Dougy Mak’s Blog

Class 02 – Order of Magnitude, Units, Unit Analysis, Unit Conversions

The recording is better heard through earphones. I’ll place the recorder closer to the teacher next time.

Class 01 – Physics, Sig Figs 1-22-10

I had the worst headache in my life yesterday night. I came home with my throbbing head pain and thought about taking a Tylenol, but I didn’t think I wouldn’t need it since it is usually gone by my wakening. I went to sleep hoping it will slowly dissolve away, but it just ruined my whole night of sleep. Tossing and turning, and constantly waking, I felt such pain as if I was going to drop dead. I still feel minor pain and minor strain and tension around my neck. Horrible headache. Pops a Tylenol. While I doubt it was caused by our dinner at Chevys, the food there was displeasing. I haven’t ate there for 5 years or so, and it was a great opportunity to bring my girl friend since she had never ate there before. Anyways, after my meal, I felt like crap. Normally, I wouldn’t get this “crap” feeling after a extensive large meal especially when it’s fresh and healthy. Feeling like crap after a meal is my body’s way of telling me this food is crap. Going to Chevys served as a reminder for why I never went back in the past years and a reminder to me for why I choose local joints over chains any day.

From MangaStream’s Twitter:

You can now navigate manga chapters on mangastream using your right and left keyboard arrows.

Finally! The only problem I have now is when there’s a 2-page manga scene, I can’t use the arrow keys to scroll to the right to see the right side of the page anymore.

I watched Avatar a few weeks back and it was AWESOME! Those “animators” from G.I. Joe should really learn a thing or two from watching Avatar. It’s movies like these that put movies like G.I. Joe to shame. Why is it that movies with great titles always suck? Anyways… What a complete movie! Story was above average, animation was great, and the fantasy world design was great. If you haven’t watched it yet, go watch it now in 3D!

Another few functions for I find useful:

• ucfirst() – Make a string’s first character uppercase
• lcfirst() – Make a string’s first character lowercase
• strtolower() – Make a string lowercase
• strtoupper() – Make a string uppercase
• ucwords() – Uppercase the first character of each word in a string

From the looks of things, ucfirst() was coined from it’s function uppercase first letter (unlike some functions!). So goes for lcfirst() and ucwords(): lowercase first letter and uppercase first letter of each word. strtolower() lowercases every letter in every word in a string and strupper() functions in opposite, uppercases each letter in every word in a string.

ucfirst() examples:

<?php
$foo = 'hello world!';
$foo = ucfirst($foo); // Hello world!

$bar = 'HELLO WORLD!';
$bar = ucfirst($bar); // HELLO WORLD!
$bar = ucfirst(strtolower($bar)); // Hello world!
?>

lcfirst() examples:

<?php
$foo = 'HelloWorld';
$foo = lcfirst($foo); // helloWorld


$bar = 'HELLO WORLD!';
$bar = lcfirst($bar); // hELLO WORLD!
$bar = lcfirst(strtoupper($bar)); // hELLO WORLD!
?>

strtolower() examples:

<?php
$str = "Mary Had A Little Lamb and She LOVED It So";
$str = strtolower($str);
echo $str; // Prints mary had a little lamb and she loved it so
?>

strtoupper() examples:

<?php
$str = "Mary Had A Little Lamb and She LOVED It So";
$str = strtoupper($str);
echo $str; // Prints MARY HAD A LITTLE LAMB AND SHE LOVED IT SO
?>

ucwords() examples:


<?php
$foo = 'hello world!';
$foo = ucwords($foo); // Hello World!


$bar = 'HELLO WORLD!';
$bar = ucwords($bar); // HELLO WORLD!
$bar = ucwords(strtolower($bar)); // Hello World!
?>

This is what I think about the movie and be warned, there are spoilers.

Show Spoiler »

Well well, haven’t posted in a while, but wanted to give a few quick movie recommendations. Some people may find them to be a little old and dusty, but a little dust shouldn’t stop you from watching it. They’re still relatively new.

Frost / Nixon – Loved it. Watch it. I think people who have no interest in politics would find this movie to be very boring, otherwise you’ll love it.
The Invention of Lying - I wouldn’t recommend it. If you’re open minded to an alternate view, then be my guest.
Star Trek - Loved it. Watch it. Too much to say, just watch it. You’ll like it.
Surrogates – I would recommend you to skip this movie. I turned it off half way through the movie.

America (NYC at least) is finally stepping it up in promoting a healthy lifestyle.

I just discovered a few cool functions:

• ceil() – Round fractions up
• floor() – Round fractions down
• round() – Rounds a float

I’m guessing ceil() is short for ceiling. When looking up, you have a ceiling whereas when looking down, you have a floor(). The functions’ names correspond to their actual function which makes it pretty easy to remember. And then we also have round which is just basic rounding.

ceil() examples:

<?php
echo ceil(4.3); // 5
echo ceil(9.999); // 10
echo ceil(-3.14); // -3
?>

floor() examples:

<?php
echo floor(4.3); // 4
echo floor(9.999); // 9
echo floor(-3.14); // -4
?>

round() examples:

<?php
echo round(3.4); // 3
echo round(3.5); // 4
echo round(3.6); // 4
echo round(3.6, 0); // 4
echo round(1.95583, 2); // 1.96
echo round(1241757, -3); // 1242000
echo round(5.045, 2); // 5.05
echo round(5.055, 2); // 5.06
?>
<?php
echo round(9.5, 0, PHP_ROUND_HALF_UP); // 10
echo round(9.5, 0, PHP_ROUND_HALF_DOWN); // 9
echo round(9.5, 0, PHP_ROUND_HALF_EVEN); // 10
echo round(9.5, 0, PHP_ROUND_HALF_ODD); // 9echo round(8.5, 0, PHP_ROUND_HALF_UP); // 9
echo round(8.5, 0, PHP_ROUND_HALF_DOWN); // 8
echo round(8.5, 0, PHP_ROUND_HALF_EVEN); // 8
echo round(8.5, 0, PHP_ROUND_HALF_ODD); // 9
?>