Finally!

Finally, I finished the online task manager! You can register an account here:
http://www.jjtchiu.com/task_manager

It's a program to let you manage things to do everyday and because it's online, you can access it from everywhere. Also, your information will be protected and not leaked out to anybody, so don't worry about what you put.

Also, I welcome bug reports, suggestions, and comments.
PS: I might get my own domain and server soon!

Chip Art

Microchip designers have been doodling on the chips since the first one emerged into the market. Throughout years, hundreds of them have been found by high power microscope and they are quite interesting. I will show you some of the best ones, and there are lots of others in this site.

The Crayon:


The Disclaimer:


Aspen Leave:


Penguin:


Citrus Slice:


Pyramid:


Abacus:


Telephone:


Note: these images are from this site mentioned above.

How High Can You Count?

http://isthe.com/chongo/tech/math/number/howhigh.html

It's a very interesting article about the English number system and it teaches you how to say 10^10000000000 and larger numbers.

I will give a summary of that article here...

Here's the sequence (not complete): million, billion, trillion, quadrillion, quintillion, sextillion, septillion, octillion, nonillion, decillion (10^33), undecillion, dodecillion,..., vigintillion (10^63),..., trigintillion (10^93),..., centillion(10^303), cenuntillion(10^306),..., ducentillion(10^603),..., milliatillion(10^3003),..., and to infinity.

prefixes for 1~10:
un, do, tre, quattuor, quin, sex, septen, octo, novem

prefixes for 10, 20,...., 90:
dec, vigin, trigin, quadragin, quinquagin, sexagin, septuagin, octagin, nonagin

prefixes for 100, 200, 300,..., 900:
cen, ducen, trecen, quatringen, quingen, sescen, septingen, octingin, nongin

prefix for 1000: millia

So, let's say you want to know how to say 2 * 10^654

1. because the number system goes by every 3 digits, we divide 654 by 3

654 / 3 = 218

2. then, we subtract one from it because "thousand" goes before the million, billion...etc

218 - 1 = 217

3. we say that using the prefixes by the order: hundreds -> ones -> tens and the thousands act as in normal English

217 = 200 + 7 + 10 = ducen-octo-decillion = ducenoctodecillion

4. we got it!
2 * 10 ^ 654 = two ducenoctodecillion!


Wanna try a harder one?

987654 000,...., 000 (1756 sets of 000's)

We break that down to each set

987654 000,...., 000 = 987 * 1000^1757 + 654 * 1000^1756

Then, we subtract one from the power and convert that into words

1757 = millia-septingen-septen-quinquagin-tillion

1756 = millia-septingen-sexa-quinquagin-tillion

We are done!

987654 000,...., 000 = nine hundred eighty-seven milliaseptingenseptenquinquagintillion six hundred fifty-four milliaseptingensexaquinquagintillion

Mandelbrot Set

Well, after a few hours of work, I finally made it (see image below)



It's a famous fractal with a quite complex formula. It is actually, believe it or not, a set of complex numbers. Remember complex numbers are formed by a + bi where i = square root of -1? Well, the Mandelbrot set is drawn by plotting dots at (a, b) on a plain for every complex number (a + bi) in the set. Each complex number in the set is defined by this sequence when it does not escape to infinity
{f(0), f(f(0)), f(f(f(0))),....}
where f(n) = n² + C and C is a complex number.

This fractal contains a great variety of graphics through out the entire fractal, and of course infinite smaller versions of itself amongst it. The demo is just a tiny version of it, and there are a lot more great images of it zoomed in from 100 times to 6 billion times. It surely is fascinating. Click here to see them.

Fractals

Fractals are images that have multiple copies of the original images in it, and those tiny copies have even smaller copies of it in it, and goes on until infinitively small. The Mandelbrot set is a famous example of a fractal. However, my math skills aren't enough to understand them, so I cannot show a demo of it - not yet.

Today, I'm going to show you a fractal called the "dragon." fractal. It is tillable, makes it very special, and it is made entirely out of straight lines filling the space.

Click here to see the flash demo

It's a pretty neat fractal, and its basis is very simple. First, take a strip of paper, then, fold it in half horizontally. Do that 5+ times, and then open it. Make sure every angle is a right angle (90 decrees). Now you should see the dragon slowly forming. What's that based on? Well, here's the pattern (R = clockwise, L = counter-clockwise):
level0: R
level1: RRL
level2: RRLRRLL
level3: RRLRRLLRRRLLRLL
level4: RRLRRLLRRRLLRLLRRRLRRLLLRRLLRLL
...... and so on, adding alternating R and L between each element.
Then, just draw lines turning clockwise if it is a R, and counter-clockwise if it is a L.
like this:
--
|
--
|
--
|
--
...... this continues

What happened in the dress rehearsal

Well, 90% of the performances were bad (seriously), and the people were not coordinated. I just don't know how the performance is going to take off. One of the class' performance was a so-called "dance" which is just walking around the stage doing nothing. At the end, virtually only 40% of the audience clapped... Also, back to our class, our "CSI" was not good either (too many repetitions), but it's better than 70% of the others... (those "chorus based" dance with walking around the stage doing nothing)

By the way, some teachers were "thinking wrong" during the dress rehearsal (see the Spy HQ for more details)... I don't want to say much, but my classmates already knew about this.

Dance Performance

Well, we are having a dance performance tomorrow, and today is the dress rehearsal. I really think our dance is stupid, but most of the others are stupid too. I don't like the entire thing. I just don't know how the school came up with such an idea of a school dance night (the so called "Spring Concert"). Besides that, I have 2 projects going on right now, and I don't know the due date. I hate our teacher, never give out due dates until 1 week advance; how are we supposed to plan our project? Also, I'm getting an interview this Friday... that probably means missing art class (dang!). This week is quite busy.