errorlevel.org

Well, it has been a while since I've updated this site. It has mostly to do with the fact that my life has been completely turned upside down for the past month. For reasons beyond my control, life became difficult last semester and as a result I ended up being academically dismissed from my university. After having all winter break to dwell on the possibility of my life being irreparably altered, I found out on the Thursday before classes were to begin (January 13th) that the appeal I submitted to the Dean explaining my circumstances had been accepted and I was allowed back into the university. I was able to get into most of the classes I had planned on taking this semester, unfortunately, I wasn't able to get into all of them.

Maybe that was better than if I had been able to get into them. Apparently people look at you funny when you decide to take both MATH 440 Complex Variables and MATH 430 Advanced Calculus at the same time at Northern Illinois University so after being effectively told I was nuts by the head of the Computer Science department I was allowed to take a class (CSCI 462 Theoretical Computer Science) whose requirements I have not completely fulfilled, so now I should have a slightly lighter course-load than if I had taken both MATH 440 and MATH 430. So, I am now enrolled in only 13 credit-hours, however that is just fine with me.

Aside from Advanced Calculus and Theoretical Computer Science, I am also taking CSCI 360 Computer Programming in Assembly Language. The assembly language being used for the class is the one used on the IBM mainframe the computer science department here has. Now, I absolutely hate IBM assembly language so this should be a fun semester. This is the second time I will be taking this class since this class was one of the reasons for the academic dismissal, and is also the pre-requisite that I have not fulfilled for the Theoretical Computer Science. I'm not saying that the student teacher that I had last semester for the class was bad, but I have the feeling after my first class session this semester that it will be a little bit easier since I have a real professor teaching the course.

My remaining class to be mentioned is MATH 435 Numerical Analysis. This looks to be a fun course. For those that don't know, numerical analysis involves using computers to solve math problems and analyzing the error that is incurred as a result of using a computer. I do have a quick story about numerical analysis: On the Friday before classes were to begin, I saw the undergraduate advisor for the Math department here at NIU. While I was waiting to be seen he was talking to another one of the professors in the Math department about a problem that he is working on for a friend. The problem involves taking the square root of a number using a computer program. He needs to do this using the smallest amount of code he can, and he cannot use multiplication or division to achieve his goal. After we discussed what classes I had chosen to take and he had told me that my revised schedule seemed fine, we talked a bit about the problem he was trying to solve. He articulated the requirements of the problem and how precise he needed to be. This is exactly the type of problem that numerical analysis is used in. The chip that he was designing this program for is to be used in a car, or at least that is my impression, so numerical analysis is used all the time in the "real world". He explained his solution to me and I listened the best that I could. I was trying to take in everything I could about the solution because I found it to be fascinating. Now, I didn't completely understand it at that time, but as I was sitting waiting for the first class session of Numerical Analysis to begin, the solution and all of its elegance just came to me. It was one of the best feelings I've had towards Math and Computer Science in the past few months. So, after class I stopped by the advisor's office and thanked him for showing me that and told him that I took great joy in having it just suddenly become clear to me.

Outside of classes, I have been reading a lot in a book that was published in 1995 by The Waite Group. It is a book called Black Art of 3D Game Programming and it reminds me so much of when I was programming DOS-based games when in high school. The book needs a lot more editting. The author makes many grammatical and word-usage mistakes. For instance, "milleniums" is not a word. The correct plural of "millenium" is "millenia". Also, the author uses a lot of imagery and allusions to sorcery and magick that only work to impede the reader's understanding of the subject material. Otherwise, I have learned a few things already by reading only 1/10th of the book. First, I have learned how to load PCX graphics (something I could never figure out when I was in high school). Also, I have learned that it is amazing that so many games made for DOS actually worked as intended considering the programming practices employed (or at least, that this book implies are employed). Furthermore, I now understand why so many games that I attempted to make ended in failure: games are just hard to make.

If I manage to finish this book by the end of the semester then I will go and re-read Michael Abrash's Graphics Programming Black Book. I think I would have done better with understanding the Michael Abrash book on the first time through if I had read André LaMothe's book prior.

Also, I've resumed work on Wootella. I am slowly working my way towards releasing 0.4.0, although, with school now back in session (and with being able to actually attend school this semester) I am at a loss for time to work on it. However, I am not going to completely rule out working on Wootella when I have free time. I have been working on Wootella for over 3 years now and the one semester that I didn't improve my grades was when I stopped working on Wootella. This does not necessarily mean that there is a relation between working on Wootella and my grades, but I do think that putting Wootella on hiatus did have at least a little bit of an affect on my grades. Last semester when I didn't have anything to do, I would just sit and do nothing. I did not have any pet projects or anything on which to work that would have helped keep my motivation and enthusiasm active for computer science. So, when I actually did have to do work it was more difficult than it should have been. Obviously there were many other factors going on in my life that had a degradating effect on my grades since the Dean found my argument sufficient to reinstate me, however, I think that my hiatus on Wootella did have at least a miniscule effect.

My other pet project, Data Diaper, is the one project suffering the most through all of this. I am still pouring over the design in my head whenever the thought actually occurs to me that the project even exists.

That is about all that is going on in my life at the moment.