Sharing Equations

Well, now I know one way to cut-and-paste equations into Blogger and Gmail.

1. Create the equations in Open Office, as "Formula Objects" (Insert->Object->Formula and go from there.)
2. Send the to myself as email attachments.
3. Open the attachments as Google Documents. The formulae show up as images.
4. Cut-and-paste the image of the formula from the Google Doc to Blogger or Gmail.

Here's an example:

There are undoubtedly ways to simplify this process, but it's a start.

Is There an Easy Way to Put Equations in Posts?

I've spent yesterday evening figuring out how to create equations on my computer.

Lyx, which is supposed to be easy, just crashed. OpenOffice is a little more clumsy, but useable.

Having done it, I now can't figure out how to cut-and-paste from them into things like email or this post. I can attach documents or take screenshots, but that's pretty clunky.

Some forms are, however, clunkier than others. A simple equation that takes 10K in .odt (OpenOffice) format is 104K in Windows-97 format: a factor of 10 explosion.

If you're reading, and know how I can get equations into gmail or blogger posts, speak up.

Computer Algebra Bleg

Anyone reading have any experience with symbolic algebra packages on Ubuntu? I'm not seeing much posted out there -- a bunch of launchpad entries and one recommendation of maxima and wxmaxima.

I want something that makes it dirt-easy to type in equations and get symbolic answers: I type in something like this

x**2 - 2*s*x + s**2 = 0

and I get back

x = s

I do want, however, to be able to do systems of equations.

[Bumped, to get some other posts in the correct order. Besides, this didn't get any replies anyway. :-) ]

Bumblees: Installing the Nest

To finish up, here's K installing the "nest" next to the house. (This second post's because Blogger wouldn't let me put all of them in one post.)

All this just completed yesterday evening.

She says there's no guarantee it'll work, but she's done it successfully before.

Bumblebees: Making the Nest

Here are pix my friend Joyce demanded I take. I only got my thumb in two of them. :-)

You'll see K taking stuffing from an old mattress in our garage, lining a flower pot, putting a little honey into it, adding the queen bumblebee she caught (which she'd stuck in the fridge, and is still alive), and putting backing on it.

3-D Printers

This article, on self-replicating machines, echoes a conversation I had when I worked at a printer company.

On a tour of the NCAR shop, arranged by an old pal, and fine fiddler, Charlie Martin, I saw a 3-D printer they were using to prototype parts.

I went back to work the next day, and said, "We ought to be building these."

I explained that, if nothing else, once we got good at them, we could have the printers print us copies of themselves.

Someone I was explaining this to, I think Louis Krupp, said this was short-sighted. We should, instead, have them print customers.

Goosh: the Google Shell

I've been on vacation off and on for weeks. Fun, but time to get back in the saddle. Here's a cute site I wish I'd done, Goosh, the Google shell.

Several comments about it at Lifehacker are interesting and useful.