Technology Game Board

Learning to code (sort of)

One of the assignments for the technology game board was to go to a website called Codecadmey and try to take one of the lessons they offered. The website recommended I take a course on a type of code language called python. After completing a few of the lessons, the two main things I learned were how to write text using a string of code, and that I wasn't good at coding.  

The first thing they taught was how to write a string that would output a phrase. This command was fairly simple and stuck to a basic formula. Essentially, all you had to do was write 'print' then insert a pair of parenthesis with the text you wanted to appear inside of it. The main thing that someone trying to write this particular string of code would have to remember is to add a pair of quotation marks around the phrase. There wasn't a difference between using the ' ' or " " quotation as long as they were used consistently throughout the code. 

The other basic string that was mentioned in the lesson was defining terms. This one would consist of a term, an equal sign and a phrase written inside quotation marks. After the string was written, the alternate name that was assigned to it can be used to substitute the actual word.

The program, they used the code:
 my_name= "Natalia"
print ("goodmorning" + my_name + "!")

alternatively, you would get the same result from writing
print ("good morning Natalia!")

        About Me Silhouette

Thoughts on "The Yellow Wallpaper" Crash Course Literature Video

The yellow wallpaper was a book written in 1890 by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a feminist who wrote poems, novels and essays that focused on women's right to financial independence and the clear inequality of their status in 19th-century marriages. Early in her life, she experienced mental disorders that many people at the time disregarded as temporary incidents of nervousness. Since there was little medical understanding of mental illness, she has prescribed something referred to as the 'rest treatment'. She was locked in her husband's house for nearly every hour of the day and forbidden from writing or otherwise communicating with others, in hopes that this would somehow lessen the levels of stress she showed. As you may suspect, the isolation only caused her condition to worsen. Eventually, she moved to Pasadena with her daughter and spent the rest of her life advocating for women's rights. 

During this later time, she wrote a book based on her own experience under the so-called 'rest treatment. it followed the narrative of a young woman who suffered from stress and anxiety after giving birth to her first child. She lived in a large mansion with her husband, a doctor named John. John, upon examining her mental state, decided it would be best if she were to be separated from the rest of civilization. Over the course of the story, the woman sanity, and grasp on what's real and what isn't fades away, as all she is left to is stare at the yellow wallpaper. She begins to see other woman moving behind the patterns on the wall and suspects that the wallpaper is altogether something different that she must keep secret. The entirety of the story is written in a diary she keeps hidden from her husband. 

I thought the book is an incredibly influential piece of literature, depicting the outcome of mental illness under some of the worst possible conditions. I found that one of the most interesting parts of the book was that effect it had on the people who read it. After the book was published, Charlotte Gilman said she heard of several other women facing mental illness who were saved from a similar fate after reading 'The Yellow Wallpaper'. 

Thoughts on "Language" a Crash Course Psychology Video

Recently, discoveries have been made that suggest that certain animals that show signs of higher intelligence, in this case, apes, could have the capacity to learn human languages. It was initially thought that the way we communicate and learn different languages was what separated humans from other animals, however, this might not be true. 

To try to find the answer, the video went into how languages are learned by humans in the first place. Words from any language can be broken down into smaller parts and sounds. The smallest of these parts are called phonemes. They are categorized as short distinctive sounds like 'a' 't' 'ch' and 'sh'. Phonemes can be put together to form Morphemes. These are defined as 'the smallest units that carry meaning'. While they are not always complete words, they are things we understand, like prefixes and suffixes. Phonemes and Morphemes are the things that infants learn when they are first trying to speak. Babies go through numerous stages of understanding what is being said around them. By the time they are about one, they are able to connect a word to what it means or represents. 

Linguists debate over whether language is something that can learned by association or something that we are born with the innate ability to learn. Those that thought it was a natural ability believed in the idea of universal grammar, which is the parts of different languages that are all the same, was hardwired somewhere in the brain. While no one knows precisely where the ability to learn languages comes from, it seems like the process is a mixture of both.  

Creating a Voki 

So, I made a Voki. I know it looks almost nothing like me but it was the best I could do. Creating one is a pretty straightforward process. Most of the avatars are listed as premium and have a star next to them but you can just screenshot them if you don't care about the icons on the side (which is what I did). 

Other than that all the other functions take place on the sidebar on the left of the screen. All you have to do is select the icon for the part of the face you want to edit. Once you do, most of them will pull up a second bar with even more options. you can change everything from hair color (which can be done by selecting the paint palette icon) to the width of the nose. It's a pretty good website as far as avatar creators go. 

Picasso Head

Pablo Picasso was born on October 25th in 1881. He was famous for many things, from his abstract style of drawing faces to the new art style he created all together, cubism. His talent was recognized from an early age when he started painting professionally and selling his work at age 13. He transitioned through many periods where he experimented with different art styles and color. some of these periods are his blue, post-impressionism and cubism periods. He was an incredibly talented artist whose work will forever influence the world of art.