Where the meaning is not quite clear, and we don’t care.
Feb 20th 2008carltonfunny ha ha
I can’t resist sharing this list with you. These are pictures of students showing off their science fair projects and it is nothing short of precious. This is but one example of many. Click on it and scroll through the many science projects. As a disclaimer, I have no idea who these kids are and have no connection with any of the “work” they are showing off.
Feb 17th 2008carltonNetworking
This post is purely note taking for me. If it helps you, I am sorry. 
Here’s a calculator to help determine how to design a given wireless link. This will calculate a theoretical maximum SOM (System Operating Margin).
Here is a page with much discussion and many words. Good words. Stuff to use in designing a wireless link.
And a word of sadness. I retired my original antenna pictured on this site. It was made from stove pipe material and worked like a champ in the sunshine. The problem with it was that it funneled water into the cable no matter what I tried. i sealed it up pretty well using microwave safe tupperware which just condensed water and made it rain inside the antenna every morning. It was a great learning experience, but it has been retired in favor of the 14dbi Hawking Tech patch antenna. This is a nice kit that includes a pole mount and a nice lightning arrestor. This antenna is incredibly stable. I know that sounds strange, but the signal doesn’t dance around nearly as much, the SNR is dead even on my link right now where it would move around a lot before. I don’t know why.
And those old square grid antennas? I am using one of them again on my side. The Yagi I had would get wet inside it’s shell. who knew water would be such a terrible opponent in this game? The problem I had with these antennas before was that the beam measures 8 degrees width from the origin at it’s widest point. A beam 8 degrees wide .6 miles away requires a lot of precision in aiming which is quite difficult. These antennas to work quite well though. Mine came from wifi-link.com via ebay.
Feb 13th 2008carltonEducational
We all remember those times as a kid, learning multiplication tables. We had flash cards, reams of paper with tables on them to reference, little plastic boxes with keys that would reveal the answer to 2×8 and 12 x 12.
Well, my wife found this game, available on-line at www.bigbrainz.com, which is pretty cool.
They offer versions for Windows and MAC for download only or which can be delivered via CD-ROM ($5 extra). The download only version is $39 and there is a free version to learn the 2’s all the way to 2×12. I like it. I am not a teacher and am therefore untrained except by my own experiences of being taught. Here are my thoughts:
1) The game starts out with a simple pre-level intended to teach you to navigate your little green alien guy through the maze of multiplication problems. Once you emerge, you begin to encounter doors which require you to solve multiplication problems in order to open.
2) Problems are presented initially on the doors themselves, on one side, the problem is written out. On the other side, you see a representation of what the answer is. Once you approach the door, these representations jump away from the door and turn into snails. So when you run over the snails, which each represent one of the factors in the equation, it counts the total value. If it’s 2 x 4, one snail gives you 4, the next snail adds the second 4 to make 8. It’s kind of neat to me and provides some tangible (virtually) structure to solving the problem. When you are done, you go back to the door and type the answer into the equation. If you get it right, it opens the door… to a mean looking troll.
3) You practice the problem by solving the door, then use what you have learned so far to defeat the troll. The poor guy has multiplication problems light up on his chest and you “hit” him by solving those. Type in an answer, he loses ground. Answer enough correctly, and he goes away, leaving a key for the next door. Get one wrong and he hits you back. It’s actually quite non-violent, and I am probably making it sound as if it’s a bad thing. It’s not.
4) The game play is smooth, the software works great and it’s a steal if you have a child like ours who is more interested in being on a computer than writing on paper.
Oh, and here’s another thing. It seems to work very well under Wine on Linux. The only problem I have is the game doesn’t seem to grab the mouse, which is meant to turn your little guy. You have to use the other keyboard keys instead (Q and E) which work just fine once you get used to it. I tested the free version on Fedora 8, running Wine version 0.9.54. The only thing I will say is it is a modern level 3D game and therefore requires hardware 3d acceleration of at least a little bit of horsepower. It’s not a super heavy weight thing, but it does take some rear end to make it smooth.
I recommend it highly. How cute is that little green guy?
