Games: Planetary Physics

Adjust the mass, velocity and position of the planets in your solar system. Play with the presets for cool options (I enjoyed the 4 star ballet). Sometimes they crash. Cool Stuff!

Thursday Reading: Cassini Mission Extended

Great web design in this feature on BoingBoing regarding the Cassini Mission to Saturn.

Questions for the student:

1. What do they mean by "space-kumbayas"?
2. How is information transmitted to Earth?
3. What is Titan's little secret?
4. What does a space voyage to Saturn have to do with alternative energy?

Cooking: Pot Roast

We had so much fun with Pioneer Woman's dessert recipe how about another one? We do love a good and spicy pot roast.

Video: Austin Snow Skiing at the Capital

Snow skiing in Austin from the local Fox broadcast.

Games: Alphabet Shoot

Interesting flash physics game.

Learning: Ace the Test Without Studying

Not sure how all of these ideas translate; but, interesting article about hacking the learning process. Talks about mapping facts and even numbers to other parts of your brain. Here's the author's website. Worth subscribing to the RSS feed for a few months.

Pictures: Space Guitar

Check out astronaut Stevie "Ray" Robinson on-board the international space station in the new viewing addition called Cupola. Perhaps the most interesting part of this is that the astronaut is writing Twitter posts from space.

Pictures: Rugby January 2010

A few pictures of the rugby game in January. Isaac and his merry band of brothers getting dirty, and a fit looking #5 (don't you think?)

Pictures: Apple Dumplings

Just had to upload this set quickly. We tried Pioneer Woman's Apple Dumpling recepie with great success. Peace! Out!

Cooking: Apple Dumplings

Must try this one with Isaac.

Football: Kelly Reeves Athletic Complex

Just found out that Round Rock ISD has decided to name their district football stadium after my high school football coach Kelly Reeves.

Business: Who Gets Your Attention

This article from Seth Godin describes which customers might be most beneficial to shower with your limited attention.

However, I can see the principal being applied in many areas. As consumers, we should also realize which behaviors may merit additional courtesies from our service providers.

On a note regarding service providers, do public teachers count as service providers? I think they should. I will keep Mr. Godin's attention principal in mind so that I can be an attractive customer to attract extra services.

Thursday Reading: Program to Graduate Early

This article describes a pilot program being tested by several states to allow high school sophomores to take a graduation test. If they pass, they will get their diploma early and finish their 2 remaining years taking community college classes.

Seems like a promising program for aspiring students. I guess the negative side effects, if any, would be social programming.

Video: Sign Language

Love your job. No matter what your job happens to be, there are positives.

Development: Money Exchange

This is a copy of the suggestion I sent to the management of my own company. Looks like an interesting development idea good for both the merchant (less costs) and the customer (more security).

I read an article last night, while waiting for rugby practice, in Wired Magazine regarding the changing face of money exchange (can’t find it posted online yet). It seemed an interesting development challenge/opportunity to address comments I’ve heard in our office discussing regarding credit card transactions.

It seems that Paypal has done a great deal of work to open their transaction system up to third party developers, looks like they call it “Paypal X”. The article mentioned that this system was gaining popularity even with larger companies not only with their customer interactions, but also business to business transactions. Because of increased efficiencies in the Paypal system, merchants are paying only 1/3rd of the prices previously given to credit cards; of course leaving more profit to the merchant.

Pictures: Inside Everyday Stuff

Take a look at these photos of everyday stuff from the inside. It's a flash application so I can't put any pictures, but the one of the frog is very cool.

Art: Staple Art

I believe the artists refer to this as an example of positive and negative space (I think?). Great ideas for projection art!

Climate: What If It's a Hoax

From the Empress of Dirt site. What if it's a hoax? Even if I only practice some environmental practices for self serving means, they are still beneficial to my pack.

Speaking Points: Super Bowl or Olympic Medal

After asking Isaac the question regarding a favorite song for a space wake-up call on the phone last night, I confirmed by belief in the value of complex speaking points for valuable conversation.

This is a widespread concept used when interviewing, never ask simple "Yes or No" questions. Instead ask more complex questions which challenge the speaker to concentrate and evaluate his response.

I've added another criteria to my engagement speaking points for Isaac:

• No Yes or No questions (Did you have a good day in school today)
• No questions which can potentially be responded to with "good" (How was school today?)

The speaking point question for today comes from the sports world. Is it better to win the Super Bowl or an Olympic Gold Medal? After watching the Canadian win the Gold Medal in his home country last night, I would have to vote for that scenario.

Music: Space Shuttle Wake-Up Call

According to GeekDad, this song was played for Bob Behnken on-board the space shuttle Endeavor this morning.

Wonder what song you would choose as your wake-up call while in space? Pink Floyd seems appropriate to me; however, I don't think I could resist the temptation of hearing Jimmy Buffett (Maybe a little Grapefruit Juicy-fruit) while hurtling through space.

Quotes: Howard Zinn

Thanks to Michael for reminding me of this (congratulations Michael by the way).

Howard Zinn died Wednesday, to show his broad appeal here are obituaries from the NY Times, and Eddie Vedder.

Howard Zinn has been the inspiration behind many commentaries on this site regarding pacificism. However, here is a quote which dovetails nicely with thoughts expressed about Seth Godin's Linchpin.

I'm worried that students will take their obedient place in society and look to become successful cogs in the wheel - let the wheel spin them around as it wants without taking a look at what they're doing. I'm concerned that students not become passive acceptors of the official doctrine that's handed down to them from the White House, the media, textbooks, teachers and preachers. Howard Zinn 1922-2010

Valentine's Day: Song For Our Amor

Isaac and I celebrated Valentine's Day early over the weekend, singing Denise a mash-up of songs with the ukulele. The main song was 1,2,3,4 by the Plain White T's. We mashed a verse of "Hey Soul Sister" by Train into it by transposing the chords of D - A - Bm - A (- G for the chorus).

Great stuff! And a fitting set of songs for our Amor, Denise! Maybe we'll get a recording of our version one of these days.

Happy Valentine's Day my Lover.

Development: Small Basic - Beginning Programming

Just found this beginning programming language from Microsoft called Small Basic. Looks like you can follow the directions on the PDF that comes with the download pretty easily.

There's only 15 keywords, so a good way to learn concepts such as branching, loops, and arrays. You can also publish programs to the web, and embed them in your websites. Also lots of graphical methods for entertainment.

Video: International Space Station Tour

Tour of the International Space Station. Amazing how much they make it seem like a regular office (as much as possible at over 170 miles), "...and here's Charlie!" It seems like the space station is attached at the time, so you can see inside of that as well.

Math: Visual Math Proofs

Here is the next in the series from Stever Strogatz regarding math exploration. He discusses some visual mathematics.

I found myself teaching Isaac to be a good test taker this weekend; however, the same techniques do not necessarily transfer into being an effective problem solver. I ordered several books from the article to maybe point us toward more creative solutions.

His example is solving the sum of consecutive integers. The solution can be seen in the expression n*(n+1)/2. The graphical proof is much more interesting though.

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Convertion: Convert YouTube to MP4

Looks like an interesting service to get YouTube videos on the Zune.

from LifeHacker.

Video: Stop Motion Goodness

Must give this stop motion a try. This one is very cool!

Video: Who's On First

Inspiration: Sieze the Day

Inspiration from a poet and cancer patient.
use caution with the children, this is a poetry slam, and the poet is emphatic regarding her thoughts of "carpe diem"

Business: Cost, Margin, Price

I need to make time to read this e-book from Todd Sattersten discussing lessons about flexible pricing options. Reminds me of the initiative to gain your business degree online instead of in the business school. He has a blog as well.

Teaching: Hunters and Farmers

This article from Seth Godin makes a great distinction between hunters and farmers. The different types of people should be acknowledged when marketing, hiring, and teaching.

He points out that, "that medicating kids who might be better at hunting so that they can sit quietly in a school designed to teach farming doesn't make a lot of sense."

Diversity is what makes the world interesting, maybe we just need to learn how to appreciate and gear our message.

Exercise: Target Zone Training

Article from NPR this morning discussing Target Heart Rate Zone training. Interesting point at about 5 minutes discussing the impact on the brain (pre-frontal cortex) for target heart rate training (even in children).

Science Fair: Paper Airplanes to Learn Flight

This page is a pointer from Make Magazine to paper airplane instructionals. Need to brush up on the lift, drag, thrust, and gravity.

Pictures: Night At The Gallery

For our weekend's culture, we went to Tia Marie's Gallery opening. You can see her and Isaac standing in front of her work which includes an interesting study of the old Maxwell Coffee building in Houston.

We finished the evening at an old looking diner with Abuela, where we walked in on a bluegrass concert. Feeling extremely cultural indeed!