Thailand – Chiang Mai
Two Saturdays ago, I took a plane to Bangkok, Thailand, just to take another plane to Chiang Mai, the second largest city in Thailand. The plane to Bangkok was 10 hours long, and I watched movies the ENTIRE TIME. On the plane to Chiang Mai, I (tried to) sleep, but I was awake the whole of that plane ride, too. When I got to our hotel, the DusitD2, my Dad made my family sleep for 3 hours, just in time for our Temple Tour in Chiang Mai. On the tour, I saw 3 temples that I forget the names of, the main one being on top of a mountain (you can see my family on the steps in the slideshow). After the tour, I was exhausted and went to sleep back at the hotel. The next day, I got up early to go Elephant Trekking at Ran-Tong Search and Rescue Elephant Camp. After a 45-minute drive to Ran-Tong, we went down a steep slope to a “courtyard” for the elephants to live in. There, we could feed the elephants bananas. There was a young one that was really crazy for the bananas, and once we were out of bananas, the young elephant still wanted more. After feeding time, we were instructed how to use vocal commands for riding the elephants. You can see in the slideshow what the commands were. Then, we were instructed to change into special clothes so we would have something clean and dry to wear afterwards. So we changed, then we started to get ready to ride the elephants. Me and my dad rode an elephant called something like Boom-Pot. Boom-Pot was very slow as we rode him, we were screaming one command, Pie (the word for go) at him the entire time. When he did move, he moved two yards and stopped. Then we had to scream Pie! at him again so he could move another 2 yards, and this repeated for the entire trail. The trail lead to a pond, so the elephants could wash up. My sister helped out, (as you can see in the slideshow), and finally we went back to the “courtyard” again. There, they gave us lunch, a Thai ice cream woman gave me and my sister ice cream for 30¢ (I got vanilla bean with actual beans and my sister got green tea), and I took the van back to my hotel. There, I went in the pool for a little bit, relaxed, and after 2 hours or so, went for a walk, took a tuk-tuk (a motorized rickshaw), and got dinner at this place called The Whole Earth. Then, I went back to the hotel and went to sleep. The next day, I woke up, ate a big breakfast, and took a bike tour. The bike tour started with going to the Leprosy Hospital, which there are no pictures of, then going by a university, where we saw cotton trees and huge beehives. Then I passed through a rice paddy, and got lunch for $3, and that was for the ENTIRE FAMILY. Then the tour guide brought me to a bakery, and I ate something like a cupcake. We took a bag of cupcakes for the orphanage, which was up next on the tour. After 20 minutes or so, we arrived at the Piyawat orphanage. My sister was shocked at how “normal” the orphans were. She thought they would be like orphans from Annie. We gave them the bag of cupcakes, spent an hour or so there, and finally returned to where the tour started. Then we returned to the hotel, relaxed for a bit, had some dinner, and went to bed. The next day, we packed up our stuff, went to the airport, where my mom got some egg yolk and bean dessert thing, BUT we didn’t take a plane to London or New York. Instead we took a plane to Phuket, Thailand… To Be Continued in Thailand – Phuket…
Isambard Kingdom Brunel
Isambard Kingdom Brunel was a Victorian engineer and architect who desinged bridges and tunnels. He invented the suspension bridge, and used the method people still use today to build tunnels. He built the Thames tunnel by starting at the soft ground by the Thames, using something like a cookie cutter to go into the ground. In the ground, workers used a tunneling shield to drill through the ground, while an arch of bricks was made to support the ground. Isambard also made the Great Western Railway and some tunnels along the way (such as the Box tunnel at Bath). His Thames tunnel is still in use by the London Overground from Rotherhithe to Wapping. He also made docks in the Docklands of London. He is also famous for making the Albert Bridge on the side of Battersea Park.
Angular Best Practices – Part One – ngRoute
Angular.js is a great tool to create expressive and dynamic HTML. But some of the best parts of Angular doesn’t even come with Angular. ngRoute and ngResource weren’t shipped with Angular, but they are very useful. ngRoute is used for creating routes like localhost:8000/#/yourRouteGoesHere. To use it, you must download from https://code.angularjs.org/1.3.9/ Then, require it with a script tag in your HTML. Note:Only make one index.html page with routes. With ngRoute, the index.html file has to be more of a layout page. Also, do not make one app.js file and put all your Javascript there. Make your app reuseable by writing angular.module("YourAppName",var app = angular.module("YourAppName"); To use routes, you put them in your config and make a Dependency Injection. To do this, in your app.js file, you write this code: angular.module("YourAppName",['ngRoute']).config(function($routeProvider){
//this is where the routes go!
});
You must put ‘ngRoute’ in the array, and $routeProvider in the function params. Otherwise the routes won’t work. Some people like to extract the config function into a routes.js file, as route files can get quite long and you don’t want to plug up your config function. To route, you might write inside the config function:$routeProvider.when('/yourRouteName',{ templateUrl:'../templates/example.html', controller:'yourController', controllerAs:'yourCtrl' });
To explain, the $routeProvider param is calling the when function. The when function is listening for someone to visit ‘#/yourRouteName’. When someone does, it will render your template from the templateUrl with the controller and the alias. With links to your routes, DO NOT forget the pound sign in front of your route.
Mocha and Supertest
I use Mocha and Supertest to create tests for Node.js and Express apps. To use Supertest, I make my app in app.js a module, require it and Supertest(Supertest as a variable called request, the app as a variable called app), and create some code like this:
request(app)
.get('/')
.expect(200)
.end(function(error){
if(error) throw error;
console.log('Done');
});
It works, but it isn’t very readable on console. To solve this, I use Mocha:
describe('Requests to the root path'),function(){
it('Returns 200 status code',function(done){
request(app)
.get('/')
.expect(200,done);
});
});
Now my tests are readable. I run them with mocha “test file goes here”.
Redis
Redis is a NoSQL database system, most commonly used on Mac. It is used with Node.js to create an efficent key-value store. To use redis with Node, you must require it like:var redis = require("redis"); To create a redis client, add the following code:var client = redis.createClient(); This code depends on a redis server running.
Zermatt
My second winter trip was to Zermatt, a tiny little town tourist attraction. People ride around on exalted golf carts, unless you’re going to a very expensive hotel where they take you there on a horse.
Thursday
We took a train from Zurich to Visp, where we took a train to Zermatt. We stayed at a Best Western with an awesome pool, ping pong table, fooseball, and much more. It was late in the day, so we didn’t do much. We just floated around in the pool. Dad went to a supermarket and bought some food for dinner that night.
Friday
Friday was our big day. We got up early, ate a delicious breakfast (pound cake) and went to a ski lift that would bring us up the mountains. The first stop was Furi, which was a stepping stone up 1000 feet. Then the next main stop was Schwarzee, where there actually was a hotel. The next stop was Trockener Steg, where we got off and boarded another lift to the Matterhorn Glacier Paradise, or Klein Matterhorn. I had serious altitude sickness at the top, and only Haribo Coca Cola gummies and hot chocolate could make me feel better. We ate at the Cafe DuPont, and then just drifted around the hotel for the rest of the day.
Saturday
Today we took a cog railway up to Gornergrat, then went sledding on a sledge run at Rotenboden for most of the day. My mom was a good driver, but whenever she turned snow blowed into my face. Dad didn’t learn how to break until the fifth and final run, but he went extra slow, so it wasn’t as exciting. When we went back we ate dinner at this really awesome place. I got a raclette. We then went back to the hotel.
Sunday
Today we toted a couple plastic sleds, in search of hills. We followed a path to Zum See, but the restuarant was full, so Dad made us walk to Furi, where we ate a good pizza (we were very close to the border). But we found a good sledding hill, which we did until I went over a bump and hurt my butt. So then we went to the Matterhorn Museum, which was nice.
So after 4 days we headed back to London. I really liked Zermatt. It ranks number 2# on my favorite countries (Number 1# is probably either Scotland or Poland, and in last place is probably either Milan or Istanbul).
In the Days of King Alfred the Great
I recently read a book called In the Days of King Alfred the Great by Eva Tappan. It was about King Alfred the Great (duh!). This book told me about his life, family, and friends. It was informative, instructive, and fun. King Alfred was a Saxon king who fought off the Dane invaders. He was most famous for the story of the cakes. King Alfred was hiding from the Danes, and he had to stay in a poor man’s house. The man’s wife didn’t know Alfred was king, and told him to watch the cakes while she was gone. King Alfred just thought about how he would counterattack the Danes. He saw burning ships in his mind, which were really burning cakes! Some think this story isn’t true, and it’s very likely it isn’t. King Alfred finally shook the Danes off of England, and everyone was happy. Overall, I think I learned a lot from this book.
1 Year In London
1 year in London… What have I accomplished? For starters, I have lots of stamps in my passport (England, USA, Netherlands, France, Poland, Germany,I really should have Austria but I don’t). I made Homeschoolson. I started to take coding seriously. I started taking history seriously. Really seriously. Half the books that I read are Horrible History books. Other than my IQ growth,
I started playing more soccer/football. When I go go back to the States, I’ll be dancing the ball into the goal! I’ve also seen new cultures, new people, new food, and new tastes. 2014 has been an important year for me. So, what am I going to accomplish in 2015? Well, my goal is to earn 2000 dollars by the end of the year. So far I’ve been procrastinating and I haven’t earned a single penny. (Oh well, we always break those resolutions anyway.) I’ve achieved 39481 hits on this blog. I’ve read new books, made new friends, homeschooled myself with the piano (the 2 teachers either quit or got fired), memorized new things(the Tube), and had new expieriences. I don’t know what’s in store for me this year. I’ve done a lot last year. I hope this year will be the same.
Report on Galileo
Galileo Galilei by John
Galileo was a scientist who asked questions. He was the first “real” scientist. He believed in experimenting. Galileo was born in 1564 and died in 1642. He lived in Venice most of his life. He studied math, science, and astrology. He studied in Pisa. He became a professor at Pisa, even though he flunked out of college. His ideas were considered OUTRAGEOUS at the time. He was popular with the students and hated by the other professors. His most famous discovery was that the sun was the centre of the universe. Galileo invented a balance called the Hydrostatic Balance. He also made a better version of the telescope.
- His most outrageous idea was that the sun was the centre of the universe. Aristotle thought that the Earth was the centre of the universe. Galileo proved this wrong using a pendulum.
- He proved that heavier objects fell the same speeed as lighter objects as long as the objects have the same density.
- Galileo liked to look out of his telescope. When he had the idea to look up, he discovered Jupiter’s moons.
Galileo was put unjustly put on trial for saying things against the church. He was only put on trial because the bishop was losing power, and needed to do something to show his power, even if it meant losing a friend. Galileo had to spend the rest of his life on a farm in the italian countryside.
Galileo was a great man. His discoveries were vital to today’s scientists. He led the way to many important discoveries.
Express.js
Express is a Node.js framework. I like it because it is great for making requests and flexible web apps. I am making a cool app with Express that I will add a link as soon as I deploy it to Heroku.
