I wanted to surprise my wife for Christmas. She is a redheaded Harry Potter fan and mom, which inspired the idea to build a Weasley Clock. I got the idea in February, so I had 10 months to get the project designed and built. For those unfamiliar with Harry Potter and the Weasley Family, the Weasley wizard family owns a magical clock that instead of telling time shows the location of each family member with a separate hand. Here's an excerpt from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (J. K. Rowling, 2000): Mrs. Weasley glanced at the grandfather clock in the corner. Harry liked this clock. It was completely useless if you wanted to know the time, but otherwise very informative. It had nine golden hands, and each of them was engraved with one of the Weasley family’s names. There were no numerals around the face, but descriptions of where each family member might be. “Home,” “school,” and “work” were there, but there was also “traveling,” “lost,” “hospital,” “prison,” an...
May is here again, that means bike to work month and bike to work day, May 12th . For the last two years I have participated in the Bay Area Bicycle Coalition's Team Bike Challenge , a friendly contest to see what teams and companies can log the most bike commutes. In 2010 I challenged myself to bike to work for every commute and did it. This year I'm planning repeat that, with the added challenge of getting 1000+ ft of climbing each day. On average at least, because some routes don't have any hills. Blekko is going to be well represented in the company competition ( Blekko Team Standings ), with almost 50% of the employees planning to participate. I think we have a good shot at placing in the small company (less than 50 employees) competition. Last year Blekko was co-winner of Strava's own bike to work challenge taking the distance per member competition (admittedly skewed by only having two team members: Bob and me). The overall winners were our "nemes...
One of my ongoing personal projects is discovering good techniques and tools for teaching math, science, and a problem-solving mindset to our two elementary school-aged kids. To that end, I recently read Dr. Barbara Oakley's excellent book: "A Mind for Mathematics: How to Excel at Math and Science (Even If You Flunked Algebra)." Dr. Oakley's own story is inspiring. She transformed herself from a math-phobe into a professor of engineering. This book is not your usual anecdotal self-help book. While the tone and writing are very casual, the material is completely scientific. All the information is based on the latest brain research, and the book includes a comprehensive bibliography. I did not need to read the underlying psychology and brain research papers to see the truth of what Dr. Oakley wrote. I found myself reflecting on my own successes and failures in learning. I’ve always considered myself naturally talented at math. I ended up with a BS in Ma...
Comments