User:Sdh30

About Me

I am a student in the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University, and a member of the class of 2016. I plan on declaring a major in electrical engineering.

Name Pronunciation

"Shelby Horton" is pronounced "SHELL-bee HOAR-tin." There is another word homophonous to the beginning of my last name that means "a promiscuous woman"... see if you can guess what it is...

Current Courses

For the Fall 2012 semester I am taking:

MATH 111

ENG 103

CHEM 101

CLST 189 aka Roman Civilization

Random/Interesting Facts

I love, love, love playing basketball, and I just recently joined the Duke Club basketball team.

My favorite music artist of all-time is, has been, and will probably forever be Paramore; other honorable mentions include VersaEmerge, Flyleaf, Shinedown, and Evanescence.

My favorite book series of all-time are The Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare, the Pendragon series by D.J. MacHale, The Underland Chronicles by Suzanne Collins, and the Vampire Academy series by Richelle Mead.

My favorite word is “epitome,” because I’ve been using it in writing since forever but only learned about a year ago that it’s NOT pronounced “ep-pit-TOME.” You can’t even begin to imagine the horror I felt that day.

I can only do a handstand when my legs are resting on my shoulders. It is completely understandable if you are having difficulty mentally picturing this.

Favorite Quote: “Don't build up a world of magic, Just because your real life is tragic. And remember to keep your feet on the ground, Even when your head's in the clouds. Make sure to build your home brick by boring brick, Or the world's gonna blow it down." – Paramore

Favorite Matlab Demonstration

My favorite Matlab demonstration is Conway's Game of Life, because it is a similar and more complicatedly intriguing version of a favorite game of mine called Minesweeper. For this program, "Life" is represented by a two-dimensional, rectangular plane that is essentially the universe. Starting this program randomly populates the universe with small communities of square-shaped cells, which each have the option to stay alive, die, stay dead, or become alive at any given generation, depending on the state of the surrounding eight cells. There are four conditions. First, if a live cell does not have at least two live neighbors, it will die. Second, if a live cell has either two or three live neighbors, it will live for another generation. Third, if a live cell has more than three live neighbors it will die. Lastly, if a dead cell has three live neighbors, it will become live for at least the next generation. There are many types of patterns that can occur in the Game of Life, including stationary patterns where the live cells remain live and the dead cells remain dead and patterns where live cells die and dead cells become alive continuously in the same community. There are also patterns where the same live cells within different communities die and become live again over a continuous interval of generations creating the appearance of things such as gliding arrow heads and speeding bullets.

External Links

Securing cyberspace among top technological challenges of 21st century, panel says, Network World staff, Network World, created 19 Februay 2008, accessed 8 September 2012 (Grand Challenge)

Signature

--Sdh30 19:23, 8 September 2012 (EDT)