Happy New Years!

Happy New Years to you all! Hope you all had a great 2008 year, and all the best for this new year! :)

Midterm Exams

The students at Notre dame are currently undergoing midterm exams from Dec 12-18. Goodlucks! 4 down, 1 more to go for me!

Mouse Hits 40

The computer mouse is hitting it's 40th anniversary tomorrow after first being unveiled by Douglas Engelbart in 1968. The original mouse, featuring two wheels set at right angles to each other, allowed the computer to plot the distance when each wheel moved. Four years later, Xerox PARC came up with a ball mouse, which is still popular today. One of Engelbart's famous quotes was, "the better we get, the better we get at getting better." The first mouse ever made was made out of wood and had only a single button to highlight text on a written document. As of today, many companies have developed newer and more efficient mouses for computing or gaming.

Python

We have been working with Python for several weeks now, and have started simple programming. For example, programming Python to add three numbers together, calculating average speed and a number counter using increments. Although recently there was a release of the 3.0 version of Python, our class will not be using it anytime soon. The reason being, there haven't been a lot of significant changes. We will be sticking with Python 2.6 for the time being.

Did you know? Major applications are created with Python, one being, Youtube.

$10.5M Upgrade for Science World

The B.C. government has decided to give Science World BC $10.5 million for upgrades and a new outdoor science park. Science World is a non-profit organization which promotes science and technology and is planning to build a 7,803-square-meter park with this money. The park will explore science and sustainbility, including ideas such as clean energy and earth science. Science World was orginally the site of Expo 86 and 3 years later, Science World opened on the same location. Now called Telus World of Science, it attracts more than 525,000 visitors annually, as well as 180,000 children, educators and parents a year through its outreach program.