Hi! This is Jack. Just writing a short update on the site itself and what’s going on behind the scenes =]
I have been working hard at getting this website viewable to the public and was originally planning on using Github pages with Jekyll. Jekyll is awesome and has a lot of uses for building static sites and blogs just like this. Unfortunately, properly installing a ruby development environment was not a trivial task! I tried many guides but alas there was no success. (Jekyll’s guide, Mike Dane’s guide on Youtube, a few others that fleet my memory as of right now)
There are lots of ways of installing and managing your installs of Ruby and each one I tried came with its own set of difficulties. (Rbenv, base install) and there are a lot of tools and ‘gems’ that ruby uses for jekyll and github pages. Between bundler, rbenv, and my setup (Windows subsystem for linux running Ubuntu 20.04) I decided that I should re-evaluate my options.
In the past I have researched static site generators for a short stint at a company called Novice Games (Summer 2019) with my high school classmates of Jack Roche and Nate Romanelli. The two most popular ones that I found were Jeykll and Hugo. When I came to revaluate this site’s future in development, Hugo became what is now my main focus to get this published.
I intend on publishing this site using Hugo (written in the go programming language) and have CI taken care of through Github actions (if possible)
I do not know much CI at the moment but the CI setup on the UMass-Makerspace’s blog was something that I saw real power in and will attempt to apply it to many problems in the future.
Anywho, the makerspace wrapped up activities for the semester and we ended on a good note as a team. I am looking forward to the summer, getting to spend a little time with my girlfriend, working at AirCycler© (which I will be doing remotely, woohoo!), doing some manual labor in Berlin, NY for my family (Dyken Pond & Center Berlin), and taking care of stuff at home in Duxbury.
Hope this was a good read if you were curious! Talk soon, Jack
Yes, you read that right. The bulwark of the dated and confusing Imperial system actually signed the treaty in ~1880 which metric countries signed to agree on the metric system. The United States intended on converting to the metric system. Instead we have a beautiful system where all of our units are metric units and a conversion factor.
If you haven’t seen the complexity of the Imperial system in all of its glory yet, check out this wikipedia image.
By 42CrMo4, Christoph Päper - English length units graph (PNG), CC BY-SA 4.0, Link
I found this by stumbling on an old youtube video by Veratasium which is linked here Pretty neat!
Yesterday, or rather, earlier this night. My girlfriend and I beat the Enderdragon in the game Minecraft. She died twice and I did not die once. I went through all 7 of my golden apples, my 2 regeneration potions, my 3 slow falling potions, and 64 arrows. It was hard work getting to this point but this is the first time I have done it completely legit, no commands. We immediately got an end city, got one elytra, and then another end city and another elytra. Earlier that same day, I finished 3 classes of mine for Spring Semester at UMass Amherst.
A list of the classes I have taken and are taking can be found elsewhere on my website. Maybe on my projects page! As of writing, these files still haven’t been made into a webpage. Hoping after tomorrow’s computer science final project that I will have the time to fully devote to understanding ruby gems, jekyll, liquid, and more html, css, and javascript stuff.
Some goals of mine that have been achieved
1. Excel in your classes for your freshman year.
2. Make some really great friends that are interested in what you’re interested
3. Learn more
Some goals for the summer
- Get Bubbles up and running with a GUI ✔️
- Stay in touch with friends all over ✔️
- Learn even more ✔️
Talk soon, Jack
Maps of China are broken
No seriously, pick any city in China and zoom into it. It looks fine at first, especially when only on the default map view. But if you choose satellite view, you’ll notice some weird stuff pretty fast. You’ll notice roads going over oceans and streets not aligning with satellite imagery. You’ll notice businesses that seem out of place. Basically satellite view and street view don’t align.
This is because to be able to do surveys of China, you need permission from the Chinese government. The only company(ies?) that have surveying permissions of China are Chinese companies. So, the satellite imagery you see of China is correct, but all of roads, business locations, and land borders are all messed up because google is not authorized to use actual mapping data of Chinese land. I think the original video I saw on this topic was a video from Half as Interesting Here’s the link
Did you know…
that every 4th generation of monarch butterflies, specifically the generation the flies from the southern United States to their winter migration spot in Mexico live 10x longer than the three generations that came before them?
In the first episode of a documentary series I watched today by National Geographic called Great Migrations, Nat. Geo. explored the Monarch butterflies migration patterns. The migration cycle is a year long cycler that spans 4 generations of butterflies. Every 6-8 weeks, monarchs lay their eggs hundreds of miles southward of where they were born and begin a new generation. On the last leg of their journey, monarchs give rise to one more generation coined a ‘super-generation’ that lives 10x longer (~6-7 months long) who then makes the long journey into the center of Mexico. They live mostly sedentary lives here until the cycle begins again.
Did you know…
that lightning strikes occur on earth at ~44 times per second?
I was reminded of this little tibit when I was watching a nature documentary, Night on Earth last night on netflix. I finished the last episode yesterday there was a shot of elephants with a lightning show in the background. It was beautiful and it reminded me of when I learned of this statistic years ago reading one of my books. I didn’t remember the number but quickly found 44 (± 5) strikes per second on the wikipedia page for lightning.
Did you know…
That at Saturn’s north pole, there is a large hexagonal shaped atmospheric feature?
Neither did I, but apparently it has been around for decades and as of right now, scientists have not reached consensus on an explantion.
Did you know…
The last time the solar system was at this point in The Milky Way, dinosaurs were still roaming the earth?
I didn’t either, but an article in Scientific American showed me how we are trying to map our Milky Way, why its so hard, and what we’ve discerned so far. The Solar System orbits the Milky Way ~6 times faster than the earth orbits that sun! (in linear velocity))
Did you know? …
That lions will hunt cheetahs and eat them?
Me neither, but today I watched an episode from a documentary on netflix called Night on Earth that showed me a group of cheetahs and how a lion threatens the cheetahs nightly hunt. Also of note, cheetahs and lions have excellent night vision.
Did you know? …
That teeth found from humans that lived 10,000 years ago have been found to have less gum disease, fewer cavities, less overcrowding and generally straighter teeth?
Yeah, me neither, but a Scientific American article enlightened me today on how and possibly why that is the case.