http://creativesmoke.com/blog/index.xml Isaac's Recent Blog Posts en-us Copyright 2008 Creative Smoke. All rights reserved. http://creativesmoke.com/?page=blog&id=16 Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 -0800 http://creativesmoke.com/?page=blog&id=16 http://creativesmoke.com/?page=blog&id=15 Before continuing any further, I would like to share a brief anecdote. This week I had a large exam in my Into to Solid State Chemistry class. As a result, I stayed up until 3AM on several evenings studying, studying, and not sleeping. As a result, other work piled up. Now it is Friday, and I have half a week's worth of Calculus homework, as well as homework modeling CO2 changes in the atmosphere, and catching up (by doing all the optional homework I haven't done) in Newtonian Physics.How could . . . Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 -0800 http://creativesmoke.com/?page=blog&id=15 http://creativesmoke.com/?page=blog&id=14 Most software designers don't think much about usability. The site is about the magic code that makes it work. They have a beautiful vision that makes sense in the mind of the beholder. The user is often left far behind. Take Stellar for example, the MIT Course Management System. It is disorganized grouping of various features that should be included in a more unified way. Many of the components are great ideas that could be very useful to a student. However the lack of integration and user cent . . . Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 -0800 http://creativesmoke.com/?page=blog&id=14 http://creativesmoke.com/?page=blog&id=13 In this complex world of meetings, lectures, homework, tests, quizzes, sports, and miscellaneous it becomes difficult to find time to eat, sleep, or have fun. Often disorganization can reach the point where even homework, quizzes and lectures do not fit into ones busy life. Many products have attempted to answer this age old challenge. Some have been more successful than others. People have planners, smart phones, google calendars, iCal, an many other ways of organizing time, but using these sys . . . Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 -0800 http://creativesmoke.com/?page=blog&id=13 http://creativesmoke.com/?page=blog&id=11 First Impressions: I recently attend MIT's campus preview weekend as an accepted "Pre-Frosh". I was expecting a bunch of fun activities organized to show that MIT can be fun too, and that was what I experienced. There was certainly a dearth of activities that really showed the school for what it is. Nevertheless, I am excited to be a student next year, despite my somewhat disappointing visit. The Traveling Part On the way there, I traveled with Virgin America, which is an absolutely awesome . . . Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 -0800 http://creativesmoke.com/?page=blog&id=11 http://creativesmoke.com/?page=blog&id=9 These wax explosions might be very appropriate for celebrating the downfall of APUSH or something... A little Background Recently, I visited the Sierra Nevadas with my parents, and my brother Elliott. Over the last several years, we have taken trips up there, to enjoy the peace and quiet (most of the time), swim, hike, and make campfires. That was over five years ago, when I was much younger, barely past the double digits. One thing lead to the next, and soon my brother and I were . . . Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 -0800 http://creativesmoke.com/?page=blog&id=9 http://creativesmoke.com/?page=blog&id=8 I will first say that I am saddened deeply by the recent disaster in China. While searching around on the internet, I found this: This phenomenon is rare, and its existence has not been proven. I just think that this is really creepy . . . Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 -0800 http://creativesmoke.com/?page=blog&id=8 http://creativesmoke.com/?page=blog&id=7 This website (Creative Smoke) looks completely and absolutely terrible on Microsoft Internet Explorer. ARGH. Why can't they at least make their browser standards compliant. I plan on working several hours this weekend to rewrite all the code for my site, in order to support IE. . . . Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 -0800 http://creativesmoke.com/?page=blog&id=7 http://creativesmoke.com/?page=blog&id=6 I am no longer allowed to use school computers once again. I suppose using Terminal to work on a website is the clear practice of an evil hacker. I don't see much use in fighting these allegations, so I will just accept my fate, and let the bureaucracy handle it. Guess what I was doing? I was trying to make a song play on my website. Oh, wow, very evil, and very against everything the world stands for. Oh, and one last thing, I looked over the internet agreement I signed, and no . . . Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 -0800 http://creativesmoke.com/?page=blog&id=6 http://creativesmoke.com/?page=blog&id=5 After an excruciating day of school, I finally got a break. During break today, I was talking to that special person I mentioned earlier and said, "Do you want to go to the beach with me?" "Of course, but your mom won't like us not studying." I replied,"I'll call her right now." After a few moments of discussing, I was pleased to find that she supported my idea completely. Later in the day, I rolled off to the beach with my special friend and her friend. We ran, skim boa . . . Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 -0800 http://creativesmoke.com/?page=blog&id=5 http://creativesmoke.com/?page=blog&id=4 AAAHG. I woke up this morning, and it was still Wednesday. I cannot handle it. I cannot take this anymore. I am so fed up with school. Well, I managed to pull myself out of bed, because I knew I would see someone special soon. OK, so I took my shower, got out, and to add insult to injury, my deodorant was nowhere to be found. I walked into the kitchen, and there as no bread for my lunch. I kind of flipped out. No that AP testing is over, I see no reason whatsoever why I sho . . . Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 -0800 http://creativesmoke.com/?page=blog&id=4 http://creativesmoke.com/?page=blog&id=3 AP testing is finally over! Although this should be simply a time of rejoicing, I have this foreboding feeling about my scores. My first English essay, in modest terms, was amazing. Many of you may be familiar with the terminology "magical at times". Well my essay certainly was. I also have this feeling that come July, my essay will have received a score of 4 or 5, and all of my gloating will be for not. What about APES? Well, the multiple choice was a piece of cake, with a few ex . . . Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 -0800 http://creativesmoke.com/?page=blog&id=3 http://creativesmoke.com/?page=blog&id=2 As some people may know, I have recently created the Terra Linda Wiki. The Terra Linda Wiki is a collaborative site for students, teachers and parents of Terra Linda High School. So far, I have created the site, and put it on a temporary url. I plan to move it to wiki.terralindahighschool.net, but I am working my way through the SRCS bureaucracy. I will submit a formal letter tomorrow, and see how it goes. I am optimistic to have the site ready for a public launch within two weeks. . . . Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 -0800 http://creativesmoke.com/?page=blog&id=2 http://creativesmoke.com/?page=blog&id=1 A while back I was intrigued by the idea of using pixels to represent digital information. This concept has already been utilized by Nintendo's Gameboy, providing people with an accessory that can read small cards with tiny dots on them, allowing cheap retro games on a new media. I think that this concept could be put to work, enabling anyone to print up a little sheet of paper with a few KB, or maybe only a few hundreds of bytes of information stored in the pixels on the sheet. This would be pe . . . Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 -0800 http://creativesmoke.com/?page=blog&id=1