curisoity
DESCRIPTION
Feeding curious minds.TRANSCRIPT
Curiosity Feed ing curious minds
DIY
Woodworking
Metalworking
Technology
Giving Laptops to the Poor? The Life of a
Programmer
Ugh, I can’t Write Anything
A Layer’s Life
How Your TV, PC, And Console Will Save Your
Brain
The Good, the Rad, and the Not-so Ugly
The Case Against the $100 Laptop Plan
Why Handmade
Products are Better
Can’t Write Anything? Learn how to deal with
writer’s block
My name is Ganesh Vasu and I am a student at LASA High School. I enjoy reading and programming. I also enjoy Diy and how-to
projects. I also like blogging. I enjoy swimming and basketball. I like playing the piano and
going to debate competitions. My favorite classes in
school are Latin and computer programming. My favorite book could possibly be Inkheart. I also
like playing videogames such as HALO and Call of Duty.
BIOS
My name is Nicholas. I am a student at LASA High School. I like to read, learn new
things, and play with computers. I am in the Robotics Club, and we have lots of fun. Because we all like to learn new things, we decided to make a
magazine about How-To’s, because we can learn things in the process, and help to teach others too.
Hello, my name is Jade Dever Matthews. I am a student at
LASA High School and enjoy sleeping and eating. Random
how-tos and DIYs have
always been an interest for me even if the
knowledge is completely pointless.
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A Lawyer’s Life
OPINIONTech Wreck
The Good The Rad The Not So Ugly
The Case Against Idle Hands
46 10
16
FEATURE Ugh I Can’t Write Anything
The Life of a Programmer
13
18
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A Lawyer’s Life
FEATURE Ugh I Can’t Write Anything
The Life of a Programmer
Curiosity Feed ing curious minds
If you have built a project based on this magazine go to
Letter From the Editor
Dear Readers,
Nicholas L. WallaceJade
Ganesh Vasu
feedingcuriousminds.blogspot.com
We, the creators of Curiosity, envision this magazine to spur creative thinking in the minds of people. We have created these how-to’s and DIY’s to show you many kinds of projects that you can use to learn that hopefully inspire you to build. We hope that after you have read all of these articles, in our magazine, you will research what we have wrote about and advance your knowledge by
creating projects based on this.
Page 4 ■■■ Opinion
Art by: Ganesh VasuPile of trashy and old technology
by Ganesh Vasu
Why the $100 laptop plan shouldn’t be used in poor countries
Everybody is dirt poor and comes to school in shabby, tattered clothes. Their hair looks unwashed and their fingernails look dirty. Children like this are determined for better lives and try hard in school. They like the learning process and education system. But these poor children don’t have good writing materials. These children might have asked a teacher “Can we get better writing utensils,” and the teacher probably said “We can only afford this.” Everybody believes they deserve better. Many politicians and people with great political and economical influence have proposed plans. One such plan proposes to give
laptops to children in third world countries. This fancy plan is too non-sensual for the real world.One of the major points of this opinion piece is the fact that computers are not economical. Even for a normal person living in a country with high standards like the United States, a laptop is a commodity that is expensive. Why should it be any different in a third world country? For example, let us say that the United States government
“Can we get better writing utensils?”
“You may be a good student but there is a
high chance you could miss something.”
December 2011 ■■■ Page 5
wants to give one school in Nigeria laptops. The laptops cost a cheap amount-for a laptop. They cost $100-$200. Shipping these laptops costs another $25 more (because you shipped in bulk and it had to travel across the world). What if the Nigerian school holds 500 students? You do the math. (kevinrkosar.com)Another common theme time and time again that spews out in a debate of laptops is distraction. Results show that more and more teachers have seen kids play games or surf the
web rather than actually take notes in class or do projects. Laptops also discourage from the main focus in the classroom: the teacher. You may be a good student but there is a high chance you could miss something the teacher says if you look at the computer during class. People can also be distracted by the laptop in other ways. Laptops have a high chance of being stolen because of their high value and a chance of being sold for money. (msnbc.msn.com) A laptop’s functionality isn’t always reliable. Laptops could break or be damaged and what then? They would need to be fixed by being reshipped all the way back
to the United States and then sent back. But you know what has stood the test of time and has worked for many years in educating youngsters-textbooks. Textbooks can’t break or get messed up. They worked for many years. It is easy to write notes on text books and easier to learn. Textbooks are easier to carry around. In my opinion, a textbook be what all schoolchildren carry to class in a poor country not some heavy laptop. (Brighthub.com) My opposition says that computers make it easier to track progress and make it more fun to learn. You can easily track progress with handwritten records which can be neatly organized and in handy reach. Textbook are fun to learn with too because they have pictures that don’t hurt your eyes after you stare at them for a long time. (news. blogs.nytimes.com) Computers don’t have much going for them. They can sometimes be slow and cost too much. They are unreliable and cause many distractions. The bad factors outweigh the good ones. Computers don’t have much going for them. They can sometimes be slow and cost too much. They are unreliable and cause many distractions. The bad factors outweigh the good ones. Time should be poured into more innovative ones or the old textbook plan. The computer idea might sound good on paper, but out on the real world it can’t happen.
Try to imagine a classroom in a third world country.
As I hopped onto the couch and grabbed my bag of Doritos, I sat there as what some would call a couch potato, about to watch Fam-ily Guy. In this episode, Abraham Lincoln tells his neighbor that the grass is too high as the neighbor continues to cut it. The neighbor rudely replies back and curses at him. Why did he do that? What is so wrong with Abraham Lincoln that it would cause some one to curse at him? I wondered about the content of the show as I be-came inspired to further investigate Abraham Lincoln. Later in my life I had a project on him. Thanks to my previous knowledge about him, I received a perfect score on it, and all that happened was that I simply became inspired to research by watching a TV show I already en-joyed. Video games, TV, and the Internet are all beneficial in pro-
ducing curiosity and creativity . These electronics raise questions that influence people to further investigate and learn something new. Anyone might learn new vocabulary by just be-ing engaged with the technology. As an example, I stumble upon thousands of words by just watch-ing TV. I look up each new word in order to discover the true meaning. This could happen with many others as well, because of the wide variety of words pre-sented on these electronics. Ac-cording to Chacha Tumbokon, who studied philosophy and ear-ly child development as well as writes articles on http://www.rais-esmartkid.com/ (The Good and Bad Effects of Video Games), these sources of entertainment can provide learning that is fun. Anyone who has ever seen a kid
watch TV or video games, most know how engaged they become as they actively participate. Also stated by Chacha Tumbokon is that video games contain en-tertaining colors and challenges that motivate a person to practice which can improve skills including analytical thinking. According to the Media Awareness Network, a non-profit organization in Ottawa, Canada that conducts surveys and studies, people might want to read books with similar subjects of the TV show. People can also read books adapted into movies or TV shows, such as Harry Pot-ter. Stated by,Carey Bryson, who interviewed many researchers and child psychologists as well as graduated from Brigham Young University obtaining a bachelor’s degree in Psychology, “Children’s shows, whether they bill them-
The Good The Rad The Not so ugly
Why TV, video games, and the Internet are all benifitial in providing creativity
By: Jade Dever Matthews
Page 6 ■■■ Opinion
I sit and play a video game
with references to histori-cal time periods. An urge for knowledge and developing interest in the game pushes me to look up facts about
that time period.
selves as “educational” or not, may offer opportunities to spark learning.” One example she gives is the show “Go, Diego, Go”. My opposition believes that electron-ics cause a lack of creativity. With all the updating information, peo-ple could easily form an interest in a subject. Instead of causing a lack of creativity, the person will start to become inspired to research the interesting subject and possibly create something new from it. My opposition over-exaggerates and over looks the possibilities men-tioned above. There is always something new to be found on technology, and it is the curious minds, created from these sources of entertainment, that have a de-sire to further investigate. Historical references on TV, in video games, or on the In-ternet could influence people to
study different times of history. Specific TV shows take place in different cultural time that pres-ent various types of music, art, and style. Knowledge of these different cultures “brings peo-ple together” and creates a bet-ter connection between people
around the world. According to the Media Awareness Net-work, shows can introduce cul-tural differences and develop an interest for that time period.
Many games today take place in diverse time periods, especially with war involved. Examples include the famous Call of Duty series, which sold seven million copies on just the first day. These games’ themes involve historical wars such as, World War II or The Cold War. Because of the connection to the game and the interest to learn, the user could investigate the truth about these historical wars. Take this scenario into consideration. I sit and play a video game with references to historical time periods. An urge for knowledge and developing in-terest in the game pushes me to look up facts about that time pe-riod. The University of Michigan enounced that TV could expose ideas to kids that might never get introduced to them in their
December 2011 ■■■ Page 7
Continue on Page 8
Art by: Wellington Grey
culture or community. They also stated that documentaries helps people think critically about the world. With various information from these electronics, chil-dren can develop an encouragement to learn historical facts. The Internet could serve as a searching source for facts about historical moments. Not only does it hold information about past history, it also presents current events, through updating news channels or social networking sites that millions of people visit a day. This keeps people up to date on the changing world around them by connecting every one with the Internet. I still sit on the couch like an old elephant watching TV and playing video games. I continue to do this for
two hours each day, for a month. At the end of the month I step up onto a scale in order to weigh myself. I originally weighed one-hundred thirty-five pounds and now I weighed about one-hundred twenty pounds. I wish I could see all of the confused face right now because I’m sure these people don’t think this is pos-sible. However, I watched TV shows about physical activities as well as played exercising video games on consoles like the Wii. This doesn’t just happen to me though. In fact, many people believe that electronics cause negative effects, such as obesity and poor body image. These people fail to realize that many games, TV shows, and websites encourage exercise. From ads online, such as the “flat belly
ad” or programs on TV, I could develop a self-conscious mind towards my physi-cal appearance and become inspired to change it for the better. TV, video games, and the Internet DO provide positive effects. Regardless of what other people say, (which is most likely inspired by infor-mation found online ) these sources do not need to be looked down upon. The next time you, reader, see someone play video games or watch TV shows, don’t assume he or she will become fat or that he or she receives poor grades. Think of all the possible beneficial effects that come out of it.
Learn interesting Turorials
www.instructables.com
Heathkit H89The newest computer created.
December 2011
5 functions a second!Now in black and white.
The Case Against Idle HandsBy Nicholas Wallace
Have you ever created anything completely
on your own? I think that Do It Yourself
projects are better than industrial-
made products and most services. I
think this because of many reasons,
but I will highlight you some of my
favorites. I think that Do It Yourself
projects trump industrial made
products because they are usually
created from better materials, provide
learning experiences, and you can be
able to customize pretty much anything
that you want, during the build or after.
My first point says that Do It
Yourself projects are one of the best
fun experience builders out there. By
finishing different projects yourself,
you learn many concepts and have lots
of fun in the process. For example, say
that you want to live in a home that
contains better wiring, or you want to
make your own sprinkler system, or
just about anything else. When you
learn to DIY, you open yourself up
to many new options. Msladydeborah,
who commented on the article that I
will talk about next, said, “I’m pro DIY
because it makes you think and use
skills or develop them. It’s often fun
and very satisfying. I still use a lot of the
DIY skills that were taught to me as a
child.” See? This helps to show what
a positive thing DIY’s are.
My second point is handmade
products help to improve your health
and your sense of self worth. Mike
Frauenfelder, a writer for the magazine
Wired, said, “Human beings evolved
opposable thumbs for a reason… And
when people engage in DIY activities
like knitting, their heart rate and
blood pressure go down.” This helps
to prove my point that DIY projects
can improve your health, and it also
reduces stress, which can make it
easier for people to get work done and
because of the lower amount of stress,
you can get more restful sleep at night,
which makes everyone’s life better.
Another piece of evidence
is “Through a series of experiments,
the Harvard researchers found that
‘labor alone can be sufficient to
induce greater liking for the fruits
of one’s labor.’” I think that this can
show that by allowing people to work
on projects that they like more often,
they can allow people more willing
to work more, as they become a lot
happier with their work, so they can
be willing to work harder and more
like a well-oiled machine. Also, by
undertaking many Do It Yourself
projects, you can learn to manage time
more efficiently because you work with
multiple elements, and if the project is
not completed with satisfactory results
quickly or in a reasonable amount of
time, people tend to lose interest in it.
My third reason is that by
learning to make your own items,
you can expand your horizons, help
the environment, and make more
innovative decisions. Carn Mather
said, “Shortly after we moved off the
electricity grid 13 years ago I began
presenting workshops on renewable
energy.” Because they moved off
of the grid, they learned to use less
electricity and to use other sources for
entertainment. By doing so, they have
Page 10 ■■■ Opinion
Homemade products are better than commercial products
more time to expand their horizons by
gaining new knowledge, and expanding
others horizons by teaching them the
things that they learned. At the same
time, they help the environment
because they are using less electricity
by using more sustainable practices,
and because they have more time on
their hands, they can do DIY projects,
which are healthier for the mind and
body, and use less packaging and
processing than industrial products.
Colleen Vanderlinden said,
“One of the best ways to buy less stuff
is to buy fewer, but higher quality
items, and to keep them in good
repair.” This is especially true about
clothing, because clothing is one of
the things that wear out quickly. By
learning to sew or knit, you can repair
or make your clothes at a much lower
cost, albeit a small investment at the
beginning. Even if you only fix a few
clothes a week, by mending tears
or seams, or by patching holes, you
can greatly increase the longevity of
clothes, creating huge savings when
you purchase clothes.
The people, especially
investors in companies and company
owners, may say that industrial
made items are better. They say that
industrial-made items are better than
homemade or handmade because
they are all uniform, and they are safer
because of all of these safety features
(which break after a year or two, but
many do not last even this long.) They
also claim that by using their product,
you are helping the environment.
But, most of the time, you’re actually
hurting the environment. To envision
“When people engage in DIY activities like
knitting, their heart rate and blood
pressure go down.”
this, think about the amount of gas
needed to transport the product from
the place where it was produced to
the place it is being sold at. Then,
think about the materials that are
used in the process, as many are not
very environmentally friendly. Are
you sure this is more helpful for the
environment?
By using handmade items,
you can be certain what things have
been used in the creation of the
finished product, and if these items
were processed nearby, you are using
even better materials. Also, you can
be sure how environmentally safe
if you are able to produce your own
materials, but many people cannot do
this.
I think that this justifies my
point on many fronts, and that if
everyone were to create more things
by themselves, lots of money could be
saved, the environment will be much
better off, and people would be able
to decide what they wanted to do with
their life and make more innovated
decisions much easier.
Art by: [email protected]
December 2011 ■■■ Page 11
Homemade birdhouse
Do something thought-worthy.
Be curious.
DIY
reasoning
listening
analysis
debate
speaking
learning
A Lawyer’s Life
writing
By Ganesh Vasu
“You should be good at critical thinking,
speaking and writing,” says Peter Kennedy, a lawyer that deals with the first amendment.
Kids endeavoring to become lawyers
should spend time thinking about the
skills they need. Many different law-
yers and others have different opinions
about what you should do as a student
in school. Although, they all agree, law
school isn’t enough.
The hardest thing to do when
convincing people about your case Peter
says,
“For me it’s trying to see the
case from different points of view.
Different people see things in different
ways. You have to remember your way is
the only way. Being right isn’t the same
thing as convincing people that you are
right.”
“People interpret evidence dif-
ferently.”
Peter had lost a case recently
where he represented a client who
believed that a wrecked automobile was
art. People had disagreed about whether
this “art” complied with the first amend-
ment. Peter also represented a religious
organization that was denied tax deduc-
tion because the state of Texas did not
believe that it was a religion. They were
called the Ethical society of Austin. They
don’t require every member to believe
in God. Basically, Peter represents the
media a lot. The media is all about dif-
ferent interpretations.
Peter also said that you should
do well in school, but not think about
being a lawyer too much. He, originally,
decided to become a lawyer because of
his good score on the LSAT. He didn’t
even decide to get into law school until
that point. He thinks you shouldn’t decide
either.
right.”
decide to get into law school until that
point. He thinks you shouldn’t decide
either.
Vignesh disagrees. He thinks that
you could build good skills for a lawyer’s
work by doing extracurricular activities
such as debate.
One of these extracurricular
activities could be debate. “Debate teaches
people because it is hands on experience
for how to be a lawyer and how to use
these skills on the spot, “said Vasu, an avid
debater.
Debate teaches you how to
analyze information and how to speak
clearly. These are qualities of good lawyers
because lawyers analyze the constitutional
laws and use their own interpretations of
these to argue for their clients. They also
have to state evidence clearly so that the
judge can hear you. You have to write your
own arguments for the rebuttals. Debate
involves complex tricks and tools such as
conditionality, critiques, counter plans, and
dissads.
Debate teaches you how to analyze informa-tion and how to speak
clearly.
Although some people believe
there is not much work to being a lawyer,
Mrs. Young, an E-zine teacher at LASA
high school who interned at a law firm,
disagreed when she said
“It seemed like rich lawyers
worked long hours even though they got
paid a lot. I found out that I value time
over money.”
According to Marvin Jones
Jr., an attendant of George Washing-
ton Law School, lawyers sometimes
spend nights and even weekends
in the office. They work 70 hours
a week. Most lawyers will work this
amount for $120,000 a year. This is
a brutal amount of work for little pay.
Some of the work you have to do is
even mundane paper work. These
working hours discourage parents who
need to care for children or pregnant
women. These also push away people
who want to have social lives.
But as Mr. Kennedy says a
lawyer’s work isn’t just about funda-
mental skills, but
“2 parts: you have to know
the law and you have to know the
facts.”
“But as Mr. Kennedy says a lawyer’s work
isn’t just about funda-mental skills.”
The law is the rules of the
constitution. You have to know stat-
utes, court decisions, and precedents.
The facts are different stories and
different versions of events. You also
need to know what the other people
(witnesses and other adversaries) will
say. You need to the facts and testi-
monies. The most important of all is
the persuasive, accurate story you have
to tell using all of these facts. Of the
many amendments he has to know,
the first amendment is the main one.
These rights deal with the freedom of
religion, assembly, press, petition, and
speech. This is why he represented
Page 14 ■■■ October 2011
such musicians as Tupac and Micheal
Jackson. This is also why he repre-
sented the ethical society of Austin. He
has won many awards for knowing a
lot about the first amendment and has
spent
“Enough time on the first
amendment to know more than the
average lawyer.”
But other than the law, a layer
needs to have computer skills.
“I use computers in two ways: I use
computers to e-mail and the internet to
do research. Everything is filed elec-
tronically. The companies and people
I represent all deal with technology
related problems like dealing with new
technologies.”
He has represented a company called
Mutual Mobile that creates applications
on the iphone and ipad. The internet
is also very important to him because it
is the way people find out about him,
through his website. Each lawyer has
their own specialized practice and this
is his. So apart from analytival skills,
speaking skills, and writing skills lawyers
need to know a bit of each law in the
constitutions, how to work with comput-
ers, and their own special practice’s laws
too.
Whether you think being a lawyer is
hard or not, all lawyers agree that going
to law school will help you get where
you need to be.
“Law school teaches you how to be a
lawyer, how to write like a lawyer, and
how to read a precedent.”
Law school will teach you all the im-
portant information you need to know.
It will teach you all about how a trial
works, what all the laws are, and how
to talk to a client but you need to learn
how to use all of that information in the
right way.
There is a lot of time in the middle of
high school and becoming a lawyer,
December 2011 ■■■ Page 15
there is even a long time before you
finish high school and you enter law
schools so there are many chances to
think about what you are going to do
and work to achieve these goals, but all
lawyers agree good grades are the key
to doing well at anything.
Peter says “For somebody in high
school, don’t think too much about it.
Do well in school. ”
Page 16 ■■■ Feature Story
By: Jade Dever Matthews
“I get this writer’s block, it comes as quite a shock, And now I’m stuck between a hard place and the biggest rock, In my own head consumed. I sit back in my room, Its like the tapestries of life get tangled in the loom, I’m like a butterfly, caught in a hurricane, My pulse is quickening as my heart plays a new refrain...” This is a song by Just Jack, an English rapper, about having writer’s block while writing the song. Many stories and songs contain characters that develop writer’s block, such as, Stephan King’s story, The Shining. In this story the character develops writer’s block. As a result of this writer’s block, he has a mental breakdown. A TV series called Castle, has a main character that seeks inspiration in order to cure his writer’s block.
Writer’s block affects all kinds of different writers. New ones or fa-mous. If only people knew what to expect when they encoun-tered it, then people wouldn’t shy away form writing as some do. It would take understanding of what it is as well as tactics in order to know what to do when faced with writer’s block.
So what exactly is writer’s block? According to <thefreedictionary.com> online, “It is a temporary psychological inability to begin or continue work on a piece of writing.” “Writer’s block comes when someone sits down and thinks that everything has to be done right then,” Mike Matthews says. “It’s the same thing as being lost in the woods without a map or any sense of which direction to take.”
Mike Matthews is a professor of
a creative writing class at Central Texas College. Matthews says that writing is who he is and what he enjoys. It also is the most chal-lenging thing for him and some-thing that he wants to get better at through teaching. He says that even he has suffered from writ-er’s block.
“I remember once when I was in college I was supposed to write a paper and I stepped up to a type-writer and for a total of 15 hours, I only got a paragraph...”
However, he isn’t the only one who has had trouble with writer’s block. Many students in his class come up to him informing him that they just can’t come up with a good enough idea.
“One student came to me a cou-ple of weeks ago to tell me why
December 2011 ■■■ Page 17
he had trouble writing the story for the Creative Writing Class. He said that he couldn’t write a story, because he started getting afraid that it would not be good enough or that I would not like it,” Matthews said.
Mike also stated that he thinks famous writers get writer’s block as well, but not for the same reasons. He compared their writer’s block to surfing.
“When you catch the wave that is simply the writing part. All the rest of it is just periods of time when the actual writing of words doesn’t occur yet.”
During the time actual writing doesn’t occur is when the writer is getting ideas, observations, in-formation, and figuring out how to connect the ideas.
“You have to realize that it’s all a process. It is long and ongoing. Even if I am not sitting down and writing, it is still there in my head, how I am going to get it [the writing] together and the time I am going to revise it.”So how does one deal with writ-
er’s block? Mike said that he gets his students to keep a journal. “I get them to record observations what people do or what they see. One of the things that causes writer’s block is that when they sit down to write they have to make something up on the spot and write it all out perfectly. When they record stuff they can use that instead.”
“Students I have helped with writer’s block have come to my office. I usually get a student to talk about what he or she knows from his or her own experience so that the student can focus on something to write about that will need a lot of detail.” He says.
Matthews thinks that writer’s block mainly comes from self-crit-icism. With his experience with the student (mentioned above), “ I told him that he should see his nervousness as a sign that he is learning something new or that he is being challenged with new ideas that he’s not used to. I said that when we learn, we are confronted with tasks we do not know how to perform at first because learning is about exploring new ideas and
working with new skills... I told him to try a few of the new things and to explore them instead of worrying that he would not do any of them very well”
“During writer’s block, a person should probably do something physical like taking a walk or riding a bike to clear his or her mind.”
So does this strategy get rid of writer’s block?Matthews says that he doesn’t think so. “I don’t think writer’s block is just about writing, but about a difficulty in excepting what they are doing. If they want to get ride of writer’s block you have to get rid of being super crit-ical of yourself.”
“I think there are ways to prevent writer’s block, maybe. Before sit-ting down to write, a writer could have a very simple place to start like a specific detail he or she could start to describe so that he or she won’t feel overwhelmed.”
It is important to realize that, in most cases, writing will need to be
1revised. Perfection isn’t gained the first time or even the second, so why worry about achieving perfection as soon as you sit down to write?
“Writing is nothing without correcting it,” The Ezine teacher, Brandi Richey, says as she speaks to the class.
As Richey said, there will be a time when you need to correct your writing. You aren’t going to get it perfectly.As many authors have said, they have had to make several drafts until they published and still needed corrections. In fact, J.K Rowling, the author of Harry Potter, wrote nine drafts until her first book was published. Instead of trying to make writing perfect the first time peo-ple sit down to write, as my eighth grade English teacher, Mr. Shack, once said, people should just begin to write.
From school and strict regulations on writing “We are trained to self-doubt, to self-scrutiny in the place of self-expres-sion.” “In our culture, writing is more often costumed up in a military outfit. We want our sentences to march in neat little rows, like well-behaved boarding-school children.” Julia Cameron said in her book The Right to Write. “As a re-sult, most of us try to write too carefully. We try to do it ‘right’. We try to sound smart. We try, period. Writing goes much better when we don’t work at it so much. When we give ourselves permis-sion to just hang out on the page.”
Page 18 ■■■ October 2011
Want to find cool
techniques?Go to
How-To Geek to learn more.
www.howtogeek.com
you had limited options in the programs that could be written, such as programs for record management and keeping track of different lists. Now there is voice recognition software for multiple platforms, such as Dragon Speech, which uses your voice to run dif-ferent programs on your computer, and the iPhone 4S can perform different actions when you talk to it through the built-in mi-crophone. Wallacefirstlearnedto program during high school, when he received a TI-57 calculator. He learned everything about how to program it from the instruction booklet and a small book, Making Tracks Into Programming, that
taught the more advanced functions of programming the calculator. Program-ming was much easier to learn for people during this time, as they were taughthowtocreateflowcharts in school, and this makes it easier to pro-gram because “programs use discretesteps,andflowcharts create all of the steps that are needed for branching, so the discrete steps the computer uses are easier to understand,” and computers take things very literally. Wallace uses this example to explain the im-portance of being very de-tailed in programs: If you are trying to tell a com-puter how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich,
The Life of a Programmer
The two black com-puter towers hum quietly together. Dust coats the piles of multicolored wires and larger piles of disorganized papers mixed in with old CD’s. Every-thing is tangled and mixed together, making it dif-ficulttofindevenalargejoystick that is mixed in somewhere. Books are crammed onto the small shelves high on the wall, and Star Trek along with HESS vehicles sit atop one another on the multiple cabinets. School supplies and monitors are pushed into corners, with mul-tiple monitors hooked to-gether. Programming has pro-gressed greatly over the past 30 years. 30 years ago
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you need to go through ev-ery step very carefully. You cannot tell the com-puter to put the peanut butter on the bread. You must go through each of the steps, such as opening the container, then putting the knife in, scraping some out, then spreading the peanut butter onto the bread. The same goes for computers. If you only tell it to put the two pro-grams together, then the program will not work very well, especially if there aretwodifferentfiletypes. Frank Wallace works with SQL, or Structured Query Language, more of-ten than other programming languages, which is a lan-guage that is used to man-age the different forms of data in related databases, because he works with lots of databases, and knowing
how to use the type of program that is used mainly for database man-agement is helpful. It sends information to and receives information from databases. SQL Programs also makes reports based on the data collected from the databases. “It’s like tables of data.” The progression of programming and technology has caused SQL programs to change to “[have] more flexibilitytodoanduseSQL through other languag-es.” “Youuseflowchartsfor writing programs. Usu-ally people use operating systems; they don’t write an operating system,” says Wallace about creating an OS. The operating sys-tems already in circula-tionwouldsuithimfine,sohe doesn’t want a custom
operating systems. Every operating system has it’s own pros and cons. “I like Windows, I like Linux, I like Mac. I don’t like Win-dows, I don’t like Linux, I don’t like Mac.” said Wallace. He uses multiple operating systems in any given day, such as Win-dows 2008, Windows 2003, and Windows 7, along with Redhat Linux, Mac OS, and UNIX. He has learned to like them all, partly from using them every day. Wallace and others have much advice that they can give to new and upcom-ing programmers. Getting involved “in user groups to make contacts with peo-ple in the computer indus-try” can help people as-piring to be a programmer to achieve their dream. A well rounded education is also helpful, as “A good programmer is strong in
Two Computers Wallace has used.The Old and the New.
Art By: Frank Wallace Page 20 ■■■ Feature Story
otherfields[insteadof]just programming.” said Wallace. By learning Eng-lish and Physics, people can write programs without leaving as many things out duringthefirstdraftofthe program. When people firstwriteaprogramforsomeone, they sometimes leave things out because they don’t have all of the background that is needed to make the program with all of the different thingsthefirsttime.Youwould need to know Eng-lish, because “a lot of times programs have to in-terface with people.” You would need to know trigo-nometry if you were to work with GPS systems, as you need to know the formu-lastofindtheanglesandlengths of all of the tri-angles formed by the dif-ferent sattilites. If Wallace wasn’t a programmer, he said that he would “probably be a teacher.” This could hap-pen because of the wide va-riety of information that he has learned as he became a programmer would be suf-ficientenoughtofuelaca-reer of teaching, coupled with a teaching degree, if he had one. “People don’t ap-preciate programming as much as they could because programming is an art. Not everyone can write a program,” and even though many people realize this, they tend not to think
about the work involved. His biggest recent challenge at work was when he “was working on an issue where web soft-ware was becoming non-responsive.”Thedifficul-ties of this was because “they [the group] didn’t get a lot of help from the vendor.” There was also a small amount of log-in information available to the group working on this problem. The last project that he worked on “was the clearing of databases and machines for customers to run software” such as op-erating systems. It was difficultbecauseofthetime constraints for the project. “They were able to complete it on time, and expose new issues that we had to work on.” There are several ways that Wallace balances work with his family. He takes his computer with him, “so that [he] doesn’t waste time” while wait-ingforchildrentofinishtheir activities and when
he is waiting for some-thing to start. He also “takes things to do dur-ing meetings”, which helps to achieve the same goal as before, making the best use of his time. He also tries to plan at work to createamoreefficientwayto do the things needed so that not as much time is wasted. The rate of change is staggering, and this cre-ates problems for people who are unable or unwill-ing to keep up with the new technologies and pro-gramming languages avail-able. Frank Wallace has this problem. His trouble is “keeping up with all of the change, with all of the new languages, [and] not having the time to learn all of the new things that would be fun.” He tries to learn as much as he can during his free time, when not playing or helping his children, but he still thinksitisdifficultbe-cause of the amount of new technologies.
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