Maryanne and I found a Father's day craft that my brother helped make when his was back in kindergarten. (18 years ago). It was a newspaper called the "Kindergarten Tattler" and it had pictures drawn by each student that explained what things their Dads like to do best. Some of the drawings and captions were really sweet. For example Lane's said his Dad liked to catch butterflies; while Joey's Dad likes climbing trees. Quite a few Dads' favourite thing was to go golfing. Some of the more interesting ones were suggestive of what kinds of things were going on at home. Genevieve's Dad dreamed of sleeping and having another baby. Heather's Dad enjoyed kissing her Mom and Megan's Dad enjoyed tickling her Mom best. But the most surprising thing was that according to Geoff the thing that Dad likes best is shooting guns.
That is right, Dad apparently likes shooting guns best. This really surprised Maryanne and I especially since Dad only owned a rifle for hunting and he was drawn by Geoff holding a hand gun. This could be chalked up to the fact that he was a kindergarten student and doesn't notice detail except that Geoff did. I know this because he was one of the only kids to draw a human with all of their correct body parts and even more telling he even drew the shoe laces on Dad's shoes. So I took a closer look at the gun and it occurred to me that the only handgun in our house was the Sega master system's handgun for the game Safari Hunt. I think that must be what it was.
I will upload the picture as soon as I can.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Monday, April 12, 2010
Truly Unique Computer Games
Recently while reading XKCD I came across the mention of a fourth dimensional game. When I researched it I foudn that it does not exist yet but that it has won some design awards. I then checked out some other games that won similar awards and found some really fascinating games. Many of these games are short games that you can finish in less then a week or even an hour, but they are note worthy because of the way they play the game.
The first one I want to mention is called the continuity game. The game is a side scrolling game similar to Super Mario but with really simple clean graphics. The catch is that you can rearrange the levels by sliding the cards around. As long as the edges of the cards match up your character can move between them. Also as you play there is beautiful, calm music playing.
The second game is more artistic. It is called a puzzle poem because the game is a poem in which you switch out nouns and verbs. The game is the title of the poem "Today I die." As you do this it takes you through the story of the poem to the conclusion. I almost think of it as more art than game. It is a really neat concept that I have never seen applied to a game structure before. To add to the mood the poem also has music playing in the background.
If you have a moment I suggest you check out both of these games.
The first one I want to mention is called the continuity game. The game is a side scrolling game similar to Super Mario but with really simple clean graphics. The catch is that you can rearrange the levels by sliding the cards around. As long as the edges of the cards match up your character can move between them. Also as you play there is beautiful, calm music playing.
If you have a moment I suggest you check out both of these games.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Oops! The story of my ringtone.
So I made an awesome ringtone for my phone today. As anyone reading this knows I am a very big fan of the Saskatchewan Roughriders. Today I downloaded the "green is the colour" song. It is such a great song that I thought it would make a nice ringtone. At first I thought that I could just transfer the file to my phone but the phone is older and would not allow the file to be used for the ringtone. So I looked online at how to convert my mp3 file to a ringtone. It turns out the itunes can do the trick by converting the file to an AAC format. Then I was able to use a website called http://rumkin.com/tools/sprint/ to send the file to my phone's download folder. This worked beautifully and now I have the song as my ringtone.
I then went and got groceries and when I got back to my house I got thinking about our phone plan. I remembered having unlimited text messaging which is what the file to my phone had been embedded in but I also remembered not having any data plan. I then called Bell, our provider, to find out what this little ringtone had cost me. It turns out that we have a really old plan and that the cost was going to be 5 cents a KB. The ringtone was 3.5MB or $175.00, I then nervously asked what kinds of plans would I be eligible for to cover this cost. It turns out that there is a $10.00 a month unlimited browsing plan that we could add, sigh of relief. We had to add it to both phones and we need to keep it for at least a month.
In the end I ended up having an awesome $20.00 ringtone. I also have a very loving wife who told me that she would never bring it up since I clearly felt so bad and foolish about what happened. I had to share how awesome she is with the world. I also had to let everyone know that I have a really cool ringtone.
I then went and got groceries and when I got back to my house I got thinking about our phone plan. I remembered having unlimited text messaging which is what the file to my phone had been embedded in but I also remembered not having any data plan. I then called Bell, our provider, to find out what this little ringtone had cost me. It turns out that we have a really old plan and that the cost was going to be 5 cents a KB. The ringtone was 3.5MB or $175.00, I then nervously asked what kinds of plans would I be eligible for to cover this cost. It turns out that there is a $10.00 a month unlimited browsing plan that we could add, sigh of relief. We had to add it to both phones and we need to keep it for at least a month.
In the end I ended up having an awesome $20.00 ringtone. I also have a very loving wife who told me that she would never bring it up since I clearly felt so bad and foolish about what happened. I had to share how awesome she is with the world. I also had to let everyone know that I have a really cool ringtone.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Farming Up
I came across the idea of farming in skyscrapers a couple of years ago. The idea seemed interesting and far fetched at the time. Lately though I have been running across this idea everywhere I go on the internet. (With that said I go to some pretty nerdy places). First I came across it recently again in Scientific American the November 2009 issue. Then while reading an interesting article about farming Detroit I linked over to an article about how Detroit is a food desert and there are possible plans to turn parts of it into farm land again or to turn the skyscrapers into hydroponic farms. Then today I saw that vertical farming was the spotlight story in the technology section at the CBC website.
So what is vertical farming? In a few simple words it is farming in a skyscraper. It is obviously more involved than that but it gets across the general gist of the concept.
So why farm in a skyscraper?
The various articles give a number of reasons. I will try to sum up the major ones below. These are in no particular order.
1) The farms can be built into the cities water management systems to better use waste water.
The idea here is that the farm building has a water treatment center in it and that municipal waste water gets purified enough to water the plants and the solid wastes are burned to provide energy. This would help to deal with city water management problems and provide water and energy for the farm. (it may need to supplement its energy with other sources of power still)
2) There is not enough land to keep farming using current methods if the population continues to grow.
I do not know how accurate it is but many different articles from different sources all seem to say that we will run out of farmland within the next 50 years. This includes if we just wholesale clear cut all current forests. The only way to allow for a growing population is to provide more food. In order to do that we need to have more farming in a tinier area. This means many storied farms.
3) Limited water supply.
We have all heard that water supplies are going to become more and more scarce as more people have to share them. In a controlled environment like a building you can recapture any water that evaporates off of plants and reuse it. You can also use things like drip irrigation to reduce the amount of water you need.
4) Access to quality food.
While most of us have access to good food this food has often traveled around the world to get to us. If we had vertical farms then you could have farms right in the city and they could provide local produce year round to grocery stores. You might even have a grocery store right on the first floor of the farm.
5) Pollution reduction.
This would reduce all the pollution that is used to ship it to you normally. It would likely take some time before the reduction in transportation pollution was greater than that of constructing the building but it would eventually be greener.
6) Local jobs
Running a large farm like this would generate jobs. The fact that there is a growing population means that this would not take jobs away from current farmers as they will still be needed as well.
7) Save wild landscapes
If we can build these kinds of farms then we do not need to expand farmland into areas that are currently still wild areas.
There are likely many more ideas. I would like to hear what different people think about this concept. One business model idea I had about it would be to have people that cannot use all of their own compost to give it to the vertical farms. They then get a share in the produce being grown. Kind of like a Co-op or something.
Well let me know what you think. Also if you want more information the website that seems to be the collecting point for all things relating to vertical farms is www.verticalfarm.com .
So what is vertical farming? In a few simple words it is farming in a skyscraper. It is obviously more involved than that but it gets across the general gist of the concept.
So why farm in a skyscraper?
The various articles give a number of reasons. I will try to sum up the major ones below. These are in no particular order.
1) The farms can be built into the cities water management systems to better use waste water.
The idea here is that the farm building has a water treatment center in it and that municipal waste water gets purified enough to water the plants and the solid wastes are burned to provide energy. This would help to deal with city water management problems and provide water and energy for the farm. (it may need to supplement its energy with other sources of power still)
2) There is not enough land to keep farming using current methods if the population continues to grow.
I do not know how accurate it is but many different articles from different sources all seem to say that we will run out of farmland within the next 50 years. This includes if we just wholesale clear cut all current forests. The only way to allow for a growing population is to provide more food. In order to do that we need to have more farming in a tinier area. This means many storied farms.
3) Limited water supply.
We have all heard that water supplies are going to become more and more scarce as more people have to share them. In a controlled environment like a building you can recapture any water that evaporates off of plants and reuse it. You can also use things like drip irrigation to reduce the amount of water you need.
4) Access to quality food.
While most of us have access to good food this food has often traveled around the world to get to us. If we had vertical farms then you could have farms right in the city and they could provide local produce year round to grocery stores. You might even have a grocery store right on the first floor of the farm.
5) Pollution reduction.
This would reduce all the pollution that is used to ship it to you normally. It would likely take some time before the reduction in transportation pollution was greater than that of constructing the building but it would eventually be greener.
6) Local jobs
Running a large farm like this would generate jobs. The fact that there is a growing population means that this would not take jobs away from current farmers as they will still be needed as well.
7) Save wild landscapes
If we can build these kinds of farms then we do not need to expand farmland into areas that are currently still wild areas.
There are likely many more ideas. I would like to hear what different people think about this concept. One business model idea I had about it would be to have people that cannot use all of their own compost to give it to the vertical farms. They then get a share in the produce being grown. Kind of like a Co-op or something.
Well let me know what you think. Also if you want more information the website that seems to be the collecting point for all things relating to vertical farms is www.verticalfarm.com .
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Fun with Microscopes!
Recently Maryanne got a new digital camera and I was given permission to do as I pleased with the old one. I have been using it at school for various projects but on Monday I got to thinking that it sure would be nice if I could take photos through the microscope for the grade 6 and 7 students that were away that day. I remembered that you could buy cameras for microscopes but that we would not use it enough to justify the approx $550 dollar cost. So then I decided to experiment a little bit to see if I could use the old digital camera to take a photo of my cheek cell.
My first attempt was of me just holding the camera up to the ocular lens of the compound microscope. I then looked at the display screen on the camera to try and line up everything for the shot. This was my first attempt.
My first attempt was of me just holding the camera up to the ocular lens of the compound microscope. I then looked at the display screen on the camera to try and line up everything for the shot. This was my first attempt.
What you see is an iodine stained couple of cheek cells scraped off the inside of my check with a toothpick. (Your cheek cells regularly slough off so it does not hurt to take the sample. Even my grade 6 and 7 students thought that it did not hurt.) If I recall the resolution of the microscope was 100x. You can make out the nucleus of each cell clearly. The bunched up part in the upper right hand corner is a bunch of cells that are stuck together.
This was a pretty good result but I wanted to make it more stable. I found an old thick cardboard tube that had been given to me by Dad a couple of summers ago. (They had been used to ship some sort of scientific instrument's light bulb to Dad and he thought that they were too sturdy just to toss so he gave them to me with the comment that I should see if I could do something interesting with them.) The cardboard tube fit perfectly around the ocular lens. I then but it to size to ensure that when the camera's zoom lens was out it would be as close to the eyepiece as possible without touching it. I could now brace the camera against the cardboard tube without worrying about shaking while zoomed in on high power.
I gave the new setup a good test the next day (Tuesday) with a water sample that I collected from a lake that is a 5 minute walk from the school. I was able to find a very cooperative water flea in that water.
Here he or she is at 400x magnification. In this photo the head is mainly in focus and the body is kind of blurry. This is due to the fact that at this level of magnification the thickness of the water flea prevents all of it from being in focus at once. Also it wouldn't really hold still.
Lastly I tried to make a video. I will add the video tomorrow. Right now Maryanne has gone to bed and I need to head that way as well. But so far I'm pretty happy with the camera setup.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Awash in a Sea of Humanities.
This weekend we had our friends Karl and Meg and their little boy Andrew over to our house. It was really good to see them. They had last been here for a week in August and even though that doesn't seem like a long time when you are two every month seems to bring about huge changes. Andrew is now babble talking more coherently and he is starting to be a little more careful and thoughtful in the way that he plays. For instance he did not just pull magnets off the fridge but pulled them off and then arranged them into shapes on the fridge. He also was able to get around just that much better this time. Maryanne has a great post about him being a ghost.
We also had our friends Ariann and Derek over on Saturday to visit with Karl and Meg and little Andrew. During this visit everyone got analyzing the movie Up. Then on Sunday we had our friend Ky over after Church for lunch. Soon Karl, Maryanne and her were discussing how to get a GCU group going at UVic. It was during this conversation that Maryanne made the comment that she did not know anyone outside of the History or English departments. It was at that moment that I realized that my life has gradually become surrounded more and more by people deeply entrenched in the humanities.
Allow me to present my evidence. My wife is in grad school to become a historian. This means that all of the university people that we get to know, any conferences that we go to are all about history. Our friend Ky who goes to Church with us and is Maryanne's lifelong friend is in grad school to get her doctorate in some sort of English literature thing. Our friends Karl and Meg are both humanities people. Karl is getting his PhD in some sort of wisdom literature field and Meg has her bachelors degree in political science. Our friends Derek and Ariann are also humanities focused. They both have their bachelor of education but are specialized in humanities. Derek in English and Social Studies and Ariann in Music and Social Studies. Even among the teachers at school I am the only one that's only focus was science. The closest to another science guy is our new vice-principal Mr. Douglas. I think that he was a geography major and understands meteorology really well but his focus and passion is not science but instead Christian Ethics, which is very important.I do have a few people at Church who are science guys but at this point I only really see them on Sundays.
So what does all this mean? Well it means that a lot more of my conversations are about humanities. I know that a lot of the people mentioned above are now saying "Hold on Chris, we talk science all the time!," which is kind of true. We talk about popular culture science. Things like the show Big Bang Theory, Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek, etc. We also discuss science fiction, but I realized this weekend as I listened to some very intellectual people wade into an overly deep discussion on the movie Up that I don't really have anyone local that I can discuss the corresponding science stuff with. For instance how might we actually make the dog translator collars that are seen in the movie? I do not remember that last time I could really debate and discuss stuff like how the FTL on the Battlestar might work. When I mentioned to Derek that I would prefer to make robots (more applied science) than play Wii (popular culture science) he seemed surprised that I would prioritize my time this way. I think that in the next while I might try to seek out more people to do science things with.
I hope that I did not offend any of my friends who are focused on humanities. I like our conversations and I enjoy the things we do. This was more of a realization that since the beginning of the school year I have not talked with anyone about the big science thoughts in my head and I miss that. In case anyone is wondering the main thought projects I have been working on are skyscraper farms, quantum entanglement FTL engines, light rail train system for Regina. I miss doing science with others as colleagues rather than always as the teacher.
Well, its late and I need to go to bed. Good night.
We also had our friends Ariann and Derek over on Saturday to visit with Karl and Meg and little Andrew. During this visit everyone got analyzing the movie Up. Then on Sunday we had our friend Ky over after Church for lunch. Soon Karl, Maryanne and her were discussing how to get a GCU group going at UVic. It was during this conversation that Maryanne made the comment that she did not know anyone outside of the History or English departments. It was at that moment that I realized that my life has gradually become surrounded more and more by people deeply entrenched in the humanities.
Allow me to present my evidence. My wife is in grad school to become a historian. This means that all of the university people that we get to know, any conferences that we go to are all about history. Our friend Ky who goes to Church with us and is Maryanne's lifelong friend is in grad school to get her doctorate in some sort of English literature thing. Our friends Karl and Meg are both humanities people. Karl is getting his PhD in some sort of wisdom literature field and Meg has her bachelors degree in political science. Our friends Derek and Ariann are also humanities focused. They both have their bachelor of education but are specialized in humanities. Derek in English and Social Studies and Ariann in Music and Social Studies. Even among the teachers at school I am the only one that's only focus was science. The closest to another science guy is our new vice-principal Mr. Douglas. I think that he was a geography major and understands meteorology really well but his focus and passion is not science but instead Christian Ethics, which is very important.I do have a few people at Church who are science guys but at this point I only really see them on Sundays.
So what does all this mean? Well it means that a lot more of my conversations are about humanities. I know that a lot of the people mentioned above are now saying "Hold on Chris, we talk science all the time!," which is kind of true. We talk about popular culture science. Things like the show Big Bang Theory, Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek, etc. We also discuss science fiction, but I realized this weekend as I listened to some very intellectual people wade into an overly deep discussion on the movie Up that I don't really have anyone local that I can discuss the corresponding science stuff with. For instance how might we actually make the dog translator collars that are seen in the movie? I do not remember that last time I could really debate and discuss stuff like how the FTL on the Battlestar might work. When I mentioned to Derek that I would prefer to make robots (more applied science) than play Wii (popular culture science) he seemed surprised that I would prioritize my time this way. I think that in the next while I might try to seek out more people to do science things with.
I hope that I did not offend any of my friends who are focused on humanities. I like our conversations and I enjoy the things we do. This was more of a realization that since the beginning of the school year I have not talked with anyone about the big science thoughts in my head and I miss that. In case anyone is wondering the main thought projects I have been working on are skyscraper farms, quantum entanglement FTL engines, light rail train system for Regina. I miss doing science with others as colleagues rather than always as the teacher.
Well, its late and I need to go to bed. Good night.
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