Te₅₂Na₁₁Sc₂₁Lu₇₁: 2012

Monday, December 31, 2012

Hiking: The Low Snow

I took a drive over to Cape Horn Trail Head (Skamania, WA), along the banks of the mighty Columbia River and went for a relaxing hike in the snow. The trail is pretty low in elevation, and is easily accessible, though some areas of the trail itself were treacherously icy. I really could have used some crampons.

See the original post and more pictures at:
http://waarwa.blogspot.com/2013/01/hiking-low-snow.html

Sunday, December 30, 2012

Programming: Java I

I started this class on iTunes U recently called CS106A (Programming Methodology) from Sanford University. It is taught by Mehran Sahami. He is really great! He keeps the information really interesting in his lectures and the book, "The Art and Science of Java" was written by a professor at Stanford and is perfectly tailored to the class.

Today, in Chapter 4 of this book, I spent a few hours doing the programming exercises, and I got pretty excited when I made my first animation with Java so I took a short video of it in action with the source code behind it. I know, it's easy and cheap, but ehhh. It's pretty fun anyhow. The source code is at the bottom if you're interested.

The class can be found here:
http://www.stanford.edu/class/cs106a/
...or on iTunesU.

Wood: The Cat Grass Window Box

My cats absolutely love chewing on grass. No, they aren't mini cows. It apparently helps settle their stomach and freshens their breath. It also may provide them with anti-oxidants, vitamins and minerals, fiber. From a scientific perspective, none of these claims have really been studied. After all, who's going to pay for that study? The Oat Grass Growers Association? I don't think so. So, mostly it's just a thing they enjoy, and it might provide them with some benefits -- akin to humans drinking juiced wheat grass, maybe (which also don't have much support by scientists for its health benefits).

Anyway, I know they really like it because I take my cat Newton out for walks on a regular basis, and he seeks out the grass near our mailbox. It's one of his favorite things, but I'd rather them eat grass that I grow -- because I know exactly what is on and around it. Outside... you have to worry about a lot of contaminants. So, to remedy this, I started out buying them little patches of cat grass at the local Petsmart. They enjoyed it immensely, but it tended to die after just a few days. I fixed this by deciding to build them a cat grass growing window box!