Figuring Out Facebook

All right, so I've got a handle on the whole twitter thing.  Clearly it'd be a whole lot more fun if I was tweeting throughout the day instead of just at random moments when I happen to be home and online. I see how some folks use it for promotion, some for communication, and others (such as moi) just for venting random off-the-cuff thoughts. And in my case it is probably better that I can't tweet throughout the day while I'm at work because remember - I work in retail.  Uhunh, it's like that.

So I thought my next foray into the world of social networks should be Facebook.  I took a few baby steps - putting up a very minimal profile and sending out a few friend requests.  And then quickly realized what an idjit I was when the sparse amount of personal info I provided and lack of photo meant that some of my actual friends didn't know who I was! Problem quickly solved.

I also realized something else.  Perhaps it is because there was recently a reunion (which I did not attend) but very quickly after I added more details and a photo to my profile I started receiving friend requests from old high school classmates.  Some of these make sense, people who were actually friends during high school and it's nice to hear from them.  But others puzzle me. If you weren't my friend then, why would you want to be my "friend" now?  I mean, if you went through four years of school without ever saying one single word to me - why on earth would you even consider it? I truly do not understand.

One other discovery - a surprising number of the people who live in my tiny town on this tiny island are also on Facebook.  And this presents me with a bit of a quandary.  You see, my blog, my participation on Ravelry, other activities only started when I dropped out of the the working world and my old routine to go back to school. And out there on the interwebs I get to be myself and that is a wonderful thing. I am "Kath" and I am "just26miles" and I like those people. 

But I have another life also, a life away from the interwebs and while there is some crossover, I can count those people on the fingers of one hand and I know they understand the challenge I am facing now.  And if you lived in a town that was less than three square miles and located on an island, you might also understand the need to find a little corner in which to safely fly one's freak flag while still maintaining a more....ahem..."proper" image. (Thank you blog! Thank you Ravelry!) In this town, just about anyone I cross paths with at any moment is a potential employer or a link to a potential employer. Truly. So as I hunt for a full-time job again, I am aware of the need to present some sort of professional appearance. Facebook seems like a good place for that so I think that's how I'm going to use it.

Which is not to say that I don't want to see you there! I most definitely do want to know if some of my blogging friends could also be Facebook friends. If you're out there - let me know! I just don't want the traffic to flow in the other direction so I did not add my blog or Ravelry name. It's not a perfect solution, and I'm still thinking through how to manage this, but it's a start.

The Paw of Doom

Which signals the break of dawn (also known as my alarm clock!!!) looks like this:

I knew I couldn't be the only one. And clearly, this guy understands:

Life swallowed me up

And I don't know if it's going to spit me back out until some time in December.

You may remember that my plan for this fall/winter was to knock out my last four classes, essentially the equivalent of being a full-time student for one last semester and be done before Christmas.  Not just so I can actually enjoy the holiday season, but more importantly to get my last credits in before my annual tuition fee is due and save a substantial amount of money. That plan was made when I landed a summer job, with every expectation of being laid off at the end of the season, most likely in October at the latest. But that's not how it happened. 

Instead, one of the other employees decided to leave the island, which opened up a slot for me to pick up her hours and stay on at the shop through the winter.  This is both good - because I need the money, and bad - because it means I have to squeeze in time for school around my work hours. Okay, not impossible. Tight, but not impossible.

(Yes, I know lots of people work crazy hours and go to school full-time. But you will have to take my word for it that this job is harder and more physically grueling that it ever should be. Someday when I am farther down the road and this employer is just a dwindling speck in my rearview mirror, I will share. But not till then.) 

Then, because I am an idiot/crazy person/masochist who forgets she is not superwoman, when someone I worked for on a book project a few years ago contacted me about an additional freelance job, of course I said yes.  It's nothing steady, just a little extra income at the end of each month but with my current status of being so-poor-I-can't-afford-to-pay-attention, even a little bit extra will help. And I'm hoping I can give this new project just small bits of time here and there over the next two months to keep the project moving along and its leader (author? whatever!) satisfied. Then after my school deadline has been met I can really give it the proper attention.

Oooo...and also in the past I think I mentioned that I'm the property manager for some apartments?  So - planned repairs, tenant turnovers, unplanned repairs - all needing more oversight than you'd ever believe.  Seriously, I'm sure in other parts of the world there are repair people who actually WANT your business and show up to do the work in some sort of timely fashion (or even ever at all), but here? Feh. 

So the rest of my life? May have be put on hold for a bit.  I think people in my immediate circle of friends will understand, some have even figured out that if you dangle food in front of me, I am much more likely to be available. Because I still have to eat, right? (And if you are cooking or picking up the check I am SO there. Kidding. Sort of.)

As for my bloggy friends? I'm guessing you will need the occasional reminder that I am still alive. I believe I can do that, but I cannot promise that I will be the sharpest tool in the shed. And perhaps there will be a greater than average reliance on island scenery shots or cute kitty pics. But if you can bear with me - and hang in there -  I'll do the best I can.

My brain locked up

And all that came out was...WHUT?

It was this:

After the system specification is complete but before the design is coded in the actual programming language, portions of the system may be coded in what is called pseudocode, a design technique that lays out the processing in a simple but standardized language so that the logic can be examined before it is translated into the more complex programming language.

Before delving into pseudocode we must consider how expressions are processed in most computers. Expression processing uses concepts from algebra for computing the results of evaluating expressions. In most computer languages as well as in pseudocode the normal symbols + for add, - for subtract, * for multiply, and / for divide are used. Exponentiation, or raising a number to a power, has various representations in the different languages and for our discussion here we will use the symbol ** which is used in several languages and in pseudocode.

The expression A + B * C means to take the value of A, B, and C and perform the indicated operations. However, the rules of operator precedence apply when there are no parentheses in the expression. In the absence of parentheses the rule of operator precedence from highest precedence to lowest precedence is:
     1) any exponentiation is evaluated first
     2) followed by any multiplication or division in their order of appearance from left to right
     3) followed by any addition or subtraction in their order of appearance

So for our simple example, if A has the value 2, B is 3, and C is 4, the expression value is 3 * 4 + 2 which is 14.

However, if parentheses are added to the expression, expressions in parentheses are evaluated first, starting with innermost parentheses. Within parentheses, the above operator precedence rule still applies. If we rewrite our simple expression to (A + B) * C we now add A and B to get 5; then multiply by 4 to get 20

Continuing to use the same values, A is 2, B is 3, and C is 4:
     1) C – A ** 2 is 0
     2) A + B * C ** 2 is 82
     3) (A + B) * C ** 2 is 80
     4) ((A + B) * C) ** 2 is 400

Pseudocode resembles English and contains the following simple statements which are sufficient to describe any process:

• Sequence – an ordered series of simple actions like computations. The pseudocode code statement is SET.

• Decision branching – tests a relationship in the process (called a condition) and performs one sequence if the relationship is true and a different sequence if the relationship is false. The pseudocode statement is IF (condition) … THEN…ELSE…END IF.

• Repetition – the order to continue to perform a sequence of actions while a condition is true. Skip to the sequence following the repetition when the condition becomes false. The pseudocode statement is WHILE (condition)…END WHILE.

A condition can be a comparison. Possible comparisons are:
     = tests if the two values are the same;
     > tests if the left operand is greater than the right operand;
     <>= tests if the left operand is greater than or equal to the right operand;
     <= tests if the left operand is less than or equal to the right operand. 

A condition can use logical operators. The logical operators are AND, OR and NOT. 

     AND is true if both of the operators are true and false otherwise 

     OR is true if either or both of the operators are true and false otherwise 

     NOT reverses the value of true to false and false to true

Again continuing to use the same values, A is 2, B is 3, and C is 4:

     A = B is false 

     A > B is false
     A < B is true

The SET statement gives a value to a variable. An example of a sequence of pseudocode instructions using only SET instructions: 

     SET A TO 2

gives A the value of 2

     SET B TO 3

     SET C TO 4

     SET C TO A + B

changes C from 4 to 5

     SET A TO B * C

changes A from 2 to 15. Why? The previous SET statement changed the value of C. The statements are an example of a sequence of actions that, if they were written in a programming language, the computer would execute in order.

The IF…THEN…ELSE…END IF statement is a decision branching statement that tests the condition specified in the IF clause. If the condition is true, the sequence of statements in the THEN clause is executed and the sequence of statements in the ELSE clause is skipped. If the condition is false, the sequence of instructions in the THEN clause is skipped and the sequence of statements in the ELSE clause is executed. In either case, after the THEN or ELSE sequence, execution goes to the statement after the END IF. Using the values of A, B, and C from the last example,
     IF (A > B) THEN
     SET LARGER TO A
     ELSE
     SET LARGER TO B
     END IF
     SET A TO 0
     SET B TO 0
After this pseudocode is evaluated, what are the values of A, B, and LARGER? A started out as 15 and B was 3. Since 15 > 3 is true LARGER becomes 15, the ELSE clause is skipped and both A and B are set to zero. Which clause would be executed if A and B were equal? The condition (A > B) would be false so the ELSE clause is the one that would be executed.

Repetition is coded as a WHILE loop in pseudocode. The following example showing a WHILE loop in pseudocode instructions is from the CLEP sample test.

     SET A TO 1
     SET B TO 3
     SET A TO A + B
     WHILE A <>

An important point about using a WHILE loop is that some statement within the WHILE and END WHILE pair must change a value in the condition that is being tested to eventually make the condition false, otherwise the loop will run forever. In the above pseudocode A has the value of 4 when the sequence of instructions reaches the WHILE statement for the first time. Since 4 is less than 20, the condition is true and the sequence of statements within the WHILE loop is executed. The value of A changes to 4 * 4 / 2 which is 8. The sequence encounters the END WHILE and repetition causes the execution to return to the WHILE statement. The value of A is still less than 20 so the WHILE sequence is entered once again. This time A is set to 8 * 8 / 2 which is 32. The END WHILE is processed and repetition causes the WHILE to be evaluated again. This time A is greater than 20 and the processing skips to the non-existent sequence after the END WHILE. For this example, the final value of A is 32. 

Note that A, B, and C are just arbitrary names for the values. The name given to a value can be any letter or descriptive name like: 

SET AREA TO LENGTH * WIDTH

I think I need help.

Festival of Art '09

I got so caught up in other things I forgot to mention something...

Last weekend was the Catalina Festival of Art! Between work, school, and various other unpleasant time sucks I didn't really get to enjoy it as much as I have in past years.  I did notice that instead of the pegboard & post contraptions usually set up with tables for the booth space, this year each booth was supplied with a nice white shade canopy and a sort of coated metal gridwork to hang things on the back wall of their space, along with the usual large table and metal folding chair. I'm guessing it made a positive difference for the artists, but I'm quite sure it made a tremendous impact on the overall look of the event. 

 

And you can see an overhead shot on the Art Association's home page here. (Not sure how long that linky will last!)

So, in no particular order, a few of my favorites:

Xavier's pottery, all gorgeous but I really love the mugs.

Oddly pretty and very delicately detailed bug watercolors, I have a friend who would probably love these.

Lorenzo's mosaics, the framed mirrors are nice but the pieced together images of the casino and the island are really clever and special.

Fused glass plates, sparkling in the sun - so pretty & so impractical!

Lastly, the art of Ed Arnold:

I like that he uses recycled materials - discarded bits of wood and mis-mixed house paint. 

Other than that, I don't know what it is about his creations that appeals to me but you can read more about the artist and a show he had last year here and see much more of his work here.

Someday, when I can afford it, I'd like to do more to support independent small artists. But for now - this will have to do! 

PSA: Awesome Yarn Alert

While, like many people these days, I am financially challenged and therefore on a yarn diet, I feel it is my solemn duty to bring to your attention, gentle readers, any extraordinary opportunities to GET SOME REALLY AWESOME NEW YARN!

See this:



Purple pink girly deliciousness = Violet Femme!

And my personal fave:

I love it for the color alone - but don't you need a Penny For Your Thoughts?

These and several more have just been added to Little Red Bicycle, as part of the new "Snowflake Yarn" line.  If you think the rush for Wollmeise is impressive, you ain't seen nothin' yet.  So do not pass go, do not collect $200, go directly to Little Red Bicycle and grab your own Snowflake Yarn before it's all gone!

Why are you still here?  Didn't I tell you to go? Go nowwwww.......

The steepness of the curve

Late last week I went overtown to take a Dantes exam for Introduction to Law Enforcement. My trip over in the morning was perfect:

Water like glass - I couldn't ask for a smoother ride.

And on the way home we had just passed the Queen Mary:

When something interesting came into view:

Those are three different emergency vessels, lights flashing. 

Followed by this:

There wasn't a fire or anything else that we could see, so I'm guessing it was a drill and we just happened to pass by at the right moment.

Anyway, the strange list of phrases in my last post was part of my memory key for remembering significant U.S. Supreme Court cases and it must have worked because I passed the test with a comfortable margin. Another 3 credits down, 11 more to go. My goal is to knock out those remaining credits by completing four more Dantes or CLEP exams by the end of the year. It's not going to be easy but I think the trick is to select exams that cover the kind of material I can absorb quickly. I can't really explain why some subjects are easier for me to grasp than others - they just are.

But apparently there are some lessons that I take much longer to learn.  While I do know that I don't have the physical fitness level I used to have, that I have spent the past several years at a series of desk jobs, and that I am no longer in my 20's - still.  Every time I take on a new home repair project I make the same mistake.  I prepare and plan in advance and then on the day, dive in happily, crouching down or reaching forward or grasping tightly or...you get the idea. 

Then the next day I wake up, roll over, get out of bed and

HOLY MOTHER OF GOD!!!!!!

pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain...

This time was no exception.  And I had plenty of time to consider my own folly, as I lay face down on the floor, wondering what had possessed me to spend all those hours scraping layers of paint from my shower walls and wishing I had trained the cat to fetch the ibuprofen bottle.

*wimper*