this week in Computer Science

This week I started C# and pair programming with Peter. C# seems to be a pretty easy language very similar to java. As for pair programming, as I spent most of my time last period going over the basics if Visual Studio I wasn't able to actually try it. However, the concept seems interesting, if possibly a little slow due to each programmer maybe wanting to do things a different way than the other. However, this increased creativity may make things go faster. Only experimentation will tell, but I am optimistic.

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http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-04/single-electron-transistor-stepping-stone-toward-quantum-computing-and-artificial-atoms

The first step towards quantum computers has hopefully been made. Scientists at the University of Pittsburgh have designed a 1.5 nm wide transistor that works with just one electron to process information. It's tiny size could be applied in making the extremely complex quantum computers that require such scales, or simply to be able to store and process information at the same time. My only problem is, the probability based quantum computers would be extremely good at organizing a war against mankind. And we are making them smarter.

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http://www.popsci.com/cars/article/2011-03/london-rolls-out-first-fuel-cell-powered-black-cab

Britain is upgrading it's fleet of taxis to become powered solely by fuel cells. Apparently, like so many nations before it, Britain is trying to do something impressive for the 2012 Olympic Games. Hopefully these cars will be kept up afterwards and inspire other nations to do something similar.

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http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-03/esa-generates-most-sophisticated-geoid-yet-goces-gravity-data

Apparently, the earth's gravity is still not completely uniform even after having billions of years to settle. This map shows the varying levels of gravity around the globe. Unfortunately, this article doesn't explain some of the prominent irregularities in the picture. For instance, why is there a huge surge of gravity in Canada? And why does the level of gravitational pull appear to be severely different from plate to plate?

this week in Computer Science

This week in computer science I worked on nested loops. This is where a loop in inside of another loop. This is useful for drawing images due it being able to repeat more complex patterns that a single loop could. Things have been going very smoothly with the recent labs, so nothing to report.

Loopception!

this week in Computer Science

This week I worked on the boolean labs in python. The Boolean data type is used to store true or false values. This is useful for programs that need to verify a number of things before initiating an action. Pretty much every program does this, so knowing the syntax for python has been very helpful.