Matt’s Blog

I was recently digging through some old files and happened across a project I did while in college. It’s a cellular automoton modeling the interactions between predator and prey. Much to my surprise, it was still functioning. The application itself is pretty fun, it lets you enter in settings for populations of prey and predator, and then runs the simulation with a graphical view. No awesome 3d graphics though, just colored dots. Download the application here: PopSimApp.zip You’ll need to install the .NET Framework 2.0 if you don’t already have it.

If you’re still interested, you can look at the source code here:  PopSimSrc.zip

And if you like pain, you can read the boring report that I wrote to go along with it: PopSimReport.zip

The obsession with oil continues. I’ve been hearing on the news that the government is considering issuing gas rebate checks to drivers for up to $100. Why don’t we put that money into renewable energy research?

A few months ago I started writing a Firefly story.  Firefly is a cult hit television series which many fans appropriately referred to as a space western.  It was cancelled after one season, a fact which I still lament, and promptly (by promptly I mean as prompted by the fans) made into a hit (as far as I’m concerned) movie.

Unfortunately, I never finished it, so if you hate unfinished stories, read no further. It’s called Horizone, which I ended up with after trying to spell horizon, and kept because I kind of liked.
Horizone

Here’s some features I’d like to see implemented in Firefox:

• When you open a new tab, it should have the same history as well as start on the same page as the one you were on before
• Opening Firefox by default shows the pages you were viewing when you last closed Firefox
• An option to turn off the noise it makes when you’re searching for a word and it’s not found

I watched a movie about global warming the other day. It was pretty interesting. I still find that a lot of people don’t really believe in it though, and I’m ok with it. Because global warming probably doesn’t need to be on the forefront of every environmental discussion. Really, all of the causes of global warming have short term effects as well as long term ones. After all, it’s pretty difficult not to believe in pollution, tropical storms and rising sea levels. Not to mention traffic jams. These things all exist, there’s no denying it. And even better, there’s simple things that we can all do to combat them. Here’s a place you can go to find a few: e2citizen

And if you live in Salt Lake City be sure and sign up!

Well, I just watched “Walmart: The High Cost of Low Price,” and this has induced me to join the much hyped world of weblogging. I never thought too much about blogging before, but now that I live alone, I don’t have much opportunity to speak out my thoughts on many topics. Hopefully this will help.

As I watched the movie, I was quite suprised with my own reaction, I’ve always been vehemently anti-Walmart. I used to live in a small town with one Walmart, and not long after I moved, they began construction on a second. There was a small protest in the town attempting to keep it out, but I believe that is was too late for them to have much success.

Most of my own complaints were covered heavily in the movie. Among them being the revolting manner in which Walmart treats their employees, their venomous business practices, and their seeming desire to provide every service any man, woman or child could ever want (from an oil change to a pedicure to a new pair of glasses) all from within the snuggly confines of a football field sized building without a window to speak of.

Covered just as heavily however, were transgressions that our government should be addressing, wrongs done not only by Walmart, but by many other corporations in America, and done because the laws of this country allow it.

First in this list is the need for many Walmart employees to take advantage of government sponsored assistance programs, such as welfare and Medicaid. I feel somewhat certain that Walmart isn’t able to dodge labor laws in the United States. If such laws are inadequate to gaurantee a sustainable lifestyle for a person gainfully employed, then part of the responsibility to make changes falls on the shoulders of the government.

There was also a long segment on all the crimes committed in Walmart parking lots. Many citizens complained that Walmart could implement simple measures to reduce crime in their lots almost to zero. While that’s most likely true, it isn’t Walmarts responsibility to police the community. If crime is high in Walmart parking lots, then local Police Departments should be there to find out why and correct the situation.

Fear not however, there’s still plenty of reasons not to shop at Walmart, and I’ll remember them every time I’m tempted (which is never) to set foot in any one.