A Day Late

There was a career fair on campus last week. There were quite a few employers there but I got the impression that many were there just to make an appearance and not necesarilly recruit. In fact, these days “recruiting” seems to be the wrong term to use. Pan handling seems more appropriate. The scene from the career fair was an enormous crowd of desperate students looking for any job openings. Which reminds me, I had to smile when I noticed virtually no one approached the KMart booth :). Come on…we’re not that desperate (not yet anyway). Anyway, I passed my Resume around a few places and talked with a few companies but nothing looked very promising. As I was leaving I gave the Navy Officer recruiting booth a second glance, but decided I’ll wait till the end of the summer before I consider that.

I was surprised when I got a call the next morning to come in for an interview. It was with a relatively small company, but they’ve been around for a while (yes, I’m being sarcastic). Overall I thought the interview went pretty well. They were recruiting for positions in Boulder, CO, which I wouldn’t mind moving to, but they indicated that the college graduate positions probably wouldn’t open until March (if they have any at all). So I guess I’ll just wait and hope for an invitation to visit Boulder in March.

As I said, I thought the interview went alright. However, it wasn’t what I’d call perfect. I crossed my legs as I was sitting (left leg resting on my right knee) and towards the end of the interview I uncrossed them. I was horrified when I realized I couldn’t feel my right leg, at all (no tingling, NOTHING). Fortunately I regained enough feeling to make it out of the interview, but with an obvious limp. How embarassing is that? Anyway, I’m keeping my fingers crossed (but not my legs, I’ve learned that lesson).

I’ve taken a few days off from writing anything and I’ll probably end up taking a few more. Working full time and keeping up with all my school assignments is proving to be a challenge. So, until graduation rolls around in April my blog writing is probably going to be pretty sporadic.

Lately it’s been my Computer Graphics class that’s been keeping me busy (we had a project due today). I didn’t really want to take the class. It basically came down to I needed another CS class to graduate and the only options were Digital Processing, Compilers, Artificial Intelligence, etc. Well…I ended up choosing Computer Graphics. Not because I was more interested in it, just because it sounded less excruciating than the others. Now I’m starting to second guess that decsion. I dunno, only 3 more months to go!!

Who admits these people into school?

Let me see if I got the facts straight on this one. A 34 year old student parks his/her bicycle in the bike rack on December 20, DOESN’T lock it, then returns 15 DAYS LATER and lo and behold THE BIKE IS GONE? Well NO SH**!

It’s really too bad stupidity isn’t a crime.

I’ve been working on this little project for my Computer Graphics class. For part of the program we’re supposed to:

Write another function lineB(x0,y0,x1,y1) that draws a line segment using the Bresenham algorithm.

However, at the end of the project description it says:

It is a violation of the honor code to copy your line drawing algorithm from existing sources, such as a textbook, student work from prior semesters, or the internet. If you received significant help from someone else, document it in the program. Above all, you must have a complete understanding of your code, which means that you must be able to duplicate or explain anything that you submit.

Ok…well, I looked in the book and the algorithm is described by straight C code. So I guess I’m supposed to study this C code and come up with a completely “independent” (different) way of writing the algorithm. Maybe it’s just me, but when I look at code for an algorithm I have a hard time thinking of different ways to write the code. What’s the purpose anyway? Someone has come up with a nice clean way of solving the problem, why do I need to come up with a different way? I’m perfectly willing to give credit where credit is due. It just seems like I’m spending my time trying to reinvent the wheel and what exactly does all this have to do with computer graphics? I’m looking at code for an algorithm which is clean, easy to understand. So what am I gaining by essentially throwing that out the window? Am I the only one that finds this a little ridiculous?