Month: October 2022

Please navigate to VoiceThread to view a recording of my elevator pitch for this week’s civil blog.

Smart Planner App Icon

 

As my teacher finished his lecture, I took a quick glance at the homework board to see the due dates for upcoming assignments. Seeing so much work to do this weekend, I took between, say, thirty seconds to a minute scribbling down the due dates into my handy-dandy planner. As I headed over to the next class, I saw the homework board and realized I have more work to do. Groaning, I took roughly thirty seconds copying down the due dates into my planner. At the next class, I spent between a minute to two minutes writing down the due dates. The cycle repeats again and again, where, by the end of the day, I wasted nearly three to six minutes writing down the due dates. To make matters worse, I forgot to do my chemistry homework because I forcibly crammed the due date into the bottom corner of my planner. “You silly, how careless of you! It’s so tiny that it’s barely even legible. It’s no wonder you foolishly forgot to do it,” my teacher bursts laughing in response to my dilemma.

Can’t this time be better used somewhere else? I thought. Maybe I could be chatting with my friends or ask the teacher a question on something I didn’t understand quite well. Essentially wouldn’t it be better if these reminders were automatically written in a safe place everyday?

Many people questioningly said, “You’re going to try to accomplish something similar to the degree of Noah’s ark? You!?” Nevertheless, I trudged onwards. Spending most of the past summer developing this app (Smart Planner), I encountered many obstacles and, consequently, spent hours after hours debugging my code. Although it may sound like a chore to many, I found it enjoyable as I navigated through the twists and turns to find the root cause of the issue — this is yet another example of how programming, specifically debugging, can be treated similar to solving a puzzle. Sometimes I collaborated with others who faced similar issues on Stack Overflow (a question and answer website for programmers); they challenged my preconceptions and presented approaches that I never thought of before. At other times, the solution came as an “aha” moment after scanning through hundreds of lines of code and brainstorming creative reasons behind errors. Essentially, programming is almost like being a detective — go to multiple sources, collect various bits of information, and finally put the pieces together.

Unless you’re like a few select people who can memorize the due dates and keep track of everything in your head, then get Smart Planner! Instead of having to write assignment deadlines on the homework board everyday, professors have the ability to create assignment reminders in the app in just 1-2 minutes. Students can look at these reminders whenever they wish throughout the day. Any user can also give comments and ratings to other users, regardless of whether they’re professors or students (similar to RateMyProfessors). Say goodbye to outdated paper daily planners (and deforestation), and say hello to Smart Planner! Happy planning — and studying!

 

If you were interested, see this link for more information about Smart Planner: https://sites.google.com/view/anubhav-sen/software-development-projects/tagout?authuser=0https://sites.google.com/view/anubhav-sen/software-development-projects/smart-planner?authuser=0

In 2014, the world avoided an outbreak of Ebola, thanks to the care and generosity provided by thousands of health workers — not to mention sheer dumb luck, too. The following year, Bill Gates was invited to a TED Talk and emphasized our lack of preparation as the root cause of the damage. He urged us to accelerate practices like scenario planning, vaccine research, and health worker training in preparation for the next pandemic. And seven years later, we see that the COVID-19 pandemic has dawned onto the world and broken out in several deadly waves since 2019; the Trump administration’s failure to respond appropriately and promptly to the pandemic exacerbated the situation, leading to the subsequent economic crisis. I enjoyed watching this TED Talk because it’s somewhat funny to see nobody paying heed to Gates’s warnings. He did all the work and created a plan and outlined all the steps to avoid another outbreak, but nobody listened to him — and our failure to listen has landed the world in today’s current situation, where everybody still fears contracting the coronavirus even though the situation has died down.

As for my Unit Two project, I was considering talking about the evolution of the word ‘pandemic’ and if we have prepared or taken any action in fighting pandemics within the past few decades. In the past few years, has anybody ever given warnings to the entire world, in anticipation of another impending global outbreak (like Gates did in 2015)? I would use the Gale Virtual Reference Library to track the evolution of the word ‘pandemic’ and how it’s definition has changed within the past few years. Alternatively, I was considering looking into the evolution of the climate change crisis and researching what actions we have taken to combat the issue. Besides transitioning to electric vehicles, installing solar panels, and researching innovating techniques to cool the Earth, what other meaningful contributions have we made that are sometimes overlooked today? At what rate have we worsened the situation in the past few years? These are some simple questions to consider that could be a part of my research in determining the evolution of the climate change crisis.

Java: A Comprehensive Guide (Part I)

Java: A Comprehensive Guide (Part II)

 

“What’s a variable?”

“Is a class a blueprint to make objects?”

“Do objects contain attributes and methods?”

My mini online Java lectures were often accompanied by a series of these questions. As I answered these questions, it brought back fond memories of my days as a beginner. Seeing fascinating and novel advances in artificial intelligence like OpenAI’s language model that uses deep learning to produce human-like text and alarmingly indistinguishable deep-fake videos and images, I became hooked and enrolled in various online courses and watched online YouTube videos with the main intent of learning Java.

Four years have passed, and I’ve reached proficiency today. Wanting to pass on my knowledge, I decided to start a small tutoring session service within my locality. I wanted to ensure that all my students (i.e., a mix of elementary and middle schoolers) walked away with a thorough understanding of the fundamentals. But as each weekly session passed with students simply memorizing concepts and little to no curiosity, this didn’t seem satisfying anymore.

How could I make a broader impact on those who were eager to learn Java like I once was, in a readily accessible format? I thought. This was the fundamental question.

And so, this chain of thoughts urged me to author a two-part written guide to the basics and advanced concepts of Java. With no experience authoring a book before, I quickly realized the real challenge was compiling the information and determining how to organize the content effectively: in other words, I wanted to mimic a textbook’s style, in which it starts with the absolute basics and gradually builds up to the abstract topics. Determining how to phrase the content simply so as to make it easy for readers to understand, providing ample exercise problems, and writing succinctly were other important factors to consider as I crafted together the guide. In general, this leisure activity made me realize how writing is like solving a puzzle. Writing is, by no means, a linear process. You’re solving a puzzle. It’s important to place some of your pieces on the puzzleboard and worry about adding, deleting, and embellishing finer points later. You necessarily don’t have to start with the first piece (i.e., the introduction), you can start with the sixth or the hundredth piece (i.e., a body paragraph or a separate chapter) alternatively. For me, treating the writing process as solving a puzzle made it more enjoyable and easier to work towards my small deadlines/goals (i.e., it didn’t seem as daunting as it initially seemed to me).

A rigorous technical treatment, it consists of a detailed, foundational Java module and several practice problems on various topics (e.g., primary data structures, conditional statements, loops, arrays, graphics, interfaces, trees, sets, maps, and much more). It’s my hope that all those who are eager to learn have such resources handy, which I wish I possessed when I was learning programming.

After seeing my work publicly available on Amazon, my friends jokingly commented, “750 pages! Did you write one of those textbooks? I think you went a little overboard in creating your so-called comprehensive guide.”

 

If you were interested, see this link for more information about Java: A Comprehensive Guide: https://sites.google.com/view/anubhav-sen/publications/java-a-comprehensive-guide-part-i?authuser=0

TalkZone App Icon

 

Programming is like solving a logic puzzle; for me, the real joy in coding is navigating through the twists and turns at each step of the problem-solving process. As a beginner, I developed my own versions of classical games like Angry Birds, Flappy Bird, Snake, and Tetris for the mere fun of it, frequently tackling logical problems like how to go about writing optimal algorithms and how to reduce space and time complexities if possible (i.e., the amount of time and computer memory it takes to run a piece of code). Moreover, debugging my code engaged me to brainstorm creative solutions to find the reason behind errors amidst thousands of lines of code—like a mystery game! Wanting to make a bigger impact in my work, however, I eventually turned away from video game development and pursued application development in the hopes of easing day-to-day activity for us all, starting with my family.

My mother and my grandmother video call each other regularly, discussing their day-to-day experiences. After seeing them having difficulties communicating with each other on small, difficult to see phone screens, I decided to work with a group of friends to develop an Android application to enable them to cast their screens to larger television screens instead.

Throughout the development process, our constant communication helped us learn more about our strengths and weaknesses and focus our expertise on the tasks most suited for our skill sets. For example, after trying to build the user interface to meet one of our self-imposed deadlines, I realized my designs were not intuitive and someone else’s was more user-friendly. So, I prioritized the underlying logic while one of my friends oversaw the application’s user interface.

Besides the growth of my technical coding capabilities, this project ultimately taught me skills like how to get feedback from the people I work with, how to make most of my team’s individual experiences, and learning to be adaptable when things do not go according to plan. Discussion of feature implementation with my friends and family was also valuable—it made the development process engaging and helped design features we never thought of independently.

We design our creations, and our creations design us (specifically our minds). As we consider making a blueprint and schematic of the system, it forces us to think outside of the box, changing our neural pathways and enhancing connections between neurons.

 

If you were interested, see this link for more information about TalkZone: https://sites.google.com/view/anubhav-sen/software-development-projects/talkzone?authuser=0

After viewing Emma’s speech on Penn State’s Food Waste Initiative, I really liked how she touched upon the faulty UI design of the food wastage numbers displayed here in the dining halls. She remarked on faults like one important figure being completely blocked from sight by another view and the difficulty in reading the screen as the text color blends in with the background color. I personally felt her delivery wasn’t as strong as the points she made in her presentation. She could have used more hand gestures and changed the tone of her voice to place emphasis on key points like when she was analyzing the idea of the thumbs down emoji derailing motivation and the need to preserve food.

In my speech, I believe I could have condensed the information a bit more by spending more time talking about one attribute like Emma’s speech, not trying to name (without any further analysis) all the attributes worthy of analysis in the artifact. I could have spent more time talking about how our pursuit of advancing technology has become the byproduct of our actions from hurting Mother Nature. With regards to my delivery, I could have tried to place more emphasis on the word our when mentioning how our selfishness has caused us to spread across the world and create huge changes to the atmosphere, landscapes, and ecosystems (i.e., creating advanced infrastructure through our joint efforts) without any care for their effects on the environment.

Experts predict that humans will have become acclimated to severe natural disasters in everyday life by 2122—sea levels will rise, the Arctic will melt, coral reefs will die, oceans will acidify, and forests will burn. Within the past few decades, human activities like burning greenhouse gas-producing fossil fuels, cutting down forests, and using internal combustion engine vehicles have dramatically increased the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and, consequently, the average global temperature. Rising temperatures are causing environmental degradation, severe natural disasters, weather extremes, food and water insecurities, and economic disruptions to name a few. While all global climate movements have the same idealized goal in mind, the way they take action can vary depending on their role within our community; to some, it is essentially the idea that everyone has a duty in the fight against climate change: automakers are rapidly shifting to electric vehicles as the primary mode of transportation, scientists are researching innovative procedures to cool the Earth’s surface, and solar panel manufacturers have boosted production by 167% over the past decade. Digital artist Ferdi Rizkiyanto strongly agrees with this notion, while others like illustrator Eva Bee believe that specific groups should be held solely accountable for resolving the issue, from fossil fuel companies to wealthy countries to politicians to rich people. These differing perspectives can be studied to balance talk of urgency with hopeful and creative ideas if we, either as a united society or individuals, are able to inspire positive impacts and finally bring about serious change in relieving its effects for good.

Antarctica is a unique continent: it is a frozen wasteland whose landmass is almost wholly blanketed by a vast ice sheet. Right now, a rise in global temperature has led to the warming of the Antarctic Peninsula, breaking the continent’s ice sheet and, consequently, decreasing the local species populations. As the ice sheet melts at an alarming rate, it threatens a spike in sea levels and risks submerging the entire world — a premonition clearly illustrated in Rizkiyanto’s portrait. By constructing a time-hourglass with water from melting glaciers trickling down onto the whole Earth (represented as an advanced metropolitan city), he uses a temporal lens to emphasize the lack of time and the urgency for action, as it will eventually overflow, and potentially erase, cities and civilizations worldwide. Through his use of visual rhetoric in portraying a bustling city with advanced infrastructure systems made possible by teamwork (e.g., bridges, buildings, pipelines, power grids, and transportation vehicles), Rizkiyanto conveys the fact that we egocentric humans have spread across every continent and created — and are continuing to create at a rapid pace — huge changes to the atmosphere, landscapes, and ecosystems; echoed by the dull weather casted over the entire time-hourglass, these changes compounded are destroying Mother Nature, giving arise to issues like increased consumption of natural resources (e.g., air, food, fossil fuels, land, minerals, water) and waste products as a result of consumption (e.g., air and water pollutants, greenhouse gases, and toxic materials).

Mismanagement of waste is not only harming local environments but also threatens global biodiversity, as demonstrated through multiple facets in Rizkiyanto’s artwork. Utilizing a combination of pathos and visual rhetoric again, he depicts a situation in which an adorable baby penguin and polar bear are stranded on fast-melting icebergs to signify the little time people have left to act in order to prevent biodiversity loss. Additionally, this idea is stressed in illustrating the masses of dead fish floating within the ocean in the bottom half of the time-hourglass, paying the price as we continue to contaminate waters by dumping industrial wastes (e.g., chemicals, oils, radioactive waste, sewage sludge, and trash). In many cases, seagulls are believed to represent negative qualities like crowd-mentality, dirtiness, gossip, gluttony, and thievery. And so, Rizkiyanto portrays seagulls as scavengers foraging in flight and gathering all sorts of things in their beaks while swimming, walking, or wading, including transfer species. Experts believe that increased bird migration in recent years increases the risk that they will transfer invasive species, thereby spelling doom for native wildlife.

In our pursuit of advancing today’s technologies, Rizkiyanto paints an impression in which it seems as if they are the byproducts of our actions from hurting Mother Nature, as evidenced by the “surfacing” of automobiles from the contaminated water and attraction towards the technologically advanced city. Likewise, he also portrays chopped tree trunks to show how deforestation has made way for space for agriculture and animal grazing, and to acquire wood for fuel, manufacturing, and construction. Although we have discovered various technologies today without there being any environmental risks associated with them (e.g., solar panels, wind turbines, etc.), Rizkiyanto’s work begs us to reflect and consider how these technologies wouldn’t be possible, as past anti-eco-friendly technologies have evolved into existing ones; in other words, it’s like a domino-effect where development on anti-green technologies from a year ago, ten years ago, and even a hundred years ago were able to advance to become today’s technologies, some of which are anti-eco-friendly too. All of these instances leave the viewer in a state of confusion as to wonder if most of today’s technologies would be possible if we never inflicted harm on nature, not to mention how we are only adding fuel to the fire by continuing our quest to advance technology — environmentally friendly or not — and ultimately hurt Mother Nature! Our addiction to advancing technology is like a double-edged sword, where we end up not only hurting the environment but also harming ourselves by destroying the one place we call home, where future generations will live and follow in our current footsteps if we don’t stop now. Essentially, Rizkiyanto wants us to take away that our selfish natures have to change, and we need to start thinking of us coexisting with nature before it’s too late and we run out of time, which is accurately captured by his work’s title phrase: “We are running out of time. Act now before it’s too late.”

While Rizkiyanto’s artwork emphasized that everyone has a responsibility to limit climate change regardless of how big or small of an impact it makes, Bee believes the impact of most of the world’s people are minimal, specifically addressing fossil fuel companies and the wealthy as the main culprits. Since 1965, only 20 companies — some owned by states and some owned by shareholders — have produced nearly 35% of the carbon dioxide and methane released by human activities! Despite the warnings of their own scientists, they pumped billions of dollars into thwarting government action to greenwash their public image; in order to sustain themselves, they funded thinktanks and paid retired scientists and fake grassroots organizations to cast doubt and scorn on climate science! Published in October 2019, the image utilized the kairos of these times — persisting to present day from as far back as 45 years ago — to shed light on their biggest dirty secrets to act in good faith. At the same time, Bee touches on the commonplaces of their increased emissions driving the climate crisis, as demonstrated by her illustration: she displays a large group of protestors using one of their picket signs to stop two oil workers from moving on the hamster wheel, which embodies an oil industry while it produces harmful emissions from all of its rungs (almost shaped like a factory’s exhaust pipes). The protestors are pictured holding typical signs like “STOP Climate Change!”, “There is NO Planet B”, “ACT NOW on Climate Change”, and “STOP the Destruction” to underscore the urgency for people to open their eyes and be present and aware of current controversies occurring with the fossil fuel industry, for example. Bee conveys the idea that we should have recognized the corruption taking place within the oil industry sooner and leave them responsible for “cleaning up their mess” now.

Through the use of visual rhetoric, Bee also urges the rich to change their lifestyles immediately to prevent the ecosystem’s destruction when viewing the image through a socioeconomic lens, as illustrated by the contrast in visual appearance between the empty-handed and shabby protestors and the financially better off workers. The depiction where one protestor uses her picket sign to stop the two workers from walking on the hamster wheel can alternatively be viewed as the poor’s long-awaited backlash against the wealthy for their excessive undeserved rights, since each unit overshot means someone has to give something up too. In other words, as the rich race through the remaining “carbon budget,” they are consuming the space allowed for the impoverished population to grow their emissions to the point where they’re fulfilling their basic needs. If this situation continues, the poor’s efforts to “STOP Climate Change!” or “STOP the Destruction” will be ultimately nullified by the wealthy’s carbon overconsumption. And so, wealthy people — and the same logic could be applied to wealthy countries as well — need to take responsibility for the climate crisis and implement corrective actions.

Rizkiyanto and Bee’s artworks both share a common message: they stir our hearts and make us aware of the reality of the harmful effects of the climate crisis, an often-overlooked problem amongst other issues in today’s world. While they both favor a range of initiatives to reduce the impacts, they both have different opinions as to which group of society should be held accountable — everyone, fossil fuel companies, politicians, or the wealthy. At the end of the day, however, it largely doesn’t matter who takes responsibility; we must tread more lightly on the Earth, using resources more wisely and drastically reducing our waste footprint, for as long as we continue existing and using the planet’s resources, we must pay the price by nurturing our home in return.

 

Outline

• Introduction Paragraph
  • Introduce the severity of climate change and its impact on the world.
  • Describe the two artifacts and discuss how everybody disagrees on who should be held responsible for the climate crisis. Some people say that we should as an entire species should be held accountable, while others say that certain individuals like the wealthy, rich countries, and fossil-fuel companies should be responsible.
• 3 Body Paragraphs (Artifact #1)
  • Discuss the hidden symbols and key takeaways from the hourglass image. By constructing a time-hourglass with water from melting glaciers trickling down onto the whole Earth (represented as an advanced metropolitan city), he uses a temporal lens to emphasize the lack of time and the urgency for action, as it will eventually overflow, and potentially erase, cities and civilizations worldwide.
  • Emphasize the urgency to act as melted water (from glaciers) slowly submerges our world.
  • Using mostly visual rhetoric, he essentially conveys the idea that we should be responsible for destroying the original beauty of the Earth as we continue to modernize it.
  • Mismanagement of waste harms global biodiversity.
• 2 Body Paragraphs (Artifact #2)
  • Discuss the hidden symbols and key takeaways from the hamster wheel.
  • Fossil fuel companies have been corrupt in the last few decades, concealing important information from the public.
  • Discuss how the impoverished population are tired of the wealthy consuming the remaining “carbon budget,” and they act in retaliation by stopping the hamster wheel, representing the wealthy’s nonstop motion to increase their carbon footprint.
• Conclusion Paragraph
  • End with something along the lines of “what can we do?” or “how will we take action against this issue in the future?” or “are we moving at a slow pace?”
  • Underscore the importance of the issue and the urgency to act quickly, regardless of who decides to take action against. It doesn’t matter who takes action, as long as someone does eventually.

There was my opponent in front of me, towering over the maple and mahogany battlefield covered with bishops, kings, knights, queens, and rooks. Fallen players were discarded and strewn across both sides of the tabletop in the midst of the intense battle. Looking me straight in the eye was the most experienced strategist I’ve ever met in all of my fourteen years: Joe, a school friend who had a knack for chess ever since he was born — ironically, he told me one day that he used to frequently suck on chess pieces as a toddler. Having extensive experience, he went to chess club meetings at our school and played on the Chess app on his family tablet whenever he had free time. Although I had significantly less experience than him, I proposed a challenge for the chance to embarrass him — “our renowned chess champion” as he was called by us — in front of the school and our classmates.

There’s no chance I’m winning today, I thought as I tried to figure out my next move. I glanced at the board again and again and tried to predict his strategy, searching for an escape from whatever he was scheming in his head.

“Hurry up, and make your move! You’ll lose anyway!” Joe hissed.

As I studied the board carefully, I decided to set up a double attack against him, with my knight and my queen targeted on his queen. I figured the game would be as good as mine if I eliminated his queen.

To my dismay, he instantly predicted my strategy in the next move and moved his pawns to defend his queen. Again, it was my turn.

One second. Two seconds. Three seconds.

As three whole minutes passed, I stared blankly at the board — and occasionally at Joe’s intimidating cold and frustrated stare — and was still unable to think of a plan. I tried picturing how some of the strategies I read online would play out, but all of them didn’t seem suitable in my situation. I tried to recall some ingenious moves that Magnus Carlsen did in these kinds of fixes, until out of nowhere…

 Eureka! I realized that the solution was simple and didn’t require any difficult technique — castling! As I moved my king and rook, I realized the game was as good as mine. As Joe had no difficulty in predicting my move again, I tried increasing my defenses to delay his plan.

My turn. Joe’s turn. My turn. Joe’s turn.

It was an intense battle of us going back and forth; we were hanging over the edge of our seats as more pieces were discarded, and the board settled to three white pieces [mine] and four black pieces [Joe’s].

Being stupid, I lowered my guard by not thinking a few moves ahead and realized Joe’s eventful win.  

“Checkmate!” Joe trumpeted.

With the conclusion of the match, he stared sincerely into my eyes. “I hope you can leave knowing that you’re walking away from this match with a better prize than anyone could give you, Anubhav. Because of your minor slip-up, I hope you will learn from this and be more clever and careful next time — and, more importantly, learn not to challenge me next time.”

In truth, life is like a game of chess, for once the King stands, you continue on playing and persevering through the challenge.