Today's soundtrack is Rebecca St. James: I Will Praise You. On this sunny Saturday morning, the first of Spring break, I'm reading the first chapter of The Bedside Book of Algebra, "Algebra: An Introduction." Mathematics is beautiful in its complexity; its complexity makes it seem inaccessible to many. The author says that to understand the … Continue reading 03.17.2018: One Chapter of Nonfiction
03.16.2018: 30 Minutes of Songwriting
Today's soundtrack is Cephalopod: Eater öv the Void. Spring [break] has sprung! I spent today's session working on the title track of the project; I had the rough sketch of it made up in Garageband, so today I transcribed it in Reaper and wrote up a cool acoustic intro for it.
03.15.2018: One Lesson of Python
Today's soundtrack is Soen: Cognitive. I'm on to the "Hacks and Tweaks" section of Coding Projects in Python's "Robot Builder" chapter. The section starts by suggesting colours that Python's turtle module recognizes: lawn green, seashell, blue, purple, light blue, yellow, goldenrod, hot pink, thistle, gold, peru, forest green, maroon, navy, peach puff, misty rose, deep … Continue reading 03.15.2018: One Lesson of Python
03.14.2018 (Pi Day): One Chapter of Nonfiction
Today's soundtrack is Fear Factory: Genexus. It is with great sadness that today we bid farewell to one of the greatest minds of our time, Dr. Stephen Hawking. In his honour, I've bypassed the Randomizer and will be reading a Chapter 2 of A Brief History of Time, "Space and Time." Hawking begins by introducing … Continue reading 03.14.2018 (Pi Day): One Chapter of Nonfiction
03.13.2018: One Lesson of Python
Today's soundtrack is Samantha Fish: Black Wind Howlin'. I've made it to the "Turtle Graphics" section of Coding Projects in Python, which is a welcome change of pace. I learned right away that I shouldn't call the file "turtle.py" to avoid any system errors, and I found out that Python uses the US spelling, "color." … Continue reading 03.13.2018: One Lesson of Python
03.12.2018: One Chapter of Nonfiction
Today's soundtrack is Colt Ford: Love Hope Faith. I'm reading the first chapter of 30-Second Mythology, "Chaos." According to Greek mythology, Chaos was the first of the Primordial Four (Chaos, Gaia, Tartarus, and Eros) to come into being in the cosmos. Chaos was not disorder; Chaos was an abyss in which the world could be … Continue reading 03.12.2018: One Chapter of Nonfiction
03.11.2018: One Chapter of Math
Today's soundtrack is Uriah Heep: Demons and Wizards. I'm on to chapter 11 of Basic Math & Pre-Algebra for Dummies, "Dallying with Decimals," which will go over converting fractions to decimals and vice versa, as well as covering the basics of working with decimals in the big four operations. Fractions and decimals both serve to … Continue reading 03.11.2018: One Chapter of Math
03.10.2018: One Lesson of Python
Today's soundtrack is Steely Dan: The Royal Scam. I'm moving on to the next section of Coding Projects in Python, which addresses tweaking the"Nine Lives" game. Some of the suggestions given are adding more words, changing the words to incorporate a different number of letters, reducing the number of lives, letting the player choose easy, … Continue reading 03.10.2018: One Lesson of Python
03.09.2018: One Chapter of Nonfiction
Today's soundtrack is Jethro Tull: Stand Up. I'm reading chapter one of Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time, "Our Picture of the Universe." This is the first time I've read any of Hawking's work, so I'm excited to dive in. Hawking begins the chapter by talking about some of the past misconceptions about the … Continue reading 03.09.2018: One Chapter of Nonfiction
03.08.2018: One Lesson of Python
Today's soundtrack is Infected Mushroom: Vicious Delicious. I'm on to the next section of Coding Projects in Python, "Nine Lives." In this section, I'll be learning to make a hangman-esque letter guessing game. I started by importing the "random" module, choosing how many lives the player starts with, making a list of words for the … Continue reading 03.08.2018: One Lesson of Python
03.07.2018: One Lesson of Blender
Today's soundtrack is Yo-Yo Ma: The Dvorak Album. I'm now on "Part 5: Modelling" in Blender Guru's doughnut tutorial. Today, I learned how to use the little "layer" squares to switch between layers in Blender. I opened up a new layer, then found a reference picture of a coffee mug to model. I used the … Continue reading 03.07.2018: One Lesson of Blender
03.06.2018: 30 Minutes of Songwriting
Today's soundtrack is Cephalopod: Eater Ov the Void. I'm continuing work on my metal project; I'm working out some beats that have been percolating in my head. Good progress today.
Steven Mills 