Last-First Weeks

2011.02.04 in school

I'm just wrapping up the end of the second week of my last semester at RPI, so it's time for another list of thoughts.

Crypto/NetSec

I've only had one session of this so far because of the snow and the fact that it meets only once a week. It seems like the final project is something like a ground-up implementation of SSH, which sounds entertaining. This is also my only stereotypical CS class this semester.

Experimental Game Design

I haven't been to this class yet, and it looks like that might continue being the case for at least another week: I wasn't in it yet during the first meeting, and the second was canceled due to snow. Next week there's a chance I'll be out of town for interviews. Regardless, I did the first project, which was to write a rough draft of a game in a week.

I wrote a multiplayer multitouch (for the desktop; you use Magic Trackpads/the built in trackpad to control it) cross between some of my favorites: Osmos, World of Goo, and Geometry Wars, entirely with CoreGraphics (read: no GL, so it's easier/faster to write, but it just barely runs at full speed on my machine when you've got a ton of bodies on the screen). It's not even remotely in a state to post at the moment, but it sits in a GitHub private repo that I'll publish after the class is over (if I determine that I'm even allowed to do that at all).

IT and Society

This is going to be a repeat of Biology: I do it because I have to, not because I want to. It fulfills two graduation requirements in one class, but it is not fun (it's a freshman class, full of reading and writing and silly IT-y things that I really don't enjoy at this point). My section's TA seems pretty awesome, though, so that'll help.

We have to form fake corporations and respond to RFPs and stuff... it makes me feel like I'm living inside Hacker News.

RCOS

I'm working on Notebook for credit for RCOS this semester; I'm giving my first presentation in less than an hour alongside Matt and Peter and probably others. Fun!