17 Equations

I may be getting this book: In Pursuit of the Unknown: 17 Equations That Changed the World. Look at that cover, how many of these do you recognize? I think it will be a fun survey to ask American college students how many of these they understand. Come on, you know the Pythagorean Theorem, right? (but you probably don't realize how awesome that is). However, I probably don't want to know the answer, that may be too disappointing.

I especially like the way the author enlarge each equation and describe each variable.

However, given just a handful pages each, it is hard to describe some of these monumental equations in depth... but it should be good introduction.

No, I don't understand fully all of these glorious 17 equations either.

Android App Ideas If I have time

1. Expense Tracker
Went to get coffee? log it. Bought some grocery? log it. Went to get breakfast? log it. Parking meter? log it. Then it show you expense report on how much you spent on things, show you a pie chart, and you can export as CSV file and send yourself an email. I had this idea even when I was programming the Palm. Yes other people have done this already.

2. Shoot the bad guy
The old Nintendo game Hogan's Alley was a lot of fun. Shoot the bad guy! oh no, I shot the good man. Now you can use your own pictures. Take pictures of innocent people... take picture of a villain such as that guy you hate at the office (or take it from the Office Directory). Take a picture of your office as background! Then tap your way to shoot the bad guy! with random pictures come and go. Not impossible to implement :)

...and finish my Interactive Math Quiz which generates questions, AND SHOW EXPLANATION if you get it wrong with bouncing balls in number line, multiplication table, and paper-and-pencil methods.

Google Play vs Android Market

Android Market has been renamed to Google Play (for a while now). I like the old name better... the name imply what it does: you buy (or download for free) games and other things... it is a market. Now that it is all about Play. Things like books and music from Google Play may actually be serious and not playing matter. So I like the old name.

Afgan Massacre

π Day has come and gone, nobody cares about its significance this year, and no one talks about the Tau Manifesto on news headline this year... because there are other real news that shook the headlines.

The world is saddened on the massacre of the 16 innocent people in Afghanistan by a US soldier. If you send soldiers to some foreign place and get injured with no clear objective and no end in sight I am sure many will go crazy as well.

Yes, it was horrible act of violence.

But it is also horrible to have this longest ever American conflict. Waita minute, why is America fighting in Iraq and Afghan again? Ok, Iraq... is because someone believe Saddam has some weapon of mass destruction and that turn out to be false. Afghan? it is because Al Queada is there? Now bin Laden is gone isn't it time to wrap up? We can't yank all Al Quedas... new ones will come if we continue to provoke violence.

Bring the troops home!

Let me remind you of a even more violent act by American soldiers: the My Lai massacre in Vietnam.

It is horrible that thousands and thousands people die in war throughout history... the death of innocent people sadly is not uncommon.

Bring the troops home! As quickly as we possibly can!

On Windows 8

No, I did not download nor rush to play with Windows 8 Preview. My machine at home is still Windows XP and I won't even bother to pay Microsoft $ to go to Windows 7. The ONLY must-have upgrade ever was Windows 3.1 to 95.

Now many people think Microsoft is going downhill with its failure to dominate the phone market. And I am sure many people think the tile nature of its Metro interface is a bit strange.

See a good preview here.

I dare to say, Windows 8 look very promising! If you ever play with a Windows 8 phone, you may probably even like it. Its got some unique animations between screens. Android and IPhone... share a lot of similarities and I welcome uniqueness.

I like Windows 8's unique thin font. I like the new great pics. I like its stock of games. A piano app? nice. Hey, that flash card math quiz app! I have an Android version in progress!

I am not sure if I like the tiles interface though.

So I welcome new OS player in the computing world. I will get it when I am ready for a next computer. Yes Windows 7, I am going to skip you.

1 < 3 Math

I saw this interesting T-shirt from GAP.

See it here. It took me a while to figure out what's the deal with 1 < 3. Turn your head 90 degrees to reveal the affection for math.

The real math lovers should know a thing or two about polar graphs. How about r(θ) = 1+cos(θ)

See here. You should have seen this in high school or sadly you didn't have a decent high school math education.