Index - blog

• Analysis - Moon Phases of Blog Entries Experiment (January 01, 2012)
• Sorry, Facebook (January 01, 2012)
• Moon Phase Quarters (January 01, 2012)
• How to "stamp" the Phase of the Moon on your Blog Entry (December 31, 2011)
• Astronomical objects (July 16, 2011)
• These Twitter buttons (July 09, 2011)
• 600! (June 29, 2011)
• Pictures no longer broken (January 29, 2011)
• Moving into Web 2.0 (December 09, 2010)
• 21 years, École Polytechnique Massacre (December 06, 2010)
• Pictures down (December 04, 2010)
• 500! (October 31, 2010)
• One thing I like... (June 05, 2010)
• 400 (May 31, 2010)
• Missed you! (May 30, 2010)
• Blog category hierarchy (April 24, 2010)
• 300 (January 27, 2010)
• On pageload counts (January 26, 2010)
• Bye bye rainbows (November 16, 2009)
• 255 (November 15, 2009)
• New feature - commenters (August 06, 2009)
• Changed my blog title (February 24, 2009)
• Get Clicky (February 24, 2009)
• Blogroll (February 06, 2009)
• Reorganized! (February 01, 2009)
• About Me (February 01, 2009)
• Long time no see... (April 19, 2008)
• Meta-blogging? (February 25, 2007)
• Filler Entry (February 19, 2007)
• Some stylesheet changes... (November 07, 2006)

January 01, 2012

Analysis - Moon Phases of Blog Entries Experiment

Well, I went ahead and tagged approximately 70 old blog entries on this site, scattered from recent back to 2006, as having been written under First, Second, Third, or Fourth Quarter moon phases. I am neither surprised nor disappointed that there is no obvious pattern. However, I *am* amused by things like an entry last year entitled "Full circle" where I talked about a return to programming after a hiatus and little did I know that this entry was composed under a full moon. (Get it? Full circle? hehe)

Also it pleases me to see lots of dynamic little moons in each entry footer. They make me happy. They serve to fulfill one of my desires to get closer to nature and to the Earth while I do my computer science. :)

Posted by Frozone Permalink on January 01, 2012 10:48 PM | Comments (0) categorized under blog
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Sorry, Facebook

I deleted the Facebook "Like" buttons from my blog. Now that they're gone, there are no more JavaScript errors and the pages load WAY faster.

It was probably a faulty installation on my part. But the buttons weren't being used, really, and I understand that the API has been updated so my plugin was out of date anyway. Maybe I'll re-add in the future sometime.

:)

Posted by Frozone Permalink on January 01, 2012 09:13 PM | Comments (0) categorized under blog
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Moon Phase Quarters

First Quarter

The first quarter is when the moon enters waxing, i.e. from dark ("New Moon") to half full. This phase is associated with long-term goals.

Example: January 23, 2012 to January 30, 2012

Second Quarter

During the second quarter, the moon goes from half full to Full Moon. This phase is associated with short-term, direct, immediate goals.

Example: January 30th, 2012 to Feb 7, 2012

Third Quarter

The third quarter goes from Full Moon to half dark. This phase is associated with gradual disappearing: a component you want to slowly phase out.

Example: January 9th, 2012 to January 16th, 2012

Fourth Quarter

The fourth quarter goes from half dark to full dark (Dark Moon). This phase is associated with more immediate "pruning" of things in your life that you want to extract.

Example: January 16, 2012 to January 23, 2012

Posted by Frozone Permalink on January 01, 2012 12:38 PM | Comments (0) categorized under blog
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December 31, 2011

How to "stamp" the Phase of the Moon on your Blog Entry

A few months ago, I said I wanted to look at my old blog posts and compare the nature of the entries with the phase of the moon under which it was written. (Previous entry, "Astronomical Objects") At the time I said, "Sound weird? Probably. But I want to do it." The sentiment still stands. ;)

I figured I should automatically stamp each entry with whatever the moon phase was at the time. You know how you usually see a Twitter or Facebook or Comment or whatever buttons that come automatically at the end of every post? I searched and searched, and the only scripts I could find were the ones showing you the "current" phase of the moon. I didn't want want that; I wanted the image of the moon to "stick" and not change after I save the entry. So, now I have a Moon Phase box at the bottom of my blog entries, too. The purpose of this entry is to explain how I got it working on my blog.

I wish to thank James Thiele for writing the original script and Geoff McLane for the second revised version. (Source: http://geoffair.net/java/moonpg2.htm)

Here are the details of how I installed and modified the script for my blog, which is powered by MovableType 3.21. I tried to write this description so that you could modify it for a different blogging platform if you wanted Moon Phase Stamps on your own blog entries, too.

First, I took the Thiele-McLane script and packaged it up as a separate file, "moonphases.js", and imported on my main blog template like so:

The script has a few functions at the start, then a whole bunch of code that's not in any function at all. So I wrapped the last chunk in a new function:

 function get_moon_phase_stamp(Date blog_entry_date) { ...

In the original script, they have a variable, currentDate = new Date(). I replaced the "new Date()" part with the new argument, blog_entry_date.

Secondly, I made get_moon_phase_stamp() return a new String variable called returnThis. So, I added a new line, "return returnThis;" to the end of get_moon_phase_stamp(). Then I deleted all of the "document.write()" statements inside the function, and, I took those strings and appended them to the returnThis variable instead. (Currently, I am still tinkering with the visual output… getting it the right size, labelling, etc..)

Now, on my blog at the end of each post, I just call get_moon_phase_stamp() and pass in the date of whatever day it was that I wrote the entry, and I do a a document.write() with whatever the function gives me. I put it into my blog template so I don't have to code it in each time.

Each of my blog entries is created by MovableType using a proprietary tagging system. Within each entry, you can use MovableType tags to grab the date that the entry was written. Since the function get_moon_phase_stamp() requires a Date argument, I have to use MovableType to give me something like this:

new Date("December 03, 2011");  

... where the December 3rd is the date of that particular entry. Here's how to do it in Movable Type 3.21 using the tag, <$MTEntryDate>. This will be different if you are using a different version or different blogging platform altogether. So, the following chunk of code goes OUTSIDE of moonphases.js. This is what you would put in your blog template. (Note: I had to comment these two lines out to get them to show up in this blog entry... if you are copy/pasting this to yours then please un-comment these two lines or else it won't work.)

So, that's about it. You import moonphases.js and then you copy/paste the snippet above onto your blogging template, changing the date tag as necessary.

Personally, I like to see a text label as well like "Waxing" or "Waning" or "Crescent" or "Full" or whatever. I gotta keep working to see if I can add something like that. I'll post again if I am successful.

P.S. Happy new year in a few hours!

Posted by Frozone Permalink on December 31, 2011 06:20 PM | Comments (0) categorized under blog
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July 16, 2011

Astronomical objects

I wanted to observe the trends in my blog relative to phases of the moon. Sound weird? Probably. But I want to do it.

So, I went hunting around for a Phases of the Moon Widget For Your Blog. I couldn't find one that suited my needs exactly, but I did find this one (below).

See, I want the widget to show the phase of the moon according to the time I *wrote* the entry. Unfortunately, all of the widgets I found only show the *current* phase. Is it possible to have some script that gives you a moon phase image as output when you provide it with input (i.e. the date)?

Oh well. This was fun anyway. :)

Posted by Frozone Permalink on July 16, 2011 12:08 PM | Comments (0) categorized under blog
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July 09, 2011

These Twitter buttons

To my pleasant surprise, every so often I see numbers increase in the social media buttons I put on my blog recently.

For the life of me, I cannot figure out the context under which my posts were Tweeted or ReTweeted or by whom. What's the point of keeping track if I can't even see what the results of sharing my stuff has been? hehe

Here are some examples of my posts that have some activity. Most are Twitter, one is Facebook.

Actually, Research topic: Teaching techniques have Shapes.

You can study Truth through fiction!

Grease Only

Open Study

Better exploratory search with Google Reader

Posted by Frozone Permalink on July 09, 2011 12:09 PM | Comments (0) categorized under blog
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June 29, 2011

600!

Cool, I have over 600 entries on this blog now.

I hit 500 in October 2010

I hit 400 in May 2010

I hit 300 in January 2010.

My first entry was in November 2005.

Coolness.

Posted by Frozone Permalink on June 29, 2011 12:39 PM | Comments (0) categorized under blog
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January 29, 2011

Pictures no longer broken

Earlier, I mentioned that the pictures on this site were broken. They are fixed now. Booyeah.

You might not see them on individual entry pages, because to update these it requires that I rebuild my site. I worry that this procedure would be heavy on my host (University of Saskatchewan!) so I am not rebuilding at this time. The pictures will come back at the next natural rebuild. But they are on the main page, so. :)

Love Frosty

Posted by Frozone Permalink on January 29, 2011 03:05 PM | Comments (0) categorized under blog
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December 09, 2010

Moving into Web 2.0

Hi there folks,

I'm not sure how I feel about this, but I have decided to try it for a while. At the bottom of every post on my blog you will see a facebook "Like" button. I wanted to incorporate some social media hooks into my blog. We'll see how this goes! Heck- Twitter, too!

P.S. If you want to have something like this on your blog, here are the instructions I followed -- really easy! Twitter docs.

Thanks,
Love Frosty

Posted by Frozone Permalink on December 09, 2010 07:08 AM | Comments (0) categorized under blog
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December 06, 2010

21 years, École Polytechnique Massacre

I would like to dedicate this entry to the 14 female students/staff who were murdered on December 6th, 1989, at L'École Polytechnique because they were women. The murderer said he was "fighting feminism".

Posted by Frozone Permalink on December 06, 2010 09:37 PM | Comments (0) categorized under blog
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December 04, 2010

Pictures down

Hi Readers,

For those of you who come to this site directly (as opposed to accessing only via RSS), you may have noticed that the pictures in the upper-right have disappeared. The cause is that the hosting company for my web files has changed around their web server configuration, causing broken links. Although they gave me advance notice, I have not had time to fix it. Therefore, the pictures will remain inaccessible for a while. I do hope to put them back eventually. I actually think that my pictures were quite charming, and I rather miss them.

Love, Frozo

Posted by Frozone Permalink on December 04, 2010 12:46 PM | Comments (0) categorized under blog
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October 31, 2010

500!

This is entry #500 on this blog. Wooo!

Posted by Frozone Permalink on October 31, 2010 01:26 PM | Comments (0) categorized under blog
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June 05, 2010

One thing I like...

One thing I like about this blog is that I can type the word, "fairy" into the search and find the diagram of a probability distribution that I had worked on earlier.

heh, heh. Fairy. hahaha

Posted by Frozone Permalink on June 05, 2010 11:07 AM | Comments (0) categorized under blog
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May 31, 2010

400

This is entry id# 400. Whee!

Posted by Frozone Permalink on May 31, 2010 09:01 AM | Comments (0) categorized under blog
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May 30, 2010

Missed you!

Hello, blog! *hugs and kisses!*

Okay, first thing -- backup. (............okay, done.)

I was unable to access my blog for most of this weekend. I don't know why, I assume server problems. I am aware of other activity going on on campus servers and maybe this was related. Maybe there was announced downtime and I missed it. At any rate, I am grateful to whoever it was that got the service running again (on the weekend!!!!). I also take note of how much I have enjoyed this blog and how much I appreciate this service.

Instead of blogging during my quiet time this weekend, I wrote with pen and paper. It was very difficult to continue without being able to access and search my notes. I'm not sure what to do about this; I think I'll have to see about creating a mirror or more regular backup, or something.

I was so distressed about my inability to post that I created a back-up blog, and posted there: Steph's Adventure In the Woods 2. It wasn't the same, I tell you! I guess I'm such a visual person that the appearance of my entries has an impact on their utility to me. I also tweeted my frustration into the tweetosphere.

I will copy my entry from that blog back over here. For future reference for my readers, if anything ever happens permanently to this blog and you wish to find me, head over to blog #2. Here is the link again for good measure.

The title of the entry was, Nash Equilibria.

Posted by Frozone Permalink on May 30, 2010 09:00 PM | Comments (0) categorized under blog
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April 24, 2010

Blog category hierarchy

I just refactored the willies out of the category hierarchy on my blog. 'Merged some, deleted some.

Upon further reflection, I realize I may have busted many links. (In which case, 'refactoring' is probably the incorrect term.). Maybe MovableType will impress me, and will have kept persistent permalinks, despite folder name changes.

One purpose of the reorganization was to create an RSS feed for the category "Work/ Research" to relieve myself of guilt when I post personal things on this blog. Let me explain. I worry about the people who subscribe to my blog for the research updates, and about them being "bothered" about non-scientific entries, such as my admiration for Britney Spears. (See the things I worry about? ugh.). Anyway, I attempted to fix that. Anyone who doesn't want the personal stuff just subscribes to the work/research tree, see?

I could have sworn that I'd set up category feeds for this blog. I hoped that the top level category feed would publish everything in its subtree. But I can't find the darned feed! I will have to try later, when I'm at the computer. Yes, I performed all of that refactoring and composed this post on my iPod Touch, laying next to my toddler to help her fall asleep. I can do a lot of things on the iPod, but scripting isn't one of them.

Next up: employ my new jQuery knowledge to create a collapsible tree to the left.

Posted by Frozone Permalink on April 24, 2010 11:57 PM | Comments (0) categorized under blog
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January 27, 2010

300

This is my 300th entry on this blog. Wheee!

Posted by Frozone Permalink on January 27, 2010 08:16 AM | Comments (0) categorized under blog
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January 26, 2010

On pageload counts

I have a stat counter on this page that tells me I average about 25 hits per day. But my counter is designed such that the hit is tracked when folks load up the main web page; it doesn't count the RSS feed. I was also thinking that most of the people who read this blog out of interest in the topic or they know me personally are the ones subscribing via RSS, whereas most of the hits from the main page, usually via search, are from folks who accidentally stumble on this blog while they are actually looking for something else. I get lots of weird hits from people looking for images which I've used as examples in the past, or, people searching for lines of poetry that I'd quoted before.

I guess I'm just musing about how much things have changed and about how people use the 'web is different than when the original stat counter was invented. Use of the web is not as much about surfing around and following the links as it used to be. Would I be wrong if I proposed that the average "web path" 10 years ago was longer than it is now? Hmmm, I wonder.... :-)

I would like to dedicate this post to Dora the Explorer, who is keeping the kiddo entertained long enough for me to type this.

Posted by Frozone Permalink on January 26, 2010 05:27 PM | Comments (0) categorized under blog
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November 16, 2009

Bye bye rainbows

I'm thinking about taking down the rainbow that's currently splashed across the top of this blog. It doesn't really suit me anymore.

Take one last look! heh.

Posted by Frozone Permalink on November 16, 2009 09:15 AM | Comments (0) categorized under blog
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November 15, 2009

255

This is post #255 on this blog.

That is all. heh.

Posted by Frozone Permalink on November 15, 2009 08:57 AM | Comments (0) categorized under blog
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August 06, 2009

New feature - commenters

If you click on "Blog" in the rainbow navigational menu plastered across the top of this site (tee hee, how I love rainbows!), you will find a new heading on that page called Commenters. This section lists all the people who have ever commented on this blog. Yay!

Posted by Frozone Permalink on August 06, 2009 01:44 AM | Comments (0) categorized under blog
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February 24, 2009

Changed my blog title

I changed the title of my blog. I wanted a name that had some meaning for me. The original name, "Steph's U of S Community blog" came from the days when I was employed at the separate school division office, and, one day I discovered the university's new blog service. At the time, the school division was just looking at using blogs (now proliferous!) and at the time I thought it would be neat to network with the university world and blog about common goals and experiences.

How this blog has changed! Instead, it has turned into a personal blog about my research interests.

The new name -- "Steph's Adventure in the Woods" has a few stories behind it, so I'll tell you here!

First, there's a metaphor of "The Woods" as research. On my adventure, it's exciting and there are surprises and treasures to find all over the place. It's also challenging to navigate and I get lost sometimes. I don't always know where I'm going but look up at the stars and the sun for inspiration. (Gosh, I'm cheesy.)

The background graphic of my blog is also conveniently wood-ish, with the sky and trees. By the way, here's the original image where I got the trees from. The pic is from the summer of 2006, about a 10 minute walk from our house. (I feel so lucky to live in such a beautiful part of the world!)

I also changed the subtitle of my blog. Originally, it read "A computer science student's personal research notes". However, I am no longer a student, and now that I have a baby daughter, I might not be able to become a student again for a long time. Instead, the subtitle is now "A computer scientist's personal research notes." Even as I'm a mommy, and at work I'm a "Coordinator - Online Support" and one day I hope to eventually be a "Grad Student", throughout all of this I am perpetually a computer scientist. :-D

Posted by Frozone Permalink on February 24, 2009 05:55 PM | Comments (0) categorized under blog
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Get Clicky

I heard via Twitter about a new tool for monitoring traffic on your website: Clicky Web Analytics. The interface is fresher than the current tool I'm using. 'Going to try this new one for a while and if I like it, I'll switch over my other projects. There is an option to upgrade to a premium service for $$$, however you can continue to use Clicky for free with a couple limitations (they only keep your data for 30 days, and there's a limit of 3000 daily page view trackings).

Posted by Frozone Permalink on February 24, 2009 09:08 AM | Comments (0) categorized under blog
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February 06, 2009

Blogroll

I'm sortof an oddball. I've had this blog for over 3 years but I've only just recently discovered the blogosphere. I loved how I could stumble upon one blog that I enjoyed and then look at their blogroll for more blogs that are related. So, I thought it would be lovely to have a blogroll here. You can find it by clicking "Blog" on the happy rainbow menu; it's the 3rd heading down.

Posted by Frozone Permalink on February 06, 2009 12:52 AM | Comments (1) categorized under blog
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February 01, 2009

Reorganized!

There, I added a nice menu bar across the top. You can visit my research index (an overview "by concept", which I was whining about earlier), the blog index (so I still kinda adhere to blogging culture by letting people find all my posts chronologically), or, visit an about me page. I felt like I needed 3 menu options, so "About me" got tacked on to the end.

Posted by Frozone Permalink on February 01, 2009 11:59 PM | Comments (0) categorized under blog
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About Me

Welcome to my blog! This is primarily a research blog where I share my ideas and notes. I also write occasionally about being a woman in computer science, or about how parenting affects my research.

My primary research interest is applied artificial intelligence in education.

The reason I post my notes online is that I hope there is some other researcher out there with a whippet of an idea that shares something in common with one of my ideas.  I hope that they also write about their ideas.  Then, we can compare and explore from new perspectives.

I am also interested in cognitive science, phenomenology, metaphysics, educational psychology and pedagogy. I completed my B.Sc.H. in Computer Science in 2004 and became an M.Sc. student in September 2010 in the ARIES Laboratory in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Saskatchewan.

To find out more about the title of this blog, read this.

Other "me" stuff:

• My Google Profile
  
  
  
  • Shared items
    
  
  
• My Twitter Page
  
• My Blogger Profile
  
• My profile on academia.edu
  
• Stack Overflow
  

Quizzes

Posted by Frozone Permalink on February 01, 2009 11:20 PM | Comments (7) categorized under blog
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April 19, 2008

Long time no see...

Hello, Blog!

Wow, it's been over 2 months sine I've paid any attention here. Even then, I haven't really done a lot of serious research here since... well, I guess I got a pretty good entry in at Christmas time and over New Year's.

But this isn't to say I haven't been doing research at all, lately! On the contrary: since September, I've taken 2 AI classes and have learned quite a lot. Much of it is still sinking in, and some of it probably won't click until I see the concepts applied myself as I continue to hunt around in search of whatever I'm searching for. I think that this education will help me to "grow up" in terms of reacting to new ideas (including my own) and to be able to perceive them in the context of modern AI. Since my free time is no longer being poured into assignments, I hope to start spending more time here again.

One of the first things I anticipate doing is tackling my "Index" from February 2007. Skimming over it even now, I can see several glaring AI concepts that I was obviously trying to find, but just didn't know how to name them before.

Also: since the last entry, I've learned that I'm pregnant! My husband and I are really excited, and so are our families and friends. Right now, I'm at roughly 4 months or approximately 17 weeks. For the last week or so, I've been able to feel my baby moving around. People tell me I'm not supposed to feel this until 20 weeks or so, but the books say that if you are a woman of smaller stature (which I am) you may feel your baby sooner. I figure that's what's happening to me.

James and I have decided that if it's a girl, we'll name her Sophia, which means "wisdom". If it's a boy, will name him Thomas, which is James's grandfather's name on his father's side.

Well, time to go move the laundry and clean up the kitchen. Laters!

Posted by Frozone Permalink on April 19, 2008 05:58 PM | Comments (2) categorized under blog
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February 25, 2007

Meta-blogging?

'So I've got this new component to my website.

*points down*

See that black box? That's me, trying to think 3rd-dimensionally. See, this Movable Type blogging system is great in that I can categorize my entries by labelling each with a tag, and, I can even organize my categories into hierarchies.

However, if I want to take a really big step back and trace through all of the themes, patterns and lines of throught, like a needle poking through each blog entry.... then I struggle with how to represent this "Meta-blogging". I considered making a Category called Meta-blog and organizing sub-categories under there, but that was WAY too time-consuming, especially given that my 3rd-dimensional vision will change around a lot, and I want it to be flexible.

My first solution was to use my good 'ol coiled Hilroy notebook and my Crayola markers. It was great for about a week. Then, I started missing the ability to add new lines between other lines without running out of space. I also had forgotten how much I use the "Search" box on my own blog! lol

Besides, it's nice to have all my notes back on the blog again. =)

Twelve pages in my Hilroy notebook are now living in the black box below. I've just coded up the ordered list within my Main Index template in Movable Type. Ideally, this black box should be just another blog-entry, but I can't figure out how to use Moveble Type tags to disply 1 specific entry.

So anyways, today's content is in the black box.

Posted by Frozone Permalink on February 25, 2007 08:48 AM | Comments (4) categorized under blog
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February 19, 2007

Filler Entry

test test

.... Hum, hum. I have just discovered that my blog collapses into a horizontal mess if I don't have any recent postings. (Hence this little "filler" post.) 'Mental note to go adjust some CSS-width-settings in my page divisions.

Life has been busy lately; Oh, how I wish there were more hours in a day! (Don't we all!) I presently have a splitting headache. 'Don't think I will be posting much today. I wonder how many painkillers a person can safely take in a day. Yup, I better just go lie down. Goodnight!

Steph

Posted by Frozone Permalink on February 19, 2007 02:06 PM | Comments (1) categorized under blog
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November 07, 2006

Some stylesheet changes...

"Enough with the pink polka-dots," I figured. They were just so two-dimensional.

Both the tree graphic and sky graphic come from some of the pictures my husband and I took on one of our Sunday walks through the park.

I'll keep tweaking away at the stylesheet; given the opportunity, I do enjoy playing with site designs. The only thing I'm unhappy about is that Microsoft Internet Explorer is apparently incapable of displaying alpha-channel transparencies in a PNG image. (If you are an IE user, I recommend checkin' out this site in Firefox, it looks pretty good, if I do say so myself.)

In other news, I've caught up on my reading on situation calculus and also learned a little about event calculus. I found myself wondering about threaded applications with multiple agents, thinking that the latter calculus' attention to time is significant.

Weee, time for me to go make some Tuna Chowder. I hope I have enough cheese.

Posted by Frozone Permalink on November 07, 2006 05:50 PM | Comments (0) categorized under blog
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