I really had a lot of fun hacking out some cool generated images. It's such a good motivation for why Photoshop alone isn't the only way to go. Apparently, even though I gave out all of the code, making your own fun and different pictures wasn't all that cool. Oh well...

While I'm being a geek anyways though, I might like to add that I spent some part of my weekend playing around with Ruby. It's just like Python that we're learning in this class, with a little bit more power and cool things it can do. It also comes with a huge API called Rails that allows you to make websites fast. It's called Ruby on Rails, and you could make easily make this blogger site in an afternoon. Definitely worth going through this really cool Ruby tutorial: http://tryruby.hobix.com/

Ok, going back to being a geek.
- Roshni

Even though not many people read my blog, I would like to ask anyone that does to give me feedback on the lecture I gave on Friday. Any thoughts?

My goodness, last week flew by. I didn't even get a chance to blog at all.

Working with Christine this week was a lot of fun. Working on creating labs and making sure they work was a lot of fun. Walking around and helping people out in lab is also very enjoyable and satisfying. I'm really enjoying trying to explain the same thing in different ways, and working one on one to find a way that makes sense to that student.

The two most common thing I find people struggling with is variables and functions.

Variables are like shoe-boxes: you can store something you want to remember in some box that give you a name to so you can find it again. It's also a time savor, because you don't have to keep writing big long things. Like in algebra, when you set some variable x to a large number, say x=65,536, then instead of writing five numbers, you can just write one letter.

Functions are the other thing people are struggling with. The idea that they're supposed to be generic forms. Again, relating to algebra, let f(x)=3x^2+5x-1. Now, you want this to apply for x. It's generic to do it for any x value on the real line. Same thing in computer programs. You don't want to find the transformation (f(x)) for a particular picture (x), you want the function to work for all pictures.

We'll keep working on this...
- Roshni

Wow. That was pretty much what I was thinking the whole time yesterday.

You guys are really quick and really clever, and it's so great to see so much energy and enthusiasm. Somehow, there's a lot more apathy with undergraduates. I love seeing people exploring and trying things out on their own in lab. Like figuring how to use a 3D graphics program, or playing with some extra photoshop effects, or programming something different from the way it's done in the book, or taking really interesting pictures from different angles, or asking all sorts of neat and different questions. I'm really glad to help you with whatever you want to learn, because it excites me a lot that you actually want to learn something! :)

Even though I've been programming for about 7 years now, using computers for over 12 years, there's still a lot I don't know about Computer Science. For example, I don't know how to write programs for a robot, because I'm not that into artificial intelligence. (I like my intelligence, and I'd like to keep it, thank you.) I haven't ever used Director or Premier before, but I've used similar programs before. I hope that one of the things you learn is that if you don't know it, you can figure out how to learn it. The web is just such a great source, and I hope you can learn to have the confidence to find whatever you need from there. I'm still a good starting point for information: I've played with Python before, I've played around with pictures and movies a lot before, I've made lots of websites before, etc.

Speaking of which, one thing that I'd like to add to all of yesterday's lecture:
Beth talked a lot about "projected" colors versus "fingerpaint" colors and the difference between them, and Paul told you guys that no red, no green, and no blue makes black and that lots of red, green, and blue makes white. We also talked about how to make yellow and orange. But, I think the physics behind additive colors and subtractive colors is kind of cool. Check out the following links on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_theory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rgb
Check out the other color schemes as well.
Also, if you want to learn more about different ways of representing images:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_file_formats
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_graphics_file_formats
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JPEG

There's lots more to learn that what you learned in class. And it's all within the reach of your fingertips on the Web.

- Roshni

So, after the initial difficulties with the blog accounts being thought of as spam accounts, I think mine got cleared through and hopefully everyone else's will be as well.

This is a great medium for us to share our thoughts and ideas.

After the first session, I was very impressed with everyone's prior knowledge and comfort with technologies. Everyone was really good about following directions and keeping pace with the current instructions. I already saw the exploratory nature in many students and I think you all witll do great things in the class.

I hope that we can introduce something that really interests you and I hope that you learn something that you might be able to use later in your careers. If not, please ask us! The more questions you ask us, the more you'll get out of the program. And, we're more than glad to answer them.

Looking forward to the first lab in Python tomorrow! :)
Roshni

Hi,

Today's the first day of COSMOS, and I'm very excited to meet everyone and learn all sorts of new things. I'm the TA that's going to be helping out in the morning sessions on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. But I'll be able to see you guys at anytime throughout the week as well. Feel free to email or post to my blog! :)

- Roshni