The Advent of Code has continued for 2016, and 2017. I worked through the 2017 problems and was able to complete most problems on the day they were released. My schedule was a bit busy Christmas Eve, so complete both December 24 and 25th problems on Christmas day (fun!). I also went back and completed all of the problems from 2015 and 2016. I have been using Java for most of the problems. The completed tree for 2015 is shown. You can still complete any of the problems from previous years.
A programming challenge for each day of advent see http://adventofcode.com/
In Microsoft Excel 2013 the maximum number of rows is 1,048, 576 and the number of columns is 16,384. These may seem like strange numbers. Why not 1,000,000 rows? and 10,000 columns? The answer lies in how computers store numbers using binary (or base 2) which only uses the symbols 1 and 0.
The number of 1’s and 0’s (known as bits) that are allocated for storage limit the range of values. The number of values that can be represented is equal to 2^(number of bits). In Excel 2013, 20 bits are used for the number of rows, thus there are 2^20 or 1,048, 576 rows. For the number of columns, 14 bits are used, thus there are 2^14 or 16,384 columns. Columns are labeled using letters. This is essentially a base 26 scheme where A = 1 and Z = 26. The last column is XFD (ie. 16,384).
The last cell in Excel 2013 is XFD1048576.
Heard Dan Russell from Google speak at the CCSC Eastern Conference two weeks ago. Enjoyed his talk “What does it Mean to be Literate in the Age of Google?”.
A few tidbits …
Last fall I completed edX course 6.00x Introduction to Computer Science and Programming offered by MIT. The course involved reading a textbook, watching videos, answering on-line questions, reading a textbook, completing programming assignments (graded on-line), and completing several exams. The course was taken by thousands of students with over 5,000 students taking the final exam. The course used the Python programming language.
I completed enough work to pass the course. I must admit I found myself doing the minimum work at times which gave me a good insight for how some of my students may approach my classes as well. A permanent link to the certificate I earned is provided to be used as “proof” that the course is covered.
Five percent of the course grade was earned through online questions that were asked after watching video segments. The questions could be submitted multiple times which encouraged student to submit the answers until they were correct. This seems like a great way to try to get students to interact with the material.
All of the grading was done with on-line code submissions. While there were a few problems it worked well. Most problems could be submitted up to 20 or 30 times (only 5 for exams) which allowed for minor issues to be addressed. The grading program also gave feedback which was often helpful for determining why the program did not “pass”. This type of interactive feedback and problem solving is something I would like to integrate into my courses.
All of the courses on edX are free to audit. They have added a fee for some certificates. Overall it was a positive experience and a great way to learn.
Netflix now streams to the iPhone and iPod Touch. I do not own an iPhone, but performance seems to be good with my 2nd generation iPod Touch. I have only watched about 15 minutes. Not sure that I would want to watch too many full featured films on the small screen, but it works!
I like using streaming feature via our Wii console connected to our TV. Netflix continues to add more content to their library. I could see a point at the future where they stream all of their content rather than sending DVD’s. The technology is there, but the contracts with the content owners will take time. At $9 a month for one DVD at a time and unlimited streaming it seems like a decent deal to be able to legally watch movies.
After my home computer died last week I have been looking at on-line storage options. I signed-up for a Dropbox account. Dropbox offers 2GB of storage space for free, 50 GB for $10 a month, 100GB for $20 a month. Dropbox allows multiple computers to share the same folder and “sync” the files across each computer. It also offers web browser access to your files. It is hard to beat 2GB for free and you can “earn” additional free space by inviting your friends. (Shameless request) Feel free to help me out out by signing-up through this link https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTUxNjUwOTM5
My Home Computer History
There are sites out on the net that allow you to create your own “Wii Self” and then export the image as a .jpg or .png file see http://www.myavatareditor.
One of my favorite new sites (Thanks Paul!) for 2008 was Pandora (see www.pandora.com). Pandora will stream customized music to your computer (or iPhone). Enter the name of your favorite music artist or song and it will create a music station that matches this style of music using data from the Music Genome Project. You can add multiple artists or songs to “fine tune” your station(s).