner.com/x-7995-New-Media-Examiner~y2009m4d19-Much-aTwitter-about-nothing).  

It may seem somewhat hypocritical to be making fun of a form of blogging in a blog, but I'm just doing this for the assignment, chances are no one will ever actually read these.  I know I wouldn't read them.  

robot vacuum cleaners

I really like the idea of getting a robot vacuum cleaner to clean my apartment for me.  I mean it sounds pretty sweet just having this thing clean my floors while i'm not there, and I don't even have to lift a finger, sounds like my kind of appliance.  

So I was looking around online because I know very little about these robot vacuum cleaners.  I had only heard of the roomba before.  I don't know anyone that has one, so i can't go look at it or ask them how well it works.  So I asked the internet.

I found plenty of information on them, but mostly what I found pointed to the ones that were good were pretty expensive (~$500 ish).  There were several types as cheap as ~$100 ish but I'm not too sure they are entirely useful.  

I also found this: http://housewares.about.com/od/roboticvacuums/qt/robotskins.htm

which I find fairly entertaining.  

Movies on Youtube

YouTube has secured a contract with MGM to display some of their movies in their full uncut format, and is working on a deal with Sony to do the same.  I wonder how this will effect the DVD sales overall.  Once this diffuses throughout the market will people still want to buy DVDs?

I think google/YouTube really missed the technological wave here (for once).  Hulu.com (owned by NBC) has been putting up full length movies for a while.  YouTube is just now getting into the game with Sony and MGM 7-8 months after hulu beat them to it.  YouTube still has a far greater market share, but a lead is a lead, and on the internet that big of a lead can make a huge difference.  

Another surprising fact I found was YouTube cost approximately 750 million dollars to maintain and improve last year, but only made 240 million.  A loss of more than 500 million dollars for arguably the most popular site on the web?  I was under the impression that google had turned YouTube into a profitable business.  I suppose I was mistaken.