Research poster

So, of course I've procrastinated on picking a topic for my research poster that is due tomorrow. But I found a great idea, which I think is pretty innovative and cool. Paper batteries! I found the idea earlier this week on reddit which is a regular news feed site that I visit, pretty much 3-4 times a day now. The idea is from a team of Stanford researchers. Turning ordinary paper into a battery! Wow, that could really revolutionize the world today. I mean, the cost of batteries, both making them and recycling them is a hassle. But with new paper batteries, hopefully it will change.
I found it especially interesting because on Monday, I didn't see anything like it. I didn't want to do a research poster on something that 5 other people had chosen to write about also. I noticed that on Monday, at least 6 people did their research poster on Google Wave. And trust me, I think Google Wave is cool and very useful and could turn the way meetings are run, but I don't think it was the best idea since 5 other people decided to do it also.
Overall, the research posters on Monday were very creative and well thought out. I especially liked the one about Cyborg Bugs, which were apparently the first ever fully cyborg animals. They would help out the military and be controlled from a remote control, or not. Either way, I thought his poster was nice and visually appeasing.  There was lots of information and he seemed very informed about the topic. I don't remember what his name was, but I applaud you Mr. Cyborg Bug researcher!

google

I've been thinking about the final research poster project and have found some ideas, but I'm not quite sure how they are applicable to class. There are a lot of new aspects to Google that are emerging, which interest me greatly, mostly because my life revolves around Google. Everything seems to be connected to google in some way these days, it's hard to imagine life without it.
It's weird to think that about 10 years ago, no one knew what google was. And the popular search engines were AOL, Yahoo, Ask, etc. But google has blossomed into a multibillion dollar company. Even, our own blogging site, Blogger.com is even connected with google.
Google has developed Google talk, which has been around for about a year, if I remember correctly, which is just another chat device, equipped with video capability, pretty awesome for starting out just as a search engine!

Smart phones

I can't believe I haven't written about this sooner, but I love smartphones. Really though, compared to the old crappy phones I used to have that barely had the capabilities to text, smartphones are really awesome. Speaking for myself, I have a Sumsung Behold[I don't know the actual model of it, I forget] but I can't imagine my life without it. It's a 3G phone, which makes it even better, although in this day and age, it's hard to have a smartphone without 3G capability, but when I got this phone, it was still a new technology in the market. Cell phone services were just changing into 3G networks, and it wasn't ever offered for every service. Well, it was only about a year ago when I got this phone and just throughout this one year, things have changed a lot.
My friend's father was just talking about news alerts that he receives on his Blackberry, which I think is pretty amazing. You can get news pretty much immediately after it is released. It amazess me how my technology, especially cell phones and connectivity have advanced within the last 5 years.
My first cell phone had about a 1.5 megapixel camera, and that was actually good for being in 2003. But now, my phone is almost a good camera with a 5 megapixel camera! That is better quality than the first digital camera I ever purchased, broken now. But basically, my phone is a camera also, pretty amazing stuff.
If you're looking for new phone, I'd go for a smartphone, not that it's common to find someone our age without a smartphone these days. My phone may not be the best smartphone, but it's definitely something I love and can't live without these days.

Kindles!

Have you heard of a Kindle? I think it's pretty much the most innovative thing since a cell phone. It makes reading portable! You can download different books and take them with you to read. I think it's a pretty good invention for the capabilities. For avid readers and light readers alike. My family travels a lot, and I am used to bringing at least 3-4 books on each vacation, granted our vacations are usually one month long, it's good to have some extra reading material. But if you're flying, especially these days, why would you waste your luggage space with sometimes heavy, but mostly just bulky things like books?! Well, the Kindle is a perfect gift for anyone. I think at least. The Kindle is going to be big! I mean, like really big. It's going to really change the world. I mean how people travel. If all reading materials were available through the Kindle what is it going to do to the world and printed materials? I can't imagine. We can only see.

Technology pitch

Today was our technology pitch.  We created an avatar aptitude test, which I thought was a pretty good idea. I took an aptitude test my senior year of high school to help me figure out what kind of major I should have in college, or what I should do after high school, but it didn't really help. I don't even remember what I scored on it and what the results were and now that I am graduating, I still doubt the major that I have chosen. 
I thought we had a good idea. I think it would be a nice software program if it actually is existent in the real world. It would really help people figure out what they want to do, especially in a game. Since The Sims was so successful and people enjoy playing it, why not turn it into something more interactive and involved with real life? If only I was a software programmer, then maybe it would actually happen...
Overall, I think our project went pretty well. We dressed up and seemed informed about our pitch. We did have some difficult questions though, that we had not thought about before hand. We spent a lot of time on the hand out and the powerpoint presentation. Our presentation itself was short and concise, and definitely to the point. I think that is a good thing though, we didn't ramble on about things that didn't matter. The three minute presentation ended up taking nearly two or three hours to prepare. I have good thoughts about our project, hopefully our grade will show it. I'm afraid that our details may have been a little lacking, but other than that little fact, I think it went really well.

twitter

I had to sign up for another Twitter account today for class. I'm learning new things I didn't know with my own private account. I didn't know about the lists available, because I never had to split up people that I was following into different groups.
I remember when Facebook wasn't like twitter, and you couldn't update your status like twitter. It's kind of different since Facebook is like twitter now. Or my friends that link both their facebook and twitter together..oh my, SO many updates...

Just found...

I recently just found my Game Boy advance, that is really old, probably from middle school or something, I forget. But I realized that technology, especially in games have changed a lot. I don't have any other newer hand-held systems, like the PSP or Nintendo DS, but I feel like my little Game Boy that I found is way out of date. I was playing Tetris and I couldn't even switch the contrast on it. I couldn't see without a bright light beside me. Anyway, it's old-school and reminds me of how much of a nerd I was, it's awesome.
And also my new found old love for Tetris. I forgot how much I love that game. It's old-school, and just pretty fun for being a basic game.

Games

Today, in recitation, we discussed games, both current and "old-school" games. I found video games the most fascinating when I was younger, ages 8-11 or so. Video games have changed so much since then. The graphics are pretty crazy now. I compare the games that existed then that I played, like Street Fighter and Tekken to the today Street Fighter and Tekken games. I just saw a commercial for Tekken 6 on television, that is crazy. It just keeps going, and the game looks pretty good compared to the first ot second version.
I am also pretty amazed with video games now in general. I thought that Dance Dance Revolution was pretty extraordinary, just because you were involved, not only because you played with a different type of controller, but it was different. Now, there's the Nintendo Wii where you actually control the game and can play all types of sports on it. I can't really believe it. It's exciting.

October break

Over fall break, I went camping in, basically, the middle on nowhere Kentucky. We had no cell phone service for about 15 miles from where our campsite was, but thankfully, we had a GPS!! We were completely ready for the trip. We had planned ahead of time for food, tents, chairs, everything you can think of for the trip itself, except for directions. Well thankfully, our handy Garmin helped us. It was on the spot with our mileage and speed, how amazing. I guess I never realized its many components until I had to spend about 5 hours in the car with nothing to do. It even helped us find the nearest Chinese food on the way home from Kentucky, since my friends were all craving some deep fried goodness. I suppose I underestimate what technology can do these days, but in a way I'm glad. But it's also scary. I can't imagine life without my cell phone or even a GPS now. I had no cell phone reception for two full days and I thought my life was going to end.
What has the world come to?

Frustration with my cell phone

Although I have 3G capabilities on my phone, they are pretty useless here in West Lafayette. I get really frustrated when I go into the house I am living in and I am hardly able to send a text message because I don't even have service. Why doesn't T-mobile expand more here? I feel like  T-mobile is the only company that don't really have a lot of towers here, and that seems to be a problem. I actually get more bars when I am OFF CAMPUS. That is ridiculous. I don't live off campus, therefore it doesn't do me any good at all.

It's most frustrating when I am unable to send picture messages quickly. I appreciate the capability on my phone, but it makes no sense to have that when it take two days to download the picture being sent to me. So, my point is, I think West Lafayette should have more T-mobile towers, or that T-mobile should invest more here on campus. I'm out of state and where I'm from, T-mobile is the service to have since you get to use your 3G network EVERYWHERE! It's just frustrating when I'm at school.

Geocaching

After we did our geocache activity, I was surprised at how exciting it was. I didn't really understand the activity so much after reading about it online. It seemed silly to go out and search for some hidden stash, but after all I think it was pretty eventful and I was able to learn more about teamwork and cooperation as a class.  I like the idea of using a GPS to locate the hidden cache, I am actually thinking about whether or not it would be a good idea for a summer road trip. It seems very interesting. I like adventures and it would be a good one to travel and see different states to find a cache.

Entertainment

So I just recently discovered some websties that are super interesting and provide a lot of entertainment, whether you are bored or just looking to learn some new stuff. The first is Reddit which is just a site with news feeds from all types of different sites, it's categorized into different categories such as technology or politics.  Pretty much any interesting, odd, or just strange news could be found here. It links you directly to the site responsible for posting it. It's prettty entertaining if you have some extra time and want to learn some new things or just find out some new things or just look at some funny comics or pictures. The second one is Digg which is a similar site that has news feeds from different sites all at one place.  I think it saves me a lot of time, as well as provides some really cool things that you wouldn't find otherwise.  It's different from Google reader because you don't have to subscribe to different sites themselves but it's all in one place. But this however does not stop you from putting Digg or Reddit into your RSS! Amazing! I don't even have to go to the site everyday to find out what's new and interesting! I can just use my Google homepage.

iPods and their amazingness

I am currently obsessed with the game Knights on the iPod.  It's a game where you protect your castle from wizards, knights, and soldiers, among other things from breaking in.  How you play? You literally pick up the attackers of your castle and throw them into the air. It makes for a pretty entertaining time.  I especially like the feature of the Dragon Altar where you put one of your attackers on a hook and a dragon flies down and eats them off the hook. If you haven't tried it, definitely play this game, it will keep you entertained and the sounds of the little knights dying is priceless. 

It's definitely a good waste of time, especially if you are procrastinating from school work, or just entertaining in general.

Try it if you haven't, it's amazing.

iTunes is frustrating, but perhaps it's my computer

So last night, my computer kept telling me that iTunes was not working because I had to download a newer version. Basically I suck at computers and did the same thing three times[uninstall and install iTunes and Quicktime three times] so that I could have iTunes work normally again. The point being, I hate computers.

Link to my TA

I am sitting in Com 435.