June 23, 2012 - For those who are interested in such things, today would have been the 100th birthday of Alan Turing, who is widely considered as one of the father's of modern computers.
June 5, 2012 - Another rare astronomical event today - the planet Venus will be passing between the Earth and the Sun, so with the right equipment (NOT YOUR EYES!) you can see its transit. Venus will appear as a dark spot moving past the sun. Again, do not ever look at the Sun directly! A better option is to view the live feed from NASA, located here.
May 20, 2012 - For those who are not already aware, this afternoon those people living around the Pacific will get to see a rare annular eclipse (also known as a 'ring of fire') in which the moon only partially obscures the sun. It happens only once every decade or two, so it is worth seeing today!
May 2, 2012 - Today I learned why people watermark their digital photos. I just found some of my photos being sold on another website and not acknowledging me as their creator nor sending me any royalties. I will have to go through all my older photos and ensure they are copy protected.
April 20, 2012 - For those who are interesting in trivial minutia, tonight my website passed the 5000 visitor mark. I am proud to say that I have had visitors from six continents, and countless countries. Proudly promoting geekdom without borders :)
April 14, 2012 - I wish to thank the McDonald Foundation for believing in my research proposals enough to award me their third ever "Independent Scientist" fellowship. The funds will go a long way towards developing these rough ideas of mine into a formal research program and hopefully provide some interesting new results.
March 31, 2012 - In answer to a number of requests, I will be offering final exam tutoring again this year, but because of increase in programming and consulting work will be very limited. I (probably) won't have space for new students, but I will try to make time for previous students.
March 30, 2012 - There is an interesting new trend starting online which I though I would pass along. In response to the growing number of governments trying to impose cyber-spying on their citizens, engineers and hackers around the world are starting to build a mesh network which will provide an alternative to the traditional ISPs, and will be more difficult for governments to monitor. For good or ill, in a few years we may see an even more uncontrollable, unregulated internet.
March 29, 2012 - I just read the Dr. Okubo has passed
away. I remember him teaching differential geometry when I was an
undergraduate student at the University of Victoria, in spite of the
fact that he was well past the age when most people would have
retired - and yet he chose to devote his time to passing on his
knowledge to his students, and inspiring generations of young
mathematicians.
March 14, 2012 - Today is Pi-Einstein day, a holiday for all of the geeks and nerds of the world, and a day to eat pie and enjoy science or tech lectures. It is also Einstein's birthday, so try to eat your pie in a relativistic way :)
March 12, 2012 - An update on my tutoring services - I have a couple of large programming jobs to complete this week and so I will not be offering any spring break tutoring sessions this year. Sorry everyone :(
March 11, 2012 - A reminder to everyone who lives in time zone that uses daylight savings time that today is the day when we get the joy of changing the time on every clock, camera, appliance, radio, VCR, DVD player, television, computer, and automobile. By the time I finish it will be time to change them back again :)
March 7, 2012 - I am excited to announce that I was chosen to design some specialized circuitry for a tech start up company, which I will be working on exclusively for the next few months. Unfortunately I cannot disclose the nature of this work, but it is very exciting and I am honoured to be part of it.
March 3, 2012 - After reading about the teacher's strike scheduled for next week, and the concern for senior students about losing study time, I have decided to offer a few tutorial sessions. I don't normally do a lot of high school tutoring, but if any students need help with math, physics, or chemistry at senior levels (and especially those preparing for university entrance in the fall) contact me as soon as possible and I will try to fit you in.
March 2, 2012 - I have just learned that during the hacking incident in the fall, someone also modified an online family tree that I published years ago. I no longer use that site, but I still wanted to give a warning to everyone that I obviously haven't yet undone all the damage the hackers caused.
February 23, 2012 - Due to some last minute changes to my schedule, I will be out of town for some or all of the next week. If anyone needs immediate help, please let me know today or tomorrow morning and I will try to accommodate everyone before I depart.
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