Alan Turing

Alan Mathison Turing

Alan Mathison Turing was a British mathematician and computer scientist.  He was born on June 23rd, 1912 in Maida Vale, London. Him and his brother stayed with friends and relatives until his father retired from the Indian Civil Service in 1926.  He went to college at Cambridge University and even taught there afterwards.  It was there that he created a concept, known now as the Turing machine, which said that automatic computation cannot solve all mathematical problems.  This concept is known as the basis for modern theory of computation.

Turing was interested in the question of what it means for a task to be computable.  For a task to be computable, it must be able to be carried out and completed on some sort of machine.  This set of instructions is known as the algorithm for the task.  However, the algorithm for a task may only be completed based on the capabilities of the device.  The Turing machine was basically a way to figure out whether or not an algorithm is computable, as some devices may not accurately describe whether or not a device is computable.  

After returning from Princeton University in America in 1938, he began secretly working part-time for the British cryptanalytic department, the Government Code and Cypher school.  Once World War II broke out, he began working there full time deciphering encrypted German messages.  He was a great intelligence for the Allies after designing a machine, known as the bombe, that successfully encoded German messages.

After the war, he wanted to develop a machine that could process information.  His plans were dismissed by his colleagues, who missed out on being the first to design a digital computer.  The blueprints for his machine showed that its computation speeds were much faster than others.  He later went back to Manchester University where he directed a computing laboratory that helped form the basis for artificial intelligence.

In 1952, Turing was tried and convicted for homosexuality, which was a criminal offense at the time, as they were a security risk because they were open to blackmail.  To avoid going to prison, he accepted treatment with female hormones.  On June 7th, 1954, just 16 days before his 42nd birthday, died from cyanide poisoning.  An inquest determined his death a suicide, but some believe his death was accidental.

The following answers summarize a tutorial called "The Whys And The Hows Of Textures In Web Design".

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/10/03/whys-hows-textures-web-design/

Q: Why have the benefits of texture sometimes been overlooked?
A: Texture is overlooked because it is misused and overused too often. People also look at it and think it's too dirty or grungy, when it can actually help bring a website together when used properly.

Q: What is the usual difference between a texture and a pattern?
A: Patterns are typically small repeating elements, such as circles or squares, whereas texture is often bigger and is not repeated.

Q: What are 2 ways to focus peoples’ attention using texture?
A: You can have either a textured logo against a clean background, or a clean logo against a textured background.

Q: How can texture enhance the structure of your information?
A: If you want something to be more attention getting than something else, you can add more texture to it, or vice versa.

Q: How does texture enhance the identity or atmosphere of a site?
A: You can use texture to make your website unique; you can add something special so when people see that, they think of your site.

Q: Describe in your own words what is meant by the following tips:
• Maintain Legibility - Make sure your designs are legible. Even if the design is cool, you don't need to keep it if you can't read what it is you're trying to say.
• Don’t Beat a Dead Horse - Don't overdo texture. If you have too much and it looks bad, get rid of it.
• Practice Means Improvement - Try new things! Branch out and do something you've never done before... You'd be surprised at the things you could improve on.
• If It Serves No Purpose, Take it Out - Everything you have in a website needs to serve a purpose; every design that you have needs to have a reason for why it's there. If it doesn't have a reason for it being there, get rid of it.
• Consider the Effect You Are Trying to Achieve - Don't get carried away with your texture. Make sure you keep in mind the goal and try to achieve that; no more no less.
• Collect Resources so you Don’t Have to Search Later - In other words, STAY ORGANIZED. Find everything you'll need and keep it in a folder or somewhere you'll be able to find it easily. This makes it a lot less frustrating.
• Learn Masks - Learning masks is a great tool that will help you with your design. Make sure you know cool shortcuts and techniques so your website will look more professional and can be finished in a reasonable time period.
• Don’t Sacrifice Quality for Loading Time - One thing you have to consider when designing websites is how long it will take for the page to load. However, if you think you should add something to a site, but decide to take it out because it will make the loading time longer, put it back in. With the advancements in technology, loading time is getting significantly faster, so you don't need to worry about something as irrelevant as loading time.
• Choose Textures Logically - Make sure you pay attention to your textures and make them relevant to your website. If you're designing a website for a country store, don't use grunge textures or robot designs; make it look country. And vice versa; don't use log or wood background for a metal band.

Q: What are 3 different ways you can come up with your own original texture images?
A: You can take your own pictures, scan stuff on a printer, or combine different textures.

Here are four websites that demonstrate these practices.
http://www.crackerbarrel.com/
http://www.989therock.com/
http://www.rock-fest.com/
http://www.riseagainst.com/

Textures in Web Design

The following answers summarize a tutorial called "The Whys And The Hows Of Textures In Web Design".

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/10/03/whys-hows-textures-web-design/

Q: Why have the benefits of texture sometimes been overlooked?

A: Texture is overlooked because it is misused and overused too often. People also look at it and think it's too dirty or grungy, when it can actually help bring a website together when used properly.

Q: What is the usual difference between a texture and a pattern?

A: Patterns are typically small repeating elements, such as circles or squares, whereas texture is often bigger and is not repeated.

Q: What are 2 ways to focus peoples’ attention using texture?

A: You can have either a textured logo against a clean background, or a clean logo against a textured background.

Q: How can texture enhance the structure of your information?

A: If you want something to be more attention getting than something else, you can add more texture to it, or vice versa.

Q: How does texture enhance the identity or atmosphere of a site?

A: You can use texture to make your website unique; you can add something special so when people see that, they think of your site.

Q: Describe in your own words what is meant by the following tips:

• Maintain Legibility - Make sure your designs are legible. Even if the design is cool, you don't need to keep it if you can't read what it is you're trying to say.

• Don’t Beat a Dead Horse - Don't overdo texture. If you have too much and it looks bad, get rid of it.

• Practice Means Improvement - Try new things! Branch out and do something you've never done before... You'd be surprised at the things you could improve on.

• If It Serves No Purpose, Take it Out - Everything you have in a website needs to serve a purpose; every design that you have needs to have a reason for why it's there. If it doesn't have a reason for it being there, get rid of it.

• Consider the Effect You Are Trying to Achieve - Don't get carried away with your texture. Make sure you keep in mind the goal and try to achieve that; no more no less.

• Collect Resources so you Don’t Have to Search Later - In other words, STAY ORGANIZED. Find everything you'll need and keep it in a folder or somewhere you'll be able to find it easily. This makes it a lot less frustrating.

• Learn Masks - Learning masks is a great tool that will help you with your design. Make sure you know cool shortcuts and techniques so your website will look more professional and can be finished in a reasonable time period.

• Don’t Sacrifice Quality for Loading Time - One thing you have to consider when designing websites is how long it will take for the page to load. However, if you think you should add something to a site, but decide to take it out because it will make the loading time longer, put it back in. With the advancements in technology, loading time is getting significantly faster, so you don't need to worry about something as irrelevant as loading time.

• Choose Textures Logically - Make sure you pay attention to your textures and make them relevant to your website. If you're designing a website for a country store, don't use grunge textures or robot designs; make it look country. And vice versa; don't use log or wood background for a metal band.

Q: What are 3 different ways you can come up with your own original texture images?

A: You can take your own pictures, scan stuff on a printer, or combine different textures.

Here are four websites that demonstrate these practices.

http://www.crackerbarrel.com/

http://www.989therock.com/

http://www.rock-fest.com/

http://www.riseagainst.com/

"They loved your GPA, then they saw your Tweets"

Social-Media and it could affect a person

Based on the article: "They loved your GPA, then they saw your Tweets"

After reading this article, I plan to keep on keeping on.  I don't put anything on Facebook that I would want to hide from anyone (except maybe political stuff, but if a college is going to teach me a way that I don't agree with then they can go ahead and reject me).  I am going to keep putting stuff I would normally put, and I'm going to keep talking the way I would normally talk, because I don't put anything on any social media site that is bad or would cause any college to reject me.  I understand that my digital presence is a huge deal to college and future employers, and it would be ignorant to put anything that would cost me my job or acceptance to colleges where they can see it.  I'm not going to go back and delete stuff, because you can still see stuff that has been deleted; you can't see anything that hasn't been put up to begin with.  I knew this when I made my Facebook account (Which is my only non-school related social media account).

Don't Make Me Think!!!

http://www.basspro.com/

1) You may not know what to search or how to find a category, all you can mostly see is what's on sale, which may not be what the user is looking for.
2) You can't really tell what's a button. The sales picture is a button, but you don't know that.

http://www.fakecrap.com/Default.asp

1) You don't really know what the site sells.
2) The side bar is kind of cluttered

http://cheatcodes.com/

1) Too many pop-ups! I spent more time clicking off of ads than I did actually navigating through the site.

2) It's not very user-friendly. When you select your gaming system, it should tell you specifically what you're doing (For instance, there should be some sort of text saying something like "Select your system").

My Personality Type

I have an ISTP personality type, which stands for Introverted, Sensing, Thinking, and Perceiving. I am very curious about the world around me and how things work. I always like to tinker with things and build things, like computers and whatnot. I am a quiet observer and like to solve problems, and I can even be considered aloof. Famous people like me are Lance Armstrong, Bruce Lee, Michael Jordan, Chuck Yaeger, Katherine Hepburn, Rowan
 Atkinson, Clint Eastwood, and Amelia Earhart.

This description is actually dead-on. I'm always tearing stuff apart and putting it back together, and I have a lot of patience for things. I like to build stuff and figure out how it works. I think it accurately describes my personality, because I usually don't mess around or anything unless I know that person really well. I'm usually pretty serious. People have often said that I'm "antisocial" or "depressed", which is totally untrue. I'm just a quiet person who takes things very seriously and doesn't like to goof off. Well, not unless I'm very comfortable around them. This assignment is actually pretty cool. I've learned a lot about personalities and whatnot.

Logo

This is a pretty sweet logo I made using a tutorial. It isn't exactly what the tutorial said to do, though. I had to tweak it a little bit to make it how I like it.