MIT OpenCourseWare

Posted on June 15, 2011 by rben13

I never finished my college education. I was originally enrolled in University of Louisville’s Speed Engineering School pursuing a degree in Electrical Engineering. At the time, Speed didn’t offer a Computer Science degree, Electrical Engineering was as close as you got. I even had a scholarship. But I was paying my own way and started doing consulting and programming work to earn the money I needed for school. Before long, I was spending all my time working and I’d dropped out of school. Luckily, I never really needed a degree. In the world of computers, it’s pretty easy to determine if you can program or not.

I’ve always felt that I made a mistake, that there were opportunities I missed because I didn’t finish my education, and for years I’ve been meaning to do something about it. So I recently picked up some books on the math courses I didn’t take and started tinkering with electronics. I went online to find courses on electronics at at www.opencircuits.com found a link to the MIT OpenCourseWare electrical engineering curriculum. I watched the first video for the course 6.002 Circuits and Electronics. It left me intrigued, as a good lecture should, and I’m now slowly working my way through the course materials.

So far, the course is excellent. I figured most of it would be review, but I’m learning all kinds of interesting things, and, best of all, it’s helping pull together a lot of tidbits of knowledge I had, showing me how they are related to one another.

MIT has done the whole world a huge solid by posting this material. Anyone who understands English and has access to the Internet, who’s willing to put in the time and effort, can take advantage of this material and educate themselves using the resources of one of the greatest engineering schools in the world. Teachers can use this material to help them structure their own courses.

The material consists of a syllabus, calendar, video lectures, lecture notes, readings, homework, assignments, labs, and exams. Tools available for this course include WebSim, http://euryale.csail.mit.edu/, a site where you can experiment with the circuits discussed in the course.

If you’re interested in learning more about engineering MIT’s OpenCourseWare is a great place to start.

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Slater Mill Ghost Tour

Posted on May 20, 2011 by rben13

I just recently went on the Slater Mill ghost Tour with my friend Anne. While I don’t believe in ghosts, I do love a good ghost story.

I’m working on a story, tentatively called the Paranormal Poker Club, that involves a ghost who is alarmed at the prospect of his cherished home becoming a stop on a ghost tour and the focus of paranormal investigators. So, I thought it might be a good idea to learn some more about ghost tours and paranormal investigation.

Slater Mill is located in Pawtuckett, RI. It was the first water powered mill in North America and helped usher in the industrial revolution in this country. Much of the work was done by children, since they were small enough to move in and out of the machinery while it was still working, cleaning and even making minor repairs without forcing a shut down. It was terribly dangerous and many children were killed or maimed.

We met at the mill at 8pm and the actual tour got started about half an hour later. We were all issued light sticks to provide the proper level of ghostly illumination, and tromped along after our guide.

The tour started outside the mill, by the Blackstone River, which has its own history of tragedy, related by our guide, including a tragic boating accident. Then we walked through the Sylvanus Brown House, then the Wilkinson Mill and finally the Slater Mill.

During the tour, the guide demonstrated the use of some of the more commonly used paranormal investigation tools, such as the GaussMax, the K2, and digital tape recorders for EVP.

One disadvantage of the ghost tour was that it was too dark to see and appreciate the wonderfully preserved buildings and machinery. I plan on returning during the day to see the museum.

If you’re an amateur ghost hunter or just like a good ghost story, I think you’ll enjoy the Slater Mill Ghost Tour, and if you love seeing carefully preserved bits of our history, you’ll enjoy seeing the mill just for it’s historical value.

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Portal 2 Review

Posted on May 13, 2011 by rben13

I just recently started playing Portal 2, the successor to the very popular game Portal. In case you aren’t familiar with the original, it was a game built on the Half-Life game engine, that was included in some bundles and eventually offered on it’s own for about ten dollars. It’s a very engaging game in which you play the part of a female character has has been corralled into doing testing for a company called Apeture Science. The testing is fully automated and coordinated by an artificial intelligence known as GladOS. You are required to negotiate various test chambers using a portal device which has the ability to open quantum portals when fired at various surfaces. You can create a blue portal and an orange portal and then step into one and pop out the other.

During your testing tenure in the original Portal game, you discover that GladOS is not the benign entity she’d like you to believe she is. She has some rather sinister plans. By the end of the game, you succeed in destroying GladOS, but you never get any cake.

The first thing I noticed about Portal 2 is that it looks even better than Portal did, and that it’s easier to play. There aren’t as many puzzles where you have to create portals while flying through the air. For me, that’s a good thing. There are also several more characters introduced in the game. Another plus is that this game now includes a 2-player mode where you and a friend can play as two robots designed specifically to test for Aperature Science.

So far, I really enjoy the game. My wife, who has already finished the game reports that it’s not much longer than the original, which is surprising, considering how much more it costs. But perhaps the 2-player mode will make up for that.

I’ll post more after I’ve finished the game.

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Dragon Age II

Posted on March 25, 2011 by rben13

I just finished playing Dragon Age II. Like Dragon Age, it’s an excellent game, what you’d expect from the fine people at Bioware. But it does differ from the original Dragon Age. In what I think is a mistake, Bioware has moved away from traditional RPG-type combat to a more arcade style. On the plus side, they’ve simplified inventory management and eliminated the traditional “kill a bunch of rats in the sewer” missions. They’ve done a lot more right than wrong, and they’ve created a game with a terrific story. It’s a great example of what gaming can be.

One of the biggest changes is in combat. It’s faster paced than before, too fast to really follow, and has more of an arcade feel to it. The Boss fights are too much like what you’d expect to find in more action oriented titles. The plethora of effects from spells and special abilities sometimes fills the screen with so many particle effects it is difficult to figure out what’s happening. Which is a shame, because there are many interesting new abilities and a slower combat pace would give the player a better chance to explore them. It would have been nice if Bioware had given an option to slow down combat, other than constantly hitting the space bar to pause it.

Inventory management is greatly improved, with a five-star rating system that helps you determine what items are best suited for your character at any given level. Anyone who played Dragon Age will appreciate that change. My one complaint is that when you are viewing items in the market, the items you are thinking of buying have a rating, but the items you have equipped do not. This seems like a pretty silly feature to have over looked.

The story in Dragon Age II is well founded in the mythos of Thedas, the world of Dragon Age. It revolves around the tensions between the various groups, all of which seem to be magnified in the city of Kirkwall where most of the story takes place. As in most Bioware titles, this is where the game truly shines. The writing and voice acting are excellent.

If you played Dragon Age, you’ll be happy to know that several of the characters from the first game have found their way into this story.

As in Dragon Age I, there is quite a bit of replayability in this game. You can choose to be one of three different classes: warrior, mage, or rogue, and you can choose your gender, but you can’t choose your race. While this might seem limiting, it’s clear right away that it was a good idea on the part of Bioware, at least for this story.

The easiest class if Warrior, then Rogue, and finally Mage, as you’d expect.

As other reviewers have pointed out, it was probably a mistake for Bioware to have downloadable content ready to go when the game was released. It’s kind of like saying, “For $60, you get everything except for …”

Still, it’s a great game. I give it 4.5 out of 5 stars.

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U.S. Action in Libya

Posted on March 23, 2011 by rben13

It seems like every time any president takes military action we hear the same rhetoric from Congress, criticizing what they claim is unilateral action on the part of the president. This time, we’re even hearing calls for impeachment from Obama’s own party.

The reason this always happens is that the Constitution reserves the power to declare war for Congress. The thought is that the country should not go to war unless the majority of the citizens are convinced it’s a good idea.

James Madison believed that war was one of the greatest enemies of liberty, because wars beget armies, and armies beget debt and taxes, which he says are two of the most powerful instruments by which the few gain power over the many.

While it takes Congress to declare war, you can’t run a military as a democracy. You need a definite chain-of-command, so the President is given the job of Commander-in-Chief.

This worked just fine in the 1700′s and 1800′s when communication was ponderously slow, there were no aircraft other than balloons, and cannons were pulled to the battle by horses.

But even back then, Congress had to acknowledge that the President needed to have the ability to respond quickly to acts of aggression. And now things happen a bit more quickly, and sometimes, the President has to act just as quickly in order to prevent loss of life.

In this case, Libyan forces were advancing on a major rebel city and it was quite likely that thousands, or even tens of thousands of Libyan citizens would be killed.

I agree with many of Obama’s critics that once military action was begun, it was the Administration’s responsibility to report to Congress and seek authorization for further action. But I think calls for impeachment are just self-serving political nonsense.

As for those who are screaming about the cost of this action, I find it interesting that they are strangely silent about the billions misplaced by the Bush administration in Iraq, or the enormous quantities of money being paid to “contractors” in Afghanistan, who turn out to be al-Quida supporters.

Personally, I’ll be reserving judgement on what we’re doing in Libya for a while. My hope is that our military involvement is brief and that it helps bring about a peaceful transition of power.

Here’s hoping.

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