Ultimate and Software Engineering

Hunger

2010-11-17T11:45:00.000-05:00

Hey Everyone,

I know this is kinda long overdue but we are gonna see each other soon so I guess this is as good of a time as any...

Just wanted to leave some of you, whoever you may be, with a thought that I feel is important for the off season. Playing on this team was really really awesome for me. This is my second year playing mixed club ultimate but I feel like this year was so much better then my first for multiple reasons, personal and team wise. I played for Full Service my first year. We had a pretty rough schedule of practices and tournaments and the resounding goal on the team was the desire to go to Nationals(like any other team thats worth a damn). But when it came time for the big show, regionals, I felt like the desire wasn't there on our team. I don't mean to say anything bad toward FS because I did enjoy greatly playing for that team and love all the people on it. There was just some attitude that we didn't have that I felt Blueprint had.

The attitude I'm talking about was that Blueprint wasn't afraid of anyone we faced and we weren't willing to lay down and take a beating even if they were better than us. Philly invite, as atrocious our final outcome was, we played some high caliber teams (and some low ones :/ ) but through it all we didn't let people run us over and we didn't let what happened that weekend affect the rest of our season. We were always hungry to play and to show up and to dominate. I know that was especially true in Sectionals. Our game against AMP, we were clearly already on the road to Regionals and could have easily thrown that game to come out against Muff and trounce them but we were hungry and we wanted to finish as the best team out there.

I know I left the Regionals fields hungry for more. I could feel the disappointment and emotions from every single one of our team mates and I think that is something special as weird as that sounds. I'm just glad I was surrounded by teammates who hate losing as much as I do I guess :)...

Thanks for a great season Blueprint and Blowhole. You guys are the best.
I can't wait for next year.
-Bill

Google OS

2009-07-08T16:11:00.003-06:00

The Google OS leaked today is allegedly to be based on Google Chrome.

The Problems...

What about existing programs? If GOS is based on a browser what happens to the programs that we depend on? OK fine. I understand also that you are gearing your OS toward netbooks and the usability of a 120 Gigabyte harddrive these days is tough but I do depend on some of the programs on Windows and Linux(ubuntu). Am I going to have to constantly reboot to an OS that I can do useful things on and then when I'm ready for limited functionality I can switch back to GOS?

The Cools...

I always thought that Google would come out with an OS and I believe that starting with Netbooks is a brilliant plan. One thing that I'm excited for is the ability to write applications for an operating system. Pretty pumped.

The Dissappointing...

I was real dissappointed when I heard that they were basing their OS off of Chrome. A Linux base for Google OS would've been real cool not to mention bring more people to the Linux side. Just when Ubuntu was gaining more popularity Google swoops in. Better luck next release....

-Bill

Stressed? Turn to Gratuitous Blogging!

2008-09-22T00:46:00.003-06:00

Being an ultimate captain is amazing. I get to guide freshman as they take their first steps into this wonderful sport and watch them get better and start to love the sport. It's an awesome feeling to see them improve and excel.

I've never been the leader of just about anything and I think that I'm not doing a bad job. I'm trying to be stern but at the same time I'm also trying to teach as much as I can. Having Ryan as my co-captain is awesome. He's always there for me on and off the field. He's also a great teacher to the newbies, I really don't know what I would do without him.

School is kicking my ass. I'm putting so much of my time into Ultimate and the new players that I've lost sight of my senior project and classes and even my future. I want to go to grad school here at Scranton so bad but I need money to go to grad school and I don't have any.

Also being a Lead Residential Consultant is a bitch. I ended up loosing my work phone god knows where. Danielle is noticing my effort which is good though.

I need to focus this week on everything. I have a senior project Specification big paper due, I have a stats test, I have homework and I have to get the team ready for the Maryland tournament this coming weekend.

Its harder this semester than I could have ever imagined...

3.2/Great Project/Successful Team/Be a good captain/Keep Cool/Figure out life/Pass stats,

Wonderful.
-Bill

Holy Balls I Got an Interview

2008-04-10T22:19:00.003-06:00

Finally.

A freaking interview with a prominent company. GAURD is the name of the company. What's with me and the guard places? (SunGard, VanGard, GAURD) Weird. Anyway they emailed me today and I'm psyched. Apparently they really like Scranton graduates. All I've wanted this whole semester was a freaking interview because I really think that when they talk to me they'll get a really good feel of how I work. I'm pumped. Bad thing is they are located in Wilkes-Barre but they also have an office in Plymouth Meeting.

In other news I'm pretty much done a working skeleton of my Content Management Systems. Users can now log in and make posts to the database which appear on the site. Really cool. Also it is something that I'm thinking about for my senior project. If you have any ideas for senior projects wow please feel free I need some direction.

In awful news my co-captain Ryan hurt his knee. The x-ray showed no bone damage but ligament damage is never out of the question. To me it's extremely demoralizing and I know he must feel even worse...He is going to go home for an MRI. Mostly because his dad is a neurosurgeon and wants him to get the best evaluation. I really hope he'll be OK. I really need him next semester...Can't do this shit on my own...

-Bill

Electric City Ultimate Captain

2008-04-07T23:59:00.007-06:00

The title really says it all. Tonight I and Ryan McLaughlin were elected to be captains of the University of Scranton Ultimate Team. I can't believe I'll be in charge of this team next year. It's mind blowing how fast college is passing me by it feels like I just joined the team...

I have many goals for the team and I hope that I can help the us accomplish them. I'm so freaking excited and nervous!

Anyways just thought I'd share...

On other news I finished my Graphics Project I was working on! Saweeeet!
Here are some screen shots just imagine it spinning:

If you care I have the source code in my published Google Documents if you want to check it out. Bill.weaston@gmail.com

:edit: Here is the source and added documentation... :edit:

Also am seriously plugging along with my Custom Management System. Damn it actually works...Right now I'm ironing out a lot of kinks but hopefully I can finish by April 28th. While that is moving along my programming languages project is at a standstill almost. A nightmare of laziness mostly on my part to get it done...

Next post should be more about how my project is going in JFLAP and my custom expression checker...We'll see...

Anyways lots going on peace out for now!
-Bill

-Bill

2008-04-02T00:17:00.000-06:00

Computer Ethics : Chapters 4 and 5
William Easton : 03/02/2008

Chapter 4 Ethics and the Internet

Hacking
Criminal Cyberstalking Extortion
Netiquette - wow that's lame

Global Scope
The Internet has an unusual scope. It has a bigger scope than letters or envelopes or even books in publication because it is easier and can find other people very easily. Also in regards to radio and television it has the same spectrum of people but the main difference is that radio and television are only one way communication when the Internet comes into play there are many people responding to many broadcasts over the Internet.

Anonymity
The Internet is not as anonymous as it may seem it begs a different type of anonymity. Just like the store and wig example you cannot be fully anonymous especially with distinguishable characteristics or a credit card payment they have something to put you up against. ISP's and websites can see your activity therefore you are into as anonymous as you may think just because of the absence of the physical aspect of the Internet.

Reproducibility
Car - electronic theft
There is evidence and notice to the owner that his car is gone there is no evidence and no notice to the owner of electronic data or software.
Face-to-Face - Message board
In face to face interaction words just disappear into the air and are gone except for the memories of the listeners but with the Internet the messages only go away when they are deleted from the machine that they reside on.

Ethical Significance
Distinction between hackers and crackers blah blah...

Hacker Philosophy
-All information on the net should be free to the public
-To expose security flaws and issues in systems - disprove with vigilante and burglar example...
-When/if a hacker gains access to a system and does not make any changes no harm is done.
-Keep big brother at bay

New Species of Old Crime
Criminal behavior is not that difficult to prove unethical and wrong because is goes along with reasons of physical crimes that occur.

Netiquette
Fuck that stupid name
Dos and Don'ts
FLAMING, SPAM

2008-03-31T15:15:00.000-06:00

Programming Languages : ALGOL Paper
William Easton: 03/30/2008

ALGOL’s Incredible Impact on Computing Languages

ALGOL known as ALGOrithmic Language is a computer language used for expressing specific algorithms. ALGOL presents many new aspects that the world of computing had not ever seen before such as code blocks, reserved words and even a compiler. Backus-Naur form is one of the most important things to come from the production of ALGOL. Looking at the influence that ALGOL has had over languages we can point out several languages that are still used today based heavily off of ALGOL like Ada, PASCAL, and eventually even C.

FORTRAN was one of the biggest reasons for the drive to build ALGOL since FORTRAN could only be used on IBM machines. The makers of ALGOL wanted to make “one universal, machine-independent algorithmic language to be used by all, rather than to devise several in competition,” (Rutishauser 5). At a meeting held in Zurich, Switzerland shortly before ALGOL was built, a foundation was laid for the language. The GAMM (subcommittee for programming languages) and the ACM came together to form a committee and decided:

The notation of the new language should be completely mathematical.
It should be used to describe numerical processes (algorithms).
The new language should be able to translate readily into machine code.

ALGOL 58 was completed in 1958 and took the computing world by surprise, “but it was so complex and different than any other language that had come before it that it was difficult to understand.” (Barrett 119) This is where John Backus presented his paper on the grammar of ALGOL. He presented ALGOL's grammar to a committee but the mathematical format it used contained symbols that could not be realized by current keyboards.

Peter Naur had the job of writing the notes for the conference where ALGOL's grammar was presented. He simplified the symbols into ones he could type into a computer, thus creating Backus-Naur Form. ALGOL 60 was expressed using the meta-language that Backus and Naur created and every subsequent language after ALGOL has been expressed in the same way. John Backus’s creation of Backus Normal Form was so groundbreaking that he was awarded the Turing Prize for what he had accomplished among many other things. ALGOL turned into quite a monolithic language by ALGOL 68. By the time ALGOL 68 came out it was so robust with features that it became too complicated to use because the writers wished to put every facet of programming into it. The amount of features and uses of ALGOL remain unsurpassed to this day.

The creation of ALGOL 68 was so complex that Niklaus Wirth condensed ALGOL to build his own language he called PASCAL. PASCAL was built to “encourage good programming practices,” (PASCAL Wiki) and to reduce the complexity of ALGOL which had grown into almost an infinitely flexible language. PASCAL and ALGOL then came together to form Ada, a military language used in missile, flight and air traffic control systems. Ada is a strong typed language that does runtime checking for anomalies or defects which could result in the injury or death of its users.

One of ALGOL’s most important descendants is the creation of CPL (Combined Programming Language). CPL included many of ALGOL’s unique features like block structure and strong typing but also CPL could control the hardware of the computer directly, something that was not seen before in combination. A programmer using CPL could go from using a very high level of abstraction to a low level hardware manipulation in one program. Sadly due to its complexity, like ALGOL 68, it was not widely adopted by programmers because of the immense complexity that it involved. Almost like clockwork a condensed version of CPL was created called simply, Basic Controlled Programming Language.

BCPL led into yet another language created by Ken Thomson from Bell Laboratories in 1969 named “B”. B was further developed and soon came the most widely used language in the world called “C”. So as you can see C can be traced all the way back to the humble beginnings of ALGOL 58 with just three goals to build a programming language.

The spread of computer languages is greatly influenced by ALGOL which has spawned a repertoire of descendants. Even Object-Oriented programming can be traced back to ALGOL and also the Virtual Machine seen in Java. The ALGOL dynasty is vast but its influence is still seen today by many of the modern languages that we use like block programming and reserved words. Backus-Naur Form is the most important creation to come from the creation of the ALGOL grammar. BNF is so important in fact that every single subsequent programming language has used BNF to describe their lexicon and syntax.

Works Cited

Barrett, Niel. The Binary Revolution. 1st ed. Vol. 1. New York: Sterling Pub Co Inc, 2006. 1-320.

McCracken, Daneil D. A Guide to ALGOL Programming. 4th ed. Vol. 1. New York, London: John Wiley and Sons, 1964. 1-106.

Rutishauser, Hienz. Description of ALGOL 60. 1st ed. Vol. 1a. Hiedlelberg: Springer-Verlag Berlin, 1967. 1-320.

2008-03-31T14:32:00.000-06:00

Programming Languages : Definitions Assignment
William Easton : 03/30/2008

Binding - A reference to an object set to have a value of something to be used repeatedly throughout a program. Binding is also the identifier to a value such that a name or symbol references a machine address. These bindings are done during compile time and are called dynamic or static binding.

BNF - Backus Naur Form is the metalanguage that is used to describe context free languages created by John Backus and Peter Naur. First built to describe the ALGOL programming language in 1959 BNF is now used to describe most subsequent languages to this day.

Lifetime - The lifetime of a variable or reference refers to the time between when the object is created and when the object is destroyed or not used. Depending on what programming language is used each variables lifetime is different.

Programming Language - A programming language is a made up language that can be used to control the workings of a computer or machine which are defined by a specific lexicon and syntax of which they are formed.

Recursive Decent - In parsing recursive decent is a top down tree structure that makes recursive calls when analyzing the the syntax of a program during parsing. It uses the BNF syntax after parsing with block structures.

Referencing Environment - The referencing environment of a variable or reference is the scope of where that identifier is declared in a program. For instance a subprogram is built in the referencing environment of its parent program.

Scope - The scope of an identifier can be described as the range of influence that identifier has over an entire program. Variables, references and identifiers can only be accessed in the scope of the program that they are declared. This is static scoping. Dynamic Scoping involves the pushing and popping of almost like a global variable.

Semantics - The way in which the syntax is used in the workings of a program. The semantics are the meanings of a program statement. A semantic can be expressed in many different ways but come out with the same result. Semantics is not the format of the statement but is the instruction of the statement.

Summer

2008-03-26T23:52:00.002-05:00

In short. No freaking clue what I'm going to be doing.

I have aspirations of what I want to do.

Research - I applied to four research programs all of which I was rejected from.

Lockheed Martin - Nothing yet...

Vanguard - Nothing yet...

SunGard - Backup...

All of these opportunities seem really unimportant to me. What I really want to do is work on my own projects over the summer be my own boss work with clients and hone my skills and really become proficient in what I love doing.
Lots of desicions and hard work ahead of me.

Weird Posts

2008-03-25T23:44:00.003-05:00

Yeah I just wanted to explain the strange posts. They are actually all of my midterm notes for most of my classes. I figured I would just publish them since I'm using Google Docs and Ubuntu. I like the setup I have going right now. I have my desktop running ubuntu linux exclusively and I have my laptop dual booting with XP and Ubuntu as well. Along with my sicktastic webserver things are going pretty sweet.

Now I'm working on a Content Management system in php. I'm hoping to get really rolling on this because I got some pretty awesome ideas going into this. A content management system for those who don't know is a tool where a user can easily post, change, create new content on their website using an easy interface. Like Blogspot or WordPress. I'm just doing my own.

So here are some projects I'm working on.

1. JFLAP : I'm working with this software in my Software Engineering class. It's a really sweet tool for theoretical computer science so if you ever get into it I highly recommend it.

2. Also I'm working on a compiler for a "Lisp-like" language. Lisp syntax follows something like this:

(BLAH BLAH)
(BLAH BLAH)

So I'm building a compiler in my programming languages course in PHP that is proving to be rather difficult. Thank God Matt Pfahl is on our team or I'd just be building this thing from scratch.

3. The Content Management system that I want to implement for Scranton Ultimate's website. This way the website can be easily maintained by people after me. Hopefully...maybe prep ultimate could utilize it?

4. In my graphics class the next coming project is to build a cube with textures on each side and transform it by rotating it around it's z axis. I've already created the cube itself and rotated it so I just got to add the texture. I'll post the source after I add the texture.

Work work work. Oh yeah and I turned 21...

-Bill

2008-03-25T11:28:00.003-05:00

Computer Engineering Using JFLAP
William Easton : 03/25/08

JFLAP is as descibed on its website www.jflap.com "...software for experimenting with formal languages topics including nondeterministic finite automata, nondeterministic pushdown automata, turing machines and several types of grammers, parsing and L-systems."

There are a bunch of extensive online tutorials on JFLAP and I went through a bunch of them so I can demo one for you today.

If you create a new finite automaton there are endless possibilities you can do for this example we will do something easy. Say we want to find a string that ends in lowercase 'a'. The First thing we have to do is to use the easy editor to create our states for our machine that we need. The second thing we need to do is make a starting and finishing state. Then we do all of our transitions.

Now to test it we go and enter our input and we can even see the transition to each state as the automaton accepts input. We can also translate this into rules for a grammar as well. The possibilities are limitless especially with the theory of computing class. Using this tool would be a wonderful idea.

I really stress especially people who have already taken TOC to experiment with this. It's a very interesting tool and could prove very useful.

2008-03-14T12:51:00.001-05:00

Computer Graphics Midterm
03/14/2008 : William Easton

Quiz One:
Difference between Vectors and Scalars:
scalar + scalar = scalar
vector * scalar = vector
vector - vector = vector
|vector| = scalar

Dot Products
<3, 2, 1> DOT <4, 5, 6> = (3 x 4) + (2 x 5) + (1 x 6) = 6 + 12 + 10 = 28

Quiz Two:
Cross Products:
i j k
<1, 2, 3>
<4, 5, 6>

i(12 - 15) + j(12 - 6) + k(5 - 8) = -3i + 6j - 3k <-3, 6, -3>

Convex or Concave

Breaking into segments to force convexity...

Define a plane by using a point and a normal.

Quiz Three:
Affine Transformations
Rotation
Scale
Projection

Bishop will give us the affine matrices.

Quiz Four:
Indexed and Non-Index Color - Indexed color is the fact that a pixel can be colored with a number and that number corresponds to a specific color from the color pallate.
Non-Index color is using the hex values for RGBA.

Vector Graphics - using a beam of light to make an image on a screen like a triangle. It will beam light in three directions making the sides of the triangle.

Alpha channel - used to define transparency of a color in RGBA color scheme.

Quiz Five:
GL_LINES
GL_LINE_STRIP
GL_LINE_LOOP
GL_TRIANGLES
GL_TRIANGE_FAN

Quiz Six:
Orthographic - no matter Z score it will always look same

Perspective - objects farther away will seem smaller and objects closer will seem closer (O RLY?)

Drawing a red empty box:
glBegin();
GL_vertex3f(1, 0, 0);
GL_vertex3f(2, 0, 0);
GL_vertex3f(2, 1, 0);
GL_vertex3f(1, 1, 0);
glEnd();

Quiz Eight:
ambient -
specular - bouces off in one direction and changes as your perspective changes
diffuse - equal lighting all around an object

Z Buffering- looking at how far away each pixel is and draws them accordingly

Quiz Nine:
Painters Algorithm - takes the objects to be drawn and goes from back to foreward.
Z Buffering Again - Calculate by distance of pixels

Quiz Ten:
Bilinear Filtering

(1 - ALPHA)(C0) + (ALPHA)(C1) = C3
(1 - ALPHA)(C0) + (ALPHA)(C2) = C4
(1 - BETA)(C3) + (BETA(C4) = C5

Quiz Eleven:
Bilinear Filtering x 2

Quiz Twelve:
Aliasing- one level of intensity
Antialiasing - more than two levels of intensity

Quiz Thirteen:
Texture mapping to a triangle - using coordinates and texture map to make a texture on an object

Quiz Fourteen:
T1 - (1 - ALPHA)(C0) + (ALPHA)(C1) = C3
(1 - ALPHA)(C0) + (ALPHA)(C2) = C4
(1 - BETA)(C3) + (BETA(C4) = C5

T2 - (1 - ALPHA)(C0) + (ALPHA)(C1) = C3
(1 - ALPHA)(C0) + (ALPHA)(C2) = C4
(1 - BETA)(C3) + (BETA(C4) = C5

C6 = (1 - BETA)(T1C5) + (BETA(T2C5))

BAM DONE!

2008-03-14T01:42:00.001-05:00

Programming Languages Midterm Notes
03/13/2008 : William Easton

Chapter One: Preliminaries
1.1 Reasons for Studying Concepts of Programming Languages:

Increased capacity to express ideas - having knowledge of a powerful language expands how one can think.
Improved background for choosing an appropriate language - in order to choose a good language you need knowledge
Increased ability to learn new languages
Better understanding of the significance of implementation
Better use of languages that are already known
Overall advancement

Readability

Operator Overloading
Control statements

Syntax

identifiers
reserved words
form

Writability

abstraction - a term used to define and use complicated structures and ignore the hard part
expressivity

Reliability

aliasing - using one memory cell to be the value of two things.
exception handling

1.7 Implementation

Compiler Implementation

Source Program
Lexical Analyzer - use symbol table
Syntax analyzer - use symbol table
Code Generator
Machine Code
Computer

Chapter Two: Languages
1.1 History
Here are some of the first languages: in extremely sparse detail
LISP - designed as a functional programming language
FORTRAN - first scientific language
ALGOL - universal language for scientific implementation

Chapter Three: Syntax and Semantics
Semantics - meaning of expressions
syntax - the form of those expressions

index = 2 * count + 17

Lexemes Tokens

index identifier
= equal sign
2 int literal
* mult_op
count identifier
+ add_op
17 int literal
; semicolon

Backus Naur Form -
John Backus and Noam Chomsky to describe the syntax of languages and went on to describe every language following ALGOL which was the first language it was used to describe.

Chapter Four: Lexical and Syntax Analysis
A Lexical analyzer is the precursor to the actual compiler. It looks for patterns in the code and separates the source into lexemes. The process includes skipping comments and blanks. Finite automata are used with the regular languages.

Efficiency, Simplicity, Portability

Parse Trees can be made bottom up or top down depending on the parser.

Chapter Five: Names Bindings Type Checking and Scopes
Special Words - reserved words and keywords

Variables - name, address, type, value

BINDING - the type count is bound at compile time, the values are set at compile time the meaning of + is set at compile time and so is the immediate representation of 5. Count is evaluated and bound again at runtime to its new value.

count = count + 5

STATIC DYNAMIC
pre-compile runtime binding
type stays type may change

Dynamic and Static Scoping should also be observed under scope and blocks.

He mentioned a lot in class about Dynamic and Static scoping last class. Also he has a boner for binding. Also he talked a lot about ambiguity in programming. He talked about parsing and recursive decent in top down parsers.

2008-03-13T01:13:00.001-05:00

Modern Latin America Notes for Midterm Exam
03/13/2008 : William Easton

Atlas Part One Notes:

Identify:

The Treaty of Tordesillas - Treaty from the pope were Spain was given right to settle west of Brazil and Portugal was given right to colonize Brazil area.
Latin American Identity

Geography - the geography of the region is very diverse and helps explain the history of how the indigenous people were spread out and how the land was colonized and used.
Culture - Catholic Church - Latin America was shaped by the catholic church. The peninsulares took it upon themselves to Baptize the indigenous people and they used that as an excuse to enslave them.
Native Americans died mostly because of malaria and overworkedness
As the creoles gained pride in their separation from the mainland they started calling the place they live the motherland and patria

The Monroe Doctrine - President Monroe offered a statement saying that it will do anything in its power to prevent European Nations mainly aimed at france and england to stop them in "recolonizing" the Latin American Colonies. USA used it as a ploy to keep LA countries under control.
Slave Centers in Latin America - The Caribbean, Brazil and the US were the major slave centers of the New world. The Caribbean accounted for much of the slave population because of it's sugar heritage.
Simon Bolivar - created a slave army and defeated the armies of Spain in Venezuela and liberated it from Spain. He went on to liberate Columbia and Equador. Fearing disjunction he united these states into what he called Gran Columbia which did not last and fell apart after Venezuela and Equador pulled out. Because of their natural land structures made it more convenient not to have a single state.
Miscegenation which is the mixing of the natives with the Spanish and the slaves all together.

Essay:

The Haitian Revolution: The Revolution was the first black revolution inspired by the French Revolution in Latin America. African slaved fought with l'Ouverature against aristocratic Spanish plantation owners and soon drove or exiled most of them out of the country. This revolution really slowed down excited creoles and brought them back to reality. The creoles seeing the US fight and gain independence and the French revolution as well was excited but slowed down by the violence and bloodshed of the Haitian revolution because much of Latin America is overpopulated with slaves. They felt the same massacre would happen to their countries therefore the calling for independence started 20 years after the start of the Haitian revolution. The creoles feared that the Latin American poor would not distinguish between Spanish and creole.
Spanish colonies and Portuguese colonies are alike and very different in many ways. They are the same in that they are all shaped by what was happening over in Europe across the Atlantic Ocean. Tensions mounted in the Spanish colonies as there was no ruler of Spain and also when Napolean conquered Portugal the royal family fled to Rio de Janeiro where Pedro the son of the new king of Portugal declared Brazil independent after the royal family went back to Europe. So in both cases Europe influenced the independence of these colonies. The independence movements of Spain and Portugal are different because of the amount of bloodshed that each side caused. People like Simon Bolivar and San Martin created slave armies that liberated much of Latin America from Spanish rule; places like Venezuela, Equador, Columbia, Peru and Chile. Portuguese colonies on the other hand were more fortunate in that little to no bloodshed was needed in order for them to become independent with Pedro saying "I'm staying here".

Atlas Part Two Notes:

Indentify

Caudillos - a logical response to disorder. The caudillos were men on horseback mostly leftover soldiers from Latin armies that banded together to form the central structure of Latin American government. They played a large role in the central and functional role in the early 19th century of Latin America. Antonio Lopez was the most influential caudillo that stove for military glory that worked against mexico in the end.
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo where the US in a basic land grab conquered almost half of the Mexican land now known as California, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, Colorado and Utah.
South America moved from caudillos to more liberal reforms. The Reform Laws limited the rule of the Catholic Church and authority over the people. It eliminated paying money to receive the sacraments and also stopped the CC from owning property outside of the administrative lands it had. This led to much conflict in places like Argentina and Columbia where some of the reforms originated. Argentina pushed for more education and immigration while Columbia pushed for infrastructure such as roads and steam routes through rivers.
The Mexican American war is one of the main examples of the "Manifest Destiny" which is the belief that the US's domination over Latin American countries is in God's divine plan for the United States. The US also tried to pruchase Cuba for 120 million dollars which was refused by Spain.
The Spanish-American war also saw the US taking control of the Caribbean, Guam and the Philippians. Finally the US took the hand of Panama in gaining independence from columbia and building its canal.

Essay:

Foreign investments were very important to the development of Latin American countries. England got the biggest jump in recognizing the industrial potential in LA. After WWI investment dollars boomed in Latin America. Great Brittan invested enormous amounts of money into Argentina almost 5 billion dollars which at that point was more than they were investing into India.
The prevailing philosophy at the time in Europe and Latin America was positivism. The idea that societies moved through different stages of development at different times and that predictable patterns dictated this process of development and modernization. Order and progress were the main themes of positivism...

Future

2007-11-12T23:40:00.000-05:00

I figure as I get into heavy programming I can share what I've learned and not sound like too much of an idiot. What I'm learning now in Operating Systems, Computer Architecture and to an extent File Processing is very interesting and exciting. I hope to give some insight to the programs I write and show what I've learned.

Meh. We'll see how it goes...But in the meantime I got to get back to programming.

Current Project: Creating my own data structure. The structure will be kind of like a Java ArrayList but different. (file processing)

Current Project II: Creating a game server to host multiple games of Gomoku and keep track of stats and skill of players with shared memory. (operating systems)

Current Project III: Building a fully functional ALU in Verilog, a HDL(Hardware Description Language), which will most definitely be a challenge.

Should be Interesting,
-Bill

Whoops...

2007-10-01T15:59:00.000-06:00

Uh oh,
Wow talk about neglect. Holy Crap. Shit well I guess I can't really pick up where I left off seeing that that happened well over 4 months ago. I thought I was going to be able to post more often over the summer and even the beginning of the semester but I just feel like everything else comes before this.

Updates on Big things.

Ultimate -

Summer: Our summer league team "clams" won the C pool in PADA. We barely missed the A/B pool and we were placed into the C/D pool and did really well especially with playing half our games without our captain.

Fall: The fall semester so far is going quite well. We have recruited a decent freshman class. About 10 dedicated players which is very promising. We have gone to two tournaments: Gettysburg and Binghamton. We came in 3rd place at Binghamton and 4th at Gettysburg. So overall I think we are doing very well. I hurt my knee this weekend playing in Gettysburg. Hurting your knee is probably the most nerve-racking experience I have ever been through. Thankfully there was no bone or extreme ligament damage. So I was able to play a little bit on Sunday.

School -

School is freaking hard...I dropped statistics because it was completely kicking my ass all over the place. I feel like crap about it. Such a waste of money...Ughh... Other than that Operating Systems, File Processing, and Computer Architecture are very interesting classes and I'm doing really well in them. I'm also taking Psychology which is probably one of the easiest classes I have ever taken in my life.

Family -

Shannon really likes Merion and Sean loves West Virginia. I went to visit him this weekend. At let me say one thing. Monorail...that's right.

-Bill

Summer League and School and Job...

2007-05-22T00:31:00.000-06:00

...but maybe not in that order...

Finals are over. I'm back home. I got onto the summer league team I wanted to get on. Also I'm all set up for my summer internship at SunGard. Hmm... All seems to be going well. I went to see 28 weeks later tonight with Dan Corse. Damn I miss everyone...Oh wait everyone's leaving...There is a party overseas apparently and I wasn't invited...

Crap I'm getting bored...

Oh yeah I bought XBox 360 from Adam.

-Bill

Ultimate and the Elements

2007-04-17T15:00:00.000-06:00

This is quite possibly the worst spring ultimate I have ever had. It's absolutely terrible. With the unrelenting snow, rain, and cold it seems like I have gotten maybe one week of practice outdoors. Total crap. I'm looking out my window looking out and seeing 4 inches of newly fallen snow on the ground and lots more rain to come thinking to myself, "Holy shit God really hates Scranton."

So much has happened since my last post a month ago. Lets recap...

My Birthday...got snowed in...oh the brutal irony

Shippensburg's tournament went pretty crappy the weather was so bad and the field we played half our games at was about 6 inches of mud deep... We played Hopkins, PSU B, Towson, Haverford, Villanova and St. Marys...the first day was absolute shit. I never wanted to not play ultimate but that day I almost threw in the towel for our last game. The second day was so much better. The conditions were so kick ass on the new field but a little too late I guess...

URI was better I drove to that cause steve couldnt find his keys so I was forced to drive the 5 hour venture. Traveled a lot of the roads that I went on for Maine trip that I took for senior week with my best friends so that was fun...The tournament itself was alright. We battled really hard every game the first day loosing twice by 1 and 2 points each to URI alumni and

Sectionals...And then there were sectionals. Damn did that suck. Sunday was cancelled and rescheduled until next week (this saturday). Also 3 of our teammates dropped out of the tournament forcing us to play nearly shorthanded in one of the most important tournaments of the year maybe for the rest of my college career... We fought hard against teams like Lafayette, Haverford, Penn B, Swarthmore and Lehigh. We got intimidated pretty bad by some teams and it just hurt us pretty bad playing 4 games in a row always moving fields...ugh whatever...

I lost the election for captain next year. This is something that two months ago I would be happy about but not now. I feel like it would've been really beneficial for me to be a captain next year not just for me for senior year but for the team too. Mostly because having every officer next year be a senior may cripple the team for the future...But hell what do I know...

I'm just hoping the weather holds up for this weekend. Not because we are going to sectionals but so we have our tournament so we can have enough money to have a team next year...

Distraught and Confused,
-Bill

Home Again

2007-03-09T21:46:00.000-05:00

I'm back home from school after a very very hard week. I had a physics test on wednesday, calc on thursday and a assembly test today. Shit man I'm exhausted. It really doesn't feel like break even when I'm here laying in my own bed. I just want the snow to melt so damn bad and ultimate to start outside. Our first tournament is in a couple days and dear God the team is doing their best to build up everyones stamina. A couple people threw up at practice last night which kind of made me happy...is that bad?

I want us to be ready and if that means some people loose their dinner well I guess those are the breaks. That was one damn good practice. I just hope I can keep up intensity over break because I am far from in shape myself...

Ultimate Needed...

-Bill

No School Again Tomorrow

2007-02-14T19:22:00.000-05:00

Scranton went into a state of emergency late last night and into this morning. Most highways are shut down and things are just getting worse and worse with the snow.

We have gotten about 8-10 inches here in the U and it seems like we are going to get a few more inches by the end of the night...

That not only means to school again tomorrow it means no Calc test and no lab. Yes!

The two things that I regretted most out of this week are canceled. Now I have the weekend to study for calc and I have a whole week to worry about lab.

Ultimate is slowly but surely starting up. We are going to the dome at least once a week and we are doing team cardio sessions whenever we can like racquetball, running, lifting...but thats it for now. I just can't wait to get outside and start throwing around every day. Thats it for now...

Ahh comfort is a good thing. So is having the time to put in a post....

Snowed In...
-Bill

Math Minor Man

2007-01-31T16:10:00.001-05:00

M^³

So I am officially a Math minor. I dropped my History class and I picked up Calculus III. Something I thought I would never do in a million damn years last semester having to deal with Calc II. I was convinced to take it because of how it compared to II. Also I looked up how close I actually was to a math minor because I have been taking class for class with all Math majors since my first semester at Scranton.

Turns out that I am 4 classes away, 2 classes of which I am currently taking and one more of which is in the CS curriculum later down the road. Very cool.

The farther I delve into math I find it more and more interesting. Some things that you can do in Calculus just boggle my mind and some of it is actually really cool.

So here is my updated class list...

Analysis III - 9:00-9:50 MTWR
Theory of CS - 11:00-11:50 MWF
Machine Organization - 12:00 - 12:50 MWF
Physics II - 1:00-1:50 MWF
Linear Algebra - 3:00 - 3:50 MWF
Physics Lab - 1:00 - 2:50 R

Yeah so thats my crap schedule. There is no getting around it since 4 of my classes listed have ONE section...

Scrantastic.

Anyways I said before that I was very excited about having two computer classes. I am no longer excited. Theory blows, its a terrible class. Machine is great. We learn almost as in depth into a computer as the circuits of a processor but I have to wait until Computer Architecture for that one.

I also went home this past weekend to pick up my car and go to a concert in Philadelphia to see Incubus on Monday. It was a lot of fun but more on that later.

-Bill

First Day

2007-01-24T09:04:00.000-05:00

Today is the first day of classes...

I got: Theoretical Foundations of Computer Science - 11:00am-11:50am
Machine Organization and Assembly Programming - 12:00pm-12:50pm
Physics II - 1:00pm-1:50pm
Then an hour break I guess I'll take for lunch...
Linear Algebra - 3:00pm-3:50pm

So all in all four classes not too bad. I'm excited for my 2 computer classes this semester so we'll see how that goes. I'll keep you posted...

-Bill

NFC and AFC Conference Champions

2007-01-23T01:27:00.000-05:00

Yeah yeah, everyones talking about these great, amazing, exciting games I'm not denying they weren't but some of the hype that was put on the games was rather much. I'll go after each team and game separately.

NFC Championship: Chicago Bears vs. New Orleans Saints

The Saints got beat, simple as that. They didn't come up as intense as they did against the eagles the week before. They ran the ball to Deuce a handful of times. Who does that? The same Deuce that ran all over my Eagles was hardly noticeable on the field against one of the poorer rushing defenses in the NFC. It was stupid and I can't see why this could have possibly been overlooked.
The Bears. The only thing I can say about the Bears is that they sure know how to get those turnovers. I'm pretty sure that the Bears forced 4 turnovers during the game. That is huge. It really did turn the game around for the Bears who had a sloppy start. I really don't know about
Rex Grossman. I still don't think he is a solid quarterback he threw some throws that he had absolutely no business throwing including that one TD pass to Berrian. Any pass coverage that had their heads screwed on right could've ate that pass alive. To be cliche the SuperBowl is really going to be the ultimate test being put up against Peyton Manning. Please Rex step aside...

AFC Championship: New England Patriots vs. Indianapolis Colts...

The Patriots dominated the first quarter and a half of this game. I was so disgusted with the way the Colts were playing I told my Dad that I wasn't watching this garbage anymore. An hour later my Dad said hey the Colts are on a drive they are making a comeback. Yeah the Patriots blew it. They came out with the right attitude but left it in the locker room after halftime. People talk about how Brady really was not the hero he should have been. Thats crap. You expect a Brady, hell any quarterback in the NFL to be able to drive down 80 yards in under a minute to play? Oh and you can't settle for a field goal, you have to get the touchdown to WIN. You can't even tie. If Brady was able to do that I would've just given him the damn SuperBowl trophy because theirs no way Rex can pull half of that off. I'm not a Patriots fan in the least but saying he choked is just childish.

The Colts on the other hand, hats of to them and to Peyton Manning. He turned a crap offense of no name receivers and a rookie running back into an actual offense and came back against almost dominating Patriots defense. A lot of mistakes and turnovers really turned this game in favor for the Colts making lesser mistakes and taking advantage of the ones the Patriots made. What a game.

The teams I wanted to win in these game won. So what more would I want for the SuperBowl? Maybe one day an Eagles SuperBowl. Wishful thinking I suppose...

Still dreaming green...

-Bill

Catholic Schools

2007-01-21T18:27:00.000-05:00

The private Catholic elementary schools in Havertown are seriously struggling. Some have already closed down but still others are struggling to stay open and attract new students and families to the church.

Havertown is one of the biggest Irish Catholic populated areas in the Philadelphia area so why are the schools suffering? Is it because the town is getting older and not getting enough families moving in? Or is it because of more families sending their kids to public schools?

Not really.

I'm sure that these things may affect them they are mostly affected by money. Catholic schools used to thrive when they had nuns to teach the classes. Nuns could teach at a Catholic elementary school and not get paid for it. This brought in a lot of revenue for the schools and helped them to attract more students.

It's a shame to think that my old grade school and others like Annunciation and Sacred Heart could be closing down. It really does take away from the character of Havertown I just hope things change...

-Bill

Eagles vs. Saints

2007-01-14T05:38:00.000-05:00

Holy crap what a great game. The final score of the game was 27-24. With all the odds against them the Eagles led the Saints though much of the game. We were completely overcome by Drew Brees who was damn close to perfect throwing no interceptions. Our defense seemed like it was falling apart every time the ball was put into Deuce McAllister's hands as well.

Although the Eagles offense continued to pound away valiantly led by our backup quarterback coming off of a five game winning streak Jeff Garcia had some serious pressure put on him by the Saints defense throughout the game. Brian Westbrook, Reggie Brown and Dante Stallworth all had incredible games including a 65 yard TD run by Westbrook and a 75 TD reception from Dante Stallworth...

It was truly a hard fought battle by both teams with clearly the better team winning.

I hope they get killed in the rest of the playoffs...

But some good news! Brian Dawkins was resigned and he is good to go for another Eagles season...

Great season Eagles...

-Bill