Jaczz

Discovery’s Earth Live Interactive

Save the Earth and make it greener… Want to discover the secret of the Earth and how the Earth works? Go to Earth Live by Discovery Channel.

This interactive virtual Earth is really a good education tools for all.

OTHER LINKS

US Earth Day, Pictures of the Earth, 3D Earth Screensavers

YouTube - the King of Video Site?

A few video sites out there… Vimeo, Metacafe, blip.tv, and imeem; they all have their own visitors and some of best video clips. However, it seems that none of them has UTube power to attract political campaigns. Law makers can get their own video on YouTube with ad free.

The response set the antiquated Franking Commission on a technological journey. The result is that within a month, YouTube plans to create a government ghetto, free of advertising, where lawmakers can post the videos of their choice… more - STLToday

My First Pantograph - by June

I made a pantograph today by using cardboard, masking tape, fasteners and two pencils.

How to make a pantograph:

• Cut 4 strips out of the cardboard, about 1” wide, and 15’’ long.
• Lay them out according to the picture below, and mark with pencil where the various holes will go.
• Put fasteners through points A, B, C, D to position the cardboard.
• Gently drill red marker through point P and blue marker/unsharpened pencil through point V1.
• Tape 3 times thicker cardboard to the table.

How to use a pantograph:

• Take a small drawing or picture that you want to enlarge, and put it under where unsharpened pencil/blue marker (point V1) is. (from V1 to V3, the enlarge scale increases.
• Take a piece of paper, and put it under where the red marker is. Pick up the blue marker and trace over the drawing. The picture drew by the red marker is enlarged one.
• Take a big drawing or picture that you want to reduce, and put it under where red marker (Point P) is. The picture drew by the blue marker is reduced one.

Source:
http://maven.smith.edu/~orourke/DTS/HowaPantographWorks.html

http://www.ies.co.jp/math/products/geo1/applets/panta/panta.html

Have A Fun With Kids

Phun - 2D Physic Sandbox, such a great Free software and teaching tool… Enjoy it with your kids. Dowload it from here. Only available in Windows and Linux versions. Sorry for Mac users.

Free Online Courses From MIT And UC Berkeley

Many students dream of going to the most famous colleges, but are scare away by their tuitions and tough admission requirements. Thanks to World Wide Web and colleges’ open course project, now they can enjoy so many free courses offered by MIT and UC Berkeley online.

This site summarizes all - a massive collection of free online courses and videos.

Goodbye grad program

Thinking over and over again, I decided not to continue my graduate program… Fall 2007 will be my last semester. Overwhelmed by work and family, I think it’s about time for me to rest myself and spend more time with my parents and kids.

Ended up working for a company that has nothing to do with my major several years ago. Don’t think it’s worthy to spend my money and time on it.

Mixed feelings…

Unreal Tournament - A.I project

Working on my final proposal and take home exam this weekend…my first graduate course - Artificial Intelligent, is near the end. Editing java code, modifying/creating UT maps, and upgrading our group web site, team members are working really hard and trying to get a “A” in this course, of course. I learned a lot of ut maps and textures editing.

Found out the following links are very helpful for first time UT players.

planetunreal - UnrealED 2 tutorial

planetquake

squacky@planetunreal

Learning Second Language Online

Livemocha offers free online courses for people who wants to learn a second language such as Spanish, German, English, French… Courses are very interactive, and you can chat online with “students” who speak native languages. It’s just another social website that you can make friends from all over the world…