Here I Am Again

Hello all! I’m here at school again getting ready for classes. I wonder if I will be busy at all this week?

That would have been grotesque.

During the past few weeks, God has been teaching me some amazing things. My ministerial teachers have told me for two years now to put God first, to do my devotions even if it means taking time away from studying. That sounds good, but it certainly would never do for me… or so I thought. This semester has perhaps been the busiest experience in my entire existance. I get up at 5:30 AM, dodge between classes and my two jobs until 5:00 PM, swallow a dinner whole, study until my brain hurts, and cast my poor exhausted body onto my bed around midnight. Do not take me wrong: I am not bragging about anything I do. If I were responsible for the above mess of activities, several computer science teachers, a human resources manager, the ministerial enclave, and a slew of other people would be rather upset with me, because I would be home, preferably in the vicinity of a corner of dark bliss under my bed.

In fact, it is not me who is accomplishing anything. My teachers were correct. God is more than able to provide strength. Although there are some days when I look forward to life beyond the end of retirement, God gives me comfort, ability, peace, joy… and the list goes on. Without Him, it wouldn’t be worth doing anything. Without Him, my life would have no purpose.

So, I have taken up much more of your time than is meet. Forget the rest of this post, but remember: God is strong enough to handle any struggle you are going through. Trust Him–it is far better than floundering around by yourself.

First, we did games. Children of all ages love active games (duh!); with such a large group of varied ages, I could pick three or four games a night and target them to either the younger or older kids. The little kids loved simple racing games. The older kids loved games that required either brains or brawn… or both. Game-time lasted about a half-hour, after which we all went to get a well-deserved drink.

Second, we had a prayer time. This, while not being as exciting, is essential; it lets the kids know I care about them, and it brings them closer to God. Hopefully, they are more comfortable telling God about their troubles (and thanking Him for all the good things He gives them).

Third, we sang songs. While I think children should know the longer, older hymns, I think fun teaching songs are also essential. We want them to think well of singing. “Father Abraham” was a favorite, as was “I’ve Got Good News,” “I’m in the Lord’s Army,” “I’m Inright, Outright, Upright, Downright Happy All the Time,” and “Read Your Bible, Pray Every Day.” We are usually pretty tired after singing…

…so, Fourth, we had a little puppet skit. My puppet, Jerry, is rather obnoxious, and he claims to never listen to the teacher or hear any of the Bible lesson. Furthermore, he is rude, illogical, and wild. The kids love him. Since Jerry never listened to the previous week’s lesson (getting him a stern reprimand from the teacher), we always had to review it for him. What a sneaky head-fake, but it worked!

Fifth, after more singing and teaching a Bible verse, I would teach. At my school, Bob Jones University, the ministerial teachers have a saying that goes something like “It is a sin for a teacher or preacher to be boring.” This is said tongue-in-cheek, of course, since the Bible doesn’t condemn any particular style of teaching (but rather the message itself), but I think a good principle of politeness does come into play. It is very unloving to be a boring teacher, not to mention selfish and rude, since the children are forced to not only come and listen but also sit still!

I don’t know whether I way boring or not, but the kids seemed to love the lessons. The reason? I dressed up each night, role-playing a different character. On the different nights, I was a brash buccaneer (Captain Wetworth), a super spy (Dr. Marlow), an adventurous Australian (Dr. Downunder), a clichéd cosmonaut (Captain Nebulae), and a dashing swordsman (Señor Cutter). Each character had his own accent, accessories, and personality; some of the kids seemed to not even know it was me!

All in all, the Thursday-night teaching was a success, though not by my own doing. God has a wonderful way of taking my poor efforts and making them brilliant. I will miss my kids and try to take the lessons I’ve learned from teaching them to school with me… to begin teaching the other group of children at school.

Do you remember, way back in grade-school, when you were taught how to find the prime factors of a number? It was the biggest pain… especially since you knew that your teacher already knew the factors of that number, and that any work you did was not for anyone’s benefit. Let us face the cold, hard facts: factoring 27 into 1, 3, 3, 3 did not put food on anyone’s table, did not help a soldier compute the trajectory of a mortar rocket, and it certainly did not make your day any better (if, on the other hand, it did brighten your day, please email me; I am also a counselor. )

Perhaps now, so many years later, you have been demanded to program an algorithm to factor a number. I can hear your groans; once again, accomplishing this will not save the world. However, writing such an algorithm is not beyond the astute programmer. Actually, it can be quite fun. Let us walk step-by-step through this such daunting task.

(SIDE NOTE: All code on this page is in pseudo-code. Therefore, most schools will allow you to read this article without infringing on cheating policies.)

A Brute-Force Factoring Method

First, let us look at the most basic of factoring methods. We will start with a number–say, 6:

let rawNumber = 6

We all know (from grade-school) that the factors of 6 are 1, 2, 3 (1 x 6 = 6, 2 x 3 = 6, right?). We also know that 2 and 3 are the only numbers that will divide equally into 6. So, all we have to do for the simple method is to start at 1 and see if it divides equally into 6 (it does).

let 'currentFactor' = 1
let 'test' = 'rawNumber' / 'currentFactor'
is 'test' an integer (with no decimal part to it)? -- Yes

So, we store ‘currentFactor’ in the list of factors we have found:

foundFactors.add('currentFactor')

Then, we test the numbers 2 and 3. They give us the same result, so we store them like before. Number 4, however, does not evenly divide into 6:

let 'currentFactor' = 4
let 'test' = 'rawNumber' / 'currentFactor'
is 'test' an integer (with no decimal part to it)? -- No

So, we do not add 4 to the list of factors found. Neither do we add 5 to that list. Finally, we arrive at 6, which is the number tested so we do not have to bother dividing it. The complete pseudocode listing:

let rawNumber = 6
let 'currentFactor' = 1
let 'test' = 'rawNumber' / 'currentFactor'
is 'test' an integer (with no decimal part to it)? -- Yes
foundFactors.add('currentFactor')
let 'currentFactor' = 2
let 'test' = 'rawNumber' / 'currentFactor'
is 'test' an integer (with no decimal part to it)? -- Yes
foundFactors.add('currentFactor')
let 'currentFactor' = 3
let 'test' = 'rawNumber' / 'currentFactor'
is 'test' an integer (with no decimal part to it)? -- Yes
foundFactors.add('currentFactor')
let 'currentFactor' = 4
let 'test' = 'rawNumber' / 'currentFactor'
is 'test' an integer (with no decimal part to it)? -- No
let 'currentFactor' = 5
let 'test' = 'rawNumber' / 'currentFactor'
is 'test' an integer (with no decimal part to it)? -- No

This listing works… but only for the number 6. It is not scalable to any other number, not even 5 or 7. What we need is a loop. Explaining programmatic loops is beyond (or, rather, below) the scope of this article, but you may explore the MSDN reference page for C#’s for loops. Inserting a loop is easy, and it makes managing even this small code-base much easier:

let 'rawNumber' = 6
for 'currentFactor' = 1 to 'rawNumber' - 1
   let 'test' = 'rawNumber' / 'currentFactor'
   is 'test' an integer (with no decimal part to it)? --
      if so, foundFactors.add('currentFactor')
continue for loop

Now, we can test any number by simply changing the first line, setting ‘rawNumber’ to, say, 7, or 3, or 188! This basic method works perfectly. However, any professor worth his salt will fail you if you turn in such a method. Why? It takes so very long! In factoring, we humans have certain intuitions that computers do not have. For instance, we know automatically that 5 will never, ever divide evenly into 6. I know what you may be thinking: that does not take much time for my blazing-fast gaming machine to compute! What if the computer were trying to factor 144? 1444? 14444444444444? What if it had to factor a million such numbers? Do you want to wait while it loops through values that are so clearly impossible that even a blind mole could figure them out? I didn’t think so. So, clear the stands (but not your memory of our previous algorithm… you’ll need that) and usher in…

The Factoring Algorithm, Optimization Level 1

…coming soon…

I do not yet wish to join the small subset of elderly folk who only think backwards. However, there is one area of life that seems to have changed for the worse: gaming. Well, not the games, per se. It is the gamers who are at fault. See, it used to be in the (*sigh*) good old days that a game would be full of mind-bending puzzles coupled with a great story-line. Almost every non-arcade game had puzzles in it, and they required intellect, skill, and the ability to see things from different angles. Most importantly, they required imagination. In those days, one couldn’t necessarily see the old chest and its multi-faceted lock… a green-and-black monitor just couldn’t dish out enough resolution. But, in the mind, one could see it clearly, and one could come up with a viable solution to unlock the chest. Yes, sometimes it took hours or days. But that was the fun of it! These days, most games seem to be quick and easy. Diablo, Battlefield 1942, World of WarCraft… the “puzzles” in these games take, at most, a few hours to accomplish. True, they have other time-wasting perks, but the element of hard-thought is gone.

Not in shame I admit that I miss the old days. Give me Mystery House, Quest for Glory, Space Quest… I’ll give you every graphics-pumping no-brainer game we have today.

edits-
-Changed “lame-story-lined” to “no-brainer” as pointed out by Ed.

Lila

Our cat, Lila, was struck by a car this afternoon. We buried her not two hours after our arrival. Unlike most cats, she never hissed or clawed, even when children were pulling her fur. She obeyed when needed, meowed when spoken to, and accompanied us often as a bedroom pal. She was also the only animal I have ever entertained the thought of keeping when I move out in two years.

Farewell, Lila. You will be missed greatly.

I would go into a lengthy dissertation about preparing for the trip here, but I suppose that sort of thing is best done on the trip’s blog itself. So, without further ado, ready to visit Africa?

And then, “Hold the phone! Count to Ten! Kill the fatted calf!” A link designed for me (and you, possibly) - Webmasters. Although the interface is not quite as intuitive as Google’s Webmaster Tools, I’ll cut the big M some slack; they are still rather new to this whole “open and free with everyone” racket. It may not be quite as intuitive, but Live.com’s webmaster dashboard gets the job done. From it, a webmaster can finally (finally!) submit websites and sitemaps directly to the MSN search bot. No more nail-biting and early-morning stress wondering if Microsoft knows about all-important websites like daquell.com.

As per my earlier predictions sprinkled all over this blog, I continue to conclude that Microsoft is making a come-back. They are beginning to focus on the minutia. Look out, Mr. G. Mr. M is back in the game.

Away, away!
The trumpets are calling!
Away, away!
The wheels of time rolling!
Away, away!
The war gongs are booming!
Away, away, away!

Lost in the forested hills in a clearing,
Lost in the bramble of all new and old,
Found all a’never but to those a’searching,
Questing Hall waits for adventurers bold.

Come, all ye weary. Come, see my cheer.
Eat of my food and get rest in my bed.
Come, though ye wander afar or a’near.
Your feet find a footstool, a pillow, your head.

Away, away!
The horses are neighing!
Away, away!
The armor is shining!
Away, away!
Yet come back ere morning!
Away, away, away!

Come, friend. Adventure with us from the Questing Hall of Tome: Sword and Dagger.

I’ve been downstairs twice, and outside once, trying to put an end to this. I need to sleep tonight. Two 3:00 AM mornings is all I’d like to handle, thank you.

Not that the hooligans who are meddling around will read this, but if you do, be ye warned: if anything on my family’s property is damaged, I will not stop hunting you until you repay it; if anyone in my family is hurt, I will not rest until you are begging for your life… if I even let you live.