Headlights

Interesting mod for those types of headlights.

Sat down under a tree and practiced panning for an hour or so.  One of the better ones from that experiment.

Winding Down

Have a nice evening.

Come for a walk

Take a little time by yourself and relax.  Go for a walk, enjoy your life.

Unrealistic Nemesis

Let's face it, the enemies in just about every show, movie, book, etc, are all retarded.  They lose their opportunity to destroy, devastate, or even kill because of their hesitation.  Often times they have the hero in their grasp, and allow for strategic or other fallacy to ruin their victory.  Can't we have a better class of villains that don't require such hesitation and are able to send fear into the audience and leave us rooting for the hero to vanquish evil?  Ultraviolet seems to stand out the highest on my list when considering the rooftop gunfight.  Why would they wait for her to walk into your circle, and why would you form a circle when you're shooting guns.  I understand it makes the movie flow, but having this scene tears away from reality and introduces the super retarded villain.  Also poor planning, you have that much time to organize people on a roof, why not position someone in another building to snipe or a bomb somewhere to ensure victory.

My mindless rantings on unrealistic situations.

Learning Python

First, a little introduction on my background in programming.  My first language was C++, and that was several years ago.  I used it for a year, maybe 2, and haven't even touched it since.  During that break I immediately learned some java, mainly basic syntax and some GUI.  After that I had a class on UNIX, where I learned some bash and got some VI experience.  All in all, I feel as if I know next to nothing about programming, so I can only offer my opinion on the best way to learn Python.

First, I tried working on Windows.  Installing Python was easy, finding idle wasn't quite so easy.  It's in the Lib\idlelib\ folder of the Python folder.  This alone isn't the problem with using windows.  However, this seems irrelevant when I want to run a file using command line of something like "python ex1.py" and it either shows as python is not a known command or ex1.py is not found.  I didn't want to have to deal with these issues in the beginning, so I went on my laptop loaded with a current version of CentOs with Python 2.4.  This was extremely easy to begin with; the terminal automatically recognizes the python command and execute files.  This also gave me practice in using VI, one of the most powerful word editors and definitely the most basic on UNIX.

So that's the start, at least as I remember it a few weeks ago.  From there, I skimmed some popular introduction guides found from reddit.  Based on my needs of having to do stuff, and then analyze how it’s done, I went with Zed A. Shaw's guide of Learn Python the Hard Way (http://learnpythonthehardway.org/home).  It provides several examples detailing each command with enough practice that you understand what the command does.  This was the most useful because it immerses you in experience.  Questions are asked between typing in order to help gauge your understanding on what is happening and why so you know what you're doing and not just typing.  The exercises go through quick if you have the time.  I typed them all and thought the progression could have gone a bit faster as the first 6 exercises were mainly on the print function and built in math.  If you have any previous programming experience, or a couple hours of free time a day, this will take less than 2 weeks to finish and understand.

The bigger problem is where to go from there.  You barely know the basic syntax and data storage.  There are many suggestions to read code, however you haven't seen all the data types or how they're possibly used.  Next, I'd suggest you quickly go through the intro chapters of How to Think Like a Computer Scientist (http://openbookproject.net/thinkcs/python/english2e/).  After that, slowly go through the new material so you can understand how data and memory are managed.  These are very important as you begin to deal with pointers and such.

That's as far as my expertise goes, I'll keep you posted on my progress as I continue to learn.  Another word of advice though, have a goal in mind.  What do you want to program? A game? What kind? Database? Address book? Website parser? Calculator for advanced equations? Daily Schedule?  Just have something in mind that you want to do, you're only as good and determined as the work you complete.

Zombie Analysis - Part 1

Biology/Anatomy

Forewarning, I will try my best to cover a wide range of zombie varieties and cite the source of any specialized ones.

Basic Traits

     Zombies function solely from brain activity; as long as the brain is intact, they are able to move and attack.  Zombies do not deliberately attack one another; usually proven wrong with the introduction of advanced or specialized zombies.  Nerves are destroyed or blocked resulting in painless beings.  Keen sense of sound, are able to detect wide range of sounds and immediately determine direction of origin.

Alright, similarities are few when I recall various interpretations of zombies.

Movement

     Zombies are able to tirelessly move; requiring no nourishment or rest.  Many series such as Left 4 Dead and 28 Days/Weeks show zombies that are able to run at their maximum speed for a seemingly unlimited time.  Also from these series, zombies have advanced motor skills and are able to easily climb stairs and other obstacles fairly easily.  Other series such as Shaun of the Dead or High school of the Dead represent the slow moving and clumsy zombie.  These meander around and are somehow able to maintain standing position, even when knocked down.  Surprisingly, they are able to climb stairs or avoid obstacles with little to no trouble.  These speculations show that zombie brains still contain moderately advanced motor skills from previous life. 

    

Infection

     Infection to a host is usually caused by general attack; i.e., biting of the flesh.  Once this has occurred, the victim has a few minutes at most before the transformation is complete.  Based on this, the cause is most likely bacteria living in zombies' mouths.  Contamination via saliva or other bodily fluids seems very possible, however is rarely seen in any depiction as this would result in near total and instant annihilation.  Once infection occurs, the victim is no longer savory and thus no longer attacked.  The need for new/uninfected flesh is the driving concern when dealing with zombies.  From 28 Days/Weeks, it’s apparent that without human flesh to feast on, they will eventually starve and die causing mixed feelings on the best approach for the situation.

    

These are only a few possible analyses of zombies and I plan to delve more into this subject in future posts as I examine zombie origins and real world scenarios.