HOWTO: Sign Up for Twitter

Yes, Skip this is for you

Step 1) Point your favorite/used browser (internet program thingy) to twitter.com, or just click the link (right click and open in a new tab to leave this window open

Step 2) Click on the large green button labeled "Get Started-Join"
This should take you to a page labeled "Join the Conversation"

Step 3) Fill out the information it asks for

Step 4) After you click the green button to submit the info your in.

Step5) Click on home at the top of the page and then add by the word following on the right hand side
Search for people on Twitter (click the first tab) and enter "mnfork" you should see my picture pop up, click on it, then hit the button that pops up that says submit

Step 6) you can continue step 5 to find more people or you can click on my picture again an sell the people I'm following.

Step 7) make sure to go to settings at the top right an go through all the tabs and set things up the way you want For example go to the devices tab under settings to add your phone number to receive texts from twitter and to update twitter from your phone
After that you can go back to you home page then click on following on the right side to toggle which updates you'll get on your phone

if you have any more questions leave them in the comments

A decision coming

Well, my field is electrical engineering. It's the sort of behind the scenes thing that nobody will ever really recognize as the force that has completely changed their lives. I currently am standing on the divide between the two fields that will revolutionize and rebuild the world as we know it. On one hand there is Controls, the building of smarter machines that will take care of things for us, on the other hand there is Communications, the increasing of our capability to have all the information we could ever want at our finger tips. The human race has already experienced some of the full force greatness of communications. The internet is the prime example (although not 100% communications in the EE sense); humanity is already addicted to notion that anything that you want to know can be found in 0.000567 seconds by a Google search. From an EE point of view what if we could transmit more data, more faithfully, further, and fastest? Who do you think comes up with the protocals for WiFi or Radio or anything else? The EE's are the one's expanding bandwidth, range, and speed-everybody else just uses that.
The true potential of Controls has not yet been seen. I mean you still have to do mundane tasks like changing the toliet paper when it runs out and it is ridiculous, at this point, to think of a machine to do that sort of thing for you. But when I was a kid it was ridiculous to think that I could write a letter to some one across the world and they could be reading it in seconds, or to think that I could sit outside with a laptop and edit a document in real time with a group of people anywhere that got signal. What controls needs is an extremely cheap but reliable carrier. Sure a car that drives itself would be nice but your not going to pay 10 grand on top of the price of the car to get a second rate system. No you want to pay 5 bucks for some device that performs a task perfectly and continually. Perhaps a plug in that regulates temperature of the house based on your temperature. Perhaps not. Controls is still that mysterious force that might never come out from behind the curtain.
I have right now the foundation to do either, but what I want, what would be most exciting would be to do both. I hadn't even thought of this Cognitive Radio business before, but it's a perfect fit for me, both intellectually and financially. Imagine a radio that can share a broad transmission bandwidth with a large number of other devices. This radio only transmits on frequencies not currently in use and the receiver seamless switches frequencies along with the transmitter. That's Cognitive Radio. It's a smart radio that can sense it's environment and react to it. To accomplish this task you have to have embedded systems knowledge to build the controller (something I'll get from my CPE degree), knowledge of controls to tell the systems what to do with the data it gets(something I'll get from my interest in Controls), and knowledge of radio waves and communications so you know what and how to transmits and receive (another thing I'll get from EE). This really feels like the perfect project form me. I hope it goes through, but I feel as though I'll find myself working on this even if I don't get the chance to do so with Dr. Bostian.
Still waiting on the email, I have to cut the man some slack though as he's currently putting together a proposal for $5million that could very well kick off my career in the field.

Outrage

Normally this blog is not political but in light of resent events I am simply outraged by some of the bills that are rising for consideration. Recently I heard of an Amnesty Bill that would use tax dollars to pay for the lawyers of illegal aliens, put these criminals at the head of the line for citizenship (ahead of those who have been waiting to do the process legally), and other such ridiculous things. Hey, while we, as a country, are encouraging people to break our laws why don't we declare that every Tuesday Murders get free ice cream instead of sending them to jail? Seriously, what are the people writing these laws thinking? Doesn't any one remember that saying "if you give a mouse a cookie." I think it's pretty clear that a lot of law makers especially need to repeat kindergarten so they can learn this and other such valuable lessons.
And then the thing that prompted the writing of this blog is this new "Let's force taxpayers to pay for abortion" movement. I encourage all of the readers of this blog and every other legal US citizen to write their Congressman to let them know what to do on this issue. After all the Congressman works in Washington simply to make the voice of the people heard. This is where you can sign the petition against this Abortion madness. This is my letter to my Congressman:

I have recently become aware of a movement to strip "pro-life" riders from spending bills. Apparently these riders protect people from being forced to pay for abortions here and overseas. This is about freedom of religion. My religion is against abortion. Is the US government going to simply spit in the face of not only my religion but also its own Constitution. I'm sure that I don't have to remind you that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" Part of exercising my religion is respecting life at all stages of development. Sir, I believe you have a good head and a good heart and I know that you will do what is best I simply want you to know that as a 21 year old college student I have an educated stance on this topic.

100th Post

WOO Post number 100! woo and what not!

I'm excited, I've been invited to meet with Dr. Bostian so he can tell me about the fun and nifty stuff that he is researching. He mentioned to me a number of times that he would like to sway me toward his area.

Dr. Bostian works on Cognitive Radio. Read about such here if you like, but it is basically a radio that switches it's transmission/reception frequency to one that's interference free when it notices some kind of interference. This is pretty color stuff it combines just about all aspects of electrical engineering, which is pretty nifty. It seems heavy on controls, which I have like for a long time and Communications, which I took a class on last semester and it seemed extremely interesting. I'd like to become a bit more comfortable with electronics and such, but I think I will definitely do that this semester with Analog Electronics.

Very Excited

In other news I'm coordinating the creation of a Video tutorial for HKN. Work is going well, today I learned how to do Surface Mount Soldering (a word that I think should have the "l"). It was cool once I figured it ok and before I started soldering the really really tiny pieces. Class went well, we learned about BJTs as switches today. I'm slowly becoming more comfortable with BJTs but the true test of that will be this week's homework. Well I think I'm off to read somemore.

February

Ah February, month o my birth.

Today it was 45 in the morning->very warm, I was walking around with no coat cause it was so warm.

after AC (ends at 3:45) it was snowing.

by the end of lab (i finished at 7:15ish) parts of the ground where covered.

it has since stopped, we got less than an inch build up, but we did get a bit so yay for snow.

I'm tired and a bit frustrated by Electronics 2 homework. All the classes are going well, but that one is tough to figure out. I still feel like I have the potential to learn a lot from that class. Then again I have the potential to do well and learn absolutely nothing from that class as well.

Oh well, sleep time methinks.