If you're not familiar with Edutopia, it's published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation.
]]>It was actually kind of cool. I didn't see that they had a camera, at first. They asked me what we were setting up for...and I was just myself, talking about the Cell Project. Then they wired me up with a mic, and started shooting. I have to say that they were a little more reserved once the camera started running, and I think this made me a little more reserved as well.
I'm learning that when it comes to filming, I do much better when I don't know the camera's running. All I can say is, well....I hope they edit it well, and that GalaxyGoo at least gets a mention in the show (which should air in the Fall).
]]>We'll be giving these away at our booth, in the Maker Kids area of the Faire.
My fellow Biology geeks out there might appreciate this cell phone sticker... I couldn't resist putting one on my cell right away.
We ordered some in full color, as well. But they haven't arrived yet. Can't wait to see them!
Big thanks go to Professor Colin Purrington, of Swarthmore College, for suggesting the idea!
]]>This year, they're trying out something new. They've invited the Makers to start a day early, and to participate in a special day just for students and educators. Admission is free for Education Day!
That's right, if you're a teacher, and you'd like to come to a special open house just for educators, go sign up right now!
I'll be conducting a special workshop for teachers, on making cell models. If you're going to be there, please contact me so that I can be sure to have enough clay on had for you to do the workshop. Did I mention that teachers get in for free?!
The open house for teachers is scheduled for 4-6pm. Earlier in the day, I'll be doing some demonstrations for students, who will be there on field trips from school.
]]>Talk to the Newsroom: Khoi Vinh, Design Director
Right up front he makes an important point about designing and writing for a specific medium (one that I wish more people truly understood):
Whatever success we've had with making NYTimes.com a useful and engaging source for online news, in my opinion, comes from realizing that we're not just trying to re-create what's available to readers in the printed newspaper.
Rather, we're trying to create something that's true to this medium, that borrows the best of what works in print and that takes advantage of the unique aspects of digital media.
This means we pay a lot of attention to how people use our content online. That is, not just how they read it, but how they make use of it: how they might scan the page haphazardly rather than diligently reading from top to bottom; what parts of the page they look to first and last; what they expect to change from visit to visit; which visual cues are meaningful for them and which design flourishes they find useless.
Good stuff.
]]>Set ^MyStorage(1,"key1","key2","key2",45) = 100
Globals can be thought of as tables. But one can also create a class with properties, methods, inheritance, etc and have the class represent a global (and thus a table) and use SQL to query the data.
The different approach to data and the fact the language is fairly old means there's really ' old school' code out there like:
s n1=$ll(rlist) i n1>0 f i1=1:1:n1 { w " " s n2=$ll($lg(rlist,i1)) i n2>0 f j=1:1:n2 {w $lg($lg(rlist,i1),j)," "} w ! }
(which does... something) and also OO class syntax like:
Class FCE.RealEstate Extends (%Persistent, %Populate, %XML.Adaptor) [ ClassType = persistent, ProcedureBlock ]
{Property Street As %String [ Required ];
Property City As %String(POPSPEC = "City()") [ Required ];
Property State As %String(MAXLEN = 2, PATTERN = "2U", POPSPEC = "USState()") [ Required ];
Property Zip As %String(MAXLEN = 10, PATTERN = "5n.1(1""-""4n)", POPSPEC = "USZip()") [ Required ];
Method Print()
{
write ..Street_$$$NL_..City_", "_..State_" "_..Zip
}}
which would represent a 'table' holding address-data, and which also provides a method to display an address.
Kristin and I have been talking about Caché and she's very interested in its capabilities and what it potentially can do for GalaxyGoo. So while I'm far from an expert or even a novice at this language, I'd be more than happy to answer any questions that might come up.
]]>Today I came across an article explaining a fairly basic but sweet idea to help increase your website performance. Simply use subdomains to load in files! Apparently a browser doesn't check for IP when loading in files but only the domain. So a file originating from a subdomain is seen as originating from a different server then from the toplevel domain, and isn't put into the queue for the toplevel domain. This means that you can set up subdomains which point to the same host as the toplevel domain and your site will still load in faster! And as an additional bonus, if your site becomes so big or popular it warrants splitting across servers, you can point the subdomains to different servers and your site's code will still work without a change! If you don't assign subdomains to files in a 'random' fashion ofcourse like the code used in the article. This technique will most certainly be used in a site my girlfriend and I are slowly developing, and I am sure it will find its way into the GalaxyGoo code as well.
Please keep in mind that as with anything, this is not some sort of holy grail. Do think about proper site/file-structure when setting up/developing a site before applying this idea.
]]>One of our favorite games is Mastermind. We never get tired of it.
One great thing about it is that it's not a long commitment, compared to a game like Monopoly. We can play a quick game, or a long series of games.
It's a great game to bring on vacation! It's relatively small, and lightweight. A big advantage when packing.
Do your friends at work have kids? Ask them if you can make a donation to their school's auction!
Here are some donation ideas:
There are so many more things to give. Different schools run different auctions. Some like to focus on gift certificates, some on tangible goods, most combine both.
]]>As the organizers say, the Maker Faire is
A two-day, family-friendly event that celebrates arts, crafts, engineering, science projects and the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) mindset. It's for creative, resourceful folks who like to tinker and love to make things.
We call them Makers.
It's a challenge to advance the GalaxyGoo mission of promoting science literacy, and an environment where education as a whole is at risk, it's getting even harder.
Here at GalaxyGoo, we may need to widen our mission to include supporting education in general, and not focus only on science. The quetion is, how would we do this? I'll be looking into possibilities, and asking for suggestions.
Our kick-off meeting takes place this Friday, so I'm busy getting info packets together for potential volunteers and supporters. I was looking on the Maker Faire website, for a brief description of the event to include in the packet, and was pleasantly surprised to see that we were listed as a featured maker. Nice!
To be science literate means knowing how to ask questions, and to be flexible in thought. To look deeper than face value, and see what's going on in those gears behind the facade. To identify assumptions and be ready to let go of them when overwhelming evidence shows them to be incorrect. To be comfortable with some uncertainty.
To raise a science literate child is to share and encourage their explorations. To learn with them. To be honest when you don't know the answer, and brainstorm ways to find out. Nurture their curiosity and natural scientific talent.
Remember that science isn't about knowing things, but about finding out things. It's about exploration.
You don't have to do it all alone. Keep some great resource books around. The DK books are really wonderful, and beautifully illustrated. They're great for "looking up" something or just browsing. A great source for great science books for kids is the gift shop at science and natural history museums.
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